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Forecasting
Monday, October 06, 2008
Bill James, in what will surely be an article to appear in the next Gold Mine, looks at the issue of whether the Power or Finesse pitchers perform better in the post-season. He does his typically enjoyable study of matched pairs, where he proceeds to select 100 power pitchers and 100 finesse pitchers (they match in a variety of ways, except in K and BB). They match up quite well in the categories he selected. He also notes:
But the power pitchers had averaged 183 strikeouts, 76 walks; the finesse pitchers had averaged 107 strikeouts, 57 walks. The two groups were nearly even in terms of home runs allowed (a few more for the power pitchers), but the finesse pitchers had given up, on average, 18 more hits. 18 more hits, 19 less walks, one less homer. . .the same results overall.
As you guys know, I’m big on simply doing K minus BB, per PA. And just looking at the bolded part, you can see that I think the two groups are biased. I responded:
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David compares THT, Chone, PECOTA, and ZiPS.
Friday, September 26, 2008
Great and obvious explanation:
The thing you have to remember with a case like the Rockies, when we say they had a 2 percent chance, which is basically a 1-in-50 shot, that doesn’t mean it’s going to happen once every 50 years. It means for every 50 teams that find themselves in that situation—a certain number of games back with a certain number left to play, with the schedule they were facing—one of them will make the playoffs. And there are a lot of teams in that situation, and most of them don’t make the playoffs. Half the league was probably in that situation last year.
Another way to think about this is this: make a bet after every single day. Bet on all the teams with a less than 5% chance of making the playoffs, on that day, to make it. Keep betting. Every day. Chances are, the amount of money you bet will match the payoff.
(Hat tip: David)
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Thanks to Vegas Watch, we see that PECOTA and Neyer were off by 10 games, Vegas was off by 11, and Olney/Phillips were off by 13. Lovely.
Now, here’s the fun part. Ready? If you had forecasted every single team to finish as 81-81, the RMSE would have been 10.6. That is, of the 12 smartest and most experienced guys that Vegas Watch decided to track, here is the list, with the perfectly competitive balanced vote listed:
9.6 PECOTA
10.2 Neyer
10.5 Law
10.6 Perfectly Competitive Balanced (all teams predicted at 81-81)
10.8 Vegas
11.1 Passan
11.3 Sheehan
11.4 Brown
11.7 Kurkijan
12.1 Stark
12.1 Henson
12.4 Phillips
13.0 Olney
Says it all doesn’t it?
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
In 2009, Ambiorix Burgos, Elijah Dukes and Brett Myers will play in MLB, but Barry Bonds will not.
Monday, August 25, 2008
As AsrosFan is telling us:
I was just glancing at Andrew Dolphin’s ratings of MLB teams. I decided to go with the Predictive ranking.
Predictive Both schedule strength and rating vs. schedule strength are determined considering both the wins and losses and the score differentials. This rating contains none of the biases in the standard rating, but does weight recent games slightly more than past games since those are a better indication of the team’s current strength. This rating is the best of the first three for seeing how good teams are, and thus is the best for predicting future results.
I could have used Improved RPI, but I wanted one that included run differential. Here are the rankings of all 30 teams: http://www.dolphinsim.com/ratings/mlb/index_pred.html
The first thing we notice is that the AL is ranked as having 10 out the top 11 teams. Mr. Dolphin’s analysis shows the AL as being much stronger, and thus teams with worse records than NL teams can actually be better due to strength of schedule. Indeed, looking at it from the expected losses standpoint, which Mr. Dolphin says “can be used to rank schedules”, the top 14 SOS are in the AL, meaning all the AL teams. And it’s not really close.
That would be astonishing enough, but this is what really caught my eye. Down further on the page, the rankings are split up by division. If we scroll to the AL East, we find these rankings: Boston: 1 Tampa Bay: 3 Toronto: 7 New York Yankees: 9 Baltimore: 10 . All five teams in the AL East are ranked in the top 10, that is, the top third of baseball. Baltimore, which at the time of the latest update, had a 61-66 record and RS/RA of 653/653, is ranked two spots ahead of Milwaukee, which had a 75-55 record and a RS/RA of 616/555.
To which I responded to the above and other questions in that thread:
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Friday, August 22, 2008
Along the lines of something is better than nothing, just as MGL was nice enough to give us his notes on his pitching and fielding presentation, here you will find Andy’s presentation slides (only with IE browser), entitled: “Statistical Confirmations of Steroid Use?” You can also download the entire Powerpoint file (right-click, Save Link As).
I’ll suggest Oliver as a name.
