Carl Yastrzemski's odd career

[brett]

Using a different method, I estimate the league league LEAGUE road rates for Yaz' career to be .309 and .362 on base and slugging percentage. His career road rates were .357 and.422.

That would give him a relative OB% of 1.155 and a relative slugging percentage of 1.166 for a road OPS+ of 132.

Once more I've decided to calculate Yaz home OPS+ relative to park and home field advantage. Since the league road rates for his career are .309 and .362, and his overall league rates adjusted for ballpark are .334 and .398, then the home rates that should be used for the league to calculate his home OPS+ are .359 and .434.

his home rates once again were .408 and .503 which would give him a home relativized relative OB% of 1.136 and a home relativized relative slugging of 1.159 for an overall home relative OPS+ of 129.5

So it turns out Yaz actually was just as good of a relative hitter on the road and outside of Fenway as he was a relative hitter at home and in Fenway.

Here's the crux of it.

League road rates: .309/.362
his road rates: .359/.422
OPS+ about 132.5

League home rates adjusted for Fenway: .359/.434
His home rates: .408/.503
OPS+ about 129.5

Compare the league adjusted rates on the road to the league adjusted rates in Fenway with a normal home field advantage:

LEAGUE
Road to Home/Boston
.309 to .359
.362 to .434

That's what an average player would be expected to do in each of those settings, but ultimately the point is that his .359/.422 rates on the road versus a league that went .309 and .359 on the road are just as good as his home rates were relative to his home park, if not a little better.

My earlier estimates tried to estimate league adjusted rates from park factors which ended up being inaccurate and surprising.
Consider that Boston has a park factor of about 107, meaning that it produced about 114% of the league average offense, all else being equal, however Boston produced about 11% higher on base percentage and 15% higher slugging percentage than the rest of the league. That means that an average hitter in Boston would have a 126 OPS+ if we didn't account for park factors, and yet we only get 14% more offense. If the "ops+ is linear with offense" hypothesis were true we'd expect scoring to be 26% higher in Boston, but park factors say it was only 14% higher.

[SHOELESSJOE3]

I can tell you one thing that effected slugging home/away Fenway, doubles.
It was always a great doubles park, wide gap between home and away doubles.
OK I know about the Green Monster, short distance and high.
But it has to be more than the wall, look at the LH hitters on the list and the home/away doubles splits.

Don't neglect the configuration on the right side, RF line to deepest RCF.
I've heard more than a few players comment on handling balls off that barrier.
So no denying, the wall is the biggest factor but you would think that the RH hitters double home/away splits would be more extreme than the LH hitters. I could see Boggs making use of that wall, more often than the other LH hitters.

Those are some very hugh gaps for the LH Bosox hitter.
How does it play into slugging. It's telling me that balls hit into some areas are doubles at Fenway but not at other parks.
Slugging is all about bases gained per at bat, picking up that one more base per at bat, with splits like that, boost slugging.

Any kind of EBH, obviously a plus for slugging.

[Jackaroo Dave]

That's actually easy because we have sOPS+ scores for individual seasons (just not career). Park factors do not go into home and road sOPS+ (it is just your home rates and road rates relative to all players in their home parks or on the road).
So road sOPS+ for a given season is basically half of the OPS+ equation and you can figure out the other half from a players total OPS+ for the year. For example if a guy has a 150 road sOPS+ and a 160 overall sOPS+ then his home sOPS+ would be 170 (given about the same number of plate appearances, and within a maybe half a percent error due to not hitting in your home park when on the road).
In other words road sOPS+ is actually how well you did on the road taking into account a normal road diminishment.
So road sOPS+ SHOULD be equal to total sOPS+ if you have "normal" splits (though home sOPS+ will not because a high or low offensive ballpark is actually not factored into sOPS+.)
So I will assemble home and road sOPS+ in my next post. Also I might do the same for Boggs and Brett who have interesting splits over the years.

Oh, if that's all there is to it, why didn't you say so?
Seriously, thanks for all your efforts and time taken to explain their results.

