THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Reynold’s readers don’t like his latest blog post either. 76 readers have given it an average rating of 1.14 out of 5 stars.

To be fair, that’s at least as much JoePoz’s readers as Reynolds’. When I visited just a couple minutes after Poz’s post went up, there were only 32 votes (though the average was still just 1.25).

I would have voted higher, but Reynolds apparently doesn’t like the idea of paragraphs.

I would have voted as well, but as Dick Williams would say: “I should never have to give you a sign. The situation dictates what happens.”

So I think I’ll just pass on this one.

Boy we could all use an article like that on a Friday.

Honestly, think Harold’s getting the short end of the stick here.  I mean, the writing and organization and lack of an obvious thesis are certainly negatives, but on some level he’s saying “context matters”, which is one of the main tenets of sabermetrics.  Walking hitters with runners on base and giving up home runs when the bases are empty is a good strategy used by pitchers, and one the better pitchers are better at.  If a lineup is weaker (more leverageable), then a hitter like Adrian Gonzalez can be pitched around more.  His home runs likely come when they don’t matter as much and his walks come when they are less harmful, or might in theory.

One might even say Harold Reynolds is arguing for something like WPA/LI or “RE24/LI_RE” (which doesn’t currently exist).  He just doesn’t have the math chops to put it that way, or is talking in classic baseball jargon, because that’s what he knows.  Making the same point, perhaps poorly, using a different language that’s less precise, should still give him credit for the point, just not the presentation.  And maybe some folks would prefer that language/presentation.  To someone who thinks sabermetricians are obnoxious and petty, our response (via JoePa and others) to Harold’s article is probably a prime example of that attitude.

Sky- You’re right.  We, guys who study baseball and statistics, know that context is important; and most importantly we know roughly how important it is. 

Harold Reynolds is talking out of his ass.  He has absolutely know idea of what he is saying is true, because he isn’t able or doesn’t want to take the time to research it.

I think that if Harold Reynolds sat down and had somebody explain WPA to him, he’d absolutely love it. If someone’s got some kind of connection, I’m sure Studes would be glad to explain it in a way Reynolds could appreciate.

I criticize the MSM as much as anyone, but I don’t see anything in this blog post that I would not expect from 80% of the TV commentators and “analysts” (other than, perhaps, the really poor writing skills).  Do you think that Hawk Harrelson or Jeff Brantley would think or write any differently?

It is a shame, of course, that these people (like Reynolds) are held up in public as “expert analysts,” but I guess we can all be thankful that we are talking about a child’s game and not something meaningful like World peace…

One more thing:

This quote, supposedly from Dick Williams:

“I should never have to give you a sign. You should know this is a bunt situation, you should know this is a situation where you need to take a trike, you should know the situation calls for getting the man over. I should never have to give you a sign, the situation dictates what happens.”

on its face is really stupid.  Of course a player needs a sign, as in many situations there are more than one reasonable options, not to mention the oft-mentioned game theory aspect of in-game strategy.  Now, I don’t know much about Dick Williams, but I imagine that he meant that a player should anticipate what signs he might receive based on the situation and that he should not be up at bat or on the bases “blindly” looking for a sign.

Of course, the idea that the batter should know when to sacrifice bunt or not, without having to wait for a sign, for example, is stupid (because of the predictability aspect - in fact, that is why the whole idea of the players knowing what the sign should be is stupid), and if Williams was indeed so predictable with the sacrifice bunt, he surely was very suboptimal with regard to that aspect of in-game strategy.

taking the opportunity to pile on HR, with possibly another swipe at Dick Williams…

I’m reading some base stealing numbers that I ran for the upcoming BPro article…

In the entire Retrosheet era, Harold Reynolds has the worst Out% (43.9%) (CS+PK)/(SB+CS+PK) of anybody who attempted 300 (309) or more steals of second base, or who attempted to steal second more than 20% (21.7%).

Now HR is supposed to be a fast guy, and quite possibly he had a good record of advancing on the bases, but in 1422 times he was on first with second unoccupied, he recorded 222 SB, 87 CS by catcher and 87 total PO. His Out% puts him in the same group of base stealing luminaries as Johnny Bench, Darrell Evans, Steve Garvey and Tony Oliva.

I presume Dick Williams didn’t have to give him the steal sign, HR knew when he had to try. By his results, this is a guy who had no business trying to steal bases.

