.260/.324/.324 - and he's broken.
I know this happens every year, but I increasingly wonder what exactly Derek Jeter would have to do to not be the AL starting shortstop in the All-Star game.
Sunday, July 3, 2011
The Captain
.260/.324/.324 - and he's broken.
I know this happens every year, but I increasingly wonder what exactly Derek Jeter would have to do to not be the AL starting shortstop in the All-Star game.
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Do Hot Streaks Exist?
Interesting analysis from fangraphs suggesting that just because a player is in a hot streak, there is no evidence it will continue. However, this analysis looks at aggregated player data - within that there will be some players who continue to be on fire, and some who cool down. No idea how you pick the right ones but maybe you just grab anyone who is hot, and cut them if they start to suck.
Friday, April 22, 2011
Fixing the Yankee problem
Bud Selig's latest genius idea is to expand the playoffs to 10 teams as soon as 2012.
Or, we could get radical.
Radical Solution 1:
My first suggestion is to contract the Yankees. This would instantly make the AL East fairer, giving the Blue Jays and Orioles a fighting chance of winning the wild-card. It would also bring about the end of obnoxious Yankee fans, Yankee exceptionalism, Jeter Hagiography, pink Yankee hats, that stupid 'got rings t-shirt, and boring Yankee games on Sunday night baseball. But I guess this solution may not be popular with everyone.
Radical Solution 2:
Alternatively, the Yankees and Red Sox could play each other 162 times a year to decide home field advantage for the 'world series' (all games broadcast exclusively on Yankee and Red Sox TV). The rest of baseball will continue to play each other for the World Series with the addition of two expansion teams in cool places (Alaska and Hawaii might be fun) taking the place of the AL big two. The winners of the 'world series' can play the winners of the World Series, and should the Yankees or Red Sox win, their fans can pretend they truly are World Champions.
Or, more sensibly, there could be a salary cap, preventing the Yankees and Red Sox outspending everyone else and/or the addition of a Connecticut or New Jersey Team (The Jersey Shore?) to suck up some of the Yankee and Red Sox revenue, along with some kind of re-alignment resulting in 2 NL and 2 AL divisions (or no divisions, just an AL and an NL), with 8 teams making the play offs, as now. Oh, and while we're improving baseball, let's get rid of the DH. And bunting.
Quoting Da Grizzlies: "Apparently that fool Selig is '“working on” adding two teams to the playoffs and we could see changes as soon as 2012' - ten out of thirty teams is way too many, especially with the stupid spread-out playoff series that allow you to get away with only two good pitchers."Whilst Bud Selig is a man of terrible ideas, this is a solution to the 'problem' of the AL East being stupidly difficult to win because it contains the 2 richest teams in baseball - at least it would give the team finishing 3rd in the AL East a chance at winning the wild card. Alternatively, we could trust in the abilities of smart people running smaller franchises like the Rays and cheer when they beat the odds to reach the World Series, because it can happen.
Or, we could get radical.
Radical Solution 1:
My first suggestion is to contract the Yankees. This would instantly make the AL East fairer, giving the Blue Jays and Orioles a fighting chance of winning the wild-card. It would also bring about the end of obnoxious Yankee fans, Yankee exceptionalism, Jeter Hagiography, pink Yankee hats, that stupid 'got rings t-shirt, and boring Yankee games on Sunday night baseball. But I guess this solution may not be popular with everyone.
Radical Solution 2:
Alternatively, the Yankees and Red Sox could play each other 162 times a year to decide home field advantage for the 'world series' (all games broadcast exclusively on Yankee and Red Sox TV). The rest of baseball will continue to play each other for the World Series with the addition of two expansion teams in cool places (Alaska and Hawaii might be fun) taking the place of the AL big two. The winners of the 'world series' can play the winners of the World Series, and should the Yankees or Red Sox win, their fans can pretend they truly are World Champions.
Or, more sensibly, there could be a salary cap, preventing the Yankees and Red Sox outspending everyone else and/or the addition of a Connecticut or New Jersey Team (The Jersey Shore?) to suck up some of the Yankee and Red Sox revenue, along with some kind of re-alignment resulting in 2 NL and 2 AL divisions (or no divisions, just an AL and an NL), with 8 teams making the play offs, as now. Oh, and while we're improving baseball, let's get rid of the DH. And bunting.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Time to replace K/9 with K/Batter faced
An interesting critique of K/9 from fangraphs: http://www.fangraphs.com/fantasy/index.php/james-shields-and-using-k/. Paraphrasing, you can have a really good K/9 but awful ERA/WHIP if you give up lots of hits and walks, but also strike out everyone who you don't walk or let hit you (e.g. James Shields). So maybe it is time that fangraphs modified FIP/WAR to take this into account?
