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Wednesday, February 22, 2012
It took Nolan Ryan a career to overcome his control issues, even as he was passing 100mph for Guiness. Luckily for Ryan, he had two careers worth in his arm.
One year before he signed his ground-breaking contract with the Astros, Ryan was averaging a walk rate of nearly 15% of his batters faced… his 10,000 batters faced up to that point. In his next 12,000 batters faced, he averaged just over 10%. All the while he struck out 25% of his batters faced before the breakpoint and after the breakpoint. His K rate remained flat, while his BB rate dropped by nearly 30%. You might see this early in a pitcher’s career, someone like Kershaw. You don’t usually see it with 32 year old pitchers.
What will Chapman go through?
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Here you go.
Glove-slap: Joe.
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Great stuff.
Looks to me that since Jeff Bagwell passed the hallowed 1000-win line, he should be a shoo-in for the Hall of Fame:
Jeff Bagwell .532 (1118-984)
Thursday, February 16, 2012
In Montreal, and the crowd goes nuts… and over Hawk Dawson’s head!
Aislin:
Wezen gives us the historical background for GWRBI, and its deficiencies were immediately noticed. Imagine if pitcher wins were introduced at the exact same time.
The rule for pitcher wins is basically the exact same rule as for GWRBI: figure out which hitter got the GWRBI and when, and give that team’s pitcher of the previous half-inning the Win.
Now, you may want to argue that the pitcher has been in the game for the whole time, and pitched every inning up to that point, so it FEELS like he “earned” it. But of course, then you have wins for relievers.
Basically, we kinda like the GWRBI if it was earned in the 7th or later inning, but we DON’t like the pitcher win if it was earned by a reliever who pitched an inning or two. We DON’T like the GWRBBI if it was earned in the 5th or earlier inning, but we DO like the pitcher win if it was earned by a starting pitcher going at least 6.
The end result is always the same: a binary choice (did he or didn’t he), where the entire credit goes to a single player. That by itself should clue you in that it’s a crappy stat.
A pitcher’s BABIP is a crappy stat because it obviously is heavily influenced by the pitcher’s fielders, but the pitcher gets the entire credit.
A pitcher’s ERA or RA9 is a crappy stat because it obviously is somewhat influenced by his fielders.
The only reason that many of these stats go from crappy to useful or even pretty good? Sample size. If you have 100 or 200 innings? ERA or RA9 starts becoming useful. Give me a thousand innings, and RA9 is pretty good. BABIP? Well, after several years, a pitcher’s BABIP is a pretty useful metric. A career’s worth of pitcher wins? Well, that’s useful too.
And therein lies the reason that people are fooled: because 300+ win level were all reached by great pitchers, then the pitcher Win stat MUST represent greatness, even at the seasonal level. So, even though the significance of a metric is dependent on the sample size, once that significance is reached, the reason for its significance (sample size) is summarily ignored.
GWRBI? We’re not sure when it would have reached significance. Perhaps even a career’s worth is not enough. So, if it can’t be valid for even a career’s worth, then that precludes its value.
Relief pitcher wins? They are similarly summarily ignored. But, we continue to track it for these 1000-inning relievers because they are useful for the 3000-inning starters.
Friday, February 10, 2012
Poz gives us an overview.
The only consideration you MAY have is that you have the peak in mid to late 20s because that’s when you have the most number of players to begin with (you can’t have 100 players at 6 WAR at age 18, if you don’t have 100 players to begin withl but you don’t have that, because they are not good enough at age 18).
Anyway, you could add the RATE of players who get 6 WAR, and that will give you… well… something. I don’t know what, but, something maybe.
Wednesday, February 08, 2012
Fun stuff.
Friday, February 03, 2012
Fun stuff from Poz. This would be quite simple to program. You create 100 threads, all starting with the same 15 names. Someone logs in, gets assigned a thread, and has 60 seconds to put in a name, and then the next person in queue gets an awaiting thread, and he puts in his answer. This way, you’ve also got some open thread.
You compile the results, and bam, 8500 votes later, we’ve got Poz’s answer.
And you thought Congress parading the PED boys so the politicians can guarantee themselves face time on TV was obscene. How about in 1927, Babe Ruth being charged for labor law violation, because the parents of the children brought the children to a show, allowed those kids to go on stage with Babe, and the kids ended up with a signed baseball, all so a politician can make a name for himself. It happened. Everyone loves to feel like the big man by challenging an even bigger man, in front of an audience, knowing that the bigger man has to reign it in. Good for Babe for acting cool like this guy:
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Great story.
