I decided to check on how Phelps did in the leagues I've played in. I noted some basic stats in the six season in which he was actually used. His average BA in those six seasons was .207--this is based on a total of 1089 AB and 225 H.
Overall, here's what you get, in order of season:
AB /BA /OBP / SLG/ OPS
75 /.120 /.313 /.256/ .579
114/.184 /.347 / .325/ .672
384/.224/ .357 / .435 .792
206/.228/.364 / .413 /.767
244/.217/.363/ .529/.892
66 / .136/.227/ .212/ .439
It does seem fairly clear, assuming these stats are reasonably typical, that Phelps is taking a worse than usual hit on his BA. I guess the question is whether his walks and HR are enough to compensate for the low BA. There is one quite good OPS in the mix, and each manager is free to make his own decision. Personally, I have to say I think that Gamble, Easler or Kemp might give you a better overall package, most of the time, and they will be cheaper, too.
Ken Phelps, etc: A theory on Low BA, High BB, High HR guys
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by Outta Leftfield » Thu Oct 13, 2005 3:47 pm
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by DOUGGRAY » Thu Oct 13, 2005 4:52 pm
Wow, Those results arent near what I get from him..
I would say usage might be a problem. Most people honestly dont know how to use a player like him.
I have had 3 seasons of 900+ OPS from Phelps. You have shown 1 over 800, which is incredible. Then again. Post more, I like him available in any of my leagues :D
I would say usage might be a problem. Most people honestly dont know how to use a player like him.
I have had 3 seasons of 900+ OPS from Phelps. You have shown 1 over 800, which is incredible. Then again. Post more, I like him available in any of my leagues :D
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by Mean Dean » Thu Oct 13, 2005 5:12 pm
I don't understand the logic of the argument here. Sure, your league's pitchers will give up fewer singles off their cards than occur in a real-life season, because most of the bad pitchers aren't used. But... your league's pitchers will also give up fewer doubles, walks, and homers too. They're just better pitchers. So I dunno why you'd single out (so to speak) singles as the decisive factor. Don't the NON-walkers end up getting fewer walks off the pitchers' cards than the gamemakers expected, thus making [i:c785e9ac31]them[/i:c785e9ac31] less valuable? I don't see why the whole thing wouldn't even out.
FWIW, Phelps '84 hit 232/355/513 for me at County Stadium (26 HR in 306 AB).
FWIW, Phelps '84 hit 232/355/513 for me at County Stadium (26 HR in 306 AB).
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Factors
by honestiago1 » Thu Oct 13, 2005 5:33 pm
There are a lot of factors to consider, of course, in this whole discussion. What about ball parks, for instance? What parks was Pehlps in during the aforementioned years? And how many parks in the league were hitter's parks? The league I'm in right now is fairly balanced between hitters, pitchers and neutral parks. I wonder what the average league has, with regards to balance. Seems to me there's always at least one Fenway, 1 or 2 Royals stadiums, a Murph, and a Yankee Stadium (or two). I haven't been in a league with the Kingdome (not saying much, I'm only on my second team), and have played in Fenway.
I agree with the idea that Phelps is perhaps being misused. He needs to play in a hitter's park, and, in a few cases (card) platoon against RHP's. This is exactly why I wouldn't normally bid for him -- he's damned expensive, and fits in best with an Earl Weaver type style.
I agree with the idea that Phelps is perhaps being misused. He needs to play in a hitter's park, and, in a few cases (card) platoon against RHP's. This is exactly why I wouldn't normally bid for him -- he's damned expensive, and fits in best with an Earl Weaver type style.
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by YountFan » Thu Oct 13, 2005 5:42 pm
OK, I'm taking the Phelps challenge. I am 72 games in to a season where all teams play in jack Murphy (perfect for Phelps I would imagine). I need OBA so I'll hit him 5th and and see what happens. Out of respect for penn I'll try hard not to drop him.
YF
YF
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by YountFan » Thu Oct 13, 2005 6:46 pm
And Phelps will be platooned playing vs RHP only. He has been 'battle tested' by two teams already.
Team #1: 18 at bats, no hits and 5 walks. BA/SLG/OBA=.000/.000/.207
Team #2: 29 at bats 7 hits, 1 double, 2 homers and 3 walks BA/SLG/OBA=.241/.483/.313
Lets see what he can do for me.
Team #1: 18 at bats, no hits and 5 walks. BA/SLG/OBA=.000/.000/.207
Team #2: 29 at bats 7 hits, 1 double, 2 homers and 3 walks BA/SLG/OBA=.241/.483/.313
Lets see what he can do for me.
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by Outta Leftfield » Thu Oct 13, 2005 8:39 pm
[quote:c8689ee6ed]Lets see what he can do for me.