Brian has taken the basis for Marcel, and expanded it. Very lovely. What he has done is taken something very simple, and expanded it greatly, by doing all the things that Marcel intentionally ignored (more than 3 years of data, minor league, park, separated components). It is exactly what I would do if I wanted to put the care into it that Brian has.
Ideally, it will beat Marcel in forecasting competitions. Marcel will continue to exist as the minimum level to which all forecasting systems should be compared against (if you can’t beat Marcel, then you should keep working on your forecasting system). “Oliver” (or whatever Brian will call his) would be the next level up to which forecasting systems will be compared against.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Eric shows that while the HR rate may in fact decline for the HR derby participants, their overall production goes up.
Sunday, July 27, 2008
By , 09:08 PM
It is almost no doubt that the Sox will not pick up his 20 mil option. There is also almost no doubt that he is not worth nearly that much and I am pretty sure the Red Sox know that and have known that for a while. Whether they helped to orchestrate all this negative publicity surrounding Manny lately, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they did, I think they are quite happy with it, at least to the extent that it helps ease, if not eliminate, any flak they may have gotten for not picking up the option.
Anyway, if you are a team signing him as a FA, what would you give him?
Also, what do you think he will get, from a sabermetrically stupid team I am assuming?
Saturday, July 26, 2008
By , 12:25 AM
for the remainder of the season, and how much do you think it adds to their chances of making the post-season, in percent? I have not tried to figure it out. People are going to say that this is nearly a “blockbuster trade.”
Damon says:
“It helps out the team, not only now but also in the long run,” Damon said of acquiring Nady. “He’s one of the most underrated players around. I think he’s one of the best outfielders in the game.”
Yeah, of course he is. He has a .918 OPS! Wait, I only read the last line of his player card. My mistake. He is a 29 year old journeyman corner outfielder with a .793 lifetime OPS and no arm. That sort of makes him a below average player, doesn’t it?
Well, which is it? One of the best outfielders in the game, or a below average player? Is The Dark Night one of the greatest movies of all time, or does it kind of suck? Do I not really like pistachio ice cream or is it one of my favorite flavors? Is Jessica Alba kind of homely or is she one of the most beautiful actresses in Hollywood?
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
I asked Mariner fans (.599) and non-Mariner fans (.666) what they forecasted in OPS for Vidro the rest of the way. Marcel also chimed in with a .707. Check in at Baseball Musings as we track his development, starting from July 14, 2008 to the end of the season, and see who provides the most insight.
Monday, July 14, 2008
Sal takes a look.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
By , 08:32 PM
Then open it up at the end of the season, and look at the Rangers record starting on July 10. What am I talking about? After Hamilton’s walk off homer against K-Rod on Wednesday, The Rangers’ manager said this:
You want to talk about a team, that’s a team. You want to talk about a team with character, a team that never gives up, about guys with heart? They showed what they are made of. And there wasn’t anybody in our dugout that doubted at any moment that we could win it. “It’s a group of guys believing in themselves and believing that once they take the field they’re capable of playing with anybody. At some point this year, somebody is going to believe. I know I do.
So we finally have Tango’s long awaited character assessment before the fact.
I am being somewhat facetious (although I do think the whole thing is nonsense), since obviously anything can happen in 75 games by chance alone.
By , 03:25 PM
not counting defense.
Jose Vidro
.214/.262/.315
or
A.J. Pierzynski
.291/.327/.434
Vidro of course, and it is not even close.
I am so sick of EVERYONE equating a player’s 3 month (or 6 month, or one month, or one year) performance with their “true talent” that I can’t stand it anymore.
Where do they think that we get our projection algorithms from? From real life! When REAL LIVE PLAYERS who are 33 years old hit .780 in their careers and then .577 in 3 months, they hit .740 (or whatever the number is) from then on in! We don’t just make these projections up. They are based on what players actually do, given their histories.
Vidro is not even close to being the worst hitter in baseball. There are probably at least 20 full time players who are worse than he is. Of course, we don’t KNOW that. That is simply our best estimate, given what we DO know.
This year, Vidro is the whipping boy for the “worst player in baseball that should not be playing.” Granted, his projection is not what you would hope for a DH, but, as I said, he is so far from the worst hitter in baseball it is not even close.
Here are some examples of typical comments on Vidro, from BTF (Primer):
Is Vidro the worst hitter in the last ten years to receive significant playing time at DH?
He might not be the worst if someone had significant injury problems or something. But he could be the worst that a team entered the season with as the intended DH.
Yes, Willie Bloomquist would make a better DH than Vidro. After quoting everyone’s 2008 stats, as if no one’s prior stats existed or had any relevance.