Monday, January 16, 2012
Willie Mays, Jerry Rice, or Jim Brown. Poz Poll.
Impressed at the variety of readers at Poz’s site.
1.1 baseball players
0.9 football players
1.1 basketball players
0.9 hockey players
0.6 soccer players
Really, a pretty good spread right there.
Great job by Jeremy, who shows that the way in which we collect data to represent outcomes does NOT necessarily link 100% to that player:
Jeremy Greenhouse: Ben, I obviously agree with your sentiments here. I remember watching all of Thornton’s appearances at the beginning of the season and thinking how unlucky he was. I’m going through the video again.
Thornton’s first appearance is in a 7-1 blowout. 0.2 innings scoreless. Disregard.
Second appearance, CHW 7, KC 6. Overpowers LHB Alex Gordon for a K. Gets 0-2 on Billly Butler, just misses a K, and then Butler sharply singles through the right side. Pinch runner steals second as A.J. Pierzynski drops the pitch. Thornton gets 1-2 on Kila, throws a low-and-outside fastball that hits its spot, but Kila reaches and serves it the other way for a double. Tie game. Thornton Gets Escobar, Pena, Getz, Aviles, and Cabrera to ground out.
Third appearance, CHW 7, TB 4. Thornton gets 1-2 on RHB Elliot Johnson, jams him up and in, but Johnson bloops it to right, and the RF plays it for a single. Gets 1-2 on RHB Felipe Lopez, makes several hittable pitches that Lopez fouls off but eventually gets the K on a 10-pitch AB. Got 0-1 on Sam Fuld, but do not have video of the remaining pitches in the AB. Fuld reached on an error by Alexei Ramirez. Thornton gets 1-2 on LHB Johnny Damon, throws a slider low and away that Damon reaches for and bloops to left. Juan Pierre drops it. 1-1 on RHB B.J. Upton, breaks his bat, but Upton gets a clean single. First pitch to LHB Dan Johnson is over the heart of the plate, and Johnson homers. Sox lose 9-7.
Here is a summary:
“Of the two botched 9th innings recorded by Thornton in past few days, the amount that can be blamed on him is negligible. In Kansas City on Wednesday, Thornton induced weak contact from Kila Ka’aihue reaching for a pitch off the outside corner, and was rewarded with a game-tying double. It stunk, but the Sox won, so people get over those sort of things.
On Friday night facing Rays with a 3-run lead, after allowing a leadoff single, Thornton induced a groundout from Sam Fuld that the second-best defensive shortstop in baseball short-armed for an error. For the next batter, Thornton got a lazy fly ball out of Johnny Damon, only to have the second-best defensive shortstop in baseball miscommunicate with the third-best defensive left fielder in baseball, resulting in said elite-fielding left fielder letting the ball bounce in and out of his glove. Even after all this, Thornton recovered to break Justin Upton’s bat with a hard fastball, and witnessed it drop over the infield for an RBI single.”
Fourth appearance, CHW 1, OAK 0. Gets 0-2 on RHB Adam LaRoche. LaRoche hammers a slider for a double. 2-0 on RHB Coco Crisp, Crisp gets his hands inside on a fastball and hits a nice line drive that is caught by the 1B. 2-0 on LHB Daric Barton, another hittable fastball that Barton hits to deep left and Juan Pierre drops on the warning track. Tie game. Yanked.
Fifth appearance, comes on with bases loaded, one out, CHW 4, OAK 2. Overpowers LHB Ryan Sweeney for a K. First pitch to Cliff Pennington jams him up and in, but Pennington fists it over the 2B’s head for a two-run single. Tie game. 1-2 on DeJesus, groundout. Comes out for the next inning, Ellis grounds out, and then Thornton loses it. Five-pitch walk to RHB Conor Jackson, five-pitch walk to RHB Josh Willingham, 3-1 on RHB Coco Crisp, Crisp lines a fastball over the middle up the middle for a single. 2-2 on Barton, Barton singles.
Personally, I think Thornton was pretty awesome for most of it. He pitched like a LHB who throws 95-MPH fastballs for strikes. Most of the time, that’s going to get the job done. There were a couple of times I wanted to question his pitch mix, but you need such a large sample of pitches to be able to say that a pitcher is pitching sub-optimally rather than randomizing his distribution. The in-play pitches to LaRoche and Johnson deserve some analysis. There were three crucial errors made behind him, Pierzynski being his catcher, a couple jam shots, and one hard-hit ball that got caught. His two walks actually occurred after he had blown all four saves. That’s all I got.
