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Monday, November 20, 2006
Pitcher Scouting Report?
Someone asked me if I would run a pitcher scouting report. A little background first…
The genesis of the fielding scouting report was this discussion (and the initial list was made in post 44):
http://www.tangotiger.net/archives/stud0249.shtml#1028
From the scouting report, you can learn things about interpositional comps, comparing a player’s components to his overall UZR, and a host of other things. Seeing that a fielder is typically in the same spot every time, and there’s a limited distribution of possible BIP, it’s very repetitive. Whether you see a fielder for 100 BIP or 400 BIP won’t matter, because the variation will be very limited. Furthermore, because fielding metrics are not easy to come by and less reliable than hitting and pitching, it’s another feather in the cap for the observational reports. All-in-all, a great candidate for the “Wisdom of the Crowds”.
At the time, I also considered hitting and pitching. For hitting, I dismissed it rather quickly, because the year-to-year performance metrics are very strong, and therefore, there’s little that we can learn from batters after we have a few hundred PAs from them (injuries notwithstanding).
For pitching, I’m on the fence. On the one side, we already have PBP scouting reports of where a pitcher throws, and how often he throws. And if you do the dirty work, you can see how well he does with each type of pitch, and how he sequences his pitches. From that standpoint, the observer has little to offer.
However, the difference between a great pitcher and an average one is probably in consistency. While a great pitcher may hit his target say 75% of the time, a poor one will hit it 50% of the time. A great pitcher having an offday and a poor pitcher having a great day will be hard to distinguish, unless you actually see them at least 20% of the time. Variability is much greater than you’ll see in fielding. No matter how little one would see Roger Cedeno, he’d never be mistaken for a good fielder. One might mistake Randy Johnson for being a horrible pitcher, if you don’t catch him at the right times.
So, what would a Fans’ Pitcher Report add? If we track this on a PBP basis, he can tell you how well he’s pitching, but that takes alot of effort. If we track this on a game basis, he can tell you his “fastball was really working”. If we track this on a seasonal basis, he can tell you his fastball is a plus.
Let me open it up to you guys now.
Q1 - What benefit would a Fans’ Pitcher Report have?
Q2 - To the extent that it would be beneficial, how should a fan report his observation (PBP, game-by-game, seasonal), and what questions/categories/components should he evaluate?
I’m not sure how this will work out. I can usually find some types of scouting reports in preseason. The sporting news has a scouting report guide, and I found Deric McCamey’s minor league baseball analyst very helpful this past year.
I always make it a point to check out scouting reports on pitchers, or make sure I’ve seen what he throws, before any fantasy acquisition. I can’t quantify how much it adds over stats, but I have finished at the top of every fantasy league I’ve been in for ERA and WHIP.
For batters, I don’t even bother with scouting reports. If I’ve got several years of batting data, I could care less what somebody thinks of his swing. The only place I find scouting info useful for pro hitters is projecting whether a young player should develop power or not.
Here’s what I’d suggest:
1. Fastball velocity - either pick an average or choose from a series of ranges. Some of these might overlap, say one range is 87-91 and another 90-94.
2. What other types of pitches he throws
3. For each pitch, a measure, 1-5 or 1-10, of how dominant or tough to hit it is.
4. For each pitch, a similar measure of how the pitcher is able to control it. This would be context dependent - when a pitcher is ahead of the count his intent is to throw the split finger out of the strike zone.