THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Sunday, December 16, 2012

Platoon based on fielding, not hitting?

Bill suggests the Phillies do that, because of the gap in fielding talent between Galvis and Young, and that that may be the best combination to leverage when groundballer Lannan is pitching.

To extend the thought further, how about platooning in-game, so you have both Galvis and Young playing: every time a RHH is at bat, Galvis plays 3B and when a LHH is at bat, Galvis moves over to 2B.  I know it’s incredibly insulting to Young, but you can also see it as extremely complimenting toward Galvis.  However, it’ll never happen because there’s only so much extra oomph Galvis can earn from such a move, while displacing Young might severely deflate his talent that day.

I thought when the Yankees played Gary Sheffield at first base in the playoffs, that Sheff was very lackadaisical.  I remember one throw from Jeter, on the money, and Sheff dropped it.  Jeter really kept it in check, though he would have blown up at him if this was during warmups.  So, you really need buy-in from the player when you displace him.  Not just acceptance, but enthusiastic acceptance.  You can’t count on their professionalism.

MySQL Retrosheet Database

Courtesy of Jeff Zimmerman.

Saturday, December 15, 2012

NHL prepares a lawsuit the way we prepare a resume

Tyler notes that the NHL probably started drafting their lawsuit on or around November 22.  I thought it was odd that Ryan Miller was talking so openly about the dissolution of the union as a strategy, since that would seem to be something the league could use to note bad faith.  Anyway, as more evidence came in, the league would update the lawsuit, but not in “functional” form, but in date order.  Tyler notes how some paragraphs seem out of place, but can be explained if you simply log the complaints in date order.

I can’t believe that if both sides move one year toward each other, that we’d have an agreement in place.

This is insane.

Friday, December 14, 2012

Disclaimer of Interest!  Now we’ve got a party

Boy, has this been a long-time in coming.  But, it’s finally upon us, and it gives the league just enough time to deal with the players and get a 48-game season.  Damn, that Fehr is a genius!

If the GOP were smart, they’d make the smart guys in charge

If I were a democrat, I’d be scared of guys like Bobby Jindal and Chris Christie.  Christie does punt on some issues (requiring referendum for gay marriage, dragging his heels on medicinal marijuana, etc).  But at least they are not duplicitous.  They seem honest and straight-forward, which, for all his faults, is what Bush seemed to be. 

I’d prefer a Cuomo/Christie ticket, by acclamation.  And then swap them for the second term.

What to expect from a workhorse pitcher?

Marcel’s forecast is pretty simple for all starting pitchers (not just workhorses): 50% of year T, 10% of year T-1, plus 60 innings.  So, a pitcher with back-to-back 200 inning seasons is expected to pitch 180 innings.

Matt gives us a more specific look, by actually looking at all workhorse pitchers, and even breaking them down by age.  And he comes in at about 87% of the average of the prior 3 seasons.  So, a pitcher with 3 seasons of 200 innings is expected to pitch 174 innings.  The age breakdown follows the predictable pattern that the younger you are, the more innings you’ll pitch, all other things equal.

WOWY on baseball managers’ propensity to greenlight runners

An interesting application of WOWY (With or Without You), by looking at runners who played for different managers in successive years, and how their SB attempts changed.  Sample size is low, but, what the heck, I love the idea from Derek, and it’s just a matter of broadening the base.  Great first stab at it.

Runs or Wins for forecasting?

Studes gives us a good look at month-to-month records, to see whether runs or wins is a better predictor.

The first point of interest is that he shows that a team’s W/L record in Month T+1 is about 25% of Month T, and the other 75% is regression toward the mean.  What would I have expected?  I have regression toward the mean being 50%, when a team plays 69 games.  Since we are looking at a single month, that means about 27 games.  And so, my expection for the amount of regression would have been 69/(69+27) = 72%.  There are of course roster turnover issues, especially if you look at Aug and Sept.  Chances are, if Studes limited it to Month T = Apr, May, Jun, that’d we get less regression toward the mean (closer to the 72% I expected).

Anyway, so, he also gives us the regression results based on runs, which is 70%.  This implies that we’d get 50% regression after this many number of games: .7/(1-.7) * 27, where 27 is number of games per month.  Or a total of 63 games.  That is, you regress 50% toward the mean after 63 games.  You can also kind of test that by looking at a team’s run-differential record after 63 games, and correlate to their next 63 games.  You should get r=.50.

