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Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Ticket Pricing
Variable ticket-pricing to the max.
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Sunday, August 26, 2007
How a little bit of information in the wrong hands (or without explanation) can be dangerous.
Read this interview with Joe Maddon, whom I don’t like (of course), and you will see what I mean.
Why can’t managers get even the simplest of things right?
I was listening to the OAK/TB game this afternoon. It was the 9th inning, the D-Rays were leading 7-4, there were 2 outs and a runner on second with Jack Cust up (doesn’t matter who was up). The radio announcers casually mentioned that the Rays outfield was playing “very deep.” Assuming that they were (playing deeper than normal against this particular batter), what is (radically) wrong with that?
Why two heads may be better than one
Here is a good article by Michael Humphreys (MAH) analyzing various fielding metrics that use BIS and STATS data. His premise is that because the recording of batted balls, particularly in the OF, are difficult to nail to any degree of accuracy and are somewhat subjective, you (a person interested in evaluating player fielding) are better off using more than one data source and combining them (or at least combining metrics that use different data sources). He presents some numbers to back that up. Personally, I am not sure that it makes all that much difference. I can’t imagine a whole lot of meaningful differences between the two data sources. It can’t hurt though. Since he does not have access to the raw data, he can’t compare the actual batted ball data itself. Here is the link. BTW, in the next or last installment, he is going to present his algorithm for his own pseudo- PBP defensive metric (DRA) that uses non-PBP stats to compute a sort of UZR. It is a regression equation I think. I think it is excellent and can certainly be used for the minor leagues and college (or when you don’t have any PBP data for any level) and would be invaluable to teams.
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Pitch Trajectory
The PITCHf/x work continues, with Joe Sheehan showing us some plot points (overhead, and side). I said this in response to something else:
What I like to do is say: “How many feet away will it take to travel 0.20 seconds to home plate?” If the human reaction time is around 0.20 seconds, this will tell us exactly where the ball is when the batter has to make his decision. This will also handle the issue about throwing the ball from OF at 200 MPH. The question is always: when does the batter have to decide. I think it’s alot clearer to tell a fan that a batter can decide on a Wakefield pitch when it only 20 feet away and when a Zumaya pitch is 35 feet away, then giving out numbers like .387 and .554 (or whatever… all number for illustration only). If it’s not .20, but .15 or .25, so be it, use those numbers.
Dan Fox also checks in. And you too can be an analyst by following the tutorial of Dr. Nathan. And Mike Fast is keeping track of it all.
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Career DIPS numbers
The following file shows the career BABIP of all pitchers and their teammates since 1916:
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
WPA: one says goodbye, another says hello
I’ve been late in continuing my answer to an earlier post regarding the real-time and retrospective look at the play-by-play of a game. Basically, the answer is:
Streaks
Dave at USSM recaps the Streaks chapter from The Book and applies it to the Mariners. This is the kind of stuff I’d like to see, applications of findings in The Book to real-life scenarios. I think if you were to poll the fans, and give them the cases of Ibanez and Vidro (each over 30, each a career 110 OPS+, each with a 2007 OPS+ of around 110):
- Ibanez: OPS of 1.571 from Aug 7 - 20, with 9 HR in 13 games
- Vidro: OPS of .941 from Jul 12 - Aug 20, .395 BA in 33 games
- Adam Jones: rookie, career OPS+ of 49 with 100 PA, 37th pick in 2003, #10 MLB prospect by Baseball America
They might think: Ibanez has achieved a new level of performance, Vidro has turned the corner and become what he was in Montreal, and Adam Jones still needs to learn the craft.
As Dave said, “because of our own biases, we’d make more correct decisions if we had less data”, or as MGL said, “One of the running themes of this book is that, very frequently, fans and analysts make too much from too little”.
The only thing I’d be confidant to say is that Ibanez and Vidro are probably not injured. Unless these guys made a fundamental change in their skills (and this has got to be rare, otherwise half of the 750 players will qualify), I doubt we’ve seen any real change here. My guess is that the OPS of these two players will be around their career norms, from Aug 21 to the end of the season.
Of course, I can’t pin my hopes on just two guys. It would be more interesting to run a poll on blogs for all 30 teams, and see which players fans think has “turned it around”. I’d bet most of them would revert to their careers norms the rest of the way.
