THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

I wonder if anyone could take us (the not so great sabr minds here) slowly through how to figure out what kind of contract would be fair to extend Jose Bautista through his final arb year and maybe two or three free agent years?

Thanks for the help anyone who would do this.

I don’t have an answer, but I think the process will be interesting from a game theory perspective.

I don’t have the time to write up the reasoning process, but it would seem that the less Bautista wants to sign a multi-year contract then the more Toronto should be willing to offer him (with the converse being true as well).  The short version is that Bautista may have some information about his 2010 success that Toronto may be missing or discounting and if Bautista thinks he can come anywhere near his 2010 performance in 2011 then he should sign a one year deal.  Otherwise he should explore a multi-year deal.

Trying to explain Bautista’s 2010 and projecting his 2011 will be of interest to a lot of people this off-season

Tango and I have done numerous studies regarding “breakout” years. The bottom line is that a regular ole’ Marcel-type projection is always the best projection tool.  How much of breakout is a change in true talent and how much is luck is irrelevant.  A projection system incorporates both, and it is likely that the “breakout” season was indeed both.  If anyone wants to take the over or under (they probably want the over, I would think) on a regular old projection for Bautista next year, and they are willing to give some odds (maybe 3-2), I’ll gladly take that bet.

“Trying to explain Bautista’s 2010 and projecting his 2011 will be of interest to a lot of people this off-season.”

I don’t think it is very interesting at all, especially the last part.  I do think it is interesting that a player can change his true talent so much (which he likely did) in one season, but projecting next year, to me, is not any more interesting than projecting any other player, with a consistent history or not.  Sure, the uncertainty level on players with an inconsistent history is larger than those with a consistent history, but the mean projection versus actual is going to be around the same…

@3/MGL

“The bottom line is that a regular ole’ Marcel-type projection is always the best projection tool.  How much of breakout is a change in true talent and how much is luck is irrelevant.”

Those are two bold statements so I assume you have done a lot of research to make them.

“If anyone wants to take the over or under (they probably want the over, I would think) on a regular old projection for Bautista next year, and they are willing to give some odds (maybe 3-2), I’ll gladly take that bet. “

No idea where I’ll have Bautista next season, but if you remain in a betting mood in the spring I would be happy to bet the O/U against Marcel on different stat totals (e.g. Bautista HRs or Mauer 2Bs or Buchholz SOs) at 3-2.  I think the 3-2 odds are pretty appealing against EVs.

“I don’t think it is very interesting at all, especially the last part.”

Marcel is automated (excepting playing time?) . . . I guess pressing the button doesn’t get anymore or less interesting year-to-year.  I have some guesswork to do so it will be a bit more interesting for me.  I suspect it will be even more interesting for the Blue Jays front office and that was who I was specifically thinking about.

On a separate note, I read somewhere you were a Cornell grad and lived in the Finger Lakes region which makes me ask: do you get to many Big Red football games?

"On a separate note, I read somewhere you were a Cornell grad and lived in the Finger Lakes region which makes me ask: do you get to many Big Red football games?”

Nah, I was not much of a college sports fan while at Cornell, although I did follow them in the NCAA’s last year.

You know I was talking about YOU giving ME 3-2 odds, right?  IOW, I bet $100 to your $150.

"Nah, I was not much of a college sports fan while at Cornell, although I did follow them in the NCAA’s last year.”

Just curious if I might have run into you at a game there.  I don’t have a big rooting interest but some neighbors are alumni, it’s close and a nice place to see a game.

“You know I was talking about YOU giving ME 3-2 odds, right?  IOW, I bet $100 to your $150.”

Yes.  Those odds still look good to me (because the O/U would be paying on a player’s median performance and your projection system, I believe, would be aiming for the mean).

Well, I don’t know that the median and mean projection would be all that different.  And even if it were, I doubt that it would make up for the 3-2 odds you would be laying me.

Why would I offer 3-2 odds on a fair projection?

As usual, everyone spouts an opinion (not talking about you) until they are forced to put their money where their mouth is.

For example, a week and a half ago, Colorado was winning game after game because “they are a great September team of course.” But if you asked anyone who thought they were a “great September team” how much they would like to bet that the Rockies would outperform they projected w/l record (based on a good projection for the team and their opponents) for the remainder of the month, and they had to lay, say, a modest 6-5 odds or something like that, how many do you think would put their money where their mouth is?  None, I would say.  Having to actually back up your opinion with something valuable is the great equalizer and B.S. detector…

Looking at it quick ‘n dirty I think Marcel will have Bautista at something close to 29 HR/600 PA for 2011.  It will have him projected at much fewer PA though because Bautista wasn’t an everyday player before next year…

So ... Over or Under 29 HR?

Well, if it is 29 per 600 PA, I would have to go under since his projected PA is going to be less than 600 I would assume, simply due to chance of injury plus the chance that he stinks for whatever reason and his playing time is cut.

On the other hand, as JEH says, Marcel is pretty much a mean and not a median, although I don’t know off the top of my head if there is much of a difference for that high of a number.  There probably isn’t. If the mean were 3, then I would probably bet under, as the median is lot lower.

"As usual, everyone spouts an opinion (not talking about you) until they are forced to put their money where their mouth is.”

Then you should find me refreshing - I try to stick to making claims on topics where I have clue, I like to bet and am happy to combine the two.

I’ll do a quick and dirty of median vs mean this weekend by comparing Marcel’s last 9 years of projections (mean) against actual results (proxy for the median) grouped by the projected value to see what percentage exceed the median at each projected value.  I’ll also break it down by specific stat and rate (as playing time projections will have some affect) as well and then leap to some tentative conclusions about how good 3-2 odds are for different projected numbers.

Wicked! Thanks JEH and MGL. I am so glad this got betting started. ^^ This money is going to go to a charity- right?!?

I don’t know that we have a bet.  Why are you happy that we are discussing a bet?

I like to see outcomes to quality arguments. Once a bet starts getting talked about, it seems to happen. I prefer if they require silly actions or providing blog space for an article rather than money though.

MGL-

I looked at Marcel’s projected value for HR, 2B, 3B, SB, R, RBI for batter’s projected to have over 400 at-bats in a season and found, to my surprise, that Marcel over-projected more often than under-projected for every value except 1 between 2 and 82.  For higher values the results were split more evenly.

I’ll look into this some more soon with more interesting subsets (including top players) and for pitchers, but the early indicators are that I may fair poorly giving 3-2 odds and betting overs.

Brent-

I don’t think we have a quality argument so much as an excuse to bet.  I could be wrong though, my social skills are lacking and I’ve been involved in arguments before that I only was made aware of after the fact.

So, we have more evidence now that Bautista is for real--a month of Bondsian hitting. I have never seen a Bautista at-bat, but I saw this clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koSaDcTNNVk

Looks like a classic HR pull swing to me. Very impressive, it’s seems like there were no ‘cheap’ homers in the lot.