THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

His conclusion also seems to ignore the pitching end of the equation.  Any team conscious of the value of a walk will probably instruct their pitchers to avoid them.

Drew I don’t think that a change in pitching approach would cancel out a change in batting approach (otherwise pretty much every batter within a certain power category would have the same walk rate), but you are right in that it would tend to mitigate it.

From 1969 to 1999, the walk rate fluctuated between 3.1 and 3.7 per 9 IP. 

The way I’ve always seen it is that the pitchers will “accept” a certain amount of walks per game, and will pitch accordingly, and batters will keep the pitcher honest by accepting that kind of level of walk as well.

Something similar applies for CS for the great (non-one dimensional) baserunners.  Tim Raines has a season high of 16.  Joe Morgan is 17.  Ozzie is 15.  Lofton is either 17 or 20 (if you count his season of 27 SB 20 CS… obviously something happened to him there).  Davey Lopes is 18.  Rickey, after he stopped being young and stupid was 19.  So, pretty much the maximum CS to accept is 15-20, and a great basestealer will still to that level.

Even on the other side, catcher CS, you get into the same kind of situation.  IRod for example, the greatest catcher for gunning out runners ever, has as many CS as his peers, per game.  Runners will test IRod to the point that his CS will still match the league average… while the SB will be half the league average.

So, all to say that I simply would not look at the walk in isolation like this to try to tell us something.

I think you might be misinterpreting his conclusions a bit.  Looks like he was examining BB and SB rates to show that Moneyball didn’t “ruin” the game by dramatically altering the way it’s played.  He seems to be arguing the idea that other influences have larger effects and that Moneyball/sabermetrics have had a large effect but only by changing the way that players are valued & paid.

His conclusion: Regardless of current statistical thinking, the variety of types of players that populate the major leagues has not and will not change significantly. The only difference is that the advanced numbers have been able to more accurately assess the value of each player. While that’s useful, it’s not going to affect the view from grandstand. Juiced balls, a changing strike zone, artificial turf, steroids and the height of the mound all changed the aesthetics of the game far more dramatically than subtle shifts in statistical analysis ever will. While Moneyball may have changed the landscape of the game inside front offices and in the media, traditionalists can breathe easy that the sabermetric revolution has not dramatically changed the on-field product, and likely never will.

I’m not saying that batters didn’t try to take walks or that pitchers didn’t adjust, etc.  The question was whether the game was changed from an aesthetic point of view.  Since walk rates have stayed the same, the answer is no.  There indeed may have been adjusting, counter-adjusting, etc going on behind the scenes - but it’s had no net effect on what the viewer sees.

Sky, my principal point was about the strike zone, not how pitchers might adjust.

If Moneyball actually did create a “generation” of players who walked more such that BB/PA should have risen significantly, but coincidentally the strike zone got larger at the same time, such that it canceled out the effect of the new breed of players, even though technically the “game didn’t change,” to reach the conclusion that “despite the emphasis on walks preached by Moneyball, the aesthetics of the game have not changed,” would be more than a little disingenuous.

I was trying to be somewhat muted in my criticism of the article, but frankly, Sky, your response is without merit.  You clearly looked at walk rate and used it as a proxy for “batter skill” while completely ignoring the fact that the strike zone changes from time to time.  You blew it, plain and simple, in my opinion.

I did not use walk rate as a proxy for batter skill.  I used walk rate to measure whether there were more walks in baseball.  There aren’t.  Since Moneyball, we haven’t seen a big increase in walks.  That’s a fact.

If you want to put forth some other hypothesis on why we haven’t seen an major increase since 2003, that’s your right.  However, your theory ("The likely reason that it started going up in 2005...was that Alderson was no longer involved in MLB management") supports rather than refutes my premise.  To cancel out a new generation of patient players, you’d have to say the strike zone dramatically increased from 2003 till now.  But as you mention, if anything it probably has shrunken since that time.

Wow, I can see there is no discussion with you.  You are going to refuse to admit that your “study” (I realize that it was not a rigorous study) was flawed. I have little use for people who act like that.  I am, at least for now, putting you in the same category as JC Bradbury.

I am neither supporting nor refuting your conclusions. I am merely saying that you CLEARLY looked at walk rates in order to support or refute the notion that Moneyball created a pool of batters in MLB who are more skilled at taking the walk.  That is quite obvious from the article.

