Did Jimmy Wynn have a good season in 1976?

[538280]

Now, before I get into the topic of this thread, I would like to say that this is not intended to transform into another "Wynn for HOF" thread, or a "Wynn>Griffey" thread. This is an honest sabermetric question, which I think speaks about how player can still be good without a good batting average. Forget that the guy's name is Jim Wynn, let's just look at his stats and ask ourselves whether he had a good year.

Now, I think he did have a good year in '76. Of course, his BA was .207, which is horrible, a 77 rel. BA. But, look past the BA and you'll find he did everything very well outside of that. He walked a fantastic 127 times, which makes for a very good .377 OBP, 40 points higher than the league average despite the horrible BA.

He was also a very good power hitter, and the SLG doesn't do him justice in this area. Slugging percentage is TB/AB, so that is counting singles, which are not a part of power hitting. In order to get a better idea of a player's true power, you should subtract BA from SLG to get Isolated power, which basically just takes out the bases at first. It is a measure of extra bases. Wynn has a .160 Isolated power. A very good total, and 39% better than the league average.

He was also very good in the field and on the bases that year. He stole 16 bases at a solid 73% success rate. He was still fast at this age.

Wynn always did have a good reputation in the field, and as late as 1976 he was shown by all metrics I know of to be very good. He had a 108 relative RF, BP and fielding runs both show him 7 runs above average that year, and defensive Win Shares has him just a few points away from a Gold Glove that year.

Overall, all the value metrics think he did have a good year that season. WARP3 has him at 5.7, a pretty good total, WS has him at 18, just two 'shares away from an all star level season. TPR has him at 1.4, well above average.

So, what do you guys think?

[SABR Matt]

PCA has him at:

9.48 wins created on offense.
3.07 wins created on defense.

PCA is generally more aggressively extreme (in either direction...bad or good) than most other player metrics because I use higher replacement levels which has the effect of placing more importance on being different from average...reward average players way less and good players way more.

And Jimmy Wynn was decidedly not bad in 1976.

[Edgartohof]

I'd be willing to go as far as saying that he walked enough to have a decent season, but not much more. When it comes down to it, he did only have a .207 BA, and 127 walks just doesn't cut it. What about the guy with a .307 BA and 127 walks, that gives him a .477 OBP - now THAT'S great, .377 isn't great, it's good, but not great, and as to his power, he only hit 17 HR's, and 19 doubles (1 triple), where's the power? He did have some power earlier in his career, but not in '76. Yes, 127 walks is great, not many can do that, it's only been beaten or tied 80 other times in the history of the MLB, but the difference, it that 79 of those times, were by players who actually had decent BA's to back up their amazing walk totals, not ones hovering around Mendoza.

[leecemark]

--"Not bad" is not the same thing as good. Wynn was a much better player than his BA would suggest, but he wasn't somebody you'd go out of your way to pick up for your team either. At least real baseball teams didn't think so. He had a hard time finding a job for 1977 and was out of baseball the following year.

[538280]

--"Not bad" is not the same thing as good. Wynn was a much better player than his BA would suggest, but he wasn't somebody you'd go out of your way to pick up for your team either. At least real baseball teams didn't think so. He had a hard time finding a job for 1977 and was out of baseball the following year.

He didn't have a hard time finding a job the next year. He was signed on November 30th by the Yankees, not too far after the season had ended, and the Yankees wanted to make Wynn their DH. That didn't work out, as Wynn had a horrible hitting season to end his career but he didn't really "have a hard time finding a job".

[SABR Matt]

Real baseball teams understood nothing about the importance of OBP in 1977...your point?

I wouldn't call his 1976 "GREAT"...but he was very good.

[Ubiquitous]

Heres a little anecdote about Baseball teams in the 60's and 70's.
Charlie O' the owner of the A's was notoriously cheap and had a barebone staff, with himself an insurance salesmen making most of the decisions. Yet this newbie built one of the greatest dynasties of baseball. Want to know how he went about acquiring baseball players? He'd take the official baseball guides and look at the players batting averages! Thats it no formulas, no scouts, no reviews. He would look to see if a player had a consistently good batting average and if so he wanted him. If he didn't he avoided them. That simple system help fuel the great A's run of the 70's.