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Go to the 1:16:24 mark, and watch it for the next 5 minutes. The Giants broadcasters are effusive in their praise of Raines, the rookie.
Vida Blue is beside himself for not getting that last pitch. The manager huddles with the infielders to decide how to handle the Raines situation.
And if you enjoyed that, watch all of his at bats, and how the broadcasters talk about him. 00:13:20 - 00:39:20 - 01:16:24 - 01:57:00
You can also follow along at Retrosheet.
Youtube
Great stuff:
I thought I was out in the seventh inning, because I was told by [pitching coach] Dave Wallace that was my last inning. Also, the head trainer that we had, Chris Correnti, told me you might be looking at your last batter or so. When I came out, I was pretty sure I was out. Then, Grady asked me to get Nick Johnson out, because [left-handed reliever Alan] Embree could not get him out whatsoever. [Little] said, ‘After that, I’ve got the bullpen ready for you.’
So I went in and I did that. But you know what? I did that so many times. I was out to get one batter and I would get one inning. As a matter of fact, that ’99 game when I came out hurt in Cleveland, I was supposed to pitch one inning just to hold them there, and I ended up pitching six complete innings. Nobody asked about it, because it looked good when we finally won it. But I went over my head, I went over everybody’s head. I went over Jimy Williams’ head. I went over the rules they had for me that night. I just took it upon me to do it, and I did it. I disobeyed what Jimy wanted to do. Jimy wanted to take me out. I said no. He didn’t want me to pitch at that time that I went in, and I said, ‘No, I want to go in.’ When it goes good, everything tends to be overlooked. When it goes wrong, it comes back to bite you.
Grady’s decision, if you ask me today the same thing, can you get Nick Johnson out? I would say yes. Can you get [Jorge] Posada? Yes. Can you get [Hideki] Matsui? Yes. Can you get anybody – can you get any of those players? I would say yes, and I would take the ball again because I never back off a challenge.
Don’t ask me. If you want to take me out, just don’t ask me. Take me out right then.
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Neyer is asking.
Tuesday, January 03, 2012
Poz goes back to the history books once more to show the BBWAA that if they don’t get their act together, their act may be usurped.
Even Gordie Howe was not good enough to play hockey at some point in his life.
There’s no question of one thing: money speaks. And the Hall of Fame knows that money will come during the induction ceremonies. They NEED to have at least an elect-1 system. And you can’t have the case that you have too many overqualified players, that that fact prevents a player from getting enough support above some arbitrary threshold.
It’s like Roy Jones Jr punching SO fast that the recording systems couldn’t keep up with his fury, that he lost the Olympic medal.
And the thing is: we can see this coming. It’s not like we don’t know who is going to be on the ballot in the coming years. Having Clemens and Bonds be carryovers, to go along with Palmeiro and McGwire, is going to create a bottleneck.
Sunday, January 01, 2012
If only more sportwriters would do so.
Related articles:
http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/site/comments/baseball_analysis_100_years_ago/
Article that Poz refers to happens to be on my site:
http://www.tangotiger.net/fclane/
If you follow sci-fi or comic book movies, you know what I’m talking about here. Sometimes, the weight of history is too much for the mythology to survive into the next generation. Bad decisions don’t need to be propogated or respected. Do we need to follow Batman’s Clooney, Schwarzenengger, and Schumacher, or can we just start over with the Frank Miller inspired version, with Christian Bale and Christopher Nolan?
You get a reboot.
My rules for the Hall of Fame is that it’s based on birth year, when the player turns 45 (and if he’s still active, then so be it… worked fine for Gordie Howe, Mario Lemieux and Guy Lafleur… an active-playing Hall of Famer), and he remains on the ballot for at most ten years. Each year, you have ten new players nominated (that is, the ten best players of the new birth year), and the top ten players of the previous ballot carrying over (so we always have twenty players on the ballot, except for the inaugural year). Every ballot is an ordered ballot, and must have ten names. The top two each ballot gets elected the Hall Of Fame. It’s an elect-2 system.
There’s going to be two groups, one that starts with birth year 1931, and then we’ll have another one for pre-1931. Why 1931? Well, it’s the first year where you have an over-abundance of qualified players, following a dearth of under-qualified players. (It also gives us some breathing room with the Negro League stars.) I’ve studied it, and it’s going to work. I’ll show it next time.
Anyway, we start with imagining this is the end of 1976, and players born in 1931, and here are the ten players on the 1977 ballot:
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Thursday, December 29, 2011
Dave shows us. Lovely job.
from Amazon
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