Curveball: Historical Baseball Insights, 07/06/2007

Historical Baseball Insight

By Michael L. Barnes, Ph.D.

I’m getting pretty tired of most baseball talk these days focusing on steroids, the “juiced ball,” corked bats, and everything else but what really matters—the numbers! One of the most consistent comments heard these days is how much more offense there is in the game because of the above factors, with most of the emphasis being placed on the increased home runs. Does baseball today really have much more offense than in years past? If so, how can we best measure that?

Well, one way is through the pure statistical analysis of 5x5 rotisserie value. Yes, I know, it is really not fair to compare different eras in baseball, but just for the fun of it, let’s pretend fantasy baseball was always around. What if we could evaluate some of the great performances in history with a standard measure? Who would be at the top? All kinds of questions spring to mind:

Who has had the highest value year in all of baseball?
How much was that player worth, that year?
Where does ARod’s remarkable year (so far) compare?
Where does Barry Bonds fit in?

Just for a minute, let’s stroll through the vast amount of historical data available in baseball with our handy BBI Value Index, and see who ranks up at the top. Before you peek at the table, any guesses as to who has the highest year ever? (I almost guarantee you won’t guess the top guy)…..

Based on the analysis of over 50 big-league careers, including all the greats from Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Mickey Mantle, Hank Aaron, Joe DiMaggio, Roger Hornsby, up through the more recent all-stars including Rickey Henderson, Alex Rodriguez, Ichiro Suzuki, Barry Bonds, the following represent some of the top 25 all-time great fantasy baseball performances. (Note that without an exhaustive search for every player in every year, we cannot say this is the definitive list, but it is clearly the vast majority of the best fantasy years ever in baseball).

Rank	Player	SEASON	AB	R	H	HR	RBI	SB	AVG	Value
1	Billy Hamilton	1894	544	192	220	4	87	98	0.404	$71.67
2	Ty Cobb	1911	591	147	248	8	127	83	0.420	$71.19
3	Billy Hamilton	1895	517	166	201	7	74	97	0.389	$66.13
4	Ty Cobb	1915	563	144	208	3	99	96	0.369	$63.73
5	Billy Hamilton	1891	527	141	179	2	60	111	0.340	$60.40
6	Babe Ruth	1921	540	177	204	59	171	17	0.378	$59.78
7	Ty Cobb	1909	573	116	216	9	107	76	0.377	$58.33
8	Roger Hornsby	1922	623	141	250	42	152	17	0.401	$57.31
9	Billy Hamilton	1889	534	144	161	3	77	111	0.301	$57.20
10	Rickey Henderson	1982	536	119	143	10	51	130	0.267	$56.78
11	Lou Brock	1974	635	105	194	3	48	118	0.306	$55.86
12	Ty Cobb	1912	553	119	227	7	83	61	0.410	$55.24
13	Billy Hamilton	1896	524	153	192	3	55	83	0.366	$55.21
14	Rickey Henderson	1985	547	146	172	24	72	80	0.314	$53.68
15	Alex Rodriguez (projected)	2007	588.3	155.1	196.1	60.33	165.9	19.39	0.333	$53.63
16	Billy Hamilton	1890	496	133	161	2	49	102	0.325	$53.46
17	Lou Gehrig	1927	584	149	218	47	175	10	0.373	$53.16
18	Lou Gehrig	1931	619	163	211	46	184	17	0.341	$52.91
19	Lou Gehrig	1930	581	143	220	41	174	12	0.379	$52.50
20	Jimmy Foxx	1932	585	151	213	58	169	3	0.364	$51.92
21	Babe Ruth	1927	540	158	192	60	164	7	0.356	$51.65
22	Babe Ruth	1923	522	151	205	41	131	17	0.393	$51.64
23	Ty Cobb	1910	509	106	196	8	91	65	0.385	$51.63
24	Rickey Henderson	1980	591	111	179	9	53	100	0.303	$51.32
25	Rickey Henderson	1983	513	105	150	9	48	108	0.292	$51.12

Imagine bidding $70 for a player in a draft! Well, if that guy was Billy Hamilton in 1894, or Ty Cobb in 1911, you would not be over-paying. One of the most interesting things to note about this table is that almost all of the top performances were a very long time ago. So much for the theory that offense only matters in today’s game. The model clearly finds those players who contributed across all five categories, with a high average, and of course, speed. It’s almost impossible to break into the top 10 without stealing a huge number of bases, although the Babe did it in 1921 with only 17 stolen bags.

The big sluggers or all-stars of our time, such as McGwire, Sosa, Bonds, and Griffey don’t even crack the top 30. No player since Rickey Henderson has ever had a $50 season, although ARod was just a penny short in 1998. Reggie Jackson, Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, David Ortiz, Wade Boggs, just to name some of the obvious guys, never even had a season in the mid-40s.

So while steroids and tightly-wound baseballs seem to capture all the attention these days in terms of how much more offense we seem to have, clearly the offensive prowess of many historical figures would dwarf the players of today from a purely fantasy perspective. Clearly the game is different today than historically, and this comparison has many caveats and even a few flaws, but from a purely numerical perspective, it is really amazing how well the historical figures compare in today’s values.

We’ll keep digging through history, in case there are some performances we’ve missed, but the two conclusions seems to be obvious, (a) that today’s game is not necessarily more offensively stacked, it’s just different, and (b) the model probably undervalues the HR relative to history, and possibly overvalues the stolen base.