The PEBA Boondoggle - 2039

[Lions]

Some slow 2039 starts:

LF Rocky Kowalski (AUR)
He's hitting .190 through 10 games with only 1 home run. He actually hit extremely well in the spring, posting a .370 average and 1.020 OPS over 22 games. It seemed like he was ready to go. Instead, of his 8 hits during the regular season so far, he's got one double and one home run, but he has yet to draw a walk.

3B Kenkichi Daikawa (SCO)
Hitting even worse than Kowalskio, Daikawa is at .167 on the year with just 7 hits in 46 trips to the plate. He had a .079 average in the spring, getting 38 AB's, so this is actually an improvement on that. The Claymores are 9-4 to take an early lead in the Trans Atlantic, but their 50 home run slugger hasn't done much of anything yet. With the way Eric Nelson is hitting in the 3 hole, you can expect a lot of runs from Scottish this year.

RF Raúl Ortega (SS)
The 36 year old Ortega had an ugly spring hitting 3 home runs but not much else. It has carried over in the season now, where he's hitting .180 with no power at all. He had a strong year last year and looks like he should be able to still compete. Perhaps it just takes him longer as he ages.

CF Gordon Knopp (FLA)*
He's got a .704 OPS so far with only one extra base hit. It's the beginning of the end. Florida should've traded him when they had the chance!


SP Volmer Buscher (HAV)
Buscher has been extremely consistent the last 3 seasons and came into this year as the Leones' #2 starter. In 4 spring starts he was 2-0 with a 2.14 ERA and 22 K's to 5 BB's. The Claymores and Fishermen didn't care. They knocked him around to the tune of 2 losses and 9 runs allowed. That second start against Gloucester, however, suggested he was just left in the game a bit long. He gave up 3 early runs in the 1st inning, but settled in after that to throw up zeroes until the 8th.

SP Armando López (HAR)
Everyone knows that Hartford has a good top of the rotation, but the starting staff is actually quite deep. López is their #4 starter and last year went 5-5... wait, 5-5, really? Yes... you see he just doesn't go deep into games. He averaged less than 5 innings per start, but he posted a 2.58 ERA, 159 ERA+ and 3.4 WAR. That's quite good. This year, he's on pace for 0.0 WAR. That said, his actual results haven't been terrible, his ERA is 3.38 which is only slightly higher than his career average. That said, his FIP is 5.74. He's given up 2 home runs, 3 walks, and 8 hits in just 8 innings. Whether the Harpoons make the postseason will largely be dependent on if they can get the back of the rotation to perform well.

SP Yvon Fortier (FAR)
Fortier isn't exactly a household name, but he was solidly good for Fargo last year, going 11-12 with a 4.19 ERA for the last place Dinosaurs. A step forward may have been hoped for, but so far he's been roughed up in both his starts. Lasting less than 4 innings in each, the Malts and Badgers scored a combined 11 runs off of him.



* We get our first taste of Florida in May. And we have to go there. On Friday the 13th. Seriously?

[Lions]

The OOTP export to StatsLab spits out current season at-bat data with launch angle and exit velocity. You can find the hit location and exit velo in the game logs, too, if you're curious about such things.

So, Who are the early season leaders in hard hit percentage? This is hard hits (>=95 mph) per batted ball events, with a minimum of 20 balls hit.

1. Manny Moreno (FLA) - 14/20 - 70.0%
Surely you didn't think that if a Florida player were leading the league in hard hit percentage it would be Knopp or Van Wondel. Surely you knew it'd be Moreno, who's hitting all of .227. He does have 2 doubles and 2 home runs among his 5 hits.

2. Bob Ellerby (TEM) - 23/33 - 69.7%
Tempe's big offseason slugger acquistion! Ok, so Ellerby isn't known for slugging, but at least his .415 average this year lines up with the fact that he's hitting the ball hard. He's got 7 doubles, just recently saw a 9 game hitting streak end, and apparently very happy in his role with his new team.