[SABR Matt]

LOL.

Yes well...if you can acquire guys with high batting averages, you'll score runs and win games regardless of plate discipline.

[538280]

Heres a little anecdote about Baseball teams in the 60's and 70's.
Charlie O' the owner of the A's was notoriously cheap and had a barebone staff, with himself an insurance salesmen making most of the decisions. Yet this newbie built one of the greatest dynasties of baseball. Want to know how he went about acquiring baseball players? He'd take the official baseball guides and look at the players batting averages! Thats it no formulas, no scouts, no reviews. He would look to see if a player had a consistently good batting average and if so he wanted him. If he didn't he avoided them. That simple system help fuel the great A's run of the 70's.

Really? That surprises me, because the A's were a low batting average team, even for that era. Their BAs 1972-1974 were .240, .260, .247. Their stars were mostly low BA guys who were still productive because of other reasons (power, walks, baserunning, fielding). Guys like Reggie, Bando, Tenace, Campeneris, Dick Green, Bill North. Those guys weren't good because of their BA, but rather good despite their BA. It seems strange Finley would have guys like that on his team if he was just signing on BA.

[digglahhh]

Ubiq,

As you admitted that anecdote, is, well,...anedcotal.

I'm sure there was a pretty wide range in regards to how important different execs of different teams felt just merely getting on base was. Branch Rickey understood that decades before 1977.

Are we that self-important to think that baseball men of yore didn't recognize the relationship between getting on base and scoring runs, and realize that you could get on by walking as well as hitting?

[Ubiquitous]

No, I'm simply telling you a story about Charlie O'. He's the only owner I have stories for because he is one of the two owners my friend knew in his baseball days.

[RuthMayBond]

I wouldn't call his 1976 "GREAT"...but he was very good.An outfielder (not a C or SS) with a 77 BA+ and a 96 SLG+? :eek:

[SABR Matt]

SLG != power...ISOP = power. He had above average power, WAAAAAYYY above average plate discipline, was still a decent fielder...the only failing was the low batting average...and yes...his other assets were enough to make him a better than average offensive player in 1976.

[KCGHOST]

In 1976 he was a slightly above average offensive player.

[SABR Matt]

Allard Baird is not only dumber than a bag of hammers...he's just as painful to deal with...LOL

(sorry...just had to comment on your sig)

[iPod]

SLG != power...ISOP = power. He had above average power, WAAAAAYYY above average plate discipline, was still a decent fielder...the only failing was the low batting average...and yes...his other assets were enough to make him a better than average offensive player in 1976.

I don't really understand why isolated power has any intrinsic value, though. Honestly, who really cares how you're getting your total bases, if you're only getting 37 of them per 100 at-bats?

[538280]

I don't really understand why isolated power has any intrinsic value, though. Honestly, who really cares how you're getting your total bases, if you're only getting 37 of them per 100 at-bats?

It matters because we want to know how much actual power a player has, by taking the singles element out of SLG. Knowing how much actual power a player has can be useful, and Wynn in '76 is actually a good example of this. He has a 96 rel. SLG, but that's only because of his low BA. His rel. IsoSLG is 139.

[Chisox]

SLG != power...ISOP = power. He had above average power, WAAAAAYYY above average plate discipline, was still a decent fielder...the only failing was the low batting average...and yes...his other assets were enough to make him a better than average offensive player in 1976.

Better than average does not equal very good.
Better than average equals starters. The average stat line in history is something similar to .265/.330/.375; therefore a line of .280/.350/.400 is better than average.
Very good equals All-Star (or at least really close to it). A stat line of .300/.380/.475 is very good by comparison.

I'd say he was about average for a CF that year and leave it at that.
I like power and walks as much as anyone, but a base is a base, and a single is still a base and a non out. I'd say wherever Wynn's '76 is offensively, McGwire's 2001 has to be around there, as well.

