THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Sports journalism is about telling stories and creating myths. They are selling entertainment not analysis. I don’t see that changing any time soon.

To me, though I find it annoying, I try to get used to reading sportwriter made up narratives. They’ll keep churning them out so long as writers stay lazy and humanity loves drama.

What bothers me, and where I try to pick my battles, is when they proclaim facts that simply aren’t true. Like last night when Darling or Martinez claimed that every pitcher with a low walk ratio automatically had to have a high home run ratio.

From last year’s playoffs, another Crasnick article:

“The lingering images from the past two days tell you all you need to know about where this series is headed.”

“The Indians, in contrast, are one harmonious, efficient unit at the moment.”

That was written right after Cleveland went up 3-1.

It was Darling who said, “Show me a pitcher who has a low walk rate and I’ll show you a pitcher who lets up a lot of HR.”

I said in the other thread, that I would be mildly surprised it that were true.

What is important is not the statement itself, but Darling’s reasoning behind it.

The reason it is important is that his explanation “makes sense.” However, I can posit the exact opposite and give a reason that also makes sense.  What I try and teach my children, among many things of course, is that just because someone says something that “appears to make sense” doesn’t make it so.  As well, just because someone professes themselves (or someone else professes them) to be an expert on something DEFINITELY does not make it so (either that they ARE an expert or what they say is true).

He said, “If you are around the plate all the time (low walks), you are bound to give up a lot of HR’s.”

He could just as easily said, “If you are a high walk pitcher, you obviously have little command of your pitches and you will leave a lot of pitches in the middle in the plate (therefore HIGH walk pitchers let up a lot of HR).”

The truth is...well, I don’t know what it is, but I think neither does Darling.

As I said, Keith Hernandez makes Darling look good on the Mets’ broadcasts. Despite being a Yale graduate, Darling says a lot of typically (for sports commentators) dumb things.

OK, I looked at the numbers.  For all pitchers in 2007 who had a BB rate less than league average, their HR rate, weighted by the number of batters they faced, was .97.

For pitchers with a higher than average BB rate, their HR rate was 1.03.

In 06, it was .99 and 1.02.

In 05, it was the reverse, 1.03 and .96.

In 04, 1.02 and .97.

03, 1.00 and 1.00.

I see no discernible difference.  There is probably some selective sampling going on (e.g., high BB pitchers with high HR rates are not going to be pitching in the majors for long), so this does not necessarily tell us about the “true talent HR rates” of pitchers with high or low BB rates.

But it appears to be true that Darling was making things up (he had around a 50% chance of being right I guess, or less if you include a tie), which sports broadcasters, especially baseball ones, do all the time, AND he was completely wrong to boot.  What a surprise.

And I agree.  If you are going to talk about crap, at least don’t tell us facts which aren’t true.  It is un-American.  Wait, actually that IS American!

Yeah, using intuition to deem things that “just make sense” as being true is a big temptation with big consequences.

It’s a temptation because we like having answers to questions. Plus broadcasters like pretending they know them.

This was one of the biggest lessons I learned in college, it’s always nice to be reminded.

Something that politicians do ALL the time.  Wonder why our country is not doing as well as it could, on several fronts?