30 Responses to “Willie Randolph”

1. Gerry Says:
   March 20th, 2011 at 7:02 pm

   Any list that has Randolph 2nd and Eddie Collins 10th is not to be used for making decisions about the Hall of Fame.

2. Dvd Avins Says:
   March 20th, 2011 at 7:08 pm

   Most of Collins' career is excluded, coming before 1920.

3. Spartan Bill Says:
   March 20th, 2011 at 7:14 pm

   Maybe the 13 Gold gloves have something to do with it?

4. DavidRF Says:
   March 20th, 2011 at 7:48 pm

   I agree with #3. Defense isn't on the chart.

   Plus, these "low-HR" charts come up from time to time. While they are fun because they look at certain types of players, there's no bonus points for providing value without home runs. An HR is still the most valuable event in baseball so any list which excludes people who hit them comes with a large caveat.

   Randolph's an underrated player though. I wouldn't pick him over Ozzie (different position so apples and oranges anyways) but he wouldn't be an embarrassing pick. I'd vote for Grich and Whitaker first though.

5. depstein Says:
   March 20th, 2011 at 9:54 pm

   I can't believe it! A stolen base list that doesn't include Rickey Henderson!

6. Brett Says:
   March 20th, 2011 at 11:02 pm

   @5 - good call. All those homers finally came back to haunt him... 😉

7. Kevin Says:
   March 20th, 2011 at 11:12 pm

   First name that came to mind: Vince Coleman. But there is no VC here. Turns out his WAR is 9.4 and it looks there was a cutoff at WAR = 10 for this list. Poor Vince.

8. Phil Jacobson Says:
   March 20th, 2011 at 11:16 pm

   Regarding what Depstein said, something doesn't seem right. Henderson should be on the list. As an example from 1980-1990 he had 165 HR, 903 SB and 82.1 WAR. Was there another variable used in generating this list?

9. Kevin Says:
   March 20th, 2011 at 11:26 pm

   For his career Rickey had 295 HRs (*5 = 1475) and 1406 SBs. 14 fewer HRs and he would have made it.

10. Phil Jacobson Says:
    March 21st, 2011 at 12:39 am

    I understand that for his career Henderson doesn't qualify for this list, but Eddie Collins is on the list for an 11-year span even though his career was 25 seasons and 2826 games.

11. Doug Says:
    March 21st, 2011 at 3:23 am

    Among those who DID make this list, Lou Brock stands out on the power side - 80% more homers than the 2nd highest HR total (Aparicio), with Delino DeShields (seriously) at #3.

    @9. But, of course, Henderson blows away Brock (and everyone else) with almost double Brock's homer total and 50% more stolen bases.

    In addition to Henderson and Brock, Cobb, Raines, Morgan, Lofton, Lopes, Cedeno, Bonds and Molitor are the 500+ SB / 100+ HR club.

12. Doug Says:
    March 21st, 2011 at 3:51 am

    @10 and Eddie Collins.

    Whether you count his entire career or just his time from 1920 onwards, Eddie easily qualifies for this list. For his career, his SB / HR ratio is a whopping 15.8 .

    I wonder, though, whether or not Eddie would have been better served in running less. For the seasons for which there are CS data, Eddie's steal success rate is only 67.3%. In a low-run environment, are you better off preserving baserunners at all costs because runs and dear? Or, do you try to get into scoring position at all costs, because runs are dear?

13. Doug Says:
    March 21st, 2011 at 4:23 am

    Why Ozzie in HOF and not Randolph? Good question.

    Eyeballing their offensive numbers, lots of similarities and Randolph does show up at #9 on Ozzie's similarity score list.

    On HOF tests, for Black ink/Gray ink/HOF standards, very similar again with Ozzie at 2/51/35 and Willie at 2/39/34. But, HOF Monitor shows a clear preference for Ozzie at 142 to 92.

    If you go by HOF standards, neither should be in the Hall. But, how do you keep out Ozzie who was absolutely peerless in making highlight plays. Clearly, style matters and Ozzie had it, while Willie was merely steady and reliable.

14. Adam Darowski Says:
    March 21st, 2011 at 7:31 am

    wWAR ranks Randolph 13th all time among second basemen (right behind Lou Whitaker and Joe Gordon). Gordon is actually a nice example of how wWAR rewards peak value. By standard WAR, Randolph has a 5.6 WAR lead on Gordon. But after the peak is factored, Gordon's wWAR is ahead of Randolph's by 7.0, a full 12.6 win swing.

    wWAR also has Randolph ahead of Hall of Famers Billy Herman, Bid McPhee, Tony Lazzeri, Johnny Evers, Bobby Doerr, Nellie Fox, Red Schoendienst, and Bill Mazeroski.

    None of those really strikes me as a revelation.

15. Atom Says:
    March 21st, 2011 at 9:49 am

    The REASON (which is not to say it should be this way)Smith is in and Randolph isn't was because Ozzie was seen as the greatest defensive shortstop of all time. Willie Randolph was seen as a good defensive shortstop whose main offensive attribute, the ability to get on base at a excellent rate, we very undervalued in his era.

