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Here’s the tally for anyone who finished in the Top 10. One of the panelists is you guys.
Except for RF, the Fans Scouting Report’s top 4 were in the top 10 for each of the eight positions. If someone wants to take a look, I will guess this is the case for all the panelists, so that that at least shows some sanity-check.
I’d also like to see a correlation of each pick against all the other picks (excepting pitchers).
Harry makes his case.
I think that having Felix Hernandez have a similar kind of season, but probably better, is what would shut Weaver out. Basically, it’s one thing for the BBWAA writers to devote one of the (now) five entries to a guy who didn’t get the team support the others did. It’s another to ask them to devote TWO entries like that. There are so many hardluck stories out there (Liriano with the high BABIP, Lee with the poor men on base numbers), that Felix is the one that’s going to get the low-offense hardluck story to himself.
I love crowdsourcing projects for the sheer combination of power and simplicity. It takes me a few minutes to a few hours to construct the backend to handle a crowdsourcing project, and in a matter of days or weeks, I have over a thousand people offering me their input.
For example, instead of culling the blogs and site of thirty team blogs to figure out who will be on the 25-man roster, and what role/depth each player is in, I let everyone else do a tiny bit of work. And then everyone profits from that work. It scales fantastically well. Do I need to rely on the media to tell me how good a fielder a recently traded player is? Nope, not any more. I don’t need to listen to how the media conveys the team message about the great fielding of Kaz Matsui, enough to move Jose Reyes to secondbase.
I also love subjective ratings, like you see from Consumer Reports. One of my favorite in this group is the Three Stars of the Game, which has a very long history.
It began in 1936 as a clever way to advertise Imperial Oil’s Three Star gasoline, a product that would cost you 19 1/2 cents per gallon—4.3 cents per litre in a metric system whose use at the pumps was nearly a half-century in the future. Through 70-plus subsequent years, it grew into something for which many fans remained in the Forum or the Bell Centre after the final siren, something they’d even debate with a “what game was he watching?” scratch of the head.
Now, the storied Montreal Canadiens, one of the classiest sports organizations in NA sports, has decided to turn the reigns over… to the fans.
And now, in this generation of corporate partnership and interactivity with consumers, the Canadiens have placed the postgame three-star selection at the fingertips of their fans. That is, those with a smart phone and/or computer sign-on....
The Canadiens know the fan vote could become more of a popularity contest than a rewarding of excellence. The team, which estimates 5,000 to 10,000 votes will be cast each game, does hold a veto in the event of an obviously fishy result, and it has a Plan B should there be a technical glitch in the system.But Lalonde has sufficient faith in the team’s tech-savvy supporters to believe the ballot will be a fair reflection of the game.
“We rely on the integrity of our fans,” he said. “Fans know hockey here. They are credible, attentive and passionate, and we have faith in their good judgment ... to make good choices.”
Nor does Lalonde believe a visiting player will never again be voted a star. Ottawa’s Milan Michalek was No. 3 last Saturday, having scored twice, behind Kostitsyn and No. 2 Plekanec.
I just love the idea. I know that some media have in the past created their own three star selections. I would love, LOVE, to see the tabulations by the media and by the fans, and compare / contrast. Is someone on this already?
The annual IBA are upon us, so get out and vote. It’ll be interesting to compare the results to what I got. Pujols v Votto will be the one to watch.
This is another head-to-head matchup poll. You are given two pitchers, and you just tell me which had the more outstanding performance for the season.
As I get ready to rollout the head-to-head competition for most outstanding pitcher of 2010 (Monday morning), I thought I could do a retrospective on the 2009 NL Cy Young by using the IBA poll from BPro. Colin sent me the 1083 ballots, with voter information removed, for the 2009 NL Cy Young. (That was the one hotly contested between Lincecum, Carpenter, and Wainwright.)
Those ballots contained 50 different pitchers receiving votes.
As a sample ballot, one voter put:
1. Lincecum
2. Wainwright
3. Carpenter
4. Cain
5. Haren
If I were to ask this voter, who do you prefer, Lincecum or Carpenter, he would say “Lincecum”. If I asked him if he would prefer Cain or Haren, he would say “Cain”. If I ask him if he prefers Cain or Santana, he would say “Cain”. If I ask him Santana or Vazquez, well, he would tell me, but I can’t tell from this ballot. I’ll simply ignore that question.
