I’m all over the map on this one … maybe this is from the excitement of THE SOUL OF BASEBALL paperback coming on on Tuesday. It’s also available now as an Amazon Kindle Book, whatever that is. I guess at some point I should write about this whole wireless book thing — is this going to take off? Make me a millionaire somehow? I doubt it. Anyway, here’s some baseball stuff.
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There are two arguments that amuse me when it comes to the anti-baseball stat crowd. The first argument is one you will often hear around awards time or Hall of Fame time — and it might go a little something like this:
“You can’t judge Derek Jeter by his stats. He does so many things that don’t show up in the box score. I mean, look, the guy’s a lifetime .317 hitter!”
Or: “It’s ridiculous to look at Andre Dawson’s low on-base percentage. Stats don’t tell the story about a player like Dawson. In his career he hit 300 homers and stole 300 bases!”
Or: “Some people say that Jimmy Rollins should not have been MVP because he only had a 118 OPS+ (whatever the hell that is). That’s the problem with the statheads. They don’t watch the game. Rollins had 38 doubles, 20 triples and 30 home runs!”
You get the point — some will rip the whole idea of stats by bringing up … other stats. It happens every fall.
The second argument is one I want to write a little bit about today — it’s a little bit more involved. There are a few people out there who hate — HATE — the idea of new statistics because we did not grow up with them. In that world, baseball is a game of batting average, home runs, RBIs, wins, ERA, maybe saves, a few runs, a sprinkle of stolen bases and maybe — MAYBE — an advanced metric like strikeout to walks ratio. Everything else is Communism.
Funny thing is, I don’t think this is so much a revolt against new statistics as it is an aversion to change; in my father’s day old men complained about how the younger players couldn’t get down a bunt. In our day, old men complain about on-base percentage and WHIP (never mind Eqa or neutral wins or Win Shares or other works of the devil).
Now, I fully understand this point of view having grown up in that 1970s era when everything was simpler — you could tell all you needed to know about a about a player by three numbers placed in a special order, like so:
.302, 22, 102
19-14, 2.98
.228, 6, 48
11-14, 4.29
And so on. To a large degree, I would say, many baseball fans still build their appreciation of the game around those core numbers. And I think that’s cool. Everything great should be enjoyed on its own level. Some people enjoy watching movies for the plot, some for the music, some for the lighting (Royals pitcher and everyone’s favorite guy Brian Bannister was going on and on about the lighting of some movie the other day). Baseball’s good that way, it has that Tom Boswell, time-begins-on-Opening-Day quality to it, and I think to a large degree it’s great and romantic to watch baseball your whole life the way you watch it when you are 12 years old. You don’t have to study baseball to enjoy it; you don’t have to strive for a deeper understanding to appreciate the game. Baseball is supposed to be fun, and while some of us have that fun working out a spreadsheet on 2007 starting pitchers (more on that coming up), more I suspect would prefer having a few beers, reminiscing about a three-hit game in high school and booing the cleanup hitter for walking with ducks on the pond. Enjoy at your own pace.
But now we’re getting to my point. The second argument against newer stats is that they are too complicated, too contrived, they don’t have anything to do with BASEBALL, the game, sweat, spit, dirt, jocks, beanballs, you know, the GAME of baseball, hitting .300, winning 20 games, driving in 100 ribbies and all. These new numbers are just accounting tricks. They muddle the games, bury it in a sea of digits. And so on.
Look, I’m not here to defend all baseball statistics. I like some, I don’t like some, I understand some, I don’t understand some*, I think some open up the game, I think some obscure the human nature of the sport, it’s like anything else. There’s art I like, music I like, movies I like, books I like, but I don’t say that because I cannot stand the song “Low” that all songs recorded after 1987 suck. It’s a big world out there.
*I don’t understand craps. I find this to be a troubling yet amusing feature of my trips to Las Vegas (me being, as you know, a professional poker champion). I will inevitably stand around a craps table, and I vaguely understand that sometimes seven is good, sometimes it’s bad, something about snake eyes, I don’t know, but of course the game goes WAY beyond that and there are people at the table betting on hard eights and they’re passing or no-passing or something, they’re betting on Yahtzees of googly-mooglies or … hell, I just don’t understand craps. There are a few things in my life like that — stuff I’ve been AROUND but don’t really GET. I don’t understand Cricket either. Or Survivor. You know I’ve never seen one minute of Survivor. I understand faintly that people vote others off the Island and that some people have to eat bugs or something (or is that a different game) but I really don’t know what the hell it’s about.
But here’s why this whole “It’s so confusing” argument amuses me so much: People will tell you that the new stats are too convoluted or manufactured … and yet there are NO stats more convoluted and manufactured than the basic statistics that baseball has been built around for more than 100 years.
Some of this should be obvious. Batting average? It’s ridiculous. Preposterous. Imagine that no one had ever come up with batting average before … and then someone on a blog came up with with this idea:
Blogger: I have come up with a new statistic. It involves balls put in play. I call it batting average.
Establishment: Great! How’s it work?
B: See, what we’ll do is, we’ll take the number of hits that the batter has and divide it by the number of at-bats that he has in order to determine how often he gets a hit.
E: That sounds like on-base percentage. What’s the difference?
B: Well, it’s all in what you call “at-bats” For one thing, we don’t count walks.
E: What do you mean you don’t count walks?
B: They don’t count. We take plate appearances and subtract walks. They never happened.
E: How can a walk never happen?
B: It just doesn’t.
E: Aren’t walks good things? Like in Little League, we always say “Walk’s as good as a hit.”
B: I hate walks. They’re gone. So let’s say a guy comes to the plate 12 times, and he gets four hits and walks twice …
E: Right … that’s a .500 on-base percentage.
B: Exactly, but if you just subtract the walks, you will see that he has a .400 batting average.
E: Um, OK.
B: But there are other things. If you hit a fly ball, and someone tags up and scores a run, that does not count as an at-bat.
E: Why not?
B: Because you are sacrificing yourself for the betterment of the team? I call it a sacrifice fly. Get it?
E: Well, what are you sacrificing if it doesn’t even count against your stats?
B: You just are, OK?
E: What if you hit a ground ball and the runner scores.
B: How’s that?
E: Let’s say the infield’s back and a guy hits a ground ball to get the run in. How do you score that?
B: No, that’s not a sacrifice fly.
E Why not? Doesn’t that accomplish the same thing?
B: It just isn’t. Come on, pay attention. What’s it called. Sacrifice FLY? Hello! He didn’t hit a fly ball.
E: It just seems to me …
B: Sacrifice bunts also do not count as at-bats. And when you get hit by a pitch … doesn’t count.
E You don’t get any statistical notice for getting hit by a pitch?
B: Like it never happened.
E: I’m afraid to ask this: What happens if you reach on an error.
B: That’s the beauty of this system. According to my new batting average, you’re out.
E: But you’re not really out.
B: I know. Isn’t it great?
E: Why does this have to be so complicated?
B: It’s batting average! It will take over the world!
You can do this with pretty much every core baseball stat. ERA? Have you ever considered how convoluted and absurd ERA really is? First of all, there’s the whole inane concept of what constitutes an “earned run” vs. an “unearned run,” which I cannot go into now or this projected 3,500 word blog might be closer to 40,000. Let’s just say this: The unearned run? A ridiculous part of baseball. Maybe it had a purpose at one time. Not now. I mean, what, you’re not going to count a run against a pitcher because someone (maybe even the pitcher himself) made an error. What? I mean, there are so many things wrong with this … well, just take one second and look at the OTHER side or the unearned run scenario: Nobody keeps track of “saved runs” when a centerfielder makes a ridiculous diving catch or third baseman dives and takes a away a down-the-line double throws out a runner from foul ground. That play might save the pitcher three runs. Maybe we should start charging the pitcher those three runs on his “IRA” — Imagined Run Average.
Yes, I despise the unearned run.
Second, ERA was developed in a time when pitchers, generally, finished innings. Bill James has talked about this. Now, with pitchers routinely leaving the game in the middle of innings and with runners on base — or coming in to face one or two batters — we have the whole elaborate mess of trying to figure out who should be charged with the run. ERA deals with this mess by ignoring it, by slapping the run on whoever happened to put the runner on base. So if starting pitcher walks a batter with two outs in the eighth, gets taken out, and the reliever gives up a triple, then the starter gets charged with the run. The reliever gets nothing. Who thinks this is a good idea? Who thinks the starter was MORE responsible for that run than the reliever, much less ENTIRELY responsible for the run?
And so on.
You can keep going — point out the absurd flaws when discussing RBIs (without considering the number of runners that were on base) or stolen bases (without considering how many times they were thrown out) or any number of other things. Sometimes, the anti-stathead crowd doesn’t realize something that’s worth realizing: The reason so many people keep working on new statistics is because the stats we grew up with are STUPID. And plenty confusing too.*
*It’s easy to forget that when you grow up with something, yes, it seems simpler, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it is simpler. I see this all the time with my daughter, Elizabeth. She is 6 now and is obviously growing up in the computer age. At one point — I may have mentioned this — she asked me what computer games I played when I was little. I said we did not have a computer and she asked, “Were you poor?”
