BaseballPhD's Xanga

Baseball Chaos Theory, Yet Again

Mon, 01 Sep 2008 06:57:47 GMT

Ned Yost certainly doesn't understand it. Sabathia had a no-hitter going in the 5th inning, and a ball that was ruled a hit probably should've been ruled an error. He then went on to pitch a complete game 1-hitter. Yost was fuming that if that ball were ruled an error, CC would've had a no-hitter. Sorry Ned, it doesn't work that way.

You cannot just assert that if one event had occurred differently, all subsequent events would've unfolded the same way. If that hit is ruled an error, CC has to pitch 4+ more innings with a no-hitter going. Are you really suggesting that every pitch and every batted ball is going to go to precisely the same place right down to the exact micron?

It's like the butterfly effect, but instead of a butterfly it's a gigantic demon spawn with wings the size of Texas.

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 06:37:27 GMT

Discussion: Which are the most overrated/abused/overused statistics in baseball? A few ESPN analysts have been talking about these recently, probably fueled by Francisco Rodriguez' assault on Bobby Thigpen's single-season save record. Here are my top choices:

#5: Strikeouts (for batters)

What do Ryan Howard, Jack Cust, Mark Reynolds, Dan Uggla, Chris Young, Adam Dunn, Carlos Pena, and Matt Kemp have in common? First, they're the only hitters with 120 strikeouts or more as I'm writing this. Second, they've all been much more valuable hitters this year than most people realize. These two things are VERY correlated! When you're watching a game, strikeouts look worse than groundouts or flyouts. This leads many people to the firm belief that they are significantly worse, when in fact, they are not.

If a guy gets on base 37% of the time while striking out 180 times in a season, that's great. He got on base 37% of the time. We do not need to care what his outs looked like. This is not complicated.

#4: Batting Average

Thankfully, OBP is become more and more accepted. Once you've taken OBP into account, batting average tells you basically nothing relevant. OBP is batting average with its major flaw (ignoring walks) corrected. Getting on base is very good. In 98% of cases, who cares if it was from a single or a walk?

#3: RBI

This is a perfect example of people thinking a player's worth is measured by how well he does in clutch situations, as if that's an inherent trait. The best overall hitters are also the best hitters in clutch situations. Given the other basic stats available, RBI totals contribute two additional factors: number of opportunities, and random variation. That just begs the reaction "Who the hell cares?" Show me a veteran who consistently ranks much higher in batting average with runners in scoring position than in overall batting average, and I'll eat my words.

#2: Wins (for pitchers)

Upon being waived by the Twins, Livan Hernandez said something along the lines of: "With two months left to go in the season, I've got 10 wins. That's pretty good." And an ERA of 5.60, a WHIP of 1.65, and a whole hell of a lot of run support. You find tons of examples of pitchers who pitch badly and get lots of wins, and pitchers who pitch well and don't get many wins. Number of wins depends on too many factors that aren't controlled by the pitcher. I have no idea why anyone thinks wins are a good measure of a pitcher's ability. It must be the name. WINS. Sounds really important, I guess.

#1: Saves

As many people have pointed out, this is just about the only statistic that frequently dictates a manager's decisions. If it's a save situation, he has to use his star closer. If it's not a save situation, he'll be second-guessed for using his star closer. Importance of the game situation be damned! Your best reliever only comes in when he can pad his stats!

Saves tell you essentially nothing about a reliever's ability, and cause teams to misuse their bullpens. Worst... stat... ever.

The current best bullpen strategy a GM/manager can possibly employ is this: use a mediocre middle reliever as your closer for a whole year. When he racks up 30+ saves, trade him in the offseason for someone good. Repeat ad nauseum, until there's not a single GM in the league stupid enough to fall for this trick.

Trading Deadline Extravaganza

Fri, 01 Aug 2008 00:13:04 GMT

1. The biggest swap of the past few days is the Dodgers/Pirates/Red Sox deal.

Red Sox:
Give up Manny Ramirez, Brandon Moss, and Craig Hansen
Get Jason Bay

Dodgers:
Give up Andy LaRoche and Bryan Morris
Get Manny Ramirez

Pirates:
Give up Jason Bay
Get Brandon Moss, Craig Hansen, Andy LaRoche, and Bryan Morris

The reaction I'm hearing from most people is that this really hurts the Red Sox a lot down the stretch. Guys, uh... Jason Bay is good. Very good. When you consider park effects, he's hit just almost as well as Manny has this year. Bay is young, and Manny is old. Bay's defense is better. Bay has much less baggage. The problem is, Bay's been on the Pirates, so he hasn't gotten much hype. He's just about as valuable right now as the past-his-prime version of Manny Ramirez.

