Tangotiger Blog

Sunday, February 23, 2020

Introducing NaiveWAR

At around midnight, I had a tweetstorm on NaiveWAR. What follows is simply all my posts collected into one thread. If there’s anything new beyond the tweets, I’ll make a point of highlighting it by using the Pozterisk.

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Friday, October 11, 2019

WAR environments: Lynn v Ryu

?Some 12 years ago or so, we developed the WAR framework on the old Book Blog. It's nothing too original, working off what Pete Palmer and Bill James and Mitchel Lichtman had done in some form or other.  What I did was give the framework some rules and logical underpinnings, with some key assists by the Straight Arrow readers.  The framework could then be implemented under those guidelines. Because those guidelines were so clear and not onerous, it was just a matter of time for someone to implement their version of WAR.  (You'd think I would have done it, but nope. I was happy just doing it on an ad-hoc basis. I wanted to see its application to the world of free agents.)

Long-time peer Rally Monkey was the first to do so, and he implemented it with a fantastic presentation.  That was soon followed by Fangraphs doing their own flavor, also with an excellent presentation.  Baseball Reference used the Rally implementation, and added even more transparency.  Basically, the most transparency that you can imagine, while giving the results in as digestible form as it does.

And because Baseball Reference is so clear in its presentation, we can talk about Lance Lynn and Ryu.  Ryu has allowed one fewer run per 9IP than Lynn, but Lynn has a 2.5 WAR lead.  This is an enormous flip.  You'd think there must be something wrong.  Well, not according to the assumptions that Reference has clearly laid out.  The key to understand ANY baseball stat is: 

what would an average player do in THOSE conditions?

And the conditions that differentiate Lynn and Ryu are the three conditions that we all think about:

• Fielding Support
• Park Impact
• Opposing Hitting Talent

We don't know how the Dodgers fielders helped Ryu specifically.  We have several estimates as to how they helped the whole team. Fangraphs has the data for UZR and DRS. If you relied on the UZR estimate, the Dodgers are an average fielding team. If you relied on the DRS estimate, the Dodgers are the 2nd greatest fielding team since 2002 (behind last year's DBacks and ahead of this year's DBacks).  Baseball Reference relies on one fielding system, and that fielding system, since 2002, is DRS.  As a result, you start with a league average run environment, and remove 0.5 runs per 9IP to that, and that's our starting point for Ryu's (and basically all Dodgers pitchers) fielding-adjusted run environment.  So whether Ryu benefited from the Dodgers fielding support or not, it's presumed he earned it (about as much) as his pitching mates. Similarly, the Rangers are presumed to have terrible fielders.  And so, Lynn's adjusted run environment is to add 0.3 runs per 9IP.  So right there, we can explain a 0.8 run gap per 9IP.

The Rangers play in a presumed huge hitter's park, and the Dodgers play in a presumed pitcher's park.  That gap is going to add another 0.7 or so runs to Lynn v Ryu.

Finally, Lynn faced tougher hitters than Ryu, which is another 0.5 run gap.

Add it all up, and you have a 2 run gap in conditions, per 9 IP.  You can see it right here (click image to embiggen)

?

So now, we take Lynn's actual runs allowed per 9 IP (3.84) and compare it to his presumed conditions (6.25 R/9IP), and we end up with Lynn saving 2.41 runs per 9 IP compared to an average pitcher would have done given Lynn's presumed conditions.  And over 208.1 IP, that's 56 Runs Above Average.  (It shows 54, presumably because of rounding.)

Similarly, Ryu's conditions is that an average pitcher would have allowed 4.22 runs compared to his actual 2.61, or saving 1.61 runs per 9 IP, which over 182.2 IP is 33 Runs Above Average.

There is a runs-per-win conversion where Lynn's 54 runs counts as 5.7 wins, and Ryu's 33 runs counts as 3.6 wins. 

The final step is to compare the average pitcher to the replacement level, and add that to each pitcher.  So, Lynn's 5.7 WAA becomes 7.6 WAR (so gaining 1.9 wins), and Ryu's 3.6 WAA becomes 5.1 WAR (gaining 1.5 wins).  Those are, basically, proportional to their innings pitched (plus I think a league adjustment?).

Anyway, and that's how you go from one guy being 22 runs ahead of the other (Ryu over Lynn) or the equivalent of 2.2 wins, to the tables being turned, and the other guy (Lynn) being 2.5 wins ahead (of Ryu).  