Best with 50+ Att is McLouth out 15.2% (56-1-9), 100+ Att Stan Javier 19.7, Eric Byrnes 19.8, Carlos Beltran 20.4, Willie Wilson 20.8, Tim Raines 21.0

Worst, Willie Horton 67.8 (19-33-7), with 100+ Att Duane Keiper is next to last (Buddy Bell) out 60.0 (48-59-13) so why did Kuiper attempt 10.0% of time, at least Horton only ran 2.9%

I just thought I would re-post this comment made by joeychooch @ yahoo.com on Harold’s blog:

Harold,

We don’t want anyone to get hurt here. Step awaaaaay from the statistics. Please put down the OPS, back up slowly, get on your knees, and clasp your hands behind your head.

Seriously though Harold, you seem like a good guy. And as someone who has played baseball at the highest level, you undoubtedly have a ton to offer. Things like this:

- How do you hit a curve ball?

- What cut-off man should a RF throw the ball to?

- How best to read a pitcher’s move in order to swipe a bag.

Stuff like that. But what you have proven yourself hopelessly incapable of doing, which is not your fault because it’s not your background, is providing any cogent analysis into player performance and team construction. Like I said, it’s not your fault, as it’s not your background as a player. So, now that you know this, stick with explaining the Xs and Os of the game to us, something you are quite good at, and leave the commentary about subject for which you are woefully unprepared to give to others.

Thanks.

I don’t know why, but this made me feel really happy.  This is probably the reaction we should have to this post.

"How best to read a pitcher’s move in order to swipe a bag.”

According to Brian’s numbers, that should not be on the list either…

That is a great comment though.  Sort of sums up almost everyone on ESPN BT, as well as a majority of TV analysts.

I like Bob Walk of the Pirates, even though I keep a list of things all the announcers say that I can check on for article ideas.

If you check out the bottom of the 3rd in last Sunday’s Detroit at Pittsburgh game, poor Walkie is nearly in tears as the Pirates hitters keep chasing Dontrelle Willis pitches out of the zone. Andrew McCutchen lined a low outside pitch into right for a single, and Walk said “sometimes the results don’t justify the approach.” The Pirates hitters were routinely chasing pitches clearly out of the zone when they were ahead in the count and Willis was no where near the zone the whole game. Even though Willis did in the the end walk 8, it could have been much worse, and the Tigers hubg in the game until the end.

Funniest thing in the game. Eric Hinske walked his first four times up. In the 8th, he was facing Joel Zumaya who walked the previous batter, but had Hinske 0-2, throwing nothing but fastbals, 8 straight pitches 98 to 100 mph. Then Zumaya dropped a 79 mph curve at Hinske’s knees, Hinske was smiling the whole way to the dugout.

Yes, I have said before that I like Walk, although I am sure that he says lots of stupid things.  For example, a lot of saber-types like Darling and Hernandez of the Mets.  While I agree they are good by typical TV analyst standards, they say LOTS of the usual stupid things about chemistry, heart, momentum and the like.

That is pretty smart of Walk - the thing about the McCutchen single. The typical announcer thinking is:

If a pitcher throws a pitch a million miles out of the zone and the batter swings at it, it was a great pitch. If the batter takes, it is a bad pitch of course (obviously there is SOME skill in getting a batter to chase a bad pitch).  Similarly, if a pitcher throws a pitch right down the middle and the batter swings and misses or hits into an out, the pitcher did a “great job” whereas if the batter crushed the ball, the pitchers made a bad pitch.  The most amusing one to me is when a batter takes a tough pitch and dinks a base hit.  The batter had a “great at bat” and did a great job with the tough pitch.  I fail to see a whole lot of difference, other than “the luck of the draw” between when a batters dinks a hit on a tough pitch and when he hits a weak ground ball or fly ball out on a tough pitch.  Of course, announcers are pretty much about results oriented analysis, which does not work real well when there is so much randomness involved in an event.

Oh, another amusing one which occurs all the time is when the pitcher completely misses the catcher’s target and the announcer says something like, “That was a great pitch by the pitcher to go up and in on so-and-so” when the catcher was setting up low and away!  Of course, the announcers are not always watching the monitors.

Yesterday in the Jays/Nationals game, Marco Scutaro singled to left, jogged to first base and made a small turn at the bag—before noticing that Adam Dunn was having a bit of trouble picking up the ball--then decided (way too late) that he was going to run hard and turned on the jets to go to second.  Meanwhile, Dunn recovers the ball and throws a strike to second.  Scutaro would and should have been out by a mile, but Ronnie Belliard clunked it (the Nationals are truly a terrible team,) and Scutaro was safe.

