Player Review: Longlorious

Evan Longoria was the AL Rookie of the Year in 2008. He had a great campaign that brought him that honor: helped lead a bottom-dwelling franchise out of the cellar to the World Series, 27 HRs, .272 AVG, 85 RBIs, played "great defense" at 3B, etc. He did all the things sportswriters love to wax poetically about. He also did all the things that statistically-minded bloggers love to exult: got on base at a .343 clip, slugged .531, had a wOBA of .373, saved 7.6 runs above the average 3B with his defense, etc. It truly was a great season by a young player.

Earlier this year, I attempted to put Longoria's season in a historical context by using his runs created per game compared to the league run-scoring environment. He came out looking pretty good. I am, once again, going to attempt to do the same; this time, however, I am going to look at everyone's new favorite batting statistic, wOBA.

To do this, I found the 400 greatest seasons by a 3B using Baseball Reference's season finder for OPS+. I do not generally care too much for this statistic, but it was an easy measure to ensure that I got every season I might be interested in. I calculated wOBA using a "quick and dirty" calculation that was generally spot on with Fangraphs more elaborate calculation. From there I found wOBA+ by dividing the wOBA by the League Average wOBA for the season.

I found that Longoria's season was one of the 10 best seasons ever by a 3B that was 22 or younger. As you can see, Longoria had the 6th best season ever. Two of the season's ahead of him were by Eddie Matthews who is one of the greatest young players ever (he also happens to be one of the three greatest 3B in history).

This table is of the 10 greatest seasons ever by a 3B under 23 that qualified for a batting title. Going down the list, Eddie Matthews is an all-time great and Hall of Famer, Dick Allen is an arguably great player that many feel is the best player not in the Hall, David Wright is poised to be a very, very good player for many years to come, and Jim Ray Hart was a good player that never became great. After Longoria, there is another Hall of Famer (Lindstrom), a very good current player that might have been great had it not been for injuries, a good ballplayer on a few postseason teams (Hebner), and another near Hall of Famer (Santo was 5 votes away in 2007). So, in the top 10 we have 3 active players, 2 Hall of Famers, 2 near Hall of Famers, and 2 players ranging from quite good to very good (I know that's only 9, but Matthews is on there twice).

In historical context, Longoria's season was great for a young third-baseman. It was a great start to what will be, hopefully, a great career. Just for fun here are the 10 greatest seasons by a 3B: