THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Sunday, March 23, 2008

Scouting

By , 05:10 AM

Granted, it was not a formal survey, but shouldn’t scouts be able to do a MUCH better job than this? I mean, can’t your Dad or you uncle have done as good a job as the scouts in choosing these players? You can argue that the various defensive metrics quoted do NOT accurately represent the players’ true defensive value (yeah, right), but you can’t argue with the other metrics, like baserunning, basestealing, and bunting. The metrics discussed in this article DEFINE a player’s value in that area. Seriously, does/should any GM/team pay ANY attention to what scouts think of a player’s defense, arm, bunting, speed, baserunning, basestealing, etc., as in this list?

• Sabermetrics • MLB_Management • Scouting

#1 (see all posts) 2008/03/23 (Sun) @ 05:22

Could you explain a bit please for those of us who don’t subscribe to Baseball Prospectus?

#2 MGL (see all posts) 2008/03/23 (Sun) @ 14:38

Sorry, I forgot. Here is the whole section of the article (by Dan Fox) on the “scout thing.” If I am not supposed to reprint this without permission, then I’ll wait for someone at BP to inform me and I’ll take it down.

hey’re the Best, Scout’s Honor

Finally, we’ll take a quick look at MLB.com’s recently released “2008 Scouts Honor Results” where a panel of scouts rated players in variety of categories, with most everything coming up Ichiro. Of course, as is typical of this column, we’ll attempt to balance the scales of baseball’s Hegelian Dialectic and take a look at the quantitative side of just a few of the scouts’ selections.

* Best Hitter: Ichiro Suzuki. Hard to believe that Albert Pujols doesn’t win, although at least Alex Rodriguez finished second. Pujols finished ninth in VORP in 2007, his lowest finish since he came in 15th in 2002 (he finished 12th in his 2001 rookie season).
* Best Clutch Hitter: David Ortiz. Not that I take much stock in the concept, but it is still the case that in four of the last six years Ortiz has been neutral or negative in clutch hitting as defined by measures like Win Expectancy including in 2007.
* Best Bunter: Juan Pierre, with Ichiro Suzuki runner-up. Near and dear to the first topic discussed this week. While Pierre is the most prolific bunter over the past six years (320 attempts), his success rate ranks 16th out of the 18 players with 75 or more attempts during that span, with a success rate of 41 percent. Suzuki doesn’t bunt nearly as often, but does succeed more frequently at 59 percent in 59 attempts. No, Willy Taveras would clearly be the better choice with Luis Castillo (54 percent in 84 attempts) and Corey Patterson (51 percent in 128 attempts) undoubtedly better as well.
* Best Infielder: Jose Reyes, with Yuniesky Betancourt runner-up. SFR rates Reyes at +12 and +18 runs in 2006 and 2007, agreeing that he’s excellent, although Adam Everett (+64 over the past three years) is the hands-down winner. Betancourt, on the other hand, rated at -4, -3, and -6 from 2005 through 2007 while the Plus/Minus system has him at -1, -3, and -10; clearly the scouts are seeing something different from the stats.
* Best Outfielder: Ichiro Suzuki, with Torii Hunter runner-up. While SFR liked Suzuki in right field, giving him ratings of +20 in 2005 and +7 in 2006, it did not like him in center where he rated at -5 in 2007 (not including throwing arm). The Plus/Minus system felt similarly, although he still rated at +4 in 2007. While that choice can certainly be forgiven, the selection of Hunter is probably based more on reputation than anything else at this point. SFR has Hunter at -7 in 2007, -1 in 2006, and +0 in 2005 while Plus/Minus is at 0, -2, and +7 in those same seasons. Better choices could have clearly been made in Carlos Beltran, Grady Sizemore, or Coco Crisp.
* Best Arm: Ichiro Suzuki, with Jeff Francoeur runner-up. For those who’ve read my essay “Expanding the Cannon: Quantifying the Impact of Outfield Throwing Arms” in BP2K8, it will come as no surprise that both choices here are pretty good ones. In EqThr (Equivalent Throwing Runs) per 550 opportunities Suzuki ranked second (+4) behind only Ryan Freel from 2005 through 2007, while Francoeur ranked third (+9) among right fielders, behind Delmon Young and Shane Victorino. Other candidates in this category would include Michael Cuddyer, Alex Rios, and Alfonso Soriano.
* Best at Defending the Bunt: Adrian Beltre, with Ryan Zimmerman runner-up. As discussed in a previous column, one of the components of SFR for infielders is how they defend bunts. On that score, Beltre doesn’t come out looking too good, and rates at -1 on 48 bunts fielded from 2005 through 2007. Zimmerman, on the other hand, ranks seventh-best in baseball at +3 runs on 58 fielded bunts. The clear leader, however, is Pedro Feliz, who racked up +6 runs on fielding 63 bunts over that span. At first base Sean Casey (+3, 41) and Adrian Gonzalez (+3, 50) rate very well.
* Best Baserunner: Ichiro Suzuki, with Jose Reyes runner-up. A topic close to my heart. Both Suzuki and Reyes are fine runners, but both are second-tier when compared to Juan Pierre and Chone Figgins, who both contributed over 26 runs with their legs from 2005 through 2007. Incidentally, Suzuki is a much better base stealerthan baserunner, and derives most of his value on the bases from stolen base attempts. The reverse can be said of Grady Sizemore, who is an excellent baserunner (+19 runs in categories other than EqSBR) but not a stolen base threat.
* Best Base Stealer: Jose Reyes, with Ichiro Suzuki runner-up. The reverse of the previous category, and while Suzuki does indeed top baseball in EqSBR for 2005-2007 with +11 runs, Reyes comes in 13th at +5 runs (and he ranked 20th in 2007 despite his 107 opportunities, by far the most in the majors). In between are a whole host of runners, including Jimmy Rollins at +11, Carl Crawford (+8), and Juan Pierre (+8) that probably deserve it.

