Ranking of Royal Shortstops According to Individual Season WAR
by Jeff Zimmerman (TucsonRoyal) on Mar 11, 2009 4:24 PM EDT
26 comments
Chone Smith has recently released Wins Above Replacement Level (WAR) for all positional player 1955 to 2008. I went and look at the recent KC black hole, the shortstop position. Ever since the pair or Freddy Patek and U.L. Washington (with both of them splitting duties in 1979 for the transition), the Royals have not be able to fill the position until hopefully Mike Aviles steps up. Here is the list of top and bottom ten seasons for Royal Shortstops according to there WAR. I included Win Shares for comparison.
| WAR Rank | Year | Name | WAR | Win Shares | Win Shares Rank |
| 1 | 1997 | Jay Bell | 5.5 | 21 | 2 |
| 2 | 2008 | Mike Aviles | 3.9 | 17 | 5 |
| 3 | 1971 | Freddie Patek | 3.8 | 24 | 1 |
| 4 | 2003 | Angel Berroa | 3.8 | 16 | 6 |
| 5 | 1999 | Rey Sanchez | 3.6 | 12 | 17 |
| 6 | 1993 | Greg Gagne | 3.2 | 18 | 4 |
| 7 | 1976 | Freddie Patek | 3.1 | 14 | 13 |
| 8 | 2001 | Rey Sanchez | 3.1 | 10 | 26 |
| 9 | 1982 | U L Washington | 2.9 | 18 | 3 |
| 10 | 1973 | Freddie Patek | 2.6 | 16 | 7 |
| 44 | 1986 | Buddy Biancalana | -0.5 | 4 | 40 |
| 45 | 1987 | Angel Salazar | -0.5 | 5 | 33 |
| 46 | 1982 | Onix Concepcion | -0.9 | 2 | 49 |
| 47 | 1970 | Jackie Hernandez | -1.0 | 3 | 44 |
| 48 | 1985 | Onix Concepcion | -1.0 | 5 | 34 |
| 49 | 1979 | Freddie Patek | -1.1 | 3 | 45 |
| 50 | 1969 | Jackie Hernandez | -1.2 | 7 | 31 |
| 51 | 2002 | Neifi Perez | -1.7 | 6 | 32 |
| 52 | 2006 | Angel Berroa | -1.9 | 1 | 52 |
| 53 | 2008 | Tony Pena | -2.0 | 0 | 53 |
A few observations:
- Gotta love the bottom three, just gotta.
- Berroa has the largest gap (5.7 WAR) between best and worst season, with Patek coming in 2nd (4.9 WAR)
- Why didn't we keep Jay bell longer
- The Dye for Perez trade looks even worse considering what Sanchez was giving us.
Here is the list of all the Shortstop(s) over the seasons with the their stats combined:
| Year | Name(s) | War | WinShares |
| 2008 | Pena Aviles | 1.9 | 17 |
| 2007 | Tony Pena | 0.8 | 10 |
| 2006 | Angel Berroa | -1.9 | 1 |
| 2005 | Angel Berroa | 0.5 | 11 |
| 2004 | Angel Berroa | 0.5 | 10 |
| 2003 | Angel Berroa | 3.8 | 16 |
| 2002 | Neifi Perez | -1.7 | 6 |
| 2001 | Sanchez/Perez | 3.1 | 13 |
| 2000 | Rey Sanchez | 2.3 | 9 |
| 1999 | Rey Sanchez | 3.6 | 12 |
| 1998 | Lopez/Halter | 0.3 | 8 |
| 1997 | Jay Bell | 5.5 | 21 |
| 1996 | David Howard | 0.4 | 9 |
| 1995 | Greg Gagne | 1.9 | 10 |
| 1994 | Greg Gagne | 1.5 | 11 |
| 1993 | Greg Gagne | 3.2 | 18 |
| 1992 | Rossy/Wilkerson | 0.9 | 12 |
| 1991 | Stillwell/Howard | 0.5 | 13 |
| 1990 | Kurt Stillwell | 1.1 | 12 |
| 1989 | Kurt Stillwell | 1.9 | 15 |
| 1988 | Kurt Stillwell | 2.6 | 16 |
| 1987 | Angel Salazar | -0.5 | 5 |
| 1986 | Salazar/Biancalana | 0.3 | 8 |
| 1985 | Biancalana/Concepcion | -1.1 | 8 |
| 1984 | Washingtion/Concepcion | 1.7 | 10 |
| 1983 | U L Washington | 0.6 | 13 |
| 1982 | Washingtion/Concepcion | 2 | 20 |
| 1981 | U L Washington | 1 | 8 |
| 1980 | U L Washington | 2.1 | 16 |
| 1979 | Washingtion/Patek | -0.4 | 8 |
| 1978 | Freddie Patek | 1.5 | 11 |
| 1977 | Freddie Patek | 2.3 | 15 |
| 1976 | Freddie Patek | 3.1 | 14 |
| 1975 | Freddie Patek | 0.8 | 11 |
| 1974 | Freddie Patek | 2.1 | 15 |
| 1973 | Freddie Patek | 2.6 | 16 |
| 1972 | Freddie Patek | 2.4 | 13 |
| 1971 | Freddie Patek | 3.8 | 24 |
| 1970 | Matchick/Hernandez/Severson | 0.1 | 10 |
| 1969 | Jackie Hernandez | -1.2 | 7 |
4 recs |
26 comments