And my criticism is that looking at walk rates without adjusting for things, like the changing strike zone, that dramatically affect walk rates, is not going to tell you much of anything about whether the pool of batters in MLB has changed wrt their ability to take the walk.

Your logic in defending your article is preposterous.  But, again, I can see that, like JC, there is little chance of rationally discussing your own work with you.

Don’t bother directing any response to me.  Obviously if you want to direct it at someone else, you are free to do so.  For me, I am done with this discussion.  It is going nowhere.

MGL, I’m sorry to have offended you so much.  I respect your opinions (even gave you a shout-out in the article), but I’m puzzled by your strong personal response.

Would it have been nice to have gone back and examine pitch/fx to fine tune the study? Sure.  But in the absence of compelling evidence that the K-zone has changed dramatically since 2003, I think the analysis stands up fine.

Your main criticism seems to be that my analysis is too simplistic.  If you or others want to dive in to adjust for possible confounders and find other conclusions, I would welcome it.  It’s not an end-all be-all study.

I’m not sure what caused all the anger.  I try to keep my comments professional, although obviously sometimes there are disagreements.  I guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree on this one.

Yeah, it’s not fair to compare Sky to JC.  That’s hitting below the belt I think.

However, “To cancel out a new generation of patient players”.... like I said, you can have the most patient hitters in the world, and the league will STILL get 3.1 to 3.7 walks per 9 IP.

Tango, I agree with your point absolutely.  Part of the reason that the aesthetics of the game remains constant is because players adjust to one another.  I wanted to work that into the article, but didn’t - probably should have.  Tango’s point reinforces the conclusion - the on-field look of the game remains basically constant since Moneyball.

Sky, you didn’t offend me.  And I am not angry.  That is just the way I sometimes express myself, right or wrong. I was disappointed with the defensive nature of your responses and again, their logic illudes me.  My emotion is because I have a lot of respect for your intelligence and your work and I encourage you to try and remove “yourself” from your work or it will be a life-long impediment for you. 

I don’t think the comparison to JC was a below the belt hit.  The comparison was intended to be very specific with regard to this article and Sky’s responses to my comments.

Sky, you looked at league walk rates to see if Moneyball produced a pool of players who were more skilled at taking a walk in order to test the notion that the aesthetics of the game were going to be changed by Moneyball.  There is no ambiguity about your intention.

Unfortunately, looking at league walk rates, whether it turned out that they went up, down, stayed the same, or fluctuated randomly, was NOT going to answer your question because any change in walk rates CAUSED by a changing pool of batters was likely to be obscured by factors, such as the changing strike zone, that are more influential.  In fact, your curve was a perfect reflection of the changing strike zone. Whether it was any reflection of a change in approach by batters or pitchers, I have no idea, and neither do you.

Yes, it turned out the aesthetics of the game did not change, but unfortunately for you thesis, that had necessarily NOTHING whatsoever to do with the pool of players that may or may not have been created as a result of Moneyball.  It might have and it might not have, but we cannot tell from the overall change in walk rates over time.

So while your conclusion that the “aesthetics of the game have not changed” is true, the implication that therefore Moneyball did not produce a pool of players who favor the walk, is certainly not necessarily true or not.

Basically your conclusion is correct but it had NOTHING whatsoever to do with your inquiry.

You are failing to see what I am talking about because your ego (or something like that) is getting in the way.  Terrible article I am afraid, plain and simple.  Get over it and move on.  I have produced many bombs as well, even though I am not at all in the business of writing.  The actual writing of the article is excellent and I am sure that SI is pleased. No one but another analyst is going to notice the errors you made.

BTW, this is one reason why I HATE when a good analyst goes mainstream.  See Keith Law.

Thanks for your clarification MGL.

I generally love reading all the stuff on this blog, but honestly, the arrogance and self-righteousness of MGL makes it hard to enjoy from time to time. And this has nothing to do with who’s right in this argument. And I also know that MGL is intellectually brilliant…

Ah, the spices of life!

...the arrogance and self-righteousness of MGL makes it hard to enjoy from time to time.

Think about it from my perspective.

I have to live with my own arrogance and self-righteousness!  You can at least choose to ignore it.

