THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Thursday, January 03, 2013

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!

Tuesday, January 01, 2013

BBWAA poised to make historical non-vote

Based on the unofficial Ballot Collecting Gizmo by the unmatched Repoz, five players are easily expected to clear the 50% support line for the Hall of Fame, and two more (Bonds, Clemens) are on the cusp.  None of them are expected to get to 75%.

The last time no one was elected by the BBWAA was on the 1996 ballot where Neikro, Sutton, and Perez all received between 60 and 70% of the votes.  In 4th place was Garvey at 37%.  Before that, on the 1971, 1967, 1964, 1960, and 1958 ballots, there were a maximum of four players to receive at least 50% of the votes, without anyone getting elected (that year).

We have to go all the way back to the early voting, in 1950, when seven players got at least 50% of the vote, but no one was elected.  And again in 1949, with six players with at least 50% of the vote, and no one elected.  I’m sure Bill James’ Politics of Glory explains what happened in those early days.  In 1949 for example, very obvious Hall of Famer Mel Ott made his first appearance and only received 61% of the vote, and again in 1950 only received 69%.  Jimmie Foxx was on the 1950 ballot for the 6th time and only received 61% of the vote.

The 1950 ballot is interesting because the top 23 votegetters eventually got into the Hall of Fame one way or the other.  And in all, 48 of the players on the ballot eventually got in.  And in 1950, voters averaged 8.8 players listed per ballot.  So, plenty were going 10 players deep, and still, no one was getting elected.  I suggest that it’s a messed up process that if you agree that 48 players deserve to be in the Hall of Fame but that you can’t even elect one.  (It’s probably even more messed up that 48 players got in, but that’s another topic.)  But every player that finished in the top 23 eventually got in.  Politics of Glory indeed.  The voting process in 1950 seemed as dysfunctional as Congress.

Here we are for the 2013 ballot, a group that will have at least ten eventually make the Hall of Fame, and yet, they can’t agree today on which ones will go in, and so, none will get elected.  In their quest to make sure no unworthy players get the glory, they will make the worthy one wait and wait and wait. 

Is this really the best process that we can conceive?

And the BBWAA is in a terrible conflict of interest, not even reporting on this news, because they themselves are the ones creating this news. 

Monday, December 31, 2012

BBWAA v Book Blog Readers

I gave readers two random names (from the list below) and asked which player had the more outstanding career.  Then I gave him two more random players.  And again, and again.  The results are here.

From those results, I created a function that determined what percentage of ballots would we expect from the Fan voting to be Yes.  I fixed it so that we’d average 6.73 players per ballot.  And then I compared it to what Repoz has collected.

Anyway, so below we see the results.  The top two are obvious huge misses for BBWAA.  The ballot is so deep with talent that Clemens only got 88% of the fans’ ballots.  Bagwell is a match either way. 

Piazza and Raines slightly more positive for BBWAA, but that’s because I forced it at 6.73 players per ballot.  All those missing Bonds and Clemens votes had to go somewhere (and Bagwell wasn’t getting them).

Biggio is a hugely more popular with the BBWAA.  Edgar is even on both.

Walker and McGwire much better faring with fans.  Trammell and Schilling slightly more with BBWAA.

Lofton will disappear after this ballot, but fans love him alot more.

Palmeir and Sosa even on both.  Crime Dog and Murph more popular with BBWAA.

Bernie getting more fan love, Mattingly and Wells about even.

Jack Morris has the largest differential of them all, including Bonds: 62% for BBWAA and 5% for Fans.

And Lee Smith has a huge following among BBWAA and Fans aren’t going for him.

BBWAA	Fans	Player
47	100%	Barry Bonds 
49	88%	Roger Clemens 
68	67%	Jeff Bagwell 
64	60%	Mike Piazza 
64	58%	Tim Raines 
70	45%	Craig Biggio 
31	32%	Edgar Martinez 
14	31%	Larry Walker 
18	31%	Mark McGwire 
37	30%	Alan Trammell 
35	29%	Curt Schilling 
3	20%	Kenny Lofton 
16	17%	Rafael Palmeiro 
14	16%	Sammy Sosa 
18	12%	Fred McGriff 
19	9%	Dale Murphy 
3	9%	Bernie Williams 
7	6%	Don Mattingly 
3	5%	David Wells 
62	5%	Jack Morris 
35	2%	Lee Smith

Friday, December 28, 2012

Yet another BBWAA declines to be a Holy Writer

Well done TJ Quinn!

