Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

Not very good season 2017 W/L projections

Posted: April 1, 2017 in Uncategorized
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Someone asked me to post my 2017 W/L projections for each team. I basically added up the run values of my individual projections, using Fangraphs projected playing time for every player, as of around March 15.

I did use the actual schedule for a “strength of opponent” adjustment. I didn’t add anything additional for injuries, chances of each team making roster adjustments at trade deadline or otherwise, managerial skill, etc. I didn’t try and simulate lineups or anything like that. Plus, these are based on my preliminary projections without incorporating any Statcast or pitch F/X data. Also, these kinds of projections tend to regress toward a mean of .500 for all teams. That’s because bad teams tend to weed out bad players and otherwise improve, and injuries don’t hurt them much – in some cases improving them. And good teams tend to be hurt more by injuries (and I don’t think the depth charts I use account enough for chance of injury). As well, if good teams are not contending at the deadline, they tend to trade their good players.

So take these for what they are worth.

team wins div wc div+wc ds lcs ws
 

NL EAST
was 89 0.499 0.097 0.597 0.257 0.117 0.048
nyn 88 0.437 0.114 0.55 0.239 0.106 0.044
mia 78 0.046 0.02 0.066 0.024 0.01 0.004
phi 72 0.007 0.002 0.009 0.003 0.001 0
atl 72 0.011 0.004 0.014 0.006 0.002 0.001
 

NL Central
chn 100 0.934 0.044 0.978 0.56 0.303 0.146
sln 86 0.049 0.273 0.322 0.137 0.059 0.022
pit 82 0.017 0.129 0.146 0.056 0.023 0.008
cin 67 0 0.001 0.001 0 0 0
mil 61 0 0 0 0 0 0
 

NL WEST
lan 102 0.961 0.025 0.987 0.591 0.327 0.164
sfn 85 0.03 0.214 0.245 0.098 0.041 0.016
col 78 0.005 0.047 0.052 0.018 0.007 0.003
ari 77 0.003 0.03 0.033 0.011 0.004 0.002
sdn 66 0 0 0 0 0 0
 

AL EAST
tor 87 0.34 0.114 0.455 0.229 0.118 0.061
bos 87 0.359 0.129 0.487 0.238 0.117 0.064
tba 83 0.15 0.077 0.227 0.105 0.051 0.027
bal 81 0.099 0.056 0.155 0.071 0.032 0.014
nya 79 0.053 0.035 0.088 0.038 0.018 0.008
 

AL CENTRAL
cle 93 0.861 0.027 0.888 0.471 0.254 0.146
det 82 0.097 0.077 0.174 0.076 0.033 0.016
min 76 0.021 0.015 0.036 0.014 0.005 0.002
kca 75 0.02 0.014 0.033 0.014 0.005 0.003
cha 68 0.001 0.001 0.002 0 0 0
 

AL WEST
hou 91 0.541 0.13 0.671 0.362 0.188 0.11
sea 86 0.228 0.155 0.383 0.192 0.09 0.047
ala 84 0.181 0.12 0.301 0.146 0.071 0.036
tex 80 0.044 0.042 0.086 0.038 0.017 0.008
oak 73 0.006 0.007 0.014 0.006 0.002 0.001

 

 

 

The first thing you should demand from your government…

Posted: February 18, 2017 in Uncategorized
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The most important thing, bar none, that your government can do – must do – is to be truthful and transparent regardless of party, policy, or ideology. Your government works for you. It is your servant. As Lincoln famously said, in America we have a government, “of the people, by the people and for the people.” That is the bedrock of our Democracy.

A government that withholds, obfuscates, misrepresents or tells falsehoods should never be tolerated in a democracy. Raw, naked honesty is the first thing you must demand from your government. They. Work. For. You. Regardless of what you think of their promises and policies, if they are not honest with you, they cannot govern effectively because you can never trust that they have your best interests in mind.

Demand that your politicians are honest with you. If not, you must vote them out. It is every American’s responsibility to do so. It doesn’t matter what their party is or what you think they may accomplish. A dishonest government is like a dishonest employee. They will eventually sink your company. Anything but a transparent and forthright government is a cancer in a Democracy. It is self-serving by definition. You should demand honesty first and foremost from your public servants or our Democracy will crumble.

