|
Post by bookiemetts on Jun 6, 2015 19:15:44 GMT -5
Thanks for the analysis Eric, very interesting. However, I do have a couple questions. How did you determine that Hard% and IFFB% are the driving factors of team BABIP? I remember an article on Fangraphs about trying to make sense of the Hard%, and in the comments I came across this graph: cdn.fangraphs.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Non_Normalized_BABIP_HH-.pngIt seems here that there's no correlation between Hard% and BABIP, so does the IFFB% really make that big of a difference? Sorry if I'm missing something here, I don't know that much about statistics but I am curious. That graph actually shows a very statistically significant correlation, but one that only explains a tiny part of BABIP. Too much noise, which is to say, individual player luck, but thousands of data points. Using team data is just a clever trick. All the players on a team in a year are sharing the same park factor, so it's legit to lump them together, and when you do that, you remove a lot of the noise. The luck of a group of players will tend to even out to the point where you can measure it. Each sample in my analysis averages 6216 PA, or about 10 years of data for an average player, only it's composed of many players with different styles. It's highly unlikely that such a group if players has a real factor (other than their park, which adds noise) that the regression can't find. And a bunch of other things that I looked at it were not statistically significant: LD%, Soft%, wGDP, Pull%, Med%, Cent%, OF-FB%, BUH%, wSB, UBR, HR/FB. All of these are already accounted for by the other variables. I used multiple linear regression to do this. I may try ANOVA later, which will get me park factors, and then redo the regression. This was a quick study, just a couple of hours of work. Thanks for the response, definitely makes sense with all the noise. It's pretty interesting that LD% isn't statistically significant but Hard% is significant. Now that I think about it the IFFB% significance does make a lot of sense because they basically guarantee an out, whereas all the other types of balls in play have a wider distribution of outcomes. Again, thanks for the work. All I know about statistics comes from a basic intro class in undergrad and some basic research analysis.
|
|
|
Post by bookiemetts on Jun 6, 2015 8:28:36 GMT -5
Have better luck on balls in play. They're at least 3 wins short already, and that's ignoring Fenway Park. I've got a nice regression model to predict team BABIP, with r = .62. Yes, the Sox have baseball's worst Soft%, but Soft% is meaningless, because there's no difference in terms of contributing to team BABIP between it and Medium%. The two things that really drive team BABIP are Hard% and Popup% (FB% * IFFB%). Together, they explain 57% of the explainable part of team BABIP. And, yes, even though the Sox are only 22nd in Hard%, they're next to worst in Popup% and next to worst in the interaction between it and Hard% (it's Hard% * (Hard% - k * Popup%)). But, wait, there's more. The next most important factor (13%) is going to the opposite field, and the Sox are 14th in MLB at that. Then comes IFH% (10%). The Sox are second. They have 21 more infield hits than average, which has added 14 points to their BABIP. Without them, they'd have a .256 BABIP. Playing in Fenway Park. Low GB% contributes 9% in this model. Remember that infield hits have already been accounted for, so it's teams that have a high IFH% relative to GB% that really get a BABIP boost, which makes some sense. The Sox are 22nd in lowest GB%, bad (for this metric) but not terrible. Low K% contributes 7%. The Sox are second best in MLB (who knew?). High BB% contributes 4%. The Sox rank 8th. I may check later for an interaction between K% and BB%, which would make some sense, and if there is one, we probably look even better. The model predicts a .295 BABIP in a neutral park, which is a point below this year's average and 2 points below the 2002-14 average. In other words, the relatively low amount of hard contact and very high popup rate should have been nearly offset by all the infield hits, with a little bit of boost from terrific plate discipline. A .295 BABIP versus the actual .270 is 37 more hits than we've had, and each hit is about .8 runs. I think that when you factor in Fenway, it's probably a 4 win deficit. Oh, and the model says Mookie is 10 hits unlucky, which would bring his BA up to .289. He's basically hit his Steamer projection (.286 / .350 / .428) on the nose, he's just done it right at fielders. Thanks for the analysis Eric, very interesting. However, I do have a couple questions. How did you determine that Hard% and IFFB% are the driving factors of team BABIP? I remember an article on Fangraphs about trying to make sense of the Hard%, and in the comments I came across this graph: cdn.fangraphs.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Non_Normalized_BABIP_HH-.pngIt seems here that there's no correlation between Hard% and BABIP, so does the IFFB% really make that big of a difference? Sorry if I'm missing something here, I don't know that much about statistics but I am curious.
|
|
|
Post by bookiemetts on Jun 4, 2015 17:26:19 GMT -5
Hah this team is just funny. But it actually looks like Hanley's knees are killing him when he runs.
|
|
|
Post by bookiemetts on Jun 3, 2015 20:00:11 GMT -5
2 baserunners in 7 innings against this scrub? I am not impressed
|
|
|
Post by bookiemetts on Jun 2, 2015 20:14:50 GMT -5
Lol oh my god look at the recap for the top of the 9th. Hilarious. The RF and DH were switching back and forth as pitcher and kept giving up hits to right field.
|
|
|
Post by bookiemetts on Jun 2, 2015 19:23:53 GMT -5
Going back to April 25th, JBJ has a 17 game AAA on base streak counting today. During that time he's hitting a whopping 27/65 (.415) counting 2/3 so far today. I realize there's obviously some BABIP voodoo probably going on here but it seems really encouraging to me. But still struggled unable to hit anything on the inner side of the plate in his all too brief call up a while back. He only got 11 ABs in 12 days, and the starters were RA Dickey, Sonny Gray and King Felix. At least he can hit meatballs now haha www.milb.com/multimedia/vpp.jsp?content_id=141223983&sid=milb
|
|
|
Post by bookiemetts on Jun 2, 2015 19:09:27 GMT -5
Going back to April 25th, JBJ has a 17 game AAA on base streak counting today. During that time he's hitting a whopping 27/65 (.415) counting 2/3 so far today. I realize there's obviously some BABIP voodoo probably going on here but it seems really encouraging to me.
