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WAR and More (...what is it good for)
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Post by jimed14 on Aug 3, 2018 13:06:05 GMT -5
Runs and RBIs are a team stat unless created by home runs. You can't score without someone hitting you in and you can't drive people in without runners on base. But what a great comp! Guys on the same team. So it is fair to compare. No it isn't. It matters where a batter hits. Are you knocking Mookie this year for not having enough RBIs? How many RBIs would he and JDM have if they swapped spots in the order?
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Post by manfred on Aug 3, 2018 13:09:41 GMT -5
But what a great comp! Guys on the same team. So it is fair to compare. No it isn't. It matters where a batter hits. Are you knocking Mookie this year for not having enough RBIs? How many RBIs would he and JDM have if they swapped spots in the order? Nope. Not knocking Mookie. He leads the team in runs.
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Post by beasleyrockah on Aug 3, 2018 13:14:30 GMT -5
Rice had 1249 runs scored, Evans had 1470... . Per 162 games. I said long earlier, Rice had a shorter prime. Evans still scored more runs per plate appearance for their careers, which is more meaningful than the per game played rate. Evans scored 1470 runs in 10569 plate appearances, meaning he scored a run on 13.9% of his plate appearances. Jim Rice scored 1249 runs in 9058 plate appearances, meaning he scored on ~13.79% of his plate appearances.
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Post by jimed14 on Aug 3, 2018 13:20:03 GMT -5
No it isn't. It matters where a batter hits. Are you knocking Mookie this year for not having enough RBIs? How many RBIs would he and JDM have if they swapped spots in the order? Nope. Not knocking Mookie. He leads the team in runs. Obviously you should be able to see the flaw with RBIs, given that our best hitter by far has the 4th most RBIs on the team. Is Lindor almost equal to Mookie this year since he has 5 more runs scored and 10 more rbis? Is JDM much better than Mike Trout since he has 30 more rbis? Or maybe he has far more opportunities to drive runs in.
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Post by voiceofreason on Aug 3, 2018 13:26:32 GMT -5
It's interesting to bring up specific criticisms of WAR calculations and discuss them. But a lot of the "WAR doesn't work because it doesn't match my preconceptions" talk really don't move anywhere. Look at the Rice vs. Evans stuff - a ton of discussion about how Evans was a more well-rounded player who was just significantly more valuable over the course of his career, and that evidence was shot down with snark about "tell me who is better in 30 years." If people who are interested in poking and exploring holes in WAR are actually interested in re-examining their preconceptions, it's a really valuable conversation and it can be a lot of fun. If people are only there to strawman the statheads and ignore the points people are making then what is the point? My only response to that Mr Dunne is that it takes all kinds. Their is some that will, some that won't some that don't care and some that want to learn. This is the internet after all so all kinds will participate and this site is like no other I have seen for the overall personalities that get along for the most part and trolls don't troll. Not everyone is going to agree on everything, change is hard for some.
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redsox04071318champs
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Post by redsox04071318champs on Aug 3, 2018 13:28:17 GMT -5
Rice would have had a lot less RBIs if Evans walked a lot less. Why are walks unproductive? Why is a weak infield ground ball with a runner on 3rd more productive than a walk? That doesn’t make sense: a) Evans frequently batted after Rice, and if Evans’s walks led to Rice’s RBIs, he’d have more runs. Rice scored more. Your scenario is good. Answer: it depends. The walk is more productive if the NEXT batter produces. Making THAT guy the big producer. Next guy whiffs? Rather have the fielder’s choice. But it is hard to consider the guy who walked as doing a great thing in isolation. You could make the argument that Rice was the better "hitter". I think he was, but I think it's pretty clear that Dwight Evans was the superior offensive player. And as far as defense, no comparison. Evans batted before Jim Rice more than you give credit for. When Evans was younger and wasn't as much the accomplished hitter (1972 - 1980) he often batted 8th or 9th and there were times he lead off. That means his walks helped the #3 hitter Jim Rice prosper. When Evans put it together as a hitter in 1981, he spent a lot of time in his career from that point on directly in front of Rice who batted 3rd while Ralph Houk moved Evans up to the #2 spot. So this idea of passive non productive walks are silly. The idea is to score runs. How do you do that? Avoid outs as long as you can. Walks avoid outs, create traffic, and make any subsequent damage even more devastating. They also run up pitch counts, exhaust pitchers so that they're easier to hit after that. Walks do a ton of damage you're underestimating. In his best 3 years Rice was as great a hitter as anybody. Evans wasn't in his league during that 1977 - 1979 time, but Evans matured in 1981 and in that last decade was flat out awesome. Even before 1981 he was a decent offensive player who was wasted down at the bottom of the order by a dumb manager who couldn't figure out that Evans' abilities to get on base via the walk was important, more important that guys like Burleson or Remy who looked like leadoff hitters because they weren't slow. If Evans batted leadoff more often, I think Rice would have had even more RBI opportunities. None of this is to disparage Rice who was one helluva hitter for a good dozen year stretch, and I know he's a borderline HOFer, but I'm glad he's in. I didn't get to see Rice from 1977 - 1979 so I know he's better than the Rice of 1980 - 1989 that I saw and I saw the new and improving Evans which really started in mid-July 1980 which coincides with my fanhood, which was an improvement from the decent offensive player/spectacular fielder Evans from the 1970s. But in totality when all the numbers are in careerwise, Evans was the better all around player and was even better offensively despite Rice's superiority as a "hitter".
