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Going Out on Top

By Bill James

December 14, 2011

I had a question recently in "Hey, Bill" about players who went out on top; players who were very good players in their last major league season. I kind of blew off the question by saying we’d already been through that, but later it occurred to me that this is still an interesting question, so here goes. . .an All-Star team of players who retired after having played well and played almost full time in their last season.

Catcher—Dave Nilsson, last year, 1999, 21 homers, 62 RBI, .309. .954 OPS. Reason for retirement: Had serious injury, went back to Australia, got real fat and wasn’t able to get back in the game.

Alternate—Darren Daulton, last year, 1997, 14 homers, 63 RBI, .263. Reason for retirement: bad knees, colorful lifestyle.

Alternate—Thurman Munson, last year ,1979, 3 homers, 39 RBI, .288. Reason for retirement: poor aviation skills.

First Base—Will Clark, 2000, .319, 21 homers, 70 RBI. Reason for retirement: I think he just didn’t want to become a steroid junkie in order to stay in the game.

Alternate—Hank Greenberg, 1947, .249, 25 homers, 74 RBI, 104 walks. Reason for retirement: High personal standards.

Alternate—Roy Cullenbine, 1947, .224, 24 homers, 24 homers, 78 RBI. Reason for retirement: managers in that era genuinely didn’t understand that his 137 walks/.401 on base percentage made him a valuable man despite his low batting average.

Alternate—Tony Horton, 1970, .269, 17 homers, 59 RBI. Reason for retirement: serious mental health issues. Institutionalized.

Alternate—George Brett, 1993, .266, 19 homers, 75 RBI. Reason for retirement: age, high personal standards.

Second Base—Bobby Doerr, 1951, 13 homers, 73 RBI, .289. Reason for retirement: Dignity, injuries.

Alternate—Ray Durham, 2008, 6 homers, 45 RBI, .299. Reason for retirement: Not sure; I remember there was a big surplus of second basemen in the market that winter, and I think his agent may have missed the opportunity to land a good spot.

Alternate—Joe Gedeon, 1920, 0 homers, 61 RBI, .292. Reason for retirement: Black Sox Scandal.

Alternate—Joey Cora, 1998, 6 homers, 32 RBI, .276, 111 runs scored. Reason for retirement: Not sure.

Third Base—Buck Weaver, 1920, 2 homers, 74 RBI, .331, 208 hits. Reason for retirement: Black Sox Scandal.

Alternate—Tony Boeckel, 1923, 7 homers, 79 RBI, .298. Reason for retirement: Killed in a car wreck.

Alternate—Doug Rader, 1977, 18 homers, 67 RBI, .251. Reason for retirement: Don’t know.

Shortstop—Ray Chapman, 1920, 3 homers, 49 RBI, .303 average. Reason for retirement: Killed by a pitch.

Alternate—Sam Wise, 1893, .311, 5 homers, 77 RBI, .311, 102 runs scored. Reason for retirement: Don’t know.

Left Field—Joe Jackson, 1920, .382, 12 homers, 121 RBI. Reason for retirement: Scandal.

Alternate—Ted Williams, 1960, .316, 29 homers, 72 RBI. Reason for retirement: Age.

Alternate—Barry Bonds, 2007, .276, 28 homers, 66 RBI, 132 walks. Reason for retirement: Huge jackass, nobody wanted him around if he wasn’t going to hit .350 with 40 homers.

Alternate—Indian Bob Johnson, 1945, 12 homers, 74 RBI, .280. End of World War II brought the players back from Europe and created unusual pressures for roster space.

Center Field—Kirby Puckett, 1995, .314, 23 homers, 99 RBI, .314. Reason for retirement: Medical condition; I think it was glaucoma.

Alternate—Lyman Bostock, 1978, .296, 5 homers, 71 RBI. Reason for retirement: Murdered.

Alternate—Happy Felsch, 1920, .338, 14 homers, 115 RBI, 40 doubles, 15 triples. Reason for retirement: Scandal.

Right Field—Jermaine Dye, 2009, 27 homers, 81 RBI, .250. Reason for retirement: Why Dye no job?

Alternate—Larry Walker, 2005, .289, 15 homers, 52 RBI. Reason for retirement: Aging, bad knees, had made a lot of money.

Alternate—Buzz Arlett, 1931, .313, 18 homers, 72 RBI. Reason for retirement: Returned to minors. Was probably making more money as a superstar in the minors than playing for the Phillies.

Alternate—Roberto Clemente, 1972--.312, 10 homers, 60 RBI. Reason for retirement: Killed in plane crash.

Alternate—Paul O’Neill, 2001. 21 homers, 70 RBI, .267. Reason for retirement: Age, dignity.

DH—Albert Belle, 2000, .281, 23 homers, 103 RBI. Reason for retirement: Injury. Belle had a big-bucks contract which was insured so that his team was paid by the insurer if Belle couldn’t play at all. If Belle had tried to come back and had played at a diminished level, as 99% of injured players do, that would have let the insurance company off the hook, thus costing his team millions of dollars.