It's not a bad deal for the Pirates. They're losing a very good player, but he'd be a free agent after 2009, and the Pirates aren't competing by then. They get a decent haul of prospects. Andy LaRoche is good, and hasn't gotten a fair chance in the majors.

For the Dodgers, it's your typical two-month star rental. Given their recent decisions, it's clear they weren't very high on LaRoche. They're saddled with some horrible big contracts for the next couple years, which will make them less flexible in terms of player acquisitions, so this is certainly a good time for them to gamble and push for a deep playoff run coming out of a weak division.

2. The Angels certainly helped themselves out.

Angels:
Give up Casey Kotchman and Stephen Marek
Get Mark Teixeira

Braves:
Give up Mark Teixeira
Get Casey Kotchman and Stephen Marek

I'll be honest, I'm not high at all on low-power first basemen. Nowadays it's an offensive position, and you can get a reasonably good hitter at first without emptying your owner's wallet. Marek isn't exactly getting rave reviews either. I'm not quite sure what the Braves are doing here. It seems like they could've gotten more for Teixeira.

3. A simple major-leaguer swap:

Yankees trade Kyle Farnsworth to the Tigers for Ivan Rodriguez

This one makes sense for both teams. My only caution here is: let's not fool ourselves into believing that Pudge is still anything near a good hitter. He's a mediocre hitter, which is a clear upgrade over Jose Molina.

4. The Pirates are now loaded with promising young players.

Pirates:
Give up Damaso Marte and Xavier Nady
Get Ross Ohlendorf, Jose Tabata, Jeff Karstens, and Daniel McCutchen

Yankees:
Give up Ross Ohlendorf, Jose Tabata, Jeff Karstens, and Daniel McCutchen
Get Damaso Marte and Xavier Nady

Marte is a fine reliever, and is much more useful to the Yankees than the Pirates. Nady is a "sell high" player that the Pirates dealt with perfectly. They flipped him to a contender who desperately needed someone at his position in exchange for a respectable set of prospects. Tabata is risky but with a high upside.

This Is Not Just Because I'm a Met Fan

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 01:07:00 GMT

The Marlins are very, very unlikely to win the NL East.

1)
Dan Uggla this year: .269/.358/.576

Dan Uggla in 2007: .245/.326/.479
Dan Uggla in 2006: .282/.339/.480

If he really got THAT much stronger between 2007 and 2008, please test him for illegal drugs. Otherwise, he's coming back down to earth.

2)
Scott Olsen has been ridiculously lucky. 4.63 strikeouts per 9 innings, 3.3 walks per 9 innings, and a groundball to flyball ratio of 0.81 are NOT the ingredients for his 1.29 WHIP and 3.84 ERA.

3)
You just can't escape run differential. The Marlins have a .525 winning percentage with a -30 run differential, which would predict a winning percentage of .470 right now. They are very unlikely to continue outperforming their run differential like this.

I will grant that Josh Johnson and Chris Volstad could counteract these other factors. But don't expect the Marlins to be a .590 team down the stretch, which they'd likely have to be in order to make the playoffs.

Friday, July 25, 2008

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 00:46:23 GMT

Get off the Pirates. I've heard way too much about them being a promising young sleeper team.

In the NL, they're 3rd in runs scored this year, despite being 9th in OBP and 7th in slugging. This indicates some pretty nice situational luck, which is probably not going to continue. The abilities to hit well with two outs and/or with runners in scoring positions are not real qualities that teams actually have.

Despite this flukily good offensive performance, their run differential is still negative 74, because their pitching is awful. This team will not be good next year either.

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 07:28:51 GMT

All in all, I'm not sure anyone's ever done a worse job managing a game than Clint Hurdle did for the NL all-stars. Let's just do a quick run-through of the awful decisions that he made. It's late, so I might forget one or two, but here goes...

-Letting Russell Martin get 3 plate appearances, leaving Brian McCann on the bench until the 15th inning. There's a catcher reentry rule in the all-star game, and this was just inexcusable. McCann is a catcher with a .940 OPS. Giving him zero plate appearances in a 15-inning game is criminally awful.

