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WAR and More (...what is it good for)
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Post by jimed14 on Aug 4, 2018 7:56:59 GMT -5
Two different responses (besides the obvious "is that the best you can do?"):
1) Re Rice and Evans, I never thought otherwise (once Dewey started to hit).
It may cause your brain to burst, but sabermetrics (although obviously not named as such) has been around almost as long as baseball. I read the first sabermetrics book, Earnshaw Cook's Percentage Baseball, in the fall of 1971, and the next summer (or the summer after) I hand-calculated the career OBP of every significant player in MLB history and wrote it into my second edition of the Baseball Encyclopedia. And I adjusted the total of BA, OBP, and SA (which I called "Combined Triple Average') relative to league average for every player.
So I watched the entire career of Rice and Evans through the lens you seem to be struggling to adopt. Peter Gammons ran my CTA leaderboard in his Sunday column after the 1975 season.
2) I have a dream (a not entirely unrealistic one, BTW) of having enough money to buy a copy of the Statcast data that they sell to ball clubs. I'd outline my proposed methodology for parsing it online and get input for tweaks from the community. And then I'd have a website that would break down player performance along the dimensions I outlined earlier, but in much more detail. For instance, you'd know what each pitcher and hitter's bloop luck had been, and that would furthermore be broken down into pure location plus defense. For instance, Nunez's RBI single tonight was mostly lucky location but partly lucky defense, because Torres ran a circular route and it seems likely that Pedroia, for instance, would have made a really nice catch on it.
So you may not have to wait that long.
Now, it's likely that Betts will be the most valuable position player on the team this year. That one's easy. But who was the most valuable position player on the 2004 Red Sox (including clutch)? Folks can make up to four guesses. I'll respond when somebody gets it right.
Ok, I’ll bite. The “clutch” leads to Ortiz, and snark leads to Kapler, or Mueller!, but I’ll guess Tek. Bellhorn or Damon
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Post by soxfansince67 on Aug 4, 2018 8:31:23 GMT -5
Looking at WAR this morning, there certainly is an elite grouping at the moment - and this across all of MLB - Lindor (6.3), Betts (6.9), Ramirez (7.2), and Trout (7.7). With the Mook getting hot, can he make a bit of a charge and elevate himself nearer Trout? Very possible....
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manfred
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Post by manfred on Aug 4, 2018 8:51:16 GMT -5
This, itself, seems a form of preconception: you argue from the conclusion that Evans was more valuable based on the data you seek to prove [are the best data to use, I think you mean]. Again, Rice was statistically better in a decade plus prime. The sabermetrics people say, yes, but HR, RBI, BA, runs, slugging etc. don’t tell the whole story. Hence, Evans, based on the advanced metrics you are trying to SUPPORT, is better. Truthfully, if there has been snark, and if there is a dismissive side, it is the “new stat” people who tend to tell people what they see matters less than some park-adjusted, acronym+ algorithm. Rice finished top-5 in MVP four of his first five seasons, was an 8 time all-star, second in ROY, etc etc, but everyone was missing something that a host of formulas have laid bare decades later?
The speculative stats mean not too much to me (this % of difficulty stuff on defensive plays is hooey... great players blow plays and bad players get lucky... who knows what happens in another situation? Who knows what happens if a “replacement” plays in someone’s place? etc.). Bucky Dent shouldn’t have hit his home run by any statistical measure. He was barely above a replacement level offensive player. We’ll never know counter history. We can see results. 1) This is so wrong that it's painful. It sort of shows an inability to understand the entire process by which people try to determine what is true.
You seem to think that sabermetrics was invented by people who liked a different group of players than the usual suspects, and that they then designed stats that were rigged to make those players look better than the players they thought were inferior.
This is so wrong that it's painful. (Yeah, I have to say that twice.) It is something that people do, however. Creationists do it to argue against evolution, for instance. In fact, conservatives do it all the time. All the data, for instance, shows that pro-abstinence "education" actually increases teen pregnancy, but those who favor abstinence for religious reasons will try cook the data to show otherwise.
