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Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Reader Mail of the Day: Environment impacting events
Tom
Maybe you saw this article.
A Labor Market (and Baseball) Mystery
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/14/a-labor-market-and-baseball-mystery/
It quotes an economist saying:
“Doubles and home runs are disproportionately valuable in high scoring environments than low scoring environments, because their runner-advancing potential is greater when there are more runners on base. In a high-scoring, a home run is more likely to score other runners, and someone who hits a double is less likely to be stranded on second base.”
But if I look athttp://www.tangotiger.net/customlwts.html
It looks the opposite. Any thoughts on this? I think you had a site once that had them year by year, too, but I can’t find it.
If someone wants to know what they are talking about with regards to run-environments, you absolutely must be using this link at all times:
http://tangotiger.net/markov.html
If you are someone who has never used that link, go there. If you are someone that went there and dismissed it, go back. That link provides the basis for everything about baseball. It is that important.
If you want a more theoretical answer, the run value of a HR is the EXTRA runs he adds to the runners already on base. If the team OBP is .999, then guess what: the HR is barely more valuable than a walk. If the team OBP is .001, then guess what: the walk is almost useless and the HR is the most valuable thing you can have, by far. So it works like this:
1. Figure out the chance that the average runner will score on an average event… say that’s 30%
2. Figure out the number of runners on base on average… say that’s 0.60
3. Do the math: HR will add .70 runs to each baserunner times the 0.60 baserunners, or +.42 runs of base-advancing value for the HR
Now, suppose you have a different run environment, one where say the chance that the average runner will score is 40%, and that you have alot of runners, say 0.70 runners on base. Now, you are adding only .60 runs to each baserunner times the .70 runners on base, or.... +.42 runs of base-advancing value for the HR.
Pretty much, for OBP in the .250 to .400 range, the run value of the HR is fairly constant. And that is its peak more or less. At somewhere below .200 OBP and above .600 OBP (or something), the run value of the HR dips toward the same value once OBP approaches 0 or approached 1.
Refresher for everyone: http://tangotiger.net/rc3.html
