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THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

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Friday, August 24, 2007

Why two heads may be better than one

By , 01:56 AM

Here is a good article by Michael Humphreys (MAH) analyzing various fielding metrics that use BIS and STATS data.  His premise is that because the recording of batted balls, particularly in the OF, are difficult to nail to any degree of accuracy and are somewhat subjective, you (a person interested in evaluating player fielding) are better off using more than one data source and combining them (or at least combining metrics that use different data sources). He presents some numbers to back that up.  Personally, I am not sure that it makes all that much difference.  I can’t imagine a whole lot of meaningful differences between the two data sources.  It can’t hurt though. Since he does not have access to the raw data, he can’t compare the actual batted ball data itself.  Here is the link.  BTW, in the next or last installment, he is going to present his algorithm for his own pseudo- PBP defensive metric (DRA) that uses non-PBP stats to compute a sort of UZR.  It is a regression equation I think. I think it is excellent and can certainly be used for the minor leagues and college (or when you don’t have any PBP data for any level) and would be invaluable to teams.

(45) Comments • 2007/09/06 • SabermetricsFielding
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August 24, 2007
Why two heads may be better than one