Anyway, the announcers predictably lavished praise on Scutaro for his “heady” baserunning.  I was bashing my head against the wall…

Yes, I saw that and thought the same thing.  He would have been out by a mile if Belliard fields that cleanly.  I always wondered why aggressively trying to take an extra base on a single is lauded when even a mediocre base stealer can just steal second base 65% of the time.

Whoever the color commentator is on those Jays broadcast is terrible.  He says the weirdest things.  Even weirder than most (bad) commentators.

Sky tries to defend Reynolds:

http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2009/6/22/919854/defending-harold-reynolds

You see, there’s a difference between harassing Harold because he’s wrong and harassing him because he doesn’t understand the math to a large enough degree.  The first is fine when appropriate, while the second can be elitist.

He is not being harrassed because he doesn’t understand the math well enough.  Not at all.  He’s being harrassed because he either believes he understands the math as much as he needs it, or doesn’t even believe that the math is necessary. 

He’s being harrassed because he rejects education.

It’s like the difference between an atheist and an agnostic.  An atheist rejects the existence of god, even if somehow proof could be provided.  An agnostic will be noncommital in the face of lacking of sufficient evidence.  Being an atheist is irrational.  Being agnostic is rational.  I presume that the majority of people who call themselves atheist are really agnostic.

Harold Reynolds is a sabermetric-atheist.  It’s ok to be sabermetric-agnostic.  If he shows signs that he can be educated, I’ll put him in the agnostic camp.  As long as he keeps preaching his irrationality and does nothing about his education, he deserves whatever harrassment the willful ignorant get.

What Harold needs to do is not come up with his ridiculous reasons, but come up with specific questions of what he believes is unanswerable.  And then, the saberists among us will be able to provide him with those answers.

No, instead, he has already reached his conclusions, without asking the questions to the people who can answer them.

I don’t want to start a thing, but I don’t think Tango’s definition of “atheist” is correct.  An atheist is not someone who “rejects the existence of god, even if somehow proof could be provided.” An atheist is simply someone who does not think there is any such person as god (or persons), in the same way that most adults don’t think there is any such thing as Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy (not to claim that necessarily belief in god is as irrational as those beliefs; I just use them to illustrate the attitude atheists have.) If e.g. the events of the Left Behind novels were to happen in real life, every atheist I know would become a theist.  An agnostic is simply someone who really has no opinion one way or the other; something that one might be agnostic about is, say, the proposition that the number of stars in the Milky Way is an even number.

Tango says “I presume that the majority of people who call themselves atheist are really agnostic.” While there are some genuine agnostics, I actually think the opposite: most agnostics, when questioned, really turn out to be atheists.

I don’t have TV so I either have the advantage or disadvantage of not having seen Harold Reynolds as an analyst.  That meant I could read the post at his blog without any preconceived notions about what his stance is on sabermetrics.  And I honestly see little to disagree with in what he wrote.

And one of the stats that has become real popular is OPS.

Does anyone disagree with this?

And the fact of the matter is, if you’re a power hitter then the situation will dictate what a pitcher does with you - either walk you or pitch you real careful. So more than likely you’re going to end up on base and therefore your on-base percentage goes up.

I’ve got to do a little interpreting here because, as others have mentioned, Harold isn’t the clearest of writers.  I think he is saying:A,"I don’t think OPS is a good stat"B,"OPS overvalues power hitters because ptchers can choose to walk them in situations where a walk isn’t as likely to lead to a run"C,walks to power hitters are overvalued in general. 

Who thinks OPS is a good stat? Well, I am sure that a lot of people do, but I am surprised that anyone at this site does.  Here is The Book’s comment on OPS, “But,OPS, or even the more correct 2OPS, is not concerned wit hprecisely representing batter contributions, but rather simply being a decent approximation.  This is the last we will talk about OPS.”

Does OPS overvalue power hitters.  No, Harold is wrong on this, but only because he does he hasn’t read the analyses that conclude that 1.8*OBP +SLG is a better overall evaluation of batting than OPS.  1.8 OBP + SLG DOES over value power hitters for precisely the reason that Harold is struggling to articulate: walks to power hitters are overvalued.

But if you have a guy like Adrian Gonzalez, for example, his OPS is going to be high - he’s got a lot of home runs and walks a lot...because you’re not going to pitch to him. Power guys like Giambi and Dunn have always had high OPS because no one wants to pitch to them.

