MLB changes record books..adds in Negro League stats

[DrungoHazewood]

5 minutes ago, jabba72 said:

A player with 2600 career PA's is now the all-time BA and slugging leader. It doesn't feel like something he should qualify for.  Gibson was voted in the HOF in 1972 with those 2600 career PA's. Gibson was without a doubt a great player for his time, but those aren't many PA's IMO.

I think it's perfectly reasonable to have discussions about qualifications and thresholds, and perhaps put players with lower numbers of games in a different bucket. Especially for single-season marks. It just doesn't make sense to say Lyman Bostock's (no, the other one) .466 average in 1941 is on par with even Hugh Duffy's .440, because Bostock had 84 PAs, and I don't really care if he "qualified" for the batting title that year. Any number of players have hit .500 in an month, and that's basically what Bostock did.

But it's a little different for career numbers. How many MLB players have had a 1.176 OPS in a month, much less 2526 PAs spread over 14 years mostly as a catcher?

[jabba72]

3 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

I think it's perfectly reasonable to have discussions about qualifications and thresholds, and perhaps put players with lower numbers of games in a different bucket. Especially for single-season marks. It just doesn't make sense to say Lyman Bostock's (no, the other one) .466 average in 1941 is on par with even Hugh Duffy's .440, because Bostock had 84 PAs, and I don't really care if he "qualified" for the batting title that year. Any number of players have hit .500 in an month, and that's basically what Bostock did.

But it's a little different for career numbers. How many MLB players have had a 1.176 OPS in a month, much less 2526 PAs spread over 14 years mostly as a catcher?

Well to steal some data from Fobby's post on the 1st page "The Negro National League II that Gibson played in was very hitter-friendly, averaging about 5.5 runs per game over its existence (1933-48).  During that same period, the AL averaged about a run per game less, and the NL averaged about 1.5 runs per game less."

To me thats how Gibson accomplished his sky-high slugging and BA numbers. Its like the numbers some players were putting up in Coors Field in the 90's. Take them with a  huge grain of salt.

[Sports Guy]

16 minutes ago, jabba72 said:

Well to steal some data from Fobby's post on the 1st page "The Negro National League II that Gibson played in was very hitter-friendly, averaging about 5.5 runs per game over its existence (1933-48).  During that same period, the AL averaged about a run per game less, and the NL averaged about 1.5 runs per game less."

To me thats how Gibson accomplished his sky-high slugging and BA numbers. Its like the numbers some players were putting up in Coors Field in the 90's. Take them with a  huge grain of salt.

But we still record those numbers from Coors Field.

[DrungoHazewood]

1 hour ago, jabba72 said:

Well to steal some data from Fobby's post on the 1st page "The Negro National League II that Gibson played in was very hitter-friendly, averaging about 5.5 runs per game over its existence (1933-48).  During that same period, the AL averaged about a run per game less, and the NL averaged about 1.5 runs per game less."

To me thats how Gibson accomplished his sky-high slugging and BA numbers. Its like the numbers some players were putting up in Coors Field in the 90's. Take them with a  huge grain of salt.

Except... how did the NNL II get to 5.5 runs a game? In 1944 they averaged 5.43 runs per game, but on a slash line of .279/.344/.380, good for a .724 OPS. Last year the Majors had a .734 OPS and averaged 4.6 runs/game. What that says to me is that the NNL II had a lot of errors, and perhaps some interesting scoring decisions on when to award steals. Fielding records for those leagues are incomplete, but what we have says the league fielding percentage was .950-.960, while the MLB totals in that era were in the .970s, which I guess helps explain the differences. Last time MLB fielding percentages were in the .950s were around 1900, when unearned runs were far higher than today.

In any case, Gibson was putting up 1.100 OPSes in a league that averaged .725. This isn't some league-wide Coors Field effect where a ton of guys you never heard of were hitting .320 with a .900 OPS.

Edited May 30 by DrungoHazewood

[jabba72]

17 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

Except... how did the NNL II get to 5.5 runs a game? In 1944 they averaged 5.43 runs per game, but on a slash line of .279/.344/.380, for a .724 OPS. Last year the Majors had a .734 OPS and averaged 4.6 runs/game. What that says to me is that the NNL II had a lot of errors, and perhaps some interesting scoring decisions on when to award steals. Fielding records for those leagues are incomplete, but what we have says the league fielding percentage was .950-.960, while the MLB totals in that era were in the .970s, which I guess helps explain the differences. Last time MLB fielding percentages were in the .950s were around 1900, when unearned runs were far higher than today.

In any case, Gibson was putting up 1.100 OPSes in a league that averaged .725. This isn't some league-wide Coors Field effect where a ton of guys you never heard of were hitting .320 with a .900 OPS.

Ok that's a compelling argument that Gibson wasn't just a product of a high OPS league. He was an extreme outlier.

