THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Sunday, January 27, 2013

You say Goodbye… and I say Hello

New blog is now up and running at http://tangotiger.com/ 

Note the .com . 

I still have my old site at http://tangotiger.net

Thursday, January 24, 2013

Blog Beta Testers Needed

I’m going to (finally) spend a few hours setting up the blog.  If there’s four or five of you interested in testing it, providing feedback, etc, just post a comment below that you will do it, and then send me an email to tom~tangotiger~net, and put “Blog Beta” in the subject line.

You MUST be available for email discussions tomorrow (Friday) between 10:00 and 17:00 ET, on a sporadic basis.

Basically, I’ll make changes, I’ll send an email, hope that a couple of you can reply within 30 minutes, etc.  And we’ll go through that kind of iterative process.

Thursday, January 17, 2013

NHL apologizes for being late, and will have players make it up for them

Terrible apology.

First, they never say “I’m sorry”.  In order to express remorse, you MUST say “I’m sorry”.  If you say “I apologize”, you simply acknowledge a wrong, but without expressing remorse.

Secondly, even if you want to accept “apologize”, they don’t even mention their culpability.  They say “for the time we’ve missed”.  That’s like coming home late for dinner because of bad traffic.  Like, it couldn’t be helped.

“I apologize for being late, as the traffic was terrible.”  That’s what the NHL just said.

But, the NHL is the one that caused the accident!  They locked out the players.  They can’t even acknowledge it.  They’re hoping by not saying it, people will forget about who to blame!  Even some of their NHL.com “reporters” go out of their way to not say “lockout”.

Anyway, after that complete opening fail, they want to earn your trust by… having someone else play their hearts out for you!  The players were willing to play with an expired CBA.  They were always ready to play their hearts out. 

So, the NHL caused an accident, made you late for dinner, and is going to get their mechanic to work extra hard on your car, and even though the mechanic was going to do that anyway.  And for this, they expect absolution.

Does the NHL offer you free NHL Center Ice?  No, of course not, because their “partners” wouldn’t allow it.  Some of their partners (Comcast, Cablevision) happen to own the Flyers and Rangers.  And I think inDemand is owned by Comcast.  Anyway, I understand that Cablevision still wants their 49$ cut out of the 99$ they’d otherwise charge for a 48-game season.  But, why is the fan paying that 49$?  Why can’t the NHL give the fans a rebate on that?  So, you pay the 49$ to Cablevision, and then you fill out the rebate form at NHL.com, and the NHL gives you back 49 NHL bucks, which you can apply to tickets, concessions, or merchandise.  Instead, Bettman goes on the radio and now makes his partners complicit in the idea that the fans can’t get a free NHL Center Ice package.

Finally, they end their apology letter by asking us to forget everything and focus on the players.  This is like Congress blocking aid to Sandy for two months while eventually agreeing to the proposal all along.  It was a ridiculous wait.

The only apology I’d like to see is Bettman/Daly’s performance in early December following Fehr’s pronouncement that they had agreement on the dollars, and were right on top of each other everywhere else, while they were talking about hills to die on and comparing Fehr’s statements to being a billion dollar apart the last time.  The deal they eventually agreed to was pretty much what Fehr was talking about in December.  It was five weeks lost, for no other reason than whatever motivates Congress: talk loud and hope no one notices that you are saying nothing.

And if someone from the NHL happens to read this: if you have taken offense to what I just said, then I apologize.  Dinner will be waiting.

Monday, January 14, 2013

NHL, NHLPA MOU

On NHLPA’s site, they have the 24-page MOU.  Right there, on the first line, it says either side can opt-out after 8 years. And yet, right there, on the second line, it says the opt-out period is Sept, 2019. Since the first season of the CBA ends June 2013, that would mean the seventh season ends June 2019. In any case, they also said the agreement terminates Sept 2022, which is three years after the opt-out, not two. I can’t believe that everyone who read this has signed off on it.

Ten-Year Agreement with mutual right to terminate after eight (8) years.

NHL shall have the first option to terminate, exercisable by no later than September 1, 2019. NHLPA shall have the second option to terminate, exercisable by no later than September 15, 2019.

Expiration date on September 15, 2022 unless otherwise terminated in accordance with the terms set out in this Agreement.

