What was the big deal with Mets and the black hole at 3rd?

[stevejrogers]

Seems like 3B for the Mets has had this rep of being more of a blackhole than any other position. I mean the 25th anniversary video had a song and video montage spotlighting it and its a perennial filler sidebar in the Mets media guide

Well looking at Ultimate Mets Database the totals as of July 2006:

C 71 players
1B 126 players
2B 113 players
3B 133 players
SS 100 players
LF 200 players
CF 140 players
RF 171 players
DH 29 players

Clearly 1st could be considered as much of a black hole as 3rd. Naturally the leader in games played, Ed Kranepool played for 18 years, hence he has a 450 game lead over Keith Hernandez. 2B the leader Wally Backman played in 680 games, I use that because the top two 3Bmen have over 700 games played, Howard Johnson (835) and Wayne Garrett (709)

I'm not even going to get into the Outfield, but I'm curious as to how 3rd got to be so infamous that the Met PR department had to make a big deal about it when it doesn't seem as abnormal as the other positions.

[Guest Edgy DC]

1962-1980 was a struggle.

Since then, it's been more reputation than anything. Much more.

[RealityChuck]

3B and CF were big problems in the early years of the team, and one sportswriter started keeping tabs at 3B. CF stopped being an issue after Agee joined the team, but here are the numbers of third basemen:

1962 -- 9
1963 -- 11
1964 -- 10
1965 -- 8
1966 -- 5
1967 -- 11
1968 -- 4
1969 -- 6
1970 -- 3
1971 -- 5

The numbers are more reasonable from here on, but the issue is still the fact that there was incredible turnover, and no player ever had a long run at the position.

Regular third baseman (i.e., most games at the position):

1962 -- Felix Mantilla
1963 -- Charlie Neal (Jim Hickman played only 7 games less, though)
1964 -- Charlie Smith
1965 -- Charlie Smith
1966 -- Ken Boyer
1967 -- Ed Charles
1968 -- Ed Charles
1969 -- Wayne Garrett
1970 -- Joe Foy
1971 -- Bob Aspromonte
1972 -- Jim Fregosi
1973 -- Wayne Garrett
1974 -- Wayne Garrett
1975 -- Wayne Garrett
1976 -- Roy Staiger
1977 -- Len Randle
1978 -- Len Randle
1979 -- Richie Hebner
1980 -- Elliott Maddox

In '81, Hubie Brooks took over, and the position has been relatively stable since. And the list doesn't indicate players during this time who were supposed to be a real 3B prospect but who never panned out.

In retrospect, the team should have been satisfied with Garrett playing the position; if they had made that decision, Foy and Ryan would have remained with the team.

Hojo and Garrett both played a lot of games, but the numbers drop off quickly. David Wright is almost certainly in the top ten already.

[stevejrogers]

Top 5 for Wright if I'm not mistaken

[stevejrogers]

Excuse me, right on the cusp at # 6

1. Howard Johnson 835
2. Wayne Garrett 709
3. Hubie Brooks 516
4. Edgardo Alfonzo 515
5. Robin Ventura 436
6. David Wright 317

[stevejrogers]

Certain fans and mediots would never have believed this 3 years ago, but in about 12 more games played Reyes will also be at #6 All-Time for Met Short Stops

1. Bud Harrelson 1281
2. Rey Ord��ez 907
3. Kevin Elster 524
4. Rafael Santana 478
5. Frank Taveras 372
6. Roy McMillan 335
7. Jos� Reyes 323

[stevejrogers]

If all goes as planned, Edgardo may add here

1. Wally Backman 680
2. Felix Millan 654
3. Doug Flynn 533
4. Edgardo Alfonzo 524

[stevejrogers]

Floyd is also sitting in the 6th hole!

1. Cleon Jones 794
2. Kevin McReynolds 758
3. George Foster 617
4. Steve Henderson 482
5. Bernard Gilkey 363
6. Cliff Floyd 351

[Elster88]

[stevejrogers]

Elster88 wrote:

Well put.

[MFS62]

The Mets had nine third basemen in 1962, starting with Don Zimmer.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/NYM/1962.shtml

Many have said he screwed up the position so badly that it took the team many years to recover.

They also had seven catchers that year, and it took the team a while to stabilize that position, too (with Jerry Grote).

Later

[Guest old original jb]

A more accurate measure of instability at a position would be obtained as follows:

Let N =

p= i
∑ {Np x (Np/Gt).....+N(p+1) x (N(p+1)/Gt�+Ni x (Ni/Gt) }
p=0

where i = number of third basemen Mets have had
gt = total number of Met games
Np= number of games played by invididual player p.

Weighted Average = N / (i)

As usual, I do not have the time to run the numbers, but this formula, would adjust for a situation in which one or two players had very long stints and a larger number of players had very short stints during brief periods of instability.

[Theoldmole]

]If they had made that decision, Foy and Ryan would have remained with the team.

Otis and Ryan?

