Respect For Homeruns

Grandstander · April 20th, 2008, 09:33 PM

There have been 16,631 men who have played Major League Baseball, about ten thousand of them have been position players, the rest pitchers. If a player ranks as one of the top one thousand in career homeruns, that means he is in the top 10 % of all homerun hitters.

So, before I tell you, what would be your guess as to how many homeruns are needed to rank in the top ten percent all time?

At the moment, it's 71, or more precisely, there are ten players tied for the # 990 spot all time. Among those ten are Tom Brookens, Dickie Thon, Ron Hassey...and...Jason Kendall who is sort of famous for lacking power. So, you can have as undistinguished a career as Ron Hassey and still be in the top 10 percent of the greatest homerun hitters in history.

So, if you have 100 career homeruns, where does that land you on the list? Currently there are five players tied for the 698th slot with 100 career homers. We're talking Bruce Bochte and John Kruk. David Wright just broke loose from this pack with his 101st career homer.

Three hundered and seventeen career homeruns won't get you into the Hall of Fame if you haven't done a lot of other things, but it is good enough at the moment to make you one of the top one percent MLB homerun hitters. That position is currently occupied by George Brett, # 100 on the career list. A twenty homerun season by Richie Sexon this year will bump Brett to the 101 postion. Thirty two homeruns from Albert Pujols will place him past Brett.

Zen653 · April 20th, 2008, 10:39 PM

I think it's important to look at homerun numbers by era, as opposed to all-time statistics. In 1927, for example, Babe Ruth led the league with 60 homeruns. The third place finisher, Tom Lazzeri, finished with 18. 9 homeruns put you in the top 10 (the immortal Bibb Falk.) Eighty years later, in 2007, Alex Rodriguez led the league with 54 homeruns. David Ortiz finished in third with 35 (twice as many as Lazzeri.) And it took 27 homeruns by Vladimir Guerrero (three times as many as Falk) to crack the top 10.

If we calculate the numbers by 20 year increments, a player with 100 career homeruns in the post-1990 era does not look nearly as impressive as someone who accumulated that total in the 1920s. Context matters. We have to deflate some of the recent offensive numbers on account of juiced baseballs and smaller ballparks, and give more credit to the successful pitchers of the modern era.

John F · April 21st, 2008, 12:13 PM

I gotta agree with Zen's breakdown. Era's matter. Even the recent era is hard to define -- did it begin with the 1998 expansion and subsequent home run chase? Or was it the introduction of smaller parks over the last few years with shorter fences? The game, since the year of the pitcher in 1968, has been more favorable towards hitters (with rule changes and such) than to pitchers...

In the end, it's like Maddux said in that old ESPN commercial, "Chicks dig the long ball" -- but I've lost respect for the home run because of those who have artificially enhanced their performance in order to hit them. It's cast doubt on the sport.

Grandstander · April 21st, 2008, 12:32 PM

Zen provided no breakdown, he introduced the concept of era relativity, but offered no adjustments formulas or modified numbers.

I of course recognize the relativity factors which have influenced homeruns totals over the course of MLB history, but what exactly do you guys have in mind in terms of applying it to what I presented above?

John F · April 21st, 2008, 01:25 PM

Grandstander, we're not challenging you and we're not proposing a statistical solution to re-calculating stats (nor do I think that's necessary to prove a point). I think it's pretty clear that we're both saying the weight of the achievement is different for certain eras.

Zen's point was factually accurate and that's the root of it -- the game has changed and evolved where you can't point out how many players all time have X home runs, or which players belong in that top percent statistically. Hell, that's what discussion is for. I just mentioned some examples of how the era shift makes a general view of totals a problem -- the games evolved. Teh rules have changed. The focus has shifted.

