THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Another great example of this is how the Yankees have used Brian Bruney, another pitcher who fits the mold MGL describes. Based on what I have read and seen, Joe Girardi is utilizing him as his number three guy out of the bullpen behind Rivera and Joba. Here are the ZIPS projected ERAs for all of the available candidates:

Britton - 3.69
Farnsworth - 4.02
Scott Patterson - 4.15
Hawkins - 4.31
Ed. Ramirez - 4.78
Albaladejo - 5.04
Traber - 5.08 (with 1/2 of his innings as a SP).
Bruney - 5.31

So, the Yankees chose the demonstrably weakest pitcher, a guy who is way below replacement level. Meanwhile, the best pitcher gets sent to Scranton.

Yup, I don’t know about Bruney’s “stuff” because I can’t remember watching him pitch, but from his walk rates (and WP rates) in both the minors and majors, he clearly has no clue about the strike zone, like Purcey.  And because of that, he is NOT an MLB caliber pitcher.  And this (the Yankees) is from a supposedly smart team (although I never believed that).

We don’t talk about it too much, but teams’ treatment of their bullpen personnel is pathetic, for mainly three reasons:  One, is the “scouting report on the pitcher, which often does NOT properly value the many components of a pitcher’s true talent performance (such as with Bruney and Purcey), two, teams are a slave to how relief pitcher’s do in small sample of performances, and three, they are “results oriented” when it comes to those small samples of performance, for example, Purcey’s 4 1/3 innings will “go down” as “not bad” since he didn’t allow more than 1 run, and had the “guts,” “guile,” and “intestinal fortitude,” (three things that are highly prized in a pitcher) to pitch out of several jams.

Here are my projections (in NERC) for those same pitchers, also as relief pitchers, whose NERC should be around 3.80 or so for an average ML reliever, less if they are a short reliever.

Britton: 3.73
Patterson: 3.36
Hawkins: 3.91
Ramirez: 3.61
Albaladejo: 3.98
Traber: 4.36
Bruney: 4.43

Bruney is definitely the worst of the lot, by far.

Of course, the “correct” perfect basic strategy is to take your best, by projections, 6 or 7 relievers, and keep them in your bullpen for the season, more or less.  And of course, you keep updating their projections, based on their in-season performance.

NO TEAMS (did I say ZERO teams?) would stand for this.  Any reliever who is an “unknown” quantity om the eyes of the team would be sent back down after 5-10 innings of bad performance, or less.  And any reliever in the minors who either has a good “scouting report” or a few good innings in the minors will be sent up to take his place.

“Back of the bullpen” management by teams is one of the least discussed and most mismanaged aspects of the typical team because NO TEAM (did I say NO TEAM?) can stomach the notion that ANY relief pitcher can look and perform great or terrible in 5, 10, or 20 (or whatever) innings of work, regardless of their true talent.

Leverage Index for Yankee pitchers:
http://www.fangraphs.com/winss.aspx?team=Yankees&season=2008

1.97 Rivera
1.72 Joba
...
...
...
...
0.83 Bruney
0.75 Ohlendorff
0.55 Farnsworth
0.54 Hawkins
0.54 Traber
0.39 Alba
0.24 Kennedy

The team bullpen is 0.77 meaning there has simply not been alot of leverage around to spread to the pitchers.

Regardless, it’s an enormous gap between the #2 and #3 guy.

If you believe the YES announcers, Bruney’s completely changed his mental approach since last season.  He’s in much better shape and willing to listen to coaching.  For what it’s worth…

That, and 50 cents, as my mother used to say…

one of the reasons the Jays have renwed faith in Purcey is because he was diagnosed with ADD over the off-season and is now taking medication for it which seems to have improved his control.

Couple of points:

- Purcey started because AJ Burnett relieved in a 14-inning game a few days earlier. It’s doubtful Purcey would’ve been in the majors so quickly otherwise

- He had some nice numbers at Scottsdale in the Arizona Fall League (although in only six starts)—22ip, 13h, 0hr, 9bb, 25k. That’s 3.7 walks/9, a bit high, but the k/bb is nice

- The subjective recap (http://www.thestar.com/Sports/Baseball/article/416191):

The only positive note to the evening was Purcey displaying some of his good stuff. The 6-foot-5, 240-pounder, who was the Jays’ first-round pick in 2004, walked off the field to a standing ovation.

“I told David (Purcey) to leave here with a good feeling about the way he pitched,” Jays manager John Gibbons said

Two more points:

- Purcey began the season last year 3-0 with a 0.89 ERA and won an organizational pitcher of the month award. But he ended the year 0-5 with a 7.56 ERA before being disabled on June 15 for the rest of the year with a cyst in his throwing arm. Skewed his numbers a bit I think

- But to your point, JP Ricciardi is in love with pitchers with “bad control but good stuff”. A classic Ricciardi pitcher was Doug Creek, who was picked up by the Jays in 2003 after posting a 5.82 ERA, with 10 home runs allowed and 35 walks in 56 innings, but 56 strikeouts. They just sent a Rule 5 pick (Randy Wells) back to the Cubs, and his numbers last year fit the Ricciardi mold—4.52 ERA, 11 HR and 41 BB in 96 innings ... but 101 strikeouts. Ricciardi will take a chance on any pitcher with at least a strikeout per inning, regardless of how poorly they pitch overall

#7/

Anyone who makes his debut at age 26 is ipso facto not a prospect, let alone a blue-chip one. One look at his stats only makes that even clearer. That just further demonstrates the utter ignorance of the establishment media (not you for quoting it, Dackle).