This is also relevant to these posts
This is also relevant to these posts
Shoplifters of the World Unite
Reds right-hander Mike Leake was arrested Monday at a downtown Cincinnati Macy's after attempting to leave the store with nearly $60 in merchandise:
http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2011/04/19/following-up-on-the-mike-leake-arrest/
Reminds me of this:
'No one could quite believe a bloke like him, with all that money, would be moronic enough to nick a toilet seat'
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2007/jan/19/newsstory.sport3
http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2011/04/19/following-up-on-the-mike-leake-arrest/
Reminds me of this:
'No one could quite believe a bloke like him, with all that money, would be moronic enough to nick a toilet seat'
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2007/jan/19/newsstory.sport3
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
FIP: A thing that is better than ERA at predicting future performance
This is a continuation of previous posts looking at how predictive different pitching metrics are. To estimate this, I plotted the relationship between a stat in year one versus ERA in year two, and calculated the R^2 value for the line of best fit - for a detailed description of the method, check here. The R^2 value for ERA in year 1 vs ERA in year 2 is 1.3 - therefore for a stat to be better at predicting future ERA than ERA itself, the R^2 value must be > 1.3. The stats analysed are those most commonly referred to by fantasy baseball tipsters to suggest which pitchers you should pick up because they are good, and who you should avoid because they are just lucky.
If you are interested in K:BB ratio, check here
EDIT and here is the first of these articles from 2011. They use xFIP to assess pitcher performance over an incredibly small sample size. Read on to find out if that is a good idea.
If you want to know what is better than ERA at predicting future ERA (e.g. an R^2 > 1.3) read on:
Whilst FIP may be not very fair to the 'lucky' pitcher when calculating WAR, it is the best metric we have to estimate future pitching performance. Check the graph.
Whereas the other metric beloved of fangraphs loving fantasy baseball experts, xFIP, is barely better than ERA at estimating future performance:
And finally here is a table of pitchers who've been qualified starters each of the last 3 years, showing how often they've had an ERA outperforming FIP.
What does this mean? Well, those pitchers who've had a better ERA than FIP for the last 3 years will probably carry on outperforming their peripherals and those who have a better FIP than ERA will probably continue to under-perform their peripherals - but this doesn't matter too much as Tim Lincecum and Justin Verlander are still pretty good, even if they aren't as excellent as they 'should' be. The bottom line is that FIP is the best stat for predicting future performance, so you should be interested in pitchers who's FIP is better than their ERA. But it isn't perfect, and there are many pitchers who will have better or worse results than their FIP suggests.
Friday, March 18, 2011
The predictive power of K:BB ratio: you'd be better off using a psychic
Ah, K:BB ratio, beloved metric of the ESPN fantasy baseball analyst.
By the end of last season, ESPN must've comment upon every pitcher's K:BB ratio in at least one fantasy baseball 'news' bulletin. The assumption appeared to be that a great K:BB ratio indicated that despite a bad ERA, better days were on the horizon (hello James Shields, Jason Hammel, Scott Baker et al), whilst a bad K:BB ratio but good ERA suggested luck and a forthcoming regression to the mean (hello Trevor Cahill).
Trouble is, K:BB ratio is not very predictive - i.e. it is easy to have a bad K:BB ratio and good ERA or a good K:BB ratio and bad ERA. This is quite evident from the list of last year's qualified starters ranked by K:BB ratio - in amongst the good pitchers like Roy Halladay and Cliff Lee, you'll see the undraftable likes of Doug Fister and Rick Porcello.
Qualified Starters sorted by K:BB ratio
And here is the predictive value of K:BB ratio in graphical form (for the method behind the madness, click here):
An R^2 of 0.05 is rubbish, and means that K:BB ratio is less predictive of future performance than ERA - i.e. you'd be better off assuming that a pitcher with a high ERA will continue to have a high ERA and vice versa, ignoring the K:BB.
There are things that are better than ERA at predicting future performance, but K:BB ratio ain't one of them. Stay tuned to find out what they are.
By the end of last season, ESPN must've comment upon every pitcher's K:BB ratio in at least one fantasy baseball 'news' bulletin. The assumption appeared to be that a great K:BB ratio indicated that despite a bad ERA, better days were on the horizon (hello James Shields, Jason Hammel, Scott Baker et al), whilst a bad K:BB ratio but good ERA suggested luck and a forthcoming regression to the mean (hello Trevor Cahill).
