Leaderboards of Pleasure – 8/22/11
Say huh?
Like a good neighbor, the Leaderboards of Pleasure are there… to borrow money from you and drink all of your fermented beverages and make totally unsupportable claims.
Looking over this week’s boards, we find:
• First of all, that the author has taken the liberty of adjusting the calculation of the Underrated Player leaderboards ever so slightly — hopefully to allow the fake WAR (FANT) scale to more accurately reflect the scale of actual, real-live WAR.
• That, in so doing, Peter Bourjos leaps to the top of the list — something (i.e. leaping) he does in real life with some frequency, as well.
And:
• That, immediately upon passing the 100-plate appearance threshold, Desmond Jennings debuts at fourth overall on the Player NERD leaderboard. Drink deeply of his stat line and find yourself drunk with nerd pleasure: 122 PA, .320/.412/.592 (.389 BABIP), 13-17 SBA, 1.3 WAR.
1. Team NERD Leaderboard
2. Underrated Player Leaderboard
3. Player NERD Leaderboard
4. Pitcher NERD Leaderboard
Team NERD Leaderboard
Like the NERD scores you’ll find below, this one represents an attempt to anticipate the “watchability” of each team. The first iteration appears in a heartfelt love letter to America, which anyone is free to read here.
Please note that the “POFF” numbers (playoff-odds adjustments) are not included in the Team NERD scores you see below, but are instead the bonuses/penalties applied to the Game Scores for each respective team — a thing about which you can learn more by reading here.
| Teams | NERD | Age | BAT | HR/FB | Spd | BULL | UZR | Pay | Luck | POFF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Royals | 10 | 2.49 | -0.06 | -0.60 | 1.06 | -0.41 | 0.16 | 1.40 | 0.88 | -1 |
| Red Sox | 10 | 0.00 | 2.17 | 1.47 | 0.74 | 0.81 | 1.77 | 0.00 | 0.46 | 0 |
| Yankees | 10 | 0.00 | 2.28 | 1.52 | 1.54 | 0.81 | 0.84 | 0.00 | 0.00 | -1 |
| Diamondbacks | 9 | 0.57 | -0.38 | 0.75 | 0.90 | -0.07 | 2.37 | 0.97 | 0.00 | 1 |
| Marlins | 8 | 1.30 | -0.52 | 0.19 | -0.39 | 0.44 | -0.21 | 0.89 | 2.00 | -1 |
| Rangers | 8 | 0.00 | 1.54 | 1.29 | 0.90 | -0.11 | 0.61 | 0.02 | 0.00 | 0 |
| Brewers | 7 | 0.02 | 0.66 | 1.01 | -0.07 | 1.38 | 0.19 | 0.18 | 0.20 | 0 |
| Rays | 7 | 0.39 | 0.35 | 0.10 | 1.06 | -1.77 | 1.38 | 1.25 | 0.00 | 0 |
| Padres | 6 | 0.66 | -0.54 | -1.02 | 2.03 | 0.03 | 0.15 | 1.16 | 0.00 | 0 |
| Blue Jays | 6 | 0.39 | 0.53 | 0.28 | 0.58 | 0.47 | -0.29 | 0.75 | 0.00 | -1 |
| Rockies | 6 | 0.20 | -0.30 | 0.33 | 0.41 | 1.35 | 0.16 | 0.12 | 0.00 | 0 |