3. Eric Nelson (SCO) - 37/54 - 68.5%
Finally an everyday player, Nelson has been crushing the ball so far. He's batting .409 with 6 doubles, 4 triples, and 9 home runs. That's 19 extra base hits in 17 games played. Nelson was once traded for 2-time Royal Raker Pablo Ortiz, and now looking like he's ready to make a Royal Raker run of his own. Early days/small sample/all that rot, Nelson's a great player.

4. Kinfu Yawo (TEM) - 20/31 - 64.5%
No, I hadn't heard of Yawo before, either. The South African quietly posted 2.0 WAR for Tempe last year and this year is hitting .213. He can play anywhere, and like Moreno has a pair of doubles and a pair of home runs in the early going. He'll derive most of his value from his defense, but he'll steal some bases, too. He had 39 swipes last year and is on pace for 34 this season.

5. Tomás Martínez (SCO) - 30/47 - 63.8%
Another househould name, Martínez's numbers this season aren't popping off the page like they did last year. He's hitting .262, which isn't terrible but also isn't great. He's slugging just .385, while last year he was at .608 on the season. 5 doubles but just 1 home run so far after a season in which he hit 48. Expect to see more of these hard hit balls turning into extra base hits down the line based on his track record.




Want to see the other end of the spectrum? I'll raise the minimum batted ball events to 40 so as to truly get the guys that are the worst.
1. Roberto Vázquez (CST) - 9/41 - 22.0%
Quite possibly tThe worst hitting regular in PEBA (no research done there), Vázquez is a tremendous center fielder who has twice won All-Leather honors. At 27, Vázquez is now in his 6th PEBA season and has over 2,000 at-bats to his credit (debit?). If I told you he had a rate stat of .411, you would be forgiven for thinking that's his SLG. It's actually his career OPS.

Here's the rest of the bottom 5 with less elaboration
2. Ikki Nakashima (BAK) - 10/40 - 25.0%
Yeah, a full 3% better than Vázquez.
3. Sun-taek Sok (SA) - 15/55 - 27.3%
4. Thomas Johnston (NO) - 17/59 - 28.8%
5. Claudio Hernández (AUR) - 15/52 - 28.9%
Hernández actually started out the season strong, but over his last 7 games has just 2 hits and his OPS has dropped by over .200.

[Borealis]

Here's the rest of the bottom 5 with less elaboration...
5. Claudio Hernández (AUR) - 15/52 - 28.9%
Hernández actually started out the season strong, but over his last 7 games has just 2 hits and his OPS has dropped by over .200.

He's hitting .167 vRHP - though his OBP is .333...

[Lions]

I'm often curious how big of a deal is a slow start versus a fast start. Does it really matter that much what you do in April? Well, this short post isn't going to answer that question at a general level, but let's see where it takes us.

Let's take a randomly* chosen starting record of 13-7. That's a .650 winning percentage and one that any team would be happy to have to start the year. If you're the Florida Farstriders who are expecting to have the best record in the IL, you'd be pretty happy with .650 as you'd feel like you're off to a good start. FWIW, the Farstriders are 15-4 (.789) to start 2039 as I write this, so hopefully they're just feeling generally embarrassed by how good they are. If you're the Kalamazoo Badgers or Duluth Warriors, who are hoping to fight for the Great Lakes division this year, you're pretty happy with the fact that 13-7 is exactly how you've started the year even if you're a half game behind Crystal Lake. Tight race, but anything can happen and at least you've started strong. Hooray!

Now let's say you're one of those teams and your goal for the year isn't .650, but is actually closer to .700*. A .700 winning percentage is 113 wins on the year... you need to win 100 more games the rest of the way to get there. To do so, you actually need to play at a .704 clip. That's at the pace of a 114 win season. It's a seemingly tiny difference. A bloop game winning hit. A called third strike that gets your closer out of a jam. There are possibilities in the air. You can envision it. You can dream. You can even make a trade or two to try to force it into existence. Life is kinda good.