Even worse is Sexson. He was just released. I have him currently projected at 11 runs (per 150) above average, which is about average for a first baseman. I would take him over probably 100 full time players in MLB, not including defense.
Wednesday, July 09, 2008
By , 12:27 AM
There are only 4 teams in each league that have a better than even money chance at making the post-season, and we are barely halfway through the season.
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Tuesday, July 08, 2008
By , 08:54 PM
Victor Wang wrote this really good article in THT analyzing the CC Sabathia trade:
http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/evaluating-the-cc-sabathia-trade/
On Ballhype, I made these comments:
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Monday, June 23, 2008
By , 09:31 PM
The issue being sample size versus recency, of course. I don’t know off the top of my head, but I would guess it is last year’s stats. So, here is what I propose (as King of the World):
Take every article you read about who HAS the best offense, the best pitching, who IS the best player on whatever team, who should play, who should be benched, who should be sent down to the minors, who should be traded, who should be signed, who should not have been signed, who should bat where in the lineup, etc., etc. You will always see their 2008 stats as support for whatever statement or argument the author is making. Then substitute last year’s stats for this year’s stats since the former is likely at least as predictive as the latter, therefore it should provide better support for the author’s or writer’s arguments.
If you want to have even more fun, take full season stats from 2 years ago and combine them with the first half of last year. My guess is that these would also be more predictive of future performance than 85 games of 2008 stats.
I understand the fans’ and media’s obsession with current stats as a proxy for a player’s true talent, but an analyst should NEVER, EVER, EVER (did I say NEVER?) support an argument about how good someone IS or a team IS with current season stats. EVER.
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Saturday, June 14, 2008
By , 12:25 AM
http://baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=7660
Not very complicated or stats oriented, but the points are well taken and it is written very well, as is usually the case with Joe. I think that it is premium content, but I am not sure. If you can’t read it, basically Joe Sheehan of BP talks about how everyone was asking, “What is wrong with C.C.?” after his disastrous first 4 starts of the season, and everyone was touting Cliff Lee as the next, albeit in mid-career, Sandy Koufax. Yet since April 25th (of course that date is cherry picked), Sabathia has pitched much better than Lee, and in fact, both pitchers have pitched close to their career norms since then.
His point in the article is that “we” make too much of short term performance and we don’t give enough credence to the fact that changes in actual talent tend to happen gradually. He says something like, “It is not likely that all of a sudden Lee became a better pitcher than C.C.”
Now, the funny or ironic thing about this article and about Joe’s tenor (he sort of apologizes for being on the, “What’s wrong with C.C., and Lee is now a great pitcher” bandwagon) is that by next year, both Joe and everyone else who is shaking their heads in agreement as they read this article, will have forgotten this whole concept of, “short term performance does not a good or bad player make,” or something like that, and we will be once again reading about who is pitching hurt, or who is distracted by impending FA, or who has suddenly turned the corner, is now in the best shape of their life, has recovered from all their injuries, is playing relaxed and focused, etc., etc., etc.
Just for the record, and of course trying to be right or wrong about a particular projection is silly, but since April 25, which may have been around the time that I wrote that Lee was still an average or slightly below average pitcher, despite his early season ungodly performance, and got excoriated by people like Rob Neyer (actually he was justified, because I was unfair to him), he has posted an OPS against of .772 and the league average OPS in the AL this year so far is .736.
Speaking of Neyer, I don’t give him enough credit for his body of work, which is fantastic (his work that is). And of all the people I can think of in sports journalism or sabermetrics, I don’t think there is anyone who is more humble about his opinions or is more intellectually honest. And I hope I can bogart a ticket from him to his talk (with Bill James) at the Boston Museum of Science next Thursday. 
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
By , 08:12 PM
Maybe you pitch f/x guys can chime in. Remember when Loaiza was throwing a nasty 92 mph cut fastball? Anyway, as far as I can tell, he was throwing a 76-79 mph fastball tonight and a 73 mph changeup or some kind of breaking pitch. He looked like he was throwing underwater.
The slowest fastballs I recall ever seeing in my 30 years of watching baseball were all from left-handers. Jim Abbott at the end of his career could not break 80, and of course Moyer throws a fastball in the high 70’s and low 80’s I think. I don’t recall ever seeing a RHP throwing slow than around 82-83. I think Nagy was around 82 at the end of his career. My rule of thumb has always been that once a RHP dips below around 84-85, he is done. Maddux is of course an exception because he has pinpoint control that few pitchers have ever had. But even he throws at 85 now and he is not that good. Once he gets to 82-83, he will be done as well. What the heck is Loaiza doing? Or should I say what the heck is Ozzie and Kenny Williams doing?
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