16. Phil Jacobson Says:
    March 21st, 2011 at 10:27 am

    If you use Collins' entire career instead of just 1920-1930, he dominates this list with 126.7 WAR (47 HR, 741 SB.)

17. Phil Jacobson Says:
    March 21st, 2011 at 10:34 am

    Ah, I see it now. Collins (and several others) only has a portion of his career listed due to the 1920 cutoff. For everyone else, it covers their entire career. Sorry for sounding like a noob.

18. Juan sin Miedo Says:
    March 21st, 2011 at 10:39 am

    To begin with i just want to say that Willie and Ozzie are very comparable but are very differenct also. The one big difference is that Willie was a Second Baseman and Ozzie was a Short Stop. Now their similarities are numerous Willie played 18 seasons and Ozzie played 19, They Both averaged about 125 Hits per season, 2 HRs per year, 40 RBI's per year and career BA near the .270 range. Now their fielding is different but they played different positions with Ozzie edging Willie 679 Chances per year compared to Willies 635 chances and Assists 440 per year as compared to 352 per season for Willie. Their errors per season were almost identical with Willie at 13 and Ozzie at 14. I feel it is the Gold Gloves and All Star appearences that seperate these two (13 for Ozzie, None for Willie) this makes Ozzie much more visable and therfore elected to the Hall of Fame.

19. Lawrence Azrin Says:
    March 21st, 2011 at 11:36 am

    @12/ EDDIE COLLINS - a 67.3 Stolen Base % is actually very good for the dead-ball era. As the offensive level goes down and runs become more valuable, so does the break-even rate for SB%. If you consider that there were probably more errors and muffs on stolen base attempts (as there were many more errors overall, 90 - 100 years ago) , the "break-even" point was probably a little bit above 50%.

    The caveat here is that we have only scattered info on Eddie Collin's SB% for his career, and only four of twelve years in the dead-ball era, so his SB% could be quite a bit less than 67.3%.

    @13/ Willie Randolph for the HOF?
    Well I think one thing Ozzie had going for him is that he claimed the "Greatest Defensive Shortstop Ever" un-official designation relatively early in his career (and then became a decent offensive player), while Randolph was never considered in that rarefied level defensively, plus Bill Mazeroski had the "Greatest Defensive Second Baseman Ever" title pretty much sewn up.

    Also, Ozzie was considered the biggest star (or close to it) in St Louis for most of his career there, whereas Randolph was overshadowed by bigger names his entire time with the Yankees (Munson/ Guidry/ R. Jackson/ Winfield/ Mattingly/ Henderson). Ozzie was seen as an essential part of the Cardinals, whereas Randolph was seen as very good but "complimentary" type of player.

20. Juan sin Miedo Says:
    March 21st, 2011 at 12:00 pm

    I noticed Omar Visquel is not on this list but i wanted to compare his stats with those of Ozzie and Willie. Even though he has played 22 seasons as compared to Ozzies 19 and Willie 18 his Per Season Numbers are very similiar except for Errors and Chances. Both Ozzie and Willie averaged around 13 errors per season and Omar averages just over 8 per season, But, Omar chances are a lot lower as compared to total chances by both Ozzie and Willie in lesser seasons ?? Omar also has a mantle full of Gold Glove award, will this be his ticket to cooperstown or will his lack of chances affect his chances ?? Just saying, I feel Omar has a good shot to be enshrined in Cooperstown one day, what do you say on this?

21. JDV Says:
    March 21st, 2011 at 12:40 pm

    Vizquel (400 SB; 80 HR). I guess he would be there if it SB greather than OR EQUAL TO 5*HR.

22. Downpuppy Says:
    March 21st, 2011 at 1:25 pm

    Kenny Lofton (622/130<5) has 65.3WAR

    I find it hard to picture most of the IBBs on this chart..

23. jiffy Says:
    March 21st, 2011 at 1:55 pm

    Re #22, I imagine a lot of them are like Ozzie- 41 of 79 came in the #8 hole, presumably in front of a pitcher in the NL.

24. Doug Says:
    March 21st, 2011 at 2:29 pm

    @19 and Eddie Collins.

    "If you consider that there were probably more errors and muffs on stolen base attempts (as there were many more errors overall, 90 - 100 years ago) , the "break-even" point was probably a little bit above 50%."

    Lawrence, maybe I'm not following your reasoning properly, but to me more errors and muffs on stolen base attempts means more stolen bases and a higher success rate. In other words, the steal rate on plays with errors/muffs is effectively 100%, so since there were more errors/muffs than today, the old-time steal rate is actually inflated relative to today.

    So, my thinking is a 67.3% steal rate for 90-100 years ago is more like a 50%-60% rate today, which no manager would countenance for long in today's game for a guy any siginificant number of steal attempts - such a guy would be getting the stop sign most of the time.

