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Player Value Posts
To avoid spamming the general blog page with the Player Value posts for each season/team, this blog page will serve as a separate listing of all of the Player Value posts for each season/team. These posts will be less detailed, mainly just listing out the top players each season and including the necessary files.
Well, by "all-time", I really mean from 1912-2021, as that is currently the span of years that I have the data for. As the headline suggests, these rankings are according to my Player Value metric as of the date listed above. You can read my initial Player Value post here and its addendum here. Since then I have used Retrosheet play by play data to better fine tune the run value weights of the various events, but haven't been able to write up a post detailing them yet. Rather than listing them out again in this post, you can view them towards the top of my latest Hall of Fame post here. When we're discussing positional rankings, there's a couple of ways we can decide what a player's primary position was. One approach is to do it based on games played, which is the easiest but results in guys like Pete Rose and Ernie Banks being first basemen. I instead elected to take the approach of using the position that a player accumulated the most Player Value at. This way, Rose is a left fielder and Banks is a shortstop. I still list out their main position by games played in the data files below, but that's not what I went off of. There's also the matter of if we should take a player's total Player Value for their career and then just group them by their main position, or should we only use the Player Value that a player accumulated at this specific position. This choice is a little trickier, so I've gone ahead and listed out the top rankings for each option. The number of players that played most of their games at DH is already about 15% of the size of all other positions. This makes some sense, as the DH was not implemented in the AL until 1973, and not in the NL until 2022 (which is unaccounted for here). Only 152 players played most of their games at DH from 1912-2021, and again those are all guys since 1973. But only 42 players in this span provided most of their value at DH. Why? As a DH, you can basically only accrue Batting Value and Baserunning Value. Many players added more value at another position via also having positive Fielding Value. Furthermore, it can be difficult to add value as a DH. The position is limited and designed for the best hitters. When your competitors are other great hitters, it's hard for you to stand out and show your value over your peers, even if you're a great hitter. Lastly, many guys get moved to DH at the end of their careers when they are unable to field as well. Even though they can still competently hit, their hitting abilities have likely also declined with age. For the other positions I've been doing top 25 rankings, but given that I only have 42 players to really work with, I'm just doing the top 10 here instead. So, without further adieu: Top 10 Designated Hitters From 1912-2021, Based On Total Player Value At All Positions
Since DHs basically have no Fielding Value, there is very little nuance when it comes to Player Value. Batting Value basically works like how wOBA and the batting component of WAR works, so we should see very similar rankings by looking at those. The only difference is the run value weights of the different batting events, and the inclusion of more batting events. I will make the following notes, however:
If I use those same 42 players again, this next list is boringly similar. To spice things up a bit, I'm going to use the 152 player dataset of guys that played their most games at DH instead. Top 10 Designated Hitters From 1912-2021, Based On Total Player Value As A DH
Like was the case with Rogers Hornsby and Joe Morgan for 2B, the answer to the "who was the greatest at the positon" question varies depending on how we frame it. Strictly based on value added as a DH, Ortiz was the best. Based on total value added across all positions and then assigning you to your primary position, Edgar was the best. Edgar drops here because he also provided 120.77 in value at 3B in his younger years. Ortiz is so much higher because he really only played DH and blossomed when doing so. In his 278 games at 1B (about half of Edgar's 562 games at 3B), Ortiz provided a -7.10 in Player Value. Big Papi wasn't just a DH; he was the DH. We'll move back to our list of 42 DHs based off of value for the rest of these. Top 10 Designated Hitters From 1912-2021, Based On Batting Value At All Positions
Not surprising that our rankings are similar here, given that Batting Value is the core part of being a designated hitter. The best batting season by a DH was Frank Thomas in 1991 with the White Sox, when he had 49.88 in Batting Value. He won the Silver Slugger and came 3rd in MVP voting. Top 10 Designated Hitters From 1912-2021, Based On Fielding Value At All Positions
Since it's impossible for a guy that is only a DH for entire season to have any Fielding Value, most of these guys accrued this Fielding Value in years when they weren't a DH. That should still be captured in their careers. Within a season, the reason we still include Fielding Value for DHs is because it is preferable to have a DH that is still capable of playing a defensive position well when need be. Branyan does have the best Fielding Value season by a DH, when he posted 21.17 in value in 2010 for the Indians and Mariners. That was from his occasional time at first base. Top 10 Designated Hitters From 1912-2021, Based On Baserunning Value At All Positions