Game theory and Sac Bunting

Posted: August 30, 2016 in Batting, Game Theory, In-game strategy, Managers, Uncategorized
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Let me explain game theory wrt sac bunting using tonight’s CLE game as an example. Bottom of the 10th, leadoff batter on first, Gimenez is up. He is a very weak batter with little power or on-base skills, and the announcers say, “You would expect him to be bunting.” He clearly is.

Now, in general, to determine whether to bunt or not, you estimate the win expectancies (WE) based on the frequencies of the various outcomes of the bunt, versus the frequencies of the various outcomes of swinging away. Since, for a position player, those two final numbers are usually close, even in late tied-game situations, the correct decision usually hinges on: On the swing side, whether the batter is a good hitter or not, and his expected GDP rate. On the bunt side, how good of a sac bunter is he and how fast is he (which affect the single and ROE frequencies, which are an important part of the bunt WE)?

Gimenez is a terrible hitter which favors the bunt attempt but he is also not a good bunter and slow which favors hitting away. So the WE’s are probably somewhat close.

One thing that affects the WE for both bunting and swinging, of course, is where the third baseman plays before the pitch is thrown. Now, in this game, it was obvious that Gimenez was bunting all the way and everyone seemed fine with that. I think the announcers and probably everyone would have been shocked if he didn’t (we’ll ignore the count completely for this discussion – the decision to bunt or not clearly can change with it).

The announcers also said, “Sano is playing pretty far back for a bunt.” He was playing just on the dirt I think, which is pretty much “in between when expecting a bunt.” So it did seem like he was not playing up enough.

So what happens if he moves up a little? Maybe now it is correct to NOT bunt because the more he plays in, the lower the WE for a bunt and the higher the WE for hitting away! So maybe he shouldn’t play up more (the assumption is that if he is bunting, then the closer he plays, the better). Maybe then the batter will hit away and correctly so, which is now better for the offense than bunting with the third baseman playing only half way. Or maybe if he plays up more, the bunt is still correct but less so than with him playing back, in which case he SHOULD play up more.

So what is supposed to happen? Where is the third baseman supposed to play and what does the batter do? There is one answer and one answer only. How many managers and coaches do you think know the answer (they should)?

The third baseman is supposed to play all the way back “for starters” in his own mind, such that it is clearly correct for the batter to bunt. Now he knows he should play in a little more. So in his mind again, he plays up just a tad bit.

Now is it still correct for the batter to bunt? IOW, is the bunt WE higher than the swing WE given where the third baseman is playing? If it is, of course he is supposed to move up just a little more (in his head).

When does he stop? He stops of course when the WE from bunting is exactly the same as the WE from swinging. Where that is completely depends on those things I talked about before, like the hitting and bunting prowess of the batter, his speed, and even the pitcher himself.

What if he keeps moving up in his mind and the WE from bunting is always higher than hitting, like with most pitchers at the plate with no outs? Then the 3B simply plays in as far as he can, assuming that the batter is bunting 100%.

So in our example, if Sano is indeed playing at the correct depth which maybe he was and maybe he wasn’t, then the WE from bunting and hitting must be exactly the same, in which case, what does the batter do? It doesn’t matter, obviously! He can do whatever he wants, as long as the 3B is playing correctly.

So in a bunt situation like this, assuming that the 3B (and other fielders if applicable) is playing reasonably correctly, it NEVER matters what the batter does. That should be the case in every single potential sac bunt situation you see in a baseball game. It NEVER matters what the batter does. Either bunting or not are equally “correct.” They result in exactly the same WE.

The only exceptions (which do occur) are when the WE from bunting is always higher than swinging when the 3B is playing all the way up (a poor hitter and/or exceptional bunter) OR the WE from swinging is always higher even when the 3B is playing completely back (a good or great hitter and/or poor bunter).

So unless you see the 3B playing all the way in or all the way back and they are playing reasonably optimally it NEVER matters what the batter does. Bunt or not bunt and the win expectancy is exactly the same! And if the 3rd baseman plays all the way in or all the way back and is playing optimally, then it is always correct for the batter to bunt or not bunt 100% of the time.

I won’t go into this too much because the post assumed that the defense was playing optimally, i.e. it was in a “Nash Equilibrium” (as I explained, it is playing in a position such that the WE for bunting and swinging are exactly equal) or it was correctly playing all the way in (the WE for bunting is still equal to or great than for swinging) or all the way back (the WE for swinging is >= that of bunting), but if the defense is NOT playing optimally, then the batter MUST bunt or swing away 100% of the time.

This is critical and amazingly there is not ONE manager or coach in MLB that understands it and thus correctly utilizes a correct bunt strategy or bunt defense.