Now let's say that your dream of a .700 winning percentage to start the year was kind of not so much a dream as an expectation. Maybe you had a good year last year and you figure that you made some moves and it's a target you have for your roster. Maybe you had an amazing year last year and a little regression would get you down to that level. Or maybe you're Toyama and that's exactly the record you had last year. You're bringing just about everyone back and coming off a championship over that vaunted Florida squad that everyone expects to see win but for whatever reasons hasn't been able to win their 4th since winning 3 in a row. Expectations are high and you're raring to go. Heck, you were 13-11 in Spring Training and things looked alright as you tuned up.

Only now you're 7-13 to start the year, not 13-7 like those upstart Warriors and Badgers. The Ghosts, Shisa, and Evas are all ahead of you and the Akira are only one win back. At least no one's running away with anything yet and there's a long way to go. But what does Toyama need to do to match last year's 113 wins? They need to go 106-36 the rest of the way. That's a .746 winning percentage, which is a 120 win season pace. Any time spent playing worse than that pace makes the rest of the season even harder. For Toyama, this isn't just a question of can they match last year's record, but a legitimate question about how good to they have to play to fight off their bloodthirsty division rivals. If one thing is for sure, it's that the Rising Sun suffers no fools. There's no time for slow starts if you want to win the division. Last year, Toyama was 15-5 after 20 games.

So, how serious is this? It sounds pretty bad, but is this something Toyama can overcome? Well, the short answer is that yes, they probably can overcome it. However, it's worth noting that at no point last year did they have a 20-game streak where they lost even half of those 20 games. They had several stretches where they played at a .750 pace, but that's super had to maintain. From May 9 to June 13, they had several times where their worst 20-game record was 11-9, but over that whole stretch they played .576 ball. Even 11-9 over 20 games, which is a .550 winning percentage, is a far cry from the .350 they've put up this year.

The real question is, what is the actual goal? If the goal is 113 wins, I'm going to say that's probably out of the question for Toyama this year. Let's say they play .700 ball the rest of the year. That's a 113 win pace, but would net them 106 wins based on their start. If the goal is a division title or even just a playoff berth, I think there really isn't much to worry about yet. Last year it took 90 wins to make the postseason in the SL as a Wild Card. Toyama needs 83 wins to get there, which is a .585 pace, and while that's good, that seems reasonable.


* Not chosen at random at all. I apologize for lying to you.

[Lions]

2039 #1 overall draft pick Fernando Martínez was taken out of Mobile Christian High School. During his 4 seasons there, he was named the Eastern League's Oustanding Hitter each of the past two years, he was platinum stick at CF twice and 2B once, and he won the 2037 Glove Wizard award as a center fielder. He posted 14.4 WAR, which is twice what any other Cheetah has done. No wonder he was a top draft pick!

The Cheetahs became a PEBA feeder school back in 2031 with the expansion of the feeder system, and Martínez is not the first player from the school to be drafted in the 1st round. Catcher Pedro Hernández was the #19 overall pick in 2032, going to Okinawa. He currently stands as the only position player from Mobile Christian to reach the PEBA. There is one other player from the school to be drafted in the 1st round. That's reliever Denny Jones, who West Virginia picked up with the 28th pick this year.

Three pitchers, Milton McLean, José Silva, and Fernando Ramos have all reached the PEBA. Silva was a 13th round draft pick of San Antonio who was subsequently released twice before getting picked up by Kentucky. He got his cup of coffee with Charleston last year. McLean and Ramos are both with Hartford now. Both were 2nd round picks with McLean getting nabbed by the Harpoon from Bakersfield, who originally drafted him.

One last interesting point on Mobile Christian, they won the 2032 IFHS championship, with Hernández, Silva, and Ramos all being a part of that team.

[Lions]

Who are the greatest players (as measured by career WAR) to have never appeared in a postseason game?