My point is that the concepts that may seem tricky and confusing for people of our generation — the stuff we have to LEARN — she just understands instinctively. It’s as natural as anything for her to use a computer mouse, to look up something on a search engine, to click here and then there to get to the page she wants and whatever else. I know (for the most part) how to do these things, but it’s not the same thing. I know it because I learned it. She knows it because she has never known anything else. It’s like the old cliche about parents who can’t program their VCR. They never learned. We did not have to learn it — VCR programming was just something we had always done.
This all leads me to my thought about pitcher’s wins and losses. We are talking here about how one of the great arguments of the anti-stathead crowd is that these new stats make things WAY too complicated. They will say that the only way to measure pitchers is by WINS and LOSSES. That’s it. What was his record? Don’t bore me with the other stuff. Wins and losses, baby.
Believe it or not, I think there’s some merit to this way of thinking. Not a lot. But some. I do think that it is possible to cut up the game and its numbers into so many tiny pieces that, finally, you might lose the big picture (I also think that’s part of the fun, but that’s another story). I think that one very good way of measuring the general effectiveness of a pitcher is by his wins and losses. Let’s keep it simple. Great.
Ah, but here’s the problem — a pitcher’s won-loss record, the way the anti-statheads want us to view it, is not simple at all. It’s not even CLOSE to simple. It has only a passing relationship with actual wins and losses. It’s worth saying one last time: It’s absolutely remarkable how confusing these “simple” statistics really are.
To win a game, a starter must:
1. Pitch at least five innings.
2. Leave the game with the lead.
3. Have his team win without ever relinquishing the lead.
Seems simple enough. But when you throw in the many quirks of baseball statistics, it really makes very little sense at all. Here are a few fun scenarios:
A. Dontrelle Willis throws seven shutout innings and leaves the game up 4-0. His relievers give up four runs in the eighth to tie the score. Detroit scores a run in the bottom of the eighth and end up winning 5-4. Does Dontrelle get a victory?
B. Brian Bannister throws 8 2/3 shutout innings. Royals are up 1-0. He walks a batter, gets taken out, a reliever comes in and gives up a two-run homer to make it 2-1. In the bottom of the ninth, the Royals’ Billy Butler hits a grand slam to make the final 5-2. Does Banny get the W?
C. Johan Santana throws four shutout innings in Shea and then rain pours down — a two hour rain delay. They return and Santana is not out there. The Mets are up 8-0, a reliever throws one inning and then rain returns. The call the game. Who gets the victory?
D. Jake Peavy throws 7 2/3 shutout innings and is up 2-0. He gives up a double, is ordered to intentionally walk the next batter and is taken out. the reliever comes in, gives up a two-run double. In the bottom of the inning, the Padres score 18 runs and go on to win. Who gets the victory?
Everyone here is smart enough to know that:
A. Dontrelle does not get the victory. Once the score is tied, according to the official rules of baseball, “the games become a new contest insofar as the winning pitcher is concerned.” One of those relievers would get the victory.
B. Bannister does not get the victory. By baseball’s crazy rules the run out there was his, so while he may have THOUGHT he left the game with the lead, the relief pitcher made sure that he did not.
C. I threw this one is as a fun little trick — Santana does get the win here. According to the rules, a starter can throw only four innings in a five-inning rain-shortened game and still get the victory. If Santana had only thrown 3 2/3 innings when the first rain came, though, no W.
D. Peavy does not get the victory for the same reasons Bannister did not — those two runs that scored after he left are considered his runs. I put this up a second time to point out how stupid it is.
OK, so what’s the point? The point is that pitcher wins and losses — like batting average, like ERA, like almost all the other stats — are not at all uncomplicated, not especially revealing and not at all the blunt and plain “do they win games or don’t they” stat that so many want to make it out to be.
And so … I have a suggestion. Let’s make this stat blunt and plain. I am proposing a way to look at starting pitcher’s wins and losses; and I’m hoping that it will really appeal to the anti-statheads. I’m proposing a stat that does not involve any slide rules. No scientific buttons on the calculator. I am, in fact, proposing the single simplest statistic in the history of professional baseball.
I call it “Wins and Losses.” Catchy, huh?
And it goes like so. You figure the record of the team when a pitcher started the game.
That’s it. There are no caveats. No no-decisions. None of that crazy adding or dividing or whatever they call that stuff. It doesn’t matter if the game goes 5 innings or 55. It doesn’t matter if you threw a shutout, scattered 12 hits or gave up 10 in 1/3 of an inning. It’s a one-question stat: That game you started: Did your team win or lose? End of discussion.*
*I want to point out that I got these statistics from the Bill James Website. I would also like to take a moment to say something about my friend Bill, something that he probably would not want me to say. But every couple of weeks, it seems I will see yet another person throw Bill out there as the essence of statistical evils and pajama-wearing baseball geekdom. It makes makes me pretty ill. True, part if it is because we are friends, but a much larger part is that if you read Bill’s work at all, if you look at his theories with anything resembling an open mind, if you consider at all what he’s getting at … you realize that the man LOVES baseball. I mean loves baseball, loves the game, loves the stories, loves the characters, loves the ins and outs of strategy, loves the moments, loves trying to figure out why things happen, and why so many people buy into stuff that is probably nonsense. I don’t mind people saying that Bill is full of crap — hell, we ALL have to deal with that (and Bill is never shy about saying that someone else is full of crap, including me). But the people who try to make it sound like Bill’s love and understanding of baseball are wrapped up in obscure mathematics and unworkable thoughts and cold data just don’t get it at all.
Anyway, by this simple stat, here were the pitchers with the most true wins in 2007:
1. Aaron Harang, Reds. 24-10
2. Brad Penny, Dodgers, 23-10
(tie) John Lackey, Angels 23-10
4. Jake Peavy, Padres, 23-11
(tie) C.C. Sabathia, Indians, 23-11
6. Kelvim Escobar, Angels, 22-8
7. Justin Verlander, Tigers, 22-10
(tie) Fausto Carmona, Indians, 22-10
9. Tim Hudson, Braves, 22-12
(tie) Jeff Francis, Rockies, 22-12
(tie) Brandon Webb, Diamondbacks, 22-12
12. Felix Hernandez, Mariners, 21-9
(tie) Chien-Ming Wang, Yankees, 21-9
(tie) Josh Beckett, Red Sox, 21-9
15. Andy Pettitte, Yankees, 21-13
16. Roy Halladay, Blue Jays, 20-11
17. John Maine, Mets, 20-12
18. Jason Marquis, Cubs, 20-13
(tie) Doug Davis, Diamondbacks, 20-13
20. Erik Bedard, Orioles, 19-9
(tie) Cole Hamels, Philles, 19-9
There are all sorts of flaws with this way of judging wins too — BUT I still think it’s a better way. I think it’s much more useful to know that the that the Mariners won 21 of 30 games that King Felix started than it is to know that his “record” was 14-7. No decisions tell us nothing and spreading those victories and losses among relievers is pretty pointless. I would love to see the TRUE wins and losses of every pitcher — I think that would be a lot more telling.
A couple more points to make about this and then I want to take this one more level up. Anti-Statheads might want to jump off here, assuming they didn’t jump off about 1,800 words ago.
1. Aaron Harang has a pitcher’s record of 57-42 since coming to the A’s in the Jose Guillen trade*. That’s really good. But he has a true record of 79-59, which is quite amazing when you consider that the Reds have had a losing record every single one of those years.
*Forget that trade — how about the perennially dying-for-pitching Rangers trading a 22-year-old Harang to Oakland for a 38-year-old Randy Velarde. Randy Freaking Velarde. I mean, this is meant as no offense at all to Velarde, who had a fine career, more than 1,100 Major League hits, played every position but centerfield and catcher … but RANDY FREAKING VELARDE. I mean you don’t trade for 38-year-old Velardes, you pick them up on waivers. You sign them as low-level free agents to bring a little “professionalism” to your clubhouse. If you DO have this desperate urge to trade for Randy Velarde — say it’s late in the season and you want a clubhouse presence — you deal a player to be named later.
Randy Freaking Velarde.
But no, there’s more. The Rangers did not just trade Aaron Harang for Randy Velarde. They also traded a minor leaguer named Ryan Cullen. He has not made it, but that’s not the point. No, the point is that the A’s got Aaron Harang for Randy Freaking Velarde, and Billy Beane said, “No, that’s not enough, you need to throw someone else in there for us to make this deal.” If Billy Beane was in your fantasy league, you would know him as “The jerk who keeps screwing Bob, the computer tech who doesn’t know anything about baseball.”
2. The Boston Red Sox had eight pitchers make more than one start — and they had winning records with seven of them on the mound. Only Julian Tavarez (a not awful 10-13) had a losing record. Conversely, the Kansas City Royals had 11 pitchers make more than one start, and all but two (Brian Bannister at 15-12, Leo Nunez at 4-2) had losing records. This says something very important, something that I feel confident saying: The Red Sox were better than the Royals in 2007.