HOW JETER CAN TURN A VERY GOOD WRITER INTO A HACK *

Posted: February 16, 2014 in Media, Uncategorized
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* And why I am getting tired of writers and analysts picking and choosing one or more of a bushel of statistics to make their (often weak) point.

Let’s first get something out of the way:

Let’s say that you know of this very good baseball player. He is well-respected and beloved on and off the field,  he played for only one, dynastic, team, he has several World Series rings, double digit All-Star appearances, dozens of awards, including 5 Gold Gloves, 5 Silver Sluggers, and a host of other commendations and accolades. Oh, and he dates super models and doesn’t use PEDs (we think).

Does it matter whether he is a 40, 50, 60, 80, or 120 win (WAR) player in terms of his HOF qualifications? I submit that the answer is an easy, “No, it doesn’t” He is a slam dunk HOF’er whether he is indeed a very good, great, or all-time, inner-circle, great player. If you want to debate his goodness or greatness, fine. But it would be disingenuous to debate that in terms of his HOF qualifications. There are no serious groups of persons, including “stat-nerds,” whose consensus is that this player does not belong in the HOF.

Speaking of strawmen, before I lambaste Mr. Posnanski, which is the crux of this post, let me start by giving him some major props for pointing out that this article, by the “esteemed” and “venerable” writer Allen Barra, is tripe. That is Pos’ word – not mine. Indeed, the article is garbage, and Barra, at least when writing about anything remotely related to sabermetrics, is a hack. Unfortunately, Posnanski’s article is not much further behind in tripeness.

Pos’ thesis, I suppose, can be summarized by this, at the beginning of the article:

[Jeter] was a fantastic baseball player. But you know what? Alan Trammell was just about as good.

Here are Alan Trammell’s and Derek Jeter’s neutralized offensive numbers.

Trammell: .289/.357/.420
Jeter: .307/.375/..439

Jeter was a better hitter. But it was closer than you might think.

He points out several times in the article that, “Trammell was almost as good as Jeter, offensively.”

Let’s examine that proposition.

First though, let me comment on the awful argument, “Closer than you think.” Pos should be ashamed of himself for using that in an assertion or argument. It is a terrible way to couch an argument. First of all, how does he know, “What I think?” And who is he referring to when he says, “You?” The problem with that “argument,” if you want to even call it that, is that it is entirely predicated on what the purveyor decides “You are thinking.” Let’s say a player has a career OPS of .850. I can say, “I will prove that he is better than you think, assuming of course that you think that he is worse than .850, and it is up to me to determine what you think.” Or I can say the opposite. “This player is worse than you think, assuming of course, that you think that he better than an .850 player. And I am telling you that you are thinking that (or at least implying that)!”

Sometimes it is obvious what, “You think.” Often times it is not. And that’s even assuming that we know who, “You” is. In this case, is it obvious what, “You think of Jeter’s offense compared to Trammell?” I certainly don’t think so, and I know a thing or two about baseball. I am pretty sure that most knowledgeable baseball people think that both players were pretty good hitters overall and very good hitters for a SS. So, really, what is the point of, “It was closer than you think.” That is a throwaway comment and serves no purpose other than to make a strawman argument.

But that is only the beginning of what’s wrong with this premise and this article in general. He goes on to state or imply two things. One, that their “neutralized” career OPS’s are closer than their raw ones. I guess that is what he means by “closer than you think,” although he should have simply said, “Their neutralized offensive stats are closer than their non-neutralized ones,” rather than assuming what, “I think.”

Anyway, it is true that in non-neutralized OPS, they were 60 points apart, whereas once “neutralized,” at least according to the article, the gap is only 37 points, but:

Yeah, it is closer once “neutralized” (I don’t know where he gets his neutralized numbers from or how they were computed ), but 37 points is a lot man! I don’t think too many people would say that a 37 point difference, especially over 20-year careers, is “close.”

More importantly, a big part of that “neutralization” is due to the different offensive environments. Trammell played in a lower run scoring environment than did Jeter, presumably, at least partially, because of rampant PED use in the 90’s and aughts. Well, if that’s true, and Jeter did not use PED’s, then why should we adjust his offensive accomplishments downward just because many other players, the ones who were putting up artificially inflated and gaudy numbers, were using? Not to mention the fact that he had to face juiced-up pitchers and Trammell did not! In other words, you could easily make the argument, and probably should, that if (you were pretty sure that) a player was not using during the steroid era, that his offensive stats should not be neutralized to account for the inflated offense during that era, assuming that that inflation was due to rampart PED use of course.