-Using Aaron Cook in extra innings while Carlos Marmol and Brad Lidge were still in the bullpen. What are you, nuts? Cook happened to eke out three scoreless innings. That doesn't make this NOT a terrible decision.

-Not intentionally walking Grady Sizemore in the 12th with a runner on 2nd and no outs, with a groundball pitcher in (with Longoria and Morneau following). Again, this worked out ok, doesn't make it a good decision.

-Putting Cristian Guzman into the game. I don't really care if it was justified. I wanted to see him not play, because he doesn't belong in the all-star game. He's Cristian Guzman, for crying out loud.

-Using Ryan Dempster for an inning (the 9th) before Marmol or Lidge.

-Using Aaron Cook in extra innings while Carlos Marmol and Brad Lidge were still in the bullpen. I included it twice, because it was so colossally stupid.

On another note, has any position player ever had as bad an all-star game as Dan Uggla did? I'd have to guess not.

And one more thing: if a pitcher doesn't want to pitch in the all-star game, take him off the roster! Why the hell are Brandon Webb and Scott Kazmir there if they're not supposed to pitch? Replace them with starters who are willing and able to throw multiple innings.

Thursday, July 10, 2008

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 01:12:27 GMT

As we all know, the all-star game sucks. It's boring and pointless, and nobody cares. Here are a few simple things that might help.

1. Stop trying to get everyone on the roster into the game. I like Carlos Guillen, but he should not be taking ABs away from Alex Rodriguez. Late in the game, most of the players in there are good, but not outstanding. Russell Martin? Aramis Ramirez? Yawn.

2. Get rid of the ludicrous requirement that every team needs to be represented. We do not need a Washington National, a Baltimore Oriole, or a Detroit Tiger this year. Actually, we don't need a Seattle Mariner either, but apparently fans are ignorant enough to vote Ichiro in. Are there really any die-hard Nationals fans out there who wouldn't watch the game unless Cristian Guzman gets to sit on the bench?

I hate seeing deserving players get snubbed to make room for someone who clearly doesn't belong. Jose Reyes belongs in there instead of Guzman (and Tejada). George Sherrill could get replaced by John Danks, Jon Lester, or Gavin Floyd, and I'd be happy with it. He isn't even the best pitcher on the Orioles.

3. For the love of God, please 1) don't let players vote in the reserves, and 2) somehow convince the managers to take the roster selection process seriously. Nothing is more irritating than seeing someone like Pat Burrell who's tearing up the league left off the roster because he just doesn't have a reputation. I'm sorry, but not putting a guy with an OPS over 1.000 on the all-star roster is criminally bad.

4. With the previous points in mind, reduce the size of the rosters. Let's make an all-star appearance somewhat of an exclusive honor, and then maybe the players will actually care. Ideally, I would like the role of the manager's position player selections to be the correction of fan voting mistakes, that is, adding players who should have been voted in as starters but weren't.

I am so sick of this.

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 06:01:31 GMT

I just saw the headline: "Jeter clutch as Pettitte, Yanks blank Rays."

Jeter hit a go-ahead two-run double.... in the third inning. If that makes a person clutch, then I'm an Eskimo. NOBODY ELSE would be called "clutch" for doing this.

Sports media, please relax your grip on Derek Jeter's testicles. You might hurt your jaws.

This makes me sad

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 20:42:59 GMT

http://mlb.mlb.com/tb/fan_forum/dotg.jsp (episodes 2 and 3)

I really loathe people who blindly denigrate knowledge and understanding. Statistics... prevent fans from enjoying baseball? Wait, really?????? That's what the troglodytes who came up with these cartoons think? To me, this looks like a high school football player clumsily making fun of the smart kid. Guess what: you're an idiot, and the smart kid knows what he's doing.

I was really rooting for the Rays this year too. If their organization is going to show anti-intellectual trash like this, I might be forced to cheer for the Red Sox in the AL East.

The American League East: now officially my least favorite division in baseball.

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 22:57:17 GMT

Essentially the same thing I've written in years past:

               AVG OBP    SLG      HR    SB
Player A        .276      .331      .379       3      4
Player B        .307      .359      .448       6      4

Yeah, yeah, player A is Derek Jeter, player B is Michael Young. Jeter's going to start over Young in the all-star game, because voters are still a bunch of imbeciles.

This happens year after year. Can people please stop citing all-star starts/appearances as valid credentials on a player's resume?