Dave Concepcion and number 13

[goreds2]

That's it.

He also has my Tom Seaver, 1976 Reds Team, Johnny Bench (72 playoff homer), Pete Rose 3000th hit swing (with insert of him and Tony on first base), A Pete Rose Black and white poster (Copy Right 1974 / Miami Florida spring training). They are all framed.

Yes, my son is brain washed.

[RedsBaron]

The Hall is for guys who were the best at what they did during their time.
I would be hard pressed to believe there was a better shortstop than Davey in the 1970s.

In his original Historical Baseball Abstract published in 1985 or so, Bill James had Bert Campaneris listed as his shortstop on his 1970s all star team, perhaps just to prove he was not infallible. Bill finally corrected that error when he came out with his new Historical Abstract a few years ago-Davey Concepcion is now his all star shortstop on the 1970s team.

[Yachtzee]

In his original Historical Baseball Abstract published in 1985 or so, Bill James had Bert Campaneris listed as his shortstop on his 1970s all star team, perhaps just to prove he was not infallible. Bill finally corrected that error when he came out with his new Historical Abstract a few years ago-Davey Concepcion is now his all star shortstop on the 1970s team.

Although, IIRC, he still has Campaneris ranked ahead of Concepcion on his all-time SS rankings. We discussed it a while ago, but Bill James' SS rankings really make one question the accuracy of Win Shares, since I've never heard anyone that was a contemporary of Concepcion and Campaneris state that Campaneris was better than Concepcion. WOY, do you have a newspaper clipping on this matter?

[Cyclone792]

Although, IIRC, he still has Campaneris ranked ahead of Concepcion on his all-time SS rankings. We discussed it a while ago, but Bill James' SS rankings really make one question the accuracy of Win Shares, since I've never heard anyone that was a contemporary of Concepcion and Campaneris state that Campaneris was better than Concepcion. WOY, do you have a newspaper clipping on this matter?

Just throwing some numbers around ... this is interesting ...

Campaneris started his career a few years earlier than Concepcion, and those few years were some of the lowest run scoring years since the Dead Ball Era. The best way to compare them may to be break a few different metrics down individually side-by-side ...

Career

Player      Career WS  Pk WS  WS/162  RC/27  LgRC/27  Ratio  WARP  Pk WARP  WARP/162  BRAA  OPS+

Campaneris     280      120    19.48   3.84    4.20    0.91   89.5   41.3     6.23     10    89
Concepcion     269      117    17.52   3.89    4.48    0.87  100.4   45.9     6.54    -29    88

Campaneris had a career park factor of  97
Concepcion had a career park factor of 101

Campaneris Offensive/Defensive Win Shares Ratio: 64%/36%
Concepcion Offensive/Defensive Win Shares Ratio: 54%/46%

Win Shares ranked Campaneris as a B defensively
Win Shares ranked Concepcion as an A+ defensively

Win Shares, WARP, and OPS+ already have park factors applied whereas RC/27 and the ratio to the League's RC/27 do not have park factors applied, which is why I listed their career park factors separately. Concepcion played in a tad more favorable hitting environment.

The advanced metrics pretty much agree that Campaneris was a slightly better offensive player than Concepcion, and by slightly I mean just barely, if even that. Campaneris has a slight edge in runs created (also RCAA and RCAP, which I did not list), batting runs above average, and OPS+. On the other hand, both Win Shares and BP's metrics show Concepcion as being quite easily the superior defensive player.

There's likely two main differences with Campaneris and Concepcion with the two total player ranking systems in win shares and WARP, namely 1) how much weight is credited to defense relative to offensive value, and 2) how much superior each system views Concepcion over Campaneris defensively.

Per 1,450 innings (roughly 162 games of innings), it looks like Concepcion's defensive win shares advantage is somewhere around 1.5 win shares. That's the equivalent of about a five run advantage defensively for Concepcion over Campaneris per full season of innings. BP's fielding runs above average gives Concepcion about a six or seven run advantage defensively. Not exactly the same, but not too terribly different either.

Here's each player by season with some metrics ...