Qualified Starters sorted by K:BB ratio
And here is the predictive value of K:BB ratio in graphical form (for the method behind the madness, click here):
An R^2 of 0.05 is rubbish, and means that K:BB ratio is less predictive of future performance than ERA - i.e. you'd be better off assuming that a pitcher with a high ERA will continue to have a high ERA and vice versa, ignoring the K:BB.
There are things that are better than ERA at predicting future performance, but K:BB ratio ain't one of them. Stay tuned to find out what they are.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Sabermetrics and Moneyball are wrong
A new book that revels in small sample sizes and random pigeons (probably, I haven't read it) conclusively proves that Moneyball and Sabermetrics are wrong. After all, what have the Red Sox won since Theo Epstein took charge?
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2011/03/prweb5139404.htm
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2011/03/prweb5139404.htm
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
How to Pick a Starter Part I
There will, in the upcoming baseball season, be many, many blogs trying to identify those pitchers who've been unlucky (e.g. James Shields), and should be acquired at all costs, and those pitchers who've got great numbers which are little more than luck (e.g. Trevor Cahill), and therefore must be traded ASAP to some poor sap who doesn't follow advanced statistics.
So which stats should we use to judge future pitcher performance? Can stats divide the good from the lucky and the unlucky from the rubbish? To keep things simple, we'll begin with looking at what past ERA tell us about future ERA.
The Method
From Fangraphs, I downloaded the pitching stats of all qualified starters going back to 2005. In this initial analysis, I asked how consistent a pitcher's ERA is from year to year. To do this, I plotted for each pitcher his ERA in year 1 vs his ERA in year 2 - and to increase sample size (n=267), I repeated this for each pair of years - for instance, in today's graph, the data is the correlation between 2005 ERA and 2006 ERA, 2006 ERA and 2007 ERA etc, all the way through to 2010. I've treated each yearly pair as an individual data point so that many pitchers stats appear more than once. By looking at the correlation between all these individual pitchers' ERAs from year to year, we can judge how good ERA is at predicting future success (at least as measured by ERA).
How good is this year's ERA at predicting next year's ERA?
We can measure the correlation between data points by calculating the R^2 for a line of best fit through the data points. If every pitcher's ERA was identical from year to year, R^2 would equal 1. Obviously this is impossible. Instead, the (low) R^2 of 0.13 for the correlation between this* year's ERA and next* year's ERA suggests that an individual pitcher's ERA is very variable from year to year.
Helpfully, this data also gives a baseline, so we can ask whether a given pitching stat (e.g. WHIP, K:BB ratio, FIP, xFIP) is better (R^2 >0.13) or worse (R^2<0.13) than ERA at predicting future ERA and in this way identify the stat that is the best predictor of future pitching success). Those exciting analyses are coming very soon.
*where this and next can be any pair of consecutive years.
So which stats should we use to judge future pitcher performance? Can stats divide the good from the lucky and the unlucky from the rubbish? To keep things simple, we'll begin with looking at what past ERA tell us about future ERA.
The Method
From Fangraphs, I downloaded the pitching stats of all qualified starters going back to 2005. In this initial analysis, I asked how consistent a pitcher's ERA is from year to year. To do this, I plotted for each pitcher his ERA in year 1 vs his ERA in year 2 - and to increase sample size (n=267), I repeated this for each pair of years - for instance, in today's graph, the data is the correlation between 2005 ERA and 2006 ERA, 2006 ERA and 2007 ERA etc, all the way through to 2010. I've treated each yearly pair as an individual data point so that many pitchers stats appear more than once. By looking at the correlation between all these individual pitchers' ERAs from year to year, we can judge how good ERA is at predicting future success (at least as measured by ERA).
How good is this year's ERA at predicting next year's ERA?
We can measure the correlation between data points by calculating the R^2 for a line of best fit through the data points. If every pitcher's ERA was identical from year to year, R^2 would equal 1. Obviously this is impossible. Instead, the (low) R^2 of 0.13 for the correlation between this* year's ERA and next* year's ERA suggests that an individual pitcher's ERA is very variable from year to year.
Helpfully, this data also gives a baseline, so we can ask whether a given pitching stat (e.g. WHIP, K:BB ratio, FIP, xFIP) is better (R^2 >0.13) or worse (R^2<0.13) than ERA at predicting future ERA and in this way identify the stat that is the best predictor of future pitching success). Those exciting analyses are coming very soon.
