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Questions that
Prompted Baseball Evaluation's Development
What
are your team's players really worth?
Was
a favorite player from the 1950s actually better than one from
today?
Does
waning statistical performance, whether due to injury or not,
indicate a continuing trend, or should this be discounted when
accounting for salary and payroll?
Who
deserves to make the Baseball Hall of Fame?
Baseball
Evaluation
| PEVA Player Ratings Boxscore |
32.000 - Fantastic
(Cy Young, MVP Candidate) |
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20.000 - Great |
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15.000 - All Star Caliber |
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10.000 - Good |
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3.500 - Average |
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Comments
We'd
like to hear from you with your comments or questions.
Send your questions or comments about what you like or don't like about
Stat Geek Baseball and Baseballevaluation.com to
info@baseballevaluation.com.
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Baseball Evaluation
Explanation and Mission Statement
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The Evolution of Baseball Stats from Doubleday to Eternity
Where
do we start? This is the basic question when trying to explain
absolutely anything, of course, whether baseball statistics or another
endeavor far off the sports path. A second question quickly
follows about this particular project.
What is Baseball Evaluation and how does it add, or detract, from the topic of baseball statistics?
Does it really answer the question, "What are Your Favorite Players
Really Worth?" over the history of the game. And when you say
worth, are you talking about baseball player performance on the field
or salary or a bit of both? We'll answer the last question first,
... it attempts to answer both.
Let's begin with the title. Baseball Evaluation: From Doubleday
to Eternity. It is an evaluation of baseball statistics from the
beginning of its pro leagues until the present day. Yes, we know
that Abner Doubleday was not the only person that should be credited
with its birth, but the title including others, Alexander Cartwright
for one, would just be too long. So please bear with us and the
title for the sake of brevity.
The Baseball Evaluation economic decision model and statistical
evaluation tool provides one method for evaluating professional
baseball players, both pitchers and position players, over the history
of the various Major Leagues. Of course, it is not the first or
the only one, and we make no illusion that it is the best. Others
can have an opinion on that. This is just one take on the
subject, and we hope a comprehensive and accurate one. In
the following webpages, Baseball Evaluation will explain the
methodology of the system, definitions of new statistics created, and
include yearly Player Grades for each pitcher and batter. The
short explanation of the method used: it is a comparison of players on
a peer to peer basis, thus allowing for valid comparisons across the
various decades of play, whether dead ball, live ball, or steroid
ball. Beyond the yearly PEVA Values of each player, Baseball
Evaluation, through the data set files of Stat Geek Baseball, will
include data for career numbers and Salary Projections over their
careers as if that player were playing in today's era. You can
see an example of that under the Baseball Career or Stat Geek Baseball
sections.
Although
individual playing statistics will be included on this site in a modest
way beside the new statistics of our system, this is not intended as
competition to the fine work done by Sean Foreman at Baseball-Reference.com and the Baseballdatabank or Sean Lahman at the Baseball Archive
and the Baseball Database. Check out their sites for raw historic
statistics and so much more. A debt of gratitude goes out to them
for their work on the statistics of baseball, as well as many others
who have gone before and come after in the study of the game. It
has allowed us mere mortals to add our small measure to the subject.
What will Baseball Evaluation do? What questions will it answer,
or prompt into further debate? The Baseball Evaluation System is
not intended to be the end result, however, it is meant to provide one
tool in the ongoing debate of how to evaluate players against each
other over different eras, as well as how to value their individual
statistical performance into the true value to their team in the
present and following years. Over eight years of study of the
current way teams grade their players, the Baseball Evaluation system
was developed to mirror, in most ways, the way a team today values its
players as it relates to salary. So if a player who seems only
10% better than another gets paid 50% more, that his how the Baseball
Evaluation system performs as well. Of course, there are some
differences, even though it was our goal to minimize them. One
such deviation is the way teams value players whose performance is
waning, either due to injury or age. The Baseball Evaluation
system treats those players in a harsher manner, as in many, if not
most, cases, those waning performances indicate future performance with
sliding stats.
And yes, the baseball agreement that started with the 2007 season
has spurred a large increase in free agent, and thus, all other
salaries. The Baseball Evaluation system has been adjusted to
account for this, at this time, through the 2009 salary season.