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Post by James Dunne on Aug 3, 2018 13:39:10 GMT -5
I agree, which is why I say most of this thread has been pedantic. I'm truly interested in a better understanding of these stats, but just not interested enough to do the required research haha... Any time I start, it seems like the rabbit hole has no end. In order to understand WAR calculations I have to understand 10 other advanced stats and god only knows what I'll have to Google to understand them. Sooooo... Any input in regards to my specific question RE: Ks vs productive outs/GIDP, etc.? Here's a pretty good one, from BP's golden age: www.baseballprospectus.com/news/article/2617/baseball-prospectus-basics-just-another-out/ Here's a pretty decent (and very succinct) exploration of whether getting productive outs is a skill: www.baseballprospectus.com/news/article/3634/assessing-productive-outs-little-things-mean-a-little/If you're looking for a good overview to read and find googling articles to answer specific questions daunting and hard to find a starting point, but you're interested in giving the aforementioned "The Book" by Tom Tango is very good, as is "Baseball Between the Numbers" by the 2004-ish BP staff. "Moneyball" is famous, but if you haven't ready it by now I would not recommend it as a stat primer. As a narrative, I would recommend it, especially as a window into the late-90's/early-00's economics of baseball and how teams with small payrolls basically just rolled over for seven or eight years. And by all means, ask. Sometimes I'm sure some of us take for granted that people understand what we're talking about, but don't let that scare you off. We're happy to help, just a little curmudgeonly sometimes.
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Post by umassgrad2005 on Aug 3, 2018 14:16:24 GMT -5
www.fangraphs.com/library/misc/war/That along with the other stuff in Fangraphs glossary will help explain a lot of advanced stats. Nothing will beat just following this board though and how people use them though. Just know if you jump down the advanced stat rabbit hole you will lose countless hours. Before you know it you'll always have taps open to Baseball Refrence, Fangraphs, Baseball Savant, Brooks Baseball, ESPN, MLB.com, it starts getting crazy. Then again not a bad way for a sports junkie to spend his time.
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Post by manfred on Aug 3, 2018 14:40:43 GMT -5
Nope. Not knocking Mookie. He leads the team in runs. Obviously you should be able to see the flaw with RBIs, given that our best hitter by far has the 4th most RBIs on the team. Is Lindor almost equal to Mookie this year since he has 5 more runs scored and 10 more rbis? Is JDM much better than Mike Trout since he has 30 more rbis? Or maybe he has far more opportunities to drive runs in. You keep isolating single stats as though I’m saying the guy with the most X is best. I’m actually saying the opposite. I’m saying there are a lot of factors that go into all of the numbers, but typically (not always!) the guy with better major numbers is better. Of course, cumulative numbers CAN be deceptive, as well. Would it help if I said Evans had a longer span of productivity? If I had to sign one of the two to a 20-year contract, I’d take Evans. 10-year contract, Rice. But I’d say the same of Sutton and Koufax. I think the widespread “some people will never learn” eyerolls are a bit unfair. The Evans-was-better-than Rice is an outlier position, and I have nothing but respect for efforts to make the case. But sneering at a) the managers who treated Rice as the premier hitter at the time; b) all the people who presented him with more awards, MVP votes ROY votes etc.; c) all the HOF voters; and d) anyone who deigns to cite the fundamental statistics that make up box scores and scoreboards, etc etc is a bit unseemly.