A better test would be to take every odd numbered game, and correlate to every even-numbered game.  And the best test would be to randomly take 63 games and correlate it to the other 63 games.  And probably throw out a team’s last 36 games, for reasons noted about roster turnover.

Is Hitting Contagious?

Someone just sent me this paper.  I haven’t read it yet, but there are two things I’d want to know if it was controlled: the park and the pitcher.  I’ll leave it to you guys to read and comment below.

Thursday, December 13, 2012

Expanding NFL playoffs

I think the idea of an 8-8 team making the playoffs (and eventually winning the Super Bowl) seems… displeasing to some.  Why not therefore have a playoff system where ANY team that wins more than it loses make the playoffs.  And you have a different system based on whether you have only six teams make it to whether you have sixteen teams make it.

Yes, I know, it’s crazy, it’ll never be adopted.  Thank you Mr Party Pooper who doesn’t like to think beyond the comfortable confines of imminent reality.  This thread is not for you.  Anything less crazy than the current stalemate between NHL and NHLPA is worth discussing.  And this qualifies.

Think of yourself as a hired scheduling consultant of the NFL, the NFL is a bridezilla, they paid you lots of money, and the decision has been made in terms of all 9-7 and 8-7-1 teams and better are in the playoffs.  So, have at, and let’s see your creative thought process that could make this plausible.

Dear Ira Podell

Please stop reporting this falsehood:

...with the variable in salary being no greater than a 25% difference between the highest-paid year of the deal and the lowest.

First of all, mathematically, you can’t say % difference between two numbers.  If someone has 20 pennies, and someone else has 40 pennies, what is the “% difference”?  Well, the guy who has 20 pennies has 50% less, and the guy who has 40 has 100% more.  But, there is no “% difference”.  To do a % difference, you need a common denominator.  Say, for example, there is a 7% difference in how much they revenue split is between the last CBA (57%) and this CBA (50%).

Secondly, and more importantly, the true offer is that the lowest salary is 25% of the highest salary (see: Sidney Crosby, which Fehr cited in his press conference).  So, he can have a 3MM$ salary in one year and 12MM$ in another year.  In other words, his lowest salary is 75% less than his highest salary.  75, not 25.

Now, I will absolve you somewhat, because Fehr in his own memo didn’t make it clear (at all).  But, please, you are driving me nuts with this false information of a key issue.

Without the threat of a strike, can sports unions possibly survive?

At the conclusion of every CBA, what is to stop the league from simply offering a 20% rollback in wages, only to settle at 10% rollback?  The revenue split is 50% this time?  Well, it’s going to be 45% next time, and then 40% the time after that, 36%, 32%, 29%, 26%.  Where does it end?

Threat of a strike, or threat of a rival league is the only way.  Or, simply no more unions, in which case, no more CBA, no more anti-trust protection.

Rival leagues are made harder by the 10-yr and 20-yr broadcast deals, not to mention team-owned arenas.

Don Fehr asked facetiously that the logic of 10 year CBA for labor peace is as reasonable as saying they should have a 27 year deal.  Well, in this case, I think it is.  Because the union has no leverage.  And whenever it gets to be too bad, there’s always that disclaimer of interest to obviate whatever CBA exists.  You may as well have a CBA in perpetuity, because anything shorter is probably a bigger risk.

Another way to put the strike-as-a-tactic back on the table is for the players to forego all playoff money.  That is, rather than a 50/50 split, they should go for a 66/33 split on regular season (or whatever it should be), and ZERO for the playoffs.  Then, they’ll be in a position to strike with a month to go in the season (ala MLB 1994).

Right now, the union serves the interests of the owners, by shielding them from anti-trust lawsuits.  And the revenue splitting is the driver for rollbacks.  And the non-segregation of regular season / playoff money prevents the strike.

Are minor league performances AS reliable as major league performances, all other things equal?

Bill James has been arguing yes.  Here’s part of the Q&A, where a reader asks Bill, he responds, I ask, he responds.