Starting Pitcher—Sandy Koufax, 1966, 27-9, 1.73 ERA, 317 strikeouts. Reason for retirement: arthritis, chronic fluid buildup in the elbow.

Starting Pitcher—Eddie Cicotte, 1920, 21-10, 3.27 ERA. Reason for retirement: Black Sox scandal.

Starting Pitcher—Mike Mussina, 2008, 20-9, 3.37 ERA. Reason for retirement: Too Old to Rock and Roll.

Starting Pitcher—Lefty Williams, 1920, 22-14, 3.91 ERA. Reason for retirement: Black Sox scandal.

Fifth Starter—Larry French, 1942, 15-4, 1.82 ERA. Reason for retirement: World War II. I think French actually was an Intelligence Officer in World War II, and stayed in the Navy after the War, eventually retired as a high-ranking officer.

Starting Pitcher—Henry (About) Schmidt, 1902, 22-13, 3.83 ERA. Reason for retirement: Texan who hated the East, didn’t want to come East to play baseball any more.

Closer—Robb Nen, 2002, 6-2, 43 Saves, 2.20 ERA. Reason for retirement: Injury.

Closer—Steve Olin, 1992, 8-5, 29 Saves, 2.34 ERA. Reason for retirement: Killed in a boating accident.

As you can see, for a productive player to retire has been much, much more common in the last fifteen years than it was before 1995. Part of this may be that some players did not want to continue taking steroids in order to stay in the game. Another part may have been that the very high salaries of modern baseball make it unnecessary for an aging player to hang on after his best days are behind him.

Others of note: Dave Orr, 1890, Ed Konetchy, 1921, Sam Dungan, 1901, Joe Adcock, 1966, Del Pratt, 1924, Scott Brosius, 2001, Al Rosen, 1956, Joe Wood, 1922, Curt Walker, 1930, Ty Cobb, 1928, Steve Evans, 1915, Bill Lange, 1899, Bill Joyce, 1898, Perry Werden, 1897, Piggy Ward, 1894, Ecky Stearns, 1889, Charlie Ferguson, 1887, Joe DiMaggio, 1951, Mickey Mantle, 1968, Chili Davis, 1999, Johnny Dickshot, 1945, Eddie Morgan, 1934, Bill Keister, 1903, Irv Waldren, 1901, Reggie Smith, 1982, Bernie Williams, 2006, Johnny Hodapp, 1933, Ross Youngs, 1926. Pitchers: Jim Hughes, 1902, Britt Burns, 1985, Allie Reynolds, 1954, John Tudor, 1990, Paul Derringer, 1945, Larry Jackson, 1968, Ed Doheny, 1903, Vin Lingle Mungo, 1945, Phil Douglas, 1922, Jeff Zimmerman, 2001, J. R. Richard, 1980, Spud Chandler, 1947.

The Re-Assuring Saga of the Jay-Walking Candidate

In the 1972 movie The Candidate Robert Redford plays a very nice-looking young man, a novice to politics, who runs for and wins a seat in the Senate. The character that Redford plays (Bill McKay) is essentially an empty vessel, not a bad man, but not a man who has any real ideas or any real substance, just a nice-looking, well-dressed, articulate, self-confident young man who can be used by others to gain power. The Candidate reflects a cynical view of politics that I think is still common, and especially common among reporters: that this is all a show, that politics are all flash and no substance, that the candidates are merely shills for behind-the-scenes Svengalis whose real agendas are known only to them.

There is something very comforting in the Presidential campaign of Rick Perry. Perry has a broad smile, great hair, a good voice, walks with a swagger and projects a great deal of self-confidence. Unfortunately, the man is a moron. I’m not saying this as a political judgment; he’s not a moron because I disagree with him about anything in particular; actually, I agree with him about many things. He’s just dumb as a post. I can’t ever remember anybody running for President who was just this frigging dense. I think he is probably a very nice man with good values, and the country would probably be fine if he was President, but I went through old lists of people who ran for President (Lamar Alexander, Dick Gephardt, Eugene McCarthy, Nelson Rockefeller, Dan Quayle) and I couldn’t find anybody with so limited an intellect who thought that he should be President.

Actually, even Rick Perry knows perfectly well that he has no business being President; he had to be dragged into this race kicking and screaming. I watch all the debates and then re-watch them several times; I enjoy them. The first few times that Perry said something extraordinarily silly I excused him and defended him to my friends, saying that I didn’t think he was actually dumb, he just sounded dumb because he panicked, which is a very easy thing to do when you are on stage or on television and people are looking at you. Perry would get into the middle of sentence, lose track of where he was going and what he was trying to say, and slap some rhetorical flourish onto the end of his sentence like "got to do what’s right for Amurica" or "bring some common sense back to Worshington," and hope that nobody would notice the difference. Sometimes the rhetorical flourish that ended the sentence didn’t fit at all with the first half of the declaration, so it sounded moronic, but. . .so what? This was what I said BEFORE he forgot what the third cabinet-level department he wanted to abolish was, and that event merely re-enforced this opinion: sometimes he panics in mid-sentence.