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Post by dcb26 on Aug 3, 2018 15:23:33 GMT -5
Obviously you should be able to see the flaw with RBIs, given that our best hitter by far has the 4th most RBIs on the team. Is Lindor almost equal to Mookie this year since he has 5 more runs scored and 10 more rbis? Is JDM much better than Mike Trout since he has 30 more rbis? Or maybe he has far more opportunities to drive runs in. You keep isolating single stats as though I’m saying the guy with the most X is best. I’m actually saying the opposite. I’m saying there are a lot of factors that go into all of the numbers, but typically (not always!) the guy with better major numbers is better. Of course, cumulative numbers CAN be deceptive, as well. Would it help if I said Evans had a longer span of productivity? If I had to sign one of the two to a 20-year contract, I’d take Evans. 10-year contract, Rice. But I’d say the same of Sutton and Koufax. I think the widespread “some people will never learn” eyerolls are a bit unfair. The Evans-was-better-than Rice is an outlier position, and I have nothing but respect for efforts to make the case. But sneering at a) the managers who treated Rice as the premier hitter at the time; b) all the people who presented him with more awards, MVP votes ROY votes etc.; c) all the HOF voters; and d) anyone who deigns to cite the fundamental statistics that make up box scores and scoreboards, etc etc is a bit unseemly. I get your point that it can be a bit off-putting sometimes to not just disagree with but completely disdain a lot of what happened through most of the history of the sport. The thing is, it's largely true that people were either ignorant of or afraid to make changes based on anything new or different. Take the stereotype of the "dumb manager" who didn't utilize his players effectively - in this context it's not really about any individual manager, but the way the game was played. Even if said manager really does think there's value in OBP over 'empty' AVG and speed in the leadoff spot, going against the established way of doing things means he better be damn sure it will work. If he bats the slow, walk-heavy player first and the team doesn't win more games (and there's obviously a lot more factors to winning games than leadoff production) he'll lose his job in all likelihood, whereas if he sticks with the status-quo he's unlikely to be blamed for doing things the same way as every other team. The fact that the game has evolved to where it is today isn't some freak chance, it's simply that easier access to data has allowed for more people to better understand the game, and therefore the game has changed in ways that weren't possible/likely previously. In response to the bit above about "the guy with better major numbers" and something you said before about Rice being statistically better, those points are only true if you look only at the stats in which those players were better. The stats available during the era we're talking about made it a lot easier to evaluate guys who stood out in the traditional metrics (I'm guessing those are the "major numbers" you are referring to) but that doesn't make those evaluations more accurate, or make those standouts the default "better" players. The point of stats like WAR that try to establish a baseline between all players is that all possible actions/outcomes can add or subtract value - a home run might be more valuable than a stolen base, but that doesn't mean that a great base runner can't be more valuable than a player who hits more home runs. Whether WAR does this effectively or accurately is something I personally think it's very fair to question, but to be able to look for improvements I think you first have to be comfortable with the basic premise. As a final point, when talking about the "better" player, context has so much to do with it too. If there's a fantasy scenario last offseason before the Sox signed Martinez, and I had the choice of either Rice or Evans in their prime playing for the Sox in 2018, I'd very probably take Rice - the team needed an infusion of power and already had/has a phenomenal right fielder. If I'm building a team from the ground up though, I'll take Dewey every time, as would, I think, just about anyone who operates a baseball team today.
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Post by h11233 on Aug 3, 2018 16:10:40 GMT -5
In this article, their conclusion is "...the correlation between runs from productive outs and winning percentage is just .16, not even close to being significant." My question is why did they use winning percentage as their criterion for assessing the value of productive outs? There are so many variables in a team's winning percentage that it seems an odd choice. Why wouldn't they calculate a team's expected runs scored vs actual and see if the teams who have higher % productive outs consistently outperform those that have a lower % of productive outs? For example, Adam Dunn had >34%K rate in his career with a runner on 2nd and 0 outs. From that BP article, Barry Bonds seemed to consistently get productive outs. What I essentially want to know is, does a team full of Barry Bonds who consistently get productive outs in those situations out perform expected runs scored vs a team full of Adam Dunns striking out 34% of the time?
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Post by manfred on Aug 3, 2018 16:20:32 GMT -5
You keep isolating single stats as though I’m saying the guy with the most X is best. I’m actually saying the opposite. I’m saying there are a lot of factors that go into all of the numbers, but typically (not always!) the guy with better major numbers is better. Of course, cumulative numbers CAN be deceptive, as well. Would it help if I said Evans had a longer span of productivity? If I had to sign one of the two to a 20-year contract, I’d take Evans. 10-year contract, Rice. But I’d say the same of Sutton and Koufax. I think the widespread “some people will never learn” eyerolls are a bit unfair. The Evans-was-better-than Rice is an outlier position, and I have nothing but respect for efforts to make the case. But sneering at a) the managers who treated Rice as the premier hitter at the time; b) all the people who presented him with more awards, MVP votes ROY votes etc.; c) all the HOF voters; and d) anyone who deigns to cite the fundamental statistics that make up box scores and scoreboards, etc etc is a bit unseemly. I get your point that it can be a bit off-putting sometimes to not just disagree with but completely disdain a lot of what happened through most of the history of the sport. The thing is, it's largely true that people were either ignorant of or afraid to make changes based on anything new or different. Take the stereotype of the "dumb manager" who didn't utilize his players effectively - in this context it's not really about any individual manager, but the way the game was played. Even if said manager really does think there's value in OBP over 'empty' AVG and speed in the leadoff spot, going against the established way of doing things means he better be damn sure it will work. If he bats the slow, walk-heavy player first and the team doesn't win more games (and there's obviously a lot more factors to winning games than leadoff production) he'll lose his job in all likelihood, whereas if he