So if Aaron Harang is the great overachiever as far as helping a team win, who is the great underachiever? Well, sadly, the second-biggest underachiever in 2007 was a guy I like very much, Milwaukee’s Chris Capuano — the Brewers went 7-18 with him on the mound. Awful. I want to believe it was a fluke — in 2005, when the Brewers first showed signs of life — Capuano’s true record was 22-13, one of the best in baseball.
The No. 1 underachiever, as you already knew, was Kip Wells.
I figured this underachieving thing with a formula based on formulas I’ve seen before. I don’t know who first did this, but take credit if you like. I just matched up a guys record with his expected record. Take Greg Maddux. The Padres were 19-15 (a .559 winning percentage) when he was on the mound. They were 70-59 when he was not on the mound (a .542 winning percentage). So you can see the team was jut a touch better with him on the mound than with him not on the mound
And the formula, in fact, has him +1 wins. You take the team’s winning percentage with him not on the mound, multiply it by the number of stars — that .542 * 34 = 18.4.
He actually won 19 games, so there’s .6 difference which rounds up to +1 win.
Here were the pitchers who won much more than expected:
1. Harang, +11
2. Bedard, +9
3. Penny, +8
4. Scott Kazmir, +7
5. King Felix +6
(tie) Verlander +6
(tie) Roy Oswalt, +6
(tie) Escobar +6
(tie) Peavy +6
(tie) Hudson +6
And here are the pitchers who lost much more than expected
1. Kip Wells, -8
2. Chris Capuano, -7
(tie) Nate Robertson, -7
4. Matt Cain, -6
(tie) Jason Jennings, -6
(tie) Edwin Jackson, -6
7. Joe Kennedy, -5
(tie) Ervin Santana, -5
Aaron Cook, Julian Tavarez, Justin Germano, Jeremy Sowers, Bronson Arroyo, John Lieber and Matt Albers are all -4.
Now, what does all of this mean? You already know the answer to that: Nothing. It’s not supposed to mean anything. I’m not the first, the 10th or the 100,000th person to point out that pitchers wins are flawed, and the figuring I’ve done above has been done better by countless people. I’m only trying to say that people statheads are not always trying to make things more confusing. Often enough, believe it or not, they’re actually trying to make things less confusing.
87 Comments, Comment or Ping
Mike Bagnall
You might find it amusing to check out Mike Maroth’s True Wins total for the Tigers at the point where they threw him away last season.
Mar 9th, 2008
rpa
so, this is very timely. did you notice what cincinnati’s resident baseball know-nothing paul daugherty wrote today?
http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/AB/20080309/COL03/803090373/
luckily, the guys at fire joe morgan shredded it, as deserved. (warning, some adult language follows… so if you’re offended by that kind of thing, don’t click):
http://www.firejoemorgan.com/2008/03/theres-war-brewing.html
special for doc re: joe blanton:
blanton:
team won-loss in blanton’s appearances:
53-49 (.520)
team won-loss in games blanton didn’t pitch since 21 Sep 2004 when he made his first appearance:
208-189 (.523)
as someone who’s spent the better part of a week arguing with luddites that adam dunn’s strikeouts don’t really matter in light of his obp and slg, well, my head hurts.
Mar 9th, 2008
John R
Am I wrong in thinking this is meant as a rebuttal to Paul Daugherty’s column in the Cincinnati Enquirer today?
http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080309/COL03/803090373/1071/rss08
Mar 9th, 2008
Androcass
Not so much to say about true wins, it’s another way to see things, and that’s always useful (well, not always, but…).
But to pick up on the Bill James note, I absolutely agree. Those who blame him for “ruining” baseball with his consarned stats have not really read him.
There may be people now who love stats, and find baseball a good outlet (because of the massive number of numbers) for that love, and not really love the game, but one could never have that feeling about Bill James. Again, you have to read what he’s written, but his passion has always been apparent (and it is what made the Abstracts so popular).
I always got the feeling that statistics were simply a means to an end for Bill, that they provided the only way for him to get at truths about the sport he loved. And I have always admired the myth-busters, those people who advanced the outlandish simply because the facts took them that way. Bill fits into that group of inquirers.
If Bill is not considered seriously for the Baseball Hall of Fame simply because he challenged conventional wisdom, despite the fact that he changed the way in which we all look at the game, well, that would be one of the two greatest injustices perpetrated by that body (and we all know Buck O’Neil is the other). If they have room for Alex Pompez and Bowie Kuhn, then Bill absolutely belongs there.
Mar 9th, 2008
Jeff P.
I really don’t have a problem with wins and losses. If a guy leaves with the lead he did his job and if the bullpen blows it he should get a no decision rather than a loss. I don’t judge a guy by his W/L record either, I mean everybody knows Meche was better than his 9-13 record indicated.
I’m probably in the middle as far as stats go, I really don’t like the new ones (like vorp,warp,or anything with a Q) but it doesn’t bother me or get me all wound up because other people do. But I also recognize that obp is better than avg and I do like era+ and ops+. So I’m like Switzerland in the great stat war of ‘08.
I do like Bill James even though I often don’t understand him.
Mar 9th, 2008
Jeff P.
John R - I just read that article. Thats hack journalism at its greatest.
Mar 9th, 2008
Dan
I am somewhat sympathetic to a lot of the things Joe says here, and its funny to think back to when I was a kid and one of the things my Father pointed out to me when judging pitching stats was both Strikeout to Walk ratio (he’d tell me that ideally it should be 2 to 1) and Hits per Innings Pitched (he usually referred to relievers here and would tell me that more than 1 hit per IP was a bad sign, since it probably meant that he’d give up a hit in his one inning of work and blow the lead he’d been entrusted with. And this from a man who, at the age of 81, has never used a calculator in his life (he does long division/multiplication, etc in his head), and doesn’t even want to be bothered about how to use the DVD player we bought for him, so that gives you an idea how he’d view OPS if I even bothered to try to explain it to him.
I do believe though that I need to defend both Batting Average, and counting stats like RBI and Stolen Bases.
On BA, its real simple - its skill with the BAT while you are at the plate. If I’ve got someone who gets on base a lot because of a good eye but doesn’t hit much otherwise, that’s important information in judging them as a player today and as a Hall of Fame candidate in the future.
As for counting stats like RBI and Stolen Bases - I think at a certain point, it just doesn’t matter how many opportunities someone had to drive in a run or how many times they were caught stealing. If you get 100 RBI in a season, you’ve had a damn good year. The history of the game bears that out, or else there would be thirty or forty guys doing it every year. In a 162 or 154 game season, 100 RBIs is a milestone that means something. Sure, someone might have sixty RBIs but actually cash in on more RBI opportunities. Great. Make sure his agent points that out at his next contract. But he shouldn’t get paid like a 100 RBI guy regardless.
Same with Stolen Bases - above a certain point, it just doesn’t matter if you get caught pretty often too. 80 stolen bases, 30 CS? That’s still an accomplishment, and chances are he’s a runner that disrupts defenses and impacts a game positively.
Mar 9th, 2008
rpa
jeff p, john r -
don’t know if you are in cincy and/or keep up with our media/radio and/or are subjected to doc on a regular basis (joe, did you work with him at the post???)…
but this is par for the course with paul daugherty, at least these days. my current theory is that he is spread too thin between trying to be a columnist for an underfunded and understaffed crappy newspaper (the cincinnati enquirer) and hosting a 3-hour weekday “chad johnson sucks” bitch-fest on 700 wlw. he’s too busy to read the crap that he’s writing, perhaps. in my less charitable moments, i classify him as a mitch albom wanna-be who isn’t really as interested in sports as he is in writing (which is fine, unless you are the town’s only remaining “sports” “columnist” and you host the primary “sports” “talk-show” for the region.).
meh. i literally have spent the last few days arguing with people about this, and i am ready to give up and admit that derek jeter is better than alex rodriguez, that pitching wins count for something, and that juan pierre is an ideal lead-off hitter.
Mar 9th, 2008
Mike
Dan you are a moron..
the reason theres not 40-50 guys with 100 rbis every year is solely because of OPPURTUNITY. Not enough people get the OPPURTUNITY to complete such a task.
And as far as stolen bases go if you don’t have a success rate of somewhere above 76% I think it is then it is actually STATISTICALLY PROVEN to have a negative effect on run production of the team.
Mar 9th, 2008
John R
rpa, I am in Cincy and I’m checking out your blog now. I usually hang out at Red Reporter.
Dan, your point about the traditional milestones is well taken. The older stats do a fine job of separating the good from the bad. A batter with 100 RBI? A pitcher with 20 wins? Most likely they had a very good season (though there are weird exceptions).
But these measures do little to tell us matters of degree. They’re often not useful for separate the very good from the great. Is a player with 110 RBI better than a player with 93? Is a .300 hitter better than a .285 hitter? Maybe… This sort of thing comes up all the time like when a pitcher with 21 wins gets a Cy Young over a superior pitcher with 18.
Like Joe said it’s all in how deep you want to go.
Mar 9th, 2008
Jeff P.
rpa - Thats the first time I’ve read his work, also will be the last time. Here in Kansas City we have this little known columnist named Joe Posnanski, maybe you’ve heard of him, who sets the bar pretty high.