[digglahhh]

I don't really understand why isolated power has any intrinsic value, though. Honestly, who really cares how you're getting your total bases, if you're only getting 37 of them per 100 at-bats?

I agree, I think this stat is next to meaningless. It only has value in certain situations. With that being said, this is one of the situations where it is pretty applicable.

I only see isolated power as something worth using when you have a low average guy with a lot of walks, OPS double counts singles (all hits really), so if you have a guy "substituting" walks for singles as the most common way to get on base he gets heavily penalized because walks only count once and singles count twice. IsoPd attempts to correct for such a phenomenon, and while it is flawed because the single is still more valuable than the walk, in general, the metric makes an effort.

Now when you use IsoPd for a guy like who gets tons of hits but doesn't walk much, like say Kirby Puckett, I think the stat is just about meaningless.

The biggest problem I have with this stat is how easily it can be used to manipulate. IsoPd would state that Wynn was a better power hitter than Puckett. Puckett was top 10 in his league in XBH twice as often as Wynn was. Power hitting is about more than homeruns. This stat can be used to discredit or credit players at the whim of a poster who wants to make a point.

The stat is really a somewhat of a misnomer in my opinion. Often, it speaks more directly to the manner in which a batter most commonly reaches base.

[SABR Matt]

I don't really understand why isolated power has any intrinsic value, though. Honestly, who really cares how you're getting your total bases, if you're only getting 37 of them per 100 at-bats?

You're arbitrarily punishing Wynn twice for the same shortcoming. If you go "he has a terrible batting average and his SLG is only mediocre" you're criticizing him twice for the same problem...he didn't hit many singles.

In analysis...singles are only counted once...

[538280]

The biggest problem I have with this stat is how easily it can be used to manipulate. IsoPd would state that Wynn was a better power hitter than Puckett. Puckett was top 10 in his league in XBH twice as often as Wynn was. Power hitting is about more than homeruns. This stat can be used to discredit or credit players at the whim of a poster who wants to make a point.


I completely disagree. Power hitting is about more than home runs, but home runs are certainly the biggest part of it. The formula for IsoPD is this:

((HR*4)+(3B*3)+(2B*2))/AB

For a shorter calculation, you can also just do SLG minus BA. How is that wrong? A home run counts for 4, a triple for 3, a double for 2. Is that an unfair representation of power hitting? What, should a double count for more than a home run? It doesn't matter how many total extra base hits Puckett or Wynn had, what matters is how many extra bases they had. Home runs do and should count twice as much as doubles there.

For example, who's the better power hitter, the guy who hits 40 doubles, 5 triples, and 5 home runs or the guy who hits 10 doulbes, no triples, and 30 home runs? The first guy has more total XBH (50 to 40), but the second guy has far more extra bases (140 to 115). Which would you rather have in your lineup? Which is a more valuable performance? You're lying to yourself if you say the first guy.

[digglahhh]

Chris,

Of course homers are a big part of power hitting, but doubles are important too. Of course a guy with 10 homers and 40 doubles isn't a better power hitter than the guy with 20 of each. My point was that just a guy who hits 20 homers can hit with considerable power if he hits a bunch of doubles too. Often times high 2B totals signify the difference between an upper level power hitter and a mere slugger.

Taking these extreme scenarios doesn't hurt my argument in the slightest and I'm pretty sure you knew before you even wrote the post that I wouldn't consider a guy who hit 5 homers a power hitter, so I don't really know what purpose your last post served.

[iPod]

You're arbitrarily punishing Wynn twice for the same shortcoming. If you go "he has a terrible batting average and his SLG is only mediocre" you're criticizing him twice for the same problem...he didn't hit many singles.

In analysis...singles are only counted once...