What it took me a while to accept is that he panics in mid-sentence because he knows that he doesn’t belong here; he knows perfectly well that he doesn’t have any well-developed ideas about any of the issues that he is supposedly discussing, and he is just trying to get through the sentence without revealing that his understanding of the issues would make Bill McKay look like Caspar Weinberger. This creates severe anxiety for him, which manifests itself in an inability to concentrate. Set that aside; when you set aside the times that he has panicked, when you excuse entirely the stupid things he has said because he got into the middle of a sentence and started looking around desperately for some rhetorical escape hatch, the fact remains that he doesn’t have any real understanding of roughly 97% of the issues he is supposed to be discussing. It’s not that he doesn’t know the things the other candidates know; he doesn’t know the things my 18-year-old son knows. Perry speaks of memorizing lists of names of Supreme Court justices—excuse me, Supreme Court judges—as is this was a feat that would test the capacities of Ken Jennings. My son knows not only who the justices are, but roughly how old they are, when they were put onto the court, who appointed them, and what their politics are. You could give Rick Perry a list of nine racehorses and nine Supreme Court justices, and it’s 50/50 whether he would have Harness Breaker as a thoroughbred or a strict constructionist.

He has fifteen or twenty sound bites that he has memorized, and when he is asked any question, he tries to find some way to affix one of his sound bites to the matter that he has been asked about. He virtually never answers the question he has been asked, not because he is being evasive but because he just doesn’t actually KNOW any of the answers. He has never really thought about these issues, or read about them, or studied them or been briefed about them in any depth. It is not that he is a bad man; he is just hopelessly out of his league.

Last summer, several of Newt Gingrich’s political operatives quit and went to work for Rick Perry. They were upset with Newt because they wanted to tell him where to go and what to say and how to run his campaign, and Newt’s not all that pliable; Da Newt’s gonna do what Da Newt wanna do. They bet instead on the Robert Redford playbook: just find this nice-looking, pleasant, agreeable candidate with a reasonable resume who represents a pocket of the political economy where there is a ton of money to work with, and his handlers and operatives can do the rest.

No, they can’t.

The real lesson of the Rick Perry campaign is that the Bill McKay scenario is a cynical myth, at least at the level of the Presidency; you can’t actually make some vacuous random alpha male into a credible candidate, at all. They couldn’t do it with John Edwards—although they came closer—and they couldn’t do it with Rick Perry. The system is not so easy to manipulate, after all.

The ABZ problem

I have been re-reading Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers, which, I would stress, is a very good book filled with interesting ideas. What Gladwell does successfully is something that I try to do on a more limited scale: to challenge people to think again about things that they assume they understand, to get them to back off and come at the issue from a different angle. There is, however, this paragraph, page 80:

What Hudson is saying is that IQ is a lot like height in basketball. Does someone who is five foot six have a realistic chance of playing professional basketball? Not really. You need to be at least six foot or six one to play at that level, and, all things being equal, it’s probably better to be six two than six one, and better to be six three than six two. But past a certain point, height stops mattering so much. A player who is six foot eight is not automatically better than someone two inches shorter. (Michael Jordan, the greatest basketball player ever, was six six after all.) A basketball player only has to be tall enough—and the same is true of intelligence. Intelligence has a threshold.

With regard to height and basketball, this is absolutely untrue; in fact, it could not be any more untrue. Height in basketball is not a "threshold" question, at all. Saying that it is a threshold question implies that the difference between being six foot and six-two is important, but the difference between being six-eight and six-ten is much less important. In fact, the opposite is true; the difference between being six-eight and six-ten is much more significant than the difference between being six foot and six-two. Any way that you studied the issue would show you that that is true. Graph the percentage of the male adult population of the United States which is in the NBA against height. If what Gladwell was saying was true, the graph would flatten out above the threshold. In fact, the opposite would happen: the rise in the graph would accelerate dramatically as the players got taller and taller.

What this really is is not a threshold question, but what I call and ABZ problem. An ABZ problem is a mathematical problem in which there are many variables, every one of which is critical to the outcome. A basketball game that ends 71-70 is an ABZ problem. There are 150 possessions in the game, roughly, but it isn’t that one of these possessions is critical, but that every possession is critical—or, at least, every possession on which the winning team scores is critical, and every possession on which the losing team does not score.

In an ABZ problem, if you have 95% of the information you need, you can’t solve the problem. If there are 150 possessions in a basketball game and you know what happened on 140 of them, you don’t know who won. You know who won if the game was 83-66, but if it was 71-70, you don’t. Scouting baseball players is an ABZ problem. A player has to have many different gifts to succeed in the major leagues, some of which you can observe by scouting him and some of which you can’t. In baseball we collect fantastic amounts of information about amateur players—and yet we are often totally wrong in evaluating them, because it’s an ABZ problem. If you have 95% of the information you need, you’re going to get the wrong answer a large percentage of the time—and you can’t get 100% of the information.