So you seem to think that sabermetrics is a right-wing-like plot to discredit the players that have traditionally been regarded as the best.
The way it actually works is that you're curious as to what the truth really is, and you start to investigate it logically. Scientifically. Half the time when I do a study, I discover that what I hoped or feared is true is opposite.
(Case in point: I think I was Anderson Espinoza's single biggest fan on this board. When they traded him I was stunned, devastated, and heartbroken. Until I looked up Pomeranz's numbers, especially some sabermetric numbers of my own ... and I adored them. So I loved the trade.)
(Case in point #2: Obviously when I looked at Chance Adams a couple of days ago, I was not just hoping but expecting, based on his ERA, that he was dead meat walking. What I discovered is that he'll be much tougher than his AAA ERA suggests.)
That's all that sabermetrics is. Our best effort to answer the questions about baseball that interest us.
Rice finished top-5 in MVP four of his first five seasons, was an 8 time all-star, second in ROY, etc etc, but everyone was missing something that a host of formulas have laid bare decades later?
If by "everyone" you mean "almost everyone" and "decades later" you mean for those people ...
Yes. Yes. Yes, Yes. Yes.
That's the entire f***ing point.
That you even cite MVP voting as your first line of defense is telling, because MVP voting in those days was often been so bad that it was agonizing. Alan Trammel in 1987 hit .343, scored 109 R, knocked in 105, and made 411 outs, all while playing SS. George Bell hit .308, scored 111 runs and knocked in 134 while making 506 outs. Averaging R and RBI (if I deducted HR, that would help Trammel), Trammel contributed 107 team-context runs and Bell 122.5, but Bell made 95 more outs, and 15.5 outs per 95 outs is 4.40 runs per game, and the league average was 4.90. Even doing it this stupid way it's clear that Trammel had the more valuable offensive season ... and he played SS instead of LF. (WAR his him at 8.7 versus 5.0.) And his team won the division by 2 games!
(Trammel had 3.70 WPA and Bell had 3.13. They ranked 4th and 10th. The league leader by a big margin, at 4.41, was some guy named Dwight Evans.)
The BBWA gave Bell the MVP because 134 is a larger number than 105. Seriously. That's often the only number they looked at. Obviously, the most valuable player in the league is the guy who knocked in the most runs, no matter how many outs he made, how many runs he scored, what position he played and how well he played it ... that's the level of intelligence about baseball you're defending.
Freddie Lindstrom's in the Hall of Fame because he hit .320 from 1926 to 1933. That really impressed the Veteran's Committee many years later. They had no awareness of the fact that BA in those days was sky high and that .320 was the equivalent of hitting something like .285, and since he had averaged 12 HR a year, the idea that he'd been a HOFer is completely laughable.
Adjusting hitting for league performance didn't become public until the mid 70's, although I was doing it already and I'm sure many others were as well.
Do you think that's all wrong? Or do you accept that argument ... because you never rooted for Lindstrom?
And I have to again point out that, as regards to 1970 and onwards, this is not revisionist thinking.
I mean, I screamed, yelled, and cursed when I discovered what Jeff Bagwell's OBP had been when we traded him (I had to wait until The Sporting News published their annual Baseball Guide), because I was already aware of the park effect at New Britain (as Lou Gorman clearly was not) and the only way the trade wasn't a disaster was if Bagwell hadn't drawn any walks .. but he had, and I immediately knew we'd traded a superstar.
You want to argue against that?
So in this whole era where you think people are now going back and revising the accepted truth, there were people already thinking this way and who were aware of this "revised" truth all along.
And we all got hired by MLB teams and now every MLB team bases what they do on these ideas.
