BtB "Sabers" complete

Today we posted the results of the final category in the BtB Sabermetric Awards. This was the first time I've tried to organize anything quite on this level in the sabermetric community, but I'm extremely pleased with how it all went. Hopefully, we can do it again next year. Here are the award result posts:

1. Best Novel Research Article/Project
2. Best Applied Research Article/Project
3. Best Primer or Review Article
4. Best Commentary Article
5. Best Writing/Research Website
6. Best New Online Resource
7. Best Writer/Researcher

Onward to the next project! I still have this minor league thing I want to get finished, and after that it will probably be time to start working up a team projection for the Reds. I'm pleasantly optimistic right now about their chances to top 0.500 this season...

A Sabermetric Library resource

A while back, I posted a preliminary topic list for a baseball class I was working on at BtB. I've continued to add to this list and flesh it out as time as gone on. I thought I'd re-post it here as a more or less permanent storage place....at least until it becomes to unwieldy. At some point, I will try to go through and format it to be more pretty, but for now it's functional and that's about all I'm interested in.

Baseball physics, biology, and psychology

Alan Nathan's Terrific physics resource: http://webusers.npl.illinois.edu/~a-nathan/pob/

How can we describe the different pitches that are thrown?

• Neyer/James Guide to Pitchers, excerpts from each pitch type.
• I'd love to include some good pitchf/x stuff here, but I haven't kept up. Any nice, current primers? John Walsh had a good one early on at THT. Anything more recent?
• Hardball Times 2009 by Fast (cliff lee turnaround; good example piece)
• Hardball Times 2010 Annual by Fast (primer)
• Granillo on measuring velocity pre-radar gun:
• Walsh: pitch types, when thrown, characteristics
• Mariano Rivera animation - pitch spin, pitchf/x break, etc.

Why do breaking pitches break?

• Physics of Basball by Adair, chapters 1,2,3,4
• Alan Nathan:

Physics of baseball-type videos:

• Out of the Park:

How do hitters make contact with a baseball (neuroscience-wise)? What happens when the ball hits the bat (physics)?

• Psychology of Baseball by Stadler, chapter 1,2
• Physics of Baseball by Adair, chapters 1,2,3,5,6
• Art Shapiro Curveball Illusion:
• Dan Russel on bat vibration:
• Very nice video summarizing batting event:
• Dave Baldwin, conscious vs unconcscious mind:
• Cross & Nathan:
• Videos & Photos
• How to hit home runs optimally:
• Dynamics of bat-ball collision:

How do fielders track down fly balls?

• Psychology of Baseball by Stadler, chapter x.
• Physics of Baseball by Adair, chapter 7.
• Virtual reality test of the OAC vs. LOT models

Myth, or Reality

Do players go through hot & cold streaks?

• Psychology of Baseball by Stadler, chapter 5 & 6
• The Book by Tango et al, chapters 1 & 2
• Dave Cameron

How valuable are batter/pitcher matchup numbers? And other small sample size questions.

• The Book by Tango et al, chapters 1, 3
• Baseball Between the Numbers by BPro, chapter 9-2
• Bridging the Statistical Gap by Seidman, chapter 4
• Regression by Studeman
• Regression by Wyers: One, Two, and Three
• Books on randomness: Fooled by Randomness by Taleb. Drunkard's Walk by Mlodinow
• Pizza Cutter on how many PA's you need to get reliable hitter or pitcher statistics.

Do clutch hitters exist?

• The Book by Tango et al, chapters 1,4
• Baseball Between the Numbers by BPro, chapter 1-2
• Bridging the Statistical Gap by Seidman, chapter 6

How did steroids affect the on-field game of baseball? Did they?

• Between the Numbers by BPro, chapter 9-1.
• The Baseball Economist by Bradbury, chapter 9
• Will Carroll: The Juice (not in my library)
• Tobin: Theoretical effects on HR production
• Nathan: Response to Tobin
• Steroid timeline:
• Symborski: History & PED's:
• Overview of PED's:
• Tom Tango on the juiced ball, alternative explanation for HR spike

Fielding isn't really that important, is it?

• Moneyball by Lewis, chapter 6 (the thing about Damon vs. Long)
• Tango
• Cameron
• Brackenthebox, runs saved vs. runs allowed

Are scouts being replaced by statistics?