[/quote:c8689ee6ed]
You go, YountFan! :D Let's consider this an experiment--if not quite a statistically significant one.
Regarding penn's observations: I can't say for sure how the other managers were handling Phelps, though nobody gave him more than 384 at bats, which might imply they were platooning him. My own experience with Phelps was the briefest and worst--just 66 AB and a .439 OPS. I was, however, under virtually ideal conditions: a strict platoon vs. RHP in Riverfront, a good HR park. I may be jaundiced by this brief and unhappy experience.
No doubt we're all influenced by our inevitably limited experiences and observations, which are often too limited to have any statistical significance. Other people on the boards have dumped on Hassey, Moseby, Bell and DeCinces, who have all performed very well for me in a season or two--so I think they're good. I may be dumping on Phelps because over the six season's in which I've had to observe him he's not been very successful--perhaps due to nothing more than random chance-- but it's also possible that we're seeing a condition relating to Phelps's performance that's more general to the 80's game.
As to DeanTSC's query: I may be wrong. I'm no math whiz. But it seems from the construction of Phelps's cards that he's unusually dependent on the pitchers card for his BA. So his BA might be hurt more than most hitters if the pitchers are better. Eddie Murray and Phelps have almost identical OBP/SLG/OPS. Murray is 380/503/884 and Phelps is 384/503/887. Now everyone would agree that Murray is a better player, so this might not seem a fair comp, but if we remove the issues of defense and platoon balance for a minute and just focus on OBP/SLG/OPS, it would be hard to find two more similar players. The main difference between them as hitters is that a lot more of Murray's OBP and SLG comes from BA (a .295 average overall). A much smaller portion of Phelp's value comes from BA.
Murray has a lot of hits on his cards and if the pitchers in the 80's have fewer hits than the Strato designers had planned for, he can suck it up and still do well. He might hit .280 or .270 over 1089 ABs but he sure aint gonna hit .207. In fact, one year Eddie hit .353 for me with 45 HR and a 1.079 OPS. I've see Eddie have a similar year on another team. Another year all I got out of Murray was .281 with a .792 OPS. But the bottom of Eddie's range might not go a whole lot below that--maybe .250/720 over 1089 AB but probably not what we saw from Phelps.
What I'm wondering is whether Phelps isn't hurt more than Eddie by the loss of hits the on pitchers cards. A player who can hit .250 (as Phelps did in real life) has some value. If he can also walk and hit homers, he has a LOT of value. But it seems to me that if a player can only hit .207 over 1089 AB, it's hard for even a lot of walks and homers to carry him back to the level of being a very good player. Since Phelps is also one of the most expensive pure platoon DH's in the game, I'm wondering if he really represents good value. Ultimately it would be nice to be able to look at 100 season of Phelps, employed as a platoon DH in a HR park and Murray used an everyday player a random sampling of parks and see who had the higher OPS over those 100 seasons.
We wouldn't be comparing who was the better player overall (we know Eddie was that) but who could best maintain OPS in the 80s environment. My money would be on Steady Eddie. :wink:
[/quote:c8689ee6ed]
You go, YountFan! :D Let's consider this an experiment--if not quite a statistically significant one.
Regarding penn's observations: I can't say for sure how the other managers were handling Phelps, though nobody gave him more than 384 at bats, which might imply they were platooning him. My own experience with Phelps was the briefest and worst--just 66 AB and a .439 OPS. I was, however, under virtually ideal conditions: a strict platoon vs. RHP in Riverfront, a good HR park. I may be jaundiced by this brief and unhappy experience.
No doubt we're all influenced by our inevitably limited experiences and observations, which are often too limited to have any statistical significance. Other people on the boards have dumped on Hassey, Moseby, Bell and DeCinces, who have all performed very well for me in a season or two--so I think they're good. I may be dumping on Phelps because over the six season's in which I've had to observe him he's not been very successful--perhaps due to nothing more than random chance-- but it's also possible that we're seeing a condition relating to Phelps's performance that's more general to the 80's game.
As to DeanTSC's query: I may be wrong. I'm no math whiz. But it seems from the construction of Phelps's cards that he's unusually dependent on the pitchers card for his BA. So his BA might be hurt more than most hitters if the pitchers are better. Eddie Murray and Phelps have almost identical OBP/SLG/OPS. Murray is 380/503/884 and Phelps is 384/503/887. Now everyone would agree that Murray is a better player, so this might not seem a fair comp, but if we remove the issues of defense and platoon balance for a minute and just focus on OBP/SLG/OPS, it would be hard to find two more similar players. The main difference between them as hitters is that a lot more of Murray's OBP and SLG comes from BA (a .295 average overall). A much smaller portion of Phelp's value comes from BA.