I’m out. This has been truly charming, but I am going to go paint pictures of Jesus riding a dinosaur. I am glad, however, to know that you have been a genius for decades running. Edit: Ok, I can’t resist a few last things. First, Bagwell and Dewey are apples and oranges. I have never denied the predictive value of advanced stats. They can help give data for the old notion of, say, a Fenway swing. They help people play odds better going forward. But once things are done, possibility doesn’t matter anymore. Something either happened or it didn’t. The Lidstrom argument hardly requires complex math. Sounds like a bad call by veterans committee (of which I am not a voting member). But we creationists have long been capable of looking at a guy who hit 300 homeruns in the 1960s and distinguishing him from someone who hit 300 homeruns in the 2000s. Finally, Trammell got robbed, and I am often irritated by the MVP winner. It was not my first argument (going back through the thread). But one can always find examples like that. It is irrelevant in that you concede that you are arguing “most” people were wrong about what they perceived at the time. Now.... back to dinosaur paintings.
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Post by voiceofreason on Aug 4, 2018 8:59:10 GMT -5
I know some of you long time saber/SP guys might find it redundant but this is a great thread!!
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Post by h11233 on Aug 4, 2018 9:21:07 GMT -5
The thing with “productive outs” is that they are both highly rare and not a repeatable skill, at least by any reputable study, and make such little overall positive impact anyways. It’s just not worthwhile to isolate those events from other context inclusive ones. So if you are interested in the context look at WPA and RE24 and the like, otherwise consider context neutral events when determining a player’s actual skill level. Yeah, my interest in this isn't necessarily as a tool for predicting future performance, but I think it is useful when analyzing past performance and discussing things like MVP, etc. I also think that saying it's "highly rare" is somewhat subjective. It may be rare for individual players, particularly if you only look at one season, but it doesn't seem like all that rare an event for a team.
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Post by Smittyw on Aug 4, 2018 10:44:09 GMT -5
This has been a great thread to read for many reasons, first and foremost the intelligence level on this site never ceases to amaze me. Secondly, when there is discord it is still mostly polite. Adding to the number of posts saying this has been a great thread to read...the above really captures why this is the best Red Sox forum around, IMO. Props also to the mods who make sure interesting (and sometimes not-so-interesting?) side topics like this are split off to somewhere they can be explored more fully without gumming up a thread about Dustin Pedroia or something.
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Post by scottysmalls on Aug 4, 2018 12:08:24 GMT -5
The thing with “productive outs” is that they are both highly rare and not a repeatable skill, at least by any reputable study, and make such little overall positive impact anyways. It’s just not worthwhile to isolate those events from other context inclusive ones. So if you are interested in the context look at WPA and RE24 and the like, otherwise consider context neutral events when determining a player’s actual skill level. Yeah, my interest in this isn't necessarily as a tool for predicting future performance, but I think it is useful when analyzing past performance and discussing things like MVP, etc. I also think that saying it's "highly rare" is somewhat subjective. It may be rare for individual players, particularly if you only look at one season, but it doesn't seem like all that rare an event for a team. Yes you’re definitely right that on a per team basis it can, and has, happened at a significantly above average rate in certain seasons and contributed to multiple wins. I also agree that it can be useful for things like MVP rather than predicting overall skill level. That’s exactly why though that it makes sense to look at it with every other context relative result. Of course we get into the realm of rewarding players for some things outside of their control, but that’s not necessarily wrong for MVP voting and these saber metrics are certainly a better way of judging these events than RBI or runs or the like.
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Post by scottysmalls on Aug 4, 2018 12:14:56 GMT -5
Thanks for the response James, thoughtful as always. I'd respond directly, but I'm having a bit of an existential crisis in terms of my baseball fandom. After reading all of this there's two things that stand out. 1. Hitting a baseball is the hardest thing to do in baseball. Nobody has argued against this that I can see. It's the primary skill of a hitter and supersedes walks (and possibly everything) in degree of difficulty. 2. Decades of stats support the fact that walks produce runs above all else. If these things are true, what's the point? I mean, seriously. If the winner of a baseball game isn't determined by the cumulative display of baseball skills, then isn't the game itself flawed? Shouldn't the rules change? Having an eye for the strike zone is a skill, but is a lesser skill. We celebrate .406 and 61 because they're hard to do, historically so. But if they don't impact the outcome of the game then I guess put the bat on your should and put me to sleep. I appreciate all the data and info, and I'm not trying to pull a Jedi mind trick on anyone. I just think I'm going to walk the dog today instead. Walks do NOT produce runs above all else, and no one is saying that they do. What people are saying is that not making an out is the most important thing to producing runs. Of course a home run is more valuable than a walk. The point is that the single biggest difference in expected run value between any two adjacent events (BB—>1B, 3B—>HR, etc.) is between making an out and not (I.e; walking) and thus it is imperative not to overlook the value of walking.