UPDATE: Looks like I fail basic inference.  The opt-out DECLARATION is after seven years, with the actual ending of the CBA after eight years.  So, gives everyone a one year lead time to play under the soon-to-opt-out CBA.

I also changed the title of the thread, but not the URL of the thread.

Wednesday, January 09, 2013

Looks like I picked a good day to suspend blogging

React as you wish to the BBWAA: http://bbwaa.com/

Here are the results, broken up between those who made their ballots public via Repoz, and those who kept it confidential.  For whatever reason, the silent majority no-like Raines, while the vocal minority is on his side.

Oh, and 6.6 names per ballot, either public or private.

Note: I still haven’t put in any work on moving the blog over.  For now, this thread is all I’m doing, thanks.

Public	Private	Player
70%	67%	Craig Biggio
59%	72%	Jack Morris
59%	60%	Jeff Bagwell
60%	57%	Mike Piazza
60%	48%	Tim Raines
38%	53%	Lee Smith
39%	39%	Curt Schilling
44%	34%	Roger Clemens
45%	31%	Barry Bonds
36%	36%	Edgar Martinez
38%	31%	Alan Trammell
16%	24%	Larry Walker
20%	21%	Fred McGriff
19%	19%	Dale Murphy
14%	18%	Mark McGwire
9%	15%	Don Mattingly
13%	12%	Sammy Sosa
13%	7%	Rafael Palmeiro
2%	4%	Bernie Williams
3%	3%	Kenny Lofton
1%	4%	Sandy Alomar Jr.
1%	1%	Julio Franco
1%	1%	David Wells
1%	0%	Shawn Green

Saturday, January 05, 2013

Indefinite, but short, hiatus

I am preparing my blog on my site, and am now turning The Book Blog into archive mode.  If you make a comment starting from now, it may not survive.

It may take one day or seven days.  I don’t know. Expression Engine changed some tags, and their structure, so, just a matter of me getting up to speed during my spare time.

Anyway, I’ll make an announcement here when I’m all setup.  In the meantime, check out the archives (go all the way down to the bottom).  Lots of good stuff from the Straight Arrow readers.

Friday, January 04, 2013

Think or hit, don’t do both

So says this study.

I still remember in Moneyball the little story of Beane talking to Dykstra, asking him how he approached hitting.  Dykstra’s approach of just hitting seems to have won the day there.

“The NHL is using this suit in an attempt to force the players to remain in a union�

If it’s to the advantage of management that a union exists, and if said management goes so far as to file a lawsuit to get the courts to force the union to exist, that seems to me to be a pretty good reason to not have a union.

I vote: chaos.

Every now and then, a bloodless revolution is good, and hopefully, that’s where we’re heading with the NHL.

Poll: I read eBooks on…

Simple Hall of Fame voting change

This is really simple.  Change to MVP-style voting, where you list players 1 through 10.  First place guy gets 14 points, second gets 9, third gets 8, down to tenth gets 1.  You don’t even need to fill out every slot if you don’t want.  Points are tallied, and the top two votegetters are elected to Hall of Fame. That’s it.  This is a real easy change, and the voters are used to this kind of voting anyway.

***

Then you have the issue of returning players.  You could make it that the top 20 returning players (those who end up #3 through #22) get back on the ballot the next year, plus the next year’s rookie class, so you always have some 30-40 players to choose from.  Not really much different than what we have now, but instead of the 5% rule (which can’t apply here any more), we just go with a straight count.  There’s some flexibility here.  We can look at the last 5-10 years to see how many returning players there have been and use that as a guideline.  Someone else can look into that.

***

Drop off players?  You could drop off players after 10 years on the ballot.  After that, you still have a veteran’s committee, maybe have them around every 5 years, and THEY vote in exactly one guy, in the same MVP-style voting.  This way, all those guys that drop off the ballot have one last chance to get in.

***

This means that every 10 years, 22 players get elected, which is about the “right” number.  How do I know that?  Because that’s what the Straight Arrow readers said.  When asked in a vaccum, it was about 21 players.  When asked specifically for players born 1962-1971, it was 23.

Are the best one-and-done players better than the worst first-ballot Hall of Famers?

I asked that question, and a reader went through and came up with his list.  (See comment #1 below.)

Thursday, January 03, 2013

Latest NHL developments

Here’s a recap of a recap.  The two compliance buyouts is only common sense.  NHL was at zero, and now accepted two.  I doubt any team would buyout three of their players.  So, that’s a good number.