Must be awfully tough.

I still think it is worse for those to whom your arrogance and self-righteousness is directed to, especially since it is really unnecessary.

Often times you are incredibly offensive and then you seriosly wonder why people tend to be defensive as a result.

I could be wrong, but haven’t there been studies that showed that ‘learning’ to walk/be more selective at the plate was not really something most players learn to do, but rather that its an ‘innate’ ability.  At the same time, I think there have been studies that show players can being to increase their walk rate in the later part of their careers.  I was always under the impression that in Moneyball (been a while since I read it) that Beane was targeting players who exhibited BBing as a skill rather than trying to teach it to everyone.  While I may be off base, it seems that one of the implications of the article is that players would learn to walk (and teams would teach them/encourage them to) while other studies have shown that this isn’t really a possibility.

When I saw the graph, two things came to mind for me as to why there might not be a change in walk rates.

One, is the professional level the place where hitters are going to be able to adapt and learn how to take walks? The top level players aren’t going to NEED to learn how to draw walks (and their coaches will discourage them) at the Little League, high school, Pony League, and possibly college levels because a walk is going to be of far less value since than the more frequent hits (that are also more likely to be for extra bases). After a lifetime of being told one way to play, how easy will it be for almost every player in the minor leagues to take a different approach?

Secondly, if walks are now deemed important, wouldn’t teams have as much interest in preventing the as they do drawing them? Could it be that the reason there has been no change in walk rates is because teams are just as focused on prevention (which would be easier to teach since control is something all coaches want from their pitchers, regardless of level)?

A problem with this study might be, that the walk rates it used encompass the whole league.

Maybe that’s too big a view.  What if the game did change, but without the overall player set having changed?  Say for example, all the Moneyball players were collected by the Red Sox and A’s, leaving all the lousy ones remaining for the Royals… Overall walk rates remain the same, but the game definitely changed, among the teams that matter.

I don’t mean to interject myself into a conversation that’s obviously way above my head, but I don’t see that MGL, Sky, and Tango are really disagreeing all that much.

Sky is factually correct that walk rates haven’t changed much since Money Ball, MGL is right that the strike-zone changes could have pushed walk rates one way while Money Ball pushed the other, to no net change, and Tango probably encapsulates the whole thing when he says that league wide walk is probably going to stay in about the same range just due to the fact that pitchers at some point will compensate for whatever changes that happen.

I really don’t get all the vitriol that’s flying around(almost entirely on MGL’s part, frankly). These view-points are not mutually-exclusive, I don’t think.

"Sky is factually correct that walk rates haven’t changed much since Money Ball, MGL is right that the strike-zone changes could have pushed walk rates one way while Money Ball pushed the other, to no net change, and Tango probably encapsulates the whole thing when he says that league wide walk is probably going to stay in about the same range just due to the fact that pitchers at some point will compensate for whatever changes that happen.”

You summarized the entire issue very well.  Had Sky mentioned all of those things in his article, then I would have had no beef with it.  Sky didn’t write an article about walk rates over the last few years.  He wrote an article about whether Moneyball has cased an influx of players who are more skilled at taking the walk.  He thought that looking at league-wide walk rates would answer that question.  He was wrong, for the reasons that I and others have articulated.  In other words, that the answer to the question he posed cannot be garnered using the method he chose. Why is that so difficult for some people to understand?

I don’t think there was much vitriol in this thread, but as always, I could be wrong.  Then again, see the other thread about “having an opinion about factual matters, and what is a factual matter and what is not.” One person’s vitriol is another person’s expression of opinion.  Sky was gracious in his response, and I think I was gracious in return. When the person to whom the vitriol was purportedly directed isn’t offended, or at least he doesn’t express any offense, I see no reason why anyone else should butt in…

Walks and strikeouts are both functions of strike percentage and contact rate.

Check the 2nd set of graphs, and see the large spike in strike% from 2001 to 2002. That is the change in the strike zone.
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=9227

Meanwhile, contact rate continues to drop, which drives up pitches per plate appearance, and increases both the walk and strikeout rates.

MGL, in the OP you mentioned an increase in strikeout rate over the years canceling out the decrease in walk rate.  That reminded me of a recent THT article, which shows that strikeouts have steadily risen throughout the years.

http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/strikeout-rates-through-the-years/

Now since that rise is so steady, I’m inclined to think it has more to do with better health care leading to better velocity, as well as increased bullpen usage, rather than the strike zone changing.  Although I’m sure that has something to do with it as well. 