Batters
3. 3B Germán Lima (NO/CL) - 35.2 WAR
Lima's got three 40-home run seasons to his name, including a 48 HR year in 2029. He's a 3-time All-Star and while Crystal Lake made a big splash with the Burrough signing, it doesn't look like it's going to result in a playoff run this year. Lima's 35 and still has good power. He's got 21 home runs a the moment, which puts him on pace to match last year's total of 41.

2. SS Roberto Díaz (SA/OKA/KAL/TEM/NO) - 35.4 WAR
Díaz was a solid, if unspectacular player who made 3 All-Star teams and generally was the kind of player you'd want on your team. His jersey would be popular with the fans who didn't want to be seen just wearing the star's jersey.

OSA still has a scouting report on him: "Roberto Díaz is a right-handed pitcher who is currently seeking a team. He puts together professional at-bats and waits for his pitch. Whiffs aren't really a problem, but his swing is flawed and his batting average will suffer as a result. Díaz has likely hit a plateau in his career, and remains doubtful to have anything but a fringe role." At least that last part is true, given he retired in 2037.

1. LF Dave Nash (NO/SA) - 39.3 WAR
Nash was a 5-time All-Star whose best season was 2020 when he posted a 1.010. He actually has just over 40 WAR with New Orleans, as his time in San Antonio at the end of this career saw his WAR drop a little. The Trendsetters, however, never finished above .500 with him in their lineup.

Pitchers
3. SP Bill Knight (MAN) - 24.9 WAR
The #1 overall pick in the 2030 draft, Knight is still just 30 years old and should have plenty of time ahead to get to the postseason. The Maulers hot start to 2039, however, has faded and they'll be looking to improve next year. Knight has been their best pitcher so far, though, going 8-3 with a 2.66 ERA through 17 starts.

2. SP Jason Crousse (PS/MRS) - 25.9 WAR
Crousse was solid middle of the rotation starter who had a relatively short career from 2014-2023. He regularly led the league in ground ball percentage, and finished his career with a record of 89-100 with a 110 ERA+.

1. SP Jorge Medina (NO) - 44.5 WAR
Medina won 10 or more games 9 out of 10 years running between 2028 and 2037. This came for a New Orleans team that regularly finished below .500. Ironically, the one year in there that he went 9-9 was 2031, when the Trendsetters won 91 games and failed to make the playoffs. Florida also finished with 91 wins that year, and that's the last time Florida didn't make the posteason. Medina was a workhorse, regularly posting 200+ IP and 4.0-6.0 WAR per season.

FWIW, I wans't expecting so many New Orleans players on these lists!


What about active players?
Career WAR isn't going to capture short time players who are still playing early in their careers that have yet to make the postseason. Who are the players to watch as far as that goes?

Here are the top WAR per season players with no postseason experience (min 2nd year playing):
5. 3B Germán Lima (NO/CL) - 2.7 WAR/yr, 13th year
4. OF Li Caporn (TEM) - 2.8 WAR/yr, 4th year
3. LF Scott Carpenter (BAK/MAN) - 2.9 WAR/yr, 12th year
2. OF Masami Sanu (CL) - 3.5 WAR/yr, 3rd year
1. 2B Eric Nelson (SCO) - 3.8 WAR/yr, 4th year

5. SP Tetsui Suzuki (KAL) - 3.2 WAR/yr, 3rd year
4. SP Will Taylor (TEM) - 3.5 WAR/yr, 4th year
3. SP Masahiro Maruyama - 3.7 WAR/yr, 2nd year
2. SP Thibault Dejean (HAR) - 3.7 WAR/yr, 3rd year
1. SP Aaron Goater (HAR) - 4.0 WAR/yr, 3rd year

If you're not aware of Eric Nelson and what Scottish are doing this year, wake up. Gotta think that Tempe has a great shot at making the playoffs this year. They're one of 3 SL teams with a .600+ winning percentage right now. Hartford's top of the rotation is scary good, and I wouldn't be surprised to see them put together enough of an offense to get in eventually, although probably not this year.

I have no recollection of Scott Carpenter's debut with Bakersfield. It was quite the salary dump trade that sent him to Manchester, and I've always just thought of him as a Mauler since.

