THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Thursday, May 03, 2012

Sparky Anderson

Great stories about Sparky Anderson.

These kinds of things don’t excite me at all, and I don’t get everyone else’s excitement…

When a player accomplishes some milestone or attains some record or otherwise does something fairly or really rare, but it is mostly due to sheer luck, I don’t get the excitement. I’m talking about a no-hitter. I really don’t get the excitement. Jered Weaver is an excellent pitcher. An excellent pitcher is more likely to throw a no-hitter, especially one who allows a low BA (Nolan Ryan?) regardless of their walk rate. In fact, a high walk rate helps in some cases.

Anyway, not allowing a hit in 9 innings is obviously a good performance but I just don’t get all the excitement. There are 1 and 2 hitters all the time, and they are nearly just as good. Every game has 3 or 4 balls that could have easily gone either way (hit or out) having virtually nothing to do with the pitcher.

I just don’t get all the fanfare. I really don’t. Sure, it is fun to watch. I’m talking about teammates jumping around like they won the World Series and players hugging and crying. That kind of reaction is just not commensurate with the accomplishment in my opinion.

Colon’s 38 strikes in a row was less likely than a no-hitter. I didn’t see anyone jumping around with that. You can come up with all kinds of goofy “records” that are reflective of a good performance and lots of luck, like a no-hitter. Big deal. I’m sure I am in a very small minority on this one, but hey…

Wednesday, May 02, 2012

Craig Calcattera, and others who are not Craig

In this corner, are quotes from the non-lawyers who are not Craig:

And this is Craig:

Worst call of the year?

Wow.

Glove-slap: Dave.

And you think your manager is a bad strategist?

Top of the 9th, Rockies are up by 2 with a runner on first and 2 outs, Matt Kemp is up against a very good RHP, Betancourt. Tracy orders the IBB. I almost threw up.

Selection bias

It’s not any more evident than seeing the aging curves for starting pitchers and relief pitchers.

Also, the unit of measurement should be per PA, not per IP.  Per IP is the same thing as saying per out, and there’s no reason to measure things in that manner.  The opportunity factor is the denominator, and that’s PA or BIP.

Anyway, the most interesting thing was the aging curve on fastball speed.

Cleaning out my inbox

I have no entries in my inbox (tom~tangotiger~net).  How did I manage this impossible task? That was easy: any email I have from 2011 or earlier has been moved into its own folder (by year).  Any answered email has been moved to a separate folder.  Any unanswered email has been moved to its own folder, but with the presumption that it did not require an answer from me.  As a result: I have no more emails in my inbox!  It’s basically how I tell me kid to clean up his stuff: if there’s a toy or video you haven’t played with in several months, let’s put it in the attic.  And if it stays there for over a year, let’s donate or sell it.  Just take the clutter right out.

Anyway, if someone out there happened to send me an email, and my devious system here managed to mess me up, just email me again.

I’d also like to hear about your organizational strategies (either electronic or tangible stuff).

Psst… wanna intern for the Reds?

I know plenty of you kids want to get into MLB, and one of the really good ways is by interning.  Tell ‘em you heard it from Tango, as it’ll help. 

Tuesday, May 01, 2012

Baseball Seminar

MGL, Dan, Alan, Brian, and others!

Ode to Reaching Base on Error

Good job by Julian in presenting the point that reaching base on error is not the same thing as making an out.

And note that ROE *is* part of wOBA.  It’s in The Book.  The only reason you will not see it in some places is because in those databases, ROE is not counted at all.  So, it’s hard to include ROE in a metric, if the event is not tracked!

Otherwise, in things like WPA, it’s definitely and positively included.

Pettitte’s testimony begins

Here we go again.

When a non-news woman does a non-news story, the newsmen are upset of the non-professionalism!

This writer makes the case that everyone going in treated this as a non-news story.  However, because news professionals also happen to do interviews with a microphone, they decided to first label this as a news woman reporting on a news story, and then cite her lack of news professionalism, while also belittling the lack of news worthiness to begin with.  The media sure learns from politicians really fast.

It’s offical: America has solved all the world problems, because this is what outrages them these days.