So, this is what I did: for every combination of 50 pitchers in head-to-head matchup, I used the ballots to figure out who would win each matchup. I did that for all 1083 ballots, and I ended up with these “winning percentages”:
I’m going to do the same thing as I did with the “head to head” movies poll for my annual Most Outstanding Pitcher. (Anyone else like it, or is it just me?)
Usually, I had no problem finding 6-10 pitchers for my ballot, but in this case, I went 15 deep. I arguably could have gone even deeper. Anyway, this is the list, which is any pitcher that was in the top 10 in WAR in either Fangraphs or B-R.com. If you think I should have some other pitcher, let me know. Otherwise, I will open up the balloting Monday morning. Also, if you think I should do it for non-pitchers as well, I’ll do that too.
Buchholz, Clay
Halladay, Roy
Hernandez, Felix
Hudson, Tim
Jimenez, Ubaldo
Johnson, Josh
Lee, Cliff
Lester, Jon
Liriano, Francisco
Oswalt, Roy
Price, David
Sabathia, CC
Verlander, Justin
Wainwright, Adam
Weaver, Jered
First off, Jered Weaver has been woefully untalked about in the Cy chase. He should be on everyone’s short list. Now, to the topic at hand:
Maybe the reason these people still can’t fathom the thought that win and losses are dumb is the fact that they are called “wins” and “losses.” Apparently the Mariners didn’t lose 1-0 today, Felix Hernandez did. We’ve all watched Jered Weaver pitch enough this season to catch the nonsense in that statement. So let’s just call a spade a spade. The “CC for President” argument now goes like this:
CC Sabathia should win the American League Cy Young Award because he leads the league in Times He Was The Pitcher Who Last Pitched Prior To The Half-Inning When The Winning Team Took The Lead For The Last Time, Except When The Starting Pitcher Pitches Less Than Five Innings, In Which Case The Win Shall Be Awarded To The Relief Pitcher Whom The Official Scorer Deems Most Effective (THWTPWLPPTTHIWTWTTTLFTLTEWTSPPLTFIIWCTWSBATTRPWTOSDME).THWTPWLPPTTHIWTWTTTLFTLTEWTSPPLTFIIWCTWSBATTRPWTOSDME? And to think people still use VORP as the example of baseball geekiness.
It used to be most valuable pitcher, and now it’s most outstanding pitcher. Proof.
There was some discussion on BBTF about what park factors to use if you want to adjust CC and Felix’ stats for the CYA.
Some prominent posters over there think that one year, 2010, park factors (how the park “played” this year) are the ones to use, since you are not trying to figure true talent or performance going forward.
While the latter is true, I strongly disagree - with one qualification. That qualification is that a one-year park factor does include, to some extent, weather conditions for that year (and the schedule and opposing players I guess). However, I think that is a small consideration, and can easily be accounted for by weighting each year in computing multi-year PF’s.
Ignoring that (the weather and opponent issues), the one-year park factor is irrelevant in determining how a pitcher (or batter) performed for that year - we only care about a park’s true park factor (for that year). That is true for an award and not just for a true talent estimate or a projection.
For example, let’s say that the “actual” park factor for 2010 in Safeco was 1.00, which is entirely possible, since we are only dealing with runs scored and 81/81 games (off the top of my head, I would say there is a 15% chance of that occurring by chance for a park that has a true PF of near .90). And let’s assume that the weather had nothing to do with that - it was simply a fluke, and as I said, not an unusual one at that. Let’s also assume that true PF for Safeco is .92.
If we want to determine how well Felix actually pitched at Safeco, what do we use? I contend we use the .92 and I am pretty sure that is correct. Why do we care that the runs scored at home when Felix wasn’t pitching was exactly equal to the runs scored in other parks, in 2010? We don’t. And of course if Felix’ own Safeco PF (only when he pitched) was 1.00 also, the sample is so small as to be practically meaningless.
BTW, that is the same mistake that many people (including prominent analysts) make when adjusting team records for strength of schedule. To do that, you use the estimated true talent of opponents, and not their actual records. I can easily prove that using actual records is wrong. Say you have a two-team league and one team is 100-62 and the other is 62-100 (of course). If you adjust each team’s record for their strength of schedule using the actual records of each team, guess what you get? You get each team being a .500 team. That is true regardless of each team’s record in a 2-team league!