| Indians | 6 | 0.94 | -0.12 | 0.50 | -0.23 | -0.14 | -0.68 | 1.08 | 0.00 | 2 |
| Angels | 5 | 0.00 | -0.36 | -0.23 | 0.41 | -0.51 | 1.51 | 0.00 | 1.24 | 2 |
| Reds | 5 | 0.00 | 0.23 | 0.84 | -0.71 | -0.48 | 1.40 | 0.41 | 0.00 | -1 |
| Pirates | 5 | 1.39 | -1.22 | -0.74 | -0.23 | -0.24 | -0.06 | 1.15 | 0.00 | -1 |
| Braves | 5 | 0.02 | -0.28 | 1.36 | -1.84 | 2.23 | -1.03 | 0.15 | 0.68 | 0 |
| Mets | 5 | 0.66 | 0.80 | -1.43 | 1.06 | -0.07 | -1.71 | 0.00 | 1.25 | -1 |
| Dodgers | 4 | 0.00 | -0.71 | -0.87 | 0.25 | 0.06 | 0.02 | 0.00 | 2.00 | -1 |
| Nationals | 4 | 0.02 | -0.76 | 0.66 | 0.09 | -0.41 | -0.15 | 0.72 | 0.32 | -1 |
| Giants | 3 | 0.00 | -1.76 | -1.27 | -1.04 | 1.45 | 0.58 | 0.00 | 2.00 | 3 |
| Cardinals | 3 | 0.00 | 1.37 | 1.45 | -1.68 | -0.28 | -0.90 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0 |
| Phillies | 3 | 0.00 | -0.01 | 0.10 | 0.74 | -0.44 | -0.58 | 0.00 | 0.00 | -1 |
| Cubs | 3 | 0.00 | -0.39 | 0.19 | -0.39 | -0.61 | -0.64 | 0.00 | 1.53 | -1 |
| White Sox | 3 | 0.00 | -0.59 | -0.47 | -1.36 | 1.49 | -0.20 | 0.00 | 0.66 | 2 |
| Astros | 3 | 0.30 | -0.62 | -1.76 | 0.25 | 0.13 | -1.14 | 0.55 | 1.42 | -1 |
| Tigers | 2 | 0.20 | 0.89 | -0.13 | -1.04 | -1.43 | -0.86 | 0.00 | 0.99 | 1 |
| Orioles | 2 | 0.30 | -0.13 | 0.56 | -2.00 | -0.04 | -1.86 | 0.19 | 0.89 | -1 |
| Athletics | 1 | 0.00 | -0.66 | -1.60 | -0.07 | -0.24 | -0.92 | 0.65 | 0.00 | -1 |
| Mariners | 0 | 0.00 | -1.77 | -1.29 | -0.39 | -0.78 | 0.10 | 0.16 | 0.59 | -1 |
| Twins | 0 | 1.03 | -1.20 | -1.17 | -0.55 | -2.61 | 0.05 | 0.00 | 0.00 | -1 |
Underrated Player Leaderboard
To determine the most underrated player, we look at each player’s WAR relative to a very fake version of WAR (called FANT, in this case) constructed only by the five most common fantasy categories. (Read more here.)
| Name | Diff | WAR | FANT | Avg | HR | R | RBI | SB |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Peter Bourjos | 2.4 | 4.3 | 1.9 | 0.47 | -0.74 | -0.30 | -1.40 | 0.76 |
| Howie Kendrick | 2.3 | 4.6 | 2.3 | 0.63 | -0.50 | 0.11 | -0.85 | 0.15 |
| Shane Victorino | 2.2 | 5.9 | 3.7 | 1.37 | -0.12 | 1.13 | -0.68 | 0.66 |
| Brendan Ryan | 2.2 | 2.5 | 0.3 | -0.27 | -1.49 | -1.18 | -1.23 | -0.16 |
| Alex Avila | 2.1 | 4.4 | 2.3 | 0.98 | 0.00 | -0.84 | 0.15 | -0.67 |
| Ben Zobrist | 2.1 | 6.4 | 4.3 | 0.53 | 0.13 | 1.60 | 0.86 | 0.56 |
| Dustin Pedroia | 2.0 | 6.9 | 4.9 | 1.11 | 0.25 | 1.40 | 0.48 | 1.48 |
| Yunel Escobar | 1.9 | 4.0 | 2.1 | 0.50 | -0.50 | 0.65 | -0.85 | -0.67 |
| Matt Holliday | 1.8 | 5.3 | 3.5 | 1.21 | 0.50 | 0.72 | 0.42 | -0.88 |