Season-by-Season

Year    Davey WS   Bert WS   Davey WARP   Bert WARP   Davey OPS+   Bert OPS+

1964      ----        6         ----         1.7        ----          86
1965      ----       18         ----         4.7        ----         102
1966      ----       22         ----         5.6        ----          98
1967      ----       16         ----         5.1        ----          88
1968      ----       29         ----         9.5        ----         115
1969      ----       16         ----         4.7        ----          74
1970        5        26          1.4         8.9          73         114
1971        4        15          0.5         5.1          43          75
1972        6        21          2.8         8.1          59          84
1973       16        20          5.5         7.5         114          81
1974       25        22          9.9         7.3         106         112
1975       19        17          7.5         4.2          88          92
1976       23        19          9.9         6.5         107          87
1977       19        15          8.2         6.1          84          78
1978       25         3          8.3         0.9         114          37
1979       24         5          9.6         1.6         107          57
1980       17         4          5.8         0.9          84          74
1981       20         2          7.2         0.1         116          84
1982       17       ----         7.9        ----          97        ----
1983        8         4          3.6         1.1          61         101
1984       11       ----         3.1        ----          74        ----
1985       12       ----         2.5        ----          77        ----
1986        8       ----         2.2        ----          79        ----
1987        8       ----         3.9        ----         100        ----
1988        2       ----         0.9        ----          45        ----

Overall statistically, these two players are so close that it's virtually a wash. Depending on the preferred metric, one player comes out slightly ahead of the other player. But the differences are so slight that noise and imperfections pretty much swallow them up.

Who somebody chooses as the greater player really comes down to personal preferences, IMO. Frankly, I'll sacrifice a very limited amount of offensive production (i.e. whatever the very small difference between Campaneris and Concepcion really is) in exchange for having the guy who is arguably one of the top three or four defensive shortstops in the history of the game. The fact that Concepcion is one of the greatest defensive shortstops of all-time is the main reason why I support him for Cooperstown. Campaneris was a very similar player, but he wasn't anywhere near the greatest defensive shortstop.

All that means I'd take Davey over Bert, and I'm sure just about every other Reds fan out there would too.

[mth123]

Just throwing some numbers around ... this is interesting ...

Campaneris started his career a few years earlier than Concepcion, and those few years were some of the lowest run scoring years since the Dead Ball Era. The best way to compare them may to be break a few different metrics down individually side-by-side ...

Career

Player      Career WS  Pk WS  WS/162  RC/27  LgRC/27  Ratio  WARP  Pk WARP  WARP/162  BRAA  OPS+

Campaneris     280      120    19.48   3.84    4.20    0.91   89.5   41.3     6.23     10    89
Concepcion     269      117    17.52   3.89    4.48    0.87  100.4   45.9     6.54    -29    88

Campaneris had a career park factor of  97
Concepcion had a career park factor of 101

Campaneris Offensive/Defensive Win Shares Ratio: 64%/36%
Concepcion Offensive/Defensive Win Shares Ratio: 54%/46%

Win Shares ranked Campaneris as a B defensively
Win Shares ranked Concepcion as an A+ defensively

Win Shares, WARP, and OPS+ already have park factors applied whereas RC/27 and the ratio to the League's RC/27 do not have park factors applied, which is why I listed their career park factors separately. Concepcion played in a tad more favorable hitting environment.

The advanced metrics pretty much agree that Campaneris was a slightly better offensive player than Concepcion, and by slightly I mean just barely, if even that. Campaneris has a slight edge in runs created (also RCAA and RCAP, which I did not list), batting runs above average, and OPS+. On the other hand, both Win Shares and BP's metrics show Concepcion as being quite easily the superior defensive player.

There's likely two main differences with Campaneris and Concepcion with the two total player ranking systems in win shares and WARP, namely 1) how much weight is credited to defense relative to offensive value, and 2) how much superior each system views Concepcion over Campaneris defensively.

Per 1,450 innings (roughly 162 games of innings), it looks like Concepcion's defensive win shares advantage is somewhere around 1.5 win shares. That's the equivalent of about a five run advantage defensively for Concepcion over Campaneris per full season of innings. BP's fielding runs above average gives Concepcion about a six or seven run advantage defensively. Not exactly the same, but not too terribly different either.

Here's each player by season with some metrics ...