For the want of a better and more comprehensive analysis, the increase
seems in the range of twenty percent for most categories. And
don't get us started on whether Carlos Lee was worth $16 million per
year or Adam Eaton $8 million. It's doubtful that they are, but
as a Phillie fan, we had been hoping to be wrong on Eaton.
Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be the case. Now the question
moves to the free agents of 2008 and 2009. Is Torii Hunter, a
good to very good player, but rarely termed great, worth $90 million
over 5 years? Only time will tell, but we are doubtful to that as
well, and even though his first season with the Angels had them making
the playoffs, it is unlikely that it was due to that contract's
worth. They needed more good offensive players, not just one.
And how will the current economic climate affect player salaries
overall, past the Yankee universe of Sabathia, Teixeira, and Burnett,
time will tell as well, but it is doubtful that the increases of the
past decade will continue.
The Baseball Evaluation system was developed to provide a comparative
tool that could value position players and pitchers with an index (PEVA
and RAVE) that could be used to grade and compare players of different
years and eras. It was developed with an eye toward how players
were valued over the past decade when comparing salary data to
performance and experience level. Baseball Evaluation and Stat
Geek Baseball also allows for salary projections (SPRO) for not only
players of the present, but the historical past.
The questions have always been many among the fan community, whether it
is when a player on their team is given a new contract or allowed to go
the way of free agency. It is the main question in every debate
about the merits of a past player to one of the present day. The
Baseball Evaluation system allows for those comparisons, as well as new
debates, on Player Evaluations and their relationships to other
players and the salaries they are paid.
The model was developed without attempting to deviate from current
norms within the baseball community, although certain deviations were
inevitable. One fact emerged right from the start. It was
an expected fact. Anyone with an eye toward baseball statistics
knows that a player's value per salary and public perception is an
exponential quantity compared to their actual statistics.
Therefore, statistics are used in the Baseball Evaluation system in a
comparative fashion with peer to peer yearly reviews that maintain that
exponential relationship. This comparative peer system takes away
the vagaries of comparing players of different eras, whether those of
the dead ball, the live ball, or the steroid ball.
Statistics are also not viewed in static terms, with, for example, a
home run worth the same in 1870 as 1970. For a list of the
comparative statistics used, see Baseball Evaluation: Methodology.
In essense, the Baseball Evaluation System was developed to answer
questions and provide new comparative statistics, although we realize
that as many questions as it may answer, it likely raises even more.
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More
Baseball Evaluation
About Us Pages |
| Mission
Statement |
| Methodology |
| Definitions |
| FAQ |
| Baseball
Links |
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| Cy
Young |
| Nap Lajoie |
| Mickey
Mantle |
| Mariano
Rivera |
| Chuck Klein |
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| Scope of Baseball Evaluation Study and System |
| Players Under Study |
Player Years |
| Position
Players |
Over
88,000 |
| Pitchers |
Over
37,000 |
| Fielders |
Over
128,000 |
| Statistics
Reviewed |
4.4
million |
| Statistics
Used to Formulate New Baseball Evaluation Stats (PEVA, RAVE, SPRO, Field Value) |
2.5
million |
| New Baseball
Evaluation Stats Created |
1.9
million |
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Baseball
Evaluation Scoreboard |
| Team |
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
R |
H |
E |
| Pitchers |
0 |
1 |
0 |
3 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
2 |
- |
7 |
12 |
1 |
| Hitters |
2 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
3 |
0 |
0 |
2 |
- |
7 |
12 |
1 |
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Check out the BE
Sitemap
for More Stuff, including
Best Ever Lists by Team
By Pitchers, Position Players and More |
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Baseball
Evaluation
and all materials on this site are the 2009 Copyright and
intellectual property of JDP ECON and their licensors. All
worldwide
rights reserved. The Baseball Evaluation system was developed
independently of Major League Baseball and the Major League Baseball
Players Association and is not endorsed by or associated in
any
way with either organization.
Note:
All Baseball Evaluation Stats were developed by JDP Econ
& are the proprietary property of JDP ECON. All
rights
reserved.
If Baseball Evaluation stats are used in articles,
etc.,
please
credit baseballevalution.com. |
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