That's a 4.7 win turnaround, based strictly on the estimated run environment for each pitcher.

Whether you accept all this or not, that's up to you.  But all the data is there for you to make an informed choice.

Thursday, January 10, 2019

Blast from the past: Build a Better WAR

?Just  a placeholder for stuff I did over at Fangraphs a few years back.

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Tuesday, March 01, 2016

Build a WAR Metric with me: Timing Buckets

?Here's my latest over at Fangraphs, including a poll.

It's running at 45-27 in favor of context-neutral over context-specific, with another 28% having their heads explode.

Saturday, February 27, 2016

Build a WAR metric with me, Part 9

The question relates to how you see pitchers and the impact of their fielders. We have two pitchers, let’s call them Stephen Strasburg and Adam Wainwright. And they are pitching in the same game.

Strasburg pitches a complete game, striking out 13, without walking anyone, or allowing any extra base hits. But he does allow 10 singles, or at least, he and his fielders allow 10 singles, and that leads to 2 runs.

Wainwright also pitches a complete game, he also doesn’t walk anyone, but he only strikes out 4. He only allows 7 singles, or at least, he and his fielders allow 7 singles, and that leads to only 1 run.

The only thing you know is what I’ve told you. If you wish to infer more, like perhaps the Cardinals fielders helped Adam more than the Nationals fielders helped Stephen, go ahead. If you wish to infer that Wainwright allowed softer hit balls than Strasburg, you can do that if you want. You decide how to interpret the information I’ve given you.

Go over to Fangraphs and vote.

Friday, February 26, 2016

Build a WAR metric with me, parts 6, 7, 8

Part 6:?Relievers giving up 1 run with either a 2-run or 1-run lead.

Part 7: Solo HR v bases-clearing double

Part 8:K v SF with runner on 3B and 1 out

Build a WAR metric with me, part 5

When the home team enters the top of the 9th with a 3-run lead, they will win that game 98% of the time. That happens mostly because they get to pick and choose the reliever they want. If they chose a random reliever, they'd win 97% of the time. If they chose a poor reliever, they'd win 96% of the time. It's pretty tough to mess up a 3-run lead, especially when the home team gets one more crack at it in the bottom of the 9th. 

So, we have a SP that went 8, and he hands off to the reliever this 3-run lead. The ace reliever comes in. Let's call him Armando Benitez. He walks the first batter, allows a HR to the second, then strikes out the side. The game ends, and his team wins. Armando even gets a "save", whatever that is supposed to imply. 

Since he was given a 3-run rope, and he only used 2-runs, he was able to turn a 96% or 98% chance of winning into 100%, all without the help of his fielders. Incredibly, things could have gotten worse, which does happen 2 to 4 percent of the time. In this case, he pitched just bad enough to win.

If you want to vote on the poll, go over to Fangraphs.

Thursday, February 25, 2016

Build a WAR metric with me, part 4

For now, let's start the second inning by leaving aside the hitters and talk about defense.  Now, when I refer to defense, I mean pitching+fielding.  Remember, defense is the whole team, the pitchers and the fielders.  We'll worry about how to separate fielders from pitchers in a soon-to-be-asked question.  Just not now.  Cool?

Let's say that one team defense allows 10 hits with 3 walks.  But they are all scattered, and so actually end up with a shutout.  Another team defense allows the exact same number of hits and walks.  They even allow them in the exact same way.  The only difference is the timing.  They allowed them bunched up, and so resulted in eight runs allowed.  From a team defense perspective, how do you see them in terms of assigning value?

You can vote over at Fangraphs.

Build a WAR metric with me, checkpoint

In trying to summarize the responses to the three questions, so far, what we have in terms of preference is:

- the event, regardless of the context - the event, within the context of the whole game state (inning, score, base, out) - the event, within the context of the base-out state - and far down the list, the event as it ultimately affects the inning

What the responders therefore are gravitating toward is a purely content-neutral metric.  But, to the extent that we do want to measure the context-specific impact, that should be kept separate, and perhaps not even tied to the player at all.  Just a general "timing" bucket.

If we take the case of the triple in the previous thread, in either case, Hamilton and Dyson will get +1 run, because that's the context-neutral value of the triple, according to Linear Weights.

We immediately add a -0.4 runs because a triple with the bases empty and 0 outs is worth +0.6 runs.  So, they don't want to penalize either guy for getting the triple when they did, and so, to make things add up, we need "-0.4" runs for timing.

