THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Off topic comment, Tom and MGL.

http://nybaseballdigest.com/?p=18999

It appears you are inventing useless stats again for the purposes of making the big bucks:

“So next time you wonder why we are continuously bombarded with new stats just go in your wallet and pull out good old George Washington. Everyone needs a profit center and the statistical community is no different, although highfalutin types will try to convince you otherwise by steering you towards the more altruistic “evolving the game” mantra. Fortunately, my street smarts tells me that most behavior in this country is rooted in the pursuit of making the almighty dollar.”

Such dreck is hardly worth responding to, mainly because it’s written with the sole intent of driving saber-minded people into a frenzy and maybe bringing the original site some page hits. It’s amazing the kind of factually inaccurate things people will write, especially about those they have never spoken with.

Tom, how much does our saber think-tank pay you to be the leader? That’s what I want to know!

Tom, is it really even necessary to link to the troll?  It appears that is his agenda by putting up this dreck.

I commented on his site with this:

“I cannot speak for Tango, Andy Dolphin, FanGraphs,and other saberists and web sites, although I know a lot more about them, their work, compensation, motivations, etc., than do you.

Let me estimate for you the sum total of the remuneration and “power” I have personally garnered/received from 20 years and tens of thousands of hours of baseball analysis, other than my salary during my two years of service to the Cardinals:

ZERO

Seriously, how does that fit into your paradigm? Why would you make claims and assertions that not only are completely wrong, but you clearly know nothing whatsoever about?”

And I am also not too keen on linking to trash sites and/or articles that don’t deserve the hits…

Am I correct that you gave all of your Book profits to Retrosheet, MGL?

lol that someone actually used the phrase “highfalutin types”.

Same site, different blogger, better response:

http://nybaseballdigest.com/?p=19538

I responded to Silva’s piece at THT in the link in my name.

I responded to Silva at THT here:

http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/blog_article/mike-silva-teaches-us-a-neat-lesson/

Excellent.

"Am I correct that you gave all of your Book profits to Retrosheet, MGL?”

Yes.

The point that many of us are trying to make is that of all the criticisms of sabermetrics and sabermetricians, almost nothing could be further from the truth. If there ever were a field that is filled with great researchers and analysts who do their work mostly as a labor of love and are NOT driven by profit (and make very little if any), it is sabermetrics!  This guy (Silva) is a complete tool.

Let me get this straight…
I should NOT have sent those checks to Tango?

While Silva may be just trying to drive traffic for click coinage, the sentiment he espoused is very prevalent on discussion boards/blogs.

I think many want to argue but don’t want to work hard so the default accusation is stats are just a bully pulpit or cheaply bought nobility.

The reality is they want the respect accorded a student of the game (presumably because they have been willing to zing opinions with out giving others the benefit of their reasoning for many a year) but they don’t don’t want to actually exert the effort to test their suppositions that masquerade as “truth”.  So they rail against sabermetrics because it’s easier to try and undercut the methodology that disproves their supposition than it is to admit they’re wrong and need to do their homework in order to be truly considered a student of the game.

Or theyre just bitter trolls…

I’m trying to figure out what exactly I’m being charged with.  Is it the fact that some folks (including me) have made money off of doing baseball stats?  If only I made as much money as he seems to think!  But, he seems to think that making money is OK.

Is it because I’ve created a few new advanced stats?  You don’t have to read about them if you think that they are a waste of time and there are plenty of sites that will give you the good ole classics if you just want those.  But, no he states his admiration for advanced stats and says that he goes to Fangraphs quite often.

Ah, I get it.  I’m being accused of making new stats for money.  Sophistry.  More than that, I’m apparently doing shoddy work, but playing the “expert” card to buffalo people when they say “but… that’s just the same old fecal matter spray painted a different color.”

If that’s what’s going on, then that’s a fair criticism.  If that’s the charge, then the prosecution should present the evidence.

BrianK/13, please direct all checks to me instead. 

@#16:

I already spent it all on women, booze, and pitchers with gaudy save totals.

I never said making money was a bad thing, but I do believe you guys perpetrate an ideology that tells people “if you don’t believe in our theories than you are wrong”

Last I looked many great minds in math and science had been discredited over the course of history. Did they not have fact and numbers on their side? WAR and UZR to me reek of your own personal preference of looking at baseball.

Remember, the more you “sell people” on your concepts, the more popular it gets, the more likely baseball mainstreams you. Simple power = money concept.

I never said you were millionaires off this stuff, I do believe deep down you guys wish you ran the game. You are getting exploited by the “MLB machine” like everyone else.

