Top 200 Major League Players Ever - #195 ZACK WHEAT AND #194 DAZZY VANCE

#195 ZACK WHEAT LF Dodgers
1909-27
OPS+ 129
BFW 24.1
WARP3 94.7

#194 DAZZY VANCE RHP Dodgers

1915-35
ERA+ 125
PW 29.5
WARP3 90

Teammates for a dozen years - with their ranking next to each other, one write up seemed appropriate. Note how similar they are, Wheat a tick higher in OPS+ than is Vance in ERA+; Vance gets the edge in PW over Wheat's BFW, but Wheat makes it up in WARP3. Only in 3 of the 13 years with both Vance and Wheat on the club did Brooklyn finish above .500. One of those seasons was '24, which was the best combined Vance/Wheat year; Wheat never had a WARP3 above 10, but was over 9.0 twice; his third best year was '24, when he had an 8.6. Vance went nuts in '24, with a WARP3 of 13.6.

A note, WARP, as I write this, doesn't have a searchable database - VORP (no fielding) does, but not the number I'm using - so, while what I'd like to say is Vance was the best pitcher in baseball that year, that would take some more time to ferret out. But 13.6 - 13.6 is a historically significant number - and then, the year after Wheat retired, in '28 - Vance had a 12.9. That's over a quarter of his career value in two seasons, out of 21 seasons pitched. Sometimes it goes like that. Here's a simple lookup - Vance won the MVP in '24 and almost certainly should have. He finished 11th in '28 and that's probably robbery. Wheat finished 3rd for MVP in '24 - teammates finishing 1/3 in MVP, teammates going over 12.0 in WARP the same season, yeah, that's sort of a thing - particularly an arm and a bat.

Both Wheat and Vance are in the HOF, joining Lemon as guys from the list thusfar in the HOF. Wheat's top comp. is listed as Tony Gwynn, and sort of a poor man's Gwynn is not a bad way to think about him; he had a career untranslated BA of .317 and OBP of .369 - so he would have been more valuable if he took a walk every now and again.

Incidentally, I heard Andre Dawson (on the list) on Fox Sports Radio this weekend; he was asked by the hosts why he thought he wasn't in the HOF, with scorn, he said he had heard it was because he didn't walk enough.

The hosts thought this was the most ridiculous thing they had ever heard; Andre Dawson's lifetime untranslated OBP was .323 - it's less that he should have walked more than that he should have made fewer outs. Phrased that way - that Andre Dawson (who is on the list about 40 spots away) made too many outs, it seems a little less guffaw worthy.

200 Best Major League Baseball Players Ever - #196 FRANK TANANA

#196 FRANK TANANA LHP Angels/Tigers
1973-93
ERA+106
PW 12.8
WARP3 106.5

The best criticism of this list is that the WARP3 number focuses on career value as opposed to peak value; which is why, as mentioned elsewhere, when Baseball Prospectus evaluates HOF candidates each year, they combine career WARP3 with the 7 top WARP3 seasons from each player. My use of the Baseball Encyclopedia number is a nod in that direction; you'll note there are guys on the list like Tanana with 100+ WARP numbers but sub 20 PW (Tanana has the lowest PW number on the list) one of those things reflected there is Tanana's main resume strength is he was able to pitch for 21 years. Only 3 of those years, '75-77 were premium years; Tanana was over 10 in WARP3 each of those seasons, almost a third of his career value coming in that stretch - in the rest of his career, he topped a WARP3 7.o just once and 6.0 just two additional times. That's years of mediocre pitching, which is why his PW is so low, and why he's at the bottom of the list.

But he is on the list - and Sandy Koufax isn't.

And that's intentional, that's a methodological choice that I've made in giving great weight to career value. On his best day, Frank Tanana was not as good as Sandy Koufax on his best day. For one game, take Koufax.