sticks with the status-quo he's unlikely to be blamed for doing things the same way as every other team. The fact that the game has evolved to where it is today isn't some freak chance, it's simply that easier access to data has allowed for more people to better understand the game, and therefore the game has changed in ways that weren't possible/likely previously. In response to the bit above about "the guy with better major numbers" and something you said before about Rice being statistically better, those points are only true if you look only at the stats in which those players were better. The stats available during the era we're talking about made it a lot easier to evaluate guys who stood out in the traditional metrics (I'm guessing those are the "major numbers" you are referring to) but that doesn't make those evaluations more accurate, or make those standouts the default "better" players. The point of stats like WAR that try to establish a baseline between all players is that all possible actions/outcomes can add or subtract value - a home run might be more valuable than a stolen base, but that doesn't mean that a great base runner can't be more valuable than a player who hits more home runs. Whether WAR does this effectively or accurately is something I personally think it's very fair to question, but to be able to look for improvements I think you first have to be comfortable with the basic premise. As a final point, when talking about the "better" player, context has so much to do with it too. If there's a fantasy scenario last offseason before the Sox signed Martinez, and I had the choice of either Rice or Evans in their prime playing for the Sox in 2018, I'd very probably take Rice - the team needed an infusion of power and already had/has a phenomenal right fielder. If I'm building a team from the ground up though, I'll take Dewey every time, as would, I think, just about anyone who operates a baseball team today. This is fair. I would add one response: the game has changed; that it is better is subjective. Teams win and lose differently now. For many people, I suspect, the changes have made the game less fun. Yes, I want to win — above all. But... I also want to be entertained. I find having guys strikeout in shameless numbers tedious. I LOVE strikeout pitchers, but strikeouts used to be more fun when guys prided themselves on not striking out. I get the new models of bullpen use, and it makes total sense strategically and perhaps from a health standpoint. But I really miss complete games... there was something thrilling about the accomplishment of a horse gutting through a game. Not to mention that I think most people go to see stars, not LOOGYs. (Not to mention either the commercial breaks). Actually, one of my favorite thing about this Sox team is that it runs. I miss the days when there was more recklessness on the basepaths. Mathematically better? Probably not. But aesthetically awesome. The last thing I’ll say on this is that I think some of the most important things in the game cannot be quantified. Mo Rivera changed the way a game was played. You had 8 innings, max. This meant run the bases differently, manage differently etc. Truthfully, I think most closers are overrated — often tasked with just getting 3 outs without giving up a run — not a massive standard. The ones that stand out, and they are rare, are the ones that make you feel doomed. Or a hitter like Ortiz... there is the sort of Mike Tyson effect. You watch him walking up and just get a bad feeling. That matters more than one can put into numbers.
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redsox04071318champs
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Post by redsox04071318champs on Aug 3, 2018 17:38:45 GMT -5
I get your point that it can be a bit off-putting sometimes to not just disagree with but completely disdain a lot of what happened through most of the history of the sport. The thing is, it's largely true that people were either ignorant of or afraid to make changes based on anything new or different. Take the stereotype of the "dumb manager" who didn't utilize his players effectively - in this context it's not really about any individual manager, but the way the game was played. Even if said manager really does think there's value in OBP over 'empty' AVG and speed in the leadoff spot, going against the established way of doing things means he better be damn sure it will work. If he bats the slow, walk-heavy player first and the team doesn't win more games (and there's obviously a lot more factors to winning games than leadoff production) he'll lose his job in all likelihood, whereas if he sticks with the status-quo he's unlikely to be blamed for doing things the same way as every other team. The fact that the game has evolved to where it is today isn't some freak chance, it's simply that easier access to data has allowed for more people to better understand the game, and therefore the game has changed in ways that weren't possible/likely previously. In response to the bit above about "the guy with better major numbers" and something you said before about Rice being statistically better, those points are only true if you look only at the stats in which those players were better. The stats available during the era we're talking about made it a lot easier to evaluate guys who stood out in the traditional metrics (I'm guessing those are the "major numbers" you are referring to) but that doesn't make those evaluations more accurate, or make those standouts the default "better" players. The point of stats like WAR that try to establish a baseline between all players is that all possible actions/outcomes can add or subtract value - a home run might be more valuable than a stolen base, but that doesn't mean that a great base runner can't be more valuable than a player who hits more home runs. Whether WAR does this effectively or accurately is something I personally think it's very fair to question, but to be able to look for improvements I think you first have to be comfortable with the basic premise. As a final point, when talking about the "better" player, context has so much to do with it too. If there's a fantasy scenario last offseason before the Sox signed Martinez, and I had the choice of either Rice or Evans in their prime playing for the Sox in 2018, I'd very probably take Rice - the team needed an infusion of power and already had/has a phenomenal right fielder. If I'm building a team from the ground up though, I'll take Dewey every time, as would, I think, just about anyone who operates a baseball team today. This is fair. I would add one response: the game has changed; that it is better is subjective. Teams win and lose differently now. For many people, I suspect, the changes have made the game less fun. Yes, I want to win — above all. But... I also want to be entertained. I find having guys strikeout in shameless numbers tedious. I LOVE strikeout pitchers, but strikeouts used to be more fun when guys prided themselves on not striking out. I get the new models of bullpen use, and it makes total sense strategically and perhaps from a health standpoint. But I really miss complete games... there was something thrilling about the accomplishment of a horse gutting through a game. Not to mention that I think most people go to see stars, not LOOGYs. (Not to mention either