?A very nice story on the Lachemann brothers. I didn't realize this:
“It was the highest up and lowest down in my entire life,” Lachemann
said. “Ten times we had two strikes and couldn’t put the game away.”
?I know everyone loves to do it. You have to choose whether you are comparing two players on their own, or whether you are comparing how the two players would do, if they had access to identical environments (nutritional, equipment, training, etc). That is, are we transplanting the 1936 version of Jesse Owens, or are we transplanting his grandparents so that Owens would be born at the same time and place as Usain Bolt?
Rally also brought up the following point, which I posted to Bill James:
In football, basketball, hockey, we wouldn't think of comparing the best 2001 team to the best 1954 team, and think that the 1954 team could beat the 2001 team. Someone at my site suggested it's because baseball had an earlier start historically (say 30 years beforebasketball and hockey), and so, we need to shift our persepective by 30 years, so that we get to a plateau like we might with baseball. I don't buy that argument in the least. What do you think?
Asked by: tangotiger
Answered: 2/1/2013
Oh, I certainly buy that argument. MOST of the improvement in baseball skills occurred before the NFL was organized in 1920 or whenever it was. Baseball gets better, but the pace at which baseball is improving has certainly been cut down by the passage of time.
?Crashburn linked to Caple's sentiments on WAR.
I thought Mark Simon's objection from two years ago is sufficient. I added a couple of my thoughts at the time.
As far as I can tell, all the anti-WAR sentiment is really missing the forest for the trees.
Weirdly, the Reds announcers talked about "no hitter" and "gem". The MLB person who shows the caption talks about a "no hitter intact". But it was a perfect game! Pedro was 22-up, 22-down at that point. I don't know who those announcers were 19 years ago, but defending Reggie Sanders?
Bill James made a proposal on his site about how to change the rotation setup. Instead of having gone from a 4-man to 5-man, Bill proposed going the other way, down to a 3-man rotation. Don goes through Bill's comment about PAP in a fair way.
Anyway, Bill proposed a three-man rotation of 54 starts each, but a ceiling on pitches, much like we saw with the Rockies for three weeks.
When it comes down to it, you can probably make as good a case for a three-man as you can for a 4-man, 5-man, and 6-man rotation. Or even a mix, so that some guys start every three days and others start every five days, and others every seven days.? Naturally, the guys starting every three days are going to get pulled far earlier than the other pitchers.
Since every pitcher is different, it's obvious that every pitcher needs to be treated differently.
What will stop any change however is the Won/Loss rule. You can only get a win as a starting pitcher if you pitch at least five innings, but you can get a loss any time. Which is of course a silly rule. So, if you have a starting pitcher scheduled to go for say 60-80 pitches, there's really no reason to make him start the game. He can just as easily come in relief in the third inning, after the first starting pitcher gets pulled for a pinch hitter.
Anyway, lots of potential crazy setups.
A nice history of the Alou brothers.?
When Felipe was managing the Expos, he'd be #1, maybe #2 (Moises Alou might beat him out) in getting the loudest ovations from the fans. He was the face of the team. He was fiercely loyal to Montreal, even turning down a deal with the Dodgers to stay in Montreal. He married a woman from Quebec, and I think he still lives there.
And since I'm reminiscing, hats off to Pedro Martinez, for giving the fans of Montreal a shout-out while champagne was being poured over his head after he won the World Series. Pedro also returned to Montreal the year after he was traded to Boston, to give a special gift to Felipe.
I love these guys who have a special place in their heart for Montreal.
?A long research piece, which I might get to read at the office tomorrow.
The data shows that there is an overall "opposite effect": "bad" calls
help the parties they were called against; for example, a ball called a
strike will- on average- help the batter get on base at a higher rate
than an at-bat in which the correct call was made, and a strike called a
ball will- on average- lessen the likelihood that a batter reaches
base, favoring the pitcher. This supports previous research that umpires
may utilize "make-up" calls, whether consciously or unconsciously. Data
for this "opposite effect" wanes, or reverses, as the count grows long,
as umpires have less chance to provide a "make-up" call.