[metsmarathon]

="old original jb"]A more accurate measure of instability at a position would be obtained as follows: Let N = p= i ∑ {Np x (Np/Gt).....+N(p+1) x (N(p+1)/Gt�+Ni x (Ni/Gt) } p=0 where i = number of third basemen Mets have had gt = total number of Met games Np= number of games played by invididual player p. Weighted Average = N / (i) As usual, I do not have the time to run the numbers, but this formula, would adjust for a situation in which one or two players had very long stints and a larger number of players had very short stints during brief periods of instability.

why does mlb.com show hojo as having 835 games played under 3b fielding stats for the mets, yet as a hitter, he has 1054 games played at third base?


http://newyork.mets.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/stats/historical/player_stats.jsp?c_id=nym&section3=1&statSet3=1&sortByStat=G&statType=3&timeFrame=3&timeSubFrame=0&baseballScope=NYN&prevPage3=3&readBoxes=true&sitSplit=&venueID=&subScope=pos&teamPosCode=5&HS=true
http://newyork.mets.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/stats/historical/player_stats.jsp?c_id=nym&baseballScope=NYN&subScope=pos&teamPosCode=5&statType=1&sitSplit=&venueID=&timeFrame=3&timeSubFrame2=0&Submit=Submit


using the 835 number source, and jb's formula, i show the mets have a third base stability factor of 2.413

no i haven't run the other positions yet.

[Guest old original jb]

="metsmarathon"] ="old original jb"]A more accurate measure of instability at a position would be obtained as follows: Let N = p= i ∑ {Np x (Np/Gt).....+N(p+1) x (N(p+1)/Gt�+Ni x (Ni/Gt) } p=0 where i = number of third basemen Mets have had gt = total number of Met games Np= number of games played by invididual player p. Weighted Average = N / (i) As usual, I do not have the time to run the numbers, but this formula, would adjust for a situation in which one or two players had very long stints and a larger number of players had very short stints during brief periods of instability. why does mlb.com show hojo as having 835 games played under 3b fielding stats for the mets, yet as a hitter, he has 1054 games played at third base? http://newyork.mets.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/stats/historical/player_stats.jsp?c_id=nym&section3=1&statSet3=1&sortByStat=G&statType=3&timeFrame=3&timeSubFrame=0&baseballScope=NYN&prevPage3=3&readBoxes=true&sitSplit=&venueID=&subScope=pos&teamPosCode=5&HS=true http://newyork.mets.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/stats/historical/player_stats.jsp?c_id=nym&baseballScope=NYN&subScope=pos&teamPosCode=5&statType=1&sitSplit=&venueID=&timeFrame=3&timeSubFrame2=0&Submit=Submit using the 835 number source, and jb's formula, i show the mets have a third base stability factor of 2.413 no i haven't run the other positions yet.

I think Hojo played some games at centerfield.
I'm not sure how you got to that number, because the final value should be in average number of games played per third baseman.
I think I need to tweak the formula---don't run the other positions until I get a chance to fix it!

[Guest old original jb]

It's worse than I thought. I ran some examples, and honestly, my formula is, well, worthless. I don't know what I was smoking today, but the whole weighted average thing just doesn't work for this problem.

Back to the drawing board!

(And my apologies to the forum for being so enthralled with being able to put in a "sigma" that I failed to test out the formula before posting it.)

[metsmarathon]

well, you're basically summing Np(i)^2 / Gt

at first i had trouble making sense of the formula, but i think it may work.

see, if you've got three cases:

position one:
eight players, each with one game played
position two:
four players. two with three games played, two with one game played
position three:
four players. one with five games player, three with one game played.

so position one gives us:
(1*1/8) + (1*1/8) + (1*1/8) + (1*1/8) + (1*1/8) + (1*1/8) + (1*1/8) + (1*1/8) =
1/8 + 1/8 + 1/8 + 1/8 + 1/8 + 1/8 + 1/8 + 1/8 =
8/8 = 1

position two gives us:
(3*3/8) + (3*3/8) + (1*1/8) + (1*1/8) =
9/8 + 9/8 + 1/8 + 1/8 =
20/8 = 2.25

position three gives us:
(5*5/8) + (1*1/8) + (1*1/8) + (1*1/8) =
25/8 + 1/8 + 1/8 + 1/8 =
28/8 = 3.5

position three, despite having the same number of players as position two, was much more stable. the higher JB Factor means a more stable position.

i think that while hte number may appear meaningless in that it is not a number less than one that you had expected, it is still meaningful in that it can quantify the difference between a few guys with moderate-length tenures signifying positional instability, and a position with a lot of short term fill-ins and some long term stanchions that would signify stability in a position.

sure, there may be a better way of measuring it somewhere, but i think this works just fine. tho it'll be meaningless to compare outfield to infield, as outfielders tend to rotate around without necessarily indicating instability so much as flexibility. but we'll see. or we would see if i got around to playing with numbers...
maybe if we summed the outfield...? just a hypothesis...



OE: helps if i actually fully use jb's formula....

position one: N = 1 JBF = 1/8 = 0.125
position two: N = 2.25 JBF = 2.25/4 = 0.5625
position three: N = 3.5 JBF = 3.5/4 = 0.875

so with these numbers, it works, and returns a number less than one. i'll play with thtis more later, but i think its premature to simply toss it out. maybe...