That buyout amount is not going to count against the cap (that is the reason for having the buyout in the first place, to get yourself under the cap), and… big news… will count against the 50/50 split… as it should.  I’ve never understood the player position on this.  If DiPietro has 30MM$ in salary left, then that’s going to count against the player share over the remaining years.  If Islanders buy him out at 20MM$, then, of course that has to count as well.  Now, it obviously should not count all in the same year, and if that’s the sticking point, then I’m with the players there.  But, it has to count within the 50/50 at some point.

The other one is the 20% variance (meaning 20% of the first year to establish the variance AMOUNT).  As a practical example, if you want to sign someone for a 6 year 42MM$ deal, you can pay him at 12MM$ the first year, then 10, 8, 6, 4, 2 for the final five years.  The best players won’t get that flexibility.  Those guys would say sign a 6 year 60MM$ deal, and the most front-loading would work is: 12MM$ for each of the first three years, then 10, 8, 6 for the next three.  Which, honestly, is fair.

Therefore, all those things seem reasonable and fair to me.

I didn’t hear anything about the CBA length other than it’s 10 years with some contingency.  My guess is that the reopener is either 8 years or 5 billion$ in revenue, whichever comes first.  Something like that.  If league grows at 8% each year, then it hits the 5 billion$ level after six years.  Considering that it might take a year or two for NHL to recover to it’s 3.3 billion$ base of last season, it’s probably going to happen in year 8 anyway.  But, it protects either side if they see revenues go up like crazy.  But, like I said, players should accept a 20 year CBA because there’s nothing stopping owners from bringing it to a 45/55 split.  Players have no leverage, not unless the league is so profitable that the league will finally decide to stop with the lockout business.

The outstanding issue is pensions, and, I’m not in a position to understand it.  And, my guess is that 95% of the players aren’t either.  Maybe George Parros understands it.  Of all the issues to leave unresolved at the end, this should not have been it.  The players are going to rely on the experts, and the experts are probably going to have a very hard time explaining it.

NHL is going to make their final proposal next week, and Fehr is going to take it to the players, and no matter how bad the pension plan is, the players will vote to accept.

Base scores

On Bill’s site, he was talking about converting scores in NFL to MLB, noting that 3 football points is like one MLB run.  I responded:

In MLB, it’s about 10 runs per win, while in NFL, it’s about 35 points per win. So, conversion is about 3.5 to 1. A 7-4 MLB game would therefore be about 24-14 in NFL (or really 27-17… it’s not just the multiple, but there’s a “base number” that each team gets). This is more obvious in NBA, where it’s about 30 points per win (similar to NFL), so 3:1 conversion to MLB. So, 7-4 MLB is like 109-100 in NBA. There’s a huge “base” number of points that each side gets, and then you do the multiplier. NHL is 6 to 7 goals per win, so 7-4 MLB is 5-3 in NHL. NHL is like MLB in that there’s no “base” scoring.

It also got me thinking how “true” a sport is in its scoring if there was no “base scoring”.  NBA gives you points basically for just possessions.  A huge amount of the scoring is simply based on having the ball in your hands.  Yes, you have to throw it in the basket.  But, what I’m trying to say is that the score differential in NBA is about the same as it is in NFL.  Basically, if you score an average of 5 more points per game in NBA, that means about the same as scoring 5 more points per game in NFL.  But, the total number of points per game is far different.

NFL could adopt a scoring system that gives you say a quarter point for every yard gained from the scrimmage line or something, and then we’d get a scoring system that might look more like NBA.  That is, you get points for possessions, but not for actually scoring.  I know, I know, in NBA, you get points only for the basket.  I got it.  When you make analogies, you are not making equivalencies.

It made me think of tennis, where the “points” you get, like yards in football, are not real points.  They only matter if you win the game.  And even the games don’t matter unless you win the set.

So, you can actually try to do the same thing with basketball.  For example, imagine you do tennis-style scoring in basketball.  You win a “game” if you get 4 or more unanswered points.  Once you have that, a new game resets.  So, the back-and-forth of getting two points is a wash.  Turnovers become a huge key.  If you make it 5 or more unanswered points instead, then you might see alot of 3-point attempts.  Imagine for example, you win a “game” if you need at least 5 unanswered points.  You score (that’s 2 points), the other teams come up court, but you steal, and score an easy basket (2 points, now at 4 points).  But if the other team scores, that wipes out your 4 points, rendering it meaningless.  Now your opponent is at 2 points.  Would be wild right?

