THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Any reason why you chose “games” instead of “plate appearances”?  I can think of plenty of guys just on the Cardinals that will not have an even game to plate appearance ratio.

Looks to me like the Mets are short a couple players.  For better or for worse, Jenrry Mejia is looking like a sure bet to break camp with the team as a reliever.  Ike Davis should be in line for a September audition for a 2011 job.

Jim Edmonds should be added to the Brewers - he’s almost certainly going to make the team.

As for pitchers, Chris Smith, Tim Dillard and Zach Braddock will all start the year in AAA, but they’re much more likely to record major league innings than Scarpetta, Rivas or Rogers.

Probably also wouldn’t hurt to add Jonathan Lucroy to the list of catchers.

Tom,

When you adjust playing time, do you do it on a team by team level or league wide?  I did my Royals one and at the end it seemed too high in AB.  Too many unknowns and injury plagued hitters.

Great stuff guys, keep it up.  I’ll make an update in the afternoon.  Someone sent me this:

For Pirates: add relief pitcher DJ Carrasco and C Erik Kratz

The only NRI I put in from the outset was Heyward (Strasburg and Chapman are already 40man guys).

I do it league-wide. 

I’m not too worried about precision, just getting a good sense out there.

Last year’s data is here:

http://tangotiger.net/survey/2009/

Sent an email as well, but the Reds could use OF Laynce Nix and SP Justin Lehr added.  Both are in the running for the 5th spots of the respective positions, but even if they don’t make the 25 man there’s a decent chance they see some time in the majors at some point this year.

Ok, I added an NRI page for each team.  There’s two ways to get there:

1. After you submit your forecast, you will be prompted to see the results, or enter the NRI data.

2. If you look at the team results page, you are prompted to submit the regular forecast or the NRI forecast.

Posting links for this now...you should get plenty of Phillies forecasts.

Cool, thanks much.

Thanks to the following sites for their linkage support:

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/playing-time-survey

http://www.draysbay.com/2010/3/25/1389925/tom-tangos-community-forecasts

http://www.southsidesox.com/2010/3/24/1389332/what-will-ozzie-guillens-preferred

http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/blog_article/community-forecasts/

http://www.prosportsdaily.com/forums/showthread.php?t=469012

http://www.sportfanatics.net/Fantasy/Fantasy_Baseball_Projections.htm

http://www.battersbox.ca/article.php?story=2010032314502325

http://www.lonestarball.com/2010/3/25/1389497/help-tango-project-the-rangers

http://www.talkingchop.com/2010/3/25/1390735/help-forecast-marcels-playing-time

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php

http://www.anothercubsblog.net/

http://www.talkingchop.com/fanshots

***

If any other site has linked to my project, it hasn’t made my referrer log yet. For example, I know lookoutlanding.com had a blog post (which explains the huge Mariner response), and they didn’t make the referral list for some reason.  (SB Nation might scramble that parameter.)

I’m hopeful more sites will get on board.

I posted it to prosportsdaily (a sports forum) and our blog, Phillieslongdrive.com.

Unfortunately something happened overnight and GoDaddy ate our blog.  Hopefully we’ll have that resolved shortly and can get you enough referrals to make your list.

Went ahead and posted it on marlinmaniac.com. I know that getting Marlins fans to vote on these things is notoriously difficult, hopefully the readers there will jump in.

Yeah, Marlins is very tough.

If I compare the number of entries today, to the total number of entries I got last year for each team, these are the teams that have come out fast out of the gate:

36 23 157% Kansas City Royals
48 51 94% Chicago White Sox
85 105 81% Tampa Bay Rays
29 41 71% Atlanta Braves
24 35 69% Minnesota Twins
31 46 67% Philadelphia Phillies
11 20 55% Detroit Tigers
13 25 52% Colorado Rockies
153 297 52% Seattle Mariners
11 23 48% Texas Rangers

So, whoever it is that spread the word on the Royals: thanks!  I got 23 for last year in all, and I’m already at 36 today.  So, the Whitesox bloggers and Rays bloggers, etc, they all did a great job for this project.