Grandstander · April 21st, 2008, 04:21 PM

JohnF:

Quote:

the game has changed and evolved where you can't point out how many players all time have X home runs, or which players belong in that top percent statistically

Yet oddly enough, I did exactly that. That it may be refined, weighed, compared and so forth, does not have anything to do with the point I was trying to make. I had noticed that Baseball Reference.com had expanded their all time lists from the top 300, to the top 1000. I had never seen a top one thousand list before, and I found I was surprised by some of the numbers I encountered. For example, had I been guessing how many homeruns were needed to put one in the top ten percent of all time totals, I would have thought at least 100, perhaps 150. That you could have 71 homeruns and still make the list....I found interesting because it made me realize how much harder it is to hit homeruns than I had thought, how much more rare they have been in MLB history.

Sure, the numbers would be different if Tris Speaker and Honus Wagner had played in the modern period, but of course, they didn't. The numbers would also be different if Hank Aaron had played in the deadball era. But of course, he didn't. They would be different if every game in history had been played in the Baker Bowl.

So, forgive me for using figures based on what actually happened rather than on what might have happened if what happened hadn't happened and something else had happened instead.

If you and jtur wish to rework the numbers and make them reflective of your visions as to what should have happened in a better baseball world, you should. If on your new list, Kendall's 71 homeruns shoves him to 1500th place behind theoretical homeruns hit by deadball era players, then we will have an appreciation of what could have happened but didn't. My appreciation in this thread was limited to what could have happened and did.

jtur88 · April 22nd, 2008, 07:22 AM

However, since more than 80% of all players spent part or all of their career in the post-Ruth HR era, the numbers wouldn't really change that much. About 13,000 players played after 1930 (when a dozen hit 30 or more), and the percentiles among those would only move by a few points.

And, John F, even if chicks dug something else besides the long ball, players would have found pharmaceuticals that would enhance that particular performance. Nearly all sports are now power-sports, which are largely physique-driven, so it became easy for a single application of body-building could worm its way through all sports. If would be such an interesting game if baseball rules could have made the game lean in another direction than homeruns. (All that would havee been needed would be to have declared a ball over the fence to be a ground-rule double, so it wouldn't matter it it rolled to the wall or went over.)

GS's original point remains valid, however, in that if instead of HR, it has been based on hits, or doubles, or HBP or GIDP, the turnover has yielded a very high number of players dominated by a very small number of people who genuinely distinguished themselves in the game with longevity of career, with a very steep curve at the end of the chart.

Simp · April 22nd, 2008, 07:52 AM

When I run a query on the latest Lahman database I get 16,813 names. And only 35 HRs are needed to make the top 10%.

Grandstander · April 22nd, 2008, 09:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Simp

When I run a query on the latest Lahman database I get 16,813 names. And only 35 HRs are needed to make the top 10%.

That's 16,813 players.....I wasn't counting pitchers.

Simp · April 22nd, 2008, 11:40 AM

Well, there are 17,022 player IDs in the Lahman database. If your 16,631 represents only non-pitchers that would leave only 391 pitchers in the history of MLB. Now these tables for batters and pitchers include anyone who has gotten a plate appearance or threw a pitch, so they don't discern whether they were considered a pitcher or a hitter. Still, your list would almost have to include pitchers, unless I'm running the query wrong or your source is more complete.

Simp · April 22nd, 2008, 12:16 PM

Er, some of those IDs are for non-players, so its 16,853.

Simp · April 22nd, 2008, 12:48 PM

If I limit it to batters with 100 or more career ABs, 90 HRs are needed to make the top 10%.

Grandstander · April 22nd, 2008, 01:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Simp

Well, there are 17,022 player IDs in the Lahman database. If your 16,631 represents only non-pitchers that would leave only 391 pitchers in the history of MLB. Now these tables for batters and pitchers include anyone who has gotten a plate appearance or threw a pitch, so they don't discern whether they were considered a pitcher or a hitter. Still, your list would almost have to include pitchers, unless I'm running the query wrong or your source is more complete.

You have lost me here. If there have been 16000 plus players in major league history, most of them will have been position players and the rest pitchers. Do you have some source which claims there have been 16,000 plus position players?

LongtimeBravesFan · April 22nd, 2008, 01:34 PM

Simp, what are the numbers to reach 10% or 1% if you use 502 career plate appearances as a cutoff? I picked that number because that is one full season of PAs to qualify for a batting title.