Then the three outs, they each get -0.25 runs, as is the standard weight.

So far, we have this: +1.0 Hamilton -0.4 timing: limited impact triple -0.25 batter1 -0.25 batter2 -0.25 batter3

That's a total of -0.15 runs.  But since the inning started at +0.5 runs of expectancy, and we get 0 runs scored, the total has to be -0.5 runs.  So, we add another item: -0.35 bad timing: leaving runner on base

As for the other scenario: +1.0 Dyson -0.4 timing: limited impact triple -0.25 batter1 -0.25 batter2 -0.25 batter3

But, since we actually scored a run, that should come in at +0.5 runs.  We need another: +0.65 good timing: scoring the runner

For a minority, a vocal minority, those "timing" impact runs should be given to the players involved.  Looking at the Hamilton one, whereas a generic out is worth -0.25 runs, an out with a runner on third is more costly.  So, that -0.35 runs has to be distributed to the three out-makers, for those readers part of the vocal minority.  For the readers in the majority, those runs are an after-thought.  Maybe they should be considered, so the thing adds up.  But, it shouldn't fall on the shoulders of the players involved.  Just a general team bucket to capture the various plays affected by timing.

So, that's how you build your WAR:

For each player, figure his context-neutral impact as one value, and his "timing" as another value.

Then, the reader can choose whether to include the timing value or not.

Now, on to the pitchers and fielders!

Build a WAR metric with me, part 3

?The post and poll is up on Fangraphs.  I'm reposting the post below, but the poll needs to be accessed from there.

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Wednesday, February 24, 2016

Build a WAR metric with me, part 2

?What I think I'll do is write a blog post here, see the discussion evolve.  Then, I will modify the post and the next day, put up the "final" article over at Fangraphs.

Ok, you guys have spoken, and you don't want a bases loaded walk to count the same as a solo HR.  That even though the base-out state before the event and after the event remain unchanged, that the number of runs now in the bank are the same, the WAY it happened matters to most of you.  Therefore, we are NOT trying to preserve the runs, we are not trying to make sure the runs add up.  You have been clear on that.

Now, let's talk about "preservation of wins".  It's a 0-0 game, the bottom of the 9th, the bases are loaded with two outs.  Historically, at this point in the game, the batting team would end up winning 68% of the time.  It's a high stakes situation, a Leverage Index of 6.4.  And the batter walks.  The batting team wins, game is over.  Ooops, I meant the batter hit a single.  No, wait, it was a Grand Slam.  No, wait it should have been a Grand Slam, but Robin Ventura decided to abandon the bases after he reached first base.  Regardless, the game is over, and the batting team won as soon as the batter touched first base.

Your question:

It's the bottom of the 9th of a tie game, bases loaded.

(a) Same impact.  I care about the preservation of wins.

(b) Totally different.  I want the HR to count for alot more.

Sunday, February 21, 2016

Build a WAR metric with me, part 1

?Wins Above Replacement is an estimate of... something. What that something is is different for every person.  While the currency is wins, it's not clear what those wins represent.  There are reasonable choices you can make along the way.  And for every fork in the road you take, you may diverge yourself from the next guy.  This is why WAR can never be one thing. 

As a framework, WAR leaves little room for discussion.  Whether it's what you see at Baseball Reference or at Fangraphs or openWAR or (to some extent) at Baseball Prospectus, they have as their framework the WAR as was championed on our old blog.  But a framework is not the same as an implementation.  95% of the cars on the road all follow the same core design.  That's the framework.  But a Chevy is different from a Lexus.  Those are implementations. And there are as many implementations of WAR as there are baseball fans.  This thread is an effort to try to come up with a WAR metric that will satisfy the Straight Arrow readers.

***

I'll ask you a series of questions, starting now.  The openWAR guys talk about "preservation of runs".  That is a good starting point, and a great way to describe it.  So, the question centers around whether we want to make sure that everything adds up at the play level.  If you get a bases loaded walk, do we want to make sure that exactly 1 run is accounted for or not?

If you care about "talent", you just want to account for around +.30 runs for offense (and -.30 runs for defense), because you don't want to be concerned with the specific base-out state.  (We'll talk about "preservation of wins" in a later question.)   Similarly, is a bases empty walk and bases empty single the same thing or not?  And if you want to preserve runs, are you ready to accept a bases loaded walk and a solo HR as being the exact same thing?

So, have a discussion, then I'll put up a poll in a day.