[Lions]

Here the IL Wild Card + Scottish records since July 1 (through August 22)

Code: Select all

 TM      W      L      Pct
AMA     31     13     .705
KEN     29     16     .644
 NJ     29     16     .644
SCO     23     22     .511
LON     22     23     .489

If you're curious, Hartford has gone 26-17 (.605) during that time. I don't post about this to toot my own horn... on the contrary, I think Amsterdam has had a relatively light schedule in July and August. More because I didn't think I had any real hope of catching the Claymores or London when July started. My only hope of a playoff spot was to somehow keep pace with Kentucky and New Jersey in the Wild Card race and pray for one of the last two playoff positions. My assumption was that London and Scottish would take the division and #1 WC from the rest of us. Now, I'm just 2 games back of Scottish, tied with London.

I don't expect this to last. My schedule the rest of the way is quite a bit tougher than my division-mates and New Jersey. Kentucky also has a fairly tough remaining schedule. We also collapsed last September, so that still weighs on the mind.


What does the SL picture look like since the start of July?

Well, the Rising Sun doesn't look terribly different than the current standings, with the notable fact that Toyama (33-13, .717) has the best SL record and second best overall in the timeframe. No one should be surprised by that given how they've risen in the division since their slow start. Okinawa was 4 games out of a wild card at the start of July and is now in the #2 WC slot. Rising Sun indeed!

The Desert Hills features Reno at the top and Yuma at the bottom, but everything in the middle is weird:

Code: Select all

 TM      W      L      Pct
 PS     29     19     .578
BAK     20     25     .444
AUR     19     25     .432
TEM     17     28     .378

Mike's been complaining about his Borealis and their struggles. I guess Bakersfield isn't that surprising, it's just slightly above their full season win percentage. And Palm Springs... well they made a bunch of offseason moves that everyone loved, didn't see it pan out, made a bunch of in-season moves that everyone loved, and now they're winning. Probably not enough for this year, but they're putting the league on notice.

Then there's Tempe. They are 1 game out of a wild card slot now. They were 4 games up in the Wild Card race at the end of June. Aurora was in 2nd.

Finally, the Great Lakes... where no one knew how to predict them at the start of the year. They all looked pretty even, although the division standings on the year haven't proven to be that close. Maybe we should've started them in July.

Code: Select all

 TM      W      L      Pct     GB
DUL     24     21     .533      -
KAL     23     22     .511    1.0
 CL     23     22     .511    1.0
FAR     22     22     .500    1.5
MAD     19     24     .442    4.0

Madison's not quite doing their part, but to the rest of the division...

[Hitmen]

It’s okay to toot your own horn Frank, Amsterdam has been on a tear in a very busy wild card this year. I feel like we were just complaining how we needed one more spot as too many deserving teams were missing out on the playoffs and here we have 4 teams going at it, plus those ahead of them, as we near the final stretch. Will be a fun one to watch for sure.

[Lions]

There are currently 4 position players and 11 pitchers in the PEBA Hall of Fame, and we're in our 33rd year of league play. All of the pitchers except one were used almost exclusively as starting pitchers. The 11th is Chris York who, despite having over half his appearances out of the pen, spent 11 of his 17 seasons as a starter.

I don't really want to look at the pitchers right now because I think that we've had some very dominant pitchers get elected. 11 pitchers over 33 seasons is .33 HoF pitchers per season. That's lower than the MLB HoF, which has about .58 HoF pitchers per season. However on the offensive side... yeah we really don't like position players.

One way to look at it is to consider it by position. On a per position basis, the MLB HoF has one position player per every 8 seasons. And that's at the least honored positions of catcher and third base. The most frequently honored positions are RF, 1B, and SS, which are at about one HoFer per every 5.5 seasons.

As an exercise, I'm going to pull out the top 10-12 WAR players at catcher by the decade they debuted in. Bear in mind that the 2000's started in 2007 for PEBA, we only get 3 years there. I'm going to the top 12 rather than top 10 because that's the only way to get the 2010's more than one player.
* indicates active player.