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Comments
We didn't keep Jay Bell longer
because after his contract ran out, the brand-new Arizona Diamondbacks blew him away with a massive 5-year contract.
Chaim Mattis Keller New York City's # 1 Royals fan!
by cmkeller on Mar 11, 2009 4:51 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs
even with pena's D I can't believe these #s
by royalsreview on Mar 11, 2009 6:03 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs
Just a day ago,
I spent a few minutes marveling at his stats. I see him play, but I can’t believe how bad he is.
WTF, self?
by minda33 on Mar 11, 2009 7:22 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
This is very interesting
Thanks.
The General Theory of Royaltivity
by kabrink on Mar 11, 2009 7:54 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs
Great post
Jackie Hernandez should not be forgotten in our Hall of Crappy Shortstops.
Gotta love the 1985 entry. Please forward it to Ryan Lefebvre who keeps saying “no team has ever won a championship without a set guy at 2B and SS.”
Mind if I link to this for my blog?
Relive Royals History at royalsretro.blogspot.com
by RoyalsRetro on Mar 11, 2009 9:12 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs
All this talk of win shares
has me hankering for another installment of 100 best, when’s the next one coming out?
Pecota, watch over us.
by castille on Mar 12, 2009 11:04 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Hope to work on it this weekend
We’ll see.
Relive Royals History at royalsretro.blogspot.com
by RoyalsRetro on Mar 12, 2009 12:44 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Are these based on offensive RAR only?
I assume there’s no defense included since we’re talking about a lot of pre-UZR players.
The immoderate moderator
by NYRoyal on Mar 11, 2009 10:29 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs
Rally's rankings
he has TotalZone startingin 1955
Rec’d, by the way Great work, tusconjeffqroyalanda
Bringing you more-or-less replacement level analysis and commentary since sometime in 2008.
by devil_fingers on Mar 11, 2009 11:17 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
So TotalZone must be from retrosheet data
I guess the only info they can get is something like Range Factor, totaling up how many plays they made. I guess that’s better than nothing, but not by much.
The immoderate moderator
by NYRoyal on Mar 11, 2009 11:25 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
I would highly recommend reading Sean Smith's artciles in TotalZone
at THT (here’s part two before saying… that.
And he’s added to the system since then, I think. It’s extremely sophisticated.
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by devil_fingers on Mar 12, 2009 12:50 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
I think it is as sophisticated as a defensive metric from retrosheet data can be
That just isn’t saying much. I give him full credit for putting together the best possible metric from the available data (which is quite limited for the purpose of quantifying defensive performance). But if one takes UZR and other advanced metrics with a grain of salt (and one certainly should) then you’ve got to take TotalZone with at least three handfuls of salt.
The immoderate moderator
by NYRoyal on Mar 12, 2009 1:02 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
There's a world of difference between "taking with a grain of salt"
and making an …interesting… comparison with Range Factor.
