List-o-mania

2/7/23: FIRST PAGE UPDATED IN STREAMLINING PROCESS AFFECTING ALL PAGES OF BOTH BASEBALL150.COM AND RETROPLAY.NET. NOW OFFERED HERE: 1) THE TOP 1500 MLB-NLB PLAYERS FROM 1871 THROUGH 2020, RANKED BY RetroPlayRating (RPR), A MEASURE OF REGULAR-SEASON CAREER IMPACT, USING CAREER W.A.R. AND PER-FULL-SEASON W.A.R. RATES; 2) THE TOP 100 CURRENT PLAYERS RANKED BY RPR (ACTIVE BEYOND 2020, AT ANY RATE; SOME HAVE APPARENTLY RETIRED SINCE THEN, BEFORE THE START OF THE 2023 SEASON).

1/20/2023: A BIG DAY FOR THE MACRO-LISTS. TAKE A LOOK BELOW…

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1/18/2023 UPDATE: BEEN BUSY WORKING UP A “MACRO-BREAKDOWN” FILE THAT ACCOUNTS FOR EVERY MLB PLAYER RECOGNIZED BY BASEBALL-REFERENCE.COM AS PART OF A BIRTHPLACE ZONE (WITH THE OBVIOUS (897!) EXCEPTIONS OF THOSE WHO DO NOT HAVE A BIRTHPLACE LISTED). OF GREATER INTEREST ON THIS BASEBALL150.COM SIDE, THE OFFICIAL U.S. CENSUS REGIONS HAVE BEEN EMPLOYED TO BREAK DOWN THE U.S. INTO GEOGRAPHICAL PARTS. THE NUMBER OF PLAYERS BORN THERE, THEIR TOTAL W.A.R., AVERAGE TOTAL CAREER W.A.R., PITCHING W.A.R., AVERAGE PITCHING CAREER W.A.R., AND EARNED RUNS, INNINGS PITCHED, AND E.R.A., HAVE ALL BEEN PUT INTO A 7-PAGE SPREADSHEET (IN BOTH EXCEL-COMPATIBLE AND PDF VERSIONS). THEY’RE AVAILABLE FOR YOUR FREE DOWNLOADING PLEASURE JUST BELOW THESE OPENING PARAGRAPHS (WHERE THERE IS MORE EXPLANATION).

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1/14/2023 UPDATE: AS THE PAGE-BUILDING PROCESS HERE AT BASEBALL150.COM METAPHORICALLY ROUNDS THIRD AND HEADS FOR HOME, THIS PAGE IS SCHEDULED TO BE POPULATED LAST OF ALL. “LIST-O-MANIA” IMPLIES AT LEAST SEVERAL EXTENSIVE/ COMPREHENSIVE LISTS, DOESN’T IT? “WE” WILL DO OUR BEST WITHIN A WEEK OR TWO TO DELIVER ON EXPECTATIONS. WHEN THE DUST CLEARS, VISITORS TO THIS PAGE SHOULD BE ABLE TO SEE LISTS OF…

• MAJOR-LEAGUE (AND NEGRO-LEAGUE, WHERE FEASIBLE) PLAYERS FROM 1871-2020, RANKED BY POSITION; WITHIN (30-YEAR) ERAS; WITHIN A REGION; WITHIN AN AMERICAN STATE (GOING BY BIRTHPLACE); EVEN WITHIN WORLDWIDE URBAN CENTERS IN WHICH MANY PLAYERS HAVE BEEN BORN
• ALL-TIME WINS-ABOVE-REPLACEMENT (WAR) RANKINGS (CAREER WAR, PER-162-GAMES RATES)
• RetroPlay Ratings THAT REWARD BOTH CAREER PRODUCTION AND RATE OF PRODUCTION
• “ODDBALL” STAT ANALYSIS FINDINGS/SUGGESTIONS
• ACTUAL HALL-OF-FAMERS AND PLAYERS THAT HAVE BEEN MISSED (PER OBJECTIVE STAT ANALYSIS); (THIS CATEGORY WILL PROBABLY BE COVERED ON THE FORTHCOMING “COMPARING THE HALLS” PAGE, THOUGH THAT IS THE OTHER PAGE THAT HAS NOT YET BEEN BUILT)
• ANYTHING ELSE THAT DEALS WITH THE ACTUAL, HISTORIC PLAYERS AND THE NUMBERS THEY ACTUALLY PUT UP IN THEIR CAREERS (EVEN ON THE FANTASY-SIDE AT RETROPLAY, THE REAL NUMBERS ARE ALWAYS USED TO COMPILE LISTS AND RANKINGS AND TO “REPLAY” SEASONS UNDER THE RETROPLAY SYSTEM; FANTASY-LEAGUE-GENERATED FIGURES DON’T EVER ENTER INTO THESE ENDEAVORS, AND SUCH DATA IS NON-EXISTENT AT THIS POINT)