Sabemetrics should be incorporated into decision making, but there is too much “if” in some of your metrics to make it anything more than secondary measures.

I don’t know why that belief is a crime? We have enough purveyors of advanced metrics on the net. It’s high time someone like me “cools your heels” and challenges you with skepticism. I believe a silent majority feel the same way I do- including many in baseball.

I never said you were bad for baseball, but I do think we are moving way too far to the other spectrum. Its as bad as baseball not incorporating any of your theories.

In the end your arrogance towards the skeptics will be your undoing.

Mike: wow.  You just keep farting and farting. 

The ONLY issue I have with your original thread, and all your future posts is that you keep presenting summary opinions with no evidence.  Every time you write, it’s the same thing.

For example:
“I do believe deep down you guys wish you ran the game”

Where does this come from ?  Your “belief” and “you guys”.  You know nothing at all about me or MGL. 

Every single thing you say is a summary opinion.  You ask no questions, you make no challenges.  Nothing.

Dude, c’mon.  Stop farting already.  ASK a question.  Investigate.  Be a reporter.

The man is a troll.  Leave him alone.

@Mike, #18:

“I do believe you guys perpetrate an ideology that tells people “if you don’t believe in our theories than you are wrong””

This is a stereotype and myth, or at the least highly overstated. Come on...this is the place that puts together the “Fan’s Scouting Report”.

Granted, if you show up in a comment thread on a sabremetric blog claiming that RBI, Wins, amorphous intangibles, and faded memories make Player X more valuable than Player Y, then you are going to rightfully take some bullets.

But can you provide an example from a publication or well-known sabremetric blog where a reasoned argument is dismissed out of hand because it comes from a “non-believer” (whatever that is)? Anonymous comment thread pissing matches do not count.

I’m giving him a chance to present evidence, and ask questions.  His next post will tell us all we need to know about him: he can be a straight-arrow or a mooch.

"I do believe you guys perpetrate an ideology that tells people “if you don’t believe in our theories than you are wrong””

It’s called making a reasoned argument.

It’s what people do when they are trying to rationally convince mature, intellectually curious adults they’ve engaged in a discussion.

"Last I looked many great minds in math and science had been discredited over the course of history. Did they not have fact and numbers on their side? WAR and UZR to me reek of your own personal preference of looking at baseball.”

This is exactly what I discussed in THT article: creating analogies where they don’t exist. Just go ahead and show us where the problem with the stats are. It would be like me saying, “that evolution just doesn’t seem right. Fishy if you ask me. Can I prove it? No, but it reeks of personal preference.” And this also deals with what I talked about: one side of the argument refuses to bring any evidence to the table when they make their claims. It’s sad, really.

I am not here to troll, but I felt compelled to at least take part in the discourse.

I even said in my piece that Tango et al have become part of the fabric of the game. I worry that we are going too far in our obsession with numbers. It’s almost cult like. That isn’t all Tango’s fault, he just built the empire, but I fear a game that is run by sabermetrics is going to be as bad as one without it at all.

So Tom, since you are challenging me to reporting, tell me what your end result goal is with all this? Why do people in the sabermetric community feel compelled to harass Jon Heyman for his HOF ballot? What makes you think WAR is “reason” when you put arbitrary value on defensive positions based on your assumptions. Why do you think long time baseball people don’t buy into a lot of advanced metrics?

This was never a debate about the nuts and bolts of the stat. I am not questioning his math, I am questioning where wRC+ fits into everything? It’s going to tell me Albert Pujols is a great player? Why is it every month we are creating another stat, and why these stats prop up bad ballplayers like Mike Cameron? How can you honestly use x and y axis to determine if a player should catch a ball in UZR? Its just way too sketchy for my taste. I like UZR to get a feel of a player I never saw play defense, but you can’t tell me it will give us information that couldn’t be gathered more accurately with a scouting report. The best analysis comes from the people who watch these guys everyday - not numbers. That’s just my opinion.

I am not advocating the elimination of your work, I just don’t think its as important as you guys think. I worry that we are losing common sense in the game and creating the same “egghead” mentality that is ruining big corporations. It’s important to have balance on both sides of the ledger.

If your work is not meant to gain mainstream acceptance and money than darn you are better than 99.99% of the population.

Why do you say Mike Cameron is a bad ballplayer?

I’m dizzy from all of the circular logic…

Penicillin kills bacteria, no doubt. I’m just questioning why doctors use it so much when we have immune systems and prayer. Geez, is it going to prevent an infection? Why do scientists spend so much time trying to understand pathogenic mechanisms anyway? Even country doctors know that infections can kill you.