Mar 9th, 2008
rpa
john - agreed with you that the 100 rbi/20 win type seasons separate the good from the “above average” but not the good from the great.
i like the traditional milestones well enough as reference points… they are at least a flag that you should take a closer look at a guy as a potential “good” player. in some cases, that guy hitting .300 turns out to be juan pierre… and then you can make a judgement based on his unsurpassed ability to make outs.
http://www.sportshubla.com/2008/03/05/these-truths-are-self-evident-juan-pierre-shouldnt-start-for-the-dodgers/
in all seriousness, it IS in how deep you want to go, and most folks still think:
1) strikeouts are evil
2) walks are worthless, after all… you could have hit the ball!
3) won-loss record actually relates to a pitchers performance.
and this week i’ve concluded that it’s a losing battle trying to convince people otherwise.
Mar 9th, 2008
rpa
jeff - have to admit that i heard about the eponymous writer of this blog due to one c trent rosecrans (currently employed by the evil empire of clear channel here in cincinnati, and immediately recognized the name due to the excellent reviews given to the “soul of baseball”, which i had not yet read.
in any case, yeah. i’ll trade a daugherty and a baker for a posnanski and a hillman. not sure how hillman will do as a mlb manager, but i’ll take that chance.
besides, kc is ok by me. george brett was a hero of mine as a kid (still have the george brett signature wilson glove and signature louisville slugger bat from little league). let’s just say i played third base, and between wayne krenchicki, an ancient gimpy johnny bench, nick esasky, etc… i didn’t have a local hero that played my position. so brett was my idol (…since they wouldn’t let me play shortstop. that #13 i wore never rubbed off on my ability to turn a double play and our catcher was already wearing #5).
Mar 9th, 2008
M. Scott Eiland
LOL–the bit about the guy trying to explain batting average is like the classic Bob Newhart routine where he portrays a game company executive listening to Abner Doubleday try to explain this new game he’s created*:
Nobody Will Ever Play Baseball.
*–Yes, I know–I know. It’s a comedy routine–ignore the historical inaccuracy.
Mar 9th, 2008
Andy
Great work as always Joe.
Mar 9th, 2008
John R
rpa, you’re right that this is a losing battle, but you’re on the victorious side. With each generation more progress is made. A few columnists/radio hosts like Doc can no longer keep entire fan bases in the dark. He can ride out the string pandering to the willfully ignorant as he did today, but the time of influence for his types is ending.
Image how many emails he has received–I know many people who have sent them–calling Daugherty to task, linking to bb-ref to back up their cases with statistical evidence. Then read his words again and sense the disdain. Anyone can go to this, this website and sound smart. Then send an email (email? from their parents’ basement probably) calling our heroic columnist to task. It didn’t use to be this way. No sir. Once there were only the stats on the back of the card and newspaper writers were the only source of information–top down. What do they want, for Paul to have to really work on this stuff like someone we all know and love?
Anyways don’t despair, rpa. The internet provides so many sources of baseball knowledge and so many avenues for it to take. In the Reds blogosphere I see fans step out of the darkness and into the light all the time. And if it’s happening in Cincinnati, well, you know what Mark Twain said…
Mar 9th, 2008
Paul White
My personal favorite ridiculous stat is the double play. Now, obviously it’s not a good thing when your team is charged with two outs on a single batted ball, but I’ve never been able to figure out why that’s deemed to be entirely the batter’s fault. I mean, someone had to get one base in front of him, and that person had to be someone that A) the manager didn’t send to second on a steal attempt, B) the manager didn’t think was a good enough runner to send on a hit and run play, and C) wasn’t fast enough to break up the double play by sliding into second base while the infielder was trying to make the turn. Seems to me like the runner and the manager bear a lot of the blame for that DP, ya know?
On top of that, the very things that make the double play more likely to happen are supposed to be good things in a hitter. He has to make contact. That’s a good thing. What’s more, he has to make hard contact, hard enough so that the infielders have time to turn the DP. Again, that’s usually a good thing. He has to be someone who is trusted enough by his manager in an RBI situation to not send the runner and risk losing that RBI situation. But if he happens to do all of those things and the ball happens to be hit directly at a fielder, suddenly all of those things are bad and he’s solely to blame for them. I don’t get it.
And I really don’t get the selective nature of which double plays DON’T count against the hitter. Ripping a line drive directly at an infielder when the hit-and-run is on? Doesn’t count. It’s still a double play, and in fact is probably one the easiest double plays for the defense to convert, but it’s magically not the hitter’s fault for creating it. Even more egregious is the strike ‘em out - throw ‘em out double play, perhaps the one kind of double play that is clearly more the hitter’s fault than anyone else. He knows he has to make contact or the runner is dead meat at second base, and he abjectly fails to do so, leaving his teammate out to dry, but he isn’t credited with a double play on it. In fact, had he done his job in that situation and hit a hard ground ball that the shortstop made a great play on and started the DP, that WOULD count against the him. Whiffing in the exact same situation would not.
Kinda baffling.
Mar 9th, 2008
KJ
Anyone who hasn’t read “The Numbers Game” by Alan Schwarz is missing a huge part of why batting average is absolutely ridiculous.
Essentially, the players were sick and tired of losing salary because of their lower batting average when it was being lowered by sacrifice bunts and other plays that were for the good of the team. The “at-bat” was developed so that players had no incentive to act selfishly with their own wallets in mind rather than trying to win. Right then and there, it stopped being solely a metric of offensive value and rather an indicator of how much someone should be paid.
On-base percentage is the basis of batting average, but batting average became mainstream because of the players’ focus on being paid. Ironically, those who insist on using batting average as the primary indicator of offensive performance are the very same who endlessly chastise ballplayers for leaving a team to sign for more money.
Mar 9th, 2008
Rick
Good points, Joe, but I have a question. What two or three of the “new” stats for hitters and pitchers are most important? i.e., if you were to advise a baseball newbie “keep track of this to really know the productivity of this player” what would you say?
Mar 9th, 2008
Aaron B.
Joe, I’m also skeptical about the kindle book, mainly because it’s pretty much like staring into a bright light for however long you want to read.
I think there are two other key elements in the “stathead v. crotchety old-timer” argument. The first is in regard to the various beliefs on the extent of teamwork involved in baseball. I know baseball is a team sport, but baseball teams require less chemistry and whatever than in football, basketball, soccer, hockey, etc. Yet many sportswriters and fans don’t get this and try to use analogies from basketball and football (e.g. “too many all-stars is bad, you need role players who do the little things”) in baseball situations, even though you could do only the “big things” in baseball (get on base, hit for power, play good D) and get away with it without doing any of the “little things” (bunt, hit and run).
The second aspect involves the importance of aggregate vs. the importance of percentages. It seems that the MSM tends to favor aggregates while sabermetricians tend to favor the percentages. Obviously, there are exceptions for both, such as BA and ERA for the MSM and Win Shares, VORP, WARP, Plus/Minus, and others for the SABRites.
Ultimately, you gotta contextualize and weigh the percentages and the aggregates accordingly. I think that’s one of the things that escapes some people about Bill James, the historian: contextualizing what happened.
Mar 9th, 2008
Lovejoy
I got about ten graphs in and you had erected about 3 or 4 straw men and mightily struck down a couple. I don’t agree with the general ideas that Dusty is promoting and I wouldn’t be surprised if he fails at managing a fairly good ball club, but that doesn’t validate your extended tantrum and dishonest representation of the criticism of the business of selling consulting with statistics being the magic product. Just about everyone has always used stats. Creating the 20th iteration of PCA or some other godawful convoluted mess that is sacrosanct, that is till next month when yet another page long formula is produced and yet another statistic is pronounced as a fantastic measure. Tell one of the SABR droids that the base data of something like their crap defensive metrics is weak and voila, the wailing begins, question the methodology, more wailing, question the reasoning and it goes on and on. I’m beginning to think that SABR is Lithuanian for colic.
Mar 9th, 2008
Jeremy
Wait, R.E.M.’s “Low” or Cracker’s “Low?”
Mar 9th, 2008
Aaron M.
Quote: To win a game, a starter must:
1. Pitch at least five innings.
2. Leave the game with the lead.
3. Have his team win without ever relinquishing the lead.”
According to the rules you posted Joe, all the situations (except Santana) relinquish the lead. So why make it more complicated with who gave up what runs? They don’t qualify because of #3.
In Santana’s situation (shortened game), even if he went fewer than 4 innings, I thought the official scorer had some latitude in who they could give the win to. Basically, at that point, they could follow the rule and give it to the guy who came in after Santana, or if they felt Santana deserved it more, they could give it to him. Thought I read that somewhere once, could be wrong.
Mar 10th, 2008
Sal Paradise
Hitters:
OPS (On-base Percentage + Slugging)
IsoP (On-base Percentage - Average)
IsoD (Slugging Percentage - Average)
Pitchers:
K/BB (Strikeouts per Walk)
HR/9 (Home Runs per Game)
WHIP (Walks + Hits / Innings Pitched)
All easy enough to understand, all tell a good deal about the type of player.
Mar 10th, 2008
MonkeyHawk
I never got math. I got though college by infiltratin the jocks’ math class (the final exam was tapping the answers out in the dust with your hoof), so my understanding of all Bill James’ stats and analyses is dependent on his way with words.