Height in basketball is not definitive not because it’s a threshold question, but because it’s an ABZ problem. When you ask "How tall is the player?" height is an advantage, and an increasing advantage as the player becomes increasingly tall. But you also have to ask, "How good a shooter is he?", and "How quick is he?" and "How well does he understand basketball?" and "How strong is he in the lower body?" and "How determined is he to fight for a rebound?" and "How willing is he to work on his game?", and probably a hundred other questions. It isn’t that one of these questions is critical and the others are not, and it isn’t that one of these questions is critical but only up to a point. It is, rather, that a very large number of players are fighting for a very limited number of seats at the table; therefore, no one advantage is sufficient to lift a player above the competition, and therefore, each of these questions is critical to the outcome.

COMMENTS (41 Comments, most recent shown first)

raincheck
Schoolshrink, you have a point, I am sure the managers I am talking may not measure real high on any intelligence test. I probably shouldn't call it a form of intelligence. But I have seen too many cases of people I would have, earlier in my life, dismissed as not too smart, demonstrate a consistent abillity to make good decisions and pick good people to work for them. And I've seen some incredibly smart people demonstrate a complete lack of ability to do the same. I'm not arguing for stupid leaders over smart ones. All things being equal, I want the smart ones. But selecting good people and making solid decisions are [i]skills[i] that can exist separate from strong verbal skills or ability to do complex mathematical tasks. It was one of the keys to my success in life that I (too slowly) realized that and put a lot of trust in people my biases had led me to underestimate.
11:27 AM Dec 28th

schoolshrink
raincheck, the idea of multiple intelligences is still theoretical. I tend not to buy the notion of multiple intelligences because the theory overrates the value of intelligence. It is a very American value to see how high is one's I.Q., and we like to make "yeah ... but" statements when some skills people have are contrary to what is generally assessed by tests of learn-ability. But the ability to learn and the efficiency at which one learns is still at the heart of what constitutes intelligence. There are many examples of people with high levels of intelligence but whose use of what they have is very dysfunctional. Normal individuals tend not to understand how Ted Bundy and Ted Kaczynski, among others, can be so dysfunctional with high intelligence. We also see Yo Yo Ma play the cello and wonder at his skill, but many fail to understand that he likely has a high level of general intelligence as well (though I don't know.)

Intelligence is an unfortunate concept because it is usually attributed to subsequent success, and there is a desire to make up for holes in a person's overall ability when there are learning disabilities or other problems in how certain people learn. In a recent post, Bill rightly suggested that learning to relax is at the heart of success for many persons. I have been teaching that idea for years, but also understand that it is hard for people to learn to do when their confidence has taken a hit. Some never recover from it, because failure is something they have not learned to handle, but also because many people do not know how to be successful. But most have enough intelligence, at least, to have a reasonably good life with the right support system, and I find it of little value to identify other intelligences that make up for problems people have with learning, in general. People need to understand their own skill sets and how to apply them, and for many that is a very hard thing to do.
7:37 PM Dec 23rd

raincheck
There are different types of intelligence. I have worked with a number of people who were not verbally gifted, but they were natural leaders, had great instincts for hiring people and consistently made good decisions. They were very successful.
Rick Perry has made it to a level where I assume he has some of those gifts. And those gifts will take you to a certain level. But verbal intelligence, and maybe a little more intelligence in general, is needed to be POTUS. I don't think you have to be cynical to have thought, "hey, I like this guy. I want to work to get him elected." But at this point his weakness is so clear you would have be cynical or deluded to keep thinking he is right guy.
1:40 PM Dec 22nd

greggborgeson
Bill, love the article, but trying to compare Edwards to Perry makes no sense. He does in fact LOOK the Redford part, but that is about it. He DID come from humble roots -- his father was a factory worker. He began as a highly successful trial lawyer, representing individuals against corporations and the government. His moral and ethical failings aside (and they were large), I don't see how you can call him vacuous. He was consistent in his beliefs and what he fought for from the start of his career, and had very deep command of the issues. He was enormously ambitious... so what? I see nothing he has in common with Perry or McKay except good looks.
6:29 AM Dec 21st

wovenstrap
In the case of Edwards, it's quite well known that his wife was extremely politically astute, the "brains" of the operation as it were. Edwards was a very successful trial attorney, which I suppose argues in favor of his intellect more so than not. You might argue that Edwards semi-qualifies as a stuffed shirt because it was really his wife who was so smart, but I don't think he and Perry really have that much in common.
4:16 PM Dec 19th

cderosa
When you make universal health care the central pillar of your campaign, that is, in fact, fighting for the little guy.

Perry has advocated extreme positions to the American people, which you argue he hasn't ever really thought out. He's a textbook example of political cynicism (Which in his case may be a lesser insult than to say he actually meant what he's said).

