THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

I would recommend the Player Passages Model article.  It’s an interesting essay on how talent filters to the major league level.

"Since I licenced my Leverage Index data to be used in the Bill James handbook (free of charge), I was able to reclaim my subscription to BJO...Sean offered a similar freebie to me for Play Index”

Quite the bargain....

for them.

You’re a cheap date, Tango.

Ben: ok, I’m reading that one first.  I already like it when he said:

“ Thus, what we assume to be true about defensive positions is clearly not true about bullpen positions, and this caused me to question whether it was necessarily true about defensive positions, either.”

Good.  I’ve been championing this thought for years.  Let’s see where he goes with it.  I’m also interested to see if he’s going to replicate Woolner’s great article from an older BPro annual (2004? 2005?).

BRB…

Ok, decent read, and he’s got the basics for modelling.  But, as he warned, his article was not going to go anywhere, no conclusions, etc. 

I think if he read the Woolner piece, he’d appreciate it.

Ok, I read this one:
Time and the Gap

which is about the narrowing of talent over the years. 

Not the way I would have gone, but it was ok.  I have several reservations with it, mostly due to the fact that it depends on how much players are stuck to a batting slot or not.

So you and Bill James bartered? No cash transactions? Thanks for lowering the GDP. And we’re in the middle of a recession.

Actually, I dealt with Dewan on the matter.  I told him that as long as I’m alive, he can publish my LI as-is.

***

I’m catching up on the “Hey Bill”.  Nothing caught my eye, until who seems like a fan of ours rails into Bill:

Bill I am done supporting this site, I can not justify spending any more money on it. - The site is too slow. You need to find a way to allow for recent comments in polls and articles to be viewable instead of just one long list. - You don’t allow for actual discussion between yourself and others. Just you stating what you think - Not acknowledging others work in the field is pretty disheartening. You took on the thinking of baseball previously, but now you are just riding on your previous work and aren’t willing to change. - The comment: “I don’t follow links. You’re all wasting your time sending me links like that. . .I don’t chase them down.” is straight up rude. If you don’t have anything good to say, say nothing at all. So mainly I am not willing to give you my money for a slow, dated, one sided website that is rude to the people that are paying you. Could you please take some pointers from Mitchel Litchman and Tom Tango at their Blog: http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php (Thats right you don’t follow links, my bad). Previous Supporter
Asked by: Jeff
Answered: April 16, 2009

We’ll miss you.  Who was it that I failed to credit?

I think Jeff has very legitimate concerns.  I’ve personally said half of those on this site myself.  I don’t know if the way he said it (by bringing us up) was necessarily the best way to do it.

In another Hey Bill, James noted how it’s tough for him to post something quickly in an article, because of the way the article system is set up.  I think this simply goes to Jeff’s point, generally speaking.

I’m surprised how little has changed at the site, technologically-speaking.

I agree with Bill:

Does it seem to you that most balks nowadays are just based on legalistic interpretations of the rules, and not on the pitcher actually trying to deceive the runner? We had a run score today in the Braves-Astros game on a balk with the bases loaded and one out—obviously the runner wasn’t going, and the pitcher wasn’t worried about him. Should we have a rule that, whatever its original purpose, basically comes down to giving a free base when the pitcher moves his leg wrong?
Asked by: Mac T
Answered: May 4, 2009

That’s brilliant.  That’s absolutely a brilliant interpretation of the facts.  I’ve been trying to put my finger on the problem with balk rules for 30 years, and that’s it. 

Another good comment, which would make a decent research piece for the young’uns out there:

This was racist, but in the 1980s you would hear it said that the Latin players would help out their countrymen in this way. . .Dominican catchers would allow Dominican players to steal bases on them, etc.  At that time there were no published records of stolen bases allowed, so the stolen base was a non-event from a defensive standpoint. 

If you are subscribing to the Bill James site, I would think you’d be doing it to get James’ perspective. That’s what you are paying for and all you should expect.

He’s never been a guy that was interested in debating points or wanting to deal with the average reader. He doesn’t care what the average reader thinks of him and isn’t interested in dealing with them. I don’t necessarily blame him for that.

I think the last thing he is interested in is a site like this.

Another good comment:

Steroids were widely used in high school football programs in America in the 1970s and 1980s, routinely used in some places.  Almost every American who played major league baseball in the 1980s and 1990s played high school football in the 1970s or 1980s.  This was a wide-open channel for steroids to enter baseball unless there was effective leadership to keep them out, and MLB totally dropped the ball on keeping them out.  So, yes, MLB is responsible for it, and yes, we should quit attacking the players who were renegades in a renegade society

I guess it’s good because I agree with it.  As you guys know, I think this is a workplace issue, a health issue, one that needs to be decided between players and players, with owners having some, but limited input.  And fans should only be allowed to speak with their wallets.