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Post by classylefthander on Aug 4, 2018 12:40:26 GMT -5
2004 clutch?
Gotta be Bellhorn
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Post by soxfansince67 on Aug 4, 2018 13:07:40 GMT -5
2004 clutch? Gotta be Bellhorn I think that Buccholz and Hembree used Bellhorn as their hair style icon!
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Post by jimed14 on Aug 4, 2018 13:53:11 GMT -5
For every walk, a batter's OBP for that PA is 1.000. You can't say that for hitting the ball.
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Post by redsox04071318champs on Aug 4, 2018 22:10:20 GMT -5
I'm going to guess Mark Bellhorn, the answer to the trivia question: Name the only Red Sox to homer in 3 straight post-season games - and no the answer is not David Ortiz.
Bellhorn was one of my favorites because everybody hated him so much because of his Ks. But I loved the fact that he walked so much and got clutch HRs.
I mean, how do you walk 88 times when you have Manny and Ortiz following you in the lineup?
It's the same question I ask when somebody says that Johnny Pesky was just merely a good ballplayer, nothing too special. I believe if he hadn't been in the way he (along with Dom DiMaggio) might have gotten more consideration for the HOF.
The guy not only would get 200 hits and hit above .300. Forget that he didn't have a lick of power. Didn't matter. How does one walk over 100 times a year when Ted Williams is the next batter? You'd think they'd put a ball on a tee for him rather than let him get on base in front of the greatest hitter that ever lived.
BTW, Freddie Lindstrom is in the HOF because there are a lot of 1920s Giants/1930s Cardinals in the HOF - and a reason for some of them in there who shouldn't be is because Frankie Frisch, I believe, was on the Veterans' Committee and persuaded a lot of guys to vote for his guys - the guys he played with.
I mean, Evers, Tinkers, and Chance are in the HOF because of some poem. How ridiculous is that??!!
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gerry
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Post by gerry on Aug 5, 2018 3:45:02 GMT -5
I'm going to guess Mark Bellhorn, the answer to the trivia question: Name the only Red Sox to homer in 3 straight post-season games - and no the answer is not David Ortiz. Bellhorn was one of my favorites because everybody hated him so much because of his Ks. But I loved the fact that he walked so much and got clutch HRs. I mean, how do you walk 88 times when you have Manny and Ortiz following you in the lineup? It's the same question I ask when somebody says that Johnny Pesky was just merely a good ballplayer, nothing too special. I believe if he hadn't been in the way he (along with Dom DiMaggio) might have gotten more consideration for the HOF. The guy not only would get 200 hits and hit above .300. Forget that he didn't have a lick of power. Didn't matter. How does one walk over 100 times a year when Ted Williams is the next batter? You'd think they'd put a ball on a tee for him rather than let him get on base in front of the greatest hitter that ever lived. BTW, Freddie Lindstrom is in the HOF because there are a lot of 1920s Giants/1930s Cardinals in the HOF - and a reason for some of them in there who shouldn't be is because Frankie Frisch, I believe, was on the Veterans' Committee and persuaded a lot of guys to vote for his guys - the guys he played with. I mean, Evers, Tinkers, and Chance are in the HOF because of some poem. How ridiculous is that??!! Thank you for saying that. As Tip O'Neil would say, "All politics is local". the HOF is as political as any institution. Why are Dominic, Pesky and Dewey not in the Hall, or Tiant. If MLB and the major networks were in Boston, NYFY fans would be complaining about the New England bias of the sports media, because all the writers and talking heads would be living locally. But they are not, and the bias does not favor Boston at all (Red sox, Pats, Celts, B's) for obvious reasons. BTW, I saw Pesky and Dominic play as a kid, and the knowing adults in the room complained constantly that they were not getting the credit they deserved. They sure looked good to me, and their numbers back the youthful eyeball test. I saw Dewey play as an adult and it is a crime he is not in the Hall. IMO Tiant also. Fortunately, these days, our owners and DDo can play on the big stage.
