Using Advanced Metrics on The Machine Part 1

by
September 3, 2009

In less than a week, Joe Posnanski’s much awaited new entry into the book world officially arrives. The Machine — which as the insanely long subtitle will inform you – is all about the 1975 Reds is probably the most anticipated baseball literature release of the year. I’m guessing most of the readers of this site are also fans of Posnanski, so to rev the hype engine a little harder, how about some graphical looks at how that team stacked up to the other teams in the league?

First up, team wOBA:

reds1

That red dot, that’s the Reds. Creative I know. The Reds were the best offensive team in baseball during this season and it wasn’t all that close. Only Boston surpassed the .340 team threshold. The Reds lead the majors in BB% and were near the tops in ISO (and Speed rating, for whatever it’s worth) which you would expect from any top offense.

How did their player stack up against each other? Glad you asked.

reds2

You Aren't a FanGraphs Member
It looks like you aren't yet a FanGraphs Member (or aren't logged in). We aren't mad, just disappointed.
We get it. You want to read this article. But before we let you get back to it, we'd like to point out a few of the good reasons why you should become a Member.
1. Ad Free viewing! We won't bug you with this ad, or any other.
2. Unlimited articles! Non-Members only get to read 10 free articles a month. Members never get cut off.
3. Dark mode and Classic mode!
4. Custom player page dashboards! Choose the player cards you want, in the order you want them.
5. One-click data exports! Export our projections and leaderboards for your personal projects.
6. Remove the photos on the home page! (Honestly, this doesn't sound so great to us, but some people wanted it, and we like to give our Members what they want.)
7. Even more Steamer projections! We have handedness, percentile, and context neutral projections available for Members only.
8. Get FanGraphs Walk-Off, a customized year end review! Find out exactly how you used FanGraphs this year, and how that compares to other Members. Don't be a victim of FOMO.
9. A weekly mailbag column, exclusively for Members.
10. Help support FanGraphs and our entire staff! Our Members provide us with critical resources to improve the site and deliver new features!
We hope you'll consider a Membership today, for yourself or as a gift! And we realize this has been an awfully long sales pitch, so we've also removed all the other ads in this article. We didn't want to overdo it.

This consists of every player with at least 100 plate appearances. In case you didn’t know – and holy smokes you better have known – Joe Morgan was a heck of a ballplayer. Morgan’s 21 BB% is jaw-dropping and his .327/.466/.508 line is just incredible. Hopefully Morgan’s buffoonery in announcing hasn’t caused some statistically orientated fans to discount his playing career because that would be an absolute crime.

How often is the second baseman the best offensive player on the team while the catcher is the second best? Johnny Bench’s .283/.359/.519 line is almost equal to George Foster’s .300/.356/.518 and Foster played the corner outfield. That guy Pete Rose was pretty good too, as was Ken Griffey and Tony Perez.

Later on a look at their pitching staff.





 

23 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Matt S.
16 years ago

That’s pretty cool stuff. Morgan and Bench are just incredible, but the level of consistency among their everyday players is really something to see.

0