Is This The Best Debut in Baseball History?

Joshua Baez just became the first player ever to hit three homers in his MLB debut. But is that good enough to be the best debut in MLB history? Let's find out. Like & subscribe if you enjoyed this video! #cardinals #mlb #baseball ------------------------------ How I calculated wRAA (Weighted Runs Above Average): First of all, I’m not a professional statistician or anything, so please let me know if I messed this up at all. But for hitters, I used FanGraphs’ equation: wRAA = ((wOBA − league wOBA) / wOBA scale) × PA First, I calculated wOBA. For example, Bert Campaneris had this statline - 2 HR, 1 1B, 1 BB, 5 PAs. FanGraphs then gives us the wOBA data from his debut year of 1964 - league wOBA = .307, wOBA scale = 1.322, HR weight = 2.158, 1B weight = .895, BB weight = .720. So: (2 x 2.158 + .895 + .720) / 5 = 1.186 wOBA. Then we just plug that into the main equation above - (1.186 - .307) / 1.322 x 5 = +3.3 wRAA. For pitchers, I used a cruder idea. I basically just said OK, what’s the league average runs allowed in nine innings in that year, and how does your run prevention compare to that? For example, Bumpus Jones gave up 1 R in 9 IP. The average runs scored per nine innings in 1892 was 5.1, so I just took 5.1 - 1 = 4.1 RAA. Perfect? I don’t think so, but when we have that and WAR side by side, I think we get a pretty good idea that a complete game for a pitcher is just always going to be more valuable than anything a hitter can do. I do think we’d need something more sophisticated to compare pitchers to one another, but that’s definitely the subject of another video. For this video, we just know that pitchers have overall better performances, but Joshua Baez still reigns as the top hitting debut of all time.