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Minors_College
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Great job by Clay in going through a list of the best minor-leaguers over 30. He concludes that the best nonpitchers would score 3.7 runs per game, and the pitchers would allow 5.0 runs per game (and when you include the slightly below average fielding, all the way up to 5.2 runs per game). That works out to a .350 win%.
The best team of players who have no hope of playing in MLB would win 35% of the time. Most analysts have argued that the number is somewhere around the 27% to 35% level. Clay’s number here is a bit on the high-end, but certainly believable. I would not be surprised that the players have a selection bias and probably not enough regression, and so, we can see that perhaps they would really score 3.5 runs per game and allow 5.5 runs per game. That would imply a .300 win%.
Clay’s WARP however presumes a 25-win level for a replacement level team, or a .154 win%. I hope that Clay may have convinced himself that WARP needs to rethink its position about replacement level, and join the rest of us. A guy who puts in as much effort and thought in doing the work he does to distribute the work to as many people as he does deserves our respect. There is a sizable community that takes this WARP stuff seriously, and hopefully Clay can recognize that.
UPDATE: For those who want more of my takedown of WARP, you can read about it here.
UPDATE2: And here.
I’ve always found it weird the way MLB deals with potential draft picks. There is supposed to be no contact regarding contract negotiations between team and player until the player is actually drafted. Yet reading Moneyball, it seems that this rule is blatantly ignored. The slotting by the commissioner’s office seems inappropriate. So, now they extend the deadline by a couple of hours, and finally the union steps in? Here’s their statement.
Isn’t it really weird as well that MLB.com hosts MLBPA press releases? It’s great that MLB.com can act at arm’s length from MLB, when it deals with MLBPA. Still, kind of strange that MLBPA’s entire site is hosted by MLB.com.
Friday, August 15, 2008
Tim Marchman gives us a good summary of what’s wrong with the MLB draft. Let’s think outside the box, and try to come up with something novel based on these constraints:
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Thursday, August 14, 2008
Victor looks at Bayes’ Theorem for prospect valuation.
Friday, August 08, 2008
What is it about the male mindset that obligates power over cunning? There are literally thousands of minor league, college and high school pitchers who think they can make it to MLB. Of all pitchers born between 1968 and 1977 (that’s 10 years), there have been a little over one thousand guys to pitch in MLB. That’s about 100 pitchers born every year. And yet, millions of parents and thousands of kids think they are part of the elite 100.
If you want to distinguish yourself, why not throw a knuckler or throw sidearm. Really. And why don’t MLB teams actively create a “sidearm” training program, selecting 10 low-prospect pitchers every year for their sidearm program. That must have a better ROI shouldn’t it?
Tuesday, August 05, 2008
It’s the old college v high school draft, low ceiling v high ceiling. Phil’s post leads to this discussion.
I have been fairly harsh toward BP these past several months, but deservedly so in my opinion. I am anything if not fair, and so, here are BP’s major league andminor league stats, including MLE and “peak” MLE (what you can expect the player to do if aged toward his peak). It’s real sweet, so huge kudos to Clay for presenting the work, apparently updated daily.
Saturday, July 26, 2008
By , 11:00 PM
I ran year-to-year correlations for various stats for players who played in AA or AAA in one year and in the majors the next year. They had to have at least 300 PA in both years. I regressed minors (AA or AAA only) 00 on majors 01, minors 01 on majors 02, etc., from 00 to 07. The minor league stats are MLE’s and are park neutral. The major league stats are park (and opponent) neutral also. Here are the results:
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Thursday, July 17, 2008
I’m watching Bob Costas NOW. I think it’s all uppercase, though I don’t know why. Is it an acronym? Here’s his site. Anyway, there were a couple of interesting things on that show:
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Friday, June 06, 2008
This week’s story from the four-letter regime.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
I like the idea. This is along the same lines as that minor league player who sells 4% of his future earnings for a fixed price today. If he makes the big time, you get your cut.