the commercial breaks). Actually, one of my favorite thing about this Sox team is that it runs. I miss the days when there was more recklessness on the basepaths. Mathematically better? Probably not. But aesthetically awesome. The last thing I’ll say on this is that I think some of the most important things in the game cannot be quantified. Mo Rivera changed the way a game was played. You had 8 innings, max. This meant run the bases differently, manage differently etc. Truthfully, I think most closers are overrated — often tasked with just getting 3 outs without giving up a run — not a massive standard. The ones that stand out, and they are rare, are the ones that make you feel doomed. Or a hitter like Ortiz... there is the sort of Mike Tyson effect. You watch him walking up and just get a bad feeling. That matters more than one can put into numbers. Things evolve. The way you see things from when you enjoyed baseball best perhaps evolved from how baseball was prior to your enjoyment of baseball. Your enjoyment is from one time period (1960s - 1970?) Once upon a time there was a deadball era. Home runs or swinging for the fences like Babe Ruth did was unseemly. You like the day of the pitcher trying to gut out complete game after complete game as they went toward 300 innings. Well even that was evolution. When baseball started it was more like softball where the pitcher wasn't that important in the big scheme of things. You only needed one main pitcher on a team. He needed to hit some because why have a guy bat every day who can't hit? The thought of the DH at that point in the 19th century was still years away. Over time, the one man rotation eventually becomes a 3 man which turns into a 4 man. The five man rotation in the late 70s/early 80s was a change as was the bullpen utilization patterns. The DH began to make sense because by 1973 it was obvious to one of the leagues that pitchers' value was 99% their pitching, not their batting, unlike their 1873 counterparts. Why don't starters gut out those complete game innings? Well, there is evidence that it harms careers and nowadays players make more money, like a lot more money. They are long-term investments. You don't treat your investments recklessly. Like no manager is going to take a 21 year old kid like Mark Fidrych and pitch him 250 innings. The Bird was a joy but it wasn't long before his arm was shot. As it was all he had was that one full season before never being the same again. Somewhere over time managers learned that bunts aren't always that useful, that striking out while not good, wasn't as bad if you could do others things, like walking and hitting homers. Somewhere along the way managers (Lou Boudreau) noticed that having 2 infielders to the left of 2b when Ted Williams was up made no sense. It took nearly 70 years but managers are now realizing that as they get tons of data from analytical depts telling them where the ball is normally hit. More evolution. And it was learned that reckless baserunning could kill innings faster than just about anything else. If you long for those reckless baserunnin days you don't have to go back too far. Just think earlier this season or better yet the John Farrell years. They aren't that far in the rearview mirror but I'm fine if I stop watching the Red Sox recklessly run into stupid baserunning outs in the name of being agressive.
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Post by iakovos11 on Aug 3, 2018 19:14:45 GMT -5
One of the biggest shames in all of MLB history was that Mark Fidrych had such a short career (essentially 76/77/78). That dude was GOLD. My uncle lived in Detroit and we used to go visit and went to a game at old Tiger Stadium and saw him pitch, 1976/77, I think. A Worcester boy! He was entertainment and a pitching god. If you loved baseball, you had to love Mark Fidrych.
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Post by dirtdog on Aug 3, 2018 21:46:25 GMT -5
One of the biggest shames in all of MLB history was that Mark Fidrych had such a short career (essentially 76/77/78). That dude was GOLD. My uncle lived in Detroit and we used to go visit and went to a game at old Tiger Stadium and saw him pitch, 1976/77, I think. A Worcester boy! He was entertainment and a pitching god. If you loved baseball, you had to love Mark Fidrych. Terrific post, however the biggest shame has to be Tony C.
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Post by James Dunne on Aug 3, 2018 23:29:18 GMT -5
To do that, you'd need to find plays that resulted in the player getting an out but increased the team's WPA by some margin of significance. I'm not aware of any studies that do that, but... it's a pretty rare event, right? I mean, we can all remember it happening, but to find any patterns, or learn anything, or draw any conclusions then we need a pattern. Otherwise I don't see it being any more useful than just using WPA.
And the value of any event changes based on the situation and the players around you - like I was saying earlier, the higher a team's on-base percentage is, the more an event that results in a player getting on base is worth. A walk is worth more to the Red Sox than any other team, because they are the team most likely to score a player who is on first base.
With that in mind, I don't see why it would be different for analyzing the value of types of outs or for the value of events that don't result in outs. No event is context neutral, but there are a lot of situations where it makes sense to try to analyze things in a context neutral way. Say, for example, you're contemplating making a trade - you're not going to pass up on a high-OBP/low-SLG guy who was wasted on a bad offensive team and therefore his context-driven numbers are poor. Think of someone like Whit Merrifield (14th in the AL in WAR, 54th in WPA), who would be a lot more valuable on the Red Sox than the Royals. That doesn't alter Merrifield's quality as a player, nor his value in a trade. If you want to argue that it should affect his retrospective value because the things he does well don't lead to runs/wins because of context, I think we can be in the agree to disagree range.
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Post by manfred on Aug 3, 2018 23:34:01 GMT -5
One of the biggest shames in all of MLB history was that Mark Fidrych had such a short career (essentially 76/77/78). That dude was GOLD. My uncle lived in Detroit and we used to go visit and went to a game at old Tiger Stadium and saw him pitch, 1976/77, I think. A Worcester boy! He was entertainment and a pitching god. If you loved baseball, you had to love Mark Fidrych. He was a bit before my time, but his legend endured even after he was gone... talking to the ball and all. Just looked back at his numbers for his rookies year — only year, really. It is fascinating: on the one hand, he threw 24 complete games. On the other, he only walked 53, struck out an amazing 93!! He threw multiple extra inning complete games — 11 innings more than once. But I can’t find pitch counts. With those walk and strikeout numbers, I expect they were relatively low. I wonder, in short, if he is a victim of abuse (he did throw a ton of innings at 21) or just bad luck? I always thought of him as a victim of overwork, but I wonder if his pitch counts were less outrageous than I might expect with that many complete games?
