THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Sabermetric Moves of the 2009 Pre-Season

Here we go again…

Thursday, December 04, 2008

Poll: Would you vote Raines for the Hall?

Raines for the Hall

My annual plea, which I hope will end soon.

Wednesday, December 03, 2008

What would happen if the shootout period was 10 minutes, not 5?

This is going to be a math-heavy post.  Be forewarned.

Java Geek answers it most correctly, in this blog entry by James Mirtle, with data supplied by Gabriel Desjardins.  Gabe says that the number of goals scored in OT (4-on-4 hockey) is 7.14 per 3600 seconds, and that it’s fairly uniform.  In these kind of scenarios, it’s always best to answer the question: what are the chances of it NOT happening.  The chance of not scoring in each second is 1 minus 7.14/3600 (or .998).  If you have a 5-minute OT (300 seconds), then you take that .998 figure we just got, raise it to the power of 300, and that tells you the chance of the game still being tied.  That figure is 55% (meaning 45% of the time you have a winner).  If it was a 10-minute OT (600 seconds), then you do the same thing, but raise to the power of 600, not 300.  That figure is 30%, meaning that 70% of the time, you have a winner.

Another way would be to realize that with 62 goals and 54 shootouts in the 5-minute OT, then this means that you were tied 54 out of 116 times, or 47% of the time.  If you had a 10-minute OT, you square that number (that is, if the chance of not scoring per 5 minutes is 47%, then the chance of not scoring per 10 minutes is .47*.47), and you get 22%.  So, 78% of the time, you have a winner.

The short of it is, that if you double the amount of overtime, then you chop in half the chance of going into a shooutout.  It works out this clean, because per 5 minutes of OT, half the time the game ends still tied.

Avery being Avery

Sean Avery, an NHL-playing fashionista who interned at Vogue this past summer, has dated many beautiful women, two of which are Rachel Hunter and Elisha Cuthbert (a noted hockey and hockey-player enthusiast).  His ex’s are dating hockey players, and Avery asked why his peers are dating his sloppy seconds.  The league has suspended him (and his team said they would have if the NHL didn’t).  He’s been condemned by his own teammates.

His only support comes from those who don’t think that “sloppy seconds” is a derogatory term.  Hockey players, from an early age, enjoy the company of “puck bunnies”.  These women know what they are getting into, and they don’t care.  Quite the opposite.  While they may tolerate or somewhat enjoy the term “puck bunny”, no one wants to be called “sloppy seconds”.  It’s more than crude, it is demeaning, something that those in power like to do, to those who have less power or influence.

This is yet another thing that we, as men, should have limited input of our opinion.  We can have all the opinion we want, but the opinions that should mostly be heard are those that are most affected by the term, the victims and potential victims.

What I cannot believe is that Avery, who must have really ingratiated himself with the ladies at Vogue, would be so demeaning, in such a calculating and not off-hand way.  And what I cannot believe more is that there will still be a long list of “puck bunnies” ready, willing, and for Sean Avery’s taking.

How to calculate the area of a baseball field

Suppose it’s 330 down the line, 375 in the gap, and 405 to CF, and the fence is smooth.  What’s the area of the baseball field?  I come up with a figure close to presuming one-fourth of circle of radius 370.  Can someone with knowledge walk me through the correct answer?

NYC’s 3 1/2 year mandatory jail time sentence for carrying a loaded weapon

Story:

In fact, John M. Caher, a spokesman for the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services, said that fewer than 10 percent of the people in New York City who were charged with criminal possession of a weapon — the charge Burress is facing — were convicted of that charge and that many ended up being convicted of a lesser charge. However, Gottlieb noted that the public attention made it unlikely that prosecutors would accept a lesser charge.

Tuesday, December 02, 2008

The Holy Writers strike again!

I don’t know what’s more dangerous: leaving children alone on a deserted island, or giving sports writers the keys to the pearly gates.

Here’s Grant Wahl, the Lord of the Ties, talking about resetting history, ala Quantum Leap:

But over the years SI has been proud to serve as the conscience of sport, and taking a stand against McGwire and Sosa… would be taking a stand against the steroid era in baseball, to say nothing of the performance-enhancing drug era in all of sports.

And then he goes off and talks about Zidane not being a good enough recipient because of a red card (which didn’t stop him from being named the tournament player of the year, with full knowledge of that red card).  And also implicates the NHL, even though hundreds of NHLers, in the 1998, 2002, and 2006 Olympics passed every steroids drug test (except for one, who failed during camp and never made the squad). 

Writers, please, don’t show us your halo.

RARP v VORP, take 2

Three months ago, I did a comparison of RARP and VORP.  I presented my findings to Clay, and he said he was going to make at least one change (as it relates to pitchers-as-hitters).  I don’t know if he did any other changes, yet.  (As I right these words, I haven’t looked at the data.) You can click on the above link to get all the particulars.  I made no changes to everything I’m about to analyze, other than to update the data.

Let’s get on with it:

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Estimating BABIP

Good stuff.  Unfortunately, it is presented as a black box, but I like all the different components that were presented.

Monday, December 01, 2008

What was Pedro worth?

In his 4 year with the Mets, Pedro was worth around 9 WAR (wins above replacement). 

