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Monday, January 09, 2012
Derek shows that while the rate of “sharpies” and “softies” is very consistent year-to-year, it’s virtually meaningless in it’s relationship to hits and outs.
This is a perfect example of why it’s important to remember why we do year-to-year correlations: we don’t care about how much something is real, but rather how much that thing is related to the thing we care about. So, while it’s very interesting to learn that sharpies and softies are consistent (or at least consistently recorded), it’s ultimately useless.
Side note to Derek: there’s no reason to remove SF and E from the denominator.
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Some good stuff from Bill, including recap of past studies.
Tuesday, October 04, 2011
I tried a little experiment on Twitter last night. I asked people to use the tag #bip, and then for every ball in play, give me your impressions.
If an out, tweet back:
1. automatic out #bip
2. decent amount of effort required by fielder #bip
3. tremendous effort required by fielder #bip
If a hit/error, tweet back:
1. automatic hit #bip
2. a bit more effort by fielder could have stopped the hit #bip
3. should not have been a hit #bip
Or something like that. Just doing “2. hit #bip” was enough once you got the hang of it. Twitter prevents submitting tweets with the same text, so, you have to be creative and do “2. hitt #bip”, etc.
Anyway, we did it starting from the top of the 7th (though I missed half an inning to walk the dog). There was only a couple of us, two or three. And they were all pretty straight forward, except for one play (hard shot right back at ARod, who got the out).
I’d like to do this more. So, if you are watching any game, try to give us your impressions. Because I don’t trust Twitter, not to mention there might be overlapping games, add the name of the batter involved. So:
“1. auto hit Cabrera #bip”
Something like that.
The ground rules are that you presume that positioning was already optimal (and so, off the table). And that you are judging for that park.
I can’t say I will actually do anything with this information. I might. Or, if I’m luckier, someone ELSE will do something with this. I have to say I was very surprised with Craig Glaser’s data on Verlander a few weeks back, so this kind of made me think more about this.
Of course, if you prefer to use Twitter as your personal snark outlet, don’t let me stop you from doing that. Better there than anywhere else, that’s for sure.
***
Back to that ARod play. If ARod couldn’t come up with that play, would it have been:
“2. hit #bip”
“3. hit #bip”
The 2 would mean some decent amount of effort from the fielder would have turned that into an out. The 3 would mean the fielder just blew it, and it should have been an out.
So, a “2. hit” would be equivalent to a “2. out”, depending on the outcome.
A “3. hit” would be equivalent to a “1. out”. This is one way to look at the play, without looking at the outcome of the play to bias you. If the opposite happened, would that shot to ARod be marked as a “3. hit” or a “2. hit”? I’m thinking probably a “2. hit”. And so, since he did make the play, we should mark it as a “2. out”.
Again, this is just a work in progress, and it’s kinda fun (for those predisposed like me anyway). Doesn’t really cost you anything, and, it might give you better focus.
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Josh’s great investigation.
Monday, September 05, 2011
By , 12:27 AM
Most of you probably read about or watched the controversial umpire call in the PHI/FLO game yesterday. If not, here is a recap:
Score tied 2-2 in the top of the 6th. No outs and Howard on 1st for the Phillies. Hunter Pence hits a line drive to the wall in RF. The Marlin’s RF’er goes back and leaps for the ball at the top of the wall. Some fans ostensibly reach over the wall at the same time. The ball caroms off the wall and Pence has a double with Ryan on third.
Peterson and some other Marlin players are motioning that the fans interfered with the ball. The Marlin’s manager comes out and argues with crew chief Joe West.
The umpires get together, view the play on video, come out, and declare Pence out for fan interference and send Howard back to first.
Manuel, the Phillies’ manager comes out of the dugout to argue, gets ejected from the game (I guess you can’t argue replay calls), and files a protest.
The Phillies and their fans are basically arguing that the play is not reviewable since only a “HR call” is reviewable. They are also arguing, I guess, that even if the play was reviewed as a “HR call,” they cannot then rule on interference based on the replay.
