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Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Linear Weights, By Men on Base
There are different ways to do Linear Weights. You can do it by men on base, as SG is doing here, or by the base/out states, or by game state (inning, score, base, out, and shown at Fangraphs as WPA/LI). They all tell a story. The nice thing about the men on base one is that it’s only 8 lines per player, which is a heckavu lot easier to swallow than 24 or the thousands by game state.
I’m wondering, under the “less is more” scenario, construct the 24 base/out set into something more manageable. For example, we can have these states:
1- man on 1B, 3B (runner on 2B optional), less than 2 outs
2- man on 3B (excluding above), and less than 2 outs
3- man on 1B, 2B (excluding all the above), less than 2 outs
4- man on 1B (excluding all the above), less than 2 outs
5- man on 2B or 3B (excluding all the above)
6- man on base (excluding all the above… when I think just leaves me with man on 1B, 2 outs)
7- bases empty less than 2 outs
8- bases empty 2 outs
Do these make sense in terms of trying to segregate based on how the batter/pitcher might change his approach to the base/out state? This is my reasoning for those 8 categories:
1. SF and DP situation
2. SF situation
3. DP, and run-driving situation
4. DP situation
5. run-driving situation
6. runner on base
7. no one on, still can start a rally
8. no one on, tough to get a rally going without extrabase hits
So, all PA would be split into one of these 8 categories, and all 8 categories are mutually exclusive. What do you guys think? Is this a good segregation? Can we merge some of the categories? I really don’t want to go past 8, but I will if we think it makes more sense.