    In a low-run environment, does it really make sense to risk losing a baserunner with only a 2/3 chance of succeeding. Certainly the incremental improvement in run probability that that one base obtains should be higher in a low-run environment than in a high-run environment, but is the incremental gain enough to justify a 1/3 chance of reducing that run probability to zero.

    I don't know what the run probabilities for the different base/out scenarios were in Collins day. But, if (for example), if the numbers were something like 30% scoring probabilty with runner on 1st and 0 outs, and 50% if runner on 2nd, then attempting to steal with a 2/3 success rate would increase your chances of scoring by 10% or so (33.3% versus 30%). But, if the probabilities were lower (say, 40% to 20% for being at 2nd versus being at 1st), then clearly there would be more incremental value in attempting to steal.

    BTW, I'm presuming the RE24 and related stats are normalized in some way to correct for differences in eras. Does anyone know?

25. Lawrence Azrin Says:
    March 21st, 2011 at 3:45 pm

    @24/ Doug - when the offensive levels go down, one-run strategies such as base stealing and sacrifice bunting go up. With fewer runs per game, each individual run is more valuable, which makes it worth the risk trying to steal (or at least the manager thinks so...). In higher offensive periods, there are more baserunners and extra-base hits - in short, there are more oppurtunities overall to score, so there is less need to attempt stolen bases.

    "...In a low-run environment, does it really make sense to risk losing a baserunner with only a 2/3 chance of succeeding..."

    Yes, and this situation was especially magnified in the dead-ball era, where there were hardly any home runs, and fewer walks and doubles (though more triples). I am not argueing what the optimum strategy _should_ be occording to our current analysis, but what the base-stealing strategy actually has been over baseball history.

26. kds Says:
    March 21st, 2011 at 4:34 pm

    @24/ Doug; When there are errors then a success by the batter/base runner goes into the books as a failure. If the batter reaches on an error he gets an AB but no hit, so it lowers his batting average and OBA. Similarily for stolen bases. If, in the judgement of the official scorer, he "should" have been out but for the error, he gets a CS not a SB.

    Suppose there are now 2% errors on SBA that change out to safe. Then we are changing an official SB% from 70% to 72%. Back in Collins' day there may have been 6% errors of that type. If so then 67% in the books would be 73% in actuality, and better than 70% in the books today. (All numbers made up for this exercise.)

27. Doug Says:
    March 21st, 2011 at 8:12 pm

    @26.

    Kds: yes, I grant you that it is the scorer's discretion but, from my observation in today's game (and for the past 30 years or more), it is nearly always scored as a SB. Even when the throw is right there and the fielder just misses the catch, it seems that if the baserunner is even remotely in the vicinity of the bag when the throw comes in, he will get credit for the SB. Almost the only errors that are ever actually charged are for allowing the runner to advance on to third (or home). A runner would seemingly have to stumble and fall half-way to second not to be credited with a SB on a wild throw into center (for example).

    However, that's today, and official scoring may well have been different back in Collins day. So, yes, my suggestion that Collins success rate may be inflated because of more errors in his time was based on how steal plays are usually scored today.

    Certainly, with a lot more errors to deal with in the old days, it's not inconceivable that different protocols may be evolved on how to interpret and score certain types of plays. And, perhaps, a fielder failing to snag a good throw and apply the tag may have been scored as a CS more often then than it is now. Perhaps because it happened more often and perhaps because runners in heavy wool uniforms and low-tech shoes were, on a whole, probably slower than today and thus more likely to be thrown out by sizable margins. But, I suppose we'll never really know for sure.

28. DavidRF Says:
    March 21st, 2011 at 8:19 pm

    @16
    Re: Collins and pre-1920.

    I just noticed that Collins wouldn't be first going back pre-1920. It would be Ty Cobb. Cobb doesn't make the list above because his SB/HR ratio is too low after 1920. His stolen bases were way down in the 1920s and he hit home runs (when he wanted to) :-).

    For his full career though, this SB/HR ratio (897/117) is well over five and he had a whopping 159.4 WAR.

    Though it could be that the 1920 cutoff was not because that's where the dailies get cutoff (these are full year stats we're looking at anyways). This is probably a "live-ball" chart. Its likely that Cobb's eight SLG titles would have translated to more HR's in livelier offensive times.

29. TapDancingTeddy Says:
    March 22nd, 2011 at 5:58 pm

    I've always been a fan of Randolph, and so, I'm glad to see him near the top of any list where the quality of his play is recognized.

    As for Mark Belanger, I'm probably the only person I know who thinks he was as good as Ozzie Smith. Nice to see his glove got him close to the top 10.

30. John Autin Says:
    March 24th, 2011 at 4:27 pm

    Teddy @29 -- If you're comparing Belanger and Ozzie on defense only, then there's certainly a strong case in your favor. Over their entire careers, Belanger had almost as much defensive WAR as Ozzie (20.9 to 21.6), but he did it in about 40% fewer defensive innings. Belanger had 6 seasons of at least 2 dWAR; Ozzie had only 1 such year.

    But when it comes to offense ... well, you know.