On the other side it’s, “hey, where the blogger support here?”

5 102 5% Pittsburgh Pirates
5 43 12% Houston Astros
7 57 12% Cleveland Indians
4 30 13% Los Angeles Angels

Somehow I got a huge 102 ballot turnout for the Pirates last year, but only 5 this year. 

And here’s the rest of the teams that are tracking as well as can be expected so far:
11 63 17% San Francisco Giants
5 27 19% Arizona Diamondbacks
8 42 19% Oakland Athletics
22 110 20% St. Louis Cardinals
8 40 20% Washington Nationals
11 53 21% Los Angeles Dodgers
5 24 21% San Diego Padres
41 194 21% Boston Red Sox
23 108 21% New York Mets
8 37 22% Cincinnati Reds
10 45 22% Milwaukee Brewers
25 100 25% Chicago Cubs
5 18 28% Florida Marlins
23 82 28% Toronto Blue Jays
43 153 28% New York Yankees
12 41 29% Baltimore Orioles

The lowest number last year was the Marlins with 18 ballots.  So far, I have 17 teams below that level, though it’s only been a 1.5 days. 

Last year: average team was 68 ballots and this year so far is 24, so that means I’m about one-third of the way there.

Back to the G vs. PA from Nick’s initial comment #1… If the goal is to get to PA why not just ask that?  Anyways, in reading last year’s post on the subject, I see that you had last stated that the conversion for PA/G was 2.5 + G/100.  Will you be using the same conversion technique this year?

That’s what’s currently coded.  You can click “see all players” to see it.

***

As for G v PA, I don’t know that people appreciate how many PA a batter gets.  I think they can tell me much easier if a player will play more or less than 120 games than they could tell me if they’ll get more or less than 450 PA.

When are you going to remove the “spam” forecasts? On the Red Sox page, Pedroia and Ellsbury are projected to play 0 games. Also, on the Blue Jays page, nine of their top 10 highest-projected players got a vote for 0 games.

Also, there are some players who appear on the team pages but not on the “all players” page. I’ve spotted Willy Taveras for the Nats so far.

Zach, the douche-bag votes will be removed periodically.

Thanks for the update on the “all players” page.  I’ll make sure to check that out on Monday.

The coding is correct.  I have this condition on the “all pages”:

where VOTE_CT > 3

I’m surprised at the tremendous response in the last 24 hours from Halos Heaven.  When I posted a request, 6 ballots had been submitted, now they stand at 216.  Mostly the game projections look good, though there are a few silly ballots that think Scot Shields and Fernando Rodney will be moved into the rotation and get 200 innings.  Good thing the other 200+ ballots drown those out and their innings forecast is only high by 10-15.

Don’t worry.  I’m going to run my douche-bag algorithm on Monday.  Let’s see if it’s smart enough to pick up those.

Yeah, I’m shocked at the Angels turnout.  Every time I run these things, it’s always Redsox or Mariners that lead the way.  The Angels were always way below average.  Just a matter of finding the right audience at the right time.

I put up a post on RedsZone and it looks like we’re at least up in the realm of respectability.

Fantastic, thank you.  That you got such a quick response means that we’ll get even more soon.

Last year, the median was 44 votes, and the Reds had 37.  We’re already at 32. 

My push is for any team with under 20 votes.  And once I’m over 30, I’m elated.

More linkage support:

http://www.mlbdepthcharts.com/

http://www.sonsofsamhorn.net/index.php?showtopic=54892

http://www.halosheaven.com/2010/3/27/1393492/playing-time-projections-by-the

http://www.lastplayerpicked.com/

http://www.orioleshangout.com/forums/

http://www.redszone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=80977

http://www.crawfishboxes.com/2010/3/28/1394010/help-a-tiger-out

http://www.purplerow.com/

http://www.lonestarball.com/2010/3/25/1389497/help-tango-project-the-rangers

http://www.redreporter.com/2010/3/28/1394184/2010-community-playing-time

As usual, if there’s any other site, please list.

http://www.ducksnorts.com/blog/2010/03/friday-links-26-mar-10.html

I added a “is 40 man” column to the reports.  It’s accurate as of March 25, but not for Jason Heyward.