I also agree with your points about the article.  I love Sky’s work everywhere I’ve read it.  Dan Novick had a good line a couple of weeks ago about Sky - something like “every article he does seems like it would take a month to research”.  However, this article really didn’t seem to have much of a point to it (and if it did, it wasn’t supported well). 

That being said, I do think it’s below the belt to compare Sky to JC, at least given the recent events around here.

MGL: “When the person to whom the vitriol was purportedly directed isn’t offended, or at least he doesn’t express any offense...”

Sky: “… but I’m puzzled by your strong personal response...”

I guess everyone can see here that Sky was offended by the very strong words of MGL.

MGL, you want others to deal with your criticism without any emotion but you fail to do so yourself…

Guido’s post back in #4 was what I was hoping the reader would take away from the article.  A lot of readers of this blog probably already knew that, so the article didn’t have a lot to offer them, but when I write for SI, I’m writing for a different audience.

Others seem to have gotten a different impression about what the theme of the article was, and if so then that’s my bad for being too heavy-handed in my writing.

Guess you can’t win ‘em all....

"When the person to whom the vitriol was purportedly directed isn’t offended, or at least he doesn’t express any offense, I see no reason why anyone else should butt in…”

You seem to be questioning why I’d try to speak on Sky’s behalf, and that’s certainly valid - it’s not like he isn’t around(like, three inches above this post), but I don’t quite understand how you can make this point when you’ve interpreted his point in your own fashion throughout this thread. Maybe I didn’t need to butt in on whether your comments were inflammatory(I definitely would’ve been pissed - at least on a visceral level - if what you said had been directed at me), but seeing as you’re butting in on not only what Sky said, but how he *meant* it, I’m not getting that you’re in a position to make that point.

But maybe I’m mis-reading the whole situation, and I am assuredly aware that I am, in fact, butting in on this conversation(see: the very first sentence in my original post).

Not to change the subject from such a genial discussion, but I disagree with this:

“...if there were indeed an increase in walk rates due to an emphasis among teams and players on drawing the walk, there is no particular reason why K’s would increase or decrease along with a change in walk rates. “

There is a particular reason. To draw more walks, you have to take more pitches, only some of which are taken as balls. Extra taken pitches lead to extra taken strikes which lead to extra strikeouts.

This is only true Joe, if your players are the same in both pools.

What if the focus is on guys who walk alot but have little power (and therefore, might have few Ks).  So, you could see a shift in higher walks and lower Ks (and lower HR) because of the change in personnel.

Basically, K’s are correlated to HR and to BB.  If there is a move toward guys with lots of BB and few HR, it’s not clear what direction the K rates would go.

Given the fact that the publishing process takes the better part of a year (or more) and the assumption that Billy Beane wouldn’t want to give away the advantage he held as a result of recognizing the market inefficiency of high-OBP skilled players, isn’t it reasonable to expect that by the time “Moneyball” came out that particular inefficiency had been largely corrected and no longer offered much of an advantage? 

The graph shows a trend of BB/PA increasing starting around 1988 and peaking in 2000 before a precipitous drop in 2001.  That trend suggests to me that teams were increasingly valuing OBP well before “Moneyball” was released.  When Sandy Alderson- formerly Beane’s boss in the A’s organization, but now working for MLB- instructed umpires to enforce the rule book strike zone (effectively expanding the strike zone) in 2001 the walk rate dropped and diminished the marginal value of walk-drawing skills compared to other offensive skills. 

My interpretation is that the strike zone change may have been inspired by the increasing walk rate.  Ironically it could be the strike zone change (in part) that ultimately led to the publication of “Moneyball” by reducing the advantage offered by targeting undervalued OBP players and allowing Billy Beane, via Michael Lewis, to reveal the secret to his success.  The timing seems to fit anyway. 

That also suggests that valuing OBP might have lead to a change in the aesthetic of the game if not for the rule change since, as MGL states, after Alderson left his post the the strike zone eventually reverted back to its earlier state.  Now the walk rate has crept back up again.  Will it continue to rise or will there be another correction either natural or artificial?