February 10, 2012
Now Available for 2012 THT Essentials: Now Available The Hardball Times Baseball Annual 2012, an annual "must buy" for all baseball fans, is now shipping. Read this article to learn more about it.
THT's latest e-book Most Recent Comments
A baseball card mystery: Ontiveros and Schmidt (6)
A baseball card mystery: Ken Holtzman’s 1974 Topps card (16) 20,000 days since Herb Score’s injury (1) A baseball card mystery: Bill Sudakis and the strange light (5) Super at the right time (2)  
Lucas Apostoleris
Rich Barbieri John Barten Brian Borawski Vince Caramela Chris Jaffe Brad Johnson Mat Kovach Kevin Lai Myron Logan Chris Lund Bruce Markusen Jeff Moore Troy Patterson Harry Pavlidis Dave Studeman Steve Treder David Wade And here's the full roster. Dish TV Packages options for all televised baseball games.
Or you can search by:
Gear up for baseball season with Chicago White Sox tickets and New York Yankees tickets. LA Angels tickets, Houston Astros tickets, and Atlanta Braves tickets are hot sellers! You can get Boston Red Sox tickets, San Diego Padres tickets or Chicago Cubs tickets for your favorite baseball fan. Coast to Coast Tickets has the best MLB tickets like Minnesota Twins tickets, LA Dodgers tickets, Milwaukee Brewers tickets, New York Met tickets and St. Louis Cardinals tickets.  All content on this site (including text, graphs, and any other original works), unless otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons License. Part of the USA Today Sports Media Group |
Thursday, September 17, 2009A great response to Ken RosenthalFellow Driveline Mechanics writer Devil Fingers recently penned an excellent response to Ken Rosenthal's assertion that all saberists are part of a "Sabermetric Group Think", and anyone who disagrees with them is called an "ignorant dolt". Of course most readers here know that is complete bullcrap; however you should read DF's article anyways, at it really is excellent: http://www.drivelinemechanics.com/2009/9/17/1034720/ken-rosenthal-sabermetric-group For further discussion, check out Tango's link at The Book Blog. Game Theory and the NL WestOn September 11th, the NL West leading Dodgers began a series against the Wildcard seeking Giants. The NL West standings (and truly the only relevant Wildcard standings) on that day were as follows:  As a Rockies fan, I was scoreboard watching. But wait... who do I really want to win? Option 1: I root Giants. Besides just plain bragging rights, winning the division instead of the Wildcard provides a great shot at home field advantage in the playoffs, as the Rockies and Dodgers have 2 of the 3 best records in the NL. Also, winning the division ensures you will play at least a somewhat inferior team in terms of W-L record. Option 2: I root Dodgers. As much as that sentence makes my skin crawl, it has it's benefits. At this point, every Giants loss makes the playoffs a much firmer probability for the Rockies. And for a team who finds themselves in the playoffs as infrequently as the Rockies have (once since '95), there's probably something to be said for taking the lower-risk option. Let's attempt to quantify some of the values of either proposition. I'm going to start with an assumption; that I have to pick one team at the beginning of the series and stick with it. It may be the case that if the Giants won the first two games, and the Rockies had lost one or two in their series, I'd start to get nervous and want the Dodgers to get them off our tail. But this is an article, and evaluating the game-by-game combinations of the three teams and the range of each their outcomes would be a novel. Hence, I must root sweep. I'm also going to assume that the Rockies record remains 'neutral.'Technically, they could not play 3 games and remain a .574 team. But assuming they would win or lose 2 of 3 games during this time (or be on one end of a sweep) would obfuscate the point; we should only assume they'll remain as good as they have been, and evaluate the Giants-Dodgers series independently. Let's presume NL West winner has a 85% chance of having home field advantage during the playoffs (Philadelphia would have to make up a handful of games for that not to be the case). In modern MLB, the home team wins roughly 53% of their games. It may be the case that this effect is amplified during the playoffs, but for this evaluation I will remain conservative. Also, the division winner will face a team with a lesser W-L record. If standings remain consistent, this would mean a 96-win team will play a 93-win team. Of course, who is actually the better team is a more complicated answer than W/L record. But it is the safest and best assumption to make. A basic dependent probability model tells us that a .593 team (96 wins) will beat a .574 team (93 wins) 52.3% of the time. If we combine the effects of home field advantage and an inferior opponent, a binomial distribution predicts that the NL West winning team would win their first playoff series 55.43% of the time (which obviously implies the Wild Card team would win 44.57% of the time). This would suggest that getting to the playoffs as a division winner instead of a Wildcard makes a very large difference. Now, how would a sweep one way or the other affect the Rockies divisional and Wildcard odds? Let's say winning the division will require at least 95 wins, and winning the Wildcard will require 92. Prior to the series, what were each team's respective odds of getting there?  