THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

None of this would’ve been possible without you, sir.

We are very greatful.

Arturo, while we have you here could you tell us in your opinion of what you think how the talent level ranks between the MEX/VEN/DOM/PR Winter Leagues?  Thanks.

Well, I wouldn’t like to sound biased since I’m dominican myself, but the Caribbean Series is a good starting point to answer your question.

Although the new Winter League Agreement has put into place a lot of restrictions to limit the participation of young prospects and established veterans, the level of our league remains quite high.

Pitchers like Francisco Liriano and Fausto Carmona have a hard time getting batters out, and seasoned veterans like Andre Jones, who played here a couple of years ago alongside Rafael Furcal, tend to see a lot of o’fers.

The Venezuelan league has a lot of money to spend on foreing players (non-venezuelan), so they usually have the best talent available, however, the talent of home-grown players in both the DR and VEN is way batter that what you could find in PR or MEX nowadays.

I think it’s a toss-up between VEN and DR, and this year’s edition of the Caribbean Series will be a good tie-breaker to determine which league has the best performance level.

MEX used to be the eternal Cinderella country in the caribbean, but that has changed since the PR league went bust. Puertoricans like more their Volleyball than they do Baseball. It’s just not a popular sport anymore. The PR Winter League even went into hiatus for a couple of years and to date they only operate with 4 teams.

In conclusion, I believe the levels of VEN and DR are a little above “AAAA”. MEX is close to “AAAA”, and until proven otherwise, PR is “AAA”.

Just to be clear, I’m just a fan, so in no way my opinion should be taken too seriously but rather with a large grain of salt, but that’s the best comparison I can make from my standpoint of view.

Thanks again for the thoughts.

Arturo, SIERA would be a great addition to your site. Matt has put a table with all the coefficients at http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/new-siera-part-two-of-five-unlocking-underrated-pitching-skills/. Use fgSIERA not bpSIERA. wOBA would also be another great addition. In your articles, which I use google translate for, they are very good, you reference stuff from 2010, but your site dosen’t have that data. It only has data from 2011. Where is the 2010 data? and how do you filter by league?

Hi guys,
I’m from DR too. We feel great respect for Arturo’s job; pretty accurate and makes easier analytics.
Based on BeisbolData #s I’ve been running some calculations for additional metrics in 2011.  https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B6c9GvmwRhaaZTAzNWI2OTUtZmVkNS00MTdhLTg5Y2QtMWQ2ZTdhYjRlZTA1

Though are not the same model as per ‘11, I uploaded past years here. As I complete other for LIDOM and other leagues I will let you know:
2010: https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B6c9GvmwRhaaNGQ0MGQzY2YtZjQ3NC00YWYzLTg2MWUtNGE1NTU4NGVlODE4

2009: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Aqc9GvmwRhaadDZMaEZCQWsxci1lcmFYeXpyQUQwaHc