November 23, 2009
Order Now The Hardball Times Baseball Annual 2010 is now in development and will ship in mid November! This year's book will feature articles by THT's staff as well as Bill James, Tom Tango and Craig Wright. If you use this link to purchase the Annual, you will be in the first group to receive it and you'll be supporting THT. Most Recent Comments
Introducing Visual Baseball (1)
Why Baseball Needs a Visual Facelift (4) Building a Retrosheet database, the short form (4) HR/FB Park Factors (6) Is peak at age 29? (7) 
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Tuesday, August 25, 2009If hope wasn’t already lost…...there ain't much left to hold on to. The news of yet another Mets star going down for a significant period of time (the rest of the season, actually) will hopefully put to rest the hopes of those few Mets fans who were still clinging to the possibility of a wild card run. Despite being 11 games under .500 and 14 games out of the wild card, there are always those fans who irrationally cling to their dream of October glory. You've seen 'em, I've seen 'em. It's sad. There was talk around two years ago about Johan Santana being reluctant to throw his slider to alleviate the pain in his elbow, and he did cut down significantly on his slider at the end of 2007. Looking at his pitch types on FanGraphs, at least the second part of that looks to be true. In 2007 he started throwing his slider about 11 times per 100 pitches, compared to the 16-20 times per 100 pitches that he had been throwing it the previous four years. The reason he's been able to essentially cut out such a good pitch is because his changeup has been so good over the years. Year in and year out until now, it's been essentially a two-win pitch. With a pitch that good, you don't need much else. You do, however, need a healthy elbow to pitch and pitch effectively. The problem with throwing a slider is that it is often thrown with a supinated grip through release. This means that as the pitch is released, his left pinky is closer to the ground than his index finger. The correct grip through release of any pitch is a pronated grip. You can tell fairly accurately that a pronated release is occurring when your index finger is closer to the ground than your pinky finger at release. Think of it like this: supination looks like you're shaking someone's hand, pronation is when your thumb points to the ground. You can see the beginnings of what I mean in this video, but it gets cut off a little early. For a lefty like Johan, that means his palm is facing third base at release instead of first base. Now it's hard to know if this is exactly what's happening with him without looking at high speed film. But his injury is consistent with this motion. With a supinated grip through release, his olecranon process will slam into its fossa as he releases the pitch, which can lead to a few things: cartilage irritation, lengthening of the humerus, and bone spurs, among others. The third one is what we care about here, as it has happened to Santana previously, early in his career. He might have to scrap the slider entirely if elbow irritation and other issues persist in the future, which would be a blow to his value as a pitcher. Successful two-pitch pitchers in the starting rotation are few and far between, so this is definitely something the baseball world should be keeping an eye on. But succeeding with just two pitches isn't something I would put past a guy with the talent of Johan Santana. Andruw Jones and BABIPAndruw Jones is definitely having a comeback year relative to his 2008 campaign; however, his wOBA has dipped to .348 on the season, and for a player who is primarily a DH, a .348 wOBA isn't all that impressive. However, because wOBA takes into account hits, it is influenced by the player's BABIP, which could distort the numbers. For the year, Andruw Jones has a .218 BABIP, one of the worst marks in all of baseball, and it has begun to affect his production numbers in a big way. However, what's remarkable is that Jones has been plagued throughout his entire career with low BABIPs. His highest in any season is .313, and he's been playing since 1996! He's had a BABIP over .300 just three times in his whole career, bringing his career average to a .279 mark. That terrible a track record would lead one to believe that there must be something wrong with Andruw Jones's balls in play, as it's hard to be as good of a player as he's been and consistently get that unlucky. But although Jones is pretty slow and lethargic in 2009, he used to be a slender and quick kid who sprayed line drives. Using Chris Dutton and Peter Bendix's xBABIP calculator, we can take a look at how Andruw Jones has faired since 2002, when batted ball data became available. I'll use the Simple xBABIP (expected BABIP) calculator, which they say "uses a slightly simplified predictive