| Alexei Ramirez | 1.8 | 4.2 | 2.4 | -0.33 | -0.12 | 0.72 | -0.18 | -0.26 |
| John Buck | 1.7 | 2.0 | 0.3 | -1.42 | 0.13 | -1.59 | -0.46 | -0.98 |
| Kurt Suzuki | 1.7 | 1.7 | 0.0 | -1.33 | -0.25 | -1.32 | -1.23 | -0.78 |
| Alberto Callaspo | 1.6 | 2.6 | 1.0 | 0.34 | -1.12 | -0.98 | -0.90 | -0.37 |
| Matt Wieters | 1.6 | 2.7 | 1.1 | -0.33 | -0.25 | -0.57 | -0.74 | -0.88 |
| Jose Bautista | 1.5 | 7.7 | 6.2 | 1.50 | 2.74 | 2.21 | 1.30 | -0.37 |
| Ian Kinsler | 1.5 | 5.5 | 4.0 | -0.88 | 0.75 | 1.87 | 0.09 | 1.17 |
| Jamey Carroll | 1.5 | 1.6 | 0.1 | 0.60 | -1.74 | -1.18 | -2.50 | 0.04 |
| Evan Longoria | 1.5 | 3.4 | 1.9 | -1.29 | 0.75 | -0.57 | 0.86 | -0.88 |
| Jhonny Peralta | 1.5 | 4.5 | 3.0 | 1.34 | 0.50 | -0.23 | 0.48 | -0.98 |
| Andrew McCutchen | 1.4 | 5.6 | 4.2 | 0.09 | 0.50 | 0.79 | 0.97 | 1.07 |
Player NERD Leaderboard
Very similar to Pitcher NERD (below), except for position players. (Read more here.)
| Name | NERD | Age | WAR | xBABIP | HR/FB | Spd | K% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ryan Braun | 10 | 0.47 | 2.04 | -0.12 | 1.71 | 1.51 | 0.52 |
| Jacoby Ellsbury | 10 | 0.47 | 1.99 | -0.02 | 1.29 | 1.21 | 0.75 |
| Jose Bautista | 10 | 0.00 | 2.81 | -0.32 | 2.73 | -0.07 | 0.50 |
| Desmond Jennings | 10 | 1.19 | 1.73 | -0.91 | 1.87 | 2.18 | -0.50 |
| Jose Reyes | 10 | 0.24 | 1.88 | 0.00 | -0.97 | 2.38 | 2.00 |
| Shane Victorino | 10 | 0.00 | 2.48 | -0.45 | 0.13 | 1.97 | 1.40 |
| Curtis Granderson | 10 | 0.00 | 1.85 | -0.04 | 2.41 | 2.13 | -0.94 |
| Justin Upton | 10 | 1.43 | 1.92 | -0.42 | 1.18 | 1.21 | 0.04 |
| Albert Pujols | 10 | 0.00 | 1.15 | 0.40 | 2.00 | 0.03 | 1.58 |
| Robinson Cano | 9 | 0.24 | 1.14 | 0.04 | 1.47 | 1.10 | 0.87 |
| Troy Tulowitzki | 9 | 0.71 | 1.90 | -0.22 | 1.15 | 0.03 | 1.18 |
| Matt Kemp | 9 | 0.71 | 1.89 | -0.29 | 2.07 | 1.05 | -0.68 |
| Dustin Pedroia | 9 | 0.47 | 2.06 | -0.10 | 0.42 | 0.59 | 1.28 |
| Andrew McCutchen | 9 | 1.19 | 1.66 | 0.16 | 0.58 | 0.90 | 0.20 |
| Ian Kinsler | 9 | 0.00 | 1.50 | 0.43 | 0.21 | 1.21 | 1.35 |
| Carlos Gonzalez | 9 | 0.95 | 0.79 | -0.19 | 1.82 | 1.21 | -0.02 |
| Mike Stanton | 9 | 1.91 | 1.15 | -0.27 | 2.97 | 0.29 | -1.58 |
| Chase Utley | 9 | 0.00 | 1.81 | -0.26 | -0.18 | 1.61 | 1.45 |
| Tony Campana | 9 | 0.95 | 1.09 | 0.76 | -0.17 | 1.67 | -0.01 |
| Dustin Ackley | 9 | 1.43 | 1.68 | -0.16 | -0.01 | 0.90 | 0.28 |
Pitcher NERD Leaderboard
The idea with Pitcher NERD — as with the other NERDs — is to express with one number the likelihood that the learned fan might have interest in a certain player. (To read more about Pitcher NERD, click here.)
