THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Fascinating so far.  Greinke 11/11, and Mauer/Pujols splitting all the votes.

You left Sabathia/Teixiera off the ballot, so what else are we to do?

Halladay’s not getting nearly enough love. Everybody’s been fighting so hard for Greinke that we’ve just totally overlooked how ridiculous it is that Halladay put up the numbers he did with half his starts against the Yankees Rays and Sox—even adjusting for opponents’ wOBA doesn’t tell the whole story, since those hitters also face AL east pitchers. Just on a raw level, better BB%, GB%, and xfip, with Greinke’s FIP getting credit for an outlier HR/FB rate.

@ Shawn

For MOP awards, I don’t think stats like xFIP and BABIP should be heavily considered.  Maybe Greinke’s HR/FB rate is an outlier, but he still didn’t give up the home runs.  It would be like a guy hitting .400/.500/.700 and holding his way lucky BABIP against him.

I gave Zobrist my vote for outstanding hitter.  My consideration wasn’t pure hitting I’ll admit, but his versatility in the field (7 games or more at 5 different positions) made me put him ahead of Mauer or Pujols.

Not sure if it was a total fluke year, whereas i’m confident in the others, but still I figure i’d give him credit.

I had a tough time with Pujols vs. Mauer.  I voted for Pujols because I don’t have any solid indication that Mauer’s defense is above average.  It’s a shame we don’t have better defensive stats for catchers beyond the basic SB/CS stuff.

I guess a lot of that information is buried in the PITCHf/x data, but mining it out of there isn’t simple.  I had a “blocking pitches” study outlined in my mind for a while, but I just haven’t found the time to undertake it yet.

Shawn, I’d vote Halladay #2, but I don’t see any way he approaches Greinke for #1.  I’m skeptical that the level of competition would be so different that it would make up the gap.

Also Shawn, I would note, look at the defense that Greinke had behind him. And it’s not like he got to face the Royals lineup, like the rest of the pitchers in the AL.

Mike—I disagree on the level of comp. Halladay had 15 starts against the Yankees, Red Sox, and Rays. Greinke had three—one against Boston, two against Tampa Bay, and none against the Yankees.

RA/9
Greinke 2.51
Halladay 3.09

tRA/9
Greinke 2.35
Halladay 3.29

Weighted RS/G by opposing offense
Greinke 4.70
Halladay 4.96

So, optimistically, level of opponents makes up maybe half of the difference for Halladay, if you assign all the credit for balls in play to the pitcher.  As you assign some credit to the defense, it makes up less of the difference for Halladay.

That should be RA and tRA in the previous post.  No need to divide by nine an extra time.

After 89 votes, Greinke got 91% of the votes.  I’m declaring that one a landslide victory.  Poll has been updated to reflect the same set of pitchers, without Greinke.  It’s a vote for the #2 pitcher.

I’m with Shawn as far at least wondering about Halladay. I asked over at the Harball Times Cy Young article why not go with Halladay since he had a lower xFip, more IP and tougher competition? I don’t think I really got an answer.

I think James in number 4 might be onto something. I just don’t know. But it all makes me wonder how much of what happens on BIP we should credit to the pitcher and how much to the fielders? What are some of the current estimates?

Mike—remember, AL east hitters also have to face AL east pitchers, so using raw opponents’ R/G or woba or eqa or ops loses that aspect of it.

Even on just a raw level, if you regress both of their HR/FB rates to anything resembling a “true talent” level, Halladay is going to come out ahead. I’m partial to xfip, but I don’t mind giving guys credit for not allowing home runs or having a low babip, as long as we do it in a way that recognizes how much noise there is in those numbers.

Cyril, the difference of 3.2 innings pitched is negligible.  If Halladay/Greinke are 3 runs/9 better than replacement, that’s an advantage of one whole run for Halladay. 

Why use xFIP when we can go much farther toward quantifying the type of batted balls he allowed and use tRA?

Shawn, I’ve done one step of the number crunching.  I believe you’re going to find that your next proposed step is going to have a much smaller effect.  But feel free to run the numbers and prove me wrong. 

Okay, fine, I’ll run one more set of numbers. 

