Serious Baseball: Jim Edmonds

WARNING: This article contains some statistics that aren’t in the mainstream, but should be. Just a fair warning!

Do you know how good Jim Edmonds is? I bet you don’t. I bet you’re thinking, “Yes I do, Jim Edmonds is a really good hitter, and a great fielder.”

While that is true, I bet you don’t really know how great Edmonds is. Let’s put it this way, do you know that he’s better than more than half of the center fielders currently in the Hall of Fame?

To start to prove this let’s start by looking at Edmonds batting statistics compared the current Hall of Fame center fielders (that we have stats for), in this chart sorted by On-Base Plus Slugging Percentage (OPS):

Player	AB	AVG	HR	RBI	OBP	SLG	OPS
Mickey Mantle	8102	0.298	536	1509	0.421	0.557	0.978
Joe DiMaggio	6821	0.325	361	1537	0.398	0.579	0.977
Ty Cobb	11434	0.366	117	1938	0.433	0.512	0.945
Willie Mays	10881	0.302	660	1903	0.384	0.557	0.941
Hack Wilson	4760	0.307	244	1063	0.395	0.545	0.940
Earl Averill	6353	0.318	238	1164	0.395	0.534	0.929
Tris Speaker	10195	0.345	117	1529	0.428	0.500	0.928
Jim Edmonds	5557	0.291	331	998	0.384	0.543	0.927
Duke Snider	7161	0.295	407	1333	0.380	0.540	0.920
Billy Hamilton	6269	0.344	40	739	0.455	0.432	0.887
Larry Doby	5348	0.283	253	970	0.386	0.490	0.876
Earle Combs	5746	0.325	58	632	0.397	0.462	0.859
Kirby Puckett	7244	0.318	207	1085	0.360	0.477	0.837
Hugh Duffy	7042	0.324	106	1302	0.384	0.449	0.833
Edd Roush	7363	0.323	68	981	0.369	0.446	0.815
Richie Ashburn	8365	0.308	29	1322	0.369	0.382	0.751
Max Carey	9363	0.285	70	800	0.361	0.386	0.747
Lloyd Waner	7772	0.316	27	596	0.353	0.393	0.746

According to OPS, Edmonds ranks 8th among the current crop of center fielders in the Hall of Fame. That makes him better than ten others. If you have read any of my past articles though, you know how much I value defense and how I believe it should be included when analyzing any player (s).

Now, we all know Edmonds is a tremendous fielder, but exactly how good? To try and figure this out, I will compare him to the above center fielders using Fielding Runs Above Replacement (FRAR.) This is a statistic that measures fielding ability over at Baseball Prospectus.com. Please click on the link to learn more about it.

Since FRAR is an accumulative statistic it unfairly favors players who played for a longer period of time. To offset this, I have chosen to divide each player’s FRAR by his total amount games played. This will give us a rate statistics that will let us know exactly how good of a fielder each player was, when he played:

Player	GP	FRAR	FRAR/GP
Tris Speaker	2789	727	0.2607
Max Carey	2476	556	0.2246
Edd Roush	1967	429	0.2181
Hugh Duffy	1737	371	0.2136
Ty Cobb	3035	628	0.2069
Willie Mays	2992	594	0.1985
Earl Averill	1668	316	0.1894
Billy Hamilton	1591	299	0.1879
Joe Dimaggio	1736	306	0.1763
Jim Edmonds	1587	263	0.1657
Richie Ashburn	2189	360	0.1645
Lloyd Waner	1993	323	0.1621
Kirby Puckett	1783	264	0.1481
Larry Doby	1533	209	0.1363
Hack Wilson	1348	181	0.1343
Earle Combs	1455	165	0.1134
Duke Snider	2143	235	0.1097
Mickey Mantle	2401	263	0.1095

This is a true testament to how good defensively the average center fielder is that is currently in the Hall of Fame. Edmonds, considered one of the best ever to field his position, ranks 10th out of 18 players inducted. He’s actually below average compared to these great fielders.

Now we know how good of a fielder Edmonds is, but we need a way to combine what each player did offensively with these numbers to get a true measure of the total production of each player. Is there a way to do this? Yes, there is, and it’s by using another statistic over at Baseball Prospectus called Wins Above Replacement Player (WARP).

WARP is an all-inclusive statistic that includes what each player contributed offensively, and defensively. There are three levels of WARP called WARP1, WARP2, and WARP3.

WARP1 is a measurement of Wins Above Replacement Player with no adjustments for difficulty/ or competition of the league they played in.

WARP2 is WARP1 adjusted for the difficulty/competition of the league that the player played in, compared to the overall difficulty of all leagues since the beginning of baseball. This puts all players on the same playing field, from all eras.

WARP3 is WARP2 expanded to 162 games to compensate for shortened seasons.

Since WARP3 is era-adjusted we can compare players of different eras, which luckily, is exactly what we need to do for this analysis.

Like I did for FRAR above, I will make WARP3 into a rate statistic since it is an accumulative stat. Also, as I did with FRAR, I will use each player’s total amount of games played as my divisor for WARP3.

Following is the ultimate table for comparing the current Hall of Fame center fielders to Jim Edmonds. It effectively portrays each player’s offensive and defensive production adjusted for era:

Player	GP	WARP3	WARP3/GP
Willie Mays	2992	207.8	0.06945
Joe Dimaggio	1736	118.7	0.06838
Mickey Mantle	2401	154.2	0.06422
Ty Cobb	3035	194.5	0.06409
Tris Speaker	2789	177.9	0.06379
Jim Edmonds	1587	95.7	0.06030
Billy Hamilton	1591	87.9	0.05525
Kirby Puckett	1783	91.9	0.05154
Larry Doby	1533	75.6	0.04932
Earl Averill	1668	81.9	0.04910
Duke Snider	2143	100.3	0.04680
Richie Ashburn	2189	100.2	0.04577
Hack Wilson	1348	61.3	0.04547
Edd Roush	1967	78.2	0.03976
Hugh Duffy	1737	67.1	0.03863
Earle Combs	1455	53.6	0.03684
Max Carey	2476	86.9	0.03510
Lloyd Waner	1993	55.8	0.02800

According to this all-inclusive metric, when Edmonds is included on this list, he ranks as the 6th best center fielder.

If Jim Edmonds retired today he sould be a shoo-in for the Hall of Fame, and it would be a damn shame if he weren’t considered for it. Like I said at the beginning of the article though, I bet you didn’t know that, did you?

Now I know I may have gotten a little complicated with statistics like FRAR and WARP3 in those last two tables for you traditional baseball fans, and you may think those stats are a bunch of bologna.

Well, if such is the case, the first chart contains more traditional baseball metrics (the one sorted by OPS) and may be easier to read. According to that chart, which ranks Edmonds 8th among current Hall of Fame center fielders, meaning he is a Hall of Famer according those metrics as well. Either way you look at it, with complicated “new-school” statistics, or easy ones, Jim Edmonds is a Hall of Famer.

Betcha didn’t know that, did ya?

Thank you for reading. If you have any questions, comments, concerns, or suggestions, please do not hesitate to email me at frnkbndy@yahoo.com.