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October 15, 2007

A-Rod '07 & Slammin' Sammy '01

If the question of "When was the last time a hitter had a season like A-Rod did this year?" should come up, here’s the answer: Sammy Sosa in 2001. Check the numbers. They are so close that it’s scary: PA, H, R, 2B, HR, RBI, BA, OBP – even their age. Very interesting.

Posted by Steve Lombardi at October 15, 2007 10:33 AM

Comments

Those numbers show you how awesome Lou Gerhig was. If he hadn't gotten sick and fell off the last 2 years and had been around for a while longer (which would have been entirely possible considering the shape he kept himself in), then a lot of the all time numbers people grew up with would have been his, I think.

Steve, did you read "Luckiest Man" yet?

Posted by: j [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 15, 2007 11:55 AM

It's still on my wish list j...but, high on it.

Posted by: Steve Lombardi [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 15, 2007 01:39 PM

Definitely doesn't qualify as "so close that it's scary," Steve. Sosa clearly had the better season.

Posted by: Harry [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 15, 2007 03:14 PM

I don't see it. A ten HR advantage for Sammy and nearly a 100 point slugging percentage advantage for Sammy does not make them anything alike. Sammy's 2001 was clearly better than ARod's 2007.

Posted by: jonm [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 15, 2007 03:17 PM

Sosa RCAA, 2001: 114
A-Rod RCAA, 2007: 83

Yeah, you guys are right.

Posted by: Steve Lombardi [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 15, 2007 04:23 PM

It's incredible how much Sammy did for the '01 Cubs and, yet, how bad they were that year (88-74, 3rd place). I can't imagine how much lousier they would've been if he hadn't put up those numbers.

Posted by: MJ [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 15, 2007 04:43 PM

This is off the A-Rod vs. Sammy thread. I just want to point out that the 700-PA cutoff seems almost to have been designed for the very purpose of excluding Babe Ruth. (And where was Scott Boras when this chart was published?) I'll bet Steve Lombardi knows that the Babe had 699 PAs in 1923 and 693 in 1921, and had a 239 OPS+ each year.

The MLB method for batting title qualification is, if the player does not have enough PAs to qualify, charge him with enough hitless ABs to reach the required PAs, then recalculate his averages. By this method, Ruth would obviously make this list for his 1921 and '23 seasons, and several others.

The point is, there's no value in PAs per se. Ruth obviously had many seasons where, in less than 700 PAs, he put more runs on the board (by any metric you choose) than a lot of the guys on this list did in 700+ PAs. The same is true of Barry Bonds.

There are 21 seasons in which a player had 650-699 PAs and an OPS+ of 200 or better. I'm sure the vast majority of these would still have an OPS+ of 180 or more even after being charged with enough extra ABs to qualify. Of those 21, 8 were by Ruth, 3 by Williams, 2 by Bonds, plus Gehrig, Foxx, Musial, Mantle, McGwire, Cobb, Giambi and Norm Cash(!).

A-Rod's a great player with a great agent. He doesn't need any help from the stats community.

Posted by: John Autin [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 15, 2007 05:39 PM

You guys are right; there's a big difference between the two seasons.

A-rod didn't cheat. We think.

Posted by: Evan3457 [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 15, 2007 07:53 PM