How much does QB success depend on the team?: Part 1

Unlike baseball, success for a player in football depends a lot on the success of the players around the player. For example, Justin Verlander's strikeout totals have nothing to do with how his teammate Brad Penny pitched. Ichiro Suzuki's terrible 2011 defense had nothing to do with the Mariner's anemic offense or problems on the infield. I wanted to see if I could measure how much a quarterback's success had to do with him or the team he was on. To do this, you have to some how isolate the quarterback from the team. The best way to do this, that I can think of, is to use quarterbacks who switched teams during their careers. So I included the last year's passer rating with the previous team, and then either the first year with the new team or his total numbers with the first team. I used 200 Attempts as a rough requirement (I did make some exceptions). I only wanted to use consecutive years so people like Vick and Grossman are thrown out. I did this because a lot can change in two years for a player (same reason I didn't do baseball write-ups on people like Jamie Moyer and Manny Ramirez for the 2012 season).I including Russell Wilson in the spreadsheet because I found the difference between his 2010 season with NC State (where he was a solid quarterback) and his 2011 season with Wisconsin (where he was one of the best in the nation). I then included some notable running backs that have played with multiple teams and compared their average yards per carry.

Average difference in passer rating (excluding Russell Wilson) is 6.59. Just to give you an idea, that is about the difference between Tony Romo and Matt Schuab in 2011 (as well as the difference between Ryan Fitzpatrick and Tim Tebow). The biggest difference was McNabb's 15.8, which is about the difference between Phillip Rivers and Kevin Kolb. So it would seem, at least in the sample we have, that there is a difference, but for the most part not a huge difference for quarterbacks depending on what quality of a team they play on.

Runningbacks had an average difference of .65 yards per carry. This is a huge difference. So, at least it would seem according to these samples, that things like offensive line affect a running back much more than a quarterback. In Part 2, I will use college statistics for quarterback and try to see which statistics best translate from NCAA division 1 to the NFL.

The Mariners sign Muneno Kawasaki

The Mariners have reportedly signed Muneno Kawasaki to a minor league contract. At age 30, in his past 5 years in the NPB, he has a .344 OBP, .721 OPS, 1.1 PPG, and 2.76 PAPP. According to the Japanese metric, this is projected to be a .311 OBP, .61 PPG, 3.5 PAPP, and a -1.15 Simple WAR. In 2011, Kawasaki was worse, with just a .310 OBP, which is just a .277 OBP once adjusted for the MLB. He is also a below average shortstop according to range factor, although it is worth noting that he is above average according to fielding percentage. He homers less than 1% of the time, and walks just 6% of the time. He did have a decent stealing rate, at about 72% success rate. You usually want a 75-80% rate for stealing to be worth it. One would expect some kind of regression in the MLB, meaning that his one decent weapon would be taken away from him. It is just a minor league contract, so its not like the Mariners lose anything, but I don't see Kawasaki having success in the Big Leagues.

Japanese hitting Metric

I previously made a Japanese pitcher metric (you can find that in the Yu Darvish article), that compared how pitchers' in Japan did in the Majors in America. Here I am going to do the same with hitters. There have been far less Japanese hitters in the Show than pitchers. So I am using all 7 that BaseballCube had reliable stats on and had significant time in the Big Leagues. Ichiro 1.82 PAPP 1.56 PPG 392 OBP in Japan.  In America: 1.29 PPG, 2.227 PAPP. , 370 OBP. So Taguchi: in America, .62 PPG, 2.58 PAPP, .332 OBP, In Japan: .329 OBP, 2.6 PAPP, 1.07 PPG. Kazuo Matsui in Japan: 1.58 PPG, 2.10 PAPP, .351 OBP. In America: .321 OBP, 2.53 PAPP, 1.07 PPG. Kosuke Fukodome in Japan: .390 OBP, 1.99 PAPP, 1.48 PPG. In America: .92 PPG, .361 OBP, and 2.27 PAPP. Akinori Iwamura in America: .95 PPG, .345 OBP, 2.46 PAPP. In Japan: .358 OBP, 2.15 PAPP, 1.39 PPG. Tsuyoshi Nishioka in Japan: 2.18 PAPP, 1.26 PPG, and .375 OBP. In America: .278 OBP, .51 PPG, and 3.51 PAPP. Hideki Matsui in Japan: .408 OBP, 1.71 PPG, 1.77 PAPP. In America: 1.32 PPG, .363 OBP, 2.22 PAPP. The 7 hitters averaged a 2.09 PAPP in Japan, and 2.83 in America, a .74 addition. They averaged a 1.44 PPG in Japan and a .95 PPG in the Majors, a .49 addition. They averaged a .372 OBP in Japan and .339 OBP in the Majors, a .033 subtraction. When going over hitters numbers in Japan, we will use this metric to grade how well they might do in the Majors in the United States.

Big Time Slugger or Speedster who doesn't strikeout? Which would you rather have?

A theoretical debate in baseball has always gone something like this: "Would you rather have a guy that strikes out a lot and is slow, but hits tons of home runs, or a guy who is fast and rarely strikes out, but can't hit the long ball?". We have seen this in criticism of Ichiro Suzuki (before this lackluster year), as critics insist he is overrated because he only cares about hits (his next one will tie him with Mickey Mantle, and this doesn't count any of his hits in Japan) and doesn't hit home runs. So I wanted to take 4 real examples of current players' best seasons (2 sluggers and 2 speedsters) and see what the key saber-metric statistic, WAR (Wins after Replacement Player), had to say on the debate. For Brett Gardner of the Yankees (clearly in the speedster category), his best year was 2010, when he had a .383 OBP, 47 RBIs, 47 steals, with 101 strikeouts. His offensive WAR (we are going to ignore defense for this post) was 3.3. The other speedster I picked was, of course, Ichiro. His best offensive season was his first year in America, where he had a OBP of .381, 56 stolen bases, 69 RBIs, 8 homers, and 53 strikeouts. This gave him a WAR of 6.2 on offense. The first slugger I picked is pretty obvious, Ryan Howard. He has some of the highest single season strikeout totals in National League history. His best year was in 2006, when he had a .425 OBP, 181 strikeouts OPS of 1.084, with 58 bombs, and 149 RBIs. His WAR was 5.6. The second slugger I picked was Carlos Pena. His best year was in 2007, when he had an OBP of .411, 142 strikeouts, 46 homers, 121 RBIs, and a OPS of 1.037. His offense WAR was 5.9. There are plenty of more sluggers and speedsters that we could evaluate, but looking at just these 4 seem to show that both the slugger and the speedster are equally valuable.