Mike,

Instead of just throwing your hands in the air about UZR, read this interview in which MGL thoroughly explains UZR:

http://www.baseballdigestdaily.com/bullpen/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=79&Itemid=39

And yes, the entire saber community is secretly being paid by Mike Cameron, Matt Murton, and Franklin Gutierrez to make you all believe that they are good at baseball. Mwahahah.

Mike, wRC+ says nothing that wOBA already doesn’t. Why does it exist? Because some people said they thought it was easier to interpret something on a “100 is average” scale than as a “.340 is average” scale.

That’s all. There’s no grand conspiracy here. It’s pretty much the same linear weights we’ve had since, well, Palmer. It’s just dressed up a bit differently because some people like it better that way.

And this isn’t some great secret. Nobody tried to hide this. There is no great new insight into baseball you’re supposed to derive from this. It’s just an attempt to take what we already know about baseball and put it into a form some people find more intuitive.

So Tom, since you are challenging me to reporting, tell me what your end result goal is with all this? 

My goal?  I actually have none.  To me, this is a hobby.  I enjoy the discussions of baseball, I enjoy thinking about baseball.  Anything else that comes out of it is a byproduct.

Why do people in the sabermetric community feel compelled to harass Jon Heyman for his HOF ballot?

I can’t speak for anyone.  And, I don’t think that those people who harass him are representing any community.  Other than that, you’ll have to bring it up with those people.

What makes you think WAR is “reason” when you put arbitrary value on defensive positions based on your assumptions.

I don’t understand the sentence regarding “reason”.  Are you asking if WAR is reasonable? 

But, you are correct that the values on the fielding positions are based on some assumptions.  They are reasonable assumptions, and they are grounded in logic and data.  While I have shown quite convincingly the fielding positional adjustments between CF and LF/RF are correct, I did not show as convincingly between SS and 2B/3B.  That one is debatable (as in debate, not dismiss).  And, the OF/IF adjustments are even more debatable.  The 1B/DH are also debatable, as is the Catcher relative to everyone else.

The key word here is that I will debate anyone on it, as long as we can agree to rely on logic, rationality, and/or data.  If it comes down to my gut instincts against your gut instincts, the debate cannot even happen, and so, it makes the conversation pointless.

Why do you think long time baseball people don’t buy into a lot of advanced metrics?

I’m not sure that that’s an accurate statement.  To the extent that it’s true, then I presume that they don’t buy into it because they haven’t been sold on it well-enough, or have not been open to be sold in it well-enough.

This is true of anything that is on the cutting-edge.  The mainstream will always, by definition, be a step or two behind.  But, as is your position, behind a step or two behind let’s you also not fall into a pit.  So, it’s a question of how much you want to learn and accept, or how much you have to study the issues yourself.  In either case, you can’t dismiss those that are ahead of you (walking up, or about to fall into a pit as the case may be) without actually providing evidence.

What you can also ask is how is it that long time baseball people HAVE bought into alot of the advanced metrics.  They are out there.  Some of them are even GMs.

***

I’ll also add that all data is sample data.  And that means, when you start to analyze that data, it comes with a certain level of uncertainty.  I would never say, for example, that someone with a 4.5 WAR is 100% better than someone with a 4.0 WAR.  There is room for scouting, especially with less data you have.

Theo Epstein’s position is the one I espouse: you need glasses with two lenses, one for performance analysis and one for scouting.

I wonder what Mr. Silva thinks of the knife industry.  Paring knives, bread knives, pocket knives, swiss-army knives, machetes… what the hell is up with all these knives? Why can’t we just use a pointy stick for everything like we used to!

I’m going to limit myself only to answering Mike’s questions, and not commenting on his opinions.  To that end:

I am not questioning his math, I am questioning where wRC+ fits into everything?

If you followed my thread where I introduced wRC+, it is STRICTLY about replacing OPS+.  OPS+ is a bad construction, and wRC+ is a better construction.

It’s going to tell me Albert Pujols is a great player?

It will, but there are alot of other stats that will also tell you that.  What it will tell you is that guys with lots of steals and walks are a bit better than OPS+ says they are.  That’s the extent of the value of wRC+ over and above OPS+.

Why is it every month we are creating another stat,

“We”?  I do what I do because I like to do what I do.  I can’t speak for anyone else.

and why these stats prop up bad ballplayers like Mike Cameron?

Bad?  GMs like him enough to give him a shot at MLB since 1995, and every year after that.  He’s played 1829 games in MLB, and counting.  If anything, Mike Cameron is an example of how performance analysis and scouting analysis converge.