Monday, December 03, 2012

Reader Mail of the Minute: why care about the HOF?

Reader sent me:

One simple question- why do you care about the HoF so much?

Obviously the results of the votes don’t change your opinions of the players, and you consider the BBWAA (as a group, not down to every individual) to be a collection of complete idiots, and I share that sentiment, and the reasons get plenty of play on your site. Is it just a sense of trying to bring justice to the cosmos, like if X&Y&Z got the honor, then Blyleven and Raines should too?

I can’t argue with that sentiment, but your support of the HoF in general looks like inertial reasoning- if you were starting from scratch, would anybody with half a brain create something with totally nebulous criteria, voted on by complete morons, to accomplish a binary career classification where Jim Rice = Babe Ruth and Kenny Lofton = Jeff Francoeur? Of course not- anything that displays the full scale of career qualities (FG or BR leaderboards, etc) conveys far more information than a HoF vote ever could, both for winners and for near misses- the HoF in anything resembling current form is a terrible vehicle for recognizing career quality.

If, however, the purpose is only to create an emotional in-group bonding (tons of organizations have HoF, lifetime achievement awards, etc), where relative player quality is secondary as long as it’s within a few ballparks, then worrying about player quality among people who are kind of close is pretty pointless since it’s not the goal of the HoF to make sure no player is left out when a worse contemporary is in.

And using it as a vehicle to educate people about the process of calculating value seems to have failed- while people finally regurgitated Blyleven as the correct answer, at the same time they were shitting the bed on basically everything else they touched- they got a test question right, but they learned nothing and they’ll screw every variant of it up every time in the future because they didn’t learn the process- they didn’t even learn RESPECT FOR the process to where if they saw somebody was 2+ WAR ahead in a season, they just take it for granted that he was almost certainly more valuable that season, and they certainly didn’t communicate it to the masses, which is the only possible reason to want to use big-audience imbeciles as a vehicle to begin with.

I just don’t understand- I doubt that your sole goal is to get Raines in the HoF, and for anything else, browbeating a bunch of uninterested cretins can’t possibly be the right answer.

I bolded the above part, and I think that pretty much gets to it.  The arbitrary, biased, and capricious nature of irrational voters bothers me, and I’m pointing it out.  And I find the PROCESS something very interesting to discuss, both to note why it fails, and how it can be improved.

Otherwise, I don’t support the manner in which players are selected for the Hall of Fame.  I agree that the current process does a terrible job of recognizing the worthy players.

So, I don’t care about the HOF per se.  Rather I care about the analytical nature involved.  I don’t care about basketball either, but I very interested in rule changes in that sport.  I don’t care about college hockey, but when they play without the center line, I get very interested.  I guess these things I care about because they are vehicles to me learning.

I care about knowledge, not the institution.

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Writers who did NOT vote for Tim Raines

This is the list we have, but it may be outdated.  Barry Bloom is a name that’s going to be removed from the list. If you see a name that needs to be added or removed, please post below, with a reference link. And if you have their twitter handle, please post that as well.

We have a web editor now, Reggie Yinger who’s been very responsive, so things will get updated fast.

http://raines30.com/voters.shtml

Holy Writers: one down, 199 to go

Peter Abraham has come to the realization that he is not qualified to pass moral judgement on a baseball player.

Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, and the rest of the scoundrels will get my vote. I’ll look at the players based on their statistical merit, how they compared to other players of their era and to other players in the Hall of Fame. I won’t sit at my desk and do Google searches to decide who is clean and who was cheating. If you think that is a cowardly way out, I can’t argue with you. But it beats stabbing around in the dark and hoping to be right.

***

Jeff Bagwell got 56% of the vote last year, when he should have been closer to the 90%, like Robbie Alomar in his second year.  Had he gotten 200 more votes, he would have had 91% of the votes.  And what’s appalling is that there is no evidence, circumstantial or otherwise, with regards to Bagwell.  It’s simply one person making a decision, and then someone else repeating it.  Then it becomes a rumor, and suddenly a suspicion. 

Instead of talking about Bagwell’s actual accomplishments, we’re derailed by Holy Writers needing to discuss something that they have no evidence of ever occurring.

And all the while, Tim Raines waits for the Holy Writers to start getting serious.

Sunday, November 25, 2012

Why was the BBWAA not compensated by MLB Network?

