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CF Rankings (August 22, 2003)

Posted 11:09 a.m., August 23, 2003 (#9) - Amazonian
  NL OF get about 7% less FB opportunities and seem to be converting them at a lower rate than AL CFs this year.

NL CFs have an average of 284 putouts to AL average of 310. 93% of 310 is 288. 4 putouts is not much and may just be a small unattributable difference, or an unusual result historically--I don't know I have not looked.

However, it may be that FB In Play to OF in the NL are less likely to be converted to outs for some reason relating to any number of factors, absence of DH, park factors, etc.

In any event the observed 7% difference must be impacting the available number of win shares to NL OFs taken as a whole. 9Am I wrong about this--does win shares account for the opportuinity differences on the defense and pitching side of things?)

In other words, if Cameron or Andruw Jones played for the Cubs or Dodgers they would have less win shares, but presumably roughly the same ability to contribute but not the same opportunities. I think we already knew this.

But what I do find interesting is that there are a number of places where cross-league Win Shares comparisons are inelegant because of the DH. Defensive opportunities varying by league may be one area. Another is offensive Win Shares, where in the AL, offesnive win shares are essentially available to be split among 9 regular offesnive rather than 8 offesnive weapons. Thus, given equal stats, an AL players contributions will be allocated relatively less win shares than equivalent perfromance in the NL. I suspect that over a long period of time that could skew career rankings and the like under James' system.