Players' World Series Shares

[LouGehrig]

There is a statistic based upon the number of World Championship teams a player has been on, compared to the number of seasons that he played.

As an illustration, we can take the last Yankees' championship, which occurred way back in 2000.

1B Tino Martinez Seasons: 16 Championships: 4 Rating: .250
2B Chuck Knoblauch Seasons: 12 Championships: 4 Rating: .333
3B Scott Brosius Seasons: 11 Championships: 3 Rating: .273
SS Derek Jeter Seasons: 14 Championships: 4 Rating: .286
LF: David Justice Seasons: 14 Championships: 2 Rating: .143
CF: Bernie Williams Seasons: 16 Championships:4 Rating: .250
RF: Paul O'Neill Seasons: 17 Championships:5 Rating: .294
C: Jorge Posada Seasons: 14 Championships: 3 Rating: .214

World Championship is used because the team that LOSES the WS has won nothing except the designation as the last to team to lose a game that season.

Isn't it interesting that the only player listed above who can be considered a super star is Derek Jeter.

The Yankees that won four consecutive World Championships from 1936-39 had Joe DiMaggio, Lou Gehrig, and Bill Dickey. No other player (pitchers not included), with the possible exception of Tony Lazzeri, who was nearing the end during the skein, was a super star.

The Yankees of the five consecutive World Championship streak from 1949-1953 had Joe DiMaggio for three of the titles, Mickey for three of the titles, and Yogi for all of them. No one else was a super star. Interesting that Billy Martin did so well in the WS in which he appeared, despite not being a super star.

Super stars do NOT win championships. Teams comprised of winning players, such as the 1972-1974 A's -- Joe Rudi, Bert Campaneris, Sal Bando, Dick Green, and Gene Tenace -- none of whom was even close to being a super star, win championships.

We will get to pitching soon, but even there, Allie Reynolds, Eddie Lopat, Ken Holtzman, Ed Figueroa, Mike Torrez, and Darold Knowles were fine pitchers, but not super stars.

[SavoyBG]

There is a statistic based upon the number of World Championship teams a player has been on, compared to the number of seasons that he played.

As an illustration, we can take the last Yankees' championship, which occurred way back in 2000.

1B Tino Martinez Seasons: 16 Championships: 4 Rating: .250
2B Chuck Knoblauch Seasons: 12 Championships: 4 Rating: .333
3B Scott Brosius Seasons: 11 Championships: 3 Rating: .273
SS Derek Jeter Seasons: 14 Championships: 4 Rating: .286
LF: David Justice Seasons: 14 Championships: 2 Rating: .143
CF: Bernie Williams Seasons: 16 Championships:4 Rating: .250
RF: Paul O'Neill Seasons: 17 Championships:5 Rating: .294
C: Jorge Posada Seasons: 14 Championships: 3 Rating: .214

World Championship is used because the team that LOSES the WS has won nothing except the designation as the last to team to lose a game that season.

Isn't it interesting that the only player listed above who can be considered a super star is Derek Jeter.

The Yankees that won four consecutive World Championships from 1936-39 had Joe DiMaggio, Lou Gehrig, and Bill Dickey. No other player (pitchers not included), with the possible exception of Tony Lazzeri, who was nearing the end during the skein, was a super star.

The Yankees of the five consecutive World Championship streak from 1949-1953 had Joe DiMaggio for three of the titles, Mickey for three of the titles, and Yogi for all of them. No one else was a super star. Interesting that Billy Martin did so well in the WS in which he appeared, despite not being a super star.

Super stars do NOT win championships. Teams comprised of winning players, such as the 1972-1974 A's -- Joe Rudi, Bert Campaneris, Sal Bando, Dick Green, and Gene Tenace -- none of whom was even close to being a super star, win championships.

We will get to pitching soon, but even there, Allie Reynolds, Eddie Lopat, Ken Holtzman, Ed Figueroa, Mike Torrez, and Darold Knowles were fine pitchers, but not super stars.

Where's Clemens and Rivera on those Yankees teams. They are both superstars.

I've already shown that superstars win pennants more than twice as often as non superstars. I'm sure it's at least that much for non superstars. Your Yankees list shows 7 non superstars, although I would argue that Bernie is a better player than Jeter. But even if Jeter is truly the only superstar on the team (what about Clemens and Rivera?), then superstars are still winning the world series more often than non superstars. In any given season there is less than one superstar per team in the major leagues. If you look through any of those years where the yankees won the world series, there are a whole lot more non superstars who did not win the world series than the few non superstars that did win the world series.

[SavoyBG]

Super stars do NOT win championships. Teams comprised of winning players, such as the 1972-1974 A's -- Joe Rudi, Bert Campaneris, Sal Bando, Dick Green, and Gene Tenace -- none of whom was even close to being a super star, win championships.