Are there any current or former players comparable to Ichiro Suzuki?
Asked by: hermitfool
Answered: May 13, 2009

There is certainly no one in history who is highly similar to Ichiro.  However, just on the theory that somebody is “most” similar to everybody:  Roberto Clemente, Pete Rose, Sam Rice, Edd Rousch, Rod Carew and Hugh Duffy. 

I’d go with Tony Gwynn or Kenny Lofton among my contemporaries, but I didn’t give it much thought.

But sooner or later, teams are going to start moving again, like they did in the fifties. It may not be soon—most everybody is tied down with a new ballpark, or has one on the way—but eventually, the leagues are going to get out of alignment with the country again. So I guess the question is when.
Asked by: Anonymous
Answered: May 18, 2009

No, the question is why.  Why do you think that?  It was a destructive thing that happened for a brief time in baseball history, 1953-1972, and has happened very little before or since.  Your argument, to me, is like saying “But of course, a civil war will break out in this country again--probably soon.” What’s your evidence for that?

Another good post.  So, here Bill is arguing that baseball is different from the other sports, that while it’s easy to see NFL and NBA (and by extension NHL) teams move around, with MLB it’s different.  I can certainly believe that MLB has a different halo around it, things taht you can accept in the other sports, you wouldn’t want for MLB.

Good comment:

Hey, Bill, In view of John Dewan’s scary Stat of the Week, John Lackey’s actions, and the umpire’s inaction, shouldn’t there be an automatic long suspension imposaed on a pitcher who throws behind a batter’s head? It’s obviously deliberate, and it’s intent is to hit the batter in the head. What more justification is required?
Asked by: Kevin McCarthy
Answered: May 20, 2009

The problem is caused more by the punishment being too strong than by it being too weak.  What we really need is a LESS stringent punishment.  If you throw behind a hitter’s head, count that as two balls rather than one.  If it hits the batter, send the batter to first base and start off the next hitter with a 2-0 count.  That’s all it really takes to control the situation.

When you make punishments stiffer, you make it more difficult to actually impose them.  You create a situation in which the umpires will turn a blind eye to the offense, because to recognize the offense creates an obligation to do something that nobody wants to do. 

In my (albeit short) experience, Bill’s not very receptive to criticism or debate.  I pointed out an issue with the construction of his “Total Runs” system and he wouldn’t post the comment on his site.

Now, if what I’m commenting on is incorrect, I’m totally fine with that.  Show me where I’m wrong and I’ll be smarter because of it.  But ignoring it altogether tells me that either he 1) recognizes his mistake but doesn’t want others to notice, or 2) he doesn’t like me.

Aside from that, I enjoy most of the site.  I just wish there was an “export to excel” option for some of his home-brewed statistics like Plus/Minus.

I stop subscribing after 6 months. I don’t think he was receptive to other opinions and he was generally smug.I also felt his POV and articles weren’t informative. His site’s technology is pretty outdated(polls, comments, forums, etc.) and the stats and break downs weren’t anything I couldn’t find on Fangraphs or B-R.

Another fun one:

A nominee for worst defensive outfield: The 1980 Cubs, with Dave Kingman, Jerry Martin and Mike Vail. Kingman was hurt, played only half a season, and Vail was just dreadful in the field, so Scot Thompson, Larry Biitner, Jesus Figuroa, Jim Tracy and Ken Henderson at the end of the line also got some outfield time. Even Cliff Johnson played a few games in left. It was not pretty.
Asked by: Jongro
Answered: May 23, 2009

DIng-ding-ding.  We have a winner.

Good question, bad answer:

I posted this at the end of the 5/18 Monday Morning Blog, but may as well ask here since that was a week ago . . . I’m excited for W/L shares, but I still don’t like the idea of using outs as games. Why not plate appearances/team plate appearances * team games. If you don’t do it this way, the high OBP hitters get far fewer decisions than they should, especially guys like Williams/Bonds/Ruth. In the example last week, the good hitter only picked up 12 decisions, while the bad one had 18. This doesn’t make sense to me.
Asked by: Joe Dimino
Answered: May 27, 2009

The basic idea of Win Shares is that we’re trying to represent the player by his impact on the team.  The PLAYER gets plate appearances to work with, but the TEAM gets outs.  What matters in Win Shares is the impact on the team.