| Name | NERD | xFIP | SwStrk | Strk | Velo | Luck | Age | KN |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Zack Greinke | 10 | 2.86 | 1.94 | 0.31 | 0.75 | 1.61 | 0.20 | 0.00 |
| Clayton Kershaw | 10 | 2.03 | 1.78 | 0.53 | 1.06 | 0.00 | 1.20 | 0.00 |
| Roy Halladay | 10 | 2.46 | 1.61 | 2.30 | 0.52 | 0.01 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Madison Bumgarner | 10 | 1.47 | 0.51 | 1.44 | 0.52 | 0.53 | 1.70 | 0.00 |
| Cliff Lee | 10 | 2.21 | 1.01 | 2.32 | 0.41 | 0.12 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Michael Pineda | 10 | 0.80 | 2.05 | 1.29 | 1.70 | 0.18 | 1.45 | 0.00 |
| Brandon Morrow | 10 | 1.17 | 2.22 | 0.54 | 1.32 | 1.08 | 0.45 | 0.00 |
| Justin Verlander | 10 | 1.75 | 1.34 | 1.23 | 1.74 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| CC Sabathia | 10 | 1.70 | 1.67 | 1.61 | 1.17 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Matt Garza | 10 | 1.52 | 1.72 | 0.58 | 1.21 | 0.50 | 0.20 | 0.00 |
| Cole Hamels | 10 | 1.81 | 1.83 | 1.20 | 0.52 | 0.00 | 0.20 | 0.00 |
| Cory Luebke | 10 | 1.78 | 1.67 | 1.34 | 0.33 | 0.00 | 0.45 | 0.00 |
| Anibal Sanchez | 9 | 1.47 | 1.56 | 0.66 | 0.52 | 0.86 | 0.20 | 0.00 |
| David Price | 9 | 1.27 | 0.29 | 0.36 | 1.62 | 0.32 | 0.70 | 0.00 |
| Juan Nicasio | 9 | 1.10 | 0.35 | -0.10 | 1.36 | 0.77 | 0.95 | 0.00 |
| Jonathon Niese | 9 | 1.32 | 0.18 | 1.31 | 0.03 | 0.81 | 0.95 | 0.00 |
| Felix Hernandez | 9 | 1.42 | 0.46 | 0.23 | 1.09 | 0.20 | 0.70 | 0.00 |
| Brandon Beachy | 9 | 1.22 | 2.05 | 0.36 | 0.49 | 0.02 | 0.95 | 0.00 |
| Rubby De La Rosa | 9 | 0.89 | 0.29 | -1.36 | 2.08 | 0.21 | 1.45 | 0.00 |
| R.A. Dickey | 9 | 0.22 | -0.09 | 1.54 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 3.78 |
Carson Cistulli has published a book of aphorisms called Spirited Ejaculations of a New Enthusiast.
The great irony to me is your underrated board is full of the most overrated players in the game. Single most overrated player in baseball has to be Dustin Pedroia. He’s unquestionably a good player, but he’s probably the third best second basemen in the AL (after Cano and Kinsler) and the fourth most important player on his own team (after Gonzalez, Youkilis and Ellsbury). Yet, Sports Illustrated just placed him on the cover and told us he is one of the greatest second basemen of all time!!! He’s already won an MVP that he didn’t deserve and might win another that he doesn’t deserve this year. You can’t get any more overrated than that. ….I know, your head is spinning.
Probably the player who is actually the most underrated is Derek Jeter. ….I know, your head has now come off. For most of his career people have been writing articles claiming that Jeter is a pretty mediocre or lousy shortstop and that all of his fame is due to playing in New York. Every year there is noise that the Yankees cannot possibly win with such a poor defender in such a critical position. But in the real world, Jeter actually is an all time great shortstop. And Jeter actually should have won 2 MVP awards but never really came that close. How much more underrated can you get?