Chris DeRosa
11:25 AM Dec 18th

meandean
Billy Wagner recently (2010) retired after one of his usual insanely good seasons (7-2 W-L, 1.43 ERA, 37 saves, .865 WHIP, 104 K in 69.1 IP).
6:25 PM Dec 17th

markomachine
Came across a couple of other closers from the same era that seem to be similar cases. John Wetteland was an outstanding closer for several years, had 43 saves in 1999, and then had 34 saves in his last season for Texas in 2000. He wasn't as good as he had been a couple of years prior, but still was effective. Three years earlier, Todd Worrell was the closer for the Dodgers, led the league in saves in 1996 with 44, followed that up with 35 saves in 1997, then retired. Like Wetteland, his last year was not nearly up to his prior standards. Again, I don't think their final years are as good as the closers you identified, but they did go out with a high number of saves. I suppose they (or someone else) determined that they weren't up to snuff anymore, high saves or not. Thanks!
3:58 PM Dec 17th

bjames
Edwards was an empty shell. OK, I will grant you that he was a different TYPE of empty shell than Perry, but still. Edwards had emptied himself out in a cynical effort to portray himself as something he wasn't--a man of the people, fighting for the little guy. There is nothing cynical about Rick Perry, I don't think, but there is something cynical about the process of taking a man like this and presenting him to the American people as a serious Presidential candidate.
10:03 AM Dec 17th

cderosa
Edwards was *highly* engaged with his major issues, poverty and health care. To group him with Perry as an ignoramus is way off the mark.

Chris DeRosa
7:56 AM Dec 17th

bjames
1) Glad to see all the comments here; I get really jealous of Fleming when he gets all those comments.
2) Regarding Nilsson’s return to Florida. …I remember the Red Sox tried to “lure” him out of retirement about 2004; were told that he wanted to return but had been unable to get back into playing shape. Did he get hurt playing in Australia, maybe?
3) I am sure that Slemieux99 and areuss44 are right about the Movie; I was just commenting based on my memory of it from years ago. Which was sloppy of me, I acknowledge.
4) I actually had breakfast yesterday morning with a guy (political guy) who said he had spent three days with Perry within the last month (and had pictures to document). He firmly insisted that Perry is quite bright in informal settings, but just hasn’t been able to get to his message in debates. He attributes this in part to the fact that Perry was so popular in Texas that he hasn’t had to campaign in a long time, and his campaign skills have eroded. Imagine you’re a really good triple A baseball player, but then you take a year off and THEN get called straight to the majors. The fastballs are going to be coming at you a little too fast.
5) Won’t comment on the deaths because the subject was Great Last Seasons, not mid-career deaths. It blunts the impact of the first discussion to allow it to wander off on a side-track halfway through. . .creates a muddled discussion of two issues, rather than a useful discussion of one.

9:35 PM Dec 16th

jrickert
My recollection of Nilsson's retirement was that he wasn't injured but decided not to re-sign so that he could play for Australia's olympic baseball team. After that he bought the Australian League.
7:58 AM Dec 16th

rcberlo
Re the president elected in 1980 & 1984: My father was a science fiction fan, and some 60 years ago one of the SF mags surveyed SF writers for their predictions for the future. One of them said that, because of the rising importance of TV, some day an actor would be elected president.
6:58 PM Dec 15th

slemieux99
1)nobody was too young to die?

2)areuss44 beat me to it, but I read the Candidate very differently. I see the message as "Bill McKay is a smart, well-informed idealist. and these are three three demons you must slay if you want to beat Crocker Jarmon." There's a scene early in the film where he gives a direct, well-informed, very liberal answer to a question about abortion, and is told that it won't play ("but it's what I think," he protests.) Without endorsing it, the lesson that the film would seem to have for the GOP Primary is that it takes a certain level of smarts to convincingly play a charming but vacuous phony -- Romney has it, Perry doesn't.

Real good movie, btw. Ritchie was a fine director when he had a script to work with.
6:38 PM Dec 15th

rgregory1956
Hotstatrat, if you want to see what taking a year off does to a hitter's eye, take a look at Frank Baker's career. He retired twice in mid-career: the first time in a contract dispute, the second time to care for his kids after his wife died.
3:57 PM Dec 15th

hotstatrat
Jensen: good one. He was really outstanding - a 140 OPS+ over his last two seasons before his first retirement (4.6 and 5.0 WAR) and led the league in RBI both years.

He was a 97 OPS during his comeback. That only registered a 0.3 WAR. I've been told it is quite rare for a comeback to succeed after retirement. Anyone have any stats on that?

Another shocking retirement was Rob Richie - one of the Tigers' most promising prospects in 1990. As I recall, he quit because baseball conflcted with his Mormanism. He couldn't play on Sundays. Apparently, he found employment as a prison guard.
2:56 PM Dec 15th

MWeddell
In the close but no cigar camp ...

Jackie Jensen (RF, BOS) would have made this list when he returned before the 1960 season due to a combination of fear of flying and not wanting to be aware from his family so many days of the season. However, he took just a year off, returned for 1961 and posted a below average year, and then retired for good. His temporary retirement of course can't be detected when filtering a large data base.
1:37 PM Dec 15th

hotstatrat
Bill, perhaps, you deserve the blame or rather the credit for so many players retiring while still hitting decently in recent years. You got the baseball world looking more closely for quantifiable fielding stats, so that those players could no longer continue on just their reputations.