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manfred
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Post by manfred on Aug 5, 2018 8:37:12 GMT -5
I'm going to guess Mark Bellhorn, the answer to the trivia question: Name the only Red Sox to homer in 3 straight post-season games - and no the answer is not David Ortiz. Bellhorn was one of my favorites because everybody hated him so much because of his Ks. But I loved the fact that he walked so much and got clutch HRs. I mean, how do you walk 88 times when you have Manny and Ortiz following you in the lineup? It's the same question I ask when somebody says that Johnny Pesky was just merely a good ballplayer, nothing too special. I believe if he hadn't been in the way he (along with Dom DiMaggio) might have gotten more consideration for the HOF. The guy not only would get 200 hits and hit above .300. Forget that he didn't have a lick of power. Didn't matter. How does one walk over 100 times a year when Ted Williams is the next batter? You'd think they'd put a ball on a tee for him rather than let him get on base in front of the greatest hitter that ever lived. BTW, Freddie Lindstrom is in the HOF because there are a lot of 1920s Giants/1930s Cardinals in the HOF - and a reason for some of them in there who shouldn't be is because Frankie Frisch, I believe, was on the Veterans' Committee and persuaded a lot of guys to vote for his guys - the guys he played with. I mean, Evers, Tinkers, and Chance are in the HOF because of some poem. How ridiculous is that??!! Thank you for saying that. As Tip O'Neil would say, "All politics is local". the HOF is as political as any institution. Why are Dominic, Pesky and Dewey not in the Hall, or Tiant. If MLB and the major networks were in Boston, NYFY fans would be complaining about the New England bias of the sports media, because all the writers and talking heads would be living locally. But they are not, and the bias does not favor Boston at all (Red sox, Pats, Celts, B's) for obvious reasons. BTW, I saw Pesky and Dominic play as a kid, and the knowing adults in the room complained constantly that they were not getting the credit they deserved. They sure looked good to me, and their numbers back the youthful eyeball test. I saw Dewey play as an adult and it is a crime he is not in the Hall. IMO Tiant also. Fortunately, these days, our owners and DDo can play on the big stage. I get feeling this way, but I suspect that Boston suffers a good deal less than many smaller markets. The flip side is that there are probably many Johnny Peskys spread through all organizations — guys fans recall fondly but who aren’t close to HOF from an outsider’s view. Pesky lost key years to the war, but that’s the way it goes. If he were a Pittsbugh Pirate who had under 1,500 hits and under half the career WAR average of HOF SSs, (to hit both sides of the statistical argument), I doubt he’d get a ton of Sox fan support. Edit: let me express my awe, however looking at Pesky’s numbers: in 1949, dude walked 100 times and struck out 19. That is stunning.