*where this and next can be any pair of consecutive years.
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Saturday, February 19, 2011
More WAR: Fangraphs vs. Baseball Reference. Roll Up, Place Your Bets, Fight! Fight!
Trevor Cahill 2010 = 4.1 Baseball Reference WAR
James Shields 2010 = -1.3 Baseball Reference WAR (that's minus 1.3 WAR)
That looks more like it (remember Fangraphs had them both at 2.2 WAR).
So why the big difference?
It's all to do with the difference in how the two sites calculate WAR.
Fangraphs uses FIP to calculate WAR - which is largely a predictive, rather than descriptive stat - so Fangraphs pitcher WAR reflects what a pitcher should've done - instead of being credited with what they actually did - this is the FIP formula - ((13*HR)+(3*(BB+HBP-IBB))-(2*K))/IP + constant* - theoretically removing luck - you'll see no mention to hits given up. In 2010 Trevor Cahill had a very low BABIP and gave up relatively few hits, (hence the low ERA) but struck no-one out - thus his FIP is rubbish, resulting in a low fangraphs WAR (and the K:BB ratio fans out there will be excited to see that K's and BB's are factored into FIP)
*the constant adjusts FIP to put it on a scale similar to ERA
In contrast, Baseball Reference WAR is calculated from the number of runs a pitcher allows As adjustments are made for whether he gives up more or less runs than the average pitcher playing in front of his defence, Baseball Reference WAR gives a pitcher credit for 'luck'/preventing hits/runs, and penalizes a pitcher for giving up hits/runs, and therefore is more descriptive than Fangraphs WAR. It also takes into account quality of opposition faced - whereas on Fangraphs, they tend to mock the idea that putting up good stats in the AL East vs AL West should weigh into Cy Young discussions.
There is a discussion on Fangraphs here, justifying their approach - both are valid, I guess, but it seems perverse to credit batters for luck, but penalize pitchers for luck when calculating what is supposed to be the same stat.
To be honest, if I were going to introduce a stat called 'Wins Above Replacement' and calculate it on a year-by-year basis, I'd credit a player for his actual performance that year, not what he should've done if he hadn't been lucky/unlucky. But as it is, both Fangraphs and Baseball Reference WAR can be useful. If you want to know what a pitcher actually contributed in a given year, use Baseball Reference WAR. If you want to know what they are likely to do this year (perhaps more fantasy relevant) use Fangraphs WAR - if FIP is useful for calculating future performance. We'll cover how to predict future performance in some exciting upcoming posts - with fancy graphs and original analysis.
And finally, the WAR-related video of the day is an '80s classic:
James Shields 2010 = -1.3 Baseball Reference WAR (that's minus 1.3 WAR)
That looks more like it (remember Fangraphs had them both at 2.2 WAR).
So why the big difference?
It's all to do with the difference in how the two sites calculate WAR.
Fangraphs uses FIP to calculate WAR - which is largely a predictive, rather than descriptive stat - so Fangraphs pitcher WAR reflects what a pitcher should've done - instead of being credited with what they actually did - this is the FIP formula - ((13*HR)+(3*(BB+HBP-IBB))-(2*K))/IP + constant* - theoretically removing luck - you'll see no mention to hits given up. In 2010 Trevor Cahill had a very low BABIP and gave up relatively few hits, (hence the low ERA) but struck no-one out - thus his FIP is rubbish, resulting in a low fangraphs WAR (and the K:BB ratio fans out there will be excited to see that K's and BB's are factored into FIP)
*the constant adjusts FIP to put it on a scale similar to ERA
In contrast, Baseball Reference WAR is calculated from the number of runs a pitcher allows As adjustments are made for whether he gives up more or less runs than the average pitcher playing in front of his defence, Baseball Reference WAR gives a pitcher credit for 'luck'/preventing hits/runs, and penalizes a pitcher for giving up hits/runs, and therefore is more descriptive than Fangraphs WAR. It also takes into account quality of opposition faced - whereas on Fangraphs, they tend to mock the idea that putting up good stats in the AL East vs AL West should weigh into Cy Young discussions.
There is a discussion on Fangraphs here, justifying their approach - both are valid, I guess, but it seems perverse to credit batters for luck, but penalize pitchers for luck when calculating what is supposed to be the same stat.
