November 7, 2005

Call it a Comeback

Best Rebound Seasons, Part 2

by Ben Murphy

After the first glance at the ORA's and our 2005 winner, Jason Giambi, I thought it would be interesting to go back and look at who would have won past ORA's, and how the races might have played out. Last time we listed 3- and 5-year rebounds, but this time I'm only going through the 3-year rebounds. Also, we'll only look graphically at the interesting races, since graphics for a runaway winner wouldn't be particularly intriguing.

I also thought it would be interesting to look at the largest rebounds ever, over 3 or 5 year spans. Although I might revisit the methodology for how we define the rebounds, as noted before to accomodate things like Ken Griffey Jr.'s trend from 1997-2002-2005, I will go ahead and run the data for greatest rebounds using the current methodology. Without further ado, the best 3-year rebounds:

Hitters:

NAME               AGE  YEAR1   PEAK1  YEAR2  VALLEY  PLAYING  YEAR3  PEAK2  REBOUND
Nomar Garciaparra   27  2000  104.206  2001    6.38     91     2002  72.303  163.749
Pedro Guerrero      30  1985   74.822  1986    3.78     64     1987  69.469  136.732
Darin Erstad        25  1998   39.097  1999   -5.327   638     2000  84.691  134.442
Scott Brosius       30  1996   50.817  1997  -18.112   526     1998  43.033  130.074
Robin Yount         25  1980   70.804  1981   29.453   411     1982 110.307  122.204
Jim Edmonds         29  1998   57.406  1999    6.435   233     2000  75.872  120.409

Nomar Garciaparra's 2001 was derailed after his first wrist injury, and he's never really been the same. He had pretty good years in 2002 and 2003, but he was one of the elite shortstops from 1997 to 2000. Pedro Guerrero had all sorts of crazy fluctuations in his career, bouncing back and forth from 1984 to 1990. Darin Erstad had his one incredible year in 1998, and otherwise, he's been overpaid and overhyped. Brosius was improving steadily until he cost the A's almost two wins as the second worst position player in 1997. The Yankees then enjoyed his return to respectability, the subsequent decline, and a fluke year in 2001 when he was worth 2 or 3 wins. Yount's career line looks like Guerrerro's at times--though better for the most part--and he had a huge "rebound" from 1980 to 1982, largely because of his career year in 1982 as a 26-year old. Jim Edmonds managed to post about 6 runs of VORP in 1999 after he tried to avoid shoulder surgery in the off-season and had the injury flare up and require work right before Opening Day. He managed to play about two months, compiling those 233 plate appearances.

Pitchers:

NAME         AGE   YEAR1   PEAK1  YEAR2  VALLEY   PLAYING  YEAR3  PEAK2   REBOUND
Jim Palmer    28    1973   86.267  1974  20.787    178.667  1975 101.439   146.133
Steve Blass   31    1972   49.524  1973 -48.854     88.667  1974  -5.34    141.892
Randy Johnson 39    2002   80.933  2003  11.175    114      2004  69.348   127.93
Bert Blyleven 37    1987   49.684  1988  -4.495    207.333  1989  65.546   124.22
Pat Hentgen   26    1994   53.273  1995  12.659    200.667  1996  94.704   122.658
Rick Rhoden   32    1984   49.446  1985  -2.532    213.333  1986  60.439   114.95

Note: the next row down is Loaiza's 2003-2005 rebound.

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