OK, Wynn got a high % of extra base hits per at bat than his contemporaries. But what of it, exactly? If he's not getting very many total bases (which he wasn't), it's sort of moot, isn't it? Christian Guzman hit 20 triples in 2000, which is I guess a skill; the skill of getting a high % of triples per at bat... but he wasn't doing enough damage outside of that for it to be the sort of thing that you can point to as evidence of him being "good".

Sort of like Wynn's plate discipline... walking is valuable... but only in the sense that it correlates to getting on base more often. If a guy walks a lot but it doesn't lead to a high on-base percentage... how much value does it have?

His batting average is just too low; he's handicapped himself too much for his natural tools (patience, power) to lead to real output (OBP, SLG).

[SABR Matt]

He walked so often that his OBP *was* high...so that part of the argument I'm not getting...

As for the SLG/ISOP thing...Yes I know he didn't amass a lot of TB, but the problem with OPS is that singles hitting is the most important componant of it. Every base hit you get counts as both a major componant of SLG and most of your OBP...the difference between what you guys are thinking of as a good season for a hitter (something like .280/.400/.460) and what Wynn did in 1976 is probably about 40 singles that he turned into outs...but that's creating a .130 or so warping on his OPS...which isn't right at all.

[Chisox]

I completely disagree. Power hitting is about more than home runs, but home runs are certainly the biggest part of it. The formula for IsoPD is this:

((HR*4)+(3B*3)+(2B*2))/AB

Isn't that (HR*3+3B*2+2B)/AB? Minor, but isn't it extra bases over at bats?

My thoughts on power:
When I think of power, I almost always think of home-runs, or true power.
However, when I think of a slugger, I think more in lines of total bases and making a doubles a good part of the diet.
With that, I'll say that between Puckett and Wynn, Wynn was the better power hitter and walker, but Puckett was probably the same base-runner, and worlds better in every other category, and therefore the better player.

I also agree that OPS distorts singles. If it wasn't so widely used (particularly on this site) I wouldn't even talk about it.

[digglahhh]

My thoughts on power:
When I think of power, I almost always think of home-runs, or true power.
However, when I think of a slugger, I think more in lines of total bases and making a doubles a good part of the diet.


Ah, language, the nuances, subtleties and connontations...ain't it a bitch. I happen to interpret being a slugger and being a power hitter in the opposite way. I think the "power hitter" is complimentary form and "slugger" is the derogatory form. Sluggers, to me don't qualify as good enough "hitters" to be included under the definition of "power hitter." They don't really hit, so much as slug.

So, I dunno, Russel Branyan, is a slugger. Somebody like Abreu is a power hitter, because he is a professional hitter, who hits his share of homers and doulbes. He's too good of a hitter to go for broke with every swing, it would be unproductive, but still he manages to put up good numbers in the power categories, despite varying his approach. Branyan's lack of hitting skills makes the haymaker (slugging 24/7) approach most productive for him.

I see how others can see it the other way, especially with the realtionship with SLG, but its just funny how we always think we are being so clear, but any tiny part of our communication can drive a misunderstanding.

[leecemark]

--I can't answer yes or no to the poll question. It was an okay season. Wynn wasn't the worst CF you could have had in 1976, but I doubt either the Braves or Wynn himself were really happy with his play that year.

[iPod]

He walked so often that his OBP *was* high...so that part of the argument I'm not getting...

As for the SLG/ISOP thing...Yes I know he didn't amass a lot of TB, but the problem with OPS is that singles hitting is the most important componant of it. Every base hit you get counts as both a major componant of SLG and most of your OBP...the difference between what you guys are thinking of as a good season for a hitter (something like .280/.400/.460) and what Wynn did in 1976 is probably about 40 singles that he turned into outs...but that's creating a .130 or so warping on his OPS...which isn't right at all.

I must say at this point my main objection to all this isn't that Wynn couldn't have been a good player, but that it's really silly to debate the technicalities of his power.

I just watched the movie Titanic so forgive the odd analogy; while the ship was sinking they sent out SOS and there's that scene where the radio guy reports to the captain and says that the nearest ship will be there in 4 hours. The point of the scene though is just to end all debate that maybe the people are going to get saved.

