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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. So, without further adieu: Top 25 Third Basemen From 1912-2021, Based On Total Player Value At All Positions
Third base has less nuance than catchers and first basemen when it comes to Player Value, especially on the fielding end, so I have less need for commentary on justifying the rankings you see above. I think they are pretty believable, but I will make the following notes:
Top 25 Third Basemen From 1912-2021, Based On Total Player Value As A Third Baseman
Evans drops here and Allen falls out of the top 25 due to their time playing first base. Molitor also drops out of the top 25 due to his team at second and as a DH. Top 25 Third Basemen From 1912-2021, Based On Batting Value At All Positions
Top 25 Third Basemen From 1912-2021, Based On Fielding Value At All Positions
Top 10 Third Basemen From 1912-2021, Based On Baserunning Value At All Positions
From the span of 1912-2021, I have just 307 players that contributed most of their value as third basemen. 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 931 third basemen in this span. This makes sense, as any third basemen 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 9-10 third basemen during this span. To be in the top 1.18% (the general Hall of Fame mark), a player would have to be among the top 10-11 third basemen during this span. There are currently 19 third basemen in the Hall of Fame, but that includes the mainly pre-1912 players Jimmy Collins and Deacon White, as well as the Negro League players Jud Wilson, Judy Johnson, and Ray Dandridge, whom we don't really have Player Value for. That 19 assumes that we include Tony Perez and Paul Molitor, whom we don't consider as a first baseman or a designated hitter. Bobby Cox, Bill McKechnie, and Dick Williams were all primarily third basemen (by games played or value) during their playing careers, but were inducted as managers. So if we want to actually match the Hall of Fame numbers, that leaves us with 14 third basemen to work with. If we look at the top 14 third basemen according to Player Value, 9 of them are in Cooperstown. The exceptions are Brooks Robinson, Home Run Baker, George Kell, Tony Perez, and Freddie Lindstrom, who rank 15th, 21st, 29th, 40th, and 58th respectively. Baker started his career in 1908, so he has 4 seasons that are unaccounted for here. Three of these five third basemen outside of the top 14 were inducted by a Veteran's Committee as well, rather than through the BBWAA ballot. The exceptions are Robinson and Perez. Robinson is just one spot outside of our top 14, and also rates as the greatest defensive third basemen of all-time, justifying his case. Perez rates and ranks less favorably, and it took him until his 9th year on the ballot to be inducted. His career RBI are pretty solid and he was an important member of one of the greatest teams of all-time, though. Darrell Evans, Harlond Clift, Willie Kamm, Adrian Beltre, and Graig Nettles should presumably be in Cooperstown as they are the five top 14 third basemen not in the Hall of Fame. However, Beltre has yet to appear on the ballot. Next in line would technically be Eddie Yost, but he ranks behind Robinson. Of the 931 third basemen in my dataset based off of games played, 12 are in the Hall of Fame. That's 1.29%, 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. Based on this, there should either be less third basemen in Cooperstown if we think 1.30% is too lenient (which I don't think it is), or there should be more players inducted at other positions so that this 1.30% rate holds across all positions. Below you can graphically see how all of our third basemen 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: Our two obvious non-Hall of Famers above the gold Hall of Fame line are Harlond Clift and Darrell Evans. The Hall of Famer with the extreme Fielding Value on the far right is Brooks Robinson, while the Hall of Famer with the extreme Batting Value in the top left is Chipper Jones. The non-Hall of Famer with the most Fielding Value to the right is Buddy Bell, who we see sits just below the Hall of Fame line of 1.18%. The non-Hall of Famer with the least Fielding Value to the left is Howard Johnson; Bill Madlock and Aramis Ramirez join him as examples of third basemen that were poor defenders but solid batters. The lowest Hall of Famer here is Lindstrom, who played his entire career after 1912 (1924-1936), so all of his Player Value is accounted for. His induction into Cooperstown is a real head scratcher to me. He's clearly unworthy by Player Value, but I can't find a logical traditional argument for his case either. Bill James supposedly called him the worst third basemen in the Hall, and I'd have to agree. Next time you want to complain about Harold Baines, try complaining about Freddie Lindstrom instead. Below you can graphically see how the top 25 third basemen compare in terms of Player Value. Below is the dataset of primarily third basemen from 1912-2021, as determined by which position the player provided the most Player Value at. There are 307 players in this dataset.
Below is the dataset of primarily third basemen from 1912-2021, as determined by which position the player played the most games at. There are 931 players in this dataset.
Thanks for checking out this third base 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 takeaway for now should be that players like Evans and Clift were vastly underrated and should be seriously considered for future era committee inductions, as they appear more deserving than current Hall of Famers like Lindstrom, Kell, and even Perez. Recent inductee Scott Rolen fits in nicely with other Hall of Fame third basemen and doesn't adulterate the quality of that pool whatsoever. The fact that it took Ron Santo so long to get inducted is also absurd. Upcoming players like Beltre and Arenado should also be set for induction, while other actives like Machado and Ramirez still have a little work to do. Although third basemen technically get inducted at a higher rate than the Hall of Fame general rate of 1.18%, this is likely due to the large pool of pitchers (especially relievers) that don't get inducted. Compared to the positions that I've done thus far, catchers get inducted at about a 1% rate (15/1469), first basemen at about a 2.5% rate (22/894), second basemen at about a 1.75% rate (18/10330, and third basemen at about a 1.3% rate (12/931). More third basemen ought to be inducted into Cooperstown; Rolen was a step in the right direction, and hopefully Beltre and eventually Arenado will be as well.
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