I don’t think there is a clear answer, I don’t know how the protest will play out (protests are rarely upheld), but I have some comments nonetheless:
First of all, I think that the chief umpire, West, lied afterward about several things in order to cover his ass, similar to the way Doug Eddings lied after the “ball hitting the dirt after a K - or not” - episode in the playoffs a few years ago.
For what it is worth, West is generally considered a terrible, arrogant umpire. Eddings is also considered a terrible umpire (along with C.B. Bucknor and Angel Hernandez). From many years of watching baseball, I agree with that consensus (about those 4 umpires).
Here is what West said according to MLB.com and other media websites:
“Because the Phillies wanted me to go look to see if it was a home run, I’ve got to judge whether it went over the fence or not,” West said. “But the plate umpire [Chad Fairchild] already thought it was spectator interference. So now we go look at the replay, we have to take all the evidence we get from the replay. That’s why we came out with, ‘This is the correct ruling.’ ”
He said that the Phillies wanted him to see if it was a HR. Manuel said he did not. If you watch the video, it does not look like Manuel ever came out of the dugout until after the review. So who exactly on the Phillies wanted or asked for a review (to see if it was a HR)? Plus it definitely did not look like a HR so I am not sure why anyone on the Phillies would ask for a review. If anything, they would NOT want a review because of the possibility of fan interference. And who else but Manuel could or would ask for a review? Again, I don’t think he ever came out of the dugout prior to the review.
That being said, according to the rules, no one needs to ASK for a review I don’t think. Here is the rule according to MLB.com:
“Instant replay will apply only to home run calls—whether they are fair or foul, whether they have left the playing field, or whether they have been subject to fan interference. The decision to use instant replay will be made by the umpire crew chief, who also will make the determination as to whether or not a call should be reversed.”
The bolding is mine. Obviously the decision is up to the umpires (the crew chief - West), but the above rule doesn’t say that anyone has to ASK for a review.
That being said, the rule clearly states that replay will only be used for HR calls. So did West decide to review the play to see if it was indeed a HR (absent fan interference or whatever I guess)? I don’t think so. I think he wanted to placate McKeon and the Marlins and see whether there was interference or not. I think that afterward when he realized that he couldn’t do that, he lied about the, “Phillies wanting to review the call to see if it was a HR?”
He didn’t have to use that lie (if indeed it was a lie). He could have simply said that there was some question among the umpires that it might be a HR, so they decided to review it. That would be perfectly legit, as far as I can tell from the above rule.
Now, let’s say that the review was legit. Can they review the play as a “HR call” (obviously when they say “HR call” in the rule, they also mean a “double call” which might have been a HR, IOW a “possible” HR) and then also decide whether it was interference or not? That is the part that is not clear, and I don’t think that there is anything in the rule that suggests they can or they can’t.
In other words, if an umpiring crew properly reviews a “HR call” (fair or foul, over the wall or not, fan interference or not), can they rule on something else that they happen to see (clearly, I assume) in the video? For example, what if they see that the fielder threw his glove at the ball, which is a penalty in and of itself, and they did not see that in live mode?
Now, the replay rule also talks about fan interference. Here is that part again:
“Instant replay will apply only to home run calls—whether they are fair or foul, whether they have left the playing field, or whether they have been subject to fan interference...”
So maybe according to that, they CAN rule on interference. The rule says, “whether they (the batted ball presumably) have been subject to fan interference.”
Obviously this ball WAS subject to fan interference, so it seems that they can rule on it, as long as they were reviewing the play based upon whether it was a HR or not, and not whether there was interference or not.
Back to Country Joe’s statements. Remember he also said this:
But the plate umpire [Chad Fairchild] already thought it was spectator interference. So now we go look at the replay, we have to take all the evidence we get from the replay. ..
I think he is lying about that too! There was no indication that any of the umpires thought it was interference. If they did, they would have called the interference right away, I think. Perhaps, when they got together after McKeon came out to argue, and after the Marlins were complaining about interference, Fairchild said something like, “You know, the fans might have interfered with that ball.” But clearly no one called interfercne right away or at any time for that matter.
Again, even if one of the umpires thought they might have seen interference, or there was some legitimate question as to whether it occurred, they can not, as far as I can tell, look at the replay to clarify that only. That seems to be what they did. I don’t think anyone thought that it might be a HR and I definitely don’t think anyone on the Phillies asked for a HR review.