[brett]

Using a different method, I estimate the league league LEAGUE road rates for Yaz' career to be .309 and .362 on base and slugging percentage. His career road rates were .357 and.422.

That would give him a relative OB% of 1.155 and a relative slugging percentage of 1.166 for a road OPS+ of 132.

Once more I've decided to calculate Yaz home OPS+ relative to park and home field advantage. Since the league road rates for his career are .309 and .362, and his overall league rates adjusted for ballpark are .334 and .398, then the home rates that should be used for the league to calculate his home OPS+ are .359 and .434.

his home rates once again were .408 and .503 which would give him a home relativized relative OB% of 1.136 and a home relativized relative slugging of 1.159 for an overall home relative OPS+ of 129.5

So it turns out Yaz actually was just as good of a relative hitter on the road and outside of Fenway as he was a relative hitter at home and in Fenway.

Here's the crux of it.

League road rates: .309/.362
his road rates: .359/.422
OPS+ about 132.5

League home rates adjusted for Fenway: .359/.434
His home rates: .408/.503
OPS+ about 129.5

Compare the league adjusted rates on the road to the league adjusted rates in Fenway with a normal home field advantage:

LEAGUE
Road to Home/Boston
.309 to .359
.362 to .434

That's what an average player would be expected to do in each of those settings, but ultimately the point is that his .359/.422 rates on the road versus a league that went .309 and .359 on the road are just as good as his home rates were relative to his home park, if not a little better.

My earlier estimates tried to estimate league adjusted rates from park factors which ended up being inaccurate and surprising.
Consider that Boston has a park factor of about 107, meaning that it produced about 114% of the league average offense, all else being equal, however Boston produced about 11% higher on base percentage and 15% higher slugging percentage than the rest of the league. That means that an average hitter in Boston would have a 126 OPS+ if we didn't account for park factors, and yet we only get 14% more offense. If the "ops+ is linear with offense" hypothesis were true we'd expect scoring to be 26% higher in Boston, but park factors say it was only 14% higher.

I edited this post with some interesting findings.

[Second Base Coach]

What do I need your numbers for, man? Who do you think knows more about him, the fans that watched, and loved, him? Or some spreadsheet? [/parody]

It was those fans who were adding to his overratedness, if that is a word. I consider them to be part of the problem, rather than a source of clarity.

[Second Base Coach]

Exactly - he was a wellll above average player for most of the 70' - All Star level in 2-3 of those seasons.

Jeepers Cats... go look up his numbers.

[brett]

So basically what I've shown now is that Yaz road relative OPS+ was a little OVER 130 and his home relative OPS+ was a little under 130! That means simply that his OPS+ and WAR are not boosted by his ballpark at all.

How can his road relative OPS+ be better than his home relative OPS+ when he went .359/.422 on the road and .408/.503 at home? Because the league on the road went .309/.362 on the road but .359/.434 at Fenway with home park adjustments.

[filihok]

Jeepers Cats... go look up his numbers.

Yaz 70-79: .384 OBP .452 SLG .374 wOBA, 128 wRC+, 43.4 WAR

League average 70-79: .323 OBP, .377 SLG, .318 wOBA


Yeah...Well above average.

[Second Base Coach]

From 1971 to 1983, he averaged .275 with 16 home runs and 75 RBI per season. I might be the last person on earth to continue to give value to Triple Crown figures... but there you go.

He spent ten years building up his legendary status, then played 13 more years after that, without raising his numbers. That is a tremendous amount of time to enjoy a legendary status without reinforcing it much. No wonder our impressions of him are a little higher than reality. Who could blame us?

[filihok]

From 1971 to 1983, he averaged .275 with 16 home runs and 75 RBI per season. I might be the last person on earth to continue to give value to Triple Crown figures... but there you go.

What was the league batting average during that time?

[Jackaroo Dave]

From 1971 to 1983, he averaged .275 with 16 home runs and 75 RBI per season. I might be the last person on earth to continue to give value to Triple Crown figures... but there you go.