Just a side note on Myers: To some extent, there is a bit more certainty regarding a similar player who has played in the majors simply because we have more information. We have batted ball data and various other things for MLB players but not minor league players, making it easier to differentiate between say, a high BABIP caused partially by luck (like Andrew McCutchen or Torii Hunter this year) and a similar BABIP that was the result of a better batted ball profile (Posey or Mauer).
Asked by: izzy2112

Answered: 12/13/2012
No, there ISN’T more certainty about them.  You may choose to believe that there is, you may give me 40 reasons why there has to be, but there isn’t.  This is the most important thing you could learn from me if you would stop refusing to learn it. 

***

Myers/Lawrie: The uncertainty is based on the sample size of their past performance AND against the quality of competition. It’s like Warren Moon and Doug Flutie tearing up the CFL: there’s still some level of uncertainty you need to factor in because of the quality of competition when moving to NFL. The scouting of the players may remain the same in terms of uncertainty.
Asked by: tangotiger

Answered: 12/13/2012
If there is no disparity in our ability to project those players, then every additional explanation for the disparity merely leaves us further from understanding.

The bolding part is mine.  And I would say the EXACT OPPOSITE.

My position is simply that every difference in context adds a layer of uncertainty.  If a hitter goes from Coors to Oakland to StLouis (Holliday), or if he moves from Japan to Yankees, or if he moves from AA to MLB, all those changes in context are severe enough that it has to add a level of uncertainty.  And the more severe the change in context, then the more uncertainty we have (all other things equal).

I had earlier noted the following as well, and this was Bill response:

Yu Darvish and Felix are the same age, but our uncertainty level was higher for Yu entering 2012. And it’s still higher today. Wil Myers is around the same age as Starlin Castro, Mike Trout, and Brett Lawrie. In terms of our uncertainty level as to how these four players will play over the next say five years, we have more uncertainty with Myers, simply because he hasn’t faced the quality of competition that the other three have. Whether that uncertainty level is “alot” or “a little” more than for the other three, that’s really the question. I think the “proven” discussion makes it seem like it’s black/white, when really, we’re talking about shades of uncertainty levels.
Asked by: tangotiger

Answered: 12/12/2012
Well. .. I agree with you about Darvish vs. Felix; that was part of my thesis, that this distinction DOES exist with pitchers.  Let us say for the sake of argument that YOU may have more uncertainty about Myers than you do about Brett Lawrie, but I don’t.  (Is Brett Lawrie only 22, by the way?  He must have started getting tattoos when he was eight.)  Anyway. . .the only uncertainty for Myers is playing time.    If he plays, there is no more uncertainty in projecting his performance than Trout’s or Lawrie’s or any other player’s.  Where, then, is the “uncertainty” located, if not in the eye of the beholder?

Mark Cuban on negotiations

How come we can’t get this kind of openness from NHL owners?

“They’re both cluster[expletives]. There’s no good way [to negotiate] because everybody thinks they have a solution in those scenarios and nobody wants to listen to the other guy’s solutions,” Cuban said. “And it’s just when desperation sets in that something gets done. It’s not the best way to solve business problems, but that’s what ends up happening.”

As much as I love the guy (or at least the character he plays), he’s disingenuous here:

“I don’t know all the particulars, but whatever it is they gotta fix, they gotta fix it,” Cuban said. “And if a market like the [Dallas] Stars can’t survive with whatever they do, they should be embarrassed, because this is your chance to fix this.”

The Stars and the other troubled teams CAN survive.  It’s a matter of where the money comes from.  Is it from the three most valuable franchises in the league (Rangers, Leafs, Canadiens), or does it come from the players?

Imagine for example that your favorite sports league, be it MLB, NHL or whatever, expands to 60 teams.  The league can definitely survive.  The question is HOW can it survive.  Well, if you put player share down to 25% of league revenue, then that’s enough for all the bottom-feeder teams to survive, while making it a HUGE bonanza for the Rangers and Leafs.  You can still maintain competitive balance through other mechanisms, but the end result is that the valuation of the big market clubs go through the roof.

This is what it ultimately comes down to: how much should each club be worth?  Because the less they pay out in expenses (player salaries), the higher their margins (operating profit), and the more their company is worth (market capitalization).

The clubs would prefer to simply lower expenses across the board, rather than one company subsidize another.  This is what it really is.  And the players have given them that.

The NHL owners are complaining that their own NHL general managers have come up with contracts to give players that are over five years in length.  And the NHL owners are so upset at their own general managers that they are blaming the players.

