THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Just blown away by the work Jeff’s doing. Did you see Jeremy and JC using it to semi-debunk the Verducci effect, independently?

So cool.

http://www.sabernomics.com/sabernomics/index.php/2010/02/more-testing-of-the-verducci-effect/

http://baseballanalysts.com/archives/2010/02/verducci_effect.php

Can’t wait to see what else folks come up with!

I will see what I can do.  Busy weekend, but should get too it Monday.

Yes, I agree.  I think it’s just fantastic the way everyone simply is adding their part to all this.  The key, by the way, is the RetroID.  That takes 90% of the work, and it’s the reason Josh’s work is going to be so successful.

The data in this article was going to appear in the Wall Street Journal a year ago…

Updated the article with additional information of trips <= 30 or > 30 days.

Looks like 7.3% is not covered by insurance.

http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2010/2/19/1318203/2010/2/19/1318203/percentage-of-team-payroll-lost-to

Great stuff again.

Thinking about it, while insurance only covers the period post-30 days, they don’t, I don’t think, cover 100% of the salaries.  Maybe it’s just 70%.  If that’s the case, 7.3% x 7% = 5.1%.  This jives much better with other information in the article that says that teams can purchase additional individual insurance for 5% of a player’s salary.

We’re pretty close here.  Obviously insurance companies have to make money, so there must be something else not covered as well.

Great data, Jeff.  Any chance you could break this down between pitchers and non-pitchers?  It looks like pitchers account for about 55% of all the lost revenue (quite a bit higher than their share of salaries, though not as high as I would have guessed).  I’m wondering if the ratio is different in terms of the 7.3% that is not covered by insurance.  I’d guess that pitchers disproportionately have DL trips of over 30 days, but maybe not.

Tango,
One thing you need to consider: I have only read that players are required to be on the DL for “at least” 30 days for insurance to cover part of the salary. I wouldn’t be surprised if insurance companies sell policies that don’t kick in until 60, 90, or even 120 days on the disabled list - particularly if they’re insuring a pitcher on a multi-year deal.

Typically insurance companies get less in premiums than they pay out.

They make money because the premiums are received earlier than the money they pay, so they can invest them.

In this case, it’s different.  Insurance payouts would be pretty quick.