Monday, August 20, 2007
The 2007 Scouting Report, By The Fans, For The Fans
It’s the fifth annual fielding survey. I’m hoping for another great turnout this year. Please take a few moments, and participate!
http://www.tangotiger.net/scouting/
You can also check out the results for 2006. And if you have a blog, please, spread the word. The following blogs have given me their support:
Tim Raines
My favorite player of all time. Baseball should get back to the 1980s style of baseball.
Friday, August 17, 2007
When do you remove your starter?
I was watching the Braves game tonight. Webb is pitching another gem. He is of course one of the best pitchers in baseball, perhaps the best pitcher in the NL. His opponent was Lance Cormier, arguably one of the worst starting pitchers in baseball, according to me and other forecasters. I don’t know what baseball people think of him.
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
The New Speed Scores
Pizza Cutter gives us his speed scores.
I also used speed scores in The Book, though I didn’t lay out the exact process. It is fairly similar to what Pizza did. One thing he did was look at pickoff throws, which is cool. He had an earlier article on the subject, and I’ll repeat it here: he figures it as pickoff throws per “time on base”, where “time on base” is simply “1”, regardless if he goes through 1 or 3 batters at the plate. This doesn’t make any sense. What you really want is pickoff throws per plate throws. But, if that’s not easy to come by, use 3.75*batters faced (or use the simple pitch count estimator).
Regardless, it’s fantastic stuff.
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Felipe Alou
I love Felipe:
http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/managing-and-the-back-of-the-bus/
I think race cost Felipe Alou his shot at Cooperstown because he didn’t get his chance until he was 57. He got hired to manage at an age when most men, even most Hall of Famer managers, have at least one foot out the door. ... To look at it another way, Felipe Alou is one of the greatest managers in baseball history from the age of 57 onward.
Felipe Alou was a minor league coach with the Expos since 1982. Preceding him to MLB with the Expos were the very experienced Bill Virdon, the somewhat experienced (and well-liked) Buck Rodgers, and the inexplicable (and well-despised) and short-lived Tom Runnells, hand-picked by the otherwise intelligent Dave Dombrowski (who made Alou his bench coach). Alou’s “fault” in getting to the majors earlier may have been his allegiance to the Expos. Surely some team would have gone after such an intelligent, well-spoken, former MLB ballplayer?
Pitch Count Distribution
http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/strikethrowers-and-control-freaks/
Note to Sal:
1. If you include IBB, I think you will find number of pitches per walk to be 5.5
2. If you focus on BIP per PA, to get your groups of pitchers, I think you might get results that match our expectations, as noted here:
http://www.tangotiger.net/pitchCountEstimator.html
A fascinating study, worthy of some discussion I think…
Here is the Study
There is a discussion of said article, where I made some comments, on BTF.
Thursday, August 02, 2007
Did the Padres get rid of Bochy because they are smart and he is not?
Actually, I don’t know whether he quit or was fired. I’ve been watching Giants games lately hoping to catch a glimpse of history. In two days I’ve seen a bunch of egregious errors by Bochy. That does not bode well for his reputation in my book. Here is what happened in Tueday’s and Wednesday’s games:
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
And in these corners…
It’s the amateur statisticians-bettors / professional sports fans
v
the amateur bettors / professional sports fans-statisticians
v
the amateur sports fans-bettors / professional statisticians
v
the amateur sports fans / professional bettors-statisticians
Who will win?
I haven’t read the PDF yet, but I’ll get to it soon enough.
As for the garbage time explanation, that should be easy enough to test: with two minutes to go, look at all games where the gap in scoring was 2-3 points above the line, and the score was between 12 points and 16 points. Then, look for three control groups, with two minutes to go:
a) the gap in scoring was at least 10 points above the line for the favorite (i.e., darn hard to shave without being blatant)
b) the underdog was leading by between 12 and 16 points (i.e., nothing to shave, but in the same boat as potential shavers)
c) I guess another place to look is that the favorite is 2-3 points BELOW the line, and is leading by 12-16 points (i.e., unaware of the line)
Do any of these four show differences?
Monday, July 30, 2007
Base/Out and Run Frequency
I have this laying around and a few people always ask me for “how often does each base/out frequency” occur. So here you go:
The Modern Day begins in 1947
Suppose you have two leagues.
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