Similarly, you extended the careers of some players like John Olerud, who might have retired earlier as Roy Cullenbine did, because the baseball world now values walks thanks to the way you demonstrated their value in such a way that the world listened.

- John Carter
1:33 PM Dec 15th

hotstatrat
"there really aren't very many players who retired while still going strongly. "

. . . and probably most of them retired due to pain from injuries.

About the declining defense notion - I haven't actually checked that fact, but I do recall that being the case with a bunch of those more recent guys - and it is logical as defensive skills overall decline before hitting skills.

Can we count Barry Bonds among the players who were blacklisted?
1:23 PM Dec 15th

hotstatrat
Since we have so many fine players whose careers were cut short by death, I feel we need to acknowledge some extremely promising young players whose careers ended just before they could prove how good they were - such as Nick Adenhart and Ken Hubbs.

One pitcher missed your list (or I missed his name) who had proved he was excellent, but his career ended during his prime due to death: Darryl Kile.

I strongly agree with the observations that 1) many of those old guys who retired even though they were still effective with the bat, probably were not cutting it anymore with the glove 2) considering that and tossing out the guys who died or were blacklisted and there really aren't very many players who retired while still going strongly.
1:16 PM Dec 15th

flyingfish
rwarn17588: Thanks; you know more about Texas than I do. I actually was referring to getting elected as the success, but I can see I'm outnumbered here and I will accept the conclusion without further resistance.

FF

1:15 PM Dec 15th

rwarn17588
Flyingfish, the structure of Texas government is such that you could put a mackerel in the office and it could be regarded as decent. The governor of Texas probably has the least power of any state executive. To describe Perry as a "success" in that office is virtually an empty compliment.
12:10 PM Dec 15th

tangotiger
Bill: right, Jackie has a high run total there.

www.baseballprojection.com/war/r/robij103.htm

"TZ" is Total Zone, which is his fielding range, and ifDP would be his DP runs. There's also a "Pos Adj", which is his positional adjustment (tougher position, more runs). We see therefore that prior to 1956 (where get gets +20 runs for his fielding, including position), he's at +23 in 1951. In-between, he was +13 to -3.

So, that 1956 season does stick out like a sore thumb. If there's a particular bias that is not accounted for (as you are alluding to), then that bias will overwhelm the actual signal of his performance.

I should note that the above WAR is simply one implementation of the WAR framework. If I were to do it myself, I might come to a different conclusion.
8:47 AM Dec 15th

flyingfish
Bill: Thanks for responding. I appreciate what you are saying about Perry. I just have a hard time concluding that someone who has had considerable success--he's governor of Texas, after all--is as dumb as he seems. But I also am trying to counteract my tendency to call people dumb when I know I should be more nuanced. Hankgillette: Thanks to you, too. We can debate Koufax, but the general point is more important, and thanks for recognizing it. I'd like to hear Bill's take on it.
8:02 AM Dec 15th

hankgillette
flyingfish: I don't see how you can say Koufax didn't retire because of injury. Every time he pitched he did damage to his arm. Retiring or losing the use of your arm is hardly a choice.

I agree that it's not as interesting if someone's career is terminated by death or injury. Nor do I think being banned from baseball for life is "going out on top". But, you eliminate those, and you don't have very many players retiring after a good season. Most players don't leave until forced out for one reason or another.
12:30 AM Dec 15th

bjames
Yeah, Richie was one of the last cuts. He was pretty embarrased about the performance of the 1962 Mets. He could still get on base, but his legs were gone, and he knew he wasn't the player he had once been.
11:12 PM Dec 14th

markomachine
Bill....thanks for posting the "Going out on Top" article. Good stuff. Couple of other interesting cases, although probably not enough to make the team: Ed Delahanty, who was hitting .333 when he died in the middle of 1903 as he apparently had experienced an unhealthy combination of trains and water. Richie Ashburn in 1962 hit .306 with an OBP over .420 and made the All-Star team, but was likely experiencing severe depression from having to play on the '62 Mets. Thanks!
10:50 PM Dec 14th

bjames
Regarding Rick Perry's intelligence vs. merely being poorly informed. . ...I have occasionally been accused of cutting people an unrealistic number of breaks, but the number of breaks you have to cut Perry to avoid concluding he's a weed whacker is over the top to me. He frequently forgets what he is trying to say in the middle of a sentence, which can be explained by tension or anxiety; the fact is that MANY people--and many intelligent people--would mis-speak quite frequently if put into a high-pressure situation on television. We can cut him a break for that. Not seeming to know basic facts about the political system--like how many Supreme Court justices there are and the fact that they are called justices, rather than judges; this, I suppose, can be explained by just not paying attention to the debate. The fact that he seems to have the vocabulary of a shop teacher can, I suppose, be explained by his trying not to speak over the heads of the audience. The problem remains that, even given his limited supply of ready cliches--all of which I have heard many times by now--he can't even find the cliche that he is supposed to use in this particular situation. There are a great many questions to which he clearly is responding with the WRONG pre-fabricated answer. He will respond to questions about trade agreements with pre-fabricated answers clearly intended to respond to questions about the budget crisis. And then he will forget what it was he wanted to say about the budget crisis.
5:55 PM Dec 14th

meandean
you can’t actually make some vacuous random alpha male into a credible candidate, at all.

