A call to arms for these teams:
Arizona Diamondbacks
Chicago White Sox
Cleveland Indians
Florida Marlins
Houston Astros
Oakland Athletics
Pittsburgh Pirates
Washington Nationals
Overall, after one week, we’re at 47% of reaching last year’s totals. Brewers, Royals, and Giants fans have already submitted more ballots this year than last year.
Keep spreading the word!
]]>UZR liked him for 31 runs above replacement. ... Still, UZR wasn’t alone; DRS said he was even better, at 32 runs saved, and Total Zone liked him for 27 runs. It was truly an incredible year for Guti.... Finally, the glove hasn’t played like it did last year. UZR still thinks he’s been good for 7.5 runs, while DRS is even more bullish with 16 runs…
It’s VERY POSSIBLE that Guti’s glove DID play exactly last year as it is this year. That’s because UZR has an uncertainty in classifying the degree of difficulty of a play.
Then, there’s simply random variation. For example, Pujols can be a true .440 wOBA hitter, and he swings and approached each PA exactly the same, and in the first 600 PA he has a .420 wOBA and in his next 600 PA he has a .460 wOBA, and this does NOT mean that Pujols played better. He played the same, and good/bad luck explains the difference.
I’m not saying that this is what happened in Guti case, or any player’s case. But, it’s important to understand that seeing a UZR number is not like seeing a wOBA number. wOBA has one uncertainty (random variation), while UZR has a second uncertainty (classification of batted balls).
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You also hear about how a park “played” like a hitter’s park, even though it is a pitcher’s park. If players at PETCO for example generated more runs there than away, that doesn’t mean PETCO is now a hitter’s park. It simply means that random variation reared its head (you flipped 10 straight heads). It happens.
]]>Magic Johnson preferred to play against Larry Bird, because that’s how greatness is defined.
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From 2007 to 2009, Howard not only has the highest Win Probability Added in September/October, but he dwarfs the second-rated player on the list--Cardinals first baseman Albert Pujols. It’s not even close. That’s true, even if you stretch the data back to 2006.
Sabrmetrician Bill James awarded Howard his “Clutch Player of the Year” award in 2009. James knows of what he speaks.
Tom Tango, the same person who devised the Win Probability Added formula, also has a formula for “Clutch Rating.” In figuring a player’s clutch rating, you look foremost at situations that are high-leverage, in which the game is on the line in that turn.
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A report released this month by several education researchers warned that the value-added methodology can be unreliable. “If these teachers were measured in a different year, or a different model were used, the rankings might bounce around quite a bit,” said Edward Haertel, a Stanford professor who was a co-author of the report. “People are going to treat these scores as if they were reflections on the effectiveness of the teachers without any appreciation of how unstable they are.”
...
Dr. Sanders helped develop value-added methods to evaluate teachers in Tennessee in the 1990s. Their use spread after the 2002 No Child Left Behind law required states to test in third to eighth grades every year, giving school districts mountains of test data that are the raw material for value-added analysis. In value-added modeling, researchers use students’ scores on state tests administered at the end of third grade, for instance, to predict how they are likely to score on state tests at the end of fourth grade. A student whose third-grade scores were higher than 60 percent of peers statewide is predicted to score higher than 60 percent of fourth graders a year later. If, when actually taking the state tests at the end of fourth grade, the student scores higher than 70 percent of fourth graders, the leap in achievement represents the value the fourth-grade teacher added.
...
In many schools, students receive instruction from multiple teachers, or from after-school tutors, making it difficult to attribute learning gains to a specific instructor. Another problem is known as the ceiling effect. Advanced students can score so highly one year that standardized state tests are not sensitive enough to measure their learning gains a year later.
I disagree with the bolded part, if the reporter is reporting it accurately. Say it with me: REGRESSION TOWARD THE MEAN. I’m sure the reporter is wrong, and the professor is probably doing it right. If you beat 60% of students in a standardized test, you are probably at the 55th percentile in true talent. So, if a teacher inherits 30 kids who are each at the 60th perecentile, and then those kids once again are at the 60th percentile, then those kids IMPROVED. If they use the fact that they were at the 60th percentile two years in a row, then they are probably at the 58th percentile, and the third teacher would get evaluated against that level.