And, yeah, if the roles were reversed, it wouldn’t be a big deal either.  I saw some jerk on TV get on his knees to propose to the SI cover girl, while apologizing to his pregnant wife at home.  I don’t remember the Twitterverse blowing up about that.  It was embarrassing, not as a news person, but as a person period.

BPro glossary

They overhauled their glossary, so it should be a good reference especially for the newbies. 

I picked out a couple just to see what they had.  Since FIP is nothing more than a short-hand to DIPS, I think a good addition would be something like “FIP is a popular [ubiquitous?] short-hand for Voros’ DIPS construction”.  Voros deserves the lion’s share of the credit for FIP.  Not sure what the THT and Fangraphs glossaries say about FIP.

Monday, April 30, 2012

Fangraphs hates nocturnals

Now, you can see player stats live!

When Mark Buehrle retires, and they ask him which hitter gave him the most challenge, he’ll say:

Willie Bloomquist, and Emil Brown and Vernon Wells.  And that’s why we can say we don’t care about batter-pitcher matchups if you only have 40 or 50 PA.

Strikeouts of our discontent

Bill James has a good article about the reason that strikeout rates are what they are. 

Strikeouts, over time, always increase, for this reason.  Strikeout pitchers are more effective than pitchers who don’t get strikeouts, therefore teams are always looking for pitchers who can get more strikeouts, and also looking to deploy those pitchers they have in such a way that they will get the most strikeouts.  This effect would be offset by the tendency of teams to look for hitters who don’t strike out, if hitters who did not strike out were also better hitters.  However, hitters who strike out are generally not less effective than hitters who do not strike out; hitters who strike out are generally just as effective as or more effective than hitters who don’t strike out.  Thus, there is no pressure to find hitters who don’t strike out.  This asymmetry pushes strikeout totals higher over time.

His basic point is that in eras when high-K pitchers are so much better than low-K pitchers, there’s an underlying pressure to find more high-K pitchers.  And in eras when neither high-K nor low-K pitchers dominate, then there’s no reason that more high-K or low-K pitchers will enter the league disproportionately.

Similarly, in eras when high-K hitters are much better than low-K hitters, then there’s a pressure to look for great hitters and not worry about their K rates.  And in eras when low-K hitters are better than high-K hitters, then the league will try to avoid high-K hitters in the future.

And then he goes ahead and does his Bill James thing, and looks at this historically.  It’s great stuff, and you should give it a read.  He concludes:

High-strikeout pitchers in today’s game are dramatically more effective than low-strikeout pitchers, while high-strikeout batters are also somewhat more effective than low-strikeout batters.  We are where we have always been, only worse.  Strikeouts, in my opinion, will continue to go up.

Bill didn’t talk about it, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the shift toward shorter relief outings (and more relief innings) also contributes toward the high-K phenomena of the last few years.  In my day, it was a huge deal when a pitcher threw 95mph, and it would earn Clemens a name like Rocket (though never having it usurped from Maurice Richard, and thankfully we didn’t have to deal with Rocket Ismael for too long).  But now?  How many dozens of relievers are there out there that average touching at least one 95mph pitch per outing? And how many more in the minors?

Pitchers are bigger today than in years past.  Pitchers are stronger today than in years past.  Pitchers today train more today than in years past.  The end result?  They’re going to pitch faster than in years past.  (Don’t worry you golden agers… pitchers of yesteryear are still better because they locate better, have more movement, and sequence better.  I have no idea if that’s true, but I don’t want to spoil your beliefs.)

So, how do we stop this train wreck?  What’s the ideal rate of contacted balls per pitches thrown?  For every 300 pitches thrown each game, how many of those do you want the batter to connect on (either as a BIP or as a foul ball)? 10%?  15%?  20%?

Here’s some crazy ideas… go down to three balls and three strikes?  K rates would drop 20%… but walk rates will go up 78%!  So, that’s not going to work.  Any other ball-count combination will lead to ever fewer contacted balls. 

What if a foul-pitch is a “let"… at any count (not just 2-strike counts)?  Hitters may be more aggressive, knowing that he doesn’t get a strike if he can at least nick the ball.