As long as this is a little bit of a “fun” and “mock the media and baseball insiders” thread, Joe Morgan on ESPN Sunday night baseball is absolutely unlistenable.  He was going on and on about how good a pitcher Pelfrey was, and then of course, he goes on to allow 4 runs in 5 innings.  Not that that means anything of course, but Pelfrey is NOT a good pitcher.  He is a bad pitcher.  I don’t even know if he is a top prospect anymore, but he is simply a BAD major league pitcher.  I understand that it is not an announcers job to tell us how bad certain players are, relative to their peers of course (all major or AAA players are great, of course, relative to a normal human being), but they don’t have to say things that are completely untrue, which they do, over and over again.

Later on, Morgan goes on about how Hanley Ramirez is arguably the best overall player in baseball.  Not only is a great hitter (which he is), but he is a great defender, according to Morgan.  Now, that statement would be excusable if he were actually an average defender, or even for someone like Jeter (who lots of people perceive as being a good defender), but Hanley is the WORST SS in the NL, possible in baseball, and doesn’t EVERYONE know that?

Of course, he went on and on about what catalysts and spark plugs so-and-so (Reyes, Rollins) are for their teams, and how valuable that is, which, again, I can excuse, because everyone says that. 

Then he tells us that Utley used to be a bad defender but worked at his defense until he became a good one, but a lot of people still think he is a bad defender.  Is that even close to being true?  I don’t have my data in front of me, but I vaguely recall Utley always having a very good UZR even though he wasn’t necessarily considered a good defender.

Finally, Morgan stumbled over his own words (gee, I wonder why, considering what he was saying) in telling us that the skills that make for a good hitter are the same skills that make for a good defender, other than range, which is why good hitters should be good defenders.  Tell that to Manny, Howard, Ortiz, Thome, Frank Thomas, so on and so forth.

What a bunch of crap that continually comes out of that guy’s mouth.  It is like someone just talks and talks and talks and never even thinks about what they are saying.  I would think that if Morgan actually read a transcript of some of the things he says during a broadcast, even he would have to think, “Did I really say that?  That makes no sense at all.”

quote: one of the reasons the Jays have renwed faith in Purcey is because he was diagnosed with ADD over the off-season and is now taking medication for it which seems to have improved his control.

That cracked me up. What, he couldn’t pay attention to the strike zone before?

All this sabermetrically inclined chatting he changed my whole outlook on the world. Humans seem to want success to be about character, but it seems to me that it is all about talent. Maybe character counts on the margins.

http://www.tangotiger.net/scouting/scoutResults2007_PHI.html

The fans have perceived Utley as being an avg 2B in 2004, and improving every year to a point that he’s considered a very good 2B.

Whether that is an accurate reflection or simply their realization that Utley is a great hitter and therefore follows a halo effect, I don’t know.

UZR loves Utley, having him as a plus in every year, with huge pluses in 05 and 07.  I have Utley as tied for #8 infielder in true talent for fielding.

MGL: there’s no excuse for not having your UZR.  I carry it in my pocket USB drive wherever I go!

MGL: there’s no excuse for not having your UZR.  I carry it in my pocket USB drive wherever I go!

That’s funny!  I am visiting some family in San Diego and was just using my internet laptop.  Most of my stuff is on my other computer, but actually I DO have lots of UZR stuff on the internet computer, plus I guess I could have looked at the UZR database on your web site.  No matter, it sounds like it was another typical ridiculous statement by Morgan, no matter how he might have been looking at it.

Matt L/

The way I’ve come to see the world based on not just Sabermetrics but also other new knowledge is somewhat different.

The thing is probably not that character isn’t important but that character is in itself a talent and as such usually as difficult or unlikely to change (at least for adults) as say speed.

And since (as I belive) these kinds of mental factors stay relativly constant they are already factored into a players measurable stats so there is normally no reason to account for them separatly.

If a player is constantly praised for “good makeup”, being “gritty” and “doing the little things” but still is only a replacement level player according to the stats those assement are not neccesarily wrong. He might just as well be a player whose physical “tools” is only good for say 10-20 runs below replacement level who by having superior (for baseball) mental qualities can push that up to a level just good enough to make it.

However, to get back to the matter at hand. The one instance you would expect there to be some substantial improvement in “mental makeup” is where you find som concrete and fixable (either with medication, theraphy or some kind of outside event) and do something about it.

I also have no problem whatsoever with the thought that ADD would hinder a pitchers development since the job requires long stretches of concentrating on the task at hand, both in games and during training.

#14, you are right.  The answer to the character thing is that if it doesn’t show up in the stats, then it has no value.  If character influences performance (and I am sure that it does), then we don’t have to worry about it.  We only have to worry about the performance, which we already do of course.

The only caveat to that is that if, in fact, so-called character, leadership, etc., affects other players such that they perform better or worse than they are “supposed to” or than they would without this player, OR that the same character skills changes the path of someone’s performance so that it is different than a sabermetric model would assume.

I guess both of things are plausible, but since I personally (and I don’t know anyone who can) can’t measure or account for that one way or another, I choose to ignore it.  And, I don’t think any rational person is going to say that those things trump actual physical skills and ability (except perhaps guys like Hawk Harrelson and Joe Morgan, but they are NOT rational in the same vein that I am talking about being rational), or that they are significant factors that people like GM’s and scouts can discern.

So, like things like clutch hitting, if a team, GM, manager, scout, etc., wants to use them as “tie-breakers”, hey, there is nothing wrong with that. But to use character, grit, leadership, etc., to trump 10 or 20 points of an OPS projection, well, I would say that is irrational and just plain wrong.

One of the reasons that these things are brought up in discussions of talent and value is that the guys that bring them up have NO IDEA how to evaluate a player’s value in marginal wins. No idea.  So they are forced to bring up all kinds of silly things.