Yes, there are more categories, including some related to pitchers and the pitches they throw, but the quantification of those will have to wait for another day.

#3 Patriot (see all posts) 2008/03/23 (Sun) @ 15:20

I would like to see the form these guys were given to fill out when making their selections, to see how “best hitter” was defined. If it is taken to mean “best at putting bat on ball successfully”, then Ichiro is a fine selection, although the category would obviously not be very useful. But the presence of ARod as second on the list calls that potential definition into question.

If scouts truly believe that Ichiro is the most productive hitter in baseball, then…

#4 Rally (see all posts) 2008/03/23 (Sun) @ 16:53

I think it’s the first definition of hitter. Scouts usually have “hitting for power” as a separate category. We’re looking at some combination of average/ contact rate here.

#5 David Cameron (see all posts) 2008/03/24 (Mon) @ 12:42

Same thing as the last time you railed on scouts; until you come around to the fact that they’re evaluating individual skills, not valuing them in terms of wins and losses, you’ll continue to believe that they’re all idiots who don’t deserve their jobs.

They’re doing something totally different than you. You might not find it useful to what you’re doing, but the fact that it leads to different results shouldn’t really be surprising, nor should it inspire a reaction that they’re intellectually inferior.

#6 Tangotiger (see all posts) 2008/03/24 (Mon) @ 13:23

I think the conclusion would be that the presentation of a writer’s “best tools by scouts” articles are woefully inadequate.

I imagine that scouts are really focused on particular components, similar to how I have the Fans Scouting Report setup. If the writers were to ask the scouts specific component-wise evaluations, that’d be one thing.

But, if the scouts are going to come up with an overall “bunting” skill, they might not do such a good job, if the intent is to map the overall evaluation to teams scoring more runs or winning more games. That perhaps a comparison of Pierre to Ichiro and Willy Taveras on a component-basis would show where the scouts see the big pluses for Ichiro and Taveras, and maybe if we as sabermetricians were to see those results, we’d be able to combine those component evaluations into a different overall value than a scout’s overall value.

Scouts do best at component-wise evaluation, while sabermetricians do best at weighting those components (with the understanding that the sabermetricians could only weight those components with the data and design provided by scouts themselves).

#7 MGL (see all posts) 2008/03/24 (Mon) @ 19:29

#5, for the 80 millionth time, my comments about scouts, while not particularly flattering or laudatory, do not reflect any wholesale belief on my part that they are intellectually inferior (to what or to whom, anyway?), nor do they reflect that I think that scouts are worthless or that they do not deserve their jobs. If that is what you get from my comments, then your inference and comprehension skills may be as woefully inadequate as you think I think scouts are.

#8 David Cameron (see all posts) 2008/03/24 (Mon) @ 21:59

Seriously, does/should any GM/team pay ANY attention to what scouts think of a player’s defense, arm, bunting, speed, baserunning, basestealing, etc.

do not reflect any wholesale belief on my part that they are intellectually inferior (to what or to whom, anyway?), nor do they reflect that I think that scouts are worthless or that they do not deserve their jobs.

Maybe this helps. If not, whatever.

#9 MGL (see all posts) 2008/03/24 (Mon) @ 22:13

David, I must have criticized something you wrote or said, which would put you in the same boat as just about anybody who has ever written anything about baseball that I have commented on.

I would prefer that if you have something to say personally to or about me, that you would send me a private email, otherwise I have no interest in engaging in a pissing contest with you.

#10 David Cameron (see all posts) 2008/03/24 (Mon) @ 23:27

This isn’t any kind of personal grudge. As far as I know, you’ve never criticized something I wrote or said (well, you probably have, but I probably deserved it), and I’m not trying to engage in any kind of pissing contest.

I think you have a lot of really good insight on baseball. And I simultaneously think that a lot of your comments on the scouting profession come off very badly and don’t reflect well on the quality of the rest of your work.

Since you’d rather not address that issue, though, I’ll let it be.

#11 MGL (see all posts) 2008/03/25 (Tue) @ 16:40

And I simultaneously think that a lot of your comments on the scouting profession come off very badly and don’t reflect well on the quality of the rest of your work.

I don’t care, as I have virtually no agenda, and in any case, it is my business, not yours.

If not, why so mean-spirited? How about we call a truce? Your work is valuable, and I respect it as well.

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