Season-by-Season

Year    Davey WS   Bert WS   Davey WARP   Bert WARP   Davey OPS+   Bert OPS+

1964      ----        6         ----         1.7        ----          86
1965      ----       18         ----         4.7        ----         102
1966      ----       22         ----         5.6        ----          98
1967      ----       16         ----         5.1        ----          88
1968      ----       29         ----         9.5        ----         115
1969      ----       16         ----         4.7        ----          74
1970        5        26          1.4         8.9          73         114
1971        4        15          0.5         5.1          43          75
1972        6        21          2.8         8.1          59          84
1973       16        20          5.5         7.5         114          81
1974       25        22          9.9         7.3         106         112
1975       19        17          7.5         4.2          88          92
1976       23        19          9.9         6.5         107          87
1977       19        15          8.2         6.1          84          78
1978       25         3          8.3         0.9         114          37
1979       24         5          9.6         1.6         107          57
1980       17         4          5.8         0.9          84          74
1981       20         2          7.2         0.1         116          84
1982       17       ----         7.9        ----          97        ----
1983        8         4          3.6         1.1          61         101
1984       11       ----         3.1        ----          74        ----
1985       12       ----         2.5        ----          77        ----
1986        8       ----         2.2        ----          79        ----
1987        8       ----         3.9        ----         100        ----
1988        2       ----         0.9        ----          45        ----

Overall statistically, these two players are so close that it's virtually a wash. Depending on the preferred metric, one player comes out slightly ahead of the other player. But the differences are so slight that noise and imperfections pretty much swallow them up.

Who somebody chooses as the greater player really comes down to personal preferences, IMO. Frankly, I'll sacrifice a very limited amount of offensive production (i.e. whatever the very small difference between Campaneris and Concepcion really is) in exchange for having the guy who is arguably one of the top three or four defensive shortstops in the history of the game. The fact that Concepcion is one of the greatest defensive shortstops of all-time is the main reason why I support him for Cooperstown. Campaneris was a very similar player, but he wasn't anywhere near the greatest defensive shortstop.

All that means I'd take Davey over Bert, and I'm sure just about every other Reds fan out there would too.

Nice numbers Cyclone. Its time for me to show my ignorance again.

Is there a way to isolate the difference that is created in these numbers due to line-up position? Because Concepcion was on such a good team, he spent the majority of his career hitting 7th or 8th. It is his fault that he was a "free swinger" I suppose, but Concepcion had to somehow be affected by the pitches he was thrown in his line-up spot. A guy hitting that low in the order is going to accumulate a lot of Plate Appearances with runners on base, two outs and the pitcher on deck. That has to lead to some wasted at bats where he expanded his zone quite frequently trying to drive in the run.

Campaneris was on a lesser offensive team and spent most of his career hitting 1st or 2nd. It was actually his job to do the things that these formulas value such as take a lot of pitches, draw walks and get on base. I personally believe that Concepcion suffers offensively from being on such a good team. If he hit at the top of the order on a lesser team, I think his numbers would somehow be better. I think his OBP would be higher with Joe Rudi, Reggie Jackson and Sal Bando coming up than it was with Cesar Geronimo or the pitcher on deck.

I think Davey is a case where the circumstances surrounding him hurt him when he is compared to his peers. Normally guys who are considered the best of their generation haven't spent their careers at the bottom of the line-up and situations like this don't need to be adjusted for. But, IMO, being on a team with so many of the games great players actually works against Davey when being compared to other SS of his era statistically. That seems counterintuitive because it seems that players should beneift from playing on a good team, but I think it works significantly against Davey. I know "protetction" is downplayed (and normally I agree that it is not a huge factor) but the difference between the meat of the order and the 8th and 9th hitter in the 70s was huge.

[Yachtzee]

Thanks for the breakdown, Cyclone.

[WVJulz]

I know all the stat geeks will say there were and are better SS's but...not to me...the guy was the whole package...talent, class, loyalty, dependable.

Nobody else comes close!

Not to mention the fact that to a lot of us that are of the female persuasion, he wasn't too hard on the eyes!!!! GRRRRR!!!!!

Although, he seriously needs to use Grecian Formula or Just For Men! He's not 60 and almost completely gray. It just doesn't suit him at such a young age!! He's still very handsome and needs to cover up the gray!

Julz

[Cyclone792]

Nice numbers Cyclone. Its time for me to show my ignorance again.

Is there a way to isolate the difference that is created in these numbers due to line-up position? Because Concepcion was on such a good team, he spent the majority of his career hitting 7th or 8th. It is his fault that he was a "free swinger" I suppose, but Concepcion had to somehow be affected by the pitches he was thrown in his line-up spot. A guy hitting that low in the order is going to accumulate a lot of Plate Appearances with runners on base, two outs and the pitcher on deck. That has to lead to some wasted at bats where he expanded his zone quite frequently trying to drive in the run.