When I first rolled out the player list, I only did the 40-man, plus Heyward.  Then a few days later, I added all the NRI.  Since I already had Heyward on the 40-man list at the time, then I didn’t move him out.  Anyway…

Ok, I cleaned up the pure-douche-bag votes.  There were only 6 or 7.

That leaves me with nearly 1500 ballots.  I looked at the Angels pitchers (Shields in the rotation, etc).  Of the 16 worst ballots remaining, two of the Angels ballots are on there, and one of them is the Shields ballot.

My problem is that the most of rest of the ballot is very legitimate.  What happens is that in the other 14 “bad” ballots in the list, those 14 are not “bad” as opposed to “legitimately different”.  So, if I knock out the two Angels ballots with the bad picks, my process is going to knock out the other 14 ballots from non-Angels teams that are at least justifiable.

So, I’m going to have to think about how I can change my algorithm to pick out these Angels ballots from the other 14.

I posted the link at a couple of Cardinal sites.

http://playahardnine.wordpress.com/2010/03/26/playing-time-survey-the-book-blog/

and

http://www.vivaelbirdos.com/2010/3/26/1391745/tangos-playing-time-survey

I suspect the Shields ballot may be the result of confusion/poor reading comprehension than pure d-baggery.  Maybe the person was paying more attention to the descriptions instead of the number of innings, wanted to credit him as a “workhorse” instead of “typical reliever”.

Maybe a separate category is needed for “workhorse reliever”, averaging 75-80 innings instead of 65.  I know it would be impossible in this format to preselect starters and relievers and make people vote on the subsets.  In cases like Hughes/Chamberlain in NY, or CJ Wilson/Neftali Feliz in Texas, anything from “workhorse” to “reliever” is justifiable.

Rally, your explanation makes sense.  I can send you the ballot of that voter if you like (I don’t collect voter names), and you will see how that person has 35 justifiable votes and 3 not.

I’m looking at the ballot to vote now, and I just can’t buy it though, especially since that person would have voted for 15 other pitchers before getting to Shields.

And of course, the other guy who voted 0 for Weaver has no excuses.

I linked. Should get you maybe two views.

http://thelaunchingpad.wordpress.com/2010/03/28/tangos-community-forecasts/

After I got rid of the few d-bag ballots, let me show you what the current worst ballot that is in the system.  The first number is what the fan selected and the second number is what the average of the 90 Rays fans is.

Games or IP
155 117 Burrell, Pat
155 152 Longoria, Evan
140 146 Pena, Carlos
140 150 Upton, B.J.
140 150 Crawford, Carl

115 78 Aybar, Willy
115 30 Perez, Fernando
115 60 Brignac, Reid
115 100 Navarro, Dioner
115 24 Ruggiano, Justin
115 14 Johnson, Elliot
115 20 Jaso, John
115 148 Bartlett, Jason

70 33 Jennings, Desmond
70 107 Rodriguez, Sean
70 96 Joyce, Matt
70 148 Zobrist, Ben
70 114 Shoppach, Kelly
70 19 Johnson, Dan
70 91 Kapler, Gabe
70 11 Lobaton, Jose

205 182 Price, David
205 204 Shields, James
205 200 Garza, Matt
180 186 Niemann, Jeff
155 84 Sonnanstine, Andy

110 71 Balfour, Grant
110 75 Wheeler, Dan

75 167 Davis, Wade
75 66 Soriano, Rafael
75 61 Howell, J.P.
75 12 Ekstrom, Mike
75 21 Thayer, Dale
75 68 Cormier, Lance
75 9 Torres, Alexander

40 21 Hellickson, Jeremy
40 46 Choate, Randy
40 11 McGee, Jake

As you can see, while there’s not much consensus, it’s at least justifiable.  He believes in Burrell, he thinks Zobrist was a flash in the pan.  He sees Brignac as making his move up.  He’s got too much love for too many callup-type players.