Also, using plate appearances will cause different and worse problems.  A team does not have a fixed number of plate appearances.  The number of plate appearances depends on success of the hitters.  Texas had 300 or 400 more plate appearances last year than Kansas City did. If you proportion game shares on the basis of plate appearances, then you have to use a different ratio for bad teams than for good teams, and how do you do that?  How do you avoid saying that Texas had 170 offensive games last year and Kansas City 157, or whatever? 

I don’t think James realizes that Joe is advocating for the same number of “offensive games” for both teams.

And Joe is absolutely correct, and James is wrong.

But, as anything with Win Shares happens, once you fix one hole, another hole pops up.  You can patch up Win Shares as best you can, but you will never be able to fix it, because the underlying foundation can’t support it.

Basically, the exact analogy that James put out against Linear Weights (the house of cards falling) is what I would apply to Win Shares.  It’s Linear Weights that has the solid foundation.  And, I think it’s apparent when you see WAR.

I just read about his portioning out Game Shares to pitchers:
http://www.billjamesonline.net/ArticleContent.aspx?AID=1148&Code=James01018

It’s the kind of mathematical gymnastics that I am completely opposed to.  Not only that, but the framework itself won’t pass the sniff test.

Take for example, his example, of Johan Santana getting 28 Game Shares.

Presumably, if he was the best pitcher ever, he’d end up with 28 Win Shares and 0 Loss Shares.  (Based on a future article, it does seem you can’t get a win% higher than 1.000, unless maybe you are a reliever).  If that is correct, then he’s saying that a guy who pitches 232 innings like Santana did, and is the best ever, would be +14 Win Shares above average.  Which is less than 5 wins above average.

But, don’t you think that if you take out Santana (not Santana, but the greatest pitcher ever), and replace him with an average pitcher, that you’d lose more than 5 wins?

You have a pitcher, the greatest pitcher ever, that pitches 26 complete games (234 innings), and his team will go, what, 23-3?  The average pitcher would have gone 13-13.  That’s 10 wins above average.  Doesn’t that make more sense for the greatest pitcher ever?

In terms of real-life examples, he shows the 1980 Cy Young candidates.  Which is fantastic, because I did a WAR analysis of those same pitchers a little while ago!
http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/site/comments/poz_revists_1980_but_what_does_wpa_say/

I had Norris at 6.2 wins above average (which was simply his WPA).

James has Norris at 25 WS and 7 LS, which compares to the average pitcher of 16-16.  That puts Norris at 9 WS above average, or 3 wins above average.  Does that make much sense, that Norris, the best pitcher in the league, would be 3 wins above the average pitcher, giving his number of innings?

Anyway, I don’t have much more to comment on this, because it looks like James stopped his blog format just a little while later.  I don’t know why.

I was hoping that Win Shares V2 would get the paradigm shift it needed, and it doesn’t look like it’s doing that.

On the All-star game:

Over the years, “they” started turning it into an exhibition, taking more and more players and showing less and less regard for an apparent interest in winning.  It became painful to watch, long series of one-and-done at bats with absolutely nothing at stake except being able to say that “I was in the All-Star game.” I hated that, and it reached a point where the game was almost unwatchable.
...
The policy that the league that wins the All Star game has the home field advantage in the series saved the All-Star game, for me.  I think that’s exactly what should have been done.

He had me, then he lost me.

This I like:

How about a small rules change regarding broken bats: if the bat breaks, the batter is not allowed to reach base safely. If he does, it counts as a foul ball. That way, each team would have an incentive to unilaterally reduce the problem.
Asked by: Pete R
Answered: June 21, 2009

That’ll work.  That actually might be better than the similar rule that I have advocated, which is that if the bat (or any portion of the bat) flies more than five feet from home plate, the batter is automatically out.  But your rule might actually be better, because it removes the incentive to use bats that shatter, but without changing the game to the extent that my rule would.

Love the insight… is it true?

I just watched the Teixeira shift inning again. Another point: Kay asked Cone how he liked pitching with a shift on. Cone said he disliked it, because it constrained his ability to use the whole plate. Effectively, the pitcher has to work inside, and the batter *knows* that he has to work inside.
Asked by: Martin
Answered: July 7, 2009

RE: JT/#15

I’d be happy to take a look at your thoughts on Total Runs, if you want to forward them my way.  I/we know it’s not a perfect system, so I’d appreciate what you have to say.  I am pretty good about responding, too.

Thanks, BenJ.  I’ll send you an email right now.