Campaneris was on a lesser offensive team and spent most of his career hitting 1st or 2nd. It was actually his job to do the things that these formulas value such as take a lot of pitches, draw walks and get on base. I personally believe that Concepcion suffers offensively from being on such a good team. If he hit at the top of the order on a lesser team, I think his numbers would somehow be better. I think his OBP would be higher with Joe Rudi, Reggie Jackson and Sal Bando coming up than it was with Cesar Geronimo or the pitcher on deck.

I think Davey is a case where the circumstances surrounding him hurt him when he is compared to his peers. Normally guys who are considered the best of their generation haven't spent their careers at the bottom of the line-up and situations like this don't need to be adjusted for. But, IMO, being on a team with so many of the games great players actually works against Davey when being compared to other SS of his era statistically. That seems counterintuitive because it seems that players should beneift from playing on a good team, but I think it works significantly against Davey. I know "protection" is downplayed (and normally I agree that it is not a huge factor) but the difference between the meat of the order and the 8th and 9th hitter in the 70s was huge.

To the best of my knowledge, unless someone such as BP already includes a type of lineup adjustment in their metrics (since they don't publish how they actually come up with their metrics), there really isn't any lineup adjustments included in the common metrics (I'm going to take a look at win shares to make sure, but I can't remember anything like this being included). Also, I've never really heard of any type of lineup adjustment being applied outside of those metrics in a manner that I've seen park factors applied. The main reasoning is, as you point out, many studies arguing that protection has a minimal effect, plus other studies have argued that team run scoring is altered only minimally using various types of batting orders.

Retrosheet has Concepcion's career splits, and they've got splits for him by batting order ...

Batting 2nd: .276/.337/.353
Batting 3rd: .278/.332./373
Batting 5th: .290/.347/.411
Batting 6th: .261/.310/.344
Batting 7th: .257/.306/.356
Batting 8th: .245/.309/.329

Concepcion only had around 600 plate appearances batting 5th (compared to 1,500+ for each of 2nd, 3rd, 6th, 7th, and 8th), but I included those numbers anyway.

A few notes ... he walked once every 12.43 plate appearances while batting 2nd and 3rd, and this compares to one walk every 14.02 plate appearances while batting 6th, 7th, and 8th. If his walk rate would have been exactly the same in the 6/7/8 slots as the 2/3 slots, he'd have around 40-45 more walks for his career, which is worth about five points of OBP if all we did was turn 40 outs into 40 walks.

He did hit for slightly higher batting averages (~20 points higher) in the 2nd and 3rd slots, though his ISO numbers are pretty consistent for both groups. The key differences in Concepcion's production at the top and bottom seems to be that he hit a couple more singles batting higher in the order and that he walked a little more frequently at the top of the order. Also, I would like to point out that Concepcion's first three seasons were primarily in the 8th slot in the order, and he was a pretty awful hitter in two of those seasons in 1971 and 1972.

You pose an interesting theory, and I'm not really sure it can be proven one way or the other. My best guess is if he would have been at the top of the lineup he may have hit a few more singles and taken a few more walks in his career, but that's just a guess. If that'd be the case, the differences would be minimal, probably along the lines of two or three points in both BA and SLG, and maybe a half dozen points in OBP .. all of which would knock his OPS+ up to maybe 90 instead of his actual OPS+ of 88.

[RedsBaron]

If Davey had batted at the top of the lineup for most of his career, he would also have had more plate appearances, which would have helped in some in the counting stats. Maybe he would've reached 2400 hits or would've got the extra 50 RBI he needed to reach 1000 for his career; it's all just speculation.
Baseball-Reference.com's stat neutralizer shows Davey as finishing with 1051 RBI and 1092 runs scored, along with a .275/.331/.368 average/OBP/SPCT career line based upon a 750 runs per team seasonal context.

[Cyclone792]

If Davey had batted at the top of the lineup for most of his career, he would also have had more plate appearances, which would have helped in some in the counting stats. Maybe he would've reached 2400 hits or would've got the extra 50 RBI he needed to reach 1000 for his career; it's all just speculation.

Yep, counting stats surely would have been higher as a direct result of the extra plate appearances, and that possibly would help him in BBWAA Hall voting.

I did check Win Shares, and it doesn't look like they include any type of direct batting order adjustment. What is included is situational hitting, such as BA w/RISP and HR w/men on base. The quantity of situational hitting spots is likely a bit different in each spot, so there'd possibly be an indirect effect from batting in a certain spot. Also, such factors as double plays are obviously included, and a player could hit a few more/less double plays depending on how often they bat with a runner on first base.

But other than some residual indirect lineup variances, there doesn't appear to be a lineup adjustment within win shares.