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February 21, 2013

In A Pickle

All-Stars Are Not All Stars

by Jason Wojciechowski

Last week, we looked at players who racked up large career WARP figures but for one reason or another (underappreciation, the league being incredibly stocked at their position, steady goodness rather than flashes of greatness) didn't make very many All-Star teams. This week, having sufficiently buried the lede, it's time to look at the players who inspired this investigation in the first place: the very worst players to make multiple All-Star Games. Caveats and notes:

Thanks again to Ryan Lind and Tim Collins answering my data queries.
The basic metric here is the ratio of total All-Star appearances to career WARP. I'm not trying to find the least deserving All-Stars in the sense of players who, in that season, didn't play well enough to deserve the honor. I'm interested in players who had mediocre or even bad careers overall (by WARP's lights, anyway) but who by hook or by crook managed to appear not once but multiple times on All-Star rosters. (As I said in the last piece, any schmuck can make it once. Take a last-minute scratch by a pitcher and be a solid reliever from the host city who happens not to have left for vacation yet, and you've got yourself an All-Star appearance. But do it twice and odds are people really thought you were good. (Or you really were good!))
This list deals only with players who played their entire careers in 1950 or later. Our WARP statistic only goes back that far at present, and obviously career totals would be skewed for players who straddled 1950, to say nothing of players who played entirely before 1950.

Without additional ado, let's count it down from 10, with actual commentary on the top five worst:

10. Clem Labine, 2.5 WARP, two All-Star Games

Labine was a Dodgers reliever, for the most part. This is a bit unfair to him, though, because he's actually at 4.7 pitcher WARP and -2.1 (rounding) batter WARP. Mark Fidr

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20 comments have been left for this article.

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ScottyB

Damaso Garcia's 1984 Stratomatic card was INSANELY GOOD. He was the key to my Blue Jays championship that year.

Feb 21, 2013 04:51 AM

rating: 1

mblthd

I remember that - he was no 1981 Mickey Klutts, but yes, a very good card.

I also remember whenever Garcia came up, we would pronounce it "Damn Asshole" Garcia. Not that we had anything against or even knew anything about the guy, we were just 10-12 year old boys.

Feb 21, 2013 09:27 AM

rating: 3

gdragon1977

Well there was that moment when he burned his uniform in the clubhouse. It's obviously nothing in the big picture compared to brain cancer and disabled children, but at the time he didn't make a lot of fans doing it.

Feb 21, 2013 10:19 AM

rating: 0

rexcoot

John Blue Moon.

And to make this article more palatable to those who call themselves 'Sandy Alomar', Sr posted some decent #s in the early 1970s when he made the All Star team, and followed that up with a 5.2 WAR season in 1971 in which he didn't, further crumbling the Cookie.

Feb 21, 2013 05:49 AM

rating: 0

skaron01

I sm surprised that Scott Cooper, 3B, Red Sox was too productive to make this list.

Feb 21, 2013 06:20 AM

rating: 0

Jason Wojciechowski

BP staff

Cooper ranks a distant 38th-worst in WARP/ASG, just a tad worse than Shea Hillenbrand, amusingly.

Feb 21, 2013 09:04 AM

Michael

So was I. 5.3 WARP and two all-star games for Scott Cooper. b-refWAR likes him less than that.

Feb 21, 2013 09:06 AM

rating: 0

clete6

Mel Stottlemyre's PWARP surprised me. He has a WARP of 6.7, whereas bWAR is 37.5 and fWAR is 33.0. I see that his FRA is much higher than both his ERA and FIP in every year of his career. Can you shed some light on this? Thanks.

Feb 21, 2013 06:42 AM

rating: 0

BillJohnson

How many of these guys were their team's sole representative in at least one year when they were chosen? I believe McBride was the Angels' only representative to the second 1961 ASG, as teammate Ryne Duren had been the first one (where McBride was not on the team). He's the only one I can find, but my search has not been exhaustive. The requirement for each team to be represented has certainly led to some odd ducks on the team, but in general, the really doubtful ones didn't put in repeat appearances.

Feb 21, 2013 09:29 AM

rating: 0

Jason Wojciechowski

BP staff

I didn't look exhaustively, but I did actually delete a paragraph about that very issue as to McBride. You're right that he was the sole rep to his game in '61, but in '62, he was one of four Angels in the second game (two of them starters) and in '63, he was one of three, all of whom were starters.

Which, if you'll notice, means that Ken McBride was the starting pitcher in an All-Star game. To be fair, the 1963 list of qualified starting pitchers in the AL is not a who's who -- Robin Roberts, Jim Bunning, and Whitey Ford are the only Hall of Famers I see who were active at the time, and Roberts was 36, well past his mid-'50s peak.

Feb 21, 2013 09:58 AM

Geoff Young

BP staff

Subtract 1.5 WARP from Damaso Garcia for bringing Alfredo Griffin to the ASG as his guest in 1984. Griffin later subbed for an injured Alan Trammell on the AL roster, according to manager Joe Altobelli, "mostly because he was here."

Feb 21, 2013 10:33 AM

thsaladboy

This is only tangentially related, but why does WARP so massively penalize relievers? I understand fewer innings obviously means lower WARP, but in the case of Bruce Sutter, how does 107 innings of 2.62 FRA/1.61 FIP in 1977 only equal 2.8 WARP? He has 6.5 bWAR for that season. In 1979 he has 101 innings of 3.18 FRA/1.85 FIP and has only 1.8 WARP. That seems absurd to me (and indeed, again, his bWAR that season was 4.9). It's things like this--hell, the disparity for pretty much all relievers between WARP and either WAR--that makes me really question WARP, especially when it comes to relievers. It doesn't pass the smell test, and completely disagrees with the other advanced metrics (Mariano Rivera has been worth a full 20 wins more according to bWAR than according to WARP! That's a bit absurd).

Feb 21, 2013 12:58 PM

rating: 0

Jason Wojciechowski

BP staff

It's not a penalty. It's a simple matter of not giving the player "credit" for leverage. Colin explained that position here.

Feb 21, 2013 13:05 PM

Richard Bergstrom

Well, isn't WARP also a counting stat so relievers, because they throw less innings, generally have less WARP?

Feb 21, 2013 18:43 PM

rating: 0

Jason Wojciechowski

BP staff

Yes, but when you compare reliever WARP to reliever rWAR or fWAR, you wind up seeing good closers and setup men often having substantially less value in our system. The innings are obviously the same across all three, but WARP not using a leverage factor is a distinction.

Feb 21, 2013 18:47 PM

Schlom

Randy Jones must have the biggest spread in value between BP, BR, and fangraphs:

Career WAR (or WARP):
BP: -4.1
BR: 16.8
FG: 22.2

Feb 21, 2013 13:11 PM

rating: 1

myshkin

I would not have expected a reliever, even in the 1950s, could accumulate that much negative batting value. Clem was talented, I guess. Or not, as the case may be.

Feb 21, 2013 15:15 PM

rating: 0

mikebuetow

The AL pitching was so good in 1972 that 295.3 IP of 2.64 FIP ERA was worth only 0.7 WARP? Guh.

Feb 21, 2013 16:39 PM

rating: 0

Jason Wojciechowski

BP staff

Some of that is league context, yes, but some is park (90 PPF for Catfish that year), some is FRA not giving credit for what is probably a fair amount of luck (.207 BABIP).

Feb 21, 2013 16:53 PM

Richard Bergstrom

I did a double-take at "McBride came back to put up a 2.76 ERA in 153 1/3 innings in the first half" and thought it was a typo. Ah, the days if 300 IP seasons.

Feb 21, 2013 18:44 PM

rating: 0

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