He makes his case, even when all the numbers make my eyes bleed.
I’m not one of those anti-stat people who ends up the argument with numbers.
My passsion for baseball is much more emotional.
I was a kid when I sat in Roylz Stadium and the home team was behind and it was a matter of joy and hope and fulfillment when Amos Otis came to bat with a guy on second base. I don’t know his numbers that year. Hell, I don’t remember the year. But he parked a home run in deep center-left field and you knew he’d risen to the occasion.
I remember a Wednesday afternoon game when I played hooky from work and Sabergagen and Nolan Ryan were the starters. They both worked 9 innings or so on shut-outs or a 1-1 tie (I don’t remember the numbers) before the game went on for 16 innings… with both teams in extra innings putting the lead-off batter on 3rd base with no outs and neither team scoring. Then Texas scored a go-ahead run in the 13th or so and the Roylz barely scored a run to take is into the 14th.
I don’t care about the numbers, really. It was one helluva game to watch. In the grand scheme of things relating to pennant races or championships it was a meaningless game. But wow, what a game.
I’ve seen little league games where three kids finally pulled off their first double play. I’ve been in the stands when a gold glove infielder’s booted an absolutely routine ground ball. I delight in both.
All who want to assign numbers and statistics to this game seem to be playing a no-win game.
The game lends itself to statisical analysis but has so many variables it’ll never be statistically understood.
I like how I ended up in a rural Massachusettes tavern years ago and simply said, “Buck F*ckin’ Dent,” and people paid for my beers the whole night. I like how my girldfriend at the time thought Anaheim Stadium was a dome since the weather seemed “so perfect.” The Texas League stadium in Midland is adjacent to the municpal golf course and the infield is a perfect putting green.
I was at a game in El Paso where some guy who’d played a decade or more of Texas League ball and, every time he hit a home run, he’d run through the crowd as they dropped dollar bills in his batting helmet. thereby probably doubling his nightly salary.
Anything can happen in a baseball game.
That’s why I love ‘em. Regardless of the stats.
Mar 10th, 2008
Jeff P.
I always liked Nick Esasky and I think its because he had a cool looking baseball card one year.
Mar 10th, 2008
Mitchiapet
Is it possible that some of this love for BA and ERA from the “simpler time of the 1970s” is still fostered by the (primarily TV) media which can’t abandon these faulty figures for fear of losing the older audience in its baseball coverage?
Mar 10th, 2008
Clayton
I’m sorry Joe, this borders on yellow journalism. It’s absolute crap, and yeah ok, I didn’t even bother to read the whole thing.
I don’t have to listen to an entire Tears For Fears album to know what I think about it, either.
Nietzsche said that people and inspiration and elements can be generally broken down into Apollonian/rational (statheads, I guess, but I’m not sure they/you quite qualify even so, as worship of stats strikes me as a particularly pale variation of anything profound) and Dionysian/passionate.
You can critisize Kirk Gibson to the nth degree statistically without approaching what happened. I don’t even like the guy, I had money on the Mets, but I know what happened. I still feel it today.
Your portrayal of all of the poets relying on lesser versions of science is pathetic. It’s beneath you, I hope it is. Your attempts at poetry somewhat explain parts of it and God forbid that you try and explain the rest.
I have your book-and I’m two chapters in- but now I’m not sure that I’m interested in reading it. When you told John O’Neil that you couldn’t write the book he was talking about I’m afraid that you were right.
Mar 10th, 2008
Dan
Well, one reader tells me I’m a “moron” (thanks, guy!) and the very next person tells me my points are “well-taken”.
In order to break this tie. I think I need Joe to call me a “Brilliant Reader” . How ’bout it, Joe? You’ve done it before …
Mar 10th, 2008
Greg Spira
Joe - What’s amazing toi me is the number of people who don’t like sabermetric statistics and try and come up with their own “simple” statistic by awarding points for everything a player does - by trying to the construction of the statistic easy, that make the sattistic itself insanely more complicated.
Dan - You don’t seem to get the idea of opportunities. If someone gets 200 hits in a season where he has 700 at-bats, he hasn’t had a great season batting average wise - and yet you like batting average. But with RBIs and stolen bases, you want to discount opportunities. That’s odd. Raw totals never mean anything without the context of opportunities. Joe Carter had 116 RBIs in 1990, but he was pretty awful that year - he drive in a smaller percentage of the baserunners that were on base when he came to bat than most other batters that year.
Not to mention that in one recent season we had as many as 59 major league players with 100 RBIs in a season - way more than 40
As far as having 80 stolen bases with 30 caught stealing, you won’t find any numbers like that in the baseball encyclopedia since the deadball era. Managers simply aren’t going to let a baserunner have the opportunity to steal 80 bases if he’s going to be caught 30 times; you’d have to have probably 95 steals to have caught stealings be that high.
Mar 10th, 2008
Julian
Clayton: Wait, what? Are you commenting on this post, or something else?
As I understand it, Joe is saying, “stats don’t ruin baseball, and new stats aren’t necessarily better or worse than old stats. If you love baseball for the stories and quirks, good for you. If you love baseball for the numbers, good for you.”
What exactly are you taking exception to?
Mar 10th, 2008
Clayton
“There are two arguments that amuse me when it comes to the anti-baseball stat crowd. The first argument is one you will often hear around awards time or Hall of Fame time — and it might go a little something like this:
“You can’t judge Derek Jeter by his stats. He does so many things that don’t show up in the box score. I mean, look, the guy’s a lifetime .317 hitter!”
Or: “It’s ridiculous to look at Andre Dawson’s low on-base percentage. Stats don’t tell the story about a player like Dawson. In his career he hit 300 homers and stole 300 bases!”
Or: “Some people say that Jimmy Rollins should not have been MVP because he only had a 118 OPS+ (whatever the hell that is). That’s the problem with the statheads. They don’t watch the game. Rollins had 38 doubles, 20 triples and 30 home runs!”
You get the point — some will rip the whole idea of stats by bringing up … other stats. It happens every fall.”
Mar 10th, 2008
Clayton
“The second argument is one I want to write a little bit about today — it’s a little bit more involved. There are a few people out there who hate — HATE — the idea of new statistics because we did not grow up with them. In that world, baseball is a game of batting average, home runs, RBIs, wins, ERA, maybe saves, a few runs, a sprinkle of stolen bases and maybe — MAYBE — an advanced metric like strikeout to walks ratio. Everything else is Communism.”
Mar 10th, 2008
Clayton
OPS is useful, but its insight into the empirical evidence that creates it has nothing on rbi.
Mar 10th, 2008
Squints
You can critisize Kirk Gibson to the nth degree statistically without approaching what happened. I don’t even like the guy, I had money on the Mets, but I know what happened. I still feel it today.
Clayton,
Please don’t beat that strawman too hard.
Best,
S
Mar 10th, 2008
Drew
Aaron B, just want to clear up something about the Kindle. It’s not an LCD display, it’s “elecrophoretic” (works more like an etch-a-sketch) and it’s reflective, not backlit, just like paper. It rearranges particles on the “screen” and they just stay that way until they are re-arranged again, it’s not a powered screen in that respect, once it’s displaying something, that something just stays there without power until you tell it to show something else. It ends up behaving very much like real paper, and you’re not, as you say, staring into a bright light the whole time you’re reading. It’s pretty cool technology. If you’re a traveller who likes to read, it might well be worth the price tag.
Mar 10th, 2008
Bart
Joe - I’ll tell ya what. You tell me where I can find a book or website that lays out the explanation/rationale for the core of the “new” statistical measures of baseball, and I’ll buy your book. I’m a notch above the casual fan, and by that I mean I watch roughly 120 Cardinal games a year on the tube. I’ve read a lot about the fallacies of the old statistical measures, but I’ve yet to find a good source with both the new measures and some sort of explanation for each.
Mar 10th, 2008
Carl Jeffries
@Sal:
ISoP is a terrible, terrible statistic. Don’t use it. Here’s why:
ISoP = OBP - BA. It’s meant to show how patient a hitter is. Problem is, it doesn’t. The lower your BA, the higher your ISoP, EVEN IF YOUR BB RATE STAYS THE SAME.
Let’s say a guy has 12 plate appearances and gets 3 hits and 2 walks. He’s hitting .300 (3 hits in 10 ABs), and he’s OBP-ing .417. That gives you an ISoP of .417-.300 = .117. Wow, he’s patient!
Let’s say that, whoops, one of his liners that previously was a hit ends up right in the RF’s mitt. So now he goes 2 for 10 with 2 walks. His ISoP should be the same, right, since he didn’t walk any less? Wrong, and aye, here’s the rub.
Now he’s gone 2 for 10 with 2 BBs. His BA is .200. And his OBP is .333. His ISoP just JUMPED to .133. Without his BB rate changing one bit. That’s the danger of ISoP. The lower your BA, the higher your ISoP even if you have the same number of BBs.
You’re much better off looking at BB%, which is BBs as a percentage of PAs.
Most modern stats have something to say for them, but ISoP is a really terrible one.