I assume this is more evidence that walks to power hitters are overvalued, and, if so, its a good example.  Adrian Gonzalez’s walks have an average run value of .264 where the league average is .308.  That’s overvaluing them by 17%.

But it takes two hits to score them from first.

And at the end of the year their OBP is always going to be higher than most of the other guys on the team because they clog the bases.

I may be reading too much into these comments, but I think Harold is arguing that OPS doesn’t include measures of the run value of speed, also leading to overvaluing power hitters and undervaluing the total offensive contribution of leadoff hitters and other fast players.  If so, he is again correct. 

A few years ago this stat grabbed my ear when someone said that Ichiro doesn’t walk enough. So I said, “What do you mean?” And they said his OBP could be so much higher if he walked more. The guy gets 200 hits a season! And he scores over 100 runs. I think that speaks for itself.

Again, pretty inarticulate.  I think Harold is just trying to support the earlier point that players with speed skills are not valued correctly by either OPS or the public.  And again he would be correct.  Ichiro isn’t wasting his times at bat swinging at bad pitches.  But he also isn’t wasting them by taking called strikeouts.  All in all, given the pitches he sees, Ichiro is probably maximizing his value given his skills and reacting to “what the situation dictates.”

So put me in Sky’s camp.

I agree with blackadder about atheists and agnostics, but they are just words, and there is rarely a good reason to argue about the definition of words, especially ones which reasonable people could differ on.

But, I agree 100% with Tango about Reynolds.  That doesn’t make him a bad person, and he is not articulating (poorly, I may add) anything different than 90% of all baseball commentators and “analysts,” or the general public.

As Tango says or implies, ignorance is not a bad trait, as we all are ignorant of lots of things.  What is an exceedingly bad trait, for various reasons, is not recognizing or understanding your ignorance.  What is even worse than that, is mocking or rejecting the knowledge about which you are ignorant.  I think that Reynolds (and lots of other baseball commentators - probably most) is guilty of all of the above.

The only thing I would “defend” him on, which I did above, was that he did not say anything particularly egregious or outrageous, from the perspective of, say, a typical Baseball Tonight “analyst.”

Peter, I do have the bad luck in hearing Reynolds, and this is par for the course for him regarding “numbers”.  He rejects these things out of hand.  As others have said, I’ll listen to him tell me how to turn the DP, and he can listen to me tell him who actually is the most productive at turning the DP.

For some perspective on why I wrote the article, I’ve had some thoughts on the stathead vs. non-stathead relationshipo I’ve wanted to express for a while, and the HR situation was a good opportunity to get them out.

If we can step back from HR specifically, there’s a larger lesson to be gained, and I hope that’s what we can focus on (somewhere, not necessarily here).  If we don’t step back from HR specifically, there’s a lot less to defend, I agree.

I’ll fully admit I picked the title of the article in the hopes that it would get more attention.

I also don’t really think there is any debate.

If you have a real debate, where you have one topic, two (rational and sincere) sides, and then each side prepares his arguments as well as a rebuttal, we would end up in a unified position before the last word is spoken.

Those who are not part of the debate, the willfully ignorant (and who believe they already have a PhD in baseball, when they are still in kindergarten), are those that see a potential debate.  And they happen to present both sides of the debate, which by definition, cannot even be a debate.

At least half the front offices agree that it’s a pair of glasses with two lenses, but a fair share of the ignorant sees it as a monocle with the other eye closed.

Tango - I gathered from everyone’s response that that was the case and maybe is as close minded about new statistical methods as all the responses indicate.  But if he was not open minded before he wrote the post, the quality of the responses that he received (on his site not necessarily on this one) criticizing him not for what he said, but for some inferred idea of what he is actually like, would certainly not tend to make him more open minded in the future.

Peter, I agree that the best (initial) approach to the ignorant is education.

Harold was in the booth for the CHA/CIN game on MLBN Saturday night, and in the first inning was talking about how the Indians got rid of Brandon Phillips because his “cybermetrics” weren’t any good.  I think any baseball professional who can’t even be bothered to get the name right is squarely in the “willfully ignorant” camp.

I think the “defenders” of Harold are trying too hard to dial down his criticism.  For example, Peter points out that AG’s walks are being overvalued by .04 runs.  Fair enough, but when Harold says “Power guys like Giambi and Dunn have always had high OPS because no one wants to pitch to them”, I don’t believe for one second that he is saying their walks are being overvalued by .04 runs.

