April 2, 2012

BP Unfiltered

Earning our Varsity Letters [Updated]

by Jay Jaffe

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Thursday is Opening Day, and while the occasion doesn't need any additional embellishments, we have one for New York City-area Baseball Prospectus readers: at 7:30 PM, Steven Goldman and I will be reading from our latest tome, Extra Innings, which officially hits the streets this week. We'll be doing so as part of the Gelf Magazine monthly Varsity Letters series, which played host to Steve and Jonah Keri back in 2007, when Extra Innings' prequel, the popular Baseball Between the Numbers, was the newest game in town. Afterwards, we'll take questions from the audience.

The event will take place at The Gallery at Le Poisson Rouge at 158 Bleecker Street in Manhattan's Greenwich Village (between Thompson and Sullivan Streets; see the map here), so of course Steve will be modeling his collection of berets while playing the upright bass to accompany my readings of jazz poetry (OKAY, OKAY, we promise none of that if you actually show up). We'll have books for sale, and are hoping to arrange a means of giving away a free copy or two. I should also point out that Le Poisson Rouge is a bar, so you'll be able to quench your thirst while we read, though please note that I will be grading you on the brand of beer you drink, using the traditional 20-80 scouting scale. Doors open at 7 PM.

Also on the bill that night will be New York Times columnist Dan Barry, author of Bottom of the 33rd: Hope, Redemption, and Baseball's Longest Game, and Glenn Stout, author of Fenway 1912: The Birth of a Ballpark, a Championship Season, and Fenway's Remarkable First Year; and editor of the Best American Sports Writing series since like forever. One's got a Pulitzer to his name, the other a Seymour Medal, but neither of them can make VORP swing like we can, Daddy-O.

In conjunction with the appearance, Varsity Letters host Michael Gluckstadt interviewed the two of us about the state of sabermetrics and baseball writing. I'll update this with links when those go up. You can read the interview here. A quick taste:

Gelf Magazine: Jay, your Hall of Fame formula JAWS measures players up against the advanced stats of others already enshrined in Cooperstown. How different would a "JAWS of Fame" in which only the top players selected by your metrics are inducted look from the current one?

Jay Jaffe: JAWS is essentially based upon the average career and peak value of the Hall of Famers at a given position. If the voting systems were efficient, the averages would be much, much, higher, and some of the slam-dunk candidates we've talked about in recent years would actually be mid-to-lower tier guys who would have to battle to get in instead of waltzing in on the first ballot.

Tony Gwynn is a good example. With 3,000 hits, eight batting titles, and umpteen All-Star appearances and Gold Gloves, he was a lock and he received 97.6 percent of the vote, among the highest of all time. My system places him 11th out of 23 right fielders in the Hall, ahead of only two BBWAA-elected right fielders; the rest came in via various iterations of the Veterans Committee and some of them are among the weakest players in the Hall of Fame. Mind you, I'm not saying Tony Gwynn should be a bottom-of-the barrel candidate by any means, but the guy wasn't as valuable as people think—Tim Raines, for example, was more valuable and he didn't win all those awards. If JAWS were deciding the Hall of Fame, Gwynn would have faced a Raines-like uphill battle for acceptance.

We hope to see you Thursday!