model using more readily available statistics." To get a gauge for how these xBABIPs will be computed, the formula uses the following categories: Team, AB, HR, Strikeouts, Stolen Bases, LD%, # of Fly Balls, # of Ground Balls, # of Popups. Here are Jones's numbers from 2002-2009 using the calculator: Year BABIP xBABIP Difference 2002 0.29 0.323 -0.033 2003 0.297 0.318 -0.021 2004 0.305 0.324 -0.019 2005 0.243 0.315 -0.072 2006 0.27 0.314 -0.044 2007 0.248 0.314 -0.066 2008 0.231 0.32 -0.089 2009 0.218 0.299 -0.081 Total 0.263 0.316 -0.053 Man, it seems like Jones is seriously getting ripped off here. To lose an average of .053 BABIP points per year is absolutely huge. Let me point out that the calculator is definitely a more simplified way of doing this, and in some of Bendix and Dutton's previous work, they have Jones's BABIP lower than the calculator. In fact, I'll include their numbers on Jones which range from 2002-2007: Year BABIP xBABIP Difference 2002 0.285 0.288 -0.003 2003 0.293 0.285 0.008 2004 0.303 0.3 0.003 2005 0.24 0.29 -0.05 2006 0.264 0.302 -0.038 2007 0.242 0.292 -0.05 Total 0.271 0.293 -0.022 (Side note: difference in actual BABIP numbers must be from data discrepancies) In these totals, Jones isn't getting as slighted as before, and even enjoys some fortuitous years. However, he is still losing an average of .022 BABIP points each year; also, in the years where he gets lucky he's barely getting anything, whereas in the years he gets unlucky it's basically screwing up his entire season. Maybe some Braves fans can enlighten me as to why they think Andruw gets constantly unlucky almost every year, but I wouldn't expect Andruw to be catching breaks any time soon. Big thanks to fellow Tufts Jumbos Peter Bendix and Chris Dutton for their awesome work. Monday, August 24, 2009“He was over the bleeping plate!”Jered Weaver to Tim Welke tonight after Welke awarded first base to Ramon Santiago, who had just leaned into an 89-mph cut fastball from Weaver. Did Weaver have a point? According to the PITCHf/x system at the Big A, the pitch was five inches from the middle of the plate, so Weaver was correct that Santiago was hanging his elbow over the plate when he was hit. However, the pitch was also up, four feet three inches off the ground, and thus out of the strike zone.  6.08 The batter becomes a runner and is entitled to first base without liability to be put out (provided he advances to and touches first base) when—Since the umpire awarded the batter first base, he must have credited Santiago's torso turn as he was struck as an attempt to avoid being touched by the ball.  Perhaps Rule 6.06 could come to Weaver's aid? 6.06 A batter is out for illegal action when—The rules state that the batter's box starts six inches from the edge of home plate:   Where in the world was Ramon Santiago? I made my best estimate from the video of where the edge of the batter's box should be (indicated by the red arrow). Of course, the actual chalk line has long since been erased by the fourth inning. It looks like Santiago is hanging his toe over the line, but with his heel firmly ensconced inside the batter's box, his stance was legal. I'll admit that before tonight, I didn't know that the batter could legally lean out over the plate like that as long as he wasn't touched by a pitch inside the strike zone. It's a good thing Tim Welke is more educated on the rules than I was. I also can't blame Jered Weaver for wanting to own home plate. That's a pitcher's territory, and he has to be able to come inside every now and then. If he'd just gotten the pitch down a little bit, he likely would have missed Santiago's elbow and gotten a strike call. What’s a “hit?”...and thoughts on advanced baseball analysisAndrew Gelman is a professor of statistics and poltical science at Columbia University, and may be most known for his fame as a writer at Nate Silver's outstanding politics blog, Five Thirty-Eight. In a post at his own blog, Gelman answered a question on sabermetrics, and in his reply wrote the following: There's often a fuzzy line between (a) making inferences, and (b) simply "measuring what happened." I mean, what's a "save"? For that matter, what's a "hit"? Etc. These definitions are constructed to be relevant for inferential questions about players' abilities and contributions to the team. It's easy to discredit a save as a flawed statistic that really doesn't tell you anything. The save is an easy target; it was invented in 1959 by the late sportswriter Jerome Holtzman to give some tangible statistical credit to guys who were closing games, and despite its popularity, it has clear fundamental flaws that make it an entirely useless metric. But what about hits? When we say that Derek Jeter got a "hit," are we at the same time not doing exactly what Holtzman and others did: giving credit to a player by using a concise and easy-to-use word to