September 28, 2010

            Brackets:

Baltimore Regional

Cleveland Regional

St. Louis Regional

Los Angeles Regional

BUDDY BELL 59, LANSFORD 55

            Buddy Bell used a 16-3 advantage in defense to escape defeat in a game that would otherwise have belonged to Carney Lansford.

            Bell and Lansford, contemporary players, were almost even in career on-base percentage (.341, .343) and slugging percentage (.406, .411), giving them almost the same OPS.    This was reflected in an evenly played contest in which Bell led early 11-10, then trailed 43-39 through five frames.   But Bell’s Gold Glove defense, combined with Lansford’s extremely limited range, gave Bell a huge advantage in the defensive comparison, putting him ahead 55-46 too late in the game for Lansford to rally.

            Lansford’s defense is something that we have talked a lot about, and I don’t want to go over that stuff again.   Lansford had a long career—14 years as a regular—and, in his good years, his offense was more than enough to compensate for his bad defensive habits.

Carney Lansford—Career Won and Lost Contributions

ROLLIN’, ROLEN, ROLLIN’

            Scott Rolen used big advantages in plate discipline and hitting for average to drive to an easy victory over #1 seed Gary Gaetti.    Gaetti becomes the first #1 seed to be eliminated from the tournament. 

            Rolen earlier defeated Ken Boyer by four points—and, in truth, Boyer would have defeated Gaetti almost as easily as did Rolen.   While Gaetti had a 20-year major league career and did have his points as a player, he was in reality sort of the Danny Darwin of third baseman—a player who had as many bad years as good ones, and just as bad.    Gaetti was very strong.   He had excellent power, an accurate arm, and was mechanically outstanding at third base—excellent positioning, balance, reactions, form.   He didn’t make mistakes.  He was also slow, a .250 hitter, and he didn’t walk.   He played in a relatively high-run context (19^th highest among the 66 players.)  He never had an MVP-type season, and, at least when he was with Kansas City, he was a lousy teammate.

            A .308 on-base percentage, for a hitter, is like a 4.50 ERA for a pitcher, a 38% field goal percentage for a basketball player, a felony conviction for a financial adviser or bad breath for a blind date:  you almost don’t need to ask what the rest of the information is.

Gary Gaetti—Career Won and Lost Contributions

Run Context for Each Player

            The chart below gives the offensive context in which each player performed.   We start with the league average of runs per game, and modify that by the appropriate park adjustment factor.   This total (PARG, or Park-Adjusted Runs Per Game) we multiply by the player’s plate appearances for each season, and divide the total by career plate appearances.    The player in the tournament who performed in the highest-run environment was Billy Nash; in the lowest-run context, Ken McMullen.