When Bad Teams Happen to Good Players
Our most recent Team Spotlight focuses on the plight of the Arizona Diamondbacks, who just may challenge the Tigers for their recently won title of “Worst Team in History” before the year is over. The Diamondbacks’ plight is the result of several things, including injuries (particularly to Luis Gonzalez, Richie Sexson, Matt Kata, Shane Reynolds, Jose Valverde and Oscar Villareal), choice (trading away Steve Finley) and talent.
One player they haven’t traded away is Randy Johnson. Not that they didn’t try; Johnson was reportedly headed to the Yankees or Dodgers, but Arizona couldn’t work out deals, and Johnson is stuck with the desert heat instead of a winning atmosphere. Which means that one of the greatest pitchers of all time, having another terrific season, is playing for a truly terrible team.
Rob Neyer explored the theme of great players on bad teams last week, and Mike Carminati took it one step further, by comparing Johnson’s won/loss record to other Great Pitchers on Bad Teams. As Mike pointed out, Johnson is on track to win a third of the Dbacks’ games, which hasn’t been done since 1972 when the great Steve Carlton pitched for a lousy Phillies team.
Now, wins are interesting and all, but they can be misleading. Won/loss records toss and turn with the vagaries of the bullpen and offensive support, among other things. According to Baseball Prospectus, for instance, Johnson would have one or two more wins than he currently does, if just given league-average run support.
So let’s turn to Win Shares, which compile the contribution of every pitcher (and player) on every team with only scant attention paid to his won/loss record. Pitchers are primarily graded on the number of runs they allow, compared to the league average. So, to complete the story, here’s a list of the players who contributed the highest portion of their teams’ Win Shares, starting in 1900:
Player Year Age Team Lg Pos WS TeamWS % Steve Carlton 1972 27 PHI NL SP 40 177 23% Nap Lajoie 1910 35 CLE AL 2B 47 213 22% Rogers Hornsby 1928 32 BSN NL 2B 33 150 22% Babe Ruth 1919 24 BOS AL LF 43 198 22% Amos Strunk 1916 27 PHA AL CF 23 108 21% Honus Wagner 1908 34 PIT NL SS 59 294 20% Walter Johnson 1913 25 WS1 AL SP 54 270 20% Barry Bonds 2001 36 SFN NL LF 54 270 20% Red Faber 1921 32 CHA AL SP 37 186 20% Ty Cobb 1917 30 DET AL CF 46 234 20%
In 1972, Steve Carlton contributed more to his team than any other single player in history. He had a great year on a really bad team, and represented almost one quarter of his entire team’s worth. He even contributed over half of his team’s pitching Win Shares (40 of 74).
As you can tell from looking at the list, this is a difficult thing for a starting pitcher to do, and it’s become even harder in the second half of the century. To make the point, here’s the same list, but only including years past 1960 (I’ve included all players who compiled at least 17% of his team’s Win Shares):
Player Year Age Team Lg Pos WS TeamWS % Steve Carlton 1972 27 PHI NL SP 40 177 23% Barry Bonds 2001 36 SFN NL LF 54 270 20% Frank Howard 1968 31 WAS AL LF 38 195 19% Barry Bonds 1996 31 SFN NL LF 39 204 19% Gaylord Perry 1972 33 CLE AL SP 39 216 18% Barry Bonds 1995 30 SFN NL LF 36 201 18% Rusty Staub 1969 25 MON NL RF 27 156 17% Barry Bonds 2002 37 SFN NL LF 49 285 17% Tony Gwynn 1997 37 SDN NL RF 39 228 17% Ron Santo 1966 26 CHN NL 3B 30 177 17% Mike Schmidt 1981 31 PHI NL 3B 30 177 17% Tommy Harper 1970 29 MIL AL 3B 33 195 17% Cal Ripken 1991 30 BAL AL SS 34 201 17% Jeff Bagwell 1996 28 HOU NL 1B 41 246 17%
As you can see, it has become harder for a player to dominate his team, and it has particularly become harder for starting pitchers to dominate their team as their total innings have declined. Which makes Steve Carlton’s 1972 even more remarkable. I took a closer look at his 1972 record, and found there was nothing really flaky about it. The Phillies scored 3.5 runs/game during his starts — slightly higher than the 3.2 they scored overall, but not significantly higher.
There is one thing. Steve Carlton’s 1972 :FIP: was 2.80, which is good, but still much higher than his recorded ERA of 1.97. Carlton’s :DER: was around .750, which indicates that he had a lot of batted balls go his way. Randy Johnson, who currently holds 15% of his team’s Win Shares, has a FIP of 2.39. So, while Johnson probably won’t come close to Carlton’s incredible record of team dominance, his underlying talent, compared to his relatively talent-less team, is comparable.
Johnson has 18.5 pitching Win Shares, which is 45% of Arizona’s total pitching Win Shares. I know you’re curious, so here are the Win Share totals for each National League team, including total Win Shares, Win Shares for the offense (batting) and defense, and defensive Win Shares separated into pitching and fielding Win Shares.
Total Off Def Pitch Field ARI 111 49 62 41 21 ATL 207 97 110 79 31 CHC 195 85 110 77 33 CIN 171 115 56 37 18 COL 162 82 80 53 27 FLO 180 84 96 66 30 HOU 180 77 103 71 31 LAD 210 101 109 76 33 MIL 165 64 101 72 29 MON 150 50 100 66 34 NYM 174 83 91 65 26 PHI 177 96 81 54 27 PIT 174 76 98 67 31 SDP 189 100 89 60 29 SFG 201 120 81 56 26 STL 234 121 113 77 36
The Cardinals’ dominance is dominating, as they lead or are near the top in batting (1st), pitching (tied for second) and fielding (first) Win Shares. Here’s the American League:
Total Off Def Pitch Field ANA 201 98 103 72 32 BAL 171 91 80 56 24 BOS 201 102 99 71 28 CHW 180 88 92 63 30 CLE 189 111 78 53 25 DET 168 99 69 46 23 KC 129 57 72 48 24 MIN 198 75 123 87 37 NYY 228 127 101 71 30 OAK 204 88 116 80 36 SEA 135 59 76 48 27 TBD 165 70 95 62 33 TEX 201 88 113 78 36 TOR 147 53 94 65 29
Best offense in the league belongs to the Yankees, while the Twins are leading in both pitching and fielding Win Shares.
There is no AL player who contributes to his team as overwhelmingly as Johnson contributes to the Diamondbacks. In the NL, several players represent about 15% of his team’s Win Shares, including Sean Casey in Cincinnati, Abreu in Philly, Loretta in San Diego, and Helton of the Rockies. But no article of player/team domination would be complete without reference to the magical Barry Bonds, who represents 20% of his team’s Win Shares so far this year. In fact, it’s safe to say that no player has ever contributed a greater portion of his team’s performance the way Bonds has for the Giants over the past few years.
References & Resources
Steve Carlton’s game logs are available, of course, at Retrosheet.