Finally, with regard to this, somewhat outlandish, proposition that Jeter and Trammell were similar in offensive value (of course, it depends on your definition of “similar” and “close” which is why using words like that creates “weaselly” arguments), let’s look at the (supposedly) context-neutral offensive runs or wins above replacement (or above average – it doesn’t matter what the baseline is when comparing players’ offensive value) from Fangraphs.

Jeter

369 runs batting, 43 runs base running

Trammell

124 runs batting, 23 runs base running

Whether you want to include base running on “offense” doesn’t matter. Look at the career batting runs. 369 runs to 124. Seriously, what was Posnanski drinking (aha, that’s it – Russian vodka! – he is in Sochi in case you didn’t klnow) when he wrote an entire article mostly about how similar Trammell and Jeter were, offensively, throughout their careers. And remember, these are linear weights batting runs, which are presented as “runs above or below average” compared to a league-average player. In other words, they are neutralized with respect to the run-scoring environment of the league. Again, with respect to PED use during Jeter’s era, we can make an argument that the gap between them is even larger than that.

So, Posnanski tries to make the argument that, “They are not so far apart offensively as some people might think (yeah, the people who look at their stats on Fangraphs!),” by presenting some “neutralized” OPS stats. (And again, he is claiming that a 37-point difference is “close,” which is eminently debatable.)

Before he even finishes, I can make the exact opposite claim – that they are worlds apart offensively, by presenting their career (similar length careers, by the way, although Jeter did play in 300 more games), league and park adjusted batting runs. They are 245 runs, or 24 wins, apart!

That, my friends, is why I am sick and tired of credible writers and even some analysts making their point by cherry picking one (or more than one) of scores of legitimate and semi-legitimate sabermetric and not-so-sabermetric statistics.

But, that’s not all!  I did say that Posnanski’s article was hacktastic, and I didn’t just mean his sketchy use of one (not-so-great) statistic (“neturalized” OPS) to make an even sketchier point.

This:

By Baseball Reference’s defensive WAR Trammell was 22 wins better than a replacement shortstop. Jeter was nine runs worse.

By Fangraphs, Trammell was 76 runs better than a replacement shortstop. Jeter was 139 runs worse.

Is an abomination. First of all, when talking about defense, you should not use the term “replacement” (and you really shouldn’t use it for offense either). Replacement refers to the total package, not to one component of player value. Replacement shortstops, could be average or above-average defenders and awful hitters, decent hitters and terrible defenders, or anything in between. In fact, for various reasons, most replacement players are average or so defenders and poor hitters.

And then he conflates wins and runs (don’t use both in the same paragraph – that  is sure to confuse some readers), although I know that he knows the difference. In fact, I think he means “nine wins” worse in the first sentence, and not, “nine runs worse.” But, that mistake is on him for trying to use both wins and runs when talking about the same thing (Jeter and Trammell’s defense), for no good reason.

Pos then says:

You can buy those numbers or you can partially agree with them or you can throw them out entirely, but there’s no doubt in my mind that Trammell was a better defensive shortstop.

Yeah, yada, yada, yada. Yeah we know. No credible baseball person doesn’t think that Trammell was much the better defender. Unfortunately we are not very certain of how much better he was in terms of career runs/wins. Again, not that it matters in terms of Jeter’s qualifications for, or his eventually being voted into, the HOF. He will obviously be a first-ballot, near-unanimous selection, and rightfully so.

Yes, it is true that Trammell has not gotten his fair due from the HOF voters, for whatever reasons. But, comparing him to Jeter doesn’t help make his case, in my opinion. Jeter is not going into the HOF because he has X number of career WAR. He is going in because he was clearly a very good or great player, and because of the other dozen or more things he has going for him that the voters (and the fans) include, consciously or not, in terms of their consideration. Even if it could be proven that Jeter and Trammell had the exact same context-neutral statistical value over the course of their careers, Jeter could still be reasonably considered a slam dunk HOF’er and Trammell not worthy of induction (I am not saying that he isn’t worthy). It is still the Hall of Fame (which means many different things to many different people) and not the Hall of WAR or the Hall of Your Context-Neutral Statistical Value.

For the record, I love Posnanski’s work in general, but no one is perfect.

Question for tech savvy readers?