Not to mention there are aging issues to account for. We need a height and weight database on these kids as well, to see how physically they’ve matured. You’d need to know if they’ve been introduced to sex, drugs, and rock&roll, as that might influence their scores more than anything (each of those things would lead you to infer a change in thought-processing and lifestyle). (I say these things facetiously because they are kids. If they were college kids, I’d be serious.)
A perfect group for WOWY processing.
Glove-slap: Bryan.
]]>The difference is that he walked ALOT of hitters in the minors, so he is unlike the polished Strasburg. It’ll be interesting to see what the forecasters do with Chapman (who given his walk rate, might be more like the young Nolan Ryan and Randy Johnson, themselves also once-in-a-generation pitchers).
Place your bets, gentlemen, place your bets…
]]>How often do you see that when the runner would have been safe by a mile if he had just slid in like 99.9% of players do these days?
Try and guess who made that ignoble and boneheaded play. If you saw or heard of the play, obviously you can’t guess…
]]>As a perfect example of the contrasting styles, Poz was asking if a great season (or really how many great seasons) should be enough to put someone in the HOF (or your personal HOF). This is how Poz wrote that article today titled Obviopiphany, and this is how I wrote that article two years ago, titled Observed Performance Inferring True Talent (OPITT).
Poz gave you Side A that appeals to the majority, and I have Side B that finds a niche with the minority.
Dave is crowdsourcing the crowd as to Crawford’s likely contract signing (meaning what they predict he will get, not necessarily what he is actually worth).
And, he notices what I’ve noticed any time I do these surveys: you don’t need alot of people. He said results stabilized after 25 votes. And, you guys probably noticed that when I run my Polls around here, after 20-40 votes, results don’t change much.
That’s why for the Fans Scouting Report, we don’t need much participation. Once I get 20 votes for any single player, I’m happy. Indeed, even at 10-15 votes, that’s pretty good. The reason is because we already kinda know the answer. And after 15 votes, you get a very strong pull toward the consensus.
And, for this reason, something like Fans tracking plays (in parks that can’t afford FIELDf/x) would have great value. You position 9 fans across the park, and get them to record what they see. Rotate them every inning to account for potential bias. See which fans are closest to consensus, and weight them heavier for the season. Indeed, you won’t even need to download play by play, because those 9 fans can agree on what the various calls were. 9 fans x 81 home games x 30 teams x 50$ = one million dollars. Call me crazy, but I think it’s worth a million bucks to 30 teams.
John Eric Hanson is the only forecaster to finish in the top 5 in all four setups. Hanson also won the official competition last year, and I think finished fairly high up in the other unofficial competitions I ran. So, yeah, he done good.
The baseline comparison point should be Marcel. Marcel finished middle of the pack in 3 of the competitions, and IS LEADING in one of the competitions (the head-to-head one… the setup that was the official competition last year).
The results. First the three unofficial setups:
]]>They let him bat. Nothing happens in the inning for the Giants. In the top of the 9th, he walks the leadoff batter and they immediately take him out. What was the point of letting him bat? Either you think he is still good enough to pitch the entire 9th, whether he gets the first batter out or not, or you don’t. Not to mention the fact that the next batter (after the walk) is a lefty (Gonzalez).
IOW, if you plan on taking him out if the first batter gets on, then obviously you think that he has little or nothing left in the tank. If that be the case, pinch hit for him and then bring someone else in in the 9th.
Bochy’s decisions were clearly of the “I’ll do whatever it takes to avoid criticism,” rather than actually think about what are the best moves to help his team get into the post-season.
First, “I won’t take my starter out while pitching a shutout, lest my relievers blow the game and I get lambasted for that.”
Second, “If the first batter gets on, I’ll take him out, lest I be accused of leaving him in too long.”
Third, “I’ll bring in my closer, Wilson, against the lefty batter, Gonzalez, even though my closer threw over 30 pitches the night before, lest I lose the game without bringing in my stopper.”
The other reason for bringing in the lefty to pitch to Gonzalez, or even leaving Sanchez in, is to keep Fowler from stealing (a generally underused strategy - bringing in a lefty to keep a runner from stealing second).
Needless to say, it all blew up in Bochy ‘s face, and they lost a game that they could ill-afford to lose…
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