I think you can make a decent enough argument for a Cy ballot that has Liriano or Lee as #1. For Liriano and Lee, the focus would be either on the K, BB numbers, or the FIP components. Liriano is just not giving up any HR. You’d also have to make that argument while accepting that facing 200 fewer batters doesn’t wipe out all those gains. It’s possible that you can make that argument.
Weaver is a shade behind Felix on the rate stats, but has faced 120 fewer batters. It’d be too hard to make the case for Weaver. Jon Lester is a step behind Weaver, and 160 batters behind Felix. CC is also behind Felix, and the argument would be between CC or Weaver. A similar argument will follow for Price, Cahill, Verlander, and several others, that it would be impossible to put them at #1.
So, I can see ballots where Weaver is at #2 through #5, but not at #1. I can see Liriano anywhere in the top 5. With Felix, it’s hard to see him as anything other than top 3. I just don’t see the argument for #4 for him.
First off, the balloting should be closer than I thought. Secondly, because Felix should be in the top 3 on most saberists ballots, he should win it on “points”, reasoning that Liriano and Lee could land anywhere on the ballot. But if Liriano or Lee wins, it would be justifiable.
Break the rules, and there’s no statute of limitations on removing awards.
First, what the schools do to amateur athletes is terrible. In hockey, they divorce leagues from schools, so you don’t get the kind of b.s. you get in the USA. Setting that aside, how far do you go to remove awards? Selig can conceivably vacate every single World Series winner over the past 25 years if he wanted to under strict guidelines.
The blight is the blight. Once a new season starts, the old one is in th books, warts and all. Live with it.
The ONLY thing I know for sure that the right way to handle the use of statistics in awards voting is to be consistent.
A fellow researcher told me how he had a debate with someone about Rick Reuschel’s very high career WAR, which is on the HOF cusp. That guy was incredulous that Reuschel could be so high. So, what did he do? He rolled up his sleeves and went about trying to prove it wrong. And how did he do that? He applied consistent standards to all players. And what did he find? That anyway he sliced it, Reuschel was pretty darn good.
And this is what needs to happen. You don’t start with the fact that Felix Hernandez is barely over .500 and then conclude that he’s not a Cy pitcher. You take everything and anything you personally want to consider. You then take each of those items and weight them in however fashion you want. And then you apply those standards to all pitchers.
If after that process you end up with Felix as #8 in the Cy race, then so be it. If he ends up at #1, then so be it.
Should you weight WAR at 100%? Sure, if you want. Should you weight it at 0%? Yeah, you can do that too. You can include RBI and where your team finishes, and by how much ahead or behind the playoff spot it finishes. You can do ANYTHING.
Just don’t change your method every year so that you can fit your own narrative. “oooohhh… look at Dawson! look what he did! I’m going to overweight HR and RBI and underweight the playoff issue this year.” .... “oooohhhh… look what Caminiti did! I’m going to overweight the playoff issue this year as well as overweight the 3B v LF issue, and underweight walks because that’s the only way to get him ahead of Bonds… heck, just to make sure, I’m going to upgrade his fielding from above average to stellar, and call Bonds slow as a fielder this year”.
Then you have other crazy things like: “I can’t vote Dawson #1, but I CAN vote him #2!” Basically, that person will overweight the playoff issue, but only for ONE player. They won’t vote for a pitcher, but they would trade any player on their team to get Felix, or Josh Johnson, or Roy Halladay or Cliff Lee. So, they agree that Felix et al are valuable, and then at the same time assert that they can’t be as valuable as an everyday player. Surely, they don’t mean that Willie Ballgame playing 150 games is more valuable than Jered Weaver, do they? No, of course not. Therefore, they are underweighting, but not completely eliminating, the impact that a starting pitcher has relative to a starting position player.
Be consistent, have a process and own your process. It’s the pure irrational exuberance that is bothersome.
Poz has a very powerful style of writing, one that elevates him to one of the best sportswriters in USA and Canada, and keeps the readers mind enthralled and entertained. Me? I can wield numbers in such a way as to make your mind numb. Both ways work, though Poz’s way is far more popular. (And I agree with the majority, as I’d pick him over me.)
As a perfect example of the contrasting styles, Poz was asking if a great season (or really how many great seasons) should be enough to put someone in the HOF (or your personal HOF). This is how Poz wrote that article today titled Obviopiphany, and this is how I wrote that article two years ago, titled Observed Performance Inferring True Talent (OPITT).