|
|
|
Post by bookiemetts on May 31, 2015 19:20:27 GMT -5
Firing the manager, as much as it probably is deserved, is not going to solve the problems with the Sox. There just are too many of them, and many that most of us did not anticipate - nor did Sox management. The team is bad in virtually every aspect of the game. And it is a team effort. None of the veterans is playing to the level expected by past performance. Actually the best players are the youngsters - along with Pedroia. But even Pedroia is not the same player he was. So how does such a deeply flawed team get fixed? Right now I don't have a single idea that would help to put the team back in contention. Too many things need to be fixed at the same time. I have the same thoughts. I will keep tuning in to watch the younger guys hit and ERod pitching though. Pedroia's the closest to his career averages of anyone on the team, and he's still a tick below them, so it's pretty rough.
|
|
|
Post by bookiemetts on May 31, 2015 16:02:50 GMT -5
That was a really nice at bat from Swihart. Fought off all that off speed crap and was able to catch up with the inside fastball. His offense has been coming around nicely. I guess the next thing to come is the power!
|
|
|
Post by bookiemetts on May 30, 2015 18:49:39 GMT -5
Lol that was just a terrible at-bat for Rusney
|
|
|
Post by bookiemetts on May 29, 2015 22:21:11 GMT -5
Breslow Bresblows.
I'm really not sure how to fix this team really. If it's not the starters, the offense can't score. And if both those have average days the bullpen somehow craps a brick. The only people on the team really having good years are Pedroia, Holt, Tazawa and Uehara. All the other veterans are having subpar years while the young guys are still developing.
|
|
|
Post by bookiemetts on May 22, 2015 20:02:49 GMT -5
I just don't understand how they are this bad. It just doesn't make sense.
|
|
|
Post by bookiemetts on May 20, 2015 19:37:48 GMT -5
Poor Mookie...
|
|
|
Post by bookiemetts on May 13, 2015 16:30:45 GMT -5
Coming into the day, the Sox have a league-worst .256 BABIP and are also hitting a league-worst .206 w/RISP.
When does this turn around?
|
|
|
Post by bookiemetts on May 13, 2015 14:59:02 GMT -5
It would be nice if even one player on the roster was "overachieving"
|
|
|
Post by bookiemetts on May 12, 2015 22:30:12 GMT -5
When Wake hung em up. I thought I'd never have to watch another knuckleballer again pitch for the Sox. Just can't take it. You have to know what you're getting out of a pitcher any given night. Not hope you get something out of him. How is that any better or worse than what you expect from Clay, Masterson, Miley and Kelly?
|
|
|
Post by bookiemetts on May 12, 2015 9:43:03 GMT -5
No doubt Mookie is the best player on this team. He's on pace for about 8.8 bWAR or 6.3 fWAR, and he's sporting a .252 BABIP with a 27% line drive rate. He could end up with a monster season once that works itself out.
|
|
|
Post by bookiemetts on May 11, 2015 22:43:47 GMT -5
Where does Swihart rank across the league as far as speed goes? Looked pretty quick on that double.
|
|
|
Post by bookiemetts on May 10, 2015 14:34:05 GMT -5
I'm willing to accept the stat guys telling me the sox pitcher's should be doing better. I hope they also agree that Xander should be hitting less than 250 with his weak swing? Well, his BABIP is reasonable and he has dropped his k-rate from 23.2% to 17.4% this year so he's doing about what I'd expect at this point. He has given up power for contact so far. His swing is a work in progress. He's just 22. It'll come. He's been messing around with his stance too. He's definitely working on it. hopefully he can start driving the ball with some force soon.
|
|
|
Post by bookiemetts on May 10, 2015 12:13:37 GMT -5
8 game hitting streak now for Mookie. I think he'll be up around .280 pretty soon
|
|
|
Post by bookiemetts on May 9, 2015 13:50:25 GMT -5
Kelly needs to be taken out... I mean come on, it's only 2-0. And 7 walks! LOL
|
|
|
Post by bookiemetts on May 6, 2015 22:04:50 GMT -5
4-45?? How is that possible That's the magic of arbitrary endpoints. And the fact that they went 42 for 196 total in that span, or .214.
|
|
|
Post by bookiemetts on May 6, 2015 21:16:04 GMT -5
Is it just me or does Bogaerts just look more comfortable in the field so far?
|
|
|
Post by bookiemetts on May 6, 2015 20:22:56 GMT -5
This is where it would be nice to have Matt Barnes in the bigs.
|
|
|
Post by bookiemetts on May 5, 2015 21:57:05 GMT -5
Going into this year a lot of us were clamoring to move Victorino and Craig and what happens, both of them have stunk it up so far and as predicted Victorino is on the DL. We keep trying to build value in guys rather than cut bait. I'm for sending Craig to AAA immediately and let Victorino get maximum rehab time in AAA. Try to move both of them rather than try to build value. It's not going to happen with Craig for sure. I think Victorino could still be useful but I have zero hope with Craig. It's sunk cost. There is absolutely no reason to keep him in the majors, at the expense of someone like JBJ who could be handy for this team right now. I agree. I think it was worth the shot to see if Craig or Victorino could stay healthy or play. If they could play, you can keep them for bench roles or trade them for like a bullpen piece or something. If not, you have to do something to get rid of them. This is similar to Grady Sizemore last year. The problem was last year they waited too long to see if he could play and he ate a lot of at bats. Craig is a net negative at this point when you could have Bradley up who is still a better hitter (LOL) and is 10x the fielder.
|
|