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 4, 2018 0:55:39 GMT -5
The thing is, what you saw with your own eyes is not what you now remember.
You definitely saw Rice cost his team 42 runs by hitting into double plays, while Dewey, in a longer career, cost them 6.
You definitely saw that, of the 11 most dramatic, game-changing home runs in their combined careers (as measured by Win Probability Added), Dewey had #1, #2, #4, #5, #6, #7, #8, #9, #10, and #11. You ought to remember that, too.
If you watched both careers, it shouldn't surprise you that their ten best seasons by WPA, a purely offensive stat go: Evans ('81 prorated to 135 games or more), Rice, Evans, Rice, Evans, Rice, Evans, Evans, Evans, Evans. There's no number N where Rice's N best seasons were more valuable offensively than Evans' N best seasons, when you include clutch, and once N hits 4 or more the gap gets really big. You definitely saw Rice put up an OPS+ of 86 relative to his own career with 2 outs and RISP, while Evans had 105, and Rice put up 86 late and close and Evans 95.
I'm guessing you remember how relatively mediocre a clutch hitter Rice was, consistently, his whole career, but we gave him slack for that because he blew open a lot of games early. But he also did a lot of damage in games that were already decided.
If you want to ignore clutch hitting, you can of course include defense instead. Again, there's no N where Rice's N best seasons total more bWAR than Evans'. It's close through 5 seasons (and Dewey's '81 needs to be prorated to 142 games to give him the edge), but after that, as N goes up, the gap really widens.
And I'll point out that your eyeballs have no ability at all to calculate the relative value of offense and defense, and add them together. It might seem to you, watching the games, that Evans' superiority with the glove was not great enough to offset Rice's raw edge at the plate, but history has shown that no one had any good idea about that back then, and the game of baseball has profoundly changed once defense was correctly valued.
When you combine both defense and clutch hitting, there's no way that Jim Rice was ever a better ballplayer than Dwight Evans. To come to the oppose conclusion, you have to selectively ignore all the stuff Rice was mediocre at.
At the same time, it is tough for me (a small HOF advocate) to let in guys who were never really “the man” on their own team (especially in a relative power position).
Who's "the man" on the team is largely a media construct. And is it really true that Evans was never "the man"?
I'm thinking back to August 23, 1990, when Dewey was 38. He homers with 2 outs in the bottom of the 8th to knot the game 2-2. In the bottom of the 10th, the O's bring in Greg Olsen to protect a 3-2 lead, and he quickly gets two outs before Brunansky singles. He's now faced 471 batters without yielding a HR, since Evans went yard against him in April of his previous, rookie season. Folks have been talking about the streak.
Dewey takes him ovah the Monstah for the walk-off. And as I recall it at the time, he was very much "the man" for doing stuff like that.
I eagerly await 2048 to have someone tell me who the best player on this year’s team is. 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.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 4, 2018 2:00:14 GMT -5
It's interesting to bring up specific criticisms of WAR calculations and discuss them. But a lot of the "WAR doesn't work because it doesn't match my preconceptions" talk really don't move anywhere. Look at the Rice vs. Evans stuff - a ton of discussion about how Evans was a more well-rounded player who was just significantly more valuable over the course of his career, and that evidence was shot down with snark about "tell me who is better in 30 years." If people who are interested in poking and exploring holes in WAR are actually interested in re-examining their preconceptions, it's a really valuable conversation and it can be a lot of fun. If people are only there to strawman the statheads and ignore the points people are making then what is the point? 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.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 4, 2018 2:27:12 GMT -5
Christy Mathewson spoke a lot about how walks were a huge negative. The players knew. When pitchers talk about walks, they generally seem to imply that they are beating themselves. Like their thought process is "If I walk the leadoff hitter and the #3 guy hits a home run then that first run is on me." I never really took that as a pitcher giving credit to the guy that walked. I also more or less took that to mean the pitcher respected the slugger batting 3rd more than the leadoff OBP guy. I've never heard Mathewson speak so I have no specific context, I was just interested in what your take is on this. More generally, going back to a hitter's perspective, I think a hit requires more baseball skill than a walk. Or, to put more accurately, I have a preconceived notion that a hit requires more baseball skill than a walk. Ted Williams hitting .406 is iconic and legendary and a feat that nobody will likely ever see again. I don't recall anyone talking about OBP with the same whimsy. I think this is where I (and probably a few others) get hung up by advanced metrics that don't appear on the surface to distinguish between the two. Again, interested to hear others' takes on this as I'm open to the possibility that my perspective is off. It used to be thought that walks were a thing that pitchers did and that just happened to hitters. That's why the BBWA not just ignored them for most of its history, but actually regarded them as a negative for hitters, because walking more decreases your hit total, and total career hits is (idiotically) the first and sometimes the only thing they look at as a HOF credential.