Do you have a link to where you are getting these numbers?

Simp · April 22nd, 2008, 07:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Grandstander

You have lost me here. If there have been 16000 plus players in major league history, most of them will have been position players and the rest pitchers. Do you have some source which claims there have been 16,000 plus position players?

Sorry, I lost myself as well. I read your post too quick. I missed the part where you said there were 10,000 position players. I don't have access to the DB now. It can be downloaded for free here: Download Database - baseball1.com

If you have MS Access you can download that version. If you have Excel you can downlaod the comma-delimited version. You can then import the tables to Excel and use "text to columns" to get the data in a spreadsheet format. At least I think that's how I did it. If any of this is foreign to you I can help out some. I will try longtime's query tomorrow, unless someone beats me to it.

April 20th, 2008, 09:33 PM	#1 (permalink)
Grandstander Hall of Famer Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Parts Unknown Northern California Posts: 8,314	Respect For Homeruns There have been 16,631 men who have played Major League Baseball, about ten thousand of them have been position players, the rest pitchers. If a player ranks as one of the top one thousand in career homeruns, that means he is in the top 10 % of all homerun hitters. So, before I tell you, what would be your guess as to how many homeruns are needed to rank in the top ten percent all time? At the moment, it's 71, or more precisely, there are ten players tied for the # 990 spot all time. Among those ten are Tom Brookens, Dickie Thon, Ron Hassey...and...Jason Kendall who is sort of famous for lacking power. So, you can have as undistinguished a career as Ron Hassey and still be in the top 10 percent of the greatest homerun hitters in history. So, if you have 100 career homeruns, where does that land you on the list? Currently there are five players tied for the 698th slot with 100 career homers. We're talking Bruce Bochte and John Kruk. David Wright just broke loose from this pack with his 101st career homer. Three hundered and seventeen career homeruns won't get you into the Hall of Fame if you haven't done a lot of other things, but it is good enough at the moment to make you one of the top one percent MLB homerun hitters. That position is currently occupied by George Brett, # 100 on the career list. A twenty homerun season by Richie Sexon this year will bump Brett to the 101 postion. Thirty two homeruns from Albert Pujols will place him past Brett.

April 20th, 2008, 10:39 PM	#2 (permalink)
Zen653 Hall of Famer Join Date: Nov 2006 Posts: 8,353	I think it's important to look at homerun numbers by era, as opposed to all-time statistics. In 1927, for example, Babe Ruth led the league with 60 homeruns. The third place finisher, Tom Lazzeri, finished with 18. 9 homeruns put you in the top 10 (the immortal Bibb Falk.) Eighty years later, in 2007, Alex Rodriguez led the league with 54 homeruns. David Ortiz finished in third with 35 (twice as many as Lazzeri.) And it took 27 homeruns by Vladimir Guerrero (three times as many as Falk) to crack the top 10. If we calculate the numbers by 20 year increments, a player with 100 career homeruns in the post-1990 era does not look nearly as impressive as someone who accumulated that total in the 1920s. Context matters. We have to deflate some of the recent offensive numbers on account of juiced baseballs and smaller ballparks, and give more credit to the successful pitchers of the modern era. __________________ My teams know how to win: 2001, 2003, 2004 Super Bowl Champion New England Patriots 2004, 2007 World Series Champion Boston Red Sox 2006 Spain: FIBA World Basketball Champions 2006, 2007 Sevilla FC: UEFA Cup Champions 2008 World Champion Boston Celtics 2008 Spain: European Cup Champions

April 21st, 2008, 12:13 PM	#3 (permalink)
John F Administrator Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Tampa Bay area, Florida Posts: 2,521	I gotta agree with Zen's breakdown. Era's matter. Even the recent era is hard to define -- did it begin with the 1998 expansion and subsequent home run chase? Or was it the introduction of smaller parks over the last few years with shorter fences? The game, since the year of the pitcher in 1968, has been more favorable towards hitters (with rule changes and such) than to pitchers... In the end, it's like Maddux said in that old ESPN commercial, "Chicks dig the long ball" -- but I've lost respect for the home run because of those who have artificially enhanced their performance in order to hit them. It's cast doubt on the sport. __________________ The more they over think the plumbing, the easier to stop up the drain.