Hope this helped at all,
-Colin
@JoeP: I’ve gotta start reading your blog regularly. Neyer keeps pointing me to you, and every entry I’ve read is entertaining. Kudos, and you’ve got yourself a new reader.
Mar 10th, 2008
Justyo
Bonds 2004 - BA .362 / OBP .609
Bonds 2002 - .BA .370 / OBP .582
Williams 1941 - BA .406 / OBP .553
I know it’s somewhat ridiculous but one reason I like the flawed stat of Batting Average is the .400 mark that seems to transcend era’s and times (and roids - allegedly) to be a solid measure and “High Bar” in baseball. Bonds ridiculous .609 makes a mockery of the same kind of “ultimate” batting achievement when using OBP doesn’t it?
Could a young Carew, Brett or Boggs or Gwynn make a run at .609?
What is the OBP equivalent to hitting .400?
.550?
Mar 10th, 2008
Sky
I have no problem with people picking David Eckstein as their favorite player because they’re impressed such a small dude can play major league baseball. And I have no problem with someone hoping Jim Rice makes the Hall of Fame because he was a childhood hero.
But once you start claiming that Eckstein is a great player or that Rice is a slam-dunk HoFamer, you’ve opened yourself up to an objective analysis. And people will rain intelligence on you without mercy and you deserve it.
So please, make sure you know the difference between rooting for a player and thinking he’s actually good.
Mar 10th, 2008
Justyo
Hey Paul W.–
That couldn’t be a back door Jim Rice HOF argument could it?
:o)
Mar 10th, 2008
John McCann
Good stuff.
Pitcher wins are now a mess, for all the reasons you state, but I actually like pitcher losses.
I like to use pitcher win shares instead of wins, and put that with thier losses and you get a much better won-loss record.
Mar 10th, 2008
Karbiel
The highly credible erudite Clayton thinks your post is absolute crap. Yeah, like Tears for Fears level crap. He doesn’t even believe that reading the entire post is worth his time.
On second thought, no, dammit, he’s going to tell you what he thinks. And let you know he’s read Nietzsche in the process. This kind of yellow journalism is beneath him. He’s going to let us all know what happens when you tell vicious lies about Kirk Gibson!
And really, how dare Joe paint true poets like Clayton with that “not-true-scientists” brush. Clayton knows the science behind RBIs that make more beautiful than OPS. Maybe if your team-by-team poetry was better, Joe, you would earn a little of his respect.
Just want to let you know that Clayton no longer has the desire to read Joe’s book. It’s pretty sad actually. Clayton is so broken up and disillusioned that he starts posting long sections of the blog post in the comments.
Epic, epic fail.
Mar 10th, 2008
Julian
Clayton: What? Maybe I’m not smart, but I don’t think you’re making a lot of sense.
OK. Joe was attacking some straw there, but it’s straw that very closely resembles actual arguments I read in the papers pretty constantly.
And RBI’s insight into itself is greater than OPs’s insight into itself? What’r ya getting at?
Mar 10th, 2008
wally
“OPS is useful, but its insight into the empirical evidence that creates it has nothing on rbi.”
WOW, you’re trying WAY too hard to make yourself sound smart.
Mar 10th, 2008
Perry
Bart,
The real revolution was when people (and Bill James wasn’t first, it’s just that his brilliant writing popularized it) figured out two things: (1) on-base average and slugging pct. are the two most important stats, because they incorporate two things, walks and power, that are missing from batting average; (2) stats must take into consideration the hitting conditions of the park/league where they were compiled. A raw hitting line of a player whose home is Fenway Park doesn’t have the same meaning as one for a player who plays half his games in Shea, and one compiled in 1968 has a different meaning from one compiled in 2002.
Stats that were invented in the 80s, like James’s Runs Created and Pete Palmer’s Linear Weights, do a fine job of that. There have been tons of newer ones since then, but really they’re just incremental improvements on what James, Palmer, and others did 20+ years ago. OPS+ (on-base plus slugging, adjusted for home park) is a good one, as is James’s new Win Shares. Anything in Baseball Prospectus is sound.
“Moneyball,” among its other virtues, has a chapter that gives an excellent summary of the history of sabermetrics. This would make a fine primer for anyone wanting a quick education.
Mar 10th, 2008
SleepyCA
Joe- I think you still need to limit the true wins a bit. A pitcher shouldn’t get credit for winning a game he pitched poorly in, and shouldn’t get punished for pitching well, so if you limit it to “can’t get a win unless he throws a modified quality start- 6IP/3ER or 8IP/4ER” and also “can’t get a loss if he does throw a 6/3 quality start” that might make for a better stat.
It would help a lot if baseball-reference had a column for quality starts.
Mar 10th, 2008
SleepyCA
Of course, you could also just use BP’s “expected wins” and “expected losses”…
Mar 10th, 2008
jackie ballgame
Great post. I mean, it’s no Herschel Walker’s Freshman year, but it’s up there.
I love how we’ve invented a new word tailor made for the blogosphere: “post” - as a noun.
I was wondering the other day why stats are so particularly important to baseball. There are no other sports that love/utilize stats nearly as much. And then it occurred to me; a baseball season is a 162 freakin games long, and if you go to a game, you might see a spectacular performance by, say, Tony Pena Jr. and an awful performance by Billy Butler. Our eyes don’t really tell us the story, unfortunately (contrary to the Jeter fan who claims his eyes are the real judge of a player). You only way you can really know anything about a player over a 162 game span is with stats. I’m not coming away from Kauffman stadium with many good answers based on the five games I go to a year.
Mar 10th, 2008
Ron
I’m a middle of the road guy when it comes to the new stats. I read everything I can on them. Some are great, some are terrible. But maybe it’s like the string theory in physics, and eventually they will all add up to the defining statistic that defines how good a player really is.
But could one of you anti-BA (statheads) explain to me how BA can’t be important if =
OBP = (H + W + HPB) / (AB + W + HBP)
Seems to me like H & AB are a pretty important way of determining your Holy Grail of statistics.
With H & AB, then all you get is (W + HBP) / (W + HBP). So does this mean that if BA isn’t important, the best player in the game is the guy who actually walks the most in the season.
If so, this means players such as Lenny Dykstra, Brett Butler, Dan Driessen, Johnny Temple, Augie Galan, Mickey Tettleton, Darrell Porter, Gene Tenace & Norm Siebern should all have MVP trophys.
All I’m saying is that if BA isn’t important, then OBP can’t be, because it’s made up of H & AB. I think OBP is a better statistic, but along the lines of the Jim Rice theory, some guys are sent up there to walk, there sent up to hit. And BA tells how successful they are.
You can embrace the new and still love the old. That’s the problem with the statheads. They want all the new stats and want to ignore the old ones, and belittle the old ones and anyone who still belives in them. So the anti-statheads are fighting back. Its all stupid. But isn’t this what baseball is all about. The never-ending argument about what greatness really is.
Mar 10th, 2008
Carl Jeffries
@Ron:
The more correct equation for OBP (I think) is (BB+H+HBP) / PA.
But more importantly: no one is saying hits aren’t important. That would be insane. A hit is more important than a walk. But it’s not as much better as you might think, and a walk is a LOT better than an out. Impatient hitters not only reach base less often, but they swing at pitches they shouldn’t, fall behind in the count, and thus end up with less hittable pitches, leading to lower slugging. Which, again, BA doesn’t capture.
Patient hitters are the best sluggers, and vice versa. Hits are awesome, but someone who gets fewer hits but walks more and hits more XBHs is a lot more awesome.
Mar 10th, 2008
G Young
But, to get to the point: REM’s “Low” or Cracker’s “Low”?
I think middle of the road is where everyone should be on stats. I think in the end equation, Bill James isn’t as far off the stats deep end as some of the posters here are.
I always look at it this way. I like to play fantasy baseball, kind of makes me a stats geek. However, every season there are dozens of players who either come out of nowhere or completely disappoint. No matter how much stat plotting you do, you cannot erase the human factor, and you cannot absolutely predict greatness.
Contrast that to a friend of mine who is obsessed with WhatIfSports. He won’t even sniff fantasy baseball. Why? Because he is the true “statshead.” WIS is totally reliant upon the stats. WIS is absolute.
Now, in a way I think the argument here is some people who would like me to think baseball is as stat driven as the WIS game, and other people who want me to think baseball is as human as my Thursday night softball league.
That’s why middle of the road is a pretty good place to be, and that’s also why I think you would find that devil Bill James is a lot closer to middle of the road than you WIS endorsers and you softball leaguers think he is.
Mar 10th, 2008
Ron
Carl,
I do agree with you. I think the point I missed is (1. PA are made up of AB + W, you have to have the AB’s) and (2. the higher the BA, the higher the OBP).
W to W ratio is 100%. The higher a BA, the higher the OBP.
For example: 500 AB 150 H 75 W
.391 OBP
500 AB 165 H 75 W
.417 OPB
And yes I know that:
Mar 10th, 2008
Dwight K. Schrute
A very good example of why batting average can be overrated can be found in Juan Pierre. He had 196 hits last year and hit .293. Yet his OPS+ is 75 (remember, 100 is average), he only walked 33 times and he was 21st of 21 centerfielders in both SLG and OPS.