Poz gave you Side A that appeals to the majority, and I have Side B that finds a niche with the minority.
The Hall of Fame voting is made for guys like John Olerud, guys who are deserve consideration, but likely won’t get strong support, if ever. So, we get to see him on the ballot for a long time, get to talk about him, etc, without being enshrined.
• Win Probability Added takes every plate appearance in player’s season and looks at how much it contributed to winning or losing. In each of Olerud’s three years with the Mets, he was their most valuable hitter. Olerud’s combined score from 1997 to 1999 rated fifth-best in all of baseball, trailing only Mark McGwire, Barry Bonds, Larry Walker and Jeff Bagwell.
• Wins Above Replacement (WAR) attempts to combine a player’s hitting, baserunning, defense and position played into a single value. Olerud ranked ninth-best in baseball during his time as a Met, but his defense rates tops among those at the position. In fact, using those metrics, his defense at first base ranks second in Mets history to Keith Hernandez.
It is defense about which Olerud has the most to say…
Here’s one way to do this (click on image to enlarge). This explicitly satisfies all those voters who want to assign “inner circle status”. Any of the first-timers who get at least 50% of the “ask me later” is placed into the “returning players” category. Players drop off after 10 years. Players on last year of ballot are so noted. (Of course, we’ll have to think of something for transitioning of old ballots to new ballots.)
And so it continues, as production decisions are made without testing, and so every cycle, we get more fixes.
Unknown is if it’s the same silly “4 selections maximum” that prevents the 75% from happening. Ideally, each candidate is considered separately with an up-or-down vote. The press release says nothing, and the websbite itself says nothing that I can find.
At least the transparency shows the inadequacy.
Dawson was born in July, 1954, which means his peers are those born between 1949 and 1959. Among his non-pitcher peers, he ranks 20th in WAR.
There are currently 13 non-pitchers from that time period in the HOF (11 of which have more WAR than Dawson, and one has less). One more has a shot at it (Raines) with the writers.
In the previous eleven years (1937-1948), there were 13 non-pitchers in the HOF.
In the previous eleven years of that (1925-1936), there were 15 (including Veteran’s selections) in the HOF.
15 therefore seems to be the magic number of nonpitchers expected to make it to the HOF via writers or committe.
Dawson therefore becomes a borderline candidate, one who is as undeserving of a “small Hall” as he is deserving of a “medium Hall”. For those who think of Dawson as a HOF player, they would support the inclusion of other borderline candidates, like Dwight Evans. For those who don’t, well, then you don’t support Dave Winfield for the HOF.
As long as your arguments are consistent, then your view of Dawson is defensible.
He’s in my Hall of Fame.
I’d need to know how/if league adjustments are made at Fangraphs and B-R.com. In any case, good stuff.
I watched an inning of Josh Johnson and Adam Wainwright, and that was pretty much it. Really, I’d almost be happy to just watch highlights of the batter/pitcher matchups, and ignore the rest of the “game”. The pitcher throws a ball away at 1B, and I thought “who cares”? But, in the batter/pitcher matchup, neither side wanted to look bad, so they try really hard.
May 16 22:47
Dodgers’ win reversed because Mattingly did not attest to proper score!
May 16 20:44
How to beat the shift
May 16 20:02
Sponsoring MLB jerseys
May 16 19:34
Now you frame it, now you don’t
May 16 16:56
Did Manny Pacquaio actually quote Leviticus?
May 16 16:06
Does changing your pitch frequency lead to substantial change in results?
May 16 14:18
Extra Innings: One-minute review
May 16 14:16
This particular criticism of UZR is unfounded
May 16 13:21
Psst… wanna intern for the Astros?
May 16 12:23
Arena wars
THREADS
May 16, 2012
Now you frame it, now you don’t
May 16, 2012
Dodgers’ win reversed because Mattingly did not attest to proper score!
May 16, 2012
Does changing your pitch frequency lead to substantial change in results?
May 16, 2012
Sponsoring MLB jerseys
May 15, 2012
Andre The Hawk Dawson speaks
May 15, 2012
Euro 2012 Preview
May 15, 2012
How to beat the shift
May 15, 2012
Will Pujols end the season with at least 30 HR and .500 SLG?
May 15, 2012
Kershaw v Strasburg, part 2
May 15, 2012
Did Manny Pacquaio actually quote Leviticus?
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