http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/ A discussion of sabermetrics, hosted by the authors of "The Book" en tangotiger@yahoo.com Copyright 2008 2008-05-16T15:55:01-05:00 http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/site/comments/when_to_walk_em/ MGL takes it on, in part one. Sabermetrics, In-game_Strategy 2008-05-16T15:55:01-05:00 http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/site/comments/boring_college_professors_say_of_surfing_students/ Non-sports post.  Enter at your peril, avoid at your pleasure. Blogging 2008-05-16T15:28:02-05:00 http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/site/comments/scouting_mussina/ Knowing that a guy’s fastball speed has dropped 4mph is an important thing to know.  What you’d also like to know is if the movement on the fastball has changed to compensate.  This is where PITCHf/x comes in.  Similarly, a guy’s fastball could have stayed the same, but if it was accompanied with much less movement than usual, that’s also important to know.  Anyway, great job, and I’m looking forward to seeing more scouting aging patterns among pitchers. Sabermetrics, Ball_Tracking 2008-05-16T04:21:00-05:00 http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/site/comments/deconstructing_the_passing_paradox/ I’ll point you to Phil, who does a great dissection and who links to the academic paper, along with Brian Burke’s great 3-part blog post (read only the third one if you are pressed for time). Other Sports, Football 2008-05-15T18:14:00-05:00 http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/site/comments/place_hitting/ I haven’t even read Walsh’s piece, but I’m excited to.  BRB. Sabermetrics, Batted_Ball 2008-05-15T14:52:06-05:00 http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/site/comments/another_article_about_when_current_season_stats_become_real_or_something_li/ Ron Shandler chimes in about the “reliability” of statistics at any point in the season.  While he makes some good points about how the different measurements require different sample sizes (e.g., PA) to be equally reliable, the piece is littered with phrases, and I am paraphrasing, despite the quotations, like “become meaningful,” “reliable,” “taken seriously, etc. As I mentioned in another thread, I don’t like those terms being thrown around, with respect to this issue.  They are misleading.  And dangerous.  One man’s reliable is another man’s unreliable.  More importantly, the more a short-term statistic strays from a career one and/or from a population mean, the less “reliable” it is, given identical sample sizes (of the current performance).  Not to mention the fact that you cannot make any mention of a statistic’s reliability based on the sample size of that statistic without knowing the prior history of the player or the mean of the population.  A player with no history hitting .260 on May 15 is probably around a .260 hitter (at least that is our best estimate, albeit without a great deal of certainty).  A player hitting .260 On May 15 who has been a .300 hitter his whole career is probably a .295 hitter. So how in the world can we say that May 15, or any other date, is the date at which a statistic becomes reliable, without knowing the prior history of the player and the mean of the population? Similarly, if a player is hitting .300 on May 15 with no history, his true BA is probably around .270.  So one player with no history who hits .260 on May 15 has a true BA of .260.  Another player with no history is hitting .300 on May 15 has a true BA of .270.  In one case, his short-term BA is likely his true BA.  In the other case, his short term BA is likely nowhere near his true BA.  Again, how can we talk about a date or a current sample size, in isolation, that makes a player’s statistic reliable or not?  We can’t! 2008-05-14T20:58:02-05:00 http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/site/comments/do_hard_throwers_perform_better_than_expected_than_soft_throwers/ Rally asks: What I want to do is see if, given a pitcher’s projection from his MLE, whether fastball velocity tells us any more useful information for his projection. In other words, do fireballers beat their projections? Do soft-tossers fail to live up to theirs? If you don’t want to read his study, the answer is: Knowing a pitcher’s velocity doesn’t tell you anything about his chances of success that you didn’t already know by looking at his minor league numbers. Sabermetrics, Minors_College 2008-05-14T20:56:00-05:00 http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/site/comments/curveball_v_fastball/ Josh Kalk walks us through it.  A link at the bottom (references) showing the results, would be a welcome addition.  Otherwise, excellent article. Sabermetrics, Ball_Tracking 2008-05-14T13:34:01-05:00 http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/site/comments/if_i_worked_for_a_team_and_was_allowed_to_do_whatever_i_wanted_and_they_act/ Here is a partial list of what I would do: 2008-05-14T04:47:00-05:00 http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/site/comments/it_never_ceases_to_amaze_me/ There are some (actually, many) decisions a manager makes that sabermetricians consider wrong.  Or I should say, “the models that sabermetricians construct to model the relevant situation” say that they are wrong (sabermetricians have no “opinions” ). Anyway, some of these “wrong” decisions are “justified” by conventional wisdom, some are so close that it doesn’t much matter, and for some, perhaps, the manager is right, because he knows things that the model doesn’t. And then there are things that a manager does that are just plain dumb. Things that almost everyone, other than, seemingly, the manager, knows are dumb. Today in the Braves game, they are losing 4-3 in top of th 6th, with runners on 1st and 2nd and 1 out and the pitcher due up.  Even the announcers said, “Reyes (the Braves starter) is on deck, but he won’t hit, especially if Prado (the batter) gets on (recognizing that the leverage goes up if he gets on).” I thought to myself, “Don’t count out the ‘managers can be exceedingly stupid’ factor.” Sure enough Cox, the Hall of Fame manager let Reyes bat, and the rest of the game is history. I doubt I have to explain to the readership here how bad that decision is in terms of costing the Braves WE.  I’m sure Tango can give us the numbers if he has the time.  We went through a similar situation with the Padres a couple of weeks ago.  In that game, at least it was Peavy pitching (not that it makes that much difference).  But here, we have a back of the roation guy in Reyes who is probably only going to pitch for another inning at the most. Pathetic.  I feel sorry for Braves fans, but heck, almost all managers make really stupid decision like that all the time (or at least from time to time).  2008-05-14T01:49:00-05:00