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I’ll let David explain it:
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/win-probability-changes/
A-Fraud was the biggest choke hitter of 2006, which everyone already guessed. Now, we have it quantified
http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=y&type=3&season=2006
Ever wanted to have the run expectancy chart for a 3.5 RPG environment, or 2.4 or 6.7? Here you go:
Many of you are familiar with Custom Run Values. In a recent post at BTF, someone was calculating Win Values. It’s an easy step, so here you have it at Google Docs.
Here’s an explanation:
Phil points to the latest BEPRESS issue, where Phil says:
They start by examining run scoring: they find that in games of 2004-2005, the home team scored .093 runs per game more than the visiting team. This number looks small, and so the authors conclude this “little supports” the explanation that home teams are “more proficient at scoring runs.”
Ah, the power of picking and choosing numbers, without context. Here’s the reality:
An excellent dialogue between stat-heavy Dan Fox and Sterger-heavy Will Carroll. The game in question is also represented at Fangraphs, and it includes the more-important Leverage Index.
Without question, what both sides accept, or likely accept, is that this is a reasonable representation, in real-time, as the events unfold, of the likely chance of each team winning, as well as the perceived (or should have been perceived) pressure by all players that day. We should all be on board here.
What is in question is:
Rob McQuown has a good understanding of how to use the win expectancy table. I wouldn’t go as low as “ to about .250-.260.” when you get to that part, maybe down to .270 as a guess. And in THE BOOK, I do show how the breakeven point can be anywhere from 60% to 90% depending on the inning and score, so the adherence to the “average” breakeven point obviously should not be listened to. The important takeaways from the articles are:
1 - Understand the context, don’t assume average
2 - You should be able to use some educated guesses to tweak the numbers to fit a particular context
Via studes’ blog, I ended up here, at Crawfish Boxes, who says:
Now, fairness compels me to state that the WPA contraption does not see a big difference between a man on second and a man on third with two outs there. And it says that the play cost us a little over 70 points of win probability.
But I say that’s bullshit.
I thought putting out a book that explains how it all works would stop me from explaining how it all works. Let me explain how it all works.
This is one of those great articles that deserves to be linked every now and then. Ben Vollmayr-Lee is one of those few guys who can merge love of baseball with statistical savvy.
The biggest thing I hate to hear about the MVP talk, aside from the MVP talk itself, is the “he only does it every 5th day, not every day”. Would you rather watch a new two-hour Chris Rock concert once a week, or Jon Stewart four days a week, half-hour each time? Would you rather have a co-worker that surfs the web 4 days a week, and works 8 hours on the other day, or works 1-2 hours a day, and surfs the web the rest of the day? Six of one: meet half-dozen of the other.
Justin Morneau has faced 614 pitchers. Johan Santana has faced 867 batters. Does it really matter that Santana’s opponents are more concentrated, and Morneau’s more spread out? Enter WPA:
Willie Randolph said this:
I’ve used him so many times to nail down an important win for us in non-save situations. He’s given our bullpen a sense of completeness that we didn’t have last year.
He’s talking about Wagner. Thanks to Fangraphs, we can look at this assertion. Breaking up his games into whether he got a save or blown save, and into games where he got neither:
Pro Trade looks at win probability in football. In baseball, the minimum states you need is inning, score, base, out. In football, it’d be time to half, time to game, score, down, yards to 1st down, yards to goal. The Pro Trade gang also added timeouts, which is neat. As you can see, alot more states to consider. However, there are far fewer events to consider in football. What I’d like to see from them is a Leverage Index chart. Based on their chart in the article, it seems that there is more clutch situations, but who knows.
Studes always gives me at least one thing I didn’t know in the ten things he didn’t know. When it comes to Leverage Index, it’s an easy sell to me, even if I’m the salesman. It’s clear what it’s doing, it comes up with easily understandable measures. But, the problem with these “single-numbers” is that the reader has to work to understand what you did. That’s where Studes comes in. He does the work for you. For example:
This Fangraphs site is getting better by leaps and bounds. For example:
Software for Football coaches:
EndGame was founded by Charles Bower, a computer modeling and stats wizard, and Frank Frigo, a “Game Theory Expert” who was at one time the highest-ranked professional Backgammon player in the world.
Together, the two friends – who first met on the pro backgammon circuit — took NFL data going back a decade and designed software to play out various games millions of times, looking for commonalities and patterns.
What evolved from that exercise was ZEUS, a program which calls each play based on what EndGame refers to as its “Game Winning Chance,” a philosophy that ignores the number of points a particular play might score, but relies instead on its chance of eventually winning the game.
A reader found a problem with the WE tables here, http://www.sportsmogul.com/vbulletin2/showthread.php?t=119234 . I responded:
When I create the WE tables, I use a basic run frequency table, like this one:
http://www.tangotiger.net/RE9902score.htmlI know how often to expect a certain number of runs to end of inning, from each of the 24 base/out states. If we focus on the 1b/3b, 0 out lines and the 2b/3b 0 out lines, we see the chance of a scoreless inning is only 12% with the guy on 1B, but 14% with the guy on 2b. However, the chance of a multi-run inning is way higher with the guy on 2B.
So, in this case, on average, small-ball is played much more often with the guy on 1B and 3b, than 2b and 3b. Again, on average.
However, when I run my numbers, I assume this applies to every inning. Clearly, this can’t be true in the 9th inning of a tie game, where teams play completely differently.
Therefore, the “human element” is missing from my basic WE charts that I have published. It would be definitely doable to incorporate, so you have something that is more logical.
Another one to add to your list:
http://www.gubanichplague.com/?page_id=6
I definitely don’t like the way the baserunning (non-PA) is being handled. I would have either had a “team baserunning” bucket, or split the credit among all baserunners, or just the lead baserunner, etc. But, not hand it out to the batter.
Otherwise, a very fine site.
This is also a very useful resource:
http://www.walkoffbalk.com
This is pure mechanical stuff. Enter at your own risk.
Studes takes another look at WPA over at Hardball Times.
I would also suggest to newcomers to read the previous blog entry on this topic here
Now, as for the specific mechanics…
First, we had this in the Washington Post:
http://asap.washingtonpost.com/nationals/
Now, Alan Schwarz talks about it in the NY Times. Kudos to Alan for bringing it to the forefront.
However, a couple of corrections are in order, which I’ll explain.
May 17 00:10
Now you frame it, now you don’t
May 16 23:47
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 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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