But Sandy Koufax only had 3 seasons above a 10.0 WARP3, just like Tanana. And while his best season (11.9) was better than Tanana's (10.8) those numbers aren't as far apart as one might think. And then the rest of Koufax's career was one year above a 8.0, another year above 7.0, and seven seasons that look a lot like the rest of Tanana's career - except Tanana had twice as many of them.

So, at their best, Koufax was better than Tanana, but not by a substantial margin - what is substantial is that nearly 2000 innings that Tanana pitched that Koufax didn't. Sandy Koufax retired after 12 years with a WARP3 of 68.3. Through Frank Tanana's first 12 years, his WARP3 was 69.5

If Frank Tanana had pitched for only as many innings as Sandy Koufax, he would have had the same career.

But Frank Tanana then pitched for 9 more seasons. Almost 2000 innings more than Koufax.

So, while I recognize that one is in the HOF, one made the ESPN list of the greatest 100 athletes of the century, one is revered, immortalized, considered one of the half dozen greatest pitchers ever - it's the other one who is on my list.

And should be. Frank Tanana was better than Sandy Koufax.

200 Best Major League Baseball Players Ever, #197 ALBERT BELLE

#197 ALBERT BELLE LF Indians

1989-00

OPS+ 144

BFW 29.5

WARP3 89.6

Albert Belle's untranslated slugging percentages in the mid 90s:

'94: .714

'95: .690

'96: .623

Dude could rake. He's the first name on the list from the "steroid" era, and he fits the profile. My feelings about steroids, mentioned in other places of this blog are that we can adjust for the offensive inflation of this era the same way we can adjust for the inflation that produced Hack Wilson's 191 rbi or the deflation of the 1960s; era adjustments and ballpark adjustments are not new; it's an easy fix. While the "steroid" era had a spike in offense, it wasn't an unprecedented one; simple research shows that the view that somehow all baseball until 1998 was played on a level field is demonstrably untrue. Offense goes up, offense goes down. Happens. The degree to which a smaller strike zone, smaller ballparks, changes in bat and ball, and other non steroid related factors influenced the most recent offensive spike are hard to quantify, but obviously they play some role. It's reasonable to think that steroids played some role too; all medical science has, be it in training or recovery - be it in radically improved surgical procedures and preventive medcine, be it the incredible monetary increases in the game that allow teams and players to focus 365 days a year in improving their bodies - whether it's Curt Schilling's ability to get his tendon sewed to his sock or Kirk Gibson having gallons of cortisone poured into his body - or player X getting lasik eye surgery, all technology, presumably, plays some role in increasing performance. We do adjustments for era and let the numbers speak. The pre-1947 players on the list are all white - and all Americans; the game not only opened up to African-Americans, but has evolved to mine global talent; the available pool of pitchers against hitters, hitters against pitchers, is exponentially deeper in 2008 than was it in 1988, 1968, 1948 or 1928. To my way of thinking, the reaction that allegations that player Y used some type of performance enhancing drug for some measure of his career invalidates that career is not supportable.

I don't have the slightest idea if Albert Belle took steroids. I don't have the slightest idea if he did take steroids to what extent that increased his performance. I don't have the slightest idea the extent to which we should invalidate any of those performance gains, even if we were able to specifically segregate them. I don't have the slightest idea how we can pretend that a home run hit while a ballplayer was "on the juice" did not happen. Does that mean the pitcher should have it removed from his record? What if the pitcher was "on the juice" - then is it okay? What if the pitcher was - and the batter wasn't? Does Babe Ruth get to keep all the home runs he hit against pitchers who would not have been in the league had African-Americans been allowed to pitch to him? Does Hank Aaron get to keep all the home runs he hit against pitchers who wouldn't have been in the league had all of the Latin American arms which have now been found, been mined, by MLB been available in the 1960s? Does Todd Helton give up home runs because the offensive spike for pre-humidor Coors Field was significantly higher than the leaguewide spike of the "steroid" era? Do we take away home runs hit in small ballparks and add home runs hit in large ballparks?