So you have a guy hitting .293 with 196 hits yet half of Los Angeles wants him run out of town… although I’m sure you could Google “Peter Gammons Juan Pierre” and read 400 stories about how he’s the first to the ballpark, the last to leave, he cured cancer and AIDS simultaneously, he invented the Internet, he spends 25 hours a day practicing his bunting and on top of it all, he’s a great veteran clubhouse presence.
Mar 10th, 2008
Ron
Carl,
I do agree with you. I think the point I missed is (1. PA are made up of AB + W, you have to have the AB’s) and (2. the higher the BA, the higher the OBP).
W to W ratio is 100%. The higher a BA, the higher the OBP.
For example:
500 AB 150 H 75 W
.391 OBP
500 AB 165 H 75 W
.417 OPB
500 AB 135 H 75 W
.365 OPB
And yes I know that:
500 AB 150 H 100 W
.417 OPB
500 AB 165 H 100 W
.442 OBP
500 AB 135 H 100 W
.391 OPB
I know walking more does increase your OPB. I don’t deny it and think it is one of the best, and simplest, stats available. But the higher the BA, the higher the OPB. You have to assume a static number of PA for each player for each year, so every walk counts. But so does every hit. If you disount BA, you have to discount OBP, becasue BA effects OBP.
Its not necessary to condemn an old statistic to make a new one better. Especially when they use the same criteria. I just don’t get how eveyone who is in love with OBP denies that fact that a higher BA means a higher OBP, and says it deosn’t matter.
Do you want a guy hitting .220 with 100 walks, or a guy hitting .320 with 100 walks.
If the answer is yes, then BA is important. If the answer is no, then I’m really curious as to why? Becasue I don’t get it.
Mar 10th, 2008
KJ
Fellas, Isolated Power (IsoP) is SLG - BA, not OBP - BA. Hence, power. It has nothing to do with on-base percentage.
Mar 10th, 2008
Carl Jeffries
Oops.
I meant ISoD, not ISoP. Obviously, if you read what I wrote, I was talking about patience, not slugging. That’s actually how I made my error: I had a brainfart and thought momentarily that the “P” stands for “patience”, when, of course, it’s the “d” that stands for “discipline”. (I think.)
Mar 10th, 2008
wally
Ron you cannot just take out a particular part of numerator and denominator in an equation and pretend to have a concussion. Yes, OBP is strongly correlated to BA, or more specifically the hit rate, but they really are fundamentally different. The difference between AB and PA in the denominator is huge. Its just terribly flawed math that you practicing here. I’m sure you know it, but you need to present your idea differently than basically: Because H/AB + (BB+HBP)/(BB+HBP) = (H+BB+HBP)/(AB+BB+HBP), then H/AB is most important. What you are looking for is H/PA + (BB+HBP)/PA=OBP yet we all know H/PA isn’t BA. But ah how much easier life would be on all of us if it was.
Mar 10th, 2008
wally
Ron, to continue:
“Its not necessary to condemn an old statistic to make a new one better. Especially when they use the same criteria. I just don’t get how eveyone who is in love with OBP denies that fact that a higher BA means a higher OBP, and says it deosn’t matter.”
It isn’t like BA is worthless, it is just far inferior to OBP. True a hit is more valuable than a walk, but not making an out is more important than getting a hit. And since both BA and OBP don’t account for what kind of hit, OBP is superior. This is basically why you see OBP and SLG together so much, you gain both data on how often a guy doesn’t make an out and what kind of hits they are generating. However adding them together into OPS is extremely flawed in itself. This is yet another case of trying to “ADD” to fractions with different denominators, which any 5th grader could tell you is the wrong thing to do. And it is absolutely shocking that something like this became commonplace.
“Do you want a guy hitting .220 with 100 walks, or a guy hitting .320 with 100 walks.”
This is just ridiculous. What are we supposed to conclude from this? That a guy that walks the same amount as another guy but gets a hit almost 1.5x more frequently is better? What’s the opposite question, who’s better a guy hitting .320 with 0 walks or a guy hitting .320 with 100 walks?
Basically, yes BA tells us something about a player. That is how often he is getting a hit when not walking, sacrificing or getting plunked.
Mar 10th, 2008
KJ
@Carl Jeffries:
Yeah, I was on the same page with you. It was directed more at Sal, who I assumed was the reason you had it wrong.
Mar 10th, 2008
Paul White
“Hey Paul W.–
That couldn’t be a back door Jim Rice HOF argument could it?
:o)”
I suppose it could be, but no, that wasn’t the intent. Shocking as it may be to some, I actually do think about some things, even baseball-related things, that have little or nothing to do with Mr. Rice. In fact, that’s probably 99.999% of my day. Hard to believe, I know.
Mar 10th, 2008
Ron
Wally,
Thanks, you just proved my point. At least to myself. My math isn’t actually flawed. Its baseball. Read my last sentence.
And while I can follow your math, there are a lot of people who can’t or won’t. You’ve taken a couple of simple ideas and turned into a complicated equation that most people don’t care about.
I’m not disagreeing with you, please understand that. But I can look at your numbers and still like my numbers. But the opposite (with most statheads, not particularly you) is true. Statheads push thier numbers while ridiculing the ones I like.
But I actually like your idea of H/PA. That would seem to be a better indicator. Another reason I like BA (and I forgot to mention this) is becasue anyone getting a W cannot get a double, triple, or homerun.
It just seems to me that OPB and SPC as a tell-all stat seem to contradict each other, but OPS is even a better stat?
And how did you know I had a concussion? It does help explain my rambling.
Mar 10th, 2008
JRM
As long a all that means nothing Joe, I will relish in the fact that there is someone other than myself that has never watched one minute of “Survivor” (or “Lost” for that matter).
Mar 10th, 2008
wally
“And while I can follow your math, there are a lot of people who can’t or won’t.”
This is just sad and not an excuse to dismiss better statistics. If you look at that math I posted it was nothing more that +’s and /’s with a few ()’s. If you can’t, or even won’t follow that, you had no business graduating Jr. High. In any conversation I expect anyone to be able to keep up with the 4 simple operators, being + - / and * (at the very least, I would hope they could keep up with sine/cosine, log/ln, e^/10^, we’re talking just a7th grade education level in math). If you can’t, or won’t, I plainly don’t care to talk to you (I’m using the general you here, not specifically you, Rob).
“It just seems to me that OPB and SPC as a tell-all stat seem to contradict each other, but OPS is even a better stat?”
They don’t contradict each other, they compliment each other. Ideally OBP and SLG are presented separately, but often you see them summed as OPS. Which has its value, but contains 2 major flaws. SLG is less valuable than OBP when it comes to scoring runs (thus the weighting is all wrong), and SLG+OBP screws up your denominator. So this way its similar to BA. Both have their value, but they are a little cryptic in what they are actually telling you.
Mar 10th, 2008
Jake
[quote]Wait, R.E.M.’s “Low” or Cracker’s “Low?”[/quote]
Yeah, that was my question too!
Mar 10th, 2008
wally
I guess I’d like to add I actually really like seeing the line of player presented as BA/OBP/SLG. Sure BA is kind silly if you think about it, but in this context it helps to paint a clear picture of the player. It tells you how often the guy is getting hits (even though H/PA really would be better), how often he’s walking, and when he is hitting what kind of hits is he getting. I suppose this is obvious, but I’m just trying to illustrate where BA can be helpful (where as BA/HR/RBI, for example, really tells you nothing).
Just to further illustrate what I mean, from a line of .330/.370/.450 I can conclude the guy gets a lot of hits in the form of singles and walks a fair amount but not a ton. I can also conclude that this player may be subject to large year to year variations in value since most of his value comes from his BA. Where say a player with a .260/.370/.450 line walks a ton, when he hits it goes for extra bases a lot and that this player is likely more consistent year to year than the previous player. Notice, just by judging these players by OBP and SLG they seem the same, yet they are actually VERY DIFFERENT. So, BA can be very useful in a given context.
Mar 10th, 2008
Jake
Ron:
“I do agree with you. I think the point I missed is (1. PA are made up of AB + W, you have to have the AB’s) and (2. the higher the BA, the higher the OBP).”
I think one of the points JoeP is making in this post is that it’s the Batting Average people who INVENTED the idea of “at bat != plate attempt”.
“you have to have the AB’s”
No you really don’t. ABs are just a fabrication. Most casual fans who talk about ABs really think of PAs. And PAs are incorporated into most of the “superior” stats.
So try to think of OBP (and OPS) outside of BA, as better ways of evaluating a hitter’s ability at the plate. Ones that just so happen to make BA (largely) irrelevant.
Mar 10th, 2008
Ron
Wally,
Thanks. That’s all I’m saying. I don’t think BA is the most important stat. Ty Cobb was great, but I don’t think he was the greatest. It takes more. I just think BA shouldn’t be overlooked and thrown out. Afterall, a stat without another stat is just a number. It takes a second stat to truly evaluate the first.
For example, OPS of 1.250 is great, but isn’t the same if the player only gets 250 AB.