Now, let’s say that they reviewed the play properly and determined (correctly) that there was fan interference. What is the remedy?
Here is the rule on that:
When there is spectator interference with any thrown or batted ball, the ball shall be dead at the moment of interference and the umpire shall impose such penalties as in his opinion will nullify the act of interference. If spectator interference clearly prevents a fielder from catching a fly ball, the umpire shall declare the batter out.
Again, the bolding is mine. The first part can not always be clear since an umpire can not always know what would have happened if there was no interference. If you watch this video and ask 100 people whether Peterson would have made the catch, I think you are going to get something like a 50/50 response, 70/30 at worst (and I’m not even sure in what direction). But the second part is clearer. The interference must clearly prevent a fielder from catching the ball. Sort of like clear and convincing evidence or some such thing.
Was it clear that Peterson would have caught the ball? I don’t think so, but that is a judgment call.
If MLB decides that the review itself was proper and that the interference call was also proper, I don’t think that they can uphold the protest based on the wording of the interference rule since that is a judgment call. West and co. can simply say, “We thought that the interference clearly prevented the RF’er from catching the ball,” and that would be the end of the story…
Saturday, August 13, 2011
A great primer on BABIP, and just a good read all-around even if you’ve had your share of BABIP.
I’d ignore the talk of “Nasty Factor”, because the stringer can be biased. Is he going to give a high Nasty Factor if a hitter hit a liner in the gap? Probably not.
And check out the great splits chart at the end (click to expand):
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Tommy makes the comparison of Weaver to Sid Fernandez. Sid had a very unique delivery. Fun pitcher to watch.
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Fangraphs reference.
Rasmus reference:
“It’s definitely been a weird one for me,” he said. “Normally when I struggle, it’s mostly because I’m punching out left and right. Somebody said something the other day [that] my average on balls in play is, like, .210 or something. It’s not good.”
Friday, June 24, 2011
Imagine the field is marked at minus 45 degrees (3B line) to plus 45 degrees (1B line), with 0 degrees at the 2B bag. The typical SS would be set at minus 17 degrees for the typical play.
Now, suppose the SS, for this particular play, is positioned at minus 9 degrees (halfway between where he normally plays and the 2B bag). The hitter, for this particular play hits the ball at minus 22 degrees. As a result, it results in a hit, and there was no chance of the SS getting the ball. And that’s because he was positioned at minus 9 degrees.
But, had he positioned at minus 17 degrees, he would have had a great chance at an out.
Let’s say most shortstops would have positioned themselves at minus 19 degrees for this particular batter. They would have had a sure-out.
So, my questions:
1. Do we want to call this batted ball a sure-hit (because we presume where the fielder actually was positioned).
2. Do we want to call this batted ball a probable out (because we presume where the fielder is typically positioned).
3. Do we want to call this batted ball a sure-out (because we presume where the fielder should have been positioned).
Big thanks to Greg for clarifying this important point.
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Colin posts an interesting puzzle. My answer below the fold:
Read More
Monday, May 23, 2011
You pull a ball on the ground, you make an out. You go the other way, you get a hit.
You pull a ball in the air, you get a hit. You go the other way, you make an out.
This is not a hard and fast rule of course, but the bias is there. Jeff Sullivan, working on a quote by Mike Fast, then shows this chart:
Pitcher Pull%
Pineda 21%
Lincecum 24%
Weaver 24%
Johnson 24%
Verlander 26%
2010 Strasburg 27%
Halladay 29%
Felix 30%
Haren 33%
Shields 35%
Beckett 35%
Cahill 35%
I don’t know if that’s all batted balls, or just the non-grounballs, or just the flyballs, etc.
Thursday, May 19, 2011
First you have to understand that I love Jered Weaver. He’s a great pitcher. I thought the biggest injustice in the Cy Young voting is how he was an after-thought when he should have been one step behind Felix Hernandez. It’s why I don’t think that Felix’s win was such a saber-revelation, since Felix won it based on ERA and IP and K. Weaver was a step behind Felix overall. If Felix did not pitch in 2010, the saber case would have fallen strongly on Weaver (also had the same 13-12 record). And he finished in the Cy Young race, as if sabermetrics had just a small impact.