We make adjustments for era. Good adjustments. Significantly better adjustments to factor in the impact of inflation than does the consumer price index. To single out steroids (and then, just a handful of players suspected of using steroids - as I write this the Yankees just had Jason Giambi moustache day at the Stadium - when does Raffy Palmeiro get his moustache day? Why is it some suspected "users" are pariahs and others are celebrated?) as the one variable which invalidates facts.

Facts are good. They don't disappear because we don't like them.

Albert Belle's WARP3 in 1995 was 14.3. That's better than any year of Lou Gehrig's career.

Facts. Facts are good.

200 Best Major League Baseball Players Ever, #198 BOB LEMON

#198 BOB LEMON RHP Indians
1946-58
ERA+ 119
PW 34.2
WARP3 84.4

An example of where the Pete Palmer stats from the Baseball Encyclopedia (Total Baseball is gone, or maybe its taken over the Baseball Encyclopedia, regardless, I heart it so dearly and my copy sits beside my computer, well, not this computer, since I'm at work, but the other computer, the one I sit at pantsless) help to balance WARP3 - the Davenport number for Lemon is low; if BP ever puts out a list of the 200 best MLB players ever, Lemon won't be on it - but Lemon's Palmer number is high, and in the wash, Bob comes out, coincidentally enough, right one spot ahead of Chet. In my head I see them sitting over a beverage of some type, a cool refreshing drink perhaps, chuckling at the result. Of course, this ranking would take Bob clean out of the HOF (dude had a short career, yo) I don't know where I'd cut off membership to the HOF, but I'm thinking I wouldn't invite all 200 guys - maybe only the top 100 make it, the second 100 wind up celebrated in an auxillary unit - actually, concentric circles make sense - as, while all of the guys at this level are real close - once we get higher, there's real separation among the top guys - not hard at all really to find a top 25, for example. Perhaps you have, I don't know, 9 circles, ever widening, of players in the HOF, maybe for a total of 200, maybe fewer, maybe just 180 - and when a player comes into the list, as obviously will keep happening - that means someone gets kicked out. Why not? Kicked out of the HOF - absolutely. Moved down to a new circle. Sure. Right now, the Lemons are on the edge of this list - but five years from now, certainly they can't keep their spots.

Concentric circles for the Baseball HOF, say 9 of them and a total of 180 guys, and you get moved down once you're passed up. How about that?

Revelation 24 - The Democrats are Like the Republicans, but Without All the Guns.

Either you believe in civil liberties or you don't; it's one thing - one, ugly, gutless thing to criticize the left, the moveon.orgs in an effort to make that general election "move to the center" that is part of the Democrats playbook. It's irritating; it's insulting, and it's not surprising - guys like Obama don't have to move far to get to the center; in fact, they'd have to move left in order to get there.

But rhetoric is one thing - if the nominee of the Democratic party does not stand on a table and shout as the US Senate authorizes warrantless surveillance of US citizens (and gives cover for the Bush Administration's policy of what was then, inarguably, felonious surveillance) I'm uncertain why the Democratic party is needed. It would be better for the Democrats to disappear; at least then the illusion that we have a left wing political party in this country would be harder to sell. There is literally nothing Democrats could do which is conservative enough that they wouldn't be immediately branded as crazy liberals, enemies of Jesus and Capitalism by the Republicans. The FISA vote will quickly be framed not as capitulation by the Democratic party but as an issue that transcends ideology, that even liberals basically agree with the President.

They don't. A liberal not only would never, ever, ever have cast this vote, he'd resign his seat in protest.

After 9-11, the most common response from Americans when asked why the attacks took place was "they hate us for our freedoms."

This is childish, obviously - but pretending for the moment that it's true, this FISA vote may, in fact, have the impact of ending the need for the "war on terror", as we have less freedom than did we yesterday.