Or female. Not that I have anyone in particular in mind, of course.
5:45 PM Dec 14th

bjames
Sorry; stupid machine cut me off. Jackie Robinson in 1956 had an OPS of .794, good but hardly remarkable, played only 118 games, created only 59. His 4.6 WAR for that season seems to rest heavily on his defensive numbers at third, which included 173 assists in 595 innings, or 2.62 assists per nine innings, which is very high.

But this pretty clearly is an illusion of context. The 1956 Dodgers led the NL in third base assists, with 371; they also led in that category in 1955, with 379. But in 1956 the Dodgers other third baseman was Handsome Ransom Jackson, never regarded as a brilliant third baseman. With the Cubs the previous year Jackson's range factor had been 2.78; with the Dodgers in '56 it shot up to 3.35, even higher than Jackie's. Meanwhile, Don Hoak was with the Dodgers in 1955 (sharing third with Jackie) and with the Reds in '56. With the Dodgers in '55 his range factor was 3.40; with the Reds in '56 it was 2.55.
5:40 PM Dec 14th

bjames
1) It seems pretty clear that Perry was pushed into the race by people telling him he could win.

2) Please correct me if I'm wrong, but. ...the high WAR for Jackie in 1956 seems to rest on a highly speculative value for his play at third base. Jackie in 1956 played only 118 games, had an OPS of .
5:29 PM Dec 14th

flyingfish
A couple more thoughts on the Bill McKay analogy. First, I don't think "they" did or tried to do anything with John Edwards. I think John Edwards was his own motivator and he clearly had a good grasp of the issues. His repeated speeches about the "Two Americas" seemed pretty clearly to have been of his own devising and they did change the conversation, at least somewhat. I think his problem was that he never was perceived as sincere. I certainly never perceived him as sincere, and never would have voted for him in a primary if I'd had a chance (I live in Washington DC, so I had no reasonable chance). Second, I think your conclusion--that you can't take an attractive, but relatively empty, candidate and make him or her become president--is not supported by the single case of Rick Perry. And I think Perry, like Edwards, decided on his own to run. I don't think he was or is anyone's puppet.
3:54 PM Dec 14th

tangotiger
Using WAR, Joe Jackson is #1 by far, Bill Joyce is #2, Happy Felsh is #3, and then.... Jackie Robinson.

Leaders among non-pitchers:
1920 7.4 Jackson Joe
1898 5.4 Joyce Bill
1920 4.9 Felsch Happy
1956 4.6 Robinson Jackie
1972 4.4 Clemente Roberto
1890 4.3 Tomney Phil
1947 4.2 Cullenbine Roy
2000 4.1 Clark Will
1899 4.1 Lange Bill
1920 4 Chapman Ray
1897 3.9 Werden Perry
1968 3.6 Mantle Mickey

3:30 PM Dec 14th

hankgillette
Considering what you said about Munson, I am surprised you didn't say that Ray Chapman retired because of poor ball-tracking skills.

If you ignore his 28 games with the Braves, Babe Ruth had a pretty decent last season (at least for anyone not named Ruth): .288/.448/.537, 160 OPS+ and 5 WAR. Even in his stint with the Braves, he was above average at the plate with a 118 OPS+.

I'm not sure I completely agree with you about basketball players. While what you say is true (I think), I can't disagree with Gladwell either. There does seem to be a threshold of height, but it's pretty fuzzy. Extreme height does improve your chance to get into the NBA, assuming that you are still athletic to some degree, there there have been a lot of crappy +7 foot players who were in the NBA but left no mark. If you took all of the NBA players whose height was between 6'0" and 6'11 and sorted them by ability, I'm guessing the correlation with height would be fairly weak. Height is (an almost) necessary requirement to play basketball at the highest levels, but it is not sufficient.
3:19 PM Dec 14th

flyingfish
Bill: Interesting collection of thoughts. On the first set--people who retire from baseball while they are still good--I think you should not include people who are killed or injured badly enough that they can no longer play. I think the interesting ones are people like Mussina and Koufax who DECIDE not to play anymore even though they still are at or near the top of their game. Koufax COULD have pitched some more, but was told he'd never use his arm after he retired if he didn't stop when he did. Also, some (most?) of the people who were killed died in or near their prime, so that also makes their cases less interesting from this point of view, although still very sad.