• Moneyball by Lewis, chapter 2 (draft board discussions)
• Baseball Between the Numbers by BPro, "extra innings" by Perry
• The Baseball economist by Bradbury, chapter 11
• Something on the Fan Scouting Report, maybe my thing:
• Perry at BPro

Do umpire strike zones really vary all that much?

• Jeff Zimmerman
• John Walsh: Umpire vs. Rulebook

Speed guys add as much value with their legs as power guys do with their bats, right?

• Anyone have a good article on this? Ideally using something like Dan Fox's EqBRR? I think John Walsh might have done some speed stuff at some point along with his arms stuff...? I don't want to just do SB's, it's gotta be all baserunning.

Players today just aren't as good as players in the past.

• Between the Numbers by BPro (Silver's article has flawed methods, but good discussion)
• THT Annual 2008(?) by Gassko (All-time pitcher rankings, adjusted for era difficulty)
• Dan Fox: One and Two
• David Gassko on evaluating past eras: One, Two, and Three
• Error rates as an indicator

What we want most from our pitchers is consistency, right?

• David Gassko

Are curveballs bad for young arms?

• Dun et al. 2008 in American Journal of Sports Medicine: Curveballs not more stressful than fastballs (PDF in my database)

Do home teams really have a home-team advantage? If so, why?

• Stadler, 2007, Psych of Baseball, pp.174-179.

Is there such a thing as the sophomore slump? Why?

• Stadler, 2007, Psych of Baseball, pp.180
• Regression by Studeman
• Regression by Wyers: One, Two, and Three:

Evaluating Value

Why can't we just judge hitters on AVG/HR/RBI?

• Baseball Between the Numbers by BPro, chapter 1-1
• Bridging the Statistical Gap by Seidman, chapter 1
• Posnanski
• Posnanski, again
• Moneyball by Lewis, chapter 6
• BLee from RR
• Cameron: The Joy of wOBA
• Perry: Measuring offense

Why can't we just judge pitchers by W/L record, ERA, or save totals?

• Bridging the Statistical Gap by Seidman, chapters 2, 3, 8
• McCracken DIPS
• MGL DIPS Revisited
• Wyers on DIPS: One and Two
• Dave Cameron
• Tango et al's thread: Solving DIPS
• Kincaid on FIP: One, Two, Three

How can we assess a player's fielding?

• My series One, Two and Three.
• Fielding Bible by Dewan and James, "chapters" 2 & 3 (Everett vs. Jeter, overview of plus/minus)
• MGL's UZR series: One and Two
• Hardball Times Annual 2009, TZ article by Smith
• Smith on Total Zone
• Shane Jensen & SAFE
• THT Annual 2008 by Tango ( WOWY Jeter)

How can we best estimate a players impact on scoring runs? Winning?

• Tango: OPS isn't good enough
• Patriot: Audacity of OPS
• Run Estimators by Patriot: One, Two, and Three
• Run Estimation by Wyers: One, Two, Three, and Four.
• Baselines by Patriot
• Replacement level by Wyers
• Between the Numbers by BPro, chapter 5-1 (replacement level)
• Cameron: Replacement players in real life
• Dave Cameron's Win Value Series
• My stuff on player value
• Jong's SABR 101 series
• Studes on WPA
• Tango on WPA/LI
• Patriot Talent vs. Value
• Sean Smith: Replacement level
• Tango's SABR 111 LWTS series: One Two, summarized

Judging trades and free agent signings: how much money is that player worth, dollar-wise?

• Something on Runs to Wins to $, perhaps by Tango?
• Cameron
• Wang in By the Numbers, prospect values
• Wang on Santana, prospect values
• Wang at draft pick values: One and Two
• Wang: Hardball times 2009 Annual, expansion of prospect values
• Diamond Dollars by Gennaro, chapters 4, 5, 6, 7 & 8

How much does home park matter? How can we deal with that problem?

• Between the Numbers by BPro, chapter 8-2
• Patriot: Park factor primer
• HitTracker
• boobs (I'm not sure I can assign an article by a guy named boobs, but hey, it's a decent overview of basic concepts)
• Tango (additive vs. multiplicative)
• Turf Grass Research
• Physics & Park effects

How can we evaluate managers?

• MGL in Hardball Times 2009 Annual
• Gassko in Hardball Times 2008 Annual

How should we decide end-of-season awards? Hall of fame?