Posted: October 17, 2013 in Uncategorized
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I would like to change the address of this blog. I actually purchased the domain name, baseballsolutions.org and when someone goes to that site, it automatically goes to http://baseballsolutions.wordpress.com.

I am using WordPress blog software, obviously. What is the best way to do this? Can I link one site to the other for a while? Can I put up a duplicate blog on another domain and then just tell people for a while on this site that I am transferring domains? Any other suggestions would be helpful. Thanks in advance!

Edit: I was able to complete the new address and redirect. Thanks for all your help!

Check out the new “Question of the Day” section above!

Posted: October 9, 2013 in Uncategorized

Should Kershaw start tonight’s game on 3 days’ rest?

Posted: October 7, 2013 in Managers, Post-season, Uncategorized
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The big unknown is how it will affect his performance tonight and in the future. Since starters don’t generally pitch on 3 days’ rest, even the great ones, and even the great ones with bodies that can presumably handle a big workload, we have to assume that it will hurt their performance and/or their chance of future injury.

The Dodgers are up 2 games to 1, so Kershaw is guaranteed to pitch tomorrow unless they win and don’t need him. Conventional wisdom says that you only pitch your ace on 3 days’ rest when his team is facing elimination.

Is that right in this situation? Once we estimate Kershaw’s change in talent, we can pretty much figure out which alternative is correct.

According to The Book, modern pitchers that have pitched on 4 days rest pitched 17 points in wOBA against worse than usual. That is the equivalent of .56 runs in RA per 9. That is a lot. In deference to Mattingly and Kershaw (keep in mind that the pitchers who were studied were also deemed well-suited to pitch on 4 days’ rest, or at least not ill-suited), we’ll make that an even .5 runs. For 6 innings (we will also assume that he will be on somewhat of a short leash after throwing 124 pitches in his last outing), that is a difference of .33 runs plus another .11 runs for that extra inning that Kershaw does not pitch, for a total of .44 runs, or a win percentage of .0044, or 4.4%. So the

Dodgers are 4.4% worse off in game 4 with him pitching then in game 5.

Now let’s do the math. In today’s game, Vegas has the Dodgers as a 67.7% favorite. Presumably if he pitched on 4 days rest, they would be be a 72.1% fave, or a 64.1 % favorite in Atlanta). With Nolasco on the mound, the Dodgers were a 60% favorite in LA, which makes them a 52% favorite in Atlanta.

Chances of Dodgers winning:

1) With Kershaw tonight: .677 + .323*.52 = 84.50%
2) With Kershaw in game 5: .6 + .4 * .644 = 85.76%

So, by pitching Kershaw tonight on 3 days’ rest, assuming that he is .5 runs per 9 inning worse than he would be on the normal 4 days’ rest, costs the Dodgers only 1.26% in win expectancy for the series.

What is the break-even point, in terms of how much worse Kershaw has to be for it to be a tossup? About .22 runs per 9 innings.
.
For what it is worth, on the broadcast commentary, Pedro was asked about Kerhsaw pitching on short rest. He said that as long as he had time to prepare – to adjust his training routine – that is shouldn’t be a problem. He implied that if it was a last minute decision, then it was problematic. We don’t know how long Kershaw has known or suspected this. Hayhurst (as in our friend Dirk) didn’t think it was a good idea. He called it a “panic” by Mattingly. That is probably a bad choice of words as that would clearly apply to the team that was losing the series.

An astute reader on The Book blog pointed out something which I failed to consider. With Kershaw pitching tonight, Greinke can go tomorrow rather than Nolasco, and Greinke is the better pitcher. (Also, the entire rotation for the NLCS changes, right?)

With Greinke, rather than Nolasco, I estimate the the Dodgers gain 3.7% in win expectancy for that one game, which is a lot.

So now, we have:

1) With Kershaw tonight and Greinke in game 5: .677 + .323*.557 = 85.69%
2) With Kershaw in game 5 and Nolasco tonight: .6 + .4 * .644 = 85.76%

So now it is virtually a tossup! Of course if you use Greinke tomorrow, you have to start the NLCS with Nolasco (then Kershaw and Geinke), etc. If you use Nolasco tonight and Kershaw tomorrow, not only would you get to start the NLCS with Greinke if there is a game 5 in NLDS, but if Nolasco were to win tonight, you can start the NLCS with Kershaw. I am too lazy to see how the different pitching scenarios for the NLCS would pan out and, more importantly, affect the Dodgers’ chances of winning that.