That As team had at least one superstar, Reggie Jackson, and Catfish Hunter and Rollie Fingers were certainly close if not superstars.

[SavoyBG]

C: Jorge Posada Seasons: 14 Championships: 3 Rating: .214


Why does Posada not have 4 championships. He was on the 1996 team.

[SavoyBG]

Super stars do NOT win championships. Teams comprised of winning players, such as the 1972-1974 A's -- Joe Rudi, Bert Campaneris, Sal Bando, Dick Green, and Gene Tenace -- none of whom was even close to being a super star, win championships.


Let's look at 1974. The As won the world series. They had at least one superstar, Reggie jackson, who had 30 win shares in that season. Cafish Hunter had 27 win shares, but we'll just go with Reggie as their only superstar. Here are the other superstars in 1974:

Bobby Grich - 32 win shares
Gaylord Perry - 30 win shares
Rod Carew - 32 win shares
Jeff Burroughs - 33 win shares
Joe Morgan - 37 win shares
Johnny Bench - 34 win shares
Jim Wynn - 32 win shares
Mike Schmidt - 39 win shares

So with Reggie there were a grand total of 9 superstars in 1974, and one of them won the world series. That's a percentage of .111.

There were 26 other players on Oakland that year who got at least one win share, and a world series ring.

There were a total of 641 non superstars in the major leagues in 1974. So 26 out of 641 non superstars won the world series. That's a percentage of .041.

So 4% of non superstars won a world series in 1974, and 11% of superstars won a world series in 1974.

Superstars won the world series almost three times as often in 1974 as non superstars.

Incidentally, all 4 playoff teams in 1974 each had one of the 9 superstars in baseball that season. A's had Reggie, Orioles had Grich, Dodgers had Wynn and the Phils had Schmidt. So 44% of the superstars got to the playoffs that year as compared to 16% of the non superstars (102 of 641) that got to the playoffs. Superstars got to the playoffs in 1974 at almost three times the rate that non superstars got to the playoffs.

However you want to slice this up, superstars get to the playoffs, get to the world series, and win the world series, all much more often than non superstars do.

If you're a non superstar, you have very little chance of ever winning a championship unless you have at least one superstar for a teammate.

[SavoyBG]

Here's a list of all of the world series MVPs since they have been giving the award. There have been 55 winners counting the years where they gave the award to more than one player. Of these 50 winners, 22 of them are hall of famers who would qualify as superstars IMO. I have indicated them in bold.

Year Player Team
1955 Johnny Podres Brooklyn Dodgers
1956 Don Larsen New York Yankees
1957 Lew Burdette Milwaukee Braves
1958 Bob Turley New York Yankees
1959 Larry Sherry Los Angeles Dodgers
1960 Bobby Richardson New York Yankees†
1961 Whitey Ford New York Yankees
1962 Ralph Terry New York Yankees
1963 Sandy Koufax Los Angeles Dodgers
1964 Bob Gibson St. Louis Cardinals
1965 Sandy Koufax (2) Los Angeles Dodgers
1966 Frank Robinson Baltimore Orioles
1967 Bob Gibson (2) St. Louis Cardinals
1968 Mickey Lolich Detroit Tigers
1969 Donn Clendenon New York Mets
1970 Brooks Robinson Baltimore Orioles
1971 Roberto Clemente Pittsburgh Pirates
1972 Gene Tenace Oakland Athletics
1973 Reggie Jackson Oakland Athletics
1974 Rollie Fingers Oakland Athletics
1975 Pete Rose Cincinnati Reds
1976 Johnny Bench Cincinnati Reds
1977 Reggie Jackson (2) New York Yankees
1978 Bucky Dent New York Yankees
1979 Willie Stargell Pittsburgh Pirates
1980 Mike Schmidt Philadelphia Phillies
1981 Ron Cey Los Angeles Dodgers
Pedro Guerrero
Steve Yeager
1982 Darrell Porter St. Louis Cardinals
1983 Rick Dempsey Baltimore Orioles
1984 Alan Trammell Detroit Tigers
1985 Bret Saberhagen Kansas City Royals
1986 Ray Knight New York Mets
1987 Frank Viola Minnesota Twins
1988 Orel Hershiser Los Angeles Dodgers
1989 Dave Stewart Oakland Athletics
1990 José Rijo Cincinnati Reds
1991 Jack Morris Minnesota Twins
1992 Pat Borders Toronto Blue Jays
1993 Paul Molitor Toronto Blue Jays
1994 None awarded due to players strike cancelling World Series.
1995 Tom Glavine Atlanta Braves
1996 John Wetteland New York Yankees
1997 Liván Hernández Florida Marlins
1998 Scott Brosius New York Yankees
1999 Mariano Rivera New York Yankees
2000 Derek Jeter New York Yankees
2001 Randy Johnson Arizona Diamondbacks
Curt Schilling 2002
Troy Glaus Anaheim Angels
2003 Josh Beckett Florida Marlins
2004 Manny Ramírez Boston Red Sox
2005 Jermaine Dye Chicago White Sox
2006 David Eckstein St. Louis Cardinals
2007 Mike Lowell Boston Red Sox
2008 Cole Hamels Philadelphia Phillies

Considering that there's only 1-3 superstars on average in each world series, the fact that 40% of the MVPs of the series have been superstars certainly seems to indicate that superstars are very important to a team's chances of winning the world series.