April 21st, 2008, 01:25 PM	#5 (permalink)
John F Administrator Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Tampa Bay area, Florida Posts: 2,521	Grandstander, we're not challenging you and we're not proposing a statistical solution to re-calculating stats (nor do I think that's necessary to prove a point). I think it's pretty clear that we're both saying the weight of the achievement is different for certain eras. Zen's point was factually accurate and that's the root of it -- the game has changed and evolved where you can't point out how many players all time have X home runs, or which players belong in that top percent statistically. Hell, that's what discussion is for. I just mentioned some examples of how the era shift makes a general view of totals a problem -- the games evolved. Teh rules have changed. The focus has shifted. __________________ The more they over think the plumbing, the easier to stop up the drain.

April 22nd, 2008, 07:22 AM	#7 (permalink)
jtur88 Hall of Famer Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: South Texas Posts: 7,865	However, since more than 80% of all players spent part or all of their career in the post-Ruth HR era, the numbers wouldn't really change that much. About 13,000 players played after 1930 (when a dozen hit 30 or more), and the percentiles among those would only move by a few points. And, John F, even if chicks dug something else besides the long ball, players would have found pharmaceuticals that would enhance that particular performance. Nearly all sports are now power-sports, which are largely physique-driven, so it became easy for a single application of body-building could worm its way through all sports. If would be such an interesting game if baseball rules could have made the game lean in another direction than homeruns. (All that would havee been needed would be to have declared a ball over the fence to be a ground-rule double, so it wouldn't matter it it rolled to the wall or went over.) GS's original point remains valid, however, in that if instead of HR, it has been based on hits, or doubles, or HBP or GIDP, the turnover has yielded a very high number of players dominated by a very small number of people who genuinely distinguished themselves in the game with longevity of career, with a very steep curve at the end of the chart. __________________ ------------------ When people ask what I hope to see before I die, I answer that I've already seen too much. Last edited by jtur88; April 22nd, 2008 at 07:41 AM.

April 21st, 2008, 12:32 PM	#4 (permalink)
Grandstander Hall of Famer Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Parts Unknown Northern California Posts: 8,314	Zen provided no breakdown, he introduced the concept of era relativity, but offered no adjustments formulas or modified numbers. I of course recognize the relativity factors which have influenced homeruns totals over the course of MLB history, but what exactly do you guys have in mind in terms of applying it to what I presented above?

April 22nd, 2008, 07:52 AM	#8 (permalink)
Simp Member Join Date: May 2007 Posts: 394	When I run a query on the latest Lahman database I get 16,813 names. And only 35 HRs are needed to make the top 10%.

April 22nd, 2008, 11:40 AM	#10 (permalink)
Simp Member Join Date: May 2007 Posts: 394	Well, there are 17,022 player IDs in the Lahman database. If your 16,631 represents only non-pitchers that would leave only 391 pitchers in the history of MLB. Now these tables for batters and pitchers include anyone who has gotten a plate appearance or threw a pitch, so they don't discern whether they were considered a pitcher or a hitter. Still, your list would almost have to include pitchers, unless I'm running the query wrong or your source is more complete.

April 22nd, 2008, 12:16 PM	#11 (permalink)
Simp Member Join Date: May 2007 Posts: 394	Er, some of those IDs are for non-players, so its 16,853.

April 22nd, 2008, 12:48 PM	#12 (permalink)
Simp Member Join Date: May 2007 Posts: 394	If I limit it to batters with 100 or more career ABs, 90 HRs are needed to make the top 10%.

April 22nd, 2008, 01:34 PM	#14 (permalink)
LongtimeBravesFan Hall of Famer Join Date: Nov 2006 Posts: 5,477	Simp, what are the numbers to reach 10% or 1% if you use 502 career plate appearances as a cutoff? I picked that number because that is one full season of PAs to qualify for a batting title. Do you have a link to where you are getting these numbers?