Used with permission from John Dewan's Stat of the Week™, www.statoftheweek.com
November 13, 2007
Is there an adjustment period for players
when they change leagues?
If Alex Rodriguez moves to a National League team, is he going to have an adjustment period? Do players in general need some time to adapt when they move from one league to the other? The leagues are different. One has the DH and the other doesn't. Over the last few years the AL has had the more dominant teams and has outperformed the NL in interleague contests.
Here's how we look at this question. This past season there were 23 full-time players who switched leagues. They were full-time players in each of the 2006 and 2007 seasons. We compared their performance in each league to see if their performance improved or declined. We used Win Shares to help us evaluate overall performance. If there is an adjustment period, you would expect players to decline more often than not when moving from one league to the other.
The result: no adjustment period. Or so it appears when comparing these players from 2006 to 2007. Most of them had similar performances in the two leagues—13 guys. These 13 players had win share totals within two win shares comparing 2006 to 2007. There were 10 players who had a win share difference greater than two between the two seasons. Those 10 guys split it down the middle. There were the same number of guys who improved as the number who declined—five. Here are the details.
Players with improved performance
Name |
2006 |
2007 |
Jose Vidro |
12 |
16 |
Ted Lilly |
11 |
15 |
Alan Embree |
5 |
8 |
Aubrey Huff |
9 |
12 |
Kenny Lofton |
12 |
15 |
Players who declined
Name |
2006 |
2007 |
Mark Loretta |
17 |
12 |
Danys Baez |
6 |
1 |
Roger Clemens |
11 |
5 |
J.D. Drew |
19 |
12 |
Barry Zito |
17 |
8 |
Players who were within two win shares between the two seasons
Name |
2006 |
2007 |
Mark DeRosa |
14 |
16 |
Rafael Soriano |
7 |
9 |
Steve Trachsel |
6 |
8 |
Bengie Molina |
11 |
13 |
Miguel Batista |
10 |
12 |
Andy Pettitte |
12 |
13 |
LaTroy Hawkins |
4 |
5 |
Alex Gonzalez |
10 |
10 |
Chad Bradford |
7 |
6 |
Luis Vizcaino |
7 |
6 |
Joe Borowski |
9 |
8 |
Carlos Lee |
22 |
21 |
Julio Lugo |
13 |
11 |
Source: The Bill James Handbook 2008
October 15, 2007
Which outfielders have robbed hitters
of the most home runs?
Baseball Info Solutions has been keeping a database over the last four years of good and great fieldiing plays. One of the coolest elements is called "RobsHR." That's a tally of home runs robbed by outfielders. You know, that leaping grab with the mitt hanging over the fence. Who's been the best? Here are the leaders for the last four years:
Torii Hunter, Twins |
8 |
Jason Bay, Pirates |
6 |
Gary Matthews, Jr., Angels |
6 |
Lew Ford, Twins |
5 |
Carlos Beltran, Mets |
4 |
Ichiro Suzuki, Mariners |
4 |
Randy Winn, Giants |
4 |
Nook Logan, Nationals |
4 |
Curtis Granderson, Tigers |
4 |
Luis Gonzalez, Dodgers |
4 |
Andruw Jones, Braves |
4 |
The only real surprise for me on this list was Jason Bay, especially that he's second. The others are known as excellent or very good defensive outfielders whilte Bay is average at best...
In 2007, several players had two. Here they are:
Corey Patterson, Orioles |
2 |
Torii Hunter, Twins |
2 |
Mike Cameron, Padres |
2 |
Corey Hart, Brewers |
2 |
Joey Gathright, Royals |
2 |
Jeff Salazar, Diamondbacks |
2 |
Andruw Jones, Braves |
2 |
For the four-year period there have been a total of 185 home runs robbed. Here are the totals by year:
2004 |
53 |
2005 |
47 |
2006 |
41 |
2007 |
44 |
Copyright © 2007 by John Dewan.
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