[LouGehrig]

Where's Clemens and Rivera on those Yankees teams. They are both superstars.

(what about Clemens and Rivera?)

there are a whole lot more non superstars who did not win the world series than the few non superstars that did win the world series.

It is important to read and comprehend.

We will get to pitching soon, but even there, Allie Reynolds, Eddie Lopat, Ken Holtzman, Ed Figueroa, Mike Torrez, and Darold Knowles were fine pitchers, but not super stars.

Of course there are a whole lot more non superstars who did not win the World Series than the few non superstars that did win the World Series because none of the players on the 29 teams that did NOT win the WS were World Champions.

[LouGehrig]

Why does Posada not have 4 championships. He was on the 1996 team.

He was not on the WS roster in 1996 and since he did not play in the WS, baseball-reference and I do not give him credit for the World Championship.

[LouGehrig]

Your position is merely one of concluding that a super star is better than a non super star.

[LouGehrig]

Since it is generally agreed that it is difficult, if not impossible to compare players from different eras because too many variables cannot be controlled, one must select the top players of any season, or the top players of a specific season, and consider them super stars.

For example, in 1905, Elmer Flick led the AL with a .308 batting average. He was one of the "superstars." Others include Wee Willie Keeler, Topsy Hartsel, Sam Crawford, Harry Davis, George Stone, Socks Seybold, and Lave Cross.

Crawford and Flick are in the HOF, but it is questionable whether any of the others were really super stars.

The Giants won the 1905 WS. Not ONE of their players (pitchers will be considered later), could be considered a super star.

The reason pitching will be considered later is that pitching trumps offense, and pitching wins most World Championships.

[SavoyBG]

Of course there are a whole lot more non superstars who did not win the World Series than the few non superstars that did win the World Series because none of the players on the 29 teams that did NOT win the WS were World Champions.

Not just a whole lot more, but a much larger percentage.Superstars win the world series more than twice as often as non superstars. In any given year only about 2% of the players in the league are superstars.

No matter what world series winner you look at there's always going to a bunch of non superstars and role players, but it's going to be rare to have a world series winner without any superstars.

Only around 5% of the players particpating in the world series in a given year are superstars. but yet 40% of the world series MVPs have been superstars.

I really don't see what your point is here. So a non superstar like Tino Martinez won 4 championships in 16 years. Dave Martinez won zero championships in 16 years. There are loads of non superstars who played 16 years and never even got to a world series. Here's a brief list of non superstars who never won a wrold series in long careers.

Jeff Leonard - 0 for 14
Al Lopez - 0 for 19
Rick Manning - 0 for 13 (never made the post season at all)
Don Mattingly - 0 for 14
Charlie Maxwell - 0 for 14
Lee Maye - 0 for 13
George McBride - 0 for 16
Tom McCraw - 0 for 13
Mark McLemore - 0 for 18
Ken McMullen - 0 for 16
Brian McRae - 0 for 10 (never made the post season at all)
Sam Mele - 0 for 10
Fred Merkle - 0 for 16 (played on 5 WS losers)
Cass Michaels - 0 for 12
Eddie Miksis - 0 for 14
Larry Milbourne - 0 for 11
Rick Miller - 0 for 15
Don Money - 0 for 16
Charlie Moore - 0 for 15
Jim Morrison - 0 for 12
Wally Moses - 0 for 17
Manny Mota - 0 for 20
Rance Mullininks - 0 for 16
Bobby Murcer - 0 for 17
Buddy Myer - 0 for 17
Greg Myers - 0 for 16

That's just some of the guys whose names started with the letter M.

A much higher percentage of non superstars never win a world series then the percentage of superstars who never do.

[mwiggins]

The Yankees that won four consecutive World Championships from 1936-39 had Joe DiMaggio, Lou Gehrig, and Bill Dickey. No other player (pitchers not included), with the possible exception of Tony Lazzeri, who was nearing the end during the skein, was a super star.

The Yankees of the five consecutive World Championship streak from 1949-1953 had Joe DiMaggio for three of the titles, Mickey for three of the titles, and Yogi for all of them. No one else was a super star. Interesting that Billy Martin did so well in the WS in which he appeared, despite not being a super star.