Top 10(12) WAR Catchers
2000's
3. Manuel González - 44.7
4. Jeff Cline - 44.3
7. Wilson Berry - 42.1
8. Pat Holman - 42.1

2010's
2. Pepe Espinosa - 44.8
11. Lorenzo Amador - 35.2
12. Danny Burke - 35.1

2020's
1. Germán Hernández - 54.4
5. Tony Parker - 43.7
6. Ryan Lambert - 42.9
9. Steve McDonald* - 40.6

2030's
10. Claudio Pérez* - 38.5

I think one of the things that we, as a PEBA voting block, look for is a guy that clearly stands out from the rest. That's not very easy to see among these catchers. Hernández has the highest WAR, but it's not way out in front. The next group is pretty closely bunched. Cline had a very high peak but very short career.

Another thing we look for is just flat out career greatness compared beyond their position, and we've yet to have a PEBA catcher demonstrate that. Tsumemasa Morimoto had a hard time getting elected because his career WAR was "just" 48.3 despite the fact that he hit nearly 90 more home runs that anyone in PEBA history, a gap that was bigger when he retired. Only one catcher has surpasse Morimoto's WAR total and none of them have the claim to fame that he does.

Career WAR numbers don't really capture how dominant a player was over their positional peers. Most of these guys were 3-4 time All-Stars, which is one way I try to guage that if I don't remember. I figure if you're among the best of your peers, you should be one of the 2 positional All-Stars for your league regularly. Parker was an 8 time All-Star but was largely seen as a defensive liability.

I think we should be asking ourselves if it's possible to go 3 decades without having a single Hall of Famer at a position? Or perhaps we need to do some context checking to see if maybe our levels should be adjusted. If the answer is no, we ought to have a Hall of Famer in that time, then the question becomes which players. The challenge for a position like catcher is how do we decided between a group of so similarly valuable players.

In case you're wondering, all other positions have at least 3 of the top 6 WAR players currently active except for SS (2) and DH (1). Both of those have players currently active who are fairly sure bets to move into the top 6 at their positions. Several positions have the top WAR player currently active if not several of the top ones. The top 5 WAR third basemen, for example, are all still active. Unlike catcher, third base will be a problem to determine if the current crop of players washes away the need to recognize older players who were great for their time but not up to the level of these players.

The list of catcher WAR was pulled from StatsLab's player leaderboards, filtered by position. I don't remember the exact positional requirement for inclusion, but it's something about the position with the most innings played in the field and a minimum amount required to avoid ending up on the DH list.

[Borealis]

Interesting stuff Frank! Interesting to note about 3B - the top 5 are all active still, with the top retired 3B being 'Big Whiskey' - time to get out the vote for the Big Tennesseean!!

[Hitmen]

This is an awesome review Frank and points out how we could work to improve HOF voting in my opinion.

Maybe break it out by position? Elect best of list? I don’t know, but I agree there should definitely be some more hitters in already because while big picture they seem less impressive, they are the best to ever do it at their individual positions.

[Lions]

The third basemen are particularly interesting in that the top 4 all debuted from 2020-2022. Then you've got Santos, a 2027 debutee, who'll soon be 4th on the list.

It does make you wonder about context of their times. I don't think we have any sense of PEBA era's the way we do for MLB. In MLB history we have eras like the Deadball era and the post-WWII Golden Era. Those eras don't really reveal themselves until much later, and we probably don't have enough history to really get it yet. The late 2020's are when the stolen base trend exploded. There's an offensive drop that coincides with that shift of about 3/4 of a run per game lower than the early PEBA years.

[Lions]

Another thought... I could see us continuing to struggle to elect players even if we want to increase the numbers because the players don't have enough differentiating them. I have my opinions on what order I'd vote them in, but I'm sure others would differ.

[Borealis]

I've been struggling with the pitcher v. hitter issue as well, and thought splitting the votes in some manner might help - or make it a minimum number of votes out of the 10 (or increasing the number), though I think the vast majority of us have used all 10 votes in the past.