How can you honestly use x and y axis to determine if a player should catch a ball in UZR?

“x and y axis”?  If you are asking how can we use…
- the location of the batted ball,
- the trajectory of the batted ball,
- the speed of the batted ball,
- whether the batter was LH or RH,
- whether the pitcher has a tendency to give up FB or not,
- what park the player is in,
- the base/out situation
...I’ll ask: how can we NOT use that information?

Now, if you are saying that alot of that information is subjective, requiring a human observer to plot data, then yes, I agree. 

What’s the alternative though?  That a human observer NOT plot the data, and instead, gives an overall feel as to how many of the 600 balls hit to CF should have been caught by Beltran et al?

I would be ok with that if the human observers recorded that data, one ball hit at a time.  They don’t do that.  They do record all the other things.  If anything, the human observers don’t record enough of their evidence.

This is the point: stop with the summary opinion without evidence.

Its just way too sketchy for my taste.

Not a question, but to each his own.  This is, however, not a reason to dismiss something.  It IS a reason to ignore it.  That’s not the same thing.

I like UZR to get a feel of a player I never saw play defense, but you can’t tell me it will give us information that couldn’t be gathered more accurately with a scouting report.

That depends how far those scouting reports go.  Since GMs actually choose to look at performance data AS WELL AS scouting reports, then clearly they must find value in performance data.  Why is this an either/or?  You are suggesting that performance analysis is nothing more than a subset of scouting reports. 

The best analysis comes from the people who watch these guys everyday - not numbers. That’s just my opinion.

An opinion not founded in evidence.  This is an example of something to not only ignore, but dismiss.

You may be right, but you have not shown any evidence for your position, and therefore, I have to dismiss your statement as being irrelevant.

"I fear a game that is run by sabermetrics is going to be as bad as one without it at all.”

What does this even mean?  If you care nothing for sabermetrics, and just want to watch the game, what is the difference whether the game is run by managers with sabrmetric backgrounds or the good ol boy network?  The product on the field is the same either way.  A guy will throw a baseball, another will try to hit it, and 7 others will chase after it in the field. The only difference might be that some players will become megamillionaires in one system, and a different group will in the other.  The fact remains though, that virtually all players who last long enough to qualify for arbitration will become millionaires.

“The best analysis comes from the people who watch these guys everyday - not numbers. That’s just my opinion.”

Here are the opinions of people who watch Mike Cameron:
http://www.tangotiger.net/scout/index6.php?prim_fld_cd=8 They seem to think he’s still one of the better defensive centerfielders.

“I just don’t think its as important as you guys think. I worry that we are losing common sense in the game and creating the same “egghead” mentality that is ruining big corporations.”

How important do we think this work is?  You statement is meaningless without the comparison.  I don’t place much importance on it.  It’s a hobby.  I agree that common sense is important.  You have not demonstrated any of it however.

“If your work is not meant to gain mainstream acceptance and money than darn you are better than 99.99% of the population.”

It’s a hobby.  There is little expectation to earn money from this work.  Do you expect to make money off whatever you do in your free time, after you’re finished with your regular job?  And no, not expecting to get rich from this hobby does not make us better than anybody else.

In my case, I’ve made a little money from data sales and ads on my site.  Enough to pay the website costs.  Not nearly as much as I’d have made if I had gotten a part time job at minimum wage and spend the same # of hours doing that.  Again, that does not make me a better person.  Just that when I get home from work, I don’t want to go back out to 7-11 and sell slurpees.  I want to sit down, watch baseball, work on baseball stats, and every now and then write an article.

Your batting average in trying to understand the motivations of others is worse than Dave Kingman’s.

Dave Kingman occasionally hit one out of the park....

It’s looking like MS had better be a good glove.  My eyes say it’s not looking promising but there isn’t enough of a sample size for UZR to verify the scouting report…

I should add that anyone in sabermetrics who wants to make money should immediately stop anything they are doing that involves rating/valuing players for MVP/CY consideration, historical analysis, or commenting on recent MLB deals.

Stick to fantasy baseball.  That’s where you might make some money.  Come with an opinion on whether Felix Hernandez or Dan Haren is a better target for a $30 bid.  Or whether Jeff Mathis or Jason Varitek is a better bet to keep his average over .230.  Be prepared for people to bombard you for ideas on how they can pry Mark Teixiera from some other owner in a league that you can’t possibly care a bit about.  These are your customers, take care of them and you have a chance.

If you’ve got the skills to get into pitch f/x and offer new insights, you might be able to hook on with a real team, but the available spots are few and competition is fierce.  But probably the easiest way to get a slice of the money is to fight for the fantasy dollars.