• Not sure on articles (recommendations?). Discussion would likely involve context-neutral vs. context-sensitive statistics, average vs. replacement baselines, and for hall of fame, peak vs. accumulated value. This might end up being a good way to pitch the player value discussions rather than a topic in and of themselves.
• Neyer/James Guide to Pitchers - Cy Young Predictor
• Sky Andrecheck on award prediction
• David Gassko: THT 2010 Annual and This
• Sky A on writer biases

Game strategy

When is sacrifice bunting a good idea?

• Baseball Between the Numbers by BPro, chapter 4-2. (selected as a contrast to...)
• The Book by Tango et al, chapter 1, 9
• Red Menace:
• MGL from 2009

Can we really just use average run- or win-values to determine game strategy?

• The Book by Tango et al, chapter 10 (bluffing in baseball)
• MGL on pitch selection
• Levitt on pitch selection: One and Two
• Weinstein-Gould 2009
• Any other good game theory articles, especially ones not about sac bunting?

How can we best use our relievers?

• The Book by Tango et al, chapter 8
• Baseball Between the Numbers by BPro, chapter 2-2

What is the best way to make out a lineup?

• Baseball Between the Numbers by BPro, chapter 1-3
• The Book by Tango et al, chapter 5

When should we steal bases?

• Dan the Turk on stealing home

Team-level analysis and front office strategy

This part could definitely use expansion, both in topics and article.

How can we best estimate team winning percentages?

• Patriot on pythagenpat
• Intro to the power rankings (incomplete)

Should cities build stadiums for their local sports teams?

• Baseball Between the Numbers, chapter 6-2
• Anyone know a good original economics paper on this? I think I remember reading something by Zimbalist, but haven't found it yet.

How do teams make money?

• Diamond Dollars by Gennaro, chapters 2 & 3
• Between the Numbers by BPro, chapter 6-1

Do teams cycle?

• Between the Numbers by BPro, chapter 8-3
• Anything else on this issue?

How do players age?

• I'm thinking about using the Bradbury article & the Birnbaum/Tango responses as a way to discuss sampling bias.

General summaries of sabermetric ideas

• Dan Fox's sabermetrics 101 post
• Grabiner Sabermetric Manifesto
• Nate Silver on why sabermetrics is fun
• Sabermetrics primer/amateur baseball by Joe Gray
• SABR 101 Links by Steve
• Williams SABR 399 course
• Fett: On the Shoulders of Giants
• Dave Cameron: Sabermetric Library
• Cameron: Embracing randomness

Other cool things

• Ash borer affecting bat production

Current activities

I finally finished a post at Red Reporter that I've been working on for almost a month (and planning since September). I'm not sure the result is as fabulous as all of that would imply, but it's an investigation of the degree to which the Reds were hurt by playing time shortfalls in it starters compared to simply failing to perform when healthy. Punchline: aside from Volquez (who accounts for 35% of the overall ~7 WAR shortfall), mostly it was simply a failure to perform.

At BtB, I'm managing the Sabermetric Writing Awards. I thought of the basic idea for the awards while working on my baseball class (more on that in a sec). The BtB crew were very enthusiastic about it when I pitched it to them, and in the internal discussion, the idea expanded from ~3 categories to the 7 we are currently running. Nominations are going pretty well, though I think there is a bias toward stuff done over the past few months. Still, I've already seen a bunch of stuff that I had missed, and that's sort of the main point.

The baseball class, which I announced here, starts on Monday. I'm a bit anxious about it, but I think I'm about as well-prepared for it as I can be, and I'm excited to get started. I'm perhaps naively hoping that the students will follow my obsession in player valuation, but we'll see. First thing I'm going to do is have them pick the topics for the semester. It will probably be the case that this class will be the extent of what I can do baseball-wise for at least the first half of the semester. But one of my classes ends at spring break--just as spring training really gets underway--so that should help.

I also wanted to link to my post on the Hall of Fame ballot from December. It's gotten some decent play (Neyer link, for example), and apparently Sky did something similar at ESPN this week. The one guy I left off of my ballot, Dawson, is the guy who got in--but I have no problem with that. What I do have a problem with is all of the deserving individuals who should have gotten in before Dawson.