I was thinking about this when they were airing the shows.  Here’s the BBWAA with a valuable property: knowledge of the award winners that they themselves hand out.  It’s a terrible conflict of interest, as the BBWAA is creating the news that they subsequently report.  Imagine therefore that they SELL the news they are about to create, and then are able to charge readers (via newspaper, etc) to report on that news.  My head is spinning just thinking about it.

Anyway, Murray Chass asks that question, because it seems no one else in the BBWAA is asking that question, which is the question that any good reporter should be asking.  But, there’s that conflict of interest there again.  Instead, the BBWAA spends all their time debating the votes of OTHER BBWAA members!  And they sell THAT via their newspapers.  How different are they from E! network or People magazine?  They’d like to think they are, but, they are doing things that non-news network engage in.

So, Murray, take it away:

But the BBWAA gave away the awards for television profit and got nothing in return.

There was commercial money involved, and the network got it all. Matt Bourne, an M.L.B. public relations vice president, said the network declined to say how much it received for the commercials it aired during the shows.

“We don’t give out that information,� he said. “Our people aren’t comfortable talking about it.�

However, he noted that the BBWAA benefits from the shows because they publicized the awards and raised the BBWAA’s profile.

Two problems there. The awards, especially most valuable player and Cy Young awards, have always been well publicized because they are probably the most popular post-season awards for any sport, with the possible exception of the Heisman trophy.

In addition, the BBWAA doesn’t need to have its profile raised. It is not in business and sells nothing. In fact, its non-profit status might have been the reason the BBWAA sought no payment.

That was one of the reasons cited for rejection several years ago when an independent television production company made a proposal to the organization that included payment.

A person familiar with the sale of television advertising said that a 30-second commercial for the baseball awards shows would sell for $5,000 to $10,000. The m.v.p. show, the last in the series of one-hour shows, had a total commercial time of 14 minutes and 40 seconds, including 2:40 for in-house commercials about the MLB Network and its programs. There were 31 commercials plus 8 house ads.

Using the low estimate, each show would have earned $120,000 for a total of $600,000. Even if the commercials were discounted by 50 percent, the network would have had $300,000 in revenue.

The person familiar with television advertising made another point. “One thing to keep in mind about this,� he said, “is that in the off-season, original, newsworthy programming is hard to come by. So while it’s not a windfall, it’s still content in a content driven business.�

What could the BBWAA have done with the money if it had received any from the network? It could have helped families of writers who died or writers who had lost their jobs in a shrinking and decaying industry. Institute a college scholarship program. Make donations to hurricane or earthquake victims.

The BBWAA wouldn’t have to keep any of the money and ruin its nonprofit stratus. But instead of giving away money, the BBWAA would rather give away its awards.

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Dirk Hayhurst on MLB Network

The lovely and talented Dirk Hayhurst was on MLB Network, with a re-airing at 12:30 this afternoon.  Hopefully, I’ll be able to catch any repeats of it, or on MLBN’s video channel online.

Ichiro

As if you needed another reaosn to love the guy.

Sunday, November 18, 2012

Good, Bad, Ugly: Murray Chass

This article epitomizes all that there is of Murray Chass. 

He gives us a nice article on the World Baseball Classic, with some good quotes from Weiner, among others.  Pretty good article overall.  I love reading these kinds of articles.

He then goes to the Loria/Marlins business, but it’s surprisingly light of new information. Then the rest of the column is about steroids, and his last one-sentence paragraph says it all.  I should have known better than to read it.

***

By the way, he talks about Gagne’s book being a biography, which it is, and that he didn’t write it, which he didn’t.  However, the prologue, a rather long prologue, is written in the first person by Eric Gagne.  Considering the long-time and strong relationship Gagne had with the author, I’d probably call it an authorized biography.

Friday, November 16, 2012

Media v Saberist: Word v Excel

This is just a brilliant line from Pizza Cutter:

Mr. Albom, may I suggest that while, after a game, to make sense of it, you open up Word, I open up Excel.  That’s the real dividing line between us, and it’s not that thick a line.

Thursday, November 15, 2012

I can think like a BBWAA voter

This is not something I am terribly proud of.  Last month, I predicted how the BBWAA would vote on the top five starting pitchers in the NL and the AL.  I laid out the very simplistic method, which was:

Presuming that the BBWAA will vote based on the following categories, and in this order:
1. ERA
2. W/L
3. IP
4. CG
5. K

And in the comments I expanded:

... it was more of a “tie-breakerâ€? scenario.  You start with the first two categories, and if one guy leads in both, then there’s no need to go to the other three categories. Price has more wins and just a bit better ERA than Verlander, so I stop there.  That is, as long as he’s the clear winner on one, and a bit ahead on the other, I don’t continue to the other three categories. With Verlander and Weaver, they split the top two, with maybe a slight advantage to Weaver, but then Weaver gets pummeled on IP.