Silva,

As someone who can understand some of your concerns, I think you’re simply embarrassing yourself with questioning what we can do with an x and y axis.

I mean, despite what I’ve said myself (making no friends in the process), making a conclusion that bloggers “do it for the money” is preposterous.  From my discussions with most people online (and here), many are do these things for fun and out of their own curiosity.  To be able to make a little money is a bonus.

I think the only thing I can agree with is that every metric should be brought on with significant skepticism.  If the argument is that it’s not currently enough, I think that’s a fine opinion, and one I do sometimes agree with.  But I don’t think it’s completely non-existent either.  And I’m really not sure what we’re “moving away from” in the baseball world.  I’m not sure there’s a single person here that doesn’t value scouting as a complement to numbers.

There were a few posts that were tagged for moderation and are now open.

Here is a Tweet by Mike Silva to Will Carroll after the Will Carroll/Keith Law NL Cy Young vote situation:

http://twitter.com/NYBD/statuses/5899811924

“@injuryexpert good pub or bad pub, people are paying attention to you because you matter. 400 neg emails are better than none! keep it up!”

I think this provides a good idea of what Mike Silva is all about - publicity and page hitzzz at any cost.

That’s the troll motto, isn’t it?

Btw, Will Carroll’s thought process was not good in that ballot.  I admire Will for actually telling us how he thought about it, but that’s the extent of my admiration.

***

I by the way quite enjoy all of the comments on Silva’s site.  He may be a troll, but somehow he manages to attract intelligent thoughtful commenters.

Contrast that to Megdal, who wrote an intelligent thoughtful post on the same subject, and has barely any comments.

Basically, controversy sells.

I by the way quite enjoy all of the comments on Silva’s site.  He may be a troll, but somehow he manages to attract intelligent thoughtful commenters.

I think the fact that both this site and THT provided probably 95% of his readership on that article might have something to do with it.

One thing worth mentioning here—by attaching his name to his website and acting as if his “radio show” is anything more than an Internet podcast (it’s not anything more) most people are probably fooled into thinking Mike Silva is a member of the mainstream media.  Let me reiterate, he’s not.  He’s a blogger, like most others, who pulled a post from Repoz at BBTF about statistics being bad for the game (or something) and whom no one takes seriously.  By attaching his name to his blog, he’s somehow attained legitimacy in the eyes of those who don’t know better.  This isn’t his first saber-trolling-for-page-hitzzz exercise, and let’s hope it’s his last.  (as in, let’s ignore).

If I may be so bold, I would say that the big difference between the way I operate and the way Mike Silva operates, is this:

I ask questions, I present evidence, I offer my opinion.... and the readers then choose whether to agree or disagree on the merits, and maybe even are inspired to do their own thing.  The readers learn something, and maybe even enhance the topic themselves.

Mike presents no evidence, offers his opinions… and the readers are left in exactly the same position they were before reading Mike’s thoughts.  That is, the reader learns nothing, other than what Mike’s opinion is.  There are no merits to debate, since none are introduced.  And the reader is only inspired to take a step forward, after having taken a step back, just to get back to where they were.

I think what the discussion on Mike’s blog has done is shown that the emperor has no clothes.  It’s exposed him for exactly what he is.  And, weirdly, he seems to be totally fine with this.

That said, Mike, to his credit, allows the conversation to go on his blog.  He doesn’t moderate them.  This is unlike, say, JC, who picks and chooses what he posts, and what he responds to.  Even though I have far more in common with JC, and even though I think I could reason better with JC, Mike is actually more interesting to talk to.  So far, anyway.  Mike is dangerously close to falling into the mooch pit, though I presume for most of you, he’s already there.

I should say I am not unique among bloggers.  The same can be said for Cameron, Rally, MGL, Mike Fast, and a host of others.  The conversation builds on something, and moves forward, and those on the cutting edge and those who are willing to listen and learn, move along with all of us.

With Mike and his ilk, they are standing still, and their posse grows, but they always remain in the same spot.  No different from the politico gasbags (Hannity, Beck, Olbermann, et al).

Anyway, Mike said he will email me, so let’s see if we can get him walking… somewhere.

Mike Silva sent me a set of ten fantastic questions.  I will post my answers to each one in due course.

At the very least, it highlights the confusion or skepticism that the mainstream baseball follower has, and it shows a baseball follower who has attempted, to some extent, to even dip his toes in the sabermetric water.

I applaud Mike for his comprehensive set of questions, so that we can see what we are up against in trying to explain things.

Stay tuned for upcoming threads.