He was +2.7 WAA (wins above average) according to WPA, and +3.2 according to WPA/LI.  An average pitcher, given Pedro’s 487 innings for those 4 years would be +6 WAR.  Pedro was 3 wins above this level, making him a 9 WAR pitcher.

If you start him at 3 WAR in 2005, and decrease him by 0.5 WAR each year, that totals 9 WAR from 2005-2008.  Giving dollars per win of 3.3 in 2005, and increasing by 10% every year, the total comes out to 35MM.

So, that’s pretty much what Pedro produced for the Mets: 35MM of performance, compared to the 53MM he was paid.  Unless they managed to get insurance to cover some of that (and it’s very possible that it did), then Pedro was overpaid by 18MM.

Get Rice in the Hall already

Best Five Offensive Seasons According to:
- WPA (denominated in Wins)
- SitW (Situational Wins, aka WPA/LI)
- wOBA (simple average)
- WiSh (Batting Win Shares)

Raines’s wOBA excludes 1981.

For someone whose calling card is his peak offensive play, Rice doesn’t compare to Tim Raines.  He’s between Dewey and Dawson in terms of batting peak.

Dawson and Dewey’s calling card (and so far, it’s been a tough sell to the Hall voters on Dawson and gone with Dewey) includes their Gold Glove defense and longevity, two things Rice doesn’t even have.

I’m pulling for Rice, if only for the reason that it makes it easier to justify Hawk and Rock.  For Dewey, all I can say is that he deserves it as much as Dawson, and much more than Rice does.

Michael Farber

At this point last year, Scott Long put out a piece intended to discuss the link between performance and cocaine, and he used Tim Raines as his jumping off point.  Unfortunately for Scott, he wasn’t up on his history, especially when he said: 

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What people search for in Canada

The NHL was the leader for the last two years, but not this year.  Something called Runescape is the leader.  The US version looks a bit different.  No NHL or Runescape anywhere.  Paris Hilton is the number one search term in America, while Canadians deal with Hannah Montana and Britney Spears in the top 10 (Americans have pushed those two to down to top 20 status).  (TSX is the Toronto Stock Exchange, and Services Canada is a government site.) I suppose what people search for tells you what kind of place you live in. 

Multi-game sports table

We already have an air hockey table, but I was looking for a multi-game table that has foosball, billiards, pingpong, and whatever else I could get was a bonus.  At Target, they had the 16-in-1 Sportcraft which I bought on Black Friday for 90$ prior to reading the reviews.  Wal-Mart seems to have a competitor as well.  If I get my money’s worth, I’m happy: I’m just looking for something that I can play with my kid, without spending too much money, knowing that he’ll be bored with it at some point.  But, those reviews makes it seem that even at that price, it may not have been worth it.

Anyway, if you guys have some recommendations for multi-use tables (foosball, billiards, pingpong at least), I’d love to hear it, before I spend any time putting the Sportcraft one together.

The 3-0 count

I love all articles on the 3-0 count because the number of choices to the pitcher and batter are very limited, while the payoffs are more apparent.  Here’s John Walsh:

I re-did the above, this time only considering cases when first base was occupied. The thinking there is that with first base occupied, the pitcher is much less likely to pitch around a batter. The data show that there was no difference with a runner on first; the ball percentage was still 35 percent.

Later John says using PITCHf/x:

What I’ve done is take all 3-0 pitches, and thrown away anything that is not classified as a fastball. I figure if a pitcher is throwing something other than the fastball, he’s probably afraid the batter might swing on 3-0 and he’s unlikely to be aiming down the middle.

Perhaps John can merge the two, and look at situations where 1B is not open AND the pitch is a fastball. 

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Question for your Fantasyers

How many hitters and pitchers are drafted in a typical league (AL, NL, and/or mixed)?

“Why in my day…”

It would seem that the genetic and mental makeup of all athletes has improved in all sports, except for a MLB pitcher.  You don’t hear the bullsh!t in the NHL about how players today are not better, stronger, or faster than of yesteryear.  While clearly some stars of the past like Gordie Howe and Rocket Richard would be stars today because of their toughness, no one is suggesting that stars today would be laid to waste fifty years ago.  Does anyone say that star players in the NBA or NFL would not have been tough enough or good enough to play in the past?  Would we say that star hitters today would not be star hitters in the past?  No, no one says this.

But pitchers?  All of a sudden…

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The History of the wOBA, part 1

Why does wOBA exist?

Here’s an extremely long post that hopefully will answer all your questions.  And if it doesn’t, well, I guess that’s why I called this thread “part 1”.

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Rob Neyer touts wOBA

Here is the blog entry:

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/blog/index?name=neyer_rob

For a change, there are some good comments/suggestions about the merits and demerits of wOBA and whether it will or should be “mainstream.” I say “for a change” only because unfortunately (given the good quality of the articles) the quality of the comments/discussion on Rob’s blog is generally poor. I guess that is because ESPN.com is a “mainstream” site and tends not to get the ‘serious’ sabermetrically-oriented fan.  Or at least most of the fans are not.

Anyway, feel free to discuss the pros and cons of wOBA.  It was Tango’s creation and introduced in The Book.