Gee, they had to make do with just 3 guys during each run who were elite all-time greats. 3 superstars out of 8 position players is an exceptional concentration of talent. The late 30's teams were led by two of the greatest 15 players who've ever played in the majors, and those two were backed by a superstar level catcher in Dickey. And when Gehrig faded, they had stars like Keller and Gordon coming up. Those teams were absurdly star laden.

And it does seem fairly useless to look at position players seperate from pitchers. You could look at the 70's Reds pitching by itself and say "The Reds dominated without any stars! Having stars is overrated!"

And the 70's A's had a guy named Reggie who was quite a superstar, so they aren't a good example of a great team that didn't have any position player superstars.

[SavoyBG]

The reason pitching will be considered later is that pitching trumps offense, and pitching wins most World Championships.

A - a nice theoory, but there's certainly no proof that pitching trumnps offense, nor that it wins the most championships.

B - Even if it's true, why would that be a reason to considder pitching later rather than now?

[SavoyBG]

Gee, they had to make do with just 3 guys during each run who were elite all-time greats. 3 superstars out of 8 position players is an exceptional concentration of talent. The late 30's teams were led by two of the greatest 15 players who've ever played in the majors, and those two were backed by a superstar level catcher in Dickey. .

Not to mention new hall of famer Joe Gordon, and hall of famers Red Ruffing and Lefty Gomez.

There were 6 hall of famers playing for the Yankees in the 1938 WS.

[brett]

Let's look at 1974. The As won the world series. They had at least one superstar, Reggie jackson, who had 30 win shares in that season. Cafish Hunter had 27 win shares, but we'll just go with Reggie as their only superstar. Here are the other superstars in 1974:

Bobby Grich - 32 win shares
Gaylord Perry - 30 win shares
Rod Carew - 32 win shares
Jeff Burroughs - 33 win shares
Joe Morgan - 37 win shares
Johnny Bench - 34 win shares
Jim Wynn - 32 win shares
Mike Schmidt - 39 win shares

So with Reggie there were a grand total of 9 superstars in 1974, and one of them won the world series. That's a percentage of .111.

There were 26 other players on Oakland that year who got at least one win share, and a world series ring.

There were a total of 641 non superstars in the major leagues in 1974. So 26 out of 641 non superstars won the world series. That's a percentage of .041.

So 4% of non superstars won a world series in 1974, and 11% of superstars won a world series in 1974.

Superstars won the world series almost three times as often in 1974 as non superstars.



The problem with this analysis is that you are counting 26 players who platooned a lot and were not full time players. An everyday full time player accounts for 11% of the offensive playing time, and about 4% of the total defensive load. That means that there are only 13-14 full playing time equivalents on a team. Roughly 1/13.5 of all playing time is accounted for by 1 full time superstar on a team. I'm not saying that stars don't tend to win championships (although with free agency and large contracts, they could actually lose championships) but you can't just count players. If you are going to do that, why not count every player in the organization's farm system.

In fact, by the way, one tremendous year improves a team's chances of winning a championship more than 2 great years. Let's say that a position player produces 18 win shares on average. If a team could add a player who produces a 40 win share season (+22 above averge), followed by an 18 win share season (average), OR a player who would produce 29 win shares (+11) for 2 years, the first team would statistically improve its odds of winning a championship more than the second team, over the next two years.

Anyway, one could use the same basic argument to show that that below average players win championships. Championship teams have more players with fewer than 18 (average) win shares than non-championship teams.

[brett]

A - a nice theoory, but there's certainly no proof that pitching trumnps offense, nor that it wins the most championships.

B - Even if it's true, why would that be a reason to considder pitching later rather than now?

There is evidence that winning series is more dependent on a teams top 2 and 3 starting pitchers-there relative value rises.

[brett]

There is a statistic based upon the number of World Championship teams a player has been on, compared to the number of seasons that he played.

As an illustration, we can take the last Yankees' championship, which occurred way back in 2000.

1B Tino Martinez Seasons: 16 Championships: 4 Rating: .250
2B Chuck Knoblauch Seasons: 12 Championships: 4 Rating: .333
3B Scott Brosius Seasons: 11 Championships: 3 Rating: .273
SS Derek Jeter Seasons: 14 Championships: 4 Rating: .286
LF: David Justice Seasons: 14 Championships: 2 Rating: .143
CF: Bernie Williams Seasons: 16 Championships:4 Rating: .250
RF: Paul O'Neill Seasons: 17 Championships:5 Rating: .294
C: Jorge Posada Seasons: 14 Championships: 3 Rating: .214

World Championship is used because the team that LOSES the WS has won nothing except the designation as the last to team to lose a game that season.



A player playing when there were more than 16 teams needs to get proportionately more credit for a championship. 26 teams gets 26/16 etc.