To be honest, if I were going to introduce a stat called 'Wins Above Replacement' and calculate it on a year-by-year basis, I'd credit a player for his actual performance that year, not what he should've done if he hadn't been lucky/unlucky. But as it is, both Fangraphs and Baseball Reference WAR can be useful. If you want to know what a pitcher actually contributed in a given year, use Baseball Reference WAR. If you want to know what they are likely to do this year (perhaps more fantasy relevant) use Fangraphs WAR - if FIP is useful for calculating future performance. We'll cover how to predict future performance in some exciting upcoming posts - with fancy graphs and original analysis.
And finally, the WAR-related video of the day is an '80s classic:
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Quality Starts > Wins
Rob Neyer on Quality Starts:
http://www.sbnation.com/mlb/2011/2/13/1991203/running-down-quality-starts
And truly, this is a Quality Start:
http://www.sbnation.com/mlb/2011/2/13/1991203/running-down-quality-starts
in this 2007 piece at Baseball Prospectus -- that I reported that in 2005 all the QS added up to a 2.04 ERA ... and the non-QS, 7.70. Not that Quality Starts mean anything. Not at all.In other science/baseball news, Josh Beckett marries a Rocket Scientist. Maybe she can help him better locate his pitches, or alternatively track the trajectories of all the home runs he gives up?
And truly, this is a Quality Start:
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
WAR - What is it good for?
Last season in baseball......2 pitchers of equal 'worth' - I give you fangraphs 69th and 70th (of 92) most valuable (by WAR) qualified starting pitchers of 2010:
James Shields - 2.2 Fangraphs WAR but a disastrous fantasy starter - 5.18 ERA, 1.46 WHIP (#99 in our league)
Trevor Cahill - 2.2 Fangraphs WAR and a stud fantasy starter - 2.97 ERA, 1.11 WHIP, i.e quite excellent (#18 in our league).
Cahill's K:BB ratio was 1.87, Shields 3.67 - could this help us answer our conundrum?
And open for comments
James Shields - 2.2 Fangraphs WAR but a disastrous fantasy starter - 5.18 ERA, 1.46 WHIP (#99 in our league)
Trevor Cahill - 2.2 Fangraphs WAR and a stud fantasy starter - 2.97 ERA, 1.11 WHIP, i.e quite excellent (#18 in our league).
Surely some mistake? How can this be?
Cahill's K:BB ratio was 1.87, Shields 3.67 - could this help us answer our conundrum?
To be continued..................
And open for comments
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Wide World of Sports - Underdog Section
I think the clear message here is, don't strap knives to wildlife and then loiter around in the vicinity.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/08/cock-kills-man-california-cockfight?INTCMP=SRCH
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/08/cock-kills-man-california-cockfight?INTCMP=SRCH
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
And we are back.......
The ESPN Fantasy Baseball Website is Live. Some 'minor' rule changes for 2011:
No Keepers
Transaction Limit of 150
Wins are no more
Avg and BB are merged into OBP
For reasons behind these benevolent decisions, and reasoned debate, go here
No Keepers
Transaction Limit of 150
Wins are no more
Avg and BB are merged into OBP
For reasons behind these benevolent decisions, and reasoned debate, go here
Friday, January 28, 2011
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Is Alex Anthopoulos some kind of genius?
Did the Blue Jays GM manage to trade the most untradeable contract in baseball for something of value (Mike Napoli) plus $80M of salary relieve because he is a genius or because Tim Riggins is an idiot?
Tim Riggins, LAA GM
Does this mean the Blue Jays will sign Prince Albert next year?
Prince Albert, yesterday
Would you do this trade in Fantasy Baseball? Will you be drafting Veron Wells now he is in a less hitter friendly park?
Finally this analysis of the responses of the two sets of fans found by Steve is amusing (guess who is happier?)
Tim Riggins, LAA GM
Does this mean the Blue Jays will sign Prince Albert next year?
Prince Albert, yesterday
Would you do this trade in Fantasy Baseball? Will you be drafting Veron Wells now he is in a less hitter friendly park?
Finally this analysis of the responses of the two sets of fans found by Steve is amusing (guess who is happier?)
Friday, January 21, 2011
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Welcome......
To a place where all members of the 'Science is Cool' fantasy baseball league can comments on K/BB ratios, the Yankees threadbare rotation, knuckleballs, moneyballs, Steve and his lawnmower, the comparative merits of Panera Bread vs Cosi, Spring Training reminiscences, bike week, classic photos of all the above, Lady Gaga videos, interesting links and anything else that springs to mind.
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