He spent ten years building up his legendary status, then played 13 more years after that, without raising his numbers. That is a tremendous amount of time to enjoy a legendary status without reinforcing it much. No wonder our impressions of him are a little higher than reality. Who could blame us?

I think I do know how you feel: Yes, he had those great years; yes, his counting totals are staggering; but where's the quality in between? In his great years, his triple crown numbers were terrific. Afterwards, a much larger proportion of his value was in defense and getting on base, which is not where you expect it in a left fielder/first baseman. His dropoff was in BA and power, the most conspicuous, but not the only sources of his greatness. When I was enamored with triple crown stats, I felt exactly as you put it in your second paragraph. Also, at that time I didn't realize how much of even the Hall of Famers' value consists of being just good for a long time.

If Yaz had retired in, say, 75, after his last post-season hurrah, his career line might look more attractive. .291/.389/.473, 137 ops+, over 300 homers, 1300 runs, 1200 RBI, all in 15 years, including the entire second dead ball era. Plus 145 steals, 12 All Star games, 6 gold gloves. He continued to help his team thereafter, but even the complementary all star selections stopped.

There are two extreme ways superstars handle aging: Some, like DiMaggio and Mantle, quit when they can't meet their own standards, even though they are still valuable. Others, like Yaz and Ricky Henderson, you have to run them down and cut the uniform off them. I admire both; both show an intense love of the game.

[brett]

From 1971 to 1983, he averaged .275 with 16 home runs and 75 RBI per season. I might be the last person on earth to continue to give value to Triple Crown figures... but there you go.

He spent ten years building up his legendary status, then played 13 more years after that, without raising his numbers. That is a tremendous amount of time to enjoy a legendary status without reinforcing it much. No wonder our impressions of him are a little higher than reality. Who could blame us?

I do agree there. He was not helped relatively by his park during either stretch but he had about a 143 OPS+ through 1970, and about 118 for his last 13 years while playing LF, 1B and DH. 118 is about average for a first baseman, though he was still probably a very PLUS fielder over that span in LF.

One way to look at it is that
from 1961-1970 he had 18.5 war up to the average level and 41.4 waa
and from 1971 on he had 21.6 war up to the average level and 8.6 waa

So he was 5 times more above average during the first strecth
and 70% of his war in the second stretch was just for being average.

[brett]

I wanted to insert somewhere that in '67 and '68 his road relative OPS+ was probably over 200 when Boston is factored out of road park averages. 198-199 even if we leave Boston in. But anyway that's 2 consecutive ROAD years, or a full season of play with a 200 OPS+ in for that setting. Albert Pujols never put up a 200 OPS+.

[brett]

WAR per 162 and WAA per 162

Yaz: 4.41 and 2.45
George Brett: 5.03 and 3.03
R. Henderson: 5.62 and 3.62
Cal Ripken: 4.91 and 2.89
R. Jackson: 3.93 and 2.03
Al Kaline:5.00 and 3.17
Wade Boggs: 5.86 and 3.82

[brett]

Boggs home and road relativized BP adjusted OPS+
REMEMBER that the values would be equal if the player hit as well on the road as at home on a relative basis

Bos
'82 135/121
'83 164/136
'83 137/113
'85 172/130
'86 149/165
'87 186/162
'88 178/158
'89 165/119
'90 153/91
'91 171/109
'92 90/102
NY
'93 104/104
'94 145/139
'95 110/86
'96 97/99
'97 84/120
TB
'98 75/113
'99 86/90

Boggs in boston years: 155 at home to 128 on the road!
Boggs in other years: 100 at home to 107 on the road!

So Boggs did not really "adjust" to other home parks, he just benefitted particularly from Boston. Furthermore Boggs' road adjusted OPS+'s would only suggest a true 121 OPS+ batter. This is a big reason why I drop Boggs in my overall ranking in war. With a 121 OPS+ he would actually lose about 132 batting runs above average (13 war) and drop to about 75 total war. He did particularly benefit from Boston.