Honus Wagner's 1908 season, win shares, and RC/27

[gusmahler]

Because of another thread, I was looking at my copy of Win Shares to see just how good of hitter Lou Gehrig was. I came across Honus Wagner's 1908 season, which ranks as the greatest seson of all-time. Even his hitting win shares that season was 49.21, higher than ANY of Babe Ruth's seasons and surpassed only by Barry Bonds in 2001 (and later in 2004).

But according to other stats, it's not that impressive of a season. His OPS+ was 205, which is very good, but not close to being best ever (tied for 40th).

And RC/27, also developed by Bill James, has that season as 8.93, not even Wagner's best season and not even close to the best season of Bonds and Ruth (who both had 3 seasons with RC/27 over 17).

You look at Win Shares, and Wagner is probably the 4th best hitter of all-time, after Bonds, Ruth, and Williams (in that order).

But if you look at RC/27, Wagner isn't even close to the performance of Joe DiMaggio, much less Bonds or Ruth.

So what gives? Which stat is a better indicator of Wagner?

http://www.baseball-reference.com/w/wagneho01.shtml

[Kneel B4 Zod]

funny, I was looking at BP's WARP3 earlier to try to find the best hitting/fielding seasons ever.

according to WARP3, the best I found was Babe Ruth 1923 (18.x), then Bonds 2001 (16.2).

Wagner 1908 is very high, 15.4. that puts him in elite category, but other guys like Ted Williams (15.6) and maybe 1 or 2 others had seasons that high.

I'm not super familiar with any of these stats, but does Win Shares consider position? And RC just hitting? that would account for the discrepancy you see.

Wagner was primarily a SS, I think, so metrics that consider position will rank him much higher than metrics which don't (Runs Created, .eqa, OPS+)

[TheNoodleMan]

Win shares are bases on team wins, every team win creates 3 win shares to be divided amongst the teams players.

The 1908 Pirates won 98 games, creating a substantial amount of win shars. Looking at team stats , it becomes clear that Honus was by far and away the driving force on that team. He hit 90 points higher than the next regular, and slugged 160 points higher.

The 1908 Pirates had the best season ever for a one man team and thus that man got the highest winshares season ever.

[Roger's Park]

KB4Z, w/ regards to your WARP3 search, I believe Cal Ripken Jr has the 2nd highest total w/ 17.2 in 1991.

[gusmahler]

[ QUOTE ]
Win shares are bases on team wins, every team win creates 3 win shares to be divided amongst the teams players.

The 1908 Pirates won 98 games, creating a substantial amount of win shars. Looking at team stats , it becomes clear that Honus was by far and away the driving force on that team. He hit 90 points higher than the next regular, and slugged 160 points higher.

The 1908 Pirates had the best season ever for a one man team and thus that man got the highest winshares season ever.

[/ QUOTE ]

So are you saying that Wagner's 1908 season is overrated because of his team's success?

[gusmahler]

Thought I might as well post my findings about Gehrig. I looked at 7 players who I thought might be considered the best hitters ever: Ruth, Bonds, Williams, Cobb, Gehrig, Mantle, and Wagner. I looked at hitting win shares and RC/27. I calculated both the best 5 year stretch of seasons as well as the 3 best seasons of each player, to determine peak value.

Using RC/27:
Best 5 year period (averaged):
Bonds 16.66
Ruth 15.95
Williams 13.74 (counting 42 and 46 as being "consecutive")
Gehrig 12.19
Mantle 11.01
Cobb 10.92
Wagner 8.65

Best three seasons (averaged):
Bonds 18.82
Ruth 17.74
Williams 15.78
Gehrig 13.89
Mantle 13.09
Cobb 11.82
Wagner 9.47

So Gehrig is quite clearly 4th.

Using win shares
Best 5 year period:
Bonds 43.54 (approximately, don't have exact figures for 2002)
Ruth 42.15
Williams 40.82
Wagner 38.93
Cobb 38.52
Mantle 38.42
Gehrig 36.27

Best 3 seasons
Bonds 50.54
Ruth 48.02
Mantle 44.27
Williams 42.57
Wagner 41.35
Cobb 41.07
Gehrig 39.88

So I found it interesting that Gehrig and Wagner basically switched places using those two stats (and Wagner would be moved much farther down in RC/27) if I included others such as Speaker, Mays, DiMaggio, and who knows who else).

[TheNoodleMan]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Win shares are bases on team wins, every team win creates 3 win shares to be divided amongst the teams players.

The 1908 Pirates won 98 games, creating a substantial amount of win shars. Looking at team stats , it becomes clear that Honus was by far and away the driving force on that team. He hit 90 points higher than the next regular, and slugged 160 points higher.

The 1908 Pirates had the best season ever for a one man team and thus that man got the highest winshares season ever.

[/ QUOTE ]

So are you saying that Wagner's 1908 season is overrated because of his team's success?

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm saying that win shares are directly related to team wins. Most teams that win 98 games have multiple good/great players, the 1908 Pirates have one great player and a bunch of average joes.