Of course, if you look at the data, you immediately discover that walks are created more by hitters than pitchers. There are no pitchers with control so great that their walk rates match the least patient hitters, or with control so bad that their walk rates match the most patient. This is one of the first things sabermetrics discovered.
Re what numbers to look at, you look at OBP first and SA second. Looking at BA will tell you what style the hitter has (how much he walks and hits for power versus hitting a lot of singles, given his OBP and SA), but it tells you very little about his value.
(And what it tells you, BTW, is backwards: given the same OBP and SA, the hitter with the lower batting average is a tiny bit more valuable. This is easy to demonstrate with team hitting stats (and is in fact how I discovered it): if you devise a formula to predict team RS/G from just BA, OBP, and SA, BA has a small negative weight.
A toy example: in 600 PA, player A hits .500 / .500 / .500 and player B hits .250 / .500 / .500. Which one would you rather have?
If you choose player B, you turn 250 singles into 200 walks, 25 doubles, and 25 HR. Right away you should suspect that this might be a little more valuable, and it is. Each walk loses you .15 runs, but each double adds .30 and each homer adds .95. The guy who hits .250 is worth 1.25 more runs! The more scarce the offense, the bigger this tiny edge gets.)
If all of this had been understood from the beginning of baseball, all the iconic performances would have been OBP and BA would be a footnote. You can have an empty BA, but never an empty OBP.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 4, 2018 3:39:52 GMT -5
When you said this: You basically said you can't understand that walks make Evans better than Rice. How many times did Rice have an OBP more than .400? Zero. Evans? 3. OBP is statistically proven to be much more valuable than batting average and slugging. It's not trying to prove what I want. Hell, my username is jimed so I should be biased in his favor. Obviously I didn’t say that. I said Rice was better in all other offensive ways. Why is OBP important? To score runs. In this case, two guys, same offense, and Rice averaged more runs and rbis. So while Rice might have walked less, he played a role in more Red Sox runs. Why do unproductive walks put Dewey ahead? Because Jim Rice made more outs. You hate outs, don't you? Baserunners are good. Outs are bad. You get that, right?
When you walk, you become a baserunner instead of making an out. It's immense.
In his career, Jim Rice scored 1249 runs and knocked in 1451. It's bogus to subtract HR for our purposes, because when you knock yourself in you've done both sides of the job. So we can average that: Rice was responsible for 1249/2 + 1451/2 runs. 1350.
Dwight Evans scored 1470 runs and knocked in 1384. 1427 runs.
But, you say, Evans had a longer career. Rice had 9058 PA and Evans had 10569. At 38 PA per game (a typical figure, and what the AL averaged in 1980, to the nearest PA), Jim Rice was worth 5.66 runs per game and Dwight Evans was worth 5.13. Rice is 10% better. And I'm pretty sure that's the way you're looking at this: evident raw production per time spent playing.
Do you see what's wrong with this, though?
Teams don't get 38 PA per game. They get 27 outs.
Dwight's career was 17% longer, but he only made 11% more outs (6796 to 6108). When you redo the above calculation with 27 outs, Rice's edge drops to 5.97 to 5.67 -- from 10% to 5%. So the edge in evident raw production was half as big as it looked.
But as others have pointed out, using R and RBIs are a terrible way to judge offensive value. They are incredibly dependent on your teammates, where the manager chooses to hit you, and so on. Because most of Dwight's managers didn't understand his value (Ralph Houk was the exception), they didn't give him the opportunities that Rice got.
In 1978 Evans was 4th among the regulars in OBP and OPS, and 5th in SA. Don Zimmer hit him 8th.
In 1979 he was second in every number to Fred Lynn. Zimmer hit him 7th and 8th.
In 1985 he had ranked 2nd, 5th, and 4th, and in 1986 he was 3rd in each metric ... and John McNamara moved him from 2nd to 6th. That was the year McNamama had the best hitter in MLB and adroitly surrounded him with the four weakest hitters on the team (Gedman, Owen; Boggs; Barrett, Buckner).
WPA already takes outs made into consideration, so you do want to use something like 38 PA as a denominator. Jim Rice in his career contributed 0.90 runs above average per game (which is to say, a team full of hitters as good and as clutch as Jim Rice would have been that much better). Dwight Evans contributed 1.15.
That's measuring the impact on winning of every single PA in each guy's career. That's really easy to measure objectively. There's no arguing against that, actually.
A lot of that difference (from the R / RBI / Outs method) comes from Dwight's hugely better performance with the game on the line. Another big chunk is the huge number of times Evans was left on base because his managers had him hitting 6th, 7th, and 8th while he was on base more often than most of his teammates. That doesn't say anything about Evans as a hitter; it says a lot about the cluelessnes of Don Zimmer and John McNamara, who aren't exactly warm and fuzzy names in the history of the Sox.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 4, 2018 4:13:43 GMT -5
Sneering at a) the managers who treated Rice as the premier hitter at the time; b) all the people who presented him with more awards, MVP votes ROY votes etc.; c) all the HOF voters; and d) anyone who deigns to cite the fundamental statistics that make up box scores and scoreboards, etc etc is a bit unseemly. a) We're sneering at the managers who batted Evans 6th, 7th and 8th when he was one of the three best hitters on the team.