That’ll do it for now, as I’m off to post an advisory on that other page that needs the most work: Comparing the Halls will be most efficiently updated after the HOF posts its balloting results.

MACRO-BREAKDOWN: PERFORMANCE BY PLAYERS WITHIN U.S. AND EXTRA-NATIONAL ZONES (DATA FROM BASEBALL-REFERENCE.COM, CRUNCHED, CRUNCHED SOME MORE, DISPLAYED)

On pages 1 and 2 of this spreadsheet, you’ll find state-by-state, stat-by-stat breakdowns under the categories of 1) # of players recorded as born there; 2) the total WAR of those players; 3) the average career WAR of those players; 4) – 6) On-Base Pct., Slugging Pct., On-base Plus Slugging; 7) career pitching WAR for those players; 8) # of pitchers (position players acting as pitchers are included, since some of the numbers are their contributions to the data); 9) average pitching-component WAR for a career; 10) -12) earned runs, innings pitched, and ERA computed on the basis of those numbers. [RC = regional code, and pertains to the Retroplay.net fantasy-league side of the overall project; irrelevant to the historical side here, although you may notice how this regional grouping scheme tends to promote parity between regions over the entire span of MLB history, from 1871 through 2020].

On page 3, we see the region-by-region performance breakdowns using U.S. Census regions, as this map delineates:

Note that the “New England” region is identical in both schemes, but there’s slightly more disparity between regions using the Census regions (New England aside, there’s a low of 3.54, and a high of 4.84 in the Average Career WAR category; compare with 3.85 and 4.77, respectively for Retroplay regions). Of course, none of this appears to show that those born in any particular region were head-and-shoulders above the others in Total WAR, Average Career WAR, or in the Pitching categories. The idea is not to try to prove anything, but to present “everything” — as much as possible — in a concise format. Seasoned methodologists may well be able to tease out some conclusions/patterns that have escaped my notice; I took a Methodology 350 course about 45 years ago, so don’t expect much from me (I have to look up the definition of “standard deviation” about once every 6 months, just to get that straight).

On pages 4 and 5, the “Extra-national” numbers are broken down and presented. Again, the regional codes occupying the final column will likely mean nothing to you unless you pay attention to the Retroplay/Open Baseball League design on the fantasy side. Thanks to Baseball-Reference’s Unknown-birthplace data, even the 897 un-accounted-for MLB players who were born in “parts unknown” have a home in this chart. (Note, though, that hit-by-pitch and sacrifice-fly data are missing, so On-Base Pct. and OPS can only be estimated without those factors). At the bottom of page 5, please find the totals of the totals. It should be noted that, even though I obtained all of the raw data from Baseball-Reference.com, we do come up with different sums for total MLB players: I’ve got 23,140, and a check of their site just moments ago shows that they have 22,860; in other words, somebody’s mis-debited or mis-credited 280 players, one way or another. I suspect that the discrepancy lies somewhere in that Unknown-birthplace data, where full names are largely missing, and a “Smith” could actually be a Jones with a first name and a birthplace, etc. (there are all kinds of possibilities for errors in that whole missing-piece puzzle). In any case, these are the numbers that I’ve landed on, do what you will with them.

