tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post2746016394428901192..comments2023-10-16T07:13:12.123-05:00Comments on A plain blog about politics: Friday Baseball PostJonathan Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15931039630306253241noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post-39388638241741125492010-08-07T15:05:25.035-05:002010-08-07T15:05:25.035-05:00Do you know what else I noticed over at baseball-r...Do you know what else I noticed over at baseball-reference.com, that I never realized before?<br /><br />There's a second, critical, difference (beyond home runs) between the 'amazing' post-35 Aaron and the 'aging' post-35 Mays:<br /><br />In 9 of Mays' 13 seasons before age 35, he walked more often than he struck out. Then he turned 35 and discovered the whiff: by age 36, the formerly walk-oriented Mays was whiffing nearly twice as often as drawing a walk. Indeed, though Mays was a BB > SO guy up to age 35, beyond 35 he never again had more walks than Ks in a full season.<br /><br />Aaron is a near mirror-image in this respect to Mays. For Aaron's 15 full seasons before age 35, he struck out more often than he walked in 12. Then he turned 35 and never again had more K's than walks (until his final, shortened season).<br /><br />Moneyball types love hitters who take pitches, and the aging Aaron v. aging Mays is like a perfect natural observation of their point: Aaron became a walker and found enhanced late-career home run power, Mays became a whiffer and lost his home run stroke.<br /><br />For Bonds' part, he was a prolific drawer of walks even before his absurd walk totals in the big-head early 2000s. To the extent the Moneyball crowd is right about taking pitches, and Aaron v. Mays provides a good illustration, then a late 30s Bonds should have been a pretty good home run hitter, being an exceptionally good drawer of walks, irrespective of whether he actually took steroids.<br /><br />In which case, the 40 HR/season assumption for Bonds seems perfectly reasonable, and the 762 career dingers seems altogether plausible as well.<br /><br />FWIW.CSHnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post-16500198466861415182010-08-07T14:23:28.499-05:002010-08-07T14:23:28.499-05:00Looking at baseball-reference.com, I see a stat th...Looking at baseball-reference.com, I see a stat that adjusts for ballparks. Can someone come up with a stat that adjusts for steroids so that we can just move on?Davidnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post-32635238349543927092010-08-07T09:03:27.669-05:002010-08-07T09:03:27.669-05:00One other thing, Jonathan: I think its exactly rig...One other thing, Jonathan: I think its exactly right to question whether a Mays-esque decline in productivity proves that A-Rod isn't the real deal (or is a steroid deal). If A-Rod may fairly be regarded as A-Fraud based on a Maysian late career decline, shouldn't we draw the same conclusion about Mays? We don't know what Mays' "boli" was, but why should that matter?<br /><br />This is the primary problem with steroid-era stat revisionism. Here's a classic example: Game of Shadows claimed that Bonds began juicing in 1999 in response to the great McGwire/Sosa homer chase of 1998. From 1996-1998, Bonds hit about 40 homers a year.<br /><br />Suppose Bonds hadn't juiced, but naturally gotten bigger with age and hit 40 homers a year until age 40 (an Aaron-type pattern). Further suppose he fell off a bit beyond age 40, playing three more years and hitting 24, 24, and 23 homers. Not unreasonable, not outside the Aaron precedent (consider that Bonds in 1998 pretty much cemented "all-time 5-tool guy" status by inaugurating the 400/400 club).<br /><br />In any event, in how many homers would this entirely reasonable counterfactual have resulted?<br /><br />762.<br /><br />Steroid revisionism is a messy business indeed.CSHnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post-24675450340427915302010-08-07T05:59:42.058-05:002010-08-07T05:59:42.058-05:00Sorry - just realized I was talking around you a b...Sorry - just realized I was talking around you a bit; you were questioning whether Aaron was regarded as an "earnest toiler" during the Bonds-career-record chase, where I recalled him being thought of as such during the McGwire/Sosa single-season chase. Two separate issues, I apologize.<br /><br />However, it seems as though Araton was referring to the "aging Mays" as the "post-35 Mays":<br /><br /><i>But if the coming act, post-35, looks more like the aging Mays than the amazing Aaron</i><br /><br />If Rodriguez replicates the "aging" (post-35) Mays' home run perfomance, that will leave Rodriguez in the comparatively pedestrian low-700s, well short of the expectations of those who have him ticketed for 800+, easy.<br /><br />Suppose Rodgriguez ends up with ~720 homers where early and mid-career projections had him hitting at least 100 more. Would it be fair then to inquire about how much we were misled by inferences from steroid-inflated early career results?CSHnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post-75110673138572743352010-08-07T05:11:30.798-05:002010-08-07T05:11:30.798-05:00Hm. During the 1998 home run chase, when we belie...Hm. During the 1998 home run chase, when we believed that Sosa and McGwire were in no respect different from Mantle and Maris, Sosa/McGwire's accelerated mid-summer home run pace was frequently compared to other similar chases of the recent and distant past. <br /><br />Making such comparisons, commenters were often disappointed to find that the only 50-homer seasons in the three decade, "romantic-recent-past" period of 1965-1995 were Foster in 1977 and Fielder in 1990, neither of whom made any serious run at Maris. To the extent that Aaron's late career homer burst occured in that '65-'95 window, but never provided anything close to the romance of a run at Maris, I seem to recall that Aaron was often regarded as an "earnest toiler".<br /><br />As far as the Milwaukee v. New York issue, for me Mays gets flack more because he failed to live up to expectations where the chase for the Babe's career home run record was concerned. Sure, his age-40 year was good by stat-wonk-Nate-Silver standards (e.g. OPS of .907), but chicks dig the long ball, and Mays never once hit 30 homers in a season after age 35, compiling a mere 118 homers in that time (a total that, if Rodriguez duplicates it, would leave A-Rod just barely past Ruth and still well short of Aaron/Bonds).<br /><br />For me, the issue with Mays is much less the torment of big city media and more what every (competent) boss advises new hires: don't overpromise and underdeliver. I know: Moneyball-types say that Mays didn't overpromise and underdeliver for <i>them</i>; I'm specifically referring here to the aforementioned chicks who dig the long ball.CSHnoreply@blogger.com