Murray has a lot of hits on his cards and if the pitchers in the 80's have fewer hits than the Strato designers had planned for, he can suck it up and still do well. He might hit .280 or .270 over 1089 ABs but he sure aint gonna hit .207. In fact, one year Eddie hit .353 for me with 45 HR and a 1.079 OPS. I've see Eddie have a similar year on another team. Another year all I got out of Murray was .281 with a .792 OPS. But the bottom of Eddie's range might not go a whole lot below that--maybe .250/720 over 1089 AB but probably not what we saw from Phelps.
What I'm wondering is whether Phelps isn't hurt more than Eddie by the loss of hits the on pitchers cards. A player who can hit .250 (as Phelps did in real life) has some value. If he can also walk and hit homers, he has a LOT of value. But it seems to me that if a player can only hit .207 over 1089 AB, it's hard for even a lot of walks and homers to carry him back to the level of being a very good player. Since Phelps is also one of the most expensive pure platoon DH's in the game, I'm wondering if he really represents good value. Ultimately it would be nice to be able to look at 100 season of Phelps, employed as a platoon DH in a HR park and Murray used an everyday player a random sampling of parks and see who had the higher OPS over those 100 seasons.
We wouldn't be comparing who was the better player overall (we know Eddie was that) but who could best maintain OPS in the 80s environment. My money would be on Steady Eddie. :wink:
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by YountFan » Thu Oct 13, 2005 9:12 pm
No one would disagree that Murray is a better player then Phelps, but, if you believe as peen does, that BA doesn't matter then then are similar players. Murray can hit lefties, which helps alot.., but when it come to creating the numbers needed to score runs OPS is king.
You can see by the artile that the correlation to scoring runs is highest with OPS and the lowest with BA. [url=http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=2596]Baseball Prospectus Basics[/url]
[code:1:69bab4b553]
Correl RMSE
Batting Average .828 39.52
On-base Percentage .866 34.16
Slugging Percentage .890 31.56
On-base plus slugging .922 25.54
Equivalent Average .928 24.13
[/code:1:69bab4b553]
Accoriding the Baseball Prospectus the EqA of [url=http://www.baseballprospectus.com/dt/phelpke01.shtml]Phelps[/url] and [url=http://www.baseballprospectus.com/dt/murraed02.shtml]Murray[/url] are about the same:
Phelps .314 .322 .324 .340 .275
Murray .303 .328 .326 .334 .288
They both produce runs at the same rate, but because Murray plays vs lefties he will produce more runs over the course of a season due to having more PA.
You can see by the artile that the correlation to scoring runs is highest with OPS and the lowest with BA. [url=http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=2596]Baseball Prospectus Basics[/url]
[code:1:69bab4b553]
Correl RMSE
Batting Average .828 39.52
On-base Percentage .866 34.16
Slugging Percentage .890 31.56
On-base plus slugging .922 25.54
Equivalent Average .928 24.13
[/code:1:69bab4b553]
Accoriding the Baseball Prospectus the EqA of [url=http://www.baseballprospectus.com/dt/phelpke01.shtml]Phelps[/url] and [url=http://www.baseballprospectus.com/dt/murraed02.shtml]Murray[/url] are about the same:
Phelps .314 .322 .324 .340 .275
Murray .303 .328 .326 .334 .288
They both produce runs at the same rate, but because Murray plays vs lefties he will produce more runs over the course of a season due to having more PA.
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by Outta Leftfield » Thu Oct 13, 2005 10:47 pm
YF,
I think you may have missed my point. :wink:
I'm not by any means arguing that BA is more important than OPS. I don't believe it is. I'm only interested in BA [b:dee71e638e]as it contributes to OPS.[/b:dee71e638e] The question my previous message closed with was to ask, specifically: [quote:dee71e638e]who could best maintain OPS in the 80s environment[/quote:dee71e638e].
Good luck to YF on his experiment and sorry, penn, if I went over the top.
[Edited to be shorter and...well...less excessive. "Lighten up, young man." :wink]
I think you may have missed my point. :wink:
I'm not by any means arguing that BA is more important than OPS. I don't believe it is. I'm only interested in BA [b:dee71e638e]as it contributes to OPS.[/b:dee71e638e] The question my previous message closed with was to ask, specifically: [quote:dee71e638e]who could best maintain OPS in the 80s environment[/quote:dee71e638e].
Good luck to YF on his experiment and sorry, penn, if I went over the top.
[Edited to be shorter and...well...less excessive. "Lighten up, young man." :wink]
Last edited by Outta Leftfield on Fri Oct 14, 2005 7:21 am, edited 2 times in total.
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