?Taking Jeff's point to its logical conclusion, I must say yes.
Every episode of iCarly starts with the letter i. Not I, but i, as in lower-case i. And it's not the stand-alone word I (or i), but the lower-case i attached to the next word. For example: iSpy a Mean Teacher. It's cute, or it's silly. But, really, who cares.
Well, if you go to Jeff's article, you will see Star Trek fans debating the letter I/i. And Jeff suggests the way we talk about players is really no different.
iAgree with Jeff.
Good stuff here. This is one of those things I like to do as well, especially if trying to see if talent is increasing or decreasing.
?
?Jeff took the slowest working pitcher (Papelbon at 31 seconds between pitches) and the slowest working hitter (Pena at 28 seconds) and wondered what happened when they actually faced each other.
There's two schools of thought here: the pitcher controls the pace, and if Papelbon takes 31 seconds, then there's nothing a slow or fast batter is going to do. It'll take 31 seconds.
The other is that both have an impact. If let's say the average pace is 22 seconds (guessing), then Papelbon is +9 and Pena is +6, and so the two facing each other would give us +15. So, we'd expect 22+15 = 37 seconds.
And it seems the second method works best.
Just fantastic. This site is my goto site for market activity analysis. And Matthew shows exactly why. He went through the last Fed statement, and the current Fed statement, and looks like he just put it in Word with Tracking, to highlight what was added and what was removed. It's brilliant in its simplicity and clarity.
Indeed, you can practically see the committee using their last statement as the basis, and then going through each line, and asking "so, should we be a bit more bullish or bearish here?", and making slight modifications as they agree.?
John Sickels gives us his list.
It's important to note that this is just players in the minor leagues. As he notes, when Mike Trout gets called up, the ranking for the Angels takes a beating. And if you trade a prospect for even a young MLB player, you drop down as well.?
Adam turns his view over to hockey.
One thing I've been meaning to do, but maybe Adam will be inspired to do it: how many years do players wait? The BBWAA is notorious for not having "1st timers". But, the NHL voters don't see it that way at all. There was one year where they had five guys that would have gone in the first time, but they have a strict max-4 limit, so one guy (Larionov) had to wait a year.
The Hockey Hall of Fame elects about 25 players every 10 years, which makes it a medium hall, and right around the size that the average Straight Arrow reader expects from baseball.
So, that's what I like about the hockey process:
1. players have a 3-year waitlist, not 5 years (and waive the 3-year rule under exceptional circumstances)
2. deserving players are elected extremely quickly
3. they don't get a year without electing SOMEONE?
4. had active Hall of Famers (unretired Gordie Howe, Mario, Guy Lafleur)
5. you never, and I mean never, have the annual drone of the Jack Morris type of candidate... if a guy like that is on the horizon (Clark Gillies?), he's quietly elected, there may be some consternation, and then it's over and done with... Hall of Fame is really about celebration of players elected, and not hand-wringing about players ignored (Housley, Gilmour, etc)
?Do you think it's crazy that CVS charges 7.99$ for two passport-sized headshots, when they charge 19 cents online and 29 cents at the kiosk for a single 4x6 standard picture? Yeah, me too.
Well, here's http://www.epassportphoto.com/ . While they offer you a paid service (i.e., whatever CVS would otherwise charge you for passport photos), you can get their free service by clicking appropriately. And what do you end up with? A perfectly sized passport photo for whatever country you want, and prepared in a 4x6 format. Just open up a CVSphoto.com account, upload the picture, and, voila, pick up the picture at the store for 19 cents. (CVS gives you a service charge if you spend less than 5 dollars, so this is all you do, then just bring your flash drive to their Kodak kiosk and pay 29 cents.)
