Baseball Graphs is dedicated to the better use and communication of baseball statistics. Below, you'll find excerpts from, and links to, some of the best baseball writers on the Internet. Follow the links above to read my own intermittent attempts at wisdom (the Baseball Graphs blog), and the heart of this site, historical graphs of every season dating back to 1900.
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Please forgive me, but I’m a Cal Ripken cynic. I don’t know why the record for consecutive games played is so important. Durability is nice, yes, but Ripken’s consecutive games played streak was obviously engineered; his managers wrote his name in the lineup regardless of how he felt, or how well he was playing at the time. It wasn’t a question of performance.
I don’t mean to denigrate the guy on his big day, but I do want to point out that his Hall of Fame credentials, without that consecutive-game streak halo, might be a bit more debatable than you’ve been hearing lately.
I’m not going to go into a long, winding statistical explanation of why I think so. I did one thing: I calculated Win Shares Above Average (WSAA) for his career. There are two basic reasons I think this is a good approach:
- While Win Shares may be flawed, they at least do all the things I would try to do on my own: they adjust for league and park, they include fielding prowess, and they consider the player’s position. They also attempt to truly quantify a player’s concrete contribution to his team’s wins.
- When evaluating a player for the Hall, I think a comparison to an average player is appropriate. I could compare him to a “replacement player,” but why should someone be elected to the Hall based on that? I prefer a higher standard, and I think average is appropriate.
So I concocted a quick and dirty way to calculate Win Shares Above Average based on games played (works for everyday players only; and assumes players played entire games). Babe Ruth, of course, is first in WSAA, followed by Ty Cobb, Barry Bonds and Honus Wagner. Cal Ripken is 136th, tied with Scott Rolen. Now, Scott Rolen may well deserve to be inducted into the Hall. But I’ll bet a lot more people will debate his candidacy than have debated Ripken’s.
I understand that Ripken meant something special to people. But if you’re like me, and you don’t get all that excited about a consecutive-games record, you may feel a little less overwhelmed by his Hall qualifications.
Ripken did have several great MVP-type years. Here’s a chart of his Runs Created per Game each year, as provided by Fangraphs:
While Ripken had three or four great years, many of his seasons were in the average range. For comparison: here’s a graph of Derek Jeter’s Runs Created Per Game:
Jeter, a certain Hall of Famer who currently ranks 124th in WSAA, has sustained excellence throughout most of his career.