And in any case, sneering at Don Zimmer and at John McNamara is not "unseemly." It should be required by law and rewarded by drugs chocolate and loose friendly women. I like to say that every other manager in MLB history other than Zimmer would have won a WS with the 1978 Red Sox, and every other manager in history other than McNamara would have won the 1986 WS (including, ironically, each other). The former is probably an exaggeration, but when you factor in Zimmer's character, it's deserved. The latter may well be true.
b) As explained already (Trammel vs. Bell, etc.), yes, for the most part, those guys deserve sneering at.
c) No body of human beings in the history of humanity have ever been worse at their task than HOF voters. I mean, really. When Ron Santo retired, he was the second greatest 3B of all time, and the BBWA couldn't get him inducted before he died. I could go on like this for pages.
You don't seem to understand that your entire sense of the way baseball works was shaped by people whose job it was to write entertaining stories about baseball players and their feats and whose job description did not in any way, shape, or form include understanding the game of baseball or communicating any truths about it to you.
d) You can cite those fundamental stats all you want, but don't try to tell us they provide a better lens than the stats we prefer. Why is BA the traditional stat and OBP the brash young challenger? Because people have been stupid. That's actually it. Nothing else. (OBP was first argued for long, long ago.)
The history of humanity is full of people being stupid and then learning better. Women didn't use to be able to vote. They do now. Why should baseball be an exception to this rule, where the original favorite ideas were better?
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 4, 2018 4:35:13 GMT -5
I would add one response: the game has changed; that it is better is subjective. Teams win and lose differently now. For many people, I suspect, the changes have made the game less fun. Yes, I want to win — above all. But... I also want to be entertained. I find having guys strikeout in shameless numbers tedious. I LOVE strikeout pitchers, but strikeouts used to be more fun when guys prided themselves on not striking out. I get the new models of bullpen use, and it makes total sense strategically and perhaps from a health standpoint. But I really miss complete games... there was something thrilling about the accomplishment of a horse gutting through a game. Not to mention that I think most people go to see stars, not LOOGYs. (Not to mention either the commercial breaks). Actually, one of my favorite thing about this Sox team is that it runs. I miss the days when there was more recklessness on the basepaths. Mathematically better? Probably not. But aesthetically awesome. The last thing I’ll say on this is that I think some of the most important things in the game cannot be quantified. Mo Rivera changed the way a game was played. You had 8 innings, max. This meant run the bases differently, manage differently etc. Truthfully, I think most closers are overrated — often tasked with just getting 3 outs without giving up a run — not a massive standard. The ones that stand out, and they are rare, are the ones that make you feel doomed. Or a hitter like Ortiz... there is the sort of Mike Tyson effect. You watch him walking up and just get a bad feeling. That matters more than one can put into numbers. For many people, I suspect, the changes have made the game less fun. Yes, I want to win — above all. But... I also want to be entertained. I find having guys strikeout in shameless numbers tedious.
Absolutely. The rise in strikeouts threatens to damage the game seriously. My Science and Baseball committee at SABR is working on a solution (heavier baseball).
I LOVE strikeout pitchers, but strikeouts used to be more fun when guys prided themselves on not striking out.
Oh, you remember 1919?
Trying to avoid a strikeout became a losing proposition in 1920 when they made the ball livelier. At the time only one ballplayer understood this, and he literally outhomered every other team in MLB but one. I think you've heard of him.
That revolution--trading more strikeouts for more power--became complete a while ago. There's basically no one left who thinks that avoiding strikeouts, in general, is a good idea (because it isn't). The current rise in strikeouts that's killing the game is driven almost entirely by an increase in average pitch velocity.
I get the new models of bullpen use, and it makes total sense strategically and perhaps from a health standpoint. But I really miss complete games... there was something thrilling about the accomplishment of a horse gutting through a game. Not to mention that I think most people go to see stars, not LOOGYs. (Not to mention either the commercial breaks).
I don't miss complete games at all. Why would you want to see a guy losing effectiveness and also risking injury? I love the idea of having a fleet of relievers and the manager's task of having to pick the right guy to pitch each inning. You used to never know what a team had in its pen beside its closer. Now each of the set-up guys on a contender has a reputation and maybe even a personality (yeah, you, Betances). More stars. It's a total win.
Where I'm with you 100% is mid-inning pitching changes -- the micro-managing of what I just said I liked. I think there may need to be a rule to limit them (*), and I'd also like to see the commercial break cut to 30 seconds if possible, with the game in a window.
* It does seem to me that they're declining, but that's only because so many guys are good enough that managers don't worry about their platoon splits.
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Post by lonborgski on Aug 4, 2018 6:50:09 GMT -5
I eagerly await 2048 to have someone tell me who the best player on this year’s team is. 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.
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Post by scottysmalls on Aug 4, 2018 7:49:08 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.
EDIT: For Eric, I’d guess Schilling, Manny, Millar and Pedro, without looking at the numbers and trying not repeat any guesses.
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