Pages 6 and 7 “show my work” in arriving at the Census-Group numbers; component states of each of those regions are listed. BTW, I did cross-check the totals for both the Census scheme and my Open Baseball League (OBL) scheme at Retroplay.net. Everything added up, so the known birthplace numbers appear to be solid, at any rate. On to the spreadsheet, then: Excel-type top, PDF below that —

Oh, yeah, almost forgot: here’s a modified and exported file of those “unknowns” in a mangled/halved raw-data form (the PDF conversion process failed at some point, so linking directly to the BB Ref. page will likely be the better way to go to see what I had in front of me)…

1/19/2023 UPDATE: CORRECTED AND COMPLETE VERSIONS (EXCEL TOP, PDF BELOW; 25 PAGES):

3000 PLAYERS RANKED WITHIN 9 CENSUS REGIONS (AND MORE… )

IF YOU LIKE TO RUMMAGE THROUGH RANKED-PLAYER LISTS, THIS IS FOR YOU. IN THIS FIRST UPLOAD BATCH, WE’RE GOING BY THE U.S. CENSUS REGIONS (SEE MAP JUST ABOVE) TO RANK THE MLB-NLB PLAYERS BORN WITHIN THE 9 MULTI-STATE REGIONS. FOR EACH CENSUS REGION, 2 DOWNLOADABLE FILES HAVE BEEN MADE AVAILABLE, SHOWING THE SAME DATA (IN EXCEL-COMPATIBLE FORM FIRST, PDF SECOND). THE PLAYERS ARE RANKED, FIRST, BY MY OWN RetroPlay Rating (RPR) (CAREER W.A.R. MULTIPLIED BY AVERAGE W.A.R. PER 162 GAMES), THEN BY CAREER W.A.R. TO BREAK TIES. KEY: BP=BIRTHPLACE; REG=REGION; CW=CAREER WAR; POS(1), POS(2)=PRIMARY POSITION(S), OTHER POSITIONS PLAYED; AVG FULL SEASON WAR=THE PER-162-GAMES RATE; RPR=THE MAIN RANKING COMPONENT; RC=REGIONAL CODE (IN THE RETROPLAY SYSTEM); PC=POSITION CODE BY TRADITIONAL SCORING (1=PITCHER, 2=CATCHER, ETC.); LAST COLUMN=GRID LOCATOR INFO FOR RETROPLAY SYSTEM (WHERE TO FIND A PLAYER’S HORIZONTAL WAR-VALUE READOUT). LAST NOTES: ALL NUMBERS THROUGH 2020 ONLY; PLAYER NAMES IN GREEN TYPE ARE STILL ACTIVE AS OF 2022, AND ARE GENERALLY LOCKS FOR THE RETROPLAY RE-SET HOF (AND USUALLY, WILL END UP IN THE REAL ONE IN COOPERSTOWN). THAT SAID, LET’S STEP UP TO THE PLATE…

TOP 1500 OF 150 YEARS OF MAJOR LEAGUE/NEGRO LEAGUE BASEBALL

EXCEL-COMPATIBLE VERSION ABOVE ^ AND PDF BELOW:

TRACKING THE TOP 100 ACTIVE PLAYERS:

EXCEL-COMPATIBLE VERSION ABOVE ^ AND PDF BELOW:

2/11/23 POP-IN UPDATE: JUST NOTICED THAT BO BICHETTE ACTUALLY BELONGS IN THE TOP 100 ACTIVES, JUST AHEAD OF MITCH HANIGER (RPR OF 68=12.9 CW X 5.3/162). THIS BUMPS SYNDERGAARD OFF THE LIST (AT THIS PARTICULAR TIME), BUT SOMEONE ELSE MAY HAVE SLIPPED THROUGH THE CRACKS, TOO; JUST HAPPENED TO CHECK ON BICHETTE, AND I’M NOW MORE AWARE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF ADDITIONAL INADVERTENT OMISSIONS.