Segregation-adjusted WAR leaderboard

Good points what you said. But on the issue of games played, the Negro Leaguers always played a lot of games, that's the only way they could make money. Baseball-Reference was just able to capture their U.S. newspaper boxscores that were published. So, that's like a fraction of what these guys did. Historical accounts say these NNL players were involved in 200 games a year, whether NNL or Cuban leagues, Mexican leagues, many barnstormer non-league games. So, if one extrapolates from what Josh Gibson has recorded on Baseball-Reference, that's pretty awesome.

In other words, we don't know. And while Josh may have had a shorter career -- it was still 14 years, not bad -- than the Babe, there's every reason to think based on the prolific accounts of him that he was as good as the Babe or better. Just saying.

I apologize, Max, I know this was not your intention to get into a Josh Gibson debate. You've done wonderful work here, and we appreciate you contributing this. My criticism is more with the guy doing the MLE projections. There's a lot we don't know about how the NNLers played, no records exist. But what we do know, example Josh, leads one to think they had these performances in many many more games per year.

No apologies necessary! Discussing baseball history and analytics is one of my favorite pastimes, and Gibson's MLE is definitely the most noteworthy and controversial.

I didn't realize the black players of that era were playing so many games, that's really interesting. In that case I would definitely like to know more about the decision to project him as a 1B. Maybe it's just as simple as there was no precedent in the white majors of a hitter that good staying at catcher, so the assumption is that the logic white teams used would have prevailed, i.e., Gibson wouldn't have been able to convince them to do something that had literally never been done before. Or maybe Chalek is simply getting too cute with the most important MLE. Think I'll leave a comment on his blog with a link to this post, if we're lucky maybe he'll enlighten us.

Oh hey, found this post I hadn't seen before, looks relevant: https://homemlb.wordpress.com/2021/06/2 ... t-baseman/

Great work. OK, a question and a surprise.

The scores listed are the players' adjusted WAR total divided by the 276th-best HOF-eligible player's total. So Ray Lankford's score is 81, meaning his adjusted WAR total is 81% of the player at the HOF borderline, Brian Downing (whose score is 100).

The way it was normalized, I was looking for the 100 point number to correspond to a player at #276 so that 276 players would have statistics at or above HOF level = 100.
But Brian Downing is #307 with 100 points.


The surprise is that Koufax shows up as #230.
I know his career was relatively short but then I saw Pedro #46 at and Curt Schilling at #58.
If I should focus more on a contemporary era player, Drysdale is #79 and Bob Gibson is #37.

I'm just going by memory, gut feel and reputation. But I expected to see Koufax higher. Maybe I just don't know the career statistics that well.

Thanks lab.

Downing is #307 overall but he's #276 amongst HOF-eligible players.

Koufax always fares poorly by straight WAR, partially because he spent his career in an all-time pitcher friendly environment. On bbref he ranks #326 all-time in WAR. His HOF case is based almost entirely on his insane peak (and his cultural importance). Once I figure out what peak adjustment I want to use and implement that, he'll definitely shoot up the chart. But this list is based only on WAR with no extra credit for high peaks, so that's why his score seems underwhelming. He's a common thorn in the side for WAR-based HOF rating systems. My favorite one is Hall of Stats (from which I took the idea of setting the borderline at 100), which has him way down at the HOF borderline with a score of 102, even after including a peak adjustment (although tbh this just says to me that Adam's peak adjustment probably isn't large enough). So I guess I'm pleased that he's already well past the borderline by my numbers even without crediting his peak.

Like I said, MaxPower, you are ripe for an MLB front office analytics job. I'd like to help you, but my connections are very old and likely gone. I used to know the Pirates PR guy, but he's left. Scratching my head now...

Like I said, MaxPower, you are ripe for an MLB front office analytics job. I'd like to help you, but my connections are very old and likely gone. I used to know the Pirates PR guy, but he's left. Scratching my head now...

My Uncle Ross who taught me Strat and taught math at the Air Force Academy just had two interviews for an analytics job with the Mariners but ultimately didn't get it. But man, if he had, I bet I could've barnacled myself into that situation somehow. Or at least get to watch some games from some swanky suites. Honestly though I'm just a hobbyist, I don't know any programming languages or have any real background in math or stats.

It is interesting to rank baseball's best using a purely statistical, on the field approach that compares players against their peers.
There is a big element of the "eye test" in the HOF election process.

Koufax had it.
Curt Schilling and Bobby Grich didn't.

And then there's the shadow Hall with Bonds, Clemens, A Rod, etc.

I hate to keep asking questions.
Are you considering playoffs and world series or just regular season performance?

Happy to answer any and all questions!

No, postseason is not included.

I'd include Schilling in that Shadow Hall. He would have been elected years ago if he had been ~30% less deplorable. Even the folks who vote against him usually admit as much.