Sickels 1996 and Win Shares, Part 5

by Geoff Young on Jan 09, 2003

In my discussion yesterday of Mike Rivera, I forgot to mention Gary Bennett. He’s also in the running for one of the two catching spots. My early guess is that Bennett and Rivera split time, with Wiki Gonzalez and his contract being traded before the season.

Steve Violetta

Thanks to regular reader Dan Walls for pointing me toward these two articles:

Let’s hope he has better luck in San Diego than he did in Pittsburgh and Ottawa.

Tunes

  • Cocteau Twins, Heaven or Las Vegas
  • Joe Satriani, Engines of Creation
  • Rod Stewart, Best of Rod Stewart
  • Vince Gill, Best of Vince Gill

The Satriani album combines his usual insane fretwork with EDM beats. They work well together. Side note: The first time I saw Satriani live was in 1988 or thereabouts. He played at the Roxy in LA. A friend and I stood about five feet from the stage, and I kept close watch on his hands (I’d just started playing guitar a few years earlier) the entire show to see if I could pick up some of his tricks. Yeah, right. It was like staring at the sun to learn about light.

I snagged the Vince Gill CD a few weeks back for $2.50 from a local record shop that’s going out of business. This is a CD that, as someone who grew up listening to the likes of Iron Maiden and Metallica, I never in a million years would’ve expected to buy. But I kept hearing that he’s a pretty trick guitar player, and y’know what? He is. Some of the songs are a bit sappy for my taste, but the arrangements are great. Country never will be my thing, but this guy is good.

Sickels 1996 and Win Shares

I asked of the pitchers in our study the following question: Are there any shared characteristics of those who have become big-league stars (regardless of their ranking as prospects?). In an attempt to answer this, I looked at the pitchers with the 10 most win shares among the entire group. They are listed below, along with their minor-league totals (once again, to save space, only rate numbers are given; the complete list is also available):

Major-League Success

pitchers

Player         ERA  H/9 HR/9 BB/9   K/9 K/BB
Chan Ho Park  4.26 7.84 0.60 5.66  8.56 1.51
Billy Wagner  3.18 6.67 0.58 5.05 10.76 2.13
Bartolo Colon 2.36 6.33 0.51 3.84 10.91 2.84
Ugueth Urbina 2.93 7.11 0.62 3.13  7.04 2.25
Rick Helling  4.56 9.06 0.90 2.74  7.80 2.85
Keith Foulke  3.25 8.37 0.73 1.60  8.69 5.43
Danny Graves  0.64 5.76 0.00 1.92  7.55 3.93
D. Hermanson  2.80 7.55 0.84 5.60 10.91 1.95
James Baldwin 3.39 7.86 0.75 3.93  8.53 2.17
Shawn Estes   4.67 8.64 0.43 5.95  9.45 1.59

This is all over the map. First off, there’s only one member of the A group, as opposed to four of the B+ group, three of the C group, and one of the C- group. Second, there is no discernable pattern among these pitchers that, taken alone, could have predicted their success. Some guys were very hard to hit (Wagner, Colon, Graves), some relatively easy (Helling, Foulke, Estes). Some had pinpoint control (Foulke, Graves), others had trouble finding the plate (Park, Wagner, Hermanson, Estes). Some blew hitters away (Wagner, Colon, Hermanson), others were less overpowering (Urbina, Helling, Graves).

Three pitchers improved their ERA at the big-league level (Park, 4.26 minors vs 3.80 majors; Wagner, 3.18 vs 2.73; Estes, 4.67 vs 4.25). Four improved their hit prevention (Park, Wagner, Foulke, Estes); five improved their control (Park, Wagner, Hermanson, Baldwin, Estes); two saw their strikeout rates increase (Wagner, Urbina). Everyone allowed significantly more homers at the big-league level.

This is the sort of finding that lends credence to the theory that there’s no such thing as a pitching prospect. It’s also a strike against statistical analysis as the sole means of evaluating talent. Some statheads have trouble with this idea, as if any sign of weakness necessarily invalidates the tool or, God forbid, the movement. Personally I think the sooner folks embrace the fact that stats don’t tell the whole story, the sooner those who scoff at stats begin to take them more seriously. But maybe I’m being naive.

Anyway, to answer the original question, if there are any shared characteristics among guys who have become big-league starts (okay, big-league fixtures), I’m not seeing them. Yeah, everyone here had pretty decent raw K/9 numbers in the minors, but when you consider that, e.g., Urbina’s rate of 7.04 put him below the average C- pitching prospect (7.10), it pretty much kills that theory. How about this: They all stayed healthy enough to accumulate that many win shares. I dunno. If you have any ideas, send ‘em my way.

Tomorrow we’ll look at the best by position among catchers and infielders. We’ll do the same for outfielders on Monday, then wrap things up Tuesday with a quick look at some current prospects. Wednesday will be the top 10 Padre prospects for 2003.

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