sum up what they have done on the field. A hit "is credited to a batter when the batter safely reaches first base after hitting the ball into fair territory, without the benefit of an error or a fielder's choice" (per wikipedia). However, with what we know about DIPS theory and the various amount of luck involved in baseball, a "hit" doesn't much mean anything at all. That's why we've begun to use batted ball data to help us understand in what fashion a player put a ball into play. We've already begun to divide the batted ball data into sub-categories as well: line drives, ground balls, and fly balls (and recently we've seen the use of "fliners). However, while looking at how many line drives a player has is nice, it is only a step up from a "hit." It still doesn't tell us everything we need to know about the ball in play. Just like how all hits aren't made equal, neither are all line drives (or gound balls, or fly balls, etc.). In fact, even the stats that we use and love aren't perfect. The great MGL, in a post at The Book blog, criticizes Joe Posnanski for over-stating the accuracy of UZR, saying: He is really overstating the precision with which the data is recorded and I think he knows that, or at least should. There is no way that they can differentiate between a ball hit 6 inches from the base line and 3 feet from the base line. And there is NO category that I am aware of that is a “high chopping ground ball just over the pitcher’s glove.” Come on! Which is one reason why there is so much measurement error in these metrics in the short run. A high chopping ground ball over the pitchers mound (that could easily be fielded by either the SS or 2B) could just as easily have been a ground skinner up the middle that no one could possibly have fielded. They could easily fall into the same bucket, in which case, the fielder who catches the first one will be over compensated on that ball and both the SS and 2B will be overly penalized on the second one. This isn't to say at all that UZR is innacurate; on the contrary, along with John Dewan's Plus/Minus system, it's helping to revolutionize how we rate fielders, and is far and away better than the old metrics used. But while UZR is one of the best defensive stats we have, it still follows the guidelines of how we use the term "hits," only on a much less egregious scale. A ball hit six inches from third base is placed into the same bucket as one hit three feet away, even though both are definitely different grounders. A ten-foot roller down the third base bag is placed into the same category ("single") as a scorching liner played on one hop by the center fielder. So what can we do further? Well, thanks to the wonderful advancement of technology, we can look at literal, objective facts (assume little recording error/bias) about balls put in play: the force at which they were hit, the velocity, at which vector, etc. In fact, Alan Schwarz did a good job at The New York Times detailing the future of this analysis, saying: A new camera and software system in its final testing phases will record the exact speed and location of the ball and every player on the field, allowing the most digitized of sports to be overrun anew by hundreds of innovative statistics that will rate players more accurately, almost certainly affect their compensation and perhaps alter how the game itself is played...In San Francisco, four high-resolution cameras sit on light towers 162 feet up, capturing everything that happens on the field in three dimensions and wiring it to a control room below. Software tools determine which movements are the ball, which are fielders and runners, and which are passing seagulls. More than two million meaningful location points are recorded per game. This is the future of baseball analysis. We can then use regression to determine just how valuable a ball hit along vector 12 at 95 mph is, further enhancing our ability to evaluate players. Some may deem this as a system that is taking the fun out of the game. "When my grandfather sat me down to talk about Bobby Thomson's homerun, he wasn't talking about a ball hit at x mph in vector 17." However, passion and respect for the game and its history are not mutually exclusive from in-depth analysis of what happens on the field. In fact, one could argue that advanced analysis strengthens our love and understanding of baseball. The ultra-precise stats aren't here quite yet; however, they are right around the corner, and they will soon become part of everyday advanced anlysis. It doesn't mean we have to stop talking about Ichiro getting 200 hits every season, or even ignore milestone moments like 300 wins or 500 saves. It just means that when it comes to evaluating the performance of players, we'll have the use of cutting-edge technology to help us, and what can be so bad about that? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||