From the recently relaunched FiveThirtyEight:
Still awaiting word on his managerial improbability score.So for players in MLB this season (a list taken from Fangraphs’ depth charts), we looked at the odds at the end of the 2009 season that they’d still be playing today. Here are the most unlikely major leaguers:
[Former Atlanta darling Alex "Sea-Bass"] Gonzalez is not the most improbable player in the game. That honor belongs to catcher [another former Atlanta darling] Henry ["Hank White"] Blanco, who was 37 in 2009 and had been hovering around replacement level for the previous three seasons. All else being equal, a player of that profile would have just a 3 percent chance of still being in the majors five years later, and yet Blanco is slated to be in the mix for the Arizona Diamondbacks’ backup catching role this season.
Blanco underscores one of the themes of the list. The probabilities listed above don’t take into account the player’s position (beyond the positional adjustments in WAR) — just his age and performance. For most players, that’s enough, but backup catchers are a different breed. No other position is so well-represented among the “I can’t believe he’s still playing” set.
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Originally Posted by Dalyn