The ship is going as fast as it can, but it's just too far away for it to be relevant to anything. Debating Wynn's power in 1976 would be like if the Captain and the radio guy started debating the other ship's engine capacity. Yeah, maybe it's some experimental ship with an incredible engine that goes really amazingly fast, and it'll make it in only 2 hours, but everyone on board our ship is going to be dead in an hour anyway so what does it really matter?

If you imagine a player as first evaluating his batting average, then adjusting that rating for power, then finally adjusting for plate discipline and OBP, it's entirely possible for Wynn to end up above average, but it would be on the last adjustment. If he starts off a plain .200 hitter, he's abysmal. Giving him credit for his isolated power maybe boosts him to "significantly below average". I just don't really see the point in debating it.

[Ubiquitous]

So theres nothing a .200 hitter can do and not be abysmal?

The batting average is not the largest chunk of value for a hitter. In terms of runs it trails behind SLG and OBP. If anything batting average is the last thing one should look at.

[iPod]

I think I made it pretty explicitly clear that's not what I'm saying. I'll extend my argument a little further...

If the radio guy had told the Captain that a ship would be there in an hour and a half, well, then it might become relevant to the question of "is everyone going to die?" 4 hours is irrelevant.

If Wynn in 1976 had hit 40 homers or something (leaving OBP out of the equation just for a second), then his "isolated power" may become relevant to the question of "was he an above average player?" 17 home runs is irrelevant to that question; I hope we can all agree that an average guy who hits .200 and has 17 home runs is a below average player.

Wynn obviously was not an average guy who hits .200 with 17 home runs; he walked a ton as well. If he was a good player, then it was for that reason, not because he hit 17 home runs. He wasn't powerful enough for it to be relevant to the question of "did he have a good season?" so I think that talking about "well, actually, he really DID hit for a lot of power, because slugging average doesn't do this and that..." is just splitting hairs.

[Ubiquitous]

But again hitting isn't the only part of the equation nor is simply 17 homers. Yes it isn't 40 homers but just because it isn't 40 does it mean it is devoid value. To carry the titanic analogy a little but further. It would be like finding out the closest help is four hours away, and if they close these doors, shift some balance, pump the water out here, put the life boats down here, use this for ballast, and so on they can keep the ship and passengers afloat long enough for help to arrive.

The 17 homers do not turn Wynn from a bad player to a good player, but they do help. They help keep the ship afloat. His defense helps, his stolen bases help, his walks, and so on.

Now do I think Wynn was a good player that year? No I think he was around average, maybe even possibly below it. He played 85 games in left that year more then the games he played in center. He batted third primarily and with the #4 hitter being way more mediocre then him his walk value is squandered. Now one could argue that isn't his fault and that is true. If Wynn was used differently or had he been on a different team those walks would have had more value. So I think he was around average, most of the seasonal metrics say he was slightly above average by a win or two. But I think when you look at his team and its lineup construction I'd say he falls back to average.

[538280]

Wynn obviously was not an average guy who hits .200 with 17 home runs; he walked a ton as well. If he was a good player, then it was for that reason, not because he hit 17 home runs. He wasn't powerful enough for it to be relevant to the question of "did he have a good season?" so I think that talking about "well, actually, he really DID hit for a lot of power, because slugging average doesn't do this and that..." is just splitting hairs.

You're ignoring fielding completely here, iPod. Wynn was a fine fielder that year. If you call his hitting slightly above average then it would seem his fielding would make it a good season. By all metrics I've seen, he was a very good almost Gold Glove caliber fielding OFer that year.

[leecemark]

--The "metrics" might say that, but the Braves apparently didn't think so or he wouldn't have been bumped to LF for over half the season. Its not like there was a defensive genius handled CF for the Braves either (the emergence of Cesar Cedeno allows Wynn some slack for getting bumped from CF in Houston). Wynn was still a decent outfielder and actually one of the better players on the Braves - but that says more about Altanta's lack of talent than Wynn's acheivements.