Concert 121212

I don’t usually watch concerts on TV.  But I was pretty captivated by this one.  What was cool was that HBO has multiple channels, so that the “East” one had the 7:30-1:30 live feed, while the “West” one had the 10:30-4:30 delayed feed.  I started watching it at 11:00, so I was able to flip back-and-forth, and watch whichever one interested me more at the time.  Otherwise, I would likely have bailed and not gone back to it later.

Anyway, while I noticed that the performers were on the old side, something that “one-fourth of Cold Play” noted, I hadn’t noticed that there were almost no women.  On the bright side, the instant iconic Empire State of Mind by Alicia Keys did end the show (is it possible that in twenty years that it’s this song, and not Sinatra’s New York New York, that will define The City?  It’s hard to have even considered the possibility four years ago.)

UPDATE: Good review, with the entire program/set list at the bottom.

“Selfish, selfish Dickey wants to be paid almost adequately”

I’m not even going to read the article that the AA guys linked to.  I just wanted to post their headline.

Fehr v Bettman, via Chass

Murray’s perspective on Don Fehr, vis-a-vis, Gary Bettman.

Smoltz or Glavine?

Schoenfield points out that Glavine has 69 rWAR to Smoltz’s 63, or a 6 win difference.  He also notes that peak-wise, they are also about even, if not also a slight edge to Glavine.  So, it would seem a clear-cut case that while they are close, Glavine should go in ahead.

Now, using fWAR, which takes a very DIPS-ian look, Smoltz is way ahead, 83 wins to 69, or a 14 win gap.  But, it would be crazy to ignore batted ball outcomes over such long careers.  You can still discount somewhat, but you can’t discount it entirely. 

Fangraphs gives us those breakdowns as well:  on batted balls, Glavine (and his fielders) is +11 wins to Smoltz (and his fielders) of +5 wins.  Given that they shared the same fielders for much of their careers, we have to assume that most of that difference is real, say perhaps 4 or 5 of the 6 win gap.  And in terms of outcomes with men on base, Glavine is +15 wins to Smoltz’s -2 wins, or a 17 win gap.  Again, Glavine is noted for changing his approach with men on base, so a good part of that 17 win gap may be real as well.  Let’s say some 10 wins maybe? 

So, we’ve got a 14 win advantage for Glavine on the non-FIP things, while Smoltz has a 14 win advantage on the FIP things, or… dead-even.

But… the post-season.  Schoenfield points out that:

Smoltz pitched 209 innings and allowed 67 runs; Glavine pitched 218.1 innings and allowed 91 runs.

Adjusting for the innings, that’s a 20-run gap, or 2 wins.  Two POST-SEASON wins, which… well, they are not worth ZERO.  So, we can’t just look at rWAR or fWAR and ignore the post-season.  We have to at least consider them to be worth 2 wins.  Or, maybe more?

If you are an fWAR fan, DIPS-only, the choice is clear: Smoltz.
If you are an fWAR fan, but with the other Fangraphs adjustments, the choice is break-even, but, with the post-season play, it’s pushes Smoltz ahead.

The interesting one is if you are an rWAR fan: Glavine is ahead by 6 wins in regular-season play, but Smoltz is ahead by 2 wins in post-season play.

My question, and this is ONLY if you are an rWAR fan: Did Smoltz do enough in the post-season to push him ahead of Glavine?  That is, do you count a post-season win as at least FOUR times a regular season win (so that Smoltz ends up +2 overall), or do you count a post-season win as at most TWO times (so that Glavine remains +2 overall)?

Or, do you just not what to think about it, and you are happy calling them even?

Old LHH should retire at Yankee Stadium

So says Jeff Sullivan, as he looks at how Ichiro did with the Yankees, noting he hit six HR for them, all at Yankee Stadium.  I don’t know if Jeff said exactly that, but I’m saying he did, so feel to quote what I just said as if it was Jeff who said it.

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Where is the NHL bargaining session?

They announced that the meeting started at 11AM ET.  It wouldn’t make sense to start a bargaining session that close to lunch time in NY, and who would start a meeting at 8AM PT?  That pretty much puts us somewhere in Chicago as the meeting spot.  UPDATE: Actually, Woodbridge, NJ.