On April 29, 2011, I wandered over to HalosHeaven to see what they were talking about with regards to Jered Weaver, and his fantastic start. His BABIP was exceptionally low, much below his career .280. But, someone there thought he reached some new level of talent. I asked him to give me an over/under line for rest of season, and he proposed .265. I of course took the over. (At least he didn’t propose something ridiculously low. Proposing .265 is still pretty low, but not obscenely low.)
In the four start since I made my post, his BABIP is .305.
This is really how you sell people on this. You make them bet on it. They have to have a vested interest, where they are going to follow the situation.
It’s not like we saberists just decided to believe that a low BABIP is unsustainable. We studied the issue. We relied on actual past performance. We relied on the data that the players themselves produced. All we are saying is: here, take a look at the weight of history, and before you decide to bet against what’s always happened, YOU tell us why this time, it’s “different”. Because I can guarantee you, everyone thinks their particular case is different, when in reality, you are going to lose far more than you are going to win if you bet on your insights. Indeed, it’s not even your insight, but on your interpretation of the numbers you see.
Had the person made the bet based on a change in Jered Weaver’s mechanics or approach, that would be one thing. But the way it always works is that everyone understands numbers enough to be dangerous.
Saberists are the Amazing Randis to the Uri Gellers out there.
And come next April, and for every April until the day I die, there will always be someone who will have a BABIP of .220 after his first 6 starts, and a very small percentage of them will sustain anything close to that for the rest of the season. And in none of those situations should you make an even (50/50) bet.
Thursday, May 12, 2011
Maybe it is:
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
David Pinto delivers this, where we see that over the past 15 years or so, the April-effect is fairly muted, where it looks like there’s about a 4 point drop in April.
Thanks David, much appreciated!
Thursday, April 14, 2011
By , 12:59 AM
Here is a quote from this article entitled “Batted Balls and Home Runs” by Studes on BP. To be fair, the article is not about trashing the integrity of batted ball data.
I’ve played with batted ball statistics for a while now, just about as long as the Hardball Times has been around. Batted ball stats, as compiled by Baseball Info Solutions, are just plain cool. Knowing how often batters hit line drives, or how often pitchers force infield flies, adds a new understanding to the game and results in metrics like xFIP and xBABIP and xWHIP—the “x stats"—as well as advanced fielding stats.
But lately, batted ball stats have been taking some hits (get it?). Colin Wyers (formerly of THT and now researching everything at Baseball Prospectus), has identified several reasons why data recorders in different parks might interpret the angle of a batted ball differently. Colin has only gotten more skeptical over time; I think he recently referred to line drives as “lie drives” somewhere (Twitter?).
It’s not that we don’t generally know what a line drive is. It’s that the definition between different batted ball types is gray, and when you start looking at small samples of batted ball stats—for individual batters, say, or pitchers—there may be some significant differences in how specific balls are classified. You may not know what you think you know.
Many people, including the authors of “Bad Hops” (the infamous Hirsch Brothers), have lambasted advanced metrics that use detailed batted ball data, citing the bad quality of the data as one of the reasons why these metrics are no good. Of course describing the data as being of “bad quality” is not very helpful, since the quality of the data is a continuum. As well, it is usually small minds who reduce things to an either/or, black/white, or bad/good dichotomy in order to prove or support a thesis. Things are rarely that simple.
In any case, this article gives us some good data (which should not surprise you) which supports and evinces something I have been trumpeting for a long time:
We can start out with a defensive metric that simply gives credit for an outfielder catching a ball hit in the air or not, whether those air balls are in a particular zone assigned to that particular fielding position or whether we use the parameters of the batted ball location (again, not perfect data) to determine how often a fielder should have and does catch a particular ball or set of balls (along with any other parameters we may choose to use, like the perceived speed of ball, etc.).
That type of system would be better than a simple range factor, and would also (presumably) be better than a system which doesn’t have batted ball data but tries to infer it from more traditional data like the handedness and G/F ratio of the pitcher on the mound (and other things), like TotalZone or DRA.