Runs allowed per game by division
AL East 4.80
AL Central 4.87
AL West 4.56

Does the AL East really have better pitchers?

tRA isn’t without issues. It’s all dependent on batted ball data, which is obviously unstable (just look tRA on statcorner versus fangraphs)

What about Carpenter, who leads in WPA?

Shawn #13

As a Royals fan, I’m partial to Greinke getting the CY.

I guess I find it funning trying to take his stats for 2009 and regress them to the mean to determine the MOP.  It happened, so let’s give him credit this year.  Now if you are trying to predict who will be MOP for 2010 based on their 2009, by all means regres to the mean.

I voted for Pujols, although Mauer probably has a case.  UZR seems to be underrating Pujols a little this year based on previous years stats and having watched nearly all of the Cardinals games this year.  It’s likely that he’s actually performed 5 runs better than his UZR says on defense. 

Like Mike said, I’m not really sure that Mauer is a good enough defensive catcher to tie with ‘Bert.  Also, as another tiebreaker, Pujols has been much more clutch this year than Mauer. 

On the “Most outstanding non-Grienke pitcher” poll, I’m not sure why Wainright isn’t on there.  233 innings and a 2.64 ERA.  His FIP and tRA are much higher; however, his BABIP .309, so he hasn’t been getting lucky on balls in play.  He’s just pitched much better in tight situations than you would expect from his ERA.  Not sure that should be counted against him. 

Also, the leaders in starter WPA this year are interesting as well:

Chris Carpenter 5.79
Zack Greinke 5.64
Justin Verlander4.71
Tim Lincecum 4.57
Jair Jurrjens 4.32
Adam Wainwright 4.26
Felix Hernandez 3.88
Matt Cain 3.50
Javier Vazquez 3.43
Edwin Jackson 3.38
Scott Feldman 3.19

By that metric, Carpenters’ been the most outstanding pitcher in baseball this year.

I went for Lincecum and Zobrist.

I love Felix, but Lincecum was just ridiculous this season. His ability to rack up insane amounts of strikeouts while limiting walks and homeruns is amazing. I don’t think anyone expected Lincecum to improve on his Cy Young season last year, but he did easily.

Zobrist is like hyper-McLemore of old. He gives you plus defense and a great bat from either side of the plate which is ultimate versatility. It gives you the ability to spell many of your players regularly. You can also pinch-hit for other players and move him around defensively to give you the best offensive and defensive matchups. Who knows if he will be an MVP type player again, but the year Zobrist had offensively with his defensive versatility would add 6-7 wins to any MLB team.

The reason I left out Wainright is that there’s nothing he has that Lincecum doesn’t have.

Lincecum has 8 less innings, with 6 less runs, 7 less HR, 41 less non-HR hits, 1 more NIBB, 49 more K.  Lincecum’s WAR, ERA, FIP, WPA, and WPA/LI are all better than Wainright.

If I were to ask people to rank pitchers 1,2,3 or 1-5 or something, I’d include Wainright.  But, if I’m asking for the #1, in what world outside of StLouis would anyone choose Wainright over Lincecum?  At least with Carpenter, you can pick on SOMETHING to choose over Lincecum.  But with Wainright?  Nothing, nothing at all.

Okay, I see what your saying Tango.  That makes sense. 

Also, have you seen this interview with Theo yet?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2aN4S2fGoA&feature=player_embedded#

Some good stuff about OPS >>> RBIs + Runs and media perception.

Keep in mind that we have to adjust for the difference in quality between the AL and NL. I cannot say for sure that Fangraphs’ WPA does that.

Damn, I mis-read the one poll I voted in.  I thought you’d already removed Mauer and were asking about the best non-Mauer position player in the AL.  I voted for Jeter (and admit to some homerism there).  Then I read the poll properly.  My bad.  More caffiene needed!  It’s between Pujols and Mauer. 

I’m inclined to lean Mauer because of what he’s done at his position (C!!!), but I have a sneaking suspicion that Pujols somehow manages to be even better.

Phil: Fangraphs does NOT account for the league disparity.  I did, however, choose 6 AL and 4 NL non-pitchers, and 4 AL and 2 NL pitchers (purposely).

Rob: quite a misread!  You somehow saw both “non-Mauer”, and “AL” in the question, and also somehow did not see “Pujols” and “Utley” and “Mauer” in the player list.  Very brave of you to admit that!