from Amazon
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Do relievers who win the lottery need to share their money?
Colin concludes his primer on WE and Leverage with:
Which brings me to the power of myth-making. Metrics that incorporate a relief pitcher’s leverage but ignore his ability to create leverage for others paint a skewed picture of how relief pitchers create value. Teams that hold their most valuable bullpen arms in reserve waiting for save chances may be winning more close games (although not as many as they may think), but the cost may well be staying closer in fewer games to begin with.
The reason that Hoffman and Rivera et al have a career LI close to 2.0 in relief is that they let the rest of the team do all the hard work, and they come in to finish the job. Basically, they were given a lottery ticket with 5 of the 6 winning numbers pre-selected, and he just has to work his magic to get the 6th number. But, the reason they were given 5 of those numbers is because they are great pitchers. If they were only average pitchers, they’d only be given 4 of the 6 winning numbers.
So, we have two things going on:
1. A situation where you can make alot of money has been created for them, like buying stocks on margin, or borrowing money. (For example, you have 1000$, and someone loans you another 1000$ at 50% interest, so you have 2000$. You bet that money on a horse, and the horse wins. You win 4 times your bet, so that’s 8000$ in winnings, and 10,000$ in your pocket. You give your friend back the 1000$ plus 500$ in interest, and now you have 8500$ in your pocket, where you once started off with 1000$. You actually made 8.5 times your money.)
2. But the only reason you are in that position is because you are good and trustworthy. (For example, the only reason your friend even lent you 1000$ is because he trusted you to give him his money back at 50% interest.)
If you were untrustworthy, your friend might have demanded 200% in interest. So, after giving him back his 1000$, you also give him 2000$ in interest, for 3000$. That leaves you with 7000$, or 6000$ profit.
In a complex method called “chaining” (which may have originated with Patriot, or with me I can’t remember, but did originate back at the old Baseball Boards RIP), we try different kinds of gamblers because SOMEONE has to bet on that horse. It’s going to happen.
When you work it out with respect to relievers, you will find that the leverage component “earned” by the player’s perceived talent level to find himself in that situation is about halfway between the actual leverage and average leverage. This is why when we see Rivera or Hoffman with an LI of 2.0, we “credit” them with an LI of 1.5. Because that’s the equivalent to the chaining process.