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Post by redsox04071318champs on Aug 5, 2018 10:54:46 GMT -5
I'm going to guess Mark Bellhorn, the answer to the trivia question: Name the only Red Sox to homer in 3 straight post-season games - and no the answer is not David Ortiz. Bellhorn was one of my favorites because everybody hated him so much because of his Ks. But I loved the fact that he walked so much and got clutch HRs. I mean, how do you walk 88 times when you have Manny and Ortiz following you in the lineup? It's the same question I ask when somebody says that Johnny Pesky was just merely a good ballplayer, nothing too special. I believe if he hadn't been in the way he (along with Dom DiMaggio) might have gotten more consideration for the HOF. The guy not only would get 200 hits and hit above .300. Forget that he didn't have a lick of power. Didn't matter. How does one walk over 100 times a year when Ted Williams is the next batter? You'd think they'd put a ball on a tee for him rather than let him get on base in front of the greatest hitter that ever lived. BTW, Freddie Lindstrom is in the HOF because there are a lot of 1920s Giants/1930s Cardinals in the HOF - and a reason for some of them in there who shouldn't be is because Frankie Frisch, I believe, was on the Veterans' Committee and persuaded a lot of guys to vote for his guys - the guys he played with. I mean, Evers, Tinkers, and Chance are in the HOF because of some poem. How ridiculous is that??!! Thank you for saying that. As Tip O'Neil would say, "All politics is local". the HOF is as political as any institution. Why are Dominic, Pesky and Dewey not in the Hall, or Tiant. If MLB and the major networks were in Boston, NYFY fans would be complaining about the New England bias of the sports media, because all the writers and talking heads would be living locally. But they are not, and the bias does not favor Boston at all (Red sox, Pats, Celts, B's) for obvious reasons. BTW, I saw Pesky and Dominic play as a kid, and the knowing adults in the room complained constantly that they were not getting the credit they deserved. They sure looked good to me, and their numbers back the youthful eyeball test. I saw Dewey play as an adult and it is a crime he is not in the Hall. IMO Tiant also. Fortunately, these days, our owners and DDo can play on the big stage. One irony is that there is a Yankee in the HOF that is probably there because he had boisterous support from a Red Sox legend. Ted Williams could be quite convincing, too. The funny thing is that he was a huge advocate for Phil Rizzuto whose numbers really aren't better than Pesky's. He might have been a better fielder, and he certainly had the championship rings, but I'd much have rather had Pesky's offense. Yet Williams was a huge fan and had a huge say in convincing others to admit The Scooter into the HOF. Once there, Rizzuto didn't disappoint with his Rizzuto styled HOF speech.
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Post by redsox04071318champs on Aug 5, 2018 10:59:14 GMT -5
As an aside, WAR number can't capture what this man brought to the table, but I've been disappointed with the HOF since 2006 when Buck O'Neil had to give the speech for Negro League players no longer alive to accept their overdue honors.
Buck should never had had to give that speech as an "outsider". His contributions to the game (I'd say they're more important than Candy Cummings "inventing" the curveball) extend well beyond making millions of people aware of the importance of the Negro League and the greatness of the their players that he accomplished by radiating his love for the game in the Ken Burns' Baseball documentary.
Maybe his .288 BA wasn't high enough for them or something stupid like that. Oh well, I'm getting off by soapbox now.
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manfred
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Post by manfred on Aug 5, 2018 18:45:32 GMT -5
Has anyone ever created a WAR stat that factors in salary? That is, if you are measuring vs. a replacement, then how much you pay seems relevant. For example, if Price makes $30 million but performs like pitchers making $10 million, then in a sense his replacement might not just be that $10 million pitcher but should include the opportunity costs of the other $20 million. Looked at the other way, if you field a league-minimum player at a position who is just above replacement value but that frees up salary to go to a star, that economy should be factored into the minimum player (that is, if performs at a level that should rate a higher market salary, he is doing the team a great service by providing surplus value that is turned into a teammate’s salary).
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mobaz
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Post by mobaz on Aug 6, 2018 5:04:55 GMT -5
Can I just say, missed opportunity in not naming this thread "WAR: Huh, What Is It Good For?"
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Post by trajanacc on Aug 6, 2018 9:06:02 GMT -5
Stats are great and all, but WAR can’t really capture the importance of Shane Robinson’s intimidating staredown of Heath Hembree, the guts and grit he showed to draw a walk after being pitched inside, and how it consequently inspired Giancarlo Stanton to get a hit and cowed Xander Bogaerts into making a costly error. Robinson’s courage was the turning point in a 4-1 Yankees victory last night, and probably a critical shift in momentum for the rest of the season.
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Post by umassgrad2005 on Aug 6, 2018 9:11:57 GMT -5
Stats are great and all, but WAR can’t really capture the importance of Shane Robinson’s intimidating staredown of Heath Hembree, the guts and grit he showed to draw a walk after being pitched inside, and how it consequently inspired Giancarlo Stanton to get a hit and cowed Xander Bogaerts into making a costly error. Robinson’s courage was the turning point in a 4-1 Yankees victory last night, and probably a critical shift in momentum for the rest of the season. Yankees lost last night.