I then listed who I thought the BBWAA would select as the top 5 starting pitchers in each league, and in order.  I went 10-for-10.  This is actually NOT a good thing.  It means that I’ve cracked the BBWAA’s simplistic method of determination.  While each BBWAA voter voted in his own way and weighted things in his own way, as a group, they simply followed the playbook.

What’s ironic is that it’s the BBWAA voters that accuse saberists of being too rigid, but it’s the BBWAA voters that we’re able to predict how they will vote.  I was hoping that they’d give me a little twist, that maybe they’d do the right thing and put Verlander ahead of Price.  And boy, that was a close one!  Maybe the voters are evolving a little.  Maybe they are actually looking at WAR or FIP.  Maybe next year, they’ll surprise us.

I did throw in:

With some undetermined love for the big relievers (Johnson, Rodney; Kimbrel, Chapman).

I still haven’t figured out how they think there, and I don’t think they’ve come to any agreement either.  Anyway, maybe next year, I’ll open it up to the crowd, and ask the crowd to predict how the Cy voters will vote.  I wouldn’t be surprised if we’ll be able to predict their voting patterns.

Derrick Goold’s path toward becoming a saberist?

Derrick Goold is a BBWAA writer who had a vote in the NL Cy Young.  He writes a lengthy article as to how he came to vote for Lohse and not Gio as his #4 starter on his ballot.

In reading his article, I’m struck at the path on which I was on when I was a teenager reading Bill James and Pete Palmer.  I go about to identify various components, different views.  Just trying to get an angle.  And then the next year, I’d start all over, maybe thinking of a new angle, adding or removing a component, reweighting something.  And then the next year again.  It’s a process, a long process.  But if you don’t devote yourself to it, it’s a repeating process.  It’s terribly inefficient in the end, and you are tempted to be biased based on the story of the year.  If the story is “knuckler”, then you may find reasons to vote for Dickey.  If the story is “hitter’s park”, then you may go toward Cueto and see what helps him.

This is why I plead for people to come up with a framework, and then have an implementation.  Goold here mentions “quality starts”, but where he bumps up the threshold to 7 innings not 6.  That is enough to knock Gio completely out.  But I want to see that hold every year.  If someone comes along with a 1.99 ERA, but he goes 6 innings per start, I don’t want Goold to come back and say “oh, well, I’m going to underweight quality starts in that case”.

So, that’s why we have WAR.  We do all that work upfront, without bias.  The framework is established, and the focus is on overall seasonal performance, denominated on a runs or wins scale and playing time.  You have a Fangraphs implementation and a Baseball Reference implementation.

But perhaps Goold prefers a different framework.  Perhaps to him the Game Score framework is more appealing, since he obviously likes to look at things as start-by-start.  He can give points for various contributions in each start, deciding to give huge bonus points for a starter going into the 7th, 8th, and 9th innings.  Perhaps to him, it might matter how a pitcher does if he’s been given a lead or not.  I don’t know.

Now, this is not for everyone.  We’re not all crazy enough to devote hundreds (or thousands, gulp) of hours to going through all this.  Maybe we’re not all crazy enough to think that we need a logical and rational framework to think through the problem.  I wouldn’t be surprised if Roger Ebert has some method to his reviewing madness.  He just seems to nail it almost every time.

Maybe you just prefer the delight of going by the seat of your pants each year, and to heck with consistency year to year.  Maybe you just think this is enough fun to think about and maybe argue over, but in two weeks, you’ll turn the page and not look back.  And that’s how I look at movies.  After I’d watch a movie, say like Source Code, I’d seek out the message forums to see what’s been written, but by the next day, that’s it, it’s over, and I move on. 

It’s hard to tell where Goold is in the process.  But it’s nice of him to share how he’s thinking.

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Saber talk with Rally

Jeff Passan does a bang up job comparing WAR and election polls, with some healthy amount of quotes from Rally.

