WAR Stories: Phillies 2015+ Jimmy Rollins 2007 NL MVP

Congrats to this years MVP Winners Mike Trout & Clayton Kershaw. Today as part of our Phillies 2015+ Project we turn back the clock 7 years to the 2007 NL MVP Winner, Jimmy Rollins.

2008 Topps #233 Jimmy Rollins MVP

Well we are not really turning back the clock - Phils fans would definitely love to have the 07 version of J-Roll. Unfortunately time marches on and a 36 year old Jimmy Rollins is expected to start for the Phillies in 2015.

2014 was a decent year for Rollins. His batting average down, but OBP was right around his career average. His slugging number down, largely because of a dip in doubles - His 17 Home Runs were right at his 162 game average. Speaking of games Rollins played 138 games in 2014 - His 609 Plate Appearances was the 2nd lowest of his 14 full seasons.

Comps  
All 10 of Jimmy Rollins age 35 Comps played beyond age 35,It is an impressive group of players topped by Joe Morgan and Derek Jeter with Craig Biggio, Ryne Sandberg, Lou Whitaker and Alan Trammel and Robby Alomar all in the list. Five of those players still had 4.0+ WAR left in them - Joe Morgan was tops with +15.5 WAR.  According to Baseball-ref projections Jimmy Rollins should expect to accumulate 3.5 WAR for the rest of his career.

The projections have Jimmy finishing with 2574 career hits.  426 shy of  the arbitrary 3000  that has made any non-PED player an automatic for HoF voters. Jimmy is currently at 2306 hits, which means B-R thinks he had 268 hits remaining - slightly more than double his 2014 production - or another way of looking at it about 2 years worth of hits.

Verdict
The projections sounds about right to me. I see Jimmy playing through the 2016 season and getting slightly less than his 2014 production.  I give him +2.0 WAR for 2015. In our Phillies 2015 running WAR total we are through 3 players and have arrived at 55 Wins. 


2008 Topps

The photography on 08 Topps is worthless. Fortunately They got a decent pix of Jimmy on the MVP Card, The base card photo is HORRIBLE.  

2008 Topps #233 Jimmy Rollins MVP (b-side)


The B-side of the card shows a grab bag of Rollins MVP Qualifications. Curious picks - the BA with RISP (.272) is 24 points lower the BA Overal (.296). The 43 Game Winning RBI cannot be right - that isn't even an official stat anymore - but when it was the league leaders were in the teems if I recall correctly. The Most important stats are at the bottom - Rollins 15 RBI and .346 BA versus the Mets who the Phillies overtook on the last day of the season to win the NL East. This of course was their last win of the year as they were swept by the Colorado Rockies in the NLDS.



Sources & Links
WAR Stories Phillies 2015+ Index
Jimmy Rollins Player Collection Index
Baseball-ref

Cy Young and MVP in the Same Season - Can it happen again: Tigers Justin Verlander 2013 Topps Triple Threads

Clayton Kershaw took home the NL Cy Young Award tonight, now we await what is probably the biggest question mark in the 2014 Awards Season. 

2013 Topps Triple Threads Relic TTR-JV1 Verlander (2/18)

Can Clayton Kershaw take the dual Cy Young/MVP Award Hardware. Personally I am from the Pitchers get there own award, Position players should get the other award school of thought.  However, this season the NL really hasn't had a standout candidate. Cases can be made for Andrew McCutchen, Giancarlo Stanton, and Jonathan LuCroy. For me the strongest case among the hitters is McCutchen. In addition to putting up good offensive numbers at the plate, he really carried the Pirates.  When he was out of the lineup the Bucos struggled, upon his return, they made a run that got them into the playoffs. Curiously according to B-R Andrew McCutchen is an average fielder. Had he had a +1 or +2 dWAR season, his overall number would have been more comparable to Kershaws.

The Last time a Pitcher took both awards was relatively recently. In 2011 Justin Verlander won the award over Jacoby Ellsubry, Dustion Pedroia, Miguel Cabrera and others - Ben Zobrist won the WAR crown that year, but a significant portion of the number was defense based. 

2013 Topps 3x Threads
Topps noted Verlander's 2011 double dip on the above Triple Threads card. I am not a big relic or serial collector but those two features combined with the magnitude of the player featured pushed this card onto the buy side at a recent card show. The "M" in MVP is to large and somewhat mars the overall look of the card, otherwise it is decent looking. The Card went for $8 which is probably the most I have ever paid for any relic, including Phillies.

Philly Show
Double duty for this post, this gives me a chance to return to Philly Show coverage. I originally began posting info on pickups from the show on October 1. If you want to see some vintage from taht day and an index to other related postings click here.  


Sources and Links
Philly Show 2014 09 28
Philly Show 2014 09 28 Auto-Relic Summary
Baseball-ref

Sunday Night Baseball: Dick Groat 1961 Topps #1

This week Sunday Night Baseball makes a rare visit to Pittsburgh. We are marking the occasion by taking a look at 1960s era Pirate.

1961 Topps #1 Dick Groat

I have been wanting to put together a column on Dick Groat for a while. He is an interesting sports figure who remains a Pittsburgh icon.

Dick Groat was raised in the Pittsburgh area prior to going to Duke on a basketball scholarship. At Duke Groat was a two sport athlete, and he was good enough to be an All-American in both hoop and baseball. During his senior season as a basketball player Groat led the nation in both points and assists per game. That same year Groat helped lead the Blue Devils Baseball team to a berth in the  College World Series.