Scholarships (for athletes) could work in a similar spirit. Either you make it a straight refund of the scholarship for any player earning a full year of salary in MLB, NHL, NFL, NBA, MLS. Or, get colleges to bid on athletes. “Hey, Alex, come to college, we’ll give you a scholarship, and since you are so good, we’ll only ask for 1% of your future earnings until you are 25.” Or, also allow the inclusion of payments, like giving him 100,000$ to play for your college team. Something, anything, that shows that NCAA is a business, and not slave owners of athletes under the guise of an educational system. In hockey, junior clubs (filled with high school and college-level players) are not affiliated to any schools.
The floor is yours. What kind of a business system can you create with high school and college players?
And more cool stuff from the sabermetrics torch-bearer that is The Hardball Times, this time courtesy of Victor Wang looking at whether there is additional information that we can glean from traded prospects.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Rally asks:
What I want to do is see if, given a pitcher’s projection from his MLE, whether fastball velocity tells us any more useful information for his projection. In other words, do fireballers beat their projections? Do soft-tossers fail to live up to theirs?
If you don’t want to read his study, the answer is:
Knowing a pitcher’s velocity doesn’t tell you anything about his chances of success that you didn’t already know by looking at his minor league numbers.
Friday, May 09, 2008
Two excellent issues from editor Phil Birnbaum (Nov 07, Feb 08). Here are my thoughts:
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Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Very cool paper discussing age restrictions of the draft:
At that time, the NBA required that players be four years removed from high school in order to partake in the NBA draft. The rule had not been collectively bargained. Spencer Haywood, a nineteen-year-old basketball star from an impoverished family, challenged the rule. He characterized it as an unreasonable restraint of trade. The court agreed with Haywood, finding that the age requirement constituted a per se illegal boycott. Central to the court’s decision was the inflexible nature and arbitrariness of the rule, for it failed to provide an exception for unique talent or financial circumstance. In other words, a blanket age floor to draft entry comprised illegal per se activity.
Saturday, March 08, 2008
Tigers open tryouts.
I sincerely felt bad for the majority of the participants. I admire those who possess an intense passion for the game – it’s the same passion that fuels my desire to write about the sport. But I can honestly say that most of these individuals earnestly thought they could make the squad. As for me, I just wanted to write a story and obtain some bragging rights. Years down the road, I will tell my grandkids, “You know, there was once a time when grandpa tried out for the Detroit Tigers.” By that time, my memory will be shot - the details will be exaggerated and blown way out of proportion. But they don’t have to know.
Hat tip: B4B
Friday, February 29, 2008
Great stuff. This time, a look at college GB/FB stats and comparing to the same pitchers in the minors.
The correlation thing comes up all the time. You can’t report the r, without also reporting the average IP or PA in the sample. And, if you are going to do the minors-to-minors to compare, the average IP of your college-to-minors should match the minors-to-minors. Therefore, set a threshhold at the bottom and at the top.
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Jeff Kobernus, a former minor league player (the 2007 stat line on that page is for his son) who is a reader of this blog has shown interest in getting peppered by questions by those of us who never made it that far. I’ve got several questions on how batters approach each PA (the game within a game), but I’m also reminded of the exchange Lenny Dykstra had with Billy Beane in Moneyball, which basically resulted in one being done in by paralysis by analysis. You can guess which one did the analysis. So, let me open up the floor to you guys, and I’ll come up with my questions in a bit.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
John Sickels does what I think is required of ALL forecasters: a look back at shooting off your big mouth. Without any other forecaster doing the same, Sickels’ list looks pretty good here.
His top 50 nonpitchers averaged 35 win shares so far, according to his count. His top 40 pitchers averaged 12 win shares so far. Note that pitchers are severely undervalued by the Win Shares system. Basically, you should take 90% of nonpitchers totals to adjust them properly, and take 120% of the pitchers totals. That brings our nonpitchers to 31 win shares, and our pitchers to 15 win shares. So, given a group of top nonpitcher prospects and a group of top pitcher prospects, Sickels’ list would imply to pay the pitchers half as much as the nonpitchers.
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Let’s see what happens if we turn the focus on college players’ fielding.
I got nearly 2000 ballots for the 30 MLB teams in 2007. I suspect I’ll get half that, but for a far greater number of teams, on the college side. The reliability simply won’t be as great, of course. I understand all the issues. But, let’s see how far we can take this.
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