“Every year there is noise that the Yankees cannot possibly win with such a poor defender in such a critical position.”
The Yankees could win with Bucky Dent at SS. Not Bucky Dent in his prime, but today’s 59 year old Bucky Dent. They have enough talent that they can carry a stiff at any one position if they need to.
Yeah, seriously, Jeter never gets any praise from the mainstream media. ITS RIDICULOUS!!1
This reminds me of the media truism that there is a liberal media bias. Meanwhile, the people who keep telling you that the media are biased are the media! Two seconds of thought tells you it makes no sense! If the media is actually biased in favor of liberals why is there so much media telling us about the bias?!
Articles about Jeter are like this. A good portion of articles about Jeter state that the media is biased in favor of Jeter because he is the Yankees shortstop, and then go on to detail his deficiencies. People start to believe that there really is a sycophantic bias in favor of the player, when in reality it is a strawman.
I’ve often read on this site that Scott Rolen (Scott Rolen!!!) is Jeter’s equal as a player. Your point is that Jeter is overrated while Rolen is underrated. In fact, when you do this you are overrating Rolen and underrating Jeter.
As an exercise, do media searches about Jeter and Pedroia. I’m willing to bet everything about Pedroia as a player will be positive, while much about Jeter as a player will be negative. It’s because Jeter is underrated and Pedroia is overrated.
Joe Posnanski seems to agree with me:
“*Interesting, I think: The near-unanimous choice for the best closer ever, Mariano Rivera, has never finished higher than ninth in the MVP voting. There’s a weird thing that goes on with the Yankees and awards. There’s this constant drumbeat about how Yankees players are overrated and over-decorated, but Derek Jeter has never won an MVP award, Mariano Rivera has never won a Cy Young and was never even close in the MVP voting, and the only Yankees player to win an MVP award the last 25 years was Alex Rodriguez, who supposedly gets no respect. Strange.”
http://joeposnanski.si.com/2011/08/23/most-productive-player-award/?sct=mlb_t11_a1
Now I’m a huge Yankee homer and a bona-fide Red Sox hater, but come on, what is this? The thing I hate most about Pedroia is how everyone raves about him, and they still don’t get how great he is.
Derek Jeter can not, and will never be, underrated. No one but a madman claims that he isn’t a genuinely good player, and he gets all the recognition a player could get. Hell, you could argue he’s the most famous player of the past 50 years. I mean, seriously. And I reiterate, I’m a massive Yankees homer.
lol. sorry jason, but… no. just no.
I knew this would be your response, because it is you guys that overrate Pedroia and underrate Jeter. The reason you guys get it wrong is that you decided long ago that Jeter is a terrible fielder and that Pedroia is the best fielder at his position. Neither are true. Jeter is a sure handed shortstop with average to slightly below average range and an average arm. Pedroia is a decent fielder with perhaps slightly above average range and a weak arm.
I don’t take WAR or UZR seriously because UZR is clearly a horrible measure of fielding ability. The “runs saved” stuff is pure fantasy. Have you ever wondered why there is so much individual variation in a statistic that purportedly measures a skill that should have the least amount of individual variation? You can either field a given ball or you can’t.
I’m not a Luddite. I am all for quantitative analysis. But it has to be done well. I’m an evolutionary biologist. In my field there are people known as evolutionary morphologists that try to work out evolutionary relationships of living and fossil species based upon the shapes of their various bones. Quantifying three dimensional shapes is a really difficult problem. There are two camps in this field. The old guard prefers to trust their eyes and just look at the bones and compare them. Younger scientists are trying to slap a number on the differences using complex statistical techniques known as three dimensional geometric morphometrics. Because quantifying three dimensional shape differences is so difficult, the old guys who have spent a lifetime looking at bones are invariably better at it. The likely reason is that their gestalt captures more of the variation than the quantitative people are able to using thousands of linear measurements.
Fielding is a lot like this. The numbers give false confidence. Ever wonder what the 95% confidence intervals would look like on those silly fielding numbers?