“The thing about it I wouldn’t question is the format,” Smith said. “You’ve got your player’s batting, his fielding, his baserunning. How well he stays out of double plays, turns double plays. How he prevents runners from advancing. You can express all of those things in runs. And once you do that, you add them up, and it seems so common sense, I don’t understand why people would question it.”

...

As Smith said: “I think you can use WAR without crunching a single defensive number. You can take scouting reports and divide guys into above, average, below. Fudge the numbers. Use scouting-based defensive numbers. If they all match somewhat, use it. If they don’t match, you’ve got to make a judgment call as to what’s best.

“I just couldn’t justify ignoring defense entirely.”

Meet a SABR member

Just came across this page.  Going through that list, and it looks like I’ve interacted with nine of the 23 listed there.  Looking forward to checking those out!

Wednesday, November 07, 2012

Fans don’t want to think about the money

Ken Dryden, in an article that applies to any sport, makes the case that the fans don’t want to know about the money issues.

What money does is allow players to be more of what they really are. They want to play. They want to be better. Money lets them. They want to go through a brick wall for their team. Money gives them the freedom to do it. Money makes it seem like what they do, as players, isn’t about money at all. Then the players and owners make the fans think about the money, this all seems an illusion, and the fans feel like fools.

Rich people don’t bother most fans. But, fans wonder, how much money does any one person need? Fans understand about being rich for now and rich for a rainy day, for themselves and for their kids. But the owners and players, especially the owners, are rich beyond anyone’s needs over their lifetime and the lifetimes of their children and their children’s children no matter how long they all shall live. They’re rich beyond any purpose but a need-to-keep-score rich. Rich so that the money gap between them and the fans is so big it’s not about the money any more. It’s about them – the owners and players – and the fans. That’s not nice rich.
...
The owners and players have the power. They decide when to play, and if they don’t. The fans understand a fight can be long if something basic is at stake; a salary cap, for example. And they’ve found they can live with the consequences. But they don’t understand this fight. The owners and players are both doing fine. They’re doing a lot better than the fans. These aren’t easy times. What more do these owners and players want?
...
To the owners and players, the rich and powerful, the fan is saying: don’t treat me as if I don’t matter. Don’t make me feel like a fool. Don’t make me do what I don’t want to do. Don’t make me think about the money. I don’t want to think about the money.

Monday, November 05, 2012

Above the belt

Looking forward to these fights:

DC: So tell me about these new segments that I’ve heard about, “Clubhouse Conversation� and “Tools of Ignorance.�
BK: “Tools of Ignorance� is what I was talking about before: examining columns where people can put it on the line. We’re not looking to attack anybody unfairly or personally, but if someone is going to write something opinionated and blatantly attack sabermetrics and analytics, then all bets are off. If they’re mocking advanced thinking, those are the ones we’re calling into question, not someone who is trying to develop logical methodology and progress the thinking. It’s the guys that are throwing haymakers at stat geeks who live in their moms’ basements. There, we’ll meet them in the arena.

DC: That’s awesome, Brian. I can’t wait to see those segments.
BK: It’s funny; teams and a lot of young fans are completely on board with this sabermetric movement, but there is a subset of people that aren’t on board, and a lot of them are in a public, mainstream media position of power. Somehow this happened, and if they’re still out there being belligerent, they need to be exposed.

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Dirk Hayhurst, caught in the middle

Good interview with Dirk:

You try to appeal to the lowest common denominator. And it sucks. It’s not my nature to want to appeal to stupid people, I don’t like it. I’d rather appeal to the smart people, but I run into two problems. One, it’s not my show, so I have to appeal to the biggest base. And two, I’m kinda stupid myself, so I can’t always understand all this stuff, I’m terrible with math, I don’t always understand the metrics in play. If you go too in depth, people get upset with you for spending too much time talking about math. If you go not in depth enough or screw it up, people get pissed at you for screwing it up.

I think I used to be one of those people, so into the minutiae.  Well, I still am, but now I don’t get so upset when it gets done wrong.  I think you have to be kind to those who are willing to dive into the deep end of the pool with no floaties.  You can’t start yelling at them while they are drowning.  At least, throw them a lifeline.

But, it’s those people who don’t even bother to get out of the wading pool who are the problem.  It’s fine if they want to stay there, but, they should leave those willing to swim even in the shallow end alone.  It doesn’t make any sense for them to tell the swimmers that they are having a lousy time, as someone tries to teach them the backstroke.

So, do whatever works for you, whatever it is that makes you happy, and maybe, just maybe, try something new, and see how it works for you.