I’d like to hear more crazy ideas from you guys.  And, consider your position that “everything is fine, nothing to change here” already being duly noted.  Thank you for that inertial comment.

“Non-sports Sites Folks Should Know”

If there’s an “indispensable” site that you think your fellow readers may appreciate, feel free to post below.

Was Greg Maddux a great pitcher because he was a great fielder?

A while ago, someone pointed out to me that Baseball Pro has Maddux’ FairRA+ at an obscenely low 105.  For comparison’s sake, Pedro’s career is 127, RJ is 122, Clemens is 121, and Schilling is 120.  (Higher is better.) At the same time, while Maddux has a “pitching” WARP of +58, his “total” WARP is +84.  (If I understand it properly, total WARP includes fielding and hitting.) In comparison, Clemens, who has pitched about as often, has a total WARP of +103, or 19 wins more than Maddux. Fangraphs’ fWAR has Clemens (146) 25 wins ahead of Maddux (121).

So, Clemens v Maddux, in the end, have the same gap in total WARP as they do in fWAR.  It’s just that Maddux derives as astounding 26 wins from his fielding (and hitting I guess), since his pitching WARP is only +58 while his total WARP is +84. 

If we look at their FIP- at Fangraphs, we see that Clemens is 70 while Maddux is 77 (lower is better).  That also happens to mimic their ERA- (Clemens, 70, Maddux 76).  So, whether you look at FIP, which ignores all aspects of fielding (and sequencing), or you look at ERA (which includes fielding and sequencing), Clemens and Maddux maintain the same gap.  That is, Maddux is Maddux because of his FIP.

So, does Maddux actually have a 26 win gain with his fielding, or, is his fielding really not that valuable (because if he didn’t make the play, maybe his infielders will have made the play anyway)?

Or, am I missing something.

Lefty-lefty matchup for the sake of lefty-lefty matchup?

According to this blog post, a healthy portion of fans still subscribe to this view.  Is the blogger properly relaying the view, or is it greatly exaggerated? (*)

(*) I think that great 1994 Expos didn’t have a lefty around, and it wasn’t an issue then.  Winning absolves issues.

The logical conclusion to this view is that if you have the worst lefty reliever in the league, that you would prefer to have him pitch to a lefty hitter, rather than have the best righty pitcher in the league (Verlander, Doc, Stras, Felix, Mo etc) face that very same lefty.  You know and I know that that’s bullsh!t.  That Verlander pitching against the advantage is better than the worst-lefty pitcher pitching with the platoon advantage.

The question on the table is how much that advantage for it to be in-play.  The basic platoon advantage, if you need a rule of thumb, as per The Book, is 20 wOBA points.  So, a .350 wOBA hitter will be .360 against opposite-handed pitching and .340 against same-handed pitching.  20 wOBA points is about 0.60 in ERA.  If you have a 4.00 righty ERA reliever and a 4.60 lefty ERA reliever, then it becomes a breakeven decision, as the 4.00 typical righty reliever will be about as effective as the 4.60 typical lefty reliever, against a typical lefty hitter.  Obviously, not everyone is typical, but that gives you the basis to make (or criticize) a decision.  This is why you can have a lefty Billy Wagner be a closer, even if he faces predominantly right-handed hitters in high-leverage situations: he was a GREAT pitcher, and it would be hard to find a righty pitcher in his bullpen that would be more effective against right-handed hitters(**).

(**) Though you could certainly have made a case for Dotel for a while there, the reality is that with a pairing like Wagner-Dotel, one was going to pitch in the 8th and the other in the 9th anyway, so it didn’t really matter how you lined them up.

Tablet for kids

I was thinking of getting my kid a netbook (those mini-laptops), so that my wife and I don’t have to fight with him over the laptops.  Then I figured maybe he’ll like the tablet, since he likes his ipod so much.  And then I did more figuring that the Straight Arrow readers here are so darn smart, that they can figure it all out for me.

I just need my kid to be able to do his school projects (meaning using something like MS Paint, some open office, maybe be able to read some books, and obviously, connected to the internet… and maybe durable to some extent, and presumably light).

Give me (and the rest of us h[a|el]pless parents) some guidance, thanks!