An average of .400 is great, but not the same in 150 AB as it is in 500.
Scoring 80 runs is good, but in how many games. 162, or 80.
I just don’t think the old stats should be ridiculed and relegated, so to speak.
Mar 10th, 2008
Chris
I didn’t know the first thing about Cricket, either, until my roomate (from India) got the DVD of the World Series of Cricket 2004 match between India and Pakistan.
Believe it or not, it is an incredibly fascinating sport rife with drama and strategy, and all you really need to know are the basic tenets of the game to undertand how athletic the players are.
Also, you can look up a statistical study that points to Don Bradman (the Babe Ruth of Cricket Batsmen) as perhaps the greatest athelete of all time. It says that the numbers that Bradman put up in Cricket are equivilent to a batter hitting .650…for their entire career.
My advise is to befriend somebody from England, or a country formerly occupied by Imperialist England, and watch a game.
Then, the next time you are at a bazzar in Ahmedabad, you can make small talk with tales of Sachin Tendulkar’s Golden Duck-Out, and subsequent 78 run performance in the Third Over.
Mar 10th, 2008
Ron
Jake,
Good point. But the thing I’m trying to get across is BA isn’t obsolete.
It just happens to be made up of H/AB. Joe is right. An AB is not a PA, and that is hurts the argument.
Maybe H/PA to gauge putting the ball into play,
and W/PA to gauge how effective the walk is, combined into OBP is better than using AB.
I just don’t see that getting a lot of support since most people either love or hate BA, with little in between.
Mar 10th, 2008
Ron
The ability to get hits is important, and there needs to be a way of judging that.
Even someone like Juan Pierre, who doesn’t have any power, but gets on base due to singles is more valuble than someone who doesn’t have power and doesn’t get on base.
Its seems the assumption is that if eveyone agrees that OPB is the better stat, that all the hitters will start walking more. But after watching baseball for 35 years, and studying the history of it, I can tell you it ain’t gonna happen.
Players will always get on base by getting hits (after all, that’s where slugging comes from), so there needs to be an effective way of evaluating BA.
I am open to suggestions?
Mar 10th, 2008
themetros
Its seems the assumption is that if eveyone agrees that OPB is the better stat, that all the hitters will start walking more. But after watching baseball for 35 years, and studying the history of it, I can tell you it ain’t gonna happen.
Players will always get on base by getting hits (after all, that’s where slugging comes from), so there needs to be an effective way of evaluating BA.
Batting average is relevant and I agree with Wally that talking a look at the batter’s line of BA/OBP/SLG will paint a very good, quick and dirty picture for you.
How many times a player gets a hit is important, but it is important to also know what else he does in regards to how many times he walks and what type of hits, which the other stats help capture.
Also, as he stated, someone with less patience might tend to fluxuate more because BAIP can tend to fluxuate and sometimes fluxuate drastically (an example of this is Francoeur (sp?) and his 2006 and 2007 seasons.
It also should help a lot to add in OPS+ as it is a neat and tidy park adjusted stat that you can use to compare players as fairly as possible. I do not think anything should be discounted, but it is important to figure out what stats are more important. BA has a place for sure, but you need to look at BA in conjuction with other things.
The old fashioned BA/HR/RBI tells us something, but not terribly much by themselves. They are pieces to the puzzle, but to ignore other large parts would be a huge mistake.
Mar 10th, 2008
Jake
I seem to remember a study conducted that evidenced a lack of ability to really “teach” patience. (If anyone can help me by providing specifics, I’d be much obliged.)
Anyways, I always think of stats as a metric, or a way of measuring what a hitter (or pitcher, etc.) ACTUALLY does, not a motivational tool. In other words, by the time a player reaches the major leagues, his hitting style isn’t generally going to change drastically.
I doubt there are many hitters who will actually give up hits in order to pursue additional walks. Nor should they.
Mar 10th, 2008
Adam
Joe, great article. I suggested using W-L to evaluate the case for Santana vs. Colon for Cy Young in 2005 (24-9, 22-11), and Joe Sheehan mentioned in an article at the time:
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=4594
Your writing is excellent…I keep getting links sent to me of things you have written.
Mar 10th, 2008
Shawn
Whether a player should give up a hit to pursue additional walks is contextual. If you’re a quality hitter followed by a weak hitter (Tony Pena Jr.) and there is a runner in scoring position with 2 outs and it’s late in a close contest, you should probably swing. If you’re part of the early-middle part of the order and it’s early in a ballgame and you believe in your ability to hit with two strikes, you might take a hittable pitch for a variety of reasons.
One obvious reason to give up hits to pursue additional walks is that a hitter comes up against the same phenomenon of BABIP that a pitcher does. When you take ball 4, that’s a 95% chance of reaching base if you’re a Royal and a 99% chance if you’re a Yankee (watching the shifting strike zones in Yankee-Royals games is possibly the best argument for an electronic ump). When you make good contact with a pitch, there are a lot different ways to still make an out.
Plate discipline is at least as much a function of a player’s reaction time based on their eye-brain-hand speed as it is approach. Being able to recognize a pitch early and decide whether or not to swing is as much an innate physiological talent as foot speed or muscular strength. You can’t necessarily give a guy great plate discipline simply by emphasizing it, but coaches can try to keep from messing with players who already have a good approach. And you can try to bunch your players with good plate discipline in the lineup in order to seed the basepaths for their more free swinging brethren to knock them in.
Mar 10th, 2008
Mike S
Some insight into this came from marrying an Australian. You have no idea how confusing baseball stats (or, for that matter, the rules of football) are until you try to explain them to an intelligent adult that did not grow up with them.
“Um, yeah, so the guy’s body was out of bounds. But since it hadn’t touched the ball wasn’t down. And the it broke the plane, ending the play. So that he fumbled doesn’t matter.”
Mar 10th, 2008
Shawn
Can anyone explain the conventional wisdom of batting a relatively light-hitting, good-bat-handling player 2nd?
Is there good research out there as to how many runs a team gives up by batting players like Grudz 2nd? Are there stats that show what percentage of the time a leadoff hitter actually leads off any innings other than the 1st?
It would seem intuitively that after the first inning, it is much more likely that the 2-hitter will come up in situations that require a) getting on base himself, or b) being able to drive the runner in, as it is that he’ll simply be needed to move the runner over.
Since each spot higher in the batting order is going to receive more at bats than the next spot down, it seems very strange to see so many lineups where the 2-hole functions as something of a place holder.
Even if the leadoff batter gets on in the 1st, I have a hard time understanding the role of the traditional 2-hitter. Since scoring in the first is probably of slightly greater value than scoring in most other innings, it makes sense that the best lineup is the one that is most likely to get that run across (and potentially set the best hitters up to get the most at bats later in the game).
If DeJesus leads off by getting on first, what puts more pressure on the pitcher: Teahen’s ability to drive him in from first, draw a walk and create a 2 on, no one out scenario, his potential to leg out a bunt, or Grudz’s ability to hit-and-run, sacrifice, or move him with a hit? (Assume for the sake of argument that Teahen’s career numbers will split the difference between ‘06 and ‘07.)
Let’s say DeJesus doesn’t get on. If Teahen bats 2nd, he has better on base numbers and more power than Grudz, and thus is more likely to create a 1-out, runners on base/in scoring position situation for whomever bats 3rd and 4th, than Grudz is. Considering DeJesus might optimistically have an OBP nearly .400, Teahen is still going to be the better option to be up next at least 60% of the time from the perspective of setting up the middle of order.
If a lineup of DeJesus, Teahen, Butler, Gordon, Guillen, etc., is more likely to score in the first than a lineup with Grudz hitting second - and it would seem sabermetrically that this almost has to be the case - what would be the counterarguments in favor of Grudz?
I don’t mean this rhetorically. I’d really like to know.
Finally, let’s say the 8th inning is winding down and Tony Pena grounds out in the 8-slot. The Royals are down by 1 run. Would you rather see a lineup for the 9th be Gathright (9), DeJesus (1), Teahen (2), Gordon/Butler/Guillen, or with Grudz in there? If Gathright and DeJesus have their OBPs north of .350, then the chances of one of the two of them getting on is better than 50-50. Then you have one out and Teahen and Gordon/Butler up, which seems like a much better chance to get the tie/win, than a different scenario.
Mar 10th, 2008
Jeff P.
I really don’t get this stat war. Every stat tells you something about a player. OBP is better than AVG but SLG is better than OBP. OPS is ok but not perfect. I agree with an earlier comment about liking the avg/obp/slg format when looking at a hitter. Those three stats in a row like that tell you an awful lot about a hitter and I would take it one step further and ops+.
avg/obp/slg/ops+
Tony Armas 1984
.268 /.300 /.531/121
Wade Boggs 1984
.325 /.407 /.416/125
They both had good years but did it two different ways.
Just my 2 cents, feel free to hammer away at it.
Mar 10th, 2008
Dan
Say Joe, I haven’t paid a lot of attention to the comments recently but are the personal attacks on the rise? People getting called “moron” and others being told that if they can’t follow “7th Grade math” to basically kiss off …
Mar 10th, 2008
antoniomo
Dan (I’m not Joaldo, but I figu