Collect the Mets

Note: One of the challenges of this project has been dealing with a lack of appropriate terminology and notation.  What I’ve come up with seems complex on the surface (often because it is), so I’ll be explaining things as I go.  Some of the details won’t completely make sense until everything has been posted; please bear with me.  This week, I’ll be taking a look at GUAR, my measure of the variety of a player’s game-used offerings.

I’ve always wanted to get in on the invented statistics racket, but I find myself more interested in the psychology of baseball minutiae than the mathematics.  Looking at game-used cards for this project highlighted an opportunity – how do you quantify how much clout a player has in the hobby?  You could add up the total number of cards, but that would be an exercise in insanity.  You could add up just game-used cards, but that suffers from the same problem.  Maybe if you add up the different TYPES of game-used in cards…

And so GUAR was born.  Game-used Units Above Replacement is a statistic that tracks the variety of game-used items that have been released in cards.  Like stats such as the similarly-named WAR (no relation), the final score is relative to the value of a replacement player.  In this case, a replacement player is assumed to have either a bat card or a boring white/gray jersey card.  That’s where the similarity ends though; GUAR is a bit more nuanced in how you apply it.  Or crazy, nuanced or crazy, take your pick.

The Basics

In general, each distinguishable type of game-used is worth one Game-used Unit (GU).  Except when it isn’t.  Generic pieces like bats and white or gray jerseys just aren’t that interesting, so they count half (white and gray jerseys are collectively .5 GU, meaning that having both a white jersey and a gray jersey is still only worth half a point).  Black jerseys, while still boring, are distinct enough to separate themselves from white/gray jerseys, counting as their own .5 points.  Colored, pinstripe, or different material jerseys (not plain white/gray/black flannel, double knit, or rectangular mesh), patches (by team collectively), and other materials (shoes, hats, gloves, etc.) used in MLB games are all worth 1 GU.  There are two exceptions to this: first, side panel pieces are worth half value (when their standard variant has already been counted, otherwise they count at full value, except for white/gray/black pieces, which are counted collectively with their respective colors) and second, white/gray/black special event jerseys (All-Star game, etc.) count full value (with all side panel pieces counting at half value regardless of color).  Non-MLB material counts .75 times the MLB rate. Got all that?  Here’s the full list:

Game-used Units

Patches (Piping counts .5x if no patch is counted):

• MLB Team    1 Point
• All-Star    1 Point
• Minors    .75 Points
• Futures    .75 Points
• WBC    .75 Points
• Team USA    .75 Points

Flannel MLB Jerseys:

• White    .5 Points
• Black    .5 Points
• Other    1 Point

Double Knit / Rectangular Mesh

• White/Gray    .5 Points
• Black    .5 Points
• Other MLB    1 Point
• All-Star (Any)    1 Point
• MLB Side Panel    .5 Points
• Minors (Color)    .75 Points
• Minors (White/Gray) .375 Points
• Futures (Any)    .75 Points
• WBC (Any)    .75 Points
• Minors/Futures/WBC Side Panel    .375 Points
• Team USA White/Gray    .375 Points
• Team USA Other    .75 Points

Other MLB (Collective, .5x for Non-MLB):

• Bat    .5 Points
• Shoe    1 Point
• Fielding Glove    1 Point
• Batting Glove    1 Point
• Hat    1 Point
• Batting Helmet    1 Point
• Jacket    1 Point
• Chest Protector    1 Point
• Catcher’s Mask    1 Point

Anything Else    0 Points

Notes:

• All MLB team flannel, double knit, and rectangular mesh white and gray jerseys collectively count as .5 points (MLB team side panels are included).
• All MLB team flannel, double knit, and rectangular mesh black jerseys collectively count as (MLB team side panels are included).
• All other style and color fabrics count separately; same style/color fabrics can count separately if they can be shown to be from different teams.
• All colored side panels count half the full standard section value.
• Mesh (standard diamond, mini diamond, and non-side panel pinhole) and cuff/seam pieces count at standard value regardless of color.
• Single-color versions of multi-color sections do not count separately (1975 Astros clause).
• Piping counts as .5 times the standard patch value if no patch is present, does not count otherwise (Angel Pagan clause).
• Tags, buttons, and other oddities do not count.
• Special event (All-Star, Futures) jerseys always count at standard value regardless of color (side panels are still half value, regardless of color).
• Material does not need to be from different cards to be added; multi-piece cards and variations can contribute additional GU.
• Additional colors/styles of non-uniform equipment does not contribute additional GU (e.g., blue exterior fabric and green brim fabric only count as 1 GU).  Exceptions will be made for distinctive team-specific items (jackets, hats, etc.) on a case-by-case basis.
• Impersonal items (bases, balls, seats, on deck circles, wall padding, dirt, air, etc.) do not count.
• Replacement level is defined as .5 GU.  Players without any game-used cards count as -.5 GUAR.  No player can have a GUAR of less than -.5.

How to Use GU and GUAR

• GUAR can only be calculated for a single player over a given span – product, year(s), or career.
• When counting across multiple years, individual year values are not cumulative – only different items count toward the combined total.
• GUAR calculated over a player’s entire career is referred to as Career GUAR or GUARc. (The c comes after so I can use the line “Holy GUARc-amole!” when I finish compiling the GUAR chart for all 200+ Mets who have had game-used cards.  You have been warned.)
• Players who have been traded by the Mets can be credited separately with the GU of the player(s) they were traded for in the form of Inherited GU or GUi.  Unique GU (anything not counted by a player earlier in the trade path) counts at full value while anything previously counted only gets half credit with each additional player.  GUi can follow down through multiple levels of trades until players are released, claimed by another team, granted free agency, or re-signed.
• To add up groups of players, raw GU scores must be used instead of GUAR.  Team GU counts players who were active with that team (including minor league affiliates) during the specified year and appeared in that team’s uniform for at least some of that year’s game-used cards.  Exceptions may be made for material appearing in the year following a player’s appearance if that player had no game-used appearances in the team’s uniform while on the team but did in the following year (Gary Sheffield clause).
• For a team’s yearly GU totals, material from special events that took place and were released in a previous year are not to be counted toward that year’s total; special event material can only be counted in one year.  All other material may be counted regardless of year worn.
• Other rules may be added/modified as I see fit until this whole thing seems to be working.  I came up with this last week, some adjustment is bound to be required.

How about an example?  Here’s the Mets GUAR chart for 2011.

All of the Mets game-used released in 2011. Sigh.

Got it?  If not, just enjoy the sausage and don’t worry about what goes into it.