This is the ballot that’s on the line, the one where a ballot that comes in worse than this is going to get deleted.

This ballot itself is not necessarily safe.  It doesn’t bother me so much because it is one of 90 ballots.  Without this ballot, Ruggiano gets 23 games.  With this ballot, he gets 24.  That’s the extent of the error level.

There are ballots that are almost as bad as this one, but are from teams with lower representation and so it will carry more weight relatively speaking.

***

So, the Shields/Weaver ballots never come out looking bad relative to the above.  Basically, the fan went out of his way to make 35 decent picks and 3 bad picks.  So, it’s going to be hard for me to pick out that Shields was a bad selection given the ballot in hand.  For example, here’s the Weaver ballot (0 innings pitched forecasted)

155 147 Hunter, Torii
155 145 Abreu, Bobby
155 148 Aybar, Erick
155 153 Morales, Kendry
140 136 Kendrick, Howard
140 116 Mathis, Jeff
140 139 Rivera, Juan
140 119 Izturis, Maicer

115 129 Matsui, Hideki
115 127 Wood, Brandon
115 117 Napoli, Mike

70 40 Bourjos, Peter
70 44 Evans, Terry
20 15 Wilson, Bobby
20 19 Budde, Ryan
20 19 Pettit, Chris
20 25 Sandoval, Freddy

0 6 Trumbo, Mark
0 47 Willits, Reggie

205 176 Santana, Ervin
205 175 Kazmir, Scott
205 187 Saunders, Joe
180 183 Pineiro, Joel

110 84 Rodney, Fernando
110 80 Shields, Scot

75 76 Jepsen, Kevin
75 24 Bell, Trevor
75 41 O’Sullivan, Sean
75 73 Bulger, Jason
75 82 Palmer, Matt
75 64 Fuentes, Brian

40 46 Stokes, Brian
10 8 Ortega, Anthony
10 14 Thompson, Rich
10 12 Rodriguez, Fernando
10 7 Mosebach, Robert
10 8 Rodriguez, Rafael

0 201 Weaver, Jered

It looks to me like he simply “slipped” on Weaver.  (A non-selection would have registered as null.  He did select 0.)

Globally speaking, in the context of the whole ballot, I should just delete the Weaver entry and keep the rest.  But, I don’t want to get into that kind of detail.  And the Weaver forecast here, because I have 235 Angel ballots means that it costs Weaver less than 1 IP in forecast overall.  Just not worth worrying about here.

More support:

http://www.mccoveychronicles.com/2010/3/29/1395109/2010-community-playing-time

http://www.backshegoes.com/bsg/viewtopic.php?t=10175

forum.diamondbacksbullpen.org/viewtopic.php?t=5786

http://www.redszone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=80977

dcbb.blogspot.com/2010/03/survey-says.html

http://www.friarforecast.com/

http://www.blessyouboys.com/2010/3/29/1394905/community-playing-time-surveys

http://www.detroittigertales.com/2010/03/community-playing-time-forecasts.html

Kris Benson is missing from the Arizona roster.

Tom, Lookout Landing’s link might not of registered in your link tracking system because it was originally a “FanShot” that I posted as a regular site user that was then “bumped” to the front page by Jeff Sullivan, the moderator.  This practice getting more and more common on SBNation websites, so it’s something to keep in mind if you can’t find links.  Here’s the link to the LL post:
http://www.lookoutlanding.com/2010/3/25/1389800/tom-tango-needs-your-help-2010-fan

Decatur, are SBN FanShots set up as no-follow links?  Why wouldn’t that link show up in Tango’s referral logs?

No, they aren’t nofollow. That attribute is for search bots only though; the referrer header is purely client side. The logs must be faulty in some way, as I had plenty of lookoutlanding.com visitors in my logs.