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by devil_fingers on Mar 12, 2009 1:23 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Actually, I said that advanced fielding metrics should be taken with a grain of salt. I said that Total Zone should be taken with at least three handfuls of salt. I think the Range Factor comparison is apt. TZ is better than Range Factor, as it includes more data. But it is inherently limited to Retrosheet’s PBP data, making it significantly more like RF than UZR. I would say that TZ is better than Range Factor but worse than Zone Rating. And that doesn’t put it in good company. Just my two cents.
The immoderate moderator
by NYRoyal on Mar 12, 2009 3:31 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
to each his or her own
I’m just really surprised you would say that after reading up on it, particularly the (non-technical use coming up) correlation with UZRs in the years where data is available for both, or how he generates hit locations, or the discussion on the Book Blog.
Bringing you more-or-less replacement level analysis and commentary since sometime in 2008.
by devil_fingers on Mar 12, 2009 11:34 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Of interest
FromThe Book Blog, today (on a different topic — so much stuff out now I can’t keep up):
Looking at Rally’s numbers: he’s at +11 runs. But, as we’ve noted in the past, Rally’s numbers are spread out less than UZR and mine. It’s likely that in terms of standard deviations, he’s the same as we are.
It seems to me that we are extremely close, even though we all have different systems. The outlier is bUZR, as sUZR, Dewan, Peter, me, and (adjusted) Rally are all right around +16 runs or so.
Just a mention in passing, but I think it shows how close to Range Factor Tango thinks TotalZone is.
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by devil_fingers on Mar 12, 2009 12:49 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
they're discussing Beltran in the context of Peter Jensen's cool new GameDay fielding stuff, btw
Bringing you more-or-less replacement level analysis and commentary since sometime in 2008.
by devil_fingers on Mar 12, 2009 12:50 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Well, it is probably more accurate than I give it credit for
Consider me corrected with regard to the value and accuracy of TotalZone. I think this comes from my general feeling about even the best advanced fielding metrics. Sabermetricians are understandably desperate to meaningfully quantify defense, which they recognize as being very important. But they still don’t have any genuinely good ways of quantifying it. So they do the best they can and come up with the UZR’s, Plus/Minus, etc. But the wild swings you see in those stats from year to year from the same player show how rough these stats still are, and I think that is an inherent weakness. If some hitting or pitching stat had that kind of variance, it would be rejected as an accurate measure of any variable. And instead of continually recognizing how necessarily poor these metrics are, it appears that most sabermetricians just pretend they are accurate and then pretend that these numbers nail down valuable a player’s defense is. Do you know what I mean?
The immoderate moderator
by NYRoyal on Mar 12, 2009 3:11 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
yeah
I know what you mean in general, but when pressed, Tango, at least, and I suspect many others, will readily admit that there are with different datasets, limitations therein, different opinions of how to account for line drives and pop-ups, etc.
Interestingly, I remember MGL writing somewhere that over a longer period of time, non-PBP metrics like Totalzone and some others gain in accuracy to the point where they are as or more accurate than the PBP ones, although I don’t remember if he gave a reason or not.
In other words, while TotalZone might not be great in an individual year, it probably gives us a good picture of how good a player was over his whole career.
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by devil_fingers on Mar 12, 2009 3:52 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Thanks - I need to go by one handle eventually
by Jeff Zimmerman (TucsonRoyal) on Mar 12, 2009 1:41 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
No, it's fine, just giving you a hard time
Bringing you more-or-less replacement level analysis and commentary since sometime in 2008.
by devil_fingers on Mar 12, 2009 11:31 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
So Freddie Patek was #49 and #3?
That's why we play the season on paper.
by 306008 on Mar 12, 2009 10:42 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs
Yes looks like he was done in in 1979.
He had 796 innings at short with the -1.1, while U.L. had only 354 innings and put up a +0.7
All the people on the list had at least 327 innings at Short.
Here is a link to the spreadsheet with all the Royal shortstops I looked at: Link
by Jeff Zimmerman (TucsonRoyal) on Mar 12, 2009 11:39 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
2008 for Royals Shortstops
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…”
by Top Ramen on Mar 13, 2009 11:27 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs
Indeed A Tale
Of two cities, KC and Omaha, and the tragedy of which SS should be playing where.
I used to be an A's fan until they left town and got good.
by philofthenorth on Mar 15, 2009 9:19 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
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