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All things related to THE BOOK.
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A nice article in the WSJ quoting a bunch of sabes. The WSJ’s Carl Bialik, the writer of this piece, and Russell Adams, who did a piece on The Book a while ago, are definitely good sportswriters who aren’t full of the same old, same old. Great to see stuff like this in such a respected newspaper.
Hopeully there can be some intelligent, sabermetric-oriented discussion about manager (and other) strategies during the WS. Without sounding too elitist, and of course everyone is welcome on this site, I hope the discussion does not turn into, “They should not have pitched to Pujols in the 3rd inning because you don’t want the other teams’ best player to beat you,” but we’ll see. Speaking of pitching to Pujols…
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
I don’t know if I have a very mild or extremely strong annoyance to http://www.slate.com/id/2151273/
While the clutch-hitting question has spawned piles of research, clutch pitching is a phenomenon that’s gone essentially unexamined.
Nevertheless, Andy did examine the issue for THE BOOK, and there is a skill component to it. It might not necessarily be a “men on base” situation, but rather simply a change in pitching motion (full windup v step). And Glavine’s splits are rather incredible.
The peripheral ERA is a little problematic, because things like WP, PB, BK may or may not be included.
I loved the whole article. The premise to the analysis:
On the other hand, any gambler going to Vegas to play blackjack will, if he or she is serious about winning, come equipped with a memorized cheat-sheet of when to take a hit and when to stand pat. Should we expect anything less from the man in charge of a baseball team with a $70 million budget? The odds we’re dealing with are small, but so is the house advantage in Vegas. To beat the system, or the other team, is a matter of inches, or, precisely the issue at hand here: a few percentage points. After all, that’s supposed to be the point of conventional baseball strategy in the first place--playing the percentages.
This was written by Joe Sheehan in today’s BP. Joe is a smart guy and a sabermetric writer. When these guys write fluff pieces, do they turn into blithering idiots, with all due respect to Joe, who is also a nice guy? O.K., I am being a little harsh, but these things really piss me off and I am getting too old to pull any punches.
Nothing worse than arguing about the strategy of the bunt by using words like “Moneyball” to represent the sabermetric-viewpoint. There’s a great set of charts by Dan Levitt along with the important series of disclaimers of not looking at averages but at the actual sequence of runners/batters, as well as a 50-page treatise by MGL in THE BOOK. You need to immerse yourself in these two pieces of research, before writing about when to use and not use the bunt.
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.
From 2002-2004, he was a great reliever. Since then, he’s back as an effective starter. As THE BOOK discussed, it’s much easier to relieve than to start, with the gap being about 0.80 to 1.00 in your ERA.
That was based on data of all pitchers from 1999-2002. How about we just look at Smoltzie?
We have a very limited number of coverless books (print quality is good, not great), which we are offering as-is at a student price of $9.95, with no additional shipping charge. That’s a 55% discount. If you’ve been looking for a big break, this is it. Order now.
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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.
I generally watch 2 or 3 games a day. I don’t specifically keep track, but I would guess that the number of strategic mistakes by the average manager is at least one per game. I would also guess that each mistake costs at least .02 wins, which would mean at least 3 wins in mistakes per season.
It is difficult to comprehend how game theory (randomly mixing up your pitches as a pitcher and what to expect as a hitter) comes into play in baseball. In response to a post I made on BTF explaining that in any given PA, there really is no “wrong” pitch. One must look at a number of pitches in the long run in various situations to see whether a pitcher is making mistakes in his selection process. The reason that there can never be a “wrong” pitch in any given PA is that a pitcher should NEVER throw or not throw a certain pitch 100% of the time. Therefore you should correctly see every single type of pitch possible in any given situation at least SOME of the time (even if it is 1% of the time).
A BTF reader and poster disagreed with this assessment (I guess) and wrote:
“If a guy couldn’t hit a curve knowing it was coming, i wouldn’t be too worried about game theory in attacking him.”
I responded:
Andy expands on the calculations of pages 366-367 in The Book:
Scott Soshnick at Bloomberg looks into The Book
Let’s see what he says, and what should have been done.
Dan Levitt has his take on the sacrifice bunt:
http://baseballanalysts.com/archives/2006/07/empirical_analy_1.php
Readers are encouraged to check out Mitchel’s analysis in The Book as well.
I’d like to go through a real-life example of how to optimize a batting order. I give all the mechanics in The Book, so I’ll reserve discussion about the application of those tools here. What I would like from you is:
An NY Times article on Jason Giambi’s approach to hitting.
A while ago, I did (ubpublished) research on hitting at different counts. Mike Piazza, at the time and from the years I had data, never swung at a 3-0 count. Never. And yet, pitchers still threw him a ball 40% of the time. One of the pots of gold in research is how to hit and pitch at each count, given the strengths and weaknesses of the participants, as well as the game context.
Barry Bonds was intentionally walked with the bases loaded, a 2-run lead, in the bottom of the ninth, and 2 outs on May 28, 1998. Was it a good play or not?
May 17 00:22
Dodgers’ win reversed because Mattingly did not attest to proper score!
May 17 00:10
Now you frame it, now you don’t
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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