You know, I'm very reluctant to characterize politicians as dumb. For years I'd try to defend George W Bush from the accusation that he was dumb; clearly he speaks English poorly and clearly he was startlingly unaware of current events, at least through the early part of his first term. I'm not sure whether he was (is) dumb, although I find it a bit harder to defend him in retrospect than I did at first. Perry obviously hasn't thought about the issues that you and I think should matter to a presidential candidate, so clearly he is ignorant. I'm not sure whether he's dumb. Now Sharron Angle, Senate candidate from Nevada in 2010, she I think is dumb.
1:28 PM Dec 14th

Robinsong
I worked in the G.H.W. Bush White House. Quayle really was dumb. I also agree that the Republican Party has had a large number of limited intellects run, including Palin, Cain, and Bachmann. Wallace and Shirley Chisolm and Dick Gephardt on the Democratic side. I think there is significant evidence that Reagan's Alzheimer's was affecting his performance throughout his second term. Johnson thought that Ford was as dumb as a rock. I do think that the increasing emphasis on debates requires at least a minimum level of familiarity with issues (or the ability to simiulate it) and think on one's feet and be articulate. I wish that were all it took to be a reasonable President.

I agree on height. Thanks for the list of best last years.
12:52 PM Dec 14th

MarisFan61
Still making my way through.....

First pause: Wanted to check whether Roy Cullenbine lived long enough to see the time when his game would be appreciated. Looks like he did (1991). I would have been sad if he hadn't.

About why Joey Cora retired (you noted that you weren't sure): Looks like this is an example of how offensive stats may not tell the story (with which I know you agree; I realize that you were going by rough 'screens' here). It looks like it may have been that his fielding was felt to have deteriorated. The NY Times in Oct. 1998 had a quote from his manager that seemed to be a slam on him (although the writer said it wasn't necessarily). An article the next March said Cora was retiring, and added, "He was 4 for 6 this spring but made four errors. He was competing with Homer Bush and Craig Grebeck for a roster spot." And, glancing superficially at his fielding stats, it looks like his range had deteriorated in the last 3 years.

I think it's a fair guess that deteriorated defense was a reason for some of these other retirements too.
12:50 PM Dec 14th

areuss44
I think your interpretation of The Candidate is way off. You describe the character of Bill McKay (Robert Redford) as "essentially an empty vessel, not a bad man, but not a man who has any real ideas or any real substance." In fact, the film portrays him as a politically conscious ("cause") lawyer with strong opinions about social issues like race, poverty, and environmental protection. (When first approached to run for office, he is working in a farm workers' legal aid office, or something along those lines.) The central themes of the film are how he is pushed by his campaign team to tone down his rhetoric and keep his real views to himself (and to, instead, spout non-controversial pablum), and how he ends up making compromises with "establishment" institutions in order to win election. While he occasionally frustrates his handlers by allowing his real views to erupt, the overall trajectory is toward more and more compromise--and less and less hope that his election would bring about any real change. The film attempts to address the dilemma of trying to fight for change outside "the system" (at the risk of being marginalized) and trying to work for change from within (at the risk of becoming compromised, corrupted, and part of the problem). For this reason, it's quite central to the message that McKay does not start out as just an "empty shirt."
12:24 PM Dec 14th

schoolshrink
Thank you for bringing the ABZ problem in Gladwell's book. I give I.Q. tests for a living. I have not looked at it in a couple years and never considered what you did, and see with intelligence there is a similar problem that contradicts a point he makes about hockey players and successful people earlier in the book. He looks to identify factors, of course, that differentiate people who are successful at the very highest levels. In most levels of business, one does not require very superior intellect, two standard deviations above the mean or more to function successfully, but when considering Bill Gates as he does he is likely looking at the difference between someone with very, very superior intelligence as compared to one who is less gifted. I do not know his IQ but have to assume that it's strong considering he had a perfect score on the SAT. And his work ethic, when he was born, his access to the University of Washington computer lab, etc. were important factors as well, but the difference between his level of intellect and a lesser but gifted individual is likely significant in the manner you point out between the heights of basketball players.

For me, the basketball equivalent of Bill Gates would be Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. I never saw another player with that skill set and there have been a lot of seven footers that have tried. Had Gladwell focused on Kareem instead of Michael, maybe he would have thought differently about using that example.
12:20 PM Dec 14th

doncoffin
Going out at least somewhere near the top: Lou Brock (1979), at age 40. .304/.342/.398. 21 SB.
12:10 PM Dec 14th

Trailbzr
Being a lifelong resident of the Washington metropolitan area, I watch politics as sport more than most people. Newt had a brilliant 2011 strategy: just show up at debates repeating sentences he's be saying for 30 years, and let Bachmann, Perry, Cain (and Palin if she had showed) take their turns being flavors-of-the-month, then self-destruct through their shallowness.

During the next upcoming phase, reporters are going to dredge up old ethics problems about him, and his challenge will be to convince voters this is just a bunch of "inside Washington;" that a President sometimes has to get his hands dirty with to be effective.

The above is not a recommendation for or against any candidate.
11:51 AM Dec 14th

Going Out on Top

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