Now, if we wanted to do even better than that (using location of air balls), we can try and break down those air balls into categories which approximate and reflect how long they are in the air, and thus how difficult they may be to catch, given a certain location (and the presumptive starting location of the fielder).
Now here is the important thing: It does not matter how you break down those air balls or how much integrity the resultant data contains, as long as what you categorize as a short time in the air is indeed shorter than what you characterize as a medium time in the air, which in turn ends up being in the air for a shorter time than what you categorize as the air ball with the longest hang time. IOW, even if there are all kinds of mistakes, even horrible ones, what you end up with is ALWAYS going to be better than not doing any categorization (of hang time) at all!
For example, let’s say that I decide to split up all the air balls into 3 categories, which is typical of some of the batted ball systems - pop fly, fly ball, and line drive (BIS uses more categories, adding fliner fly and fliner line drive). And lets’ say that I am horrible at doing the categorization - I am half blind, I pay little attention while watching the game, and I can’t read my own handwriting after the session is over (and I am “strung out” half the time while “stringing"), such that 95% of my categorization is completely random (what I call a fly ball is equally likely to be any type of air ball), and only 5% are reasonably accurate. You may think that this is a total travesty and anyone relying on a system that uses such data is out of their mind. And you would be completely wrong. A system that uses such data will be BETTER than a system that treats all air balls equally. In fact, data from this irresponsible stringer might look something like this, if we had actually timed each batted ball in the air:
Type of air ball Average time in the air, adjusted for distance
Fly balls 3.5 seconds
Pop files 3.6 seconds
Line drives 3.4 seconds
Now, that is not data that is going to be real helpful, and if we had perfect categorization, or even a much better stringer, we might see something like:
Fly balls 3 seconds
Pop files 4 seconds
Line drives 2 seconds
But, with our horrible stringer and data, we are still BETTER off than not using any sub-categories at all and treating all air balls alike. This is a very important point when it comes to rebutting the critics of advanced metrics when they start attacking the metric via the integrity of the data.
By the way, here is what Studes found with respect to home runs as classified by BIS, where the height and hang time is known almost exactly through Greg R’s hit tracker web site:
Type Tot Apex Dist Ratio
Fliner liner 83 57 374 0.15
Fliner fly 1328 72 392 0.18
Fly 3151 95 400 0.24
Grand total 4562 87 397 0.22
The other thing is if you look at that chart or even if the numbers were different, but still in the same sequence, can you tell whether the data is good, fair bad, excellent, or otherwise? No. I suppose if you could get the real distance, angle, and hang time data on every ball (and not just the HR), you could establish a base line for “perfect data” but even with that, or absent that, calling the data “bad” because it is far from perfect and assailing the metric because of that, is not helpful and is in fact wrong, for the reasons mentioned above.
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Great job by Studes. Love all the sleeve-rolling.
Friday, April 08, 2011
Great stuff from Lucas. He shows you how much a hitter pulls or goes the opposite way. And then he shows you how effective he is at pulling or going the opposite way. He uses wOBAcon (which is wOBA, but only when looking at contacted balls, including HR naturally).
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
I can’t see the charts at the office, but I presume there’s some interesting stuff in there.
Note that the denominator should be BIP, not PA, though I presume that was just an oversight in the description.
You can think of wOBAcon as something between batting average and SLG, for contacted balls. I’m sure a few of you have seen batting average after removing strikeouts. And by the same token, you can have SLG after removing strikeouts. Whereas batting average treats each hit the same ("1"), SLG tries to give it a better weight (1,2,3,4). The problem is that they are both too extreme.
If you simply did 55% batting average (sans K) and 35% SLG (sans K), you’d get just about exactly wOBAcon.
(Note: SF would count in the denominator.)
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Gotta love it!
Thursday, February 24, 2011
This chart here is reminiscent of Studes’ Batted Ball Library, but instead of tabular form, it’s in chart form. The more south and/or west you are, the better. North and/or east means you are terrible. Harang and Carmona have two very opposite traits that sort of cancel out.
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