Likewise, I would read the Ichiro point differently.  I have no problem with the notion that Ichiro is maximizing his value by playing the way he does, and that he couldn’t just draw more walks without affecting the rest of his game.  But I have to believe that Harold thinks that if Ichiro *could* trade 20 points of batting average for say, 40 more walks, it would be a losing trade.

If you read Reynolds very generously, and through the lens of a sabermetrician, then you can find common ground between his reasons for disliking OPS and your reason for disliking OPS.  But I think it’s wishful thinking.

Brandon Phillips is an excellent fielder, and I presume was an even better fielder when he was younger.  He’s got great “cybermetrics”.

Mark Ellis’s got great cybermetrics.  Franklin Gutierrez, Darin Erstad, Aaron Rowand.  Chase Utley.  Orlando Hudson.  We love these guys.

If Reynolds needs the face of active guys we don’t particularly like as much as everyone else does, I’d propose Carlos Lee as exhibit A.

Patriot - You are probably correct that Harold is as closed minded about sabermetrics as he appears to be on television.  But what if the first response to his blog post from a sabermetric person was this.

“Harold, you are absolutely right about OPS, its not a very good stat.  Its better than BA or SLG at evaluating offense and thats why it gets used a lot, but it overvalues power guys and undervalues speedy leadoff hitters.  Us sabermentric geeks now use either a modified OPS (1.8 * OBP) + SLG, or a stat called wOBA to try and equally value these two groups.  But you would still be right in critcizing these two new stats because they don’t go far enough to address your concerns.  Thanks for reminding us that we can and should do better.”

Wouldn’t that have been better than Poz making fun of him or the commenter who responded “Worst post ever.”

Personally, I take this as a sign of progress.  Does anybody remember the PECOTA indecent on MLB Network?  Basically, Reynolds and a couple of other ex-players were completely discounting the importance of stats in baseball, saying things like a .215 hitter can be a “quality” .215 and be valuable to his club (and I don’t think he meant that he could have a lot of walks and homers).  He was basically saying that that stats didn’t mean much in the long run, as there was much more to winning that stats. 

Now, with this misguided blog-post, he seems to at least be acknowledging the importance of stats, and now is just pointing our their flaws.  Whether his criticisms are valid or not, they appear to represent a developing curiosity into how stats actually help win games.

Right, the PECOTA “debate”.  That’s the one I was thinking about.  The moderator threw out a debate topic, and Reynolds yapped about some other topic.  To Reynolds, the moderator said:

“[charlie brown’s teacher] numbers [charlie brown’s teacher]”

And Reynolds went on his anti-number tirade.

Peter Jensen (#28):
Except Reynolds specifically spoke out against the “walks” portion of OPS, so telling him a “better” version of OPS gives OBP even more weight isn’t going to help him.

The bigger problem is that Reynolds is not someone who sees beyond a specific situation.  Yes, with a runner on third and less than outs in a tie game, I’d rather have a hitter less likely to walk but more likely to make contact; however, that situation is much less common than ones where a walk’s value is basically the same as a single.  So, in the situation described, Dunn isn’t that valuable.  However, over the course of a year, he is very valuable.

Yes, with a runner on third and less than outs in a tie game, I’d rather have a hitter less likely to walk but more likely to make contact

“Linear Weights by the 24 baseout state” also doesn’t care too much about a walk here, and neither does win expectancy.  So, it would agree with Reynolds.

As Sky pointed out, if you can get him to understand that we can quantify his thoughts with those scary numbers, we’re making progress.

Words of wisdom from Bob Walk today

Top of the 5th, 1 out, runners on 1st & 2nd, batter hits a fly ball to center, Andrew McCutchen takes a few steps back for an easy catch. The runner is tagging at 2nd, McCutchen fires a one-hopper to 3b, where the runner is safe, then the runner at 1b goes to 2b on the throw.

Tim Neveret says “It was a good throw” when Walk cuts him off and says “It was a BAD throw - there’s very little difference between a runner at 2nd and a runner at 3rd with 2 outs. There’s a lot of difference between a runner at 1st and a runner at 2nd. Now a single can score two runs instead of one. The throw should have gone to 2b. The fielder has to be thinking of each scenario and know where to throw the ball BEFORE the play.”

I’ve said this several times before, but Walk is one of the best, considering his competition.  People like Rob Neyer laud Hernandez and Darling of the Mets (who are tolerable sometimes, but that’s all, IMO), but Walk puts them to shame.  And he’s funny too.

I personally like clearly Al Hrabosky .