Anyway, and this is just me, so I’m sure I’m in the minority, I don’t follow basketball because it just seems like an up-and-down game.  There’s no incentive to not be up-and-down.  There also doesn’t seem to be much randomness.  Well, I know there isn’t, because I’ve shown that to be true.  In a 48-minute game, the better team wins much more than the opponent.  I don’t know that that’s the best way to operate, especially in light of how MLB and NHL operate.  And even if that IS the best way to operate, I know that having an 82-game season is NOT the best way to operate.  And having 16-teams in the playoffs on top of that is not the best way to operate.  The NBA sucks as much of the randomness as possible to leave you with a very strong confidence that the team that wins the championship is indeed the most talented team in the league.  But, do we really want that?  Don’t we want to see some huge upset occasionally?  The other sports offer that because of their game structure or schedule.  NBA doesn’t.

Anyway, just a thought that popped into my head.

Liability costs for gun ownership

The argument is that if we require liability insurance for cars and if mortgage companies require the house to be insured, then apply that principle to gun ownership.  Opposite that is that a main problem is illegal guns and so, the share of illegal guns will increase as honest potential gun owners don’t buy guns because of the extra roadblock.

SOMEONE did get elected to the Hall of Fame?

Unless they think that Gerlado/Capone made for great television and somehow increased his standing, it seems a foregone conclusion that someone has been elected to the Hall of Fame.

The only question is if it’s current sample-leader Craig Biggio, sitting at 71% after 15% of the ballots, or if it’s Jack Morris at 62%, and all the old internet-less Morris voters hiding in the closet, too afraid to come out.

Before seeing that announcement, I would have bet that there was a more than 50% chance, and likely closer to 90% chance, that no one would get elected.  But, my prior has changed.  Seeing that announcement, I’m now at 90% that someone DID get elected.  I just can’t believe that the head of the BBWAA would stand at that makeshift podium at the MLB network to announce that no one got elected.  It would be a major letdown, after the network would have an all-day lead-in to that announcement.

That would be like it’s raining all day, but the team doesn’t call the game off, and everyone goes to the park, and then an hour in, they call the game due to rain.  That NEVER EVER happens.

Oh.

Right.

Murray Chass: kicking and screaming his way out the door

Chass is going to relinquish his voting rights… but contingent on Morris being on the ballot.  He wants to vote for Morris this year, and if he’s still not elected, will vote for him on his last year, and then that’s it. 

This blog post / column contains many elements that I disagree with Chass.  (I love Chass the most when he talks about the business of baseball.)  Backne makes an appearance.  The stat-heavy denigration makes an appearance.  The jealousy of voters makes an appearance.  The evidence-free accusations of the killer Bs being roiders makes an appearance.

But, he concurs with me on the issue of conflict of interest.  It’s odd though that he agrees with it, but will still vote.

Anyway, have fun!

Park-based DH rule

One of the most popular DH rule options is that prior to each game, the home manager decides if a DH will be used or not.  This is an exciting story element pre-game, every game.  You can see how you can get burned if you opt for the DH, and the visiting DH hits the game winning HR.  Or, you opt to not DH, and your ace pitcher goes 0 for 4, stranding seven runners on base.  It’s cool, it’s exciting.

The problem is from a team management perspective, it’s quite difficult to have a 25-man roster like that.  While at home, you have more flexibility, on the road,  you are at the mercy of your opponent, as you simply never know.  Well, maybe when you play at Fenway, you’ll know.  But otherwise, you’ll never know.  Not to mention that your pitchers might be practicing hitting without needing to.  There’s actually a fairly sizeable gap in hitting talent between NL pitchers and AL pitchers.  I don’t remember the gap exactly, but I think it was about 20 wOBA points, which is… well, huge, relatively speaking.  Use-it-or-lose-it, certainly.

Pizza Cutter proposed something that addresses this issue.  We still have the park-rule for the DH, but rather than it being set on a game-by-game basis, it is set on a SEASON basis.  Furthermore, the decision is made via sealed envelope, so you don’t even know how often you get to use the DH, be it 81 games or 162 games or anything in-between.