After college Groat signed with the home town Pirates. The talented shortstop made the immediate jump to the majors and never played a day in the minors.  He debuted with the Pirates as a pinch-hitter on June 18 1952.  That same year Dick Groat was also selected 3rd overall in the NBA draft by the Fort Wayne Pistons. Less than 5 months after playing in his first Professional Baseball Game Groat played his first NBA game. Groat played a single season for Ft Wayne averaging just under 12 points per game.

1961 Topps #1
Dick Groat earned the #1 spot in 1961 Topps by winning NL MVP honors in 1960. His qualifications that year including winning the batting title and leading the Bucos to the NL Pennant. The 1960 Pirates are also the team that upset the Yankees in a seven game World Series despite being outscored 55-27. 1960 was the first of two times that Groat would play for a team that would beat the Yankees in seven - he was also a member of the 1964 Cardinals who were led by Bob Gibson's strong performance.  

Pittsburgher - Cager
Following his baseball playing career Groat returned home and to basketball. He is currently (at age 83) a color analyst for the Pitt Panthers. Despite choosing baseball as his sports playing career, Groat accumulated several hoop related accolades. His #10 was the first number retired by the Duke Blue Devils - thing about that for a second - all the great players to come out of the basketball powerhouse and the first to have their number retired was Dick Groat. In 2007 Groat was inducted into the College Basketball Hall of Fame as part of the institutions 2nd class.

Sources & links
Topps #1 Club
Baseball: Past and Present
Pitt Panthers
College Basketball Experience
Duke Report
Pittsburgh Post Gazette
Baseball-ref
SABR BioProject
Sports-Ref/CBB
The College World Series: A Baseball History 1947-2003

2013 WS Game 1: 1975 Topps #205 MVPs Yastrzemski & Cepeda

I wanted to find a card that combined the BoSox and Cardinals and was very happy to find this beauty.

1975 Topps #205 1967 MVPs Yastrzemski & Cepeda (image swiped from baseball card database)


The 75T MVPs is one of the most fun subsets in the Topps canon. It marks both the 25th anniversary of Topps and the MVPs of each of those seasons.  In 1967 the MVPs were Yaz and Orlando Cepeda pictured here on the minimalist 67T Design.

Recent MVP discussion appear to come down to discussion of various traditional stats vs the single WAR stat.  Tonight I would like to examine the WAR numbers for these two future HoF players during their 67 MVP seasons - which was the only MVP for each. 

Yaz
Working from Left to Right we start with Yastrzemski.  He won the AL Triple Crown in 1967 and collected an astounding WAR of 12.41.  The 12.41 WAR is the highest single season number for anyone in the history of the game that is not named Babe Ruth. Yes Yaz won the Triple Crown and he had the 4th highest WAR in history, but he didn't get voted MVP unanimously.  Cesar Tovar received a single #1 vote for his 2.44 WAR season - I have no idea.    

Orlando Cepeda
Of course in a year when Carl Yastrzemski puts together one of the greatest seasons in history and doesn't get a unanimous MVP, Orlando Cepeda collected all 20 MVP first place votes in the NL Balloting. Cepeda had a very good year, but not historic. His 6.80 WAR was 5th among vote getters - Ron Santo led the league at 9.77. Cepada led the league in RBI (111) and finished 3rd in OBP (.399)

MLB 1967
Finally it should be noted that in 1967 the Cardinals and Red Sox met in the World Series. Yaz hit 3 Homers and batted .400 in the Series.  Cepeda collected 3 hits total and batted .103.  But baseball is a cruel game Yaz and the Red Sox lost to the Cardinals - Bob Gibson won 3 complete games giving up 3 ER across those starts.   

Other Voices
Night Owl Cards - 2010 posting from the NOC 75 Topps retrospective. Contains some interesting observation on 67T and notes that Orlando Cepeda's MVP season was his first with the Cardinals.   

2013 PostSeason Cardinals
Matt Adams
Lance Lynn
Michael Wacha 


2013 PostSeason Red Sox
Clay Buchholz
David Ortiz
Dustin Pedroia 
Shane Victorino
Jose Iglesias (Now with Tigers)

Sources
Phungo HOF Orlando Cepeda Index
Phungo HOF Carl Yastrzemski Index 
baseball Card Database
baseball-ref.com 

Cole Hamels World Series MVP, The Babe Ruth Award

Cole Hamels deservedly won the World Series MVP award. He won game one and was in line to win deciding game 5 before Rocco Baldelli homered off of Ryan Madson. Hamels was 4-0 over the post season which tied the record for wins.

2008 Topps Heritage #499 Cole Hamels

This is the 2008 Heritage All Star version of Hamels card. I like these cards - they closely mirror the original All-Star cards of 1959. The motif follows on the reverse side with the card number in a shield, a cartoon, and a short point of interest about the player.

2008 Topps Heritage #499 Cole Hamels (obverse)

1959 Topps #555 Bill Mazeroski (obverse)

When Topps released the 1959 set the All-Star cards were present in the final High Number Series and are somewhat harder to find then cards from the earlier series. In the Heritage edition the cards are part of the regular release, despite the fact that Topps is planning on releasing more 08 Heritage cards in another product.

At one time the World Series MVP received the Babe Ruth award. The award was the subject of a Topps card in 1972.

1972 Topps #626 Babe Ruth Award

The Babe Ruth Awared is no longer presented, the last award winner was David Eckstein in 2002, when the Angels defeated the the Giants.