Clearly baserunning is not a big part of being a DH, but it is funny to think of Encarnacion as the stealing king of a position. He stole 61 bases in his career, and was caught 14 times (81%). Terrance Gore is known as a pinch runner, but since that is all that he does he doesn't get as much playing time and therefore less opportunities to steal. He's stolen 43 bases and been caught 9 times (83%), but some seasons he's compared to various outfielders rather than third basemen or DHs, which is why he ranks lower. The best baserunning season by a DH was Gerald Perry in 1990 for the Royals when he had 3.54 Baserunning Value. He stole 17 bases and was caught 4 times that year (81%). Perry was primarily a first baseman for his career, however. From the span of 1912-2021, I have just 42 players that contributed most of their value as designated hitters. This is very interesting, considering there are 8,646 total position players in this span. If you go based off of games played, however, there are 152 designated hitters in this span. This makes sense, as any designated hitters that were negative for their careers would have been assigned to a different position, based on value. So to be in the top 1%, a player would have to be among the top 1-2 designated hitters during this span. To be in the top 1.18% (the general Hall of Fame mark), a player would still have to be among the top 1-2 designated hitters during this span. There are currently 2 designated hitters in the Hall of Fame, assuming we classify Frank Thomas at 1B, Paul Molitor at 3B, and Harold Baines at RF. So if we want to actually match the Hall of Fame numbers, that leaves us with 2 designated hitters to work with. And if we look at the top 2 designated hitters according to Player Value, both of them are in Cooperstown, and nobody else is particularly close. Even if we throw in our DHs by games played, Martinez and Ortiz still rank 3rd and 5th, with the top 2 (Molitor and Thomas) also being Hall of Famers. The exception is Brian Downing at 4th. You can use this and chose to think that neither Downing nor Ortiz should be Hall of Famers, or that both should be. But I'm fine with Ortiz being in and Downing not since Downing was truly mainly a LF based on value. Of the 152 designated hitters in my dataset based off of games played, 2 are in the Hall of Fame. That's 1.3%, slightly larger than the "top 1%" idea that many people think of the Hall of Fame as, as well as the top 1.18% that the Hall actually operates at. This is basically the same induction rate as third basemen, tied for the lowest across all positions. Things have been going well recently for DHs, with Martinez and Baines inducted in 2019, and Ortiz inducted in 2022. But I think things are more promising for third basemen, with the coming induction of Rolen in 2023, almost certainly Beltre in 2024, and likely future stars in Arenado, Machado, etc. Despite this low induction rate, I can't really argue for more DHs to be inducted like I could for third basemen. Encarnacion had a solid career, but he seems like a staple "Hall of Great" player to me. Maybe if his 2019 self had continued into 2020, 2021, and 2022, which would have put him closer to 500 home run territory and added value along the way. I think Cruz is close, but his 2022 was a setback and needed to be more like his 2021 self. The same will be true for his 2023 season. Regardless, his involvement in the Biogenesis scandal will hurt his case. Maybe we could put Brian Downing in, but I'm not pushing too hard on that either way. For the most part I think the DHs that deserved to be inducted have been. Below you can graphically see how all of our designated hitters compare in terms of Player Value, along with the black line denoting which players provided positive value, the gold line denoting the Hall of Fame mark, and the blue dots denoting the actual Hall of Fame members: Since this uses the 152-player games played dataset, our 5 Hall of Famers here are Molitor, Thomas, Martinez, Ortiz, and Baines. We can clearly see how Baines doesn't really fit in with the rest, but how Brian Downing more so does. The other non-Hall of Famers to the right that standout with their higher Fielding Values are Mike Sweeney, Nelson Cruz, and Jose Canseco. The worst DH in this span was Matt LeCroy, with -39.92 Player Value. Below you can graphically see how the top 25 designated hitters compare in terms of Player Value. Below is the dataset of primarily designated hitters from 1912-2021, as determined by which position the player provided the most Player Value at. There are technically 1,423 players in this dataset. This is due to the coding logic in my R files; any negative players appear as DHs with 0 value. What you should focus on are the 42 players with positive Player Value, from Edgar Martinez to Herb Washington. ![]()
Below is the dataset of primarily designated hitters from 1912-2021, as determined by which position the player played the most games at. There are technically 351 players in this dataset. This is also due to the coding logic in my R files; any player that played 0 games at all positions appear as a DH. An example is Branch Rickey, who appears in the 1912-2021 dataset because he played in 1914. However, he had just 2 PAs in 2 games played, both as a pinch hitter. Since he played none in the field, he doesn't have a registered position. Logically, Rickey couldn't have been a DH since the position didn't exist until 1973. What you should focus on are the 152 players that played at least 1 game at DH, from Paul Molitor to Matt LeCroy. ![]()
Thanks for checking out this DH rankings post. I plan to update it whenever I develop new Player Value iterations, and hopefully we'll get closer and closer to some rankings that we can more firmly support. I'd say the main takeaways for now should be:
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