[RZNJ]

It doesn’t bother me a bit.  If they only played 60 games it’s because they weren’t allowed to play 154.   If they’re stats are not complete same argument.  If this gives the legacy of those players a little more national mainstream recognition so be it. 
 

It’s not fair to include their statistics in a league they didn’t play in?   Oh well.  Whose fault is that?

[DrungoHazewood]

1 hour ago, jabba72 said:

Ok that's a compelling argument that Gibson wasn't just a product of a high OPS league. He was an extreme outlier.

Yep. 1943 was his outlier among outlier seasons, but this is almost absurd:

WAR 6.3. Second place in the league was 2.6.
BA: He actually finished 2nd at .466 because Vargas hit .471 in 136 PAs, but 3rd place was .372.
OBP: Besides Vargas he led the league by 120 points
SLG: .867, led league by .300
OPS: Led league by 311 points
Runs: Led league by 10
Hits: Led league by 7
Total Bases: 216, 2nd place was 140
Doubles: Led league by 5
Triples: 2nd in league, slacker
Homers: He hit 20, 2nd place had 4
RBI: 109, 2nd was 63
Walks: Led league by 5
OPS+: 281, led league by 81
Runs Created: 121, 2nd was 59

If you want to caveat any of this, the league was a mess. Gibson's Homestead Grays played 71 games, none of the other six teams played more than 50, and the Harrisburg Stars just 14. If you were on the Newark Eagles it was hard to lead the league in anything when the Grays played twice as many games.

Edited May 30 by DrungoHazewood

[Just Regular]

Jay Jaffe's piece also had a table with a detail I didn't see dug into yesterday - the 1943 Josh Gibson .400 season is more recent than Ted Williams'

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-day-negro-leagues-statistics-met-the-major-league-record-books/

[Jagwar]

TL/DR

I understand the motivation and catalyst for this move, and I truly align with those who think the Negro League players endured an injustice. But I struggle with the idea of equating the quality of play and stats achieved in one league with another. How can you possibly equate Josh Gibson's stats to someone like a Ruth/Dimaggio/Williams? Completely different quality of pitching and hitting. The contrarian in me would ask... what kind of stats would Ruth/Dimaggio/Williams have achieved playing in the Negro League?

And why stop at the Negro League? Why not aggregate all of the stats of all international leagues? Wouldn't that suggest that Ichiro should be the actual all time hits leader? 

 

Again, I'm just being a contrarian here. I have no clue what the right path is.  

[Frobby]

Like I said earlier, I have mixed feelings about it, partially due to my lack of detailed knowledge about the Negro Leagues.  Let’s just take 1943 Negro National League season for example.  The Homestead Grays played 67 games that year, going 53-14.  But no other team in the league played nearly that number of games.  The Harrisburg Stars played 16 games, the New York Black Yankees played 28 (and went 4-24).   So while the Grays were clearly a great team that probably could have competed well in the AL/NL, it seems like a lot of their games were against teams that were minor league quality.   

That said, there certainly were times of great disparity of quality in the AL and NL too, as well as disparity in size of the fields, etc.  Therefore, I can’t say there’s a clear distinction between the quality of play.  I read this morning that when interracial barnstorming games were common, the black teams won more than 2/3 of the games.  https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2024/05/31/negro-leagues-major-league-baseball-statistics/. So, I’m happy to defer to people who’ve spent more time studying this than I have.  

[Just Regular]

Szymborski had an interesting take in chat yesterday describing his feeling 1961 was the start of modernity and Tony Gwynn would be the batting average leader of all-time.

Expansion feels overdue - without stepping through the math the ratio of players to MLB jobs as more of Asia's best players are prioritizing getting here seems like it is in a zone it has never been before.

I think/hope Manfred aspires to that as his farewell legacy and that that carrot is enough to help the new CBA starting 2027 occur smoothly enough not to spoil the enjoyment of this entertainment product too much.

Lefty Grove, Ted Williams and Joe DiMaggio all played some in non-MLB places near the time of many of the Negro League greats.

[Aglets]

What are the implications of this with respect to Hank Aaron and his HR total?

[Frobby]

21 minutes ago, Aglets said:

What are the implications of this with respect to Hank Aaron and his HR total?

None.  He never played in the Negro Leagues.  

[Aglets]

17 minutes ago, Frobby said:

None.  He never played in the Negro Leagues.  

From wikipedia:

On November 20, 1951, baseball scout Ed Scott signed Aaron to a contract on behalf of the Indianapolis Clowns of the Negro American League, where he played for three months.[17]

He started play as a 6 ft (180 cm), 180 lb (82 kg) shortstop, and earned $200 per month.[18] As a result of his standout play with the Indianapolis Clowns, Aaron received two offers from MLB teams via telegram, one from the New York Giants and the other from the Boston Braves. Years later, Aaron remembered:

[Aglets]

Am I missing something?