The Redsox would definitely opt for the DH, the Yanks probably would, but what would the small market teams do?  Well, they know they can’t compete with Ortiz or ARod (or whoever the Yanks frappeur-du-jour would be), so they’d probably exploit the idea of teaching their own pitchers to hit, save the money for the 81+ game DH, and opt to be a DH-free park.  And knock out Ortiz and the other DH from playing there.

It’s a wonderful idea!

Please explain “escrow” in one tweet

Here is the issue: in the NHL (and NFL, NBA), players get a share of the revenue, akin to a salesman earning commissions.  The difference is that the salesman only gets paid after the sale goes through.  So, the company gets the money in hand from the customer, and then at every pay period, the salesman gets his cut.

Sports leagues operate a little differently.  The have a STRONG expectation of getting huge revenue.  Last year, the NHL collected 3.3 billion$.  Now, they were not guaranteed to collect 3.3 billion$, but they were strongly betting on getting at least 3 billion$.  The money also comes in waves, be it season ticket packages, or 5-yr or 10-yr sponsorship and TV deals.  A salesman would cut his cut on a cash flow basis, but, NHL players don’t operate like that.  Both sides agreed that player should get paid in a more traditional even flow, a fixed amount every two weeks.

So, what to do what to do.  The players, in total, signed for something like 1.9 billion$ (estimated for illustration).  Actually, they THINK they signed for 1.9 billion UNITED STATES DOLLARS.  The reality is they signed for 1.9 billion NHL BUCKS.  Remember, players get a share of the revenue, and if revenue is 0, players get 0.

Anyway, the NHL and NHLPA decided to presume that the NHL would collect 3 billion US$, of which 57% (or 1.71 billion US$) would go to the players.  Now, since the players actually signed for 1.9 billion NHL BUCKS, we have a conversion rate that is NOT 1:1.  Each NHL buck is worth 90 US Cents.  For those who lives in Canada for the longest time, these kinds of conversion are old hat to you.

Ok, so if a player signed for 10 million NHL bucks, he’s actually get 9 million US dollars, spread out over, say 13 pay checks.

But, like I said, money is rolling in at various waves.  The NHL and NHLPA check their bank accounts, and they see that money is coming in faster than expected.  That conversion rate of 90 US cents for each NHL buck was estimated just so that NHL players could get money while they were playing.  So, they could get SOMETHING.  At the end of the year, they see, lo and behold, that in the NHL players account, 1.88 billion US dollars came in, but that they only paid out 1.71 billion US dollars.  There is, in the NHL bank account, their “escrow” account, another 170 million US dollars that need to be distributed.  After the administrator takes their cut, whatever that is, say 1%, there’s still another 168 million US dollars to distribute.  That money, which is beind held in escrow, ALSO gets converted.  How?  Well, it’s based on the 1.9 billion NHL bucks that the players in all signed for with their NHL contracts.  In this case, each NHL buck gets converted to 8.8 US cents.

In all, the NHL players got their initial conversion of 90 US cents for each NHL bucks signed on their contract, and then another 8.8 US cents for each NHL bucks, for a final tally of 98.8 US cents.

Did the players “lose” money?  NO!  They were never guaranteed or promised 1.9 billion US dollars.  They were guaranteed 1.9 billion NHL bucks.  That does not convert 1:1 to US dollars, any more than the Canadian dollar is guaranteed to convert 1:1 to US dollars (or to anything really).

Which makes the idea of the make-whole… well, wholly laughable.  Players THINK they are signing for US dollars, but the reality is they are not.

Ok, so I spent several hundred words explaining all this.  Now, your job is to explain, in number of words that are no longer that ONE TWEET, how this works.

Wednesday, January 02, 2013

Dogs

I have a stubborn dog.  He might even be an a$$hole.  He occasionally bites (or at least grabs with his teeth) the hands that feed him.  He’s a scavenger for food, and he’s not shy at hopping up to see what’s on the counter. When we are tough on him, he pouts.  On a more serious note: He’s escaped on more than one occasion, and we’ve panicked just as many times.  I don’t want to say he’s untrainable, but he’s definitely a major challenge. 

Alright, that’s what I’m up against.  Tell me something I’ve never heard.  Help!

Cheaters

If you look hard enough, you will find them everywhere.