There may have been a time where a pro photog taking your passport pic for 12.99$ made sense. I don't see that any longer. The problem is that we only get our passport done every five years, so, it takes a long time to change our habit.
If you guys have other of these cool services that basically reduces the cost of something by 95%, I'd love to hear about those too.
?Love seeing how fans "get" run expectancy.
?Cool story from Montreal. If you can't read through the whole thing, just read the first couple of paragraphs, and then the last one.
The New York metro area has three hockey teams. The Toronto metro area has one, even though in terms of potential hockey fans, it dwarfs the NY area. Toronto also happens to be the most valuable franchise in the NHL.
But this is the best part: they are co-owned by communication rivals Rogers and Bell. This is like Cablevision and Verizon owning the Rangers. From my cheap seats, it seems to me that a split into two teams is a foregone conclusion, and the issue is about how to go about the divorce. How to value the name, who keeps the players (or split them), who gets the old arena, and who gets a new one in the outskirts.? All of that can be priced. Indeed, you can do the classic "I cut, you pick" to guarantee fairness.
I'd love to hear from my Toronto paisans and tell me what in the world am I missing? Could the Toronto hockey market actually be worth more as one, than as two? And could the current owners really bank on being able to block a second team from coming in, rather than pre-empting the effort with an amicable split into two teams that they'd each own?
Bojan takes about a page (or three) out of The Book?, and gives it an in-depth treatment with current data. I love it when the new wave of researchers roll up their sleeves, as this is really the best way to move forward.
?Brian takes a look at how EPA (expected points added, which is RE24 for baseball) and WPA correlate, as well as Clutch score.
In his case, he didn't calculate clutch score the way I do, by using leverage index. Which reminds me: has Brian done a Leverage Index for football? I should probably talk to him about that.
?Mike correlates the rate of HR per flyball to the average distance per flyball. Relationship is fairly strong.
Nov 23 14:15
Layered wOBAcon
Nov 22 22:15
Cy Young Predictor 2024
Oct 28 17:25
Layered Hit Probability breakdown
Oct 15 13:42
Binomial fun: Best-of-3-all-home is equivalent to traditional Best-of-X where X is
Oct 14 14:31
NaiveWAR and VictoryShares
Oct 02 21:23
Component Run Values: TTO and BIP
Oct 02 11:06
FRV v DRS
Sep 28 22:34
Runs Above Average
Sep 16 16:46
Skenes v Webb: Illustrating Replacement Level in WAR
Sep 16 16:43
Sacrifice Steal Attempt
Sep 09 14:47
Can Wheeler win the Cy Young in 2024?
Sep 08 13:39
Small choices, big implications, in WAR
Sep 07 09:00
Why does Baseball Reference love Erick Fedde?
Sep 03 19:42
Re-Leveraging Aaron Judge
Aug 24 14:10
Science of baseball in 1957
THREADS
November 23, 2024
Layered wOBAcon, for Pitchers
November 19, 2024
Layered wOBAcon
October 24, 2024
Layered Hit Probability breakdown
October 18, 2024
Describing the season of a pitcher: ERA v FIP
October 04, 2024
Binomial fun: Best-of-3-all-home is equivalent to traditional Best-of-X where X is
October 02, 2024
Component Run Values: TTO and BIP
October 01, 2024
Cy Young Predictor 2024
September 25, 2024
Arm and Movement Angles
September 25, 2024
Runs Above Average
September 23, 2024
Clase and Cy Young voting for relievers
September 20, 2024
Spray angles and xwOBA, part I-lost-track
September 17, 2024
FRV v DRS
September 15, 2024
Sacrifice Steal Attempt
September 11, 2024
Skenes v Webb: Illustrating Replacement Level in WAR
September 06, 2024
Small choices, big implications, in WAR
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Nov 24 09:57 Win Attribution to offense, pitching, and fielding at the game level (prototype method)
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