I am open to suggestions as I am prepping for the next ballot that may have 4 new hitters and 2 pitchers, with one more ballot for a cluster of lower performers to go. I'm trying to be patient with the hitters who have not gotten a lot of love for the exact reason we are discussing - low representation.

[Lions]

I wasn't intending to continue on the HOF discussion platform, but I was thinking about it more and have one more perspective to look at. In the above comments on catchers I looked at career WAR. Let's look at shortstops now, since my franchise icon Ronald Lowry falls to that position. We'll look at the top 11 so that #11 gets on the list... we'd be remiss to ignore him.

Top 11 Career WAR:
1. Ricardo Mateo* (2028-2039) - 71.5 WAR, 121 OPS+
2. Juan Hernández (2018-2037) - 63.9 WAR, 107 OPS+, 95.6 ZR, 3 All Leather
3. Chris Long (2014-2033) - 63.7 WAR, 114 OPS+, 3x All Leather
4. Naomi Honma* (2027-2039) - 63.1 WAR, 103 OPS+, 1x All Leather
5. George Riley (2007-2020) - 55.6 WAR, 120 OPS+
6. Ronald Lowry (2011-2025) - 52.8 WAR, 138 OPS+
7. Ken Keddy (2011-2027) - 47.4 WAR, 99 OPS+
8. José Rivera (2010-2026) - 45.7 WAR, 112 OPS+, 2x All Leather
9. Barry Wallace* (2025-2039) - 44.0 WAR, 94 OPS+, 3x All Leather
10. Roberto Salazar* (2027-2039) - 41.4 WAR, 102 OPS+
11. Rodrigo Vásquez* (2030-2039) - 41.2 WAR, 98 OPS+

That's a rather interesting group. If you trust WAR, then I think you've got Mateo head and shoulders above the rest.

FWIW, Keddy currently (9/1/2039) sits at #45 on the PEBA career WAR list for batters, while Rivera sits at #54. Split the difference and you can say that 7 of the top 50 offensive players in PEBA history have been shortstops. Florida's Michael Roberts is currently #50, but will likely be higher than that by season's end.

Some of you may be familiar with Jay Jaffe's WAR Score System, also known as JAWS. JAWS takes a player's career WAR and the sum of their top 7 WAR seasons and averages them together. The top 7 WAR seasons do not need to be consecutive.

JAWS for the above SS's:
1. Mateo - 71.5 WAR, 50.0 Top 7, 60.8 JAWS
2. Honma - 63.1 WAR, 40.6 T7, 51.9 JAWS
3. Long - 63.7 WAR, 37.8 T7, 50.8 JAWS
4. Riley - 55.6 WAR, 45.3 T7, 50.4 JAWS
5. Hernández - 63.9 WAR, 35.3 T7, 49.6 JAWS
6. Lowry - 52.8 WAR, 42.5 T7, 47.7 JAWS
7. Keddy - 47.4 WAR, 29.8 T7, 38.6 JAWS
8. Vásquez - 41.2 WAR, 35.9 T7, 38.5 JAWS
9. Rivera - 45.7 WAR, 30.3 T7, 38.0 JAWS
10. Wallace - 44.0 WAR, 28.3 T7, 36.1 JAWS
11. Salazar - 41.4 WAR, 30.1 T7, 35.7 JAWS

Here you can see how the shorter careers of Riley and Lowry affected their career standings. Riley entered PEBA's inaugural season when he was already 27 years old, so he missed the first part of a career that likely would've been a shoo-in for the HoF had he played will for a few seasons earlier. I didn't remember his peak being that high, but it's worth pointing out that all these years later, he's still 3rd in career walks. Lowry didn't have the extended, into his late-30's and early 40's career that some of our other stars did. Long's peak isn't as high, but he was good for many years. Honma's the career leader in zone rating at shortstop, which generates a ton of WAR for him, but he was a very good hitter earlier in his career.