Reds Season Review

Image via Wikipedia

I completed a "sabermetric" (I still don't like that word, but I've become resigned that I have to use it to be understood) review of the 2009 Cincinnati Reds at Red Reporter. Here are the parts:

• Part 1 - Introduction & Overview
• Part 2 - Hitting
• Part 3 - Fielding & Total Win Value
• Part 4 - Pitching

Did some fun things here:

• The introduction piece has a nice historical angle to it that I really like.
  
• The position-by-position run above average plots in the position player pieces were a nice way of summarizing the overall team performance.
• The hitting info included full baserunning from baseball prospectus pull park corrections, so I think it's the best available right now for Reds players.
  
• The fielding info incorporated fan scouting data in a semi-crude, but still useful way. Again, I think it's the best available for Reds players.
  
• I also really like the introductory graph for the pitcher piece. People can complain about one metric vs. another, but when all three approaches show the same thing, I think it paints a pretty strong picture.

Well, that's enough patting myself on the back for one day. It's exam week and I have to figure out what I'm going to do if school gets snowed out tomorrow.

BtB Power Ranking Season Reviews

Earlier this week, I completed my season-by-season reviews of all MLB teams. Fun exercise. Here they are:

AL East

AL Central

AL West

NL East

NL Central

NL West

Here's what I wrote about the Reds:

I root for laundry of this color. It was a rough season, but after dwelling in the basement for much of August and early September, a hot-hot-hot streak at the end of the year got them up to 26th place in the rankings and 4th place in the division over the last few weeks. cW% was substantially lower than true W%: 0.441 vs. 0.481. The reason was a slight underestimate of runs scored, and a slight overestimate of runs allowed, plus the fact that even straight-up Pythagoras had the Reds as a bit lucky. This was quite possibly the best fielding team in the National League, but their pitching was just a tad below average. And that, coupled with an offense that flirted with the 0.300 wOBA line for most of the year, spelled disaster. So, for the 9th consecutive season, Reds fans are wondering if next year will be the year they finally win more than they lose again.

And here are the final 2009 Beyond the Box Score Power Rankings. I really enjoyed doing that series this year, even if occasionally was a bit contentious (:cough: Giants :cough:). Very well received, and might go even further next season if we can keep it going. Just need to figure out some strength of schedule adjustments.

Now that I'm done with that series for a while, I have some Reds work I'm planning. Look for a recap of the 2009 season at Red Reporter sometime next week if all goes well. I also have a minor league study about half written up at BtB. Stay tuned...

Barry Larkin for the Hall

I finished a piece last night, running today at Red Reporter, arguing for Barry Larkin's induction into the Hall of Fame. Response has been very positive, with links from BBTF (Repoz) and Rob Neyer, among others. Everyone seems to think that Larkin should get in (as I show, that's clearly supported by the data), but some think he might have some trouble. Hopefully he'll get in before guys like Jeter start appearing on the ballot.

Regarding Mudgate: I will read from a prepared statement

I did it. It's all my fault. Yes, the attendant rubbed the balls correctly and thoroughly. But I cleaned them. With soap. And a Snuggie.

I deeply regret my actions and apologise to my family, friends, and the baseball community. I will accept any consequences that MLB/Dave Duncan/Tony La Russa deem appropriate.

This concludes my statement. On the advice of my lawyer, I will not be taking questions.

Thank you.
Justin

Reds offense

I posted a short article on the Reds' offense at Red Reporter. Excerpt:

As a result, in many cases we like to look at context-neutral offensive stats. There are a number to choose from, but my personal favorite is the one I calculate for Beyond the Boxscore: I estimate runs scored based on linear weights of offensive events (wRC at fangraphs) and baserunning stats from Baseball Prospectus (EqBRR). Based on this measure, after park corrections, through Sunday's games, the Reds trail the Astros 634 runs to 606 runs. Why? Despite their park disadvantage, the Astros rank ahead of the Reds in AVG, OBP, and SLG, as well as baserunning (0 RAA for Astros vs. 9 runs below average for the Reds). The Reds have just been a bit "lucky" in terms of how their offensive events have translated into runs, whereas the Astros have been a tad "unlucky."

The games disparity mentioned above still applies, so you can convert those totals to a rate stat. I prefer wOBA, which has the Reds trailing the Astros 0.319 vs. 0.309 (wOBA uses the same scale as OBP, but properly weights all offensive events--in this case, I'm even including EqBRR baserunning). The Reds rank ahead of only San Francisco by wOBA.