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Post by James Dunne on Aug 6, 2018 9:18:43 GMT -5
Yes I think that was the joke.
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manfred
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Post by manfred on Aug 6, 2018 9:35:15 GMT -5
Stats are great and all, but WAR can’t really capture the importance of Shane Robinson’s intimidating staredown of Heath Hembree, the guts and grit he showed to draw a walk after being pitched inside, and how it consequently inspired Giancarlo Stanton to get a hit and cowed Xander Bogaerts into making a costly error. Robinson’s courage was the turning point in a 4-1 Yankees victory last night, and probably a critical shift in momentum for the rest of the season. Yankees lost last night. And with a less gritty replacement, they’d have lost twice.
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Post by philsbosoxfan on Aug 6, 2018 13:36:33 GMT -5
Question for the stats guys, about this:
Donald: Hey Keith, thanks for doing these chats. Last week, you said “xwOBA doesn’t work”, I’m not trying to argue it does and you are wrong, but I was just curious if you could elaborate on that a little more and explain why it doesn’t work.
Keith Law: I can’t find the link but someone – Russell Carleton, I think – showed that they don’t actually predict future wOBA (or whatever the stat is in the x-stat).
I always thought the 'x' meant what a stat should have been rather than what it actually was. If that's the case, what does predictability have to do with it ?
I guess what I'm asking is, does the x (expected) look backwards or forwards. I always thought it meant backwards.
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Post by umassgrad2005 on Aug 6, 2018 14:06:03 GMT -5
Question for the stats guys, about this: Donald: Hey Keith, thanks for doing these chats. Last week, you said “xwOBA doesn’t work”, I’m not trying to argue it does and you are wrong, but I was just curious if you could elaborate on that a little more and explain why it doesn’t work.
Keith Law: I can’t find the link but someone – Russell Carleton, I think – showed that they don’t actually predict future wOBA (or whatever the stat is in the x-stat).
I always thought the 'x' meant what a stat should have been rather than what it actually was. If that's the case, what does predictability have to do with it ? I guess what I'm asking is, does the x (expected) look backwards or forwards. I always thought it meant backwards. It does exactly what you think it does, looks backwards. Keith seems to have the same issue I had with Erics use of xwOBA. It looks backwards so it's not an end all stat to be used to say who we should get for relievers or why we shouldn't acquire another reliever.
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Post by scottysmalls on Aug 6, 2018 14:14:06 GMT -5
Question for the stats guys, about this: Donald: Hey Keith, thanks for doing these chats. Last week, you said “xwOBA doesn’t work”, I’m not trying to argue it does and you are wrong, but I was just curious if you could elaborate on that a little more and explain why it doesn’t work.
Keith Law: I can’t find the link but someone – Russell Carleton, I think – showed that they don’t actually predict future wOBA (or whatever the stat is in the x-stat).
I always thought the 'x' meant what a stat should have been rather than what it actually was. If that's the case, what does predictability have to do with it ? I guess what I'm asking is, does the x (expected) look backwards or forwards. I always thought it meant backwards. www.fangraphs.com/blogs/how-i-use-xwoba/"One such study into the potential utility of xwOBA was recently published by Jonathan Judge at Baseball Prospectus. The study is a good one, with Judge focusing on xwOBA against pitchers. While not ultimately his point, Judge does, along the way, object to the “x” in xwOBA, as he feels that “expected” implies predictive power. While I have always interpreted the “expected” to mean “what might have been expected to happen given neutral park and defense” — that is, without assuming a predictive measure — it does appear that reasonable people can disagree on that interpretation." Really an answer that takes both sides of your question, but I would tend to agree that it doesn't need to have predictive power to be useful, and what they are both saying is that at least for pitchers it does not have predictive power. Instead it truly shows the quality of contact a hitter generates, or a pitcher allows. I also think it is a far more useful statistic for hitters than pitchers, and actually has showed some predictive value for them. I absolutely believe that xwOBA is a far more accurate representation of skill, specifically how well they have hit the ball in a given time frame, for hitters than wOBA.
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