Just to recap, the three-digit decimals beneath the 95 and 92-win columns are each team's respective odds of reaching those win platforms (using a binomial distribution with their team's pre-series winning percentage as the p term). Even in subsequent graphs, the pre-series winning percentage will determine a team's 'p'. The 'Diff' column is calculated from the Rockies' persective; thus, the first (95-win) diff column there means the Rockies are 40% less likely than the Dodgers to reach 95 wins, and 25.2% more likely than the Giants to do the same. The figures highlighted in red are our most practically important terms here; the Rockies' chances of overcoming the Dodgers for the division (upper left) and their chances of remaining ahead of the Giants for the Wildcard (lower right). Here's how that graph would change in the event of a Dodgers sweep.  As you can see, the Rockies' comfortable lead of the Wildcard grows all the more secure; they're about 75% more likely to reach 92 wins than the Giants, up from ~69% pre-series. Now, with only 22 games to go, why is the difference so seemingly slight? Primarily because the Giants had a pretty low crack at the WC pre-series. In other words; what are your chances of beating Tiger Woods for 18 holes, if you typically shoot in the mid-90's? Maybe 1%, or something close? Now, what do those chances become if you shoot +6 combined on the first 3 holes? I don't know, maybe .5%? In other words--the raw change in terms of percentage points won't be large if things were already leaning heavily in that direction. The Rockies went into the series a dominating favorite for the Wildcard--they're now a more overwhelming favorite. However, they're much less likely to catch a Dodgers team that has now won 3 of their remaining 21 games. They were 40% less likely than the Dodgers to reach 95 wins pre-series... now they are nearly 60% 'behind.' Baseball Prospectus 2008 estimated the value of reaching the playoffs to be $40m, on average (and 'average' would imply a team that wins 1.5 series in the playoffs). Just for the sake of argument, let's say the value of getting to the divisional series is $10m, and the value of advancing to the NLCS is another $12.5m, and the value of advancing yet again to the World Series is an additional $20m. A Dodger's sweep of the Giants would make the Rockies approximately 5.5% more likely to reach the divisional series (.748-.693), and 5.5% of $10m is $550,000. But remember that the NL West winner will have a much better chance at advancing to the LCS than the Wildcard team. This advantage is roughly 5.43% (as calculated above), thus, using the value of advancing to the LCS as $12.5m, winning the division is worth more than winning the Wildcard by $678,750 (5.43% * $12.5m). However, we need to add something; the team who advances to the LCS also has a chance (let's just call it 50%) of also advancing to the World Series, which is worth $20m. The calculus for the value of winning the division outright becomes 5.43% * (12.5 + 10), which is roughly $1.2m. The Rockies, by virtue of the Dodgers sweep, are now 18.9% less likely to overcome them for the division title. This costs them close to $232k. Thus, the total value to the Rockies of the Dodgers sweeping the Giants would be $319,089 ($550,000 - $231,911).  With a Giants sweep of the Dodgers, the NL West title becomes a tantalizingly distinct possibility for the Rockies. Their odds of overtaking the Dodgers increase dramatically (by 31.5%). The chance of the Giants overcoming them increase, however, by 9.5%. Using the same math as above, the Rockies lose $950,000 versus pre-series by virtue of the fact that making the playoffs is now much less of a sure proposition. Suprisingly, the fact that the Rockies now have a much better chance at taking the division than the Wildcard is only worth $384,451. Thus, the Rockies 'lose' about $565k in exected playoff revenue by the Giants sweeping the Dodgers. Conclusions The seemingly small value gained by a Giants sweep actually makes sense when it comes down to it; being ~30% more likely to gain a ~5% adavantage in a series is simply not an enormous value. Given the number of Wildcard teams we've seen go deep into (or win) the playoffs, I think the general rule here--to value entrance over seeding--is valid. Sure, I took a lot of liberty with the numbers above--a lot of estimation. But this was meant to be an excercise moreso than a precise calculus, and we'd have to really torture the numbers to reverse the conclusions. Jerry Manuel and handednessDo right-handed hitters generally hit lefty pitchers better, and vice versa? The answer is yes; this is generally true of most major leaguers. However, by no means is this applicable to every situation. Sometimes you'd rather have your lefty batter hit against a lefty pitcher, or even bring in a left-handed pitcher to face a right-handed hitter. Jerry Manuel has failed to grasp this concept. Throughout the season he has plagued Mets fans with ill-advised in-game switches because of fictional matchup favorites. Last night was a perfect example of this situation. Mets rookie catcher (and lefty hitter) Josh Thole was coming to the plate in the seventh inning to face left-hander Mike Gonzalez. Here are Josh Thole's 2009 Double-A numbers against righties and lefties: Righties: .328/.396/.437 (268 at-bats) Lefties: .328/.391/.388 (116 at-bats) There is no major difference there. Thole hits righties better than lefties, but his numbers against lefties are still extremely solid. The fact that he can bat .328 alone should be an indicator of his ability to hit southpaws. Just to drive home the point, here are his 2008 numbers from High-A St. Lucie: Righties: .289/.380/.425 (266 at-bats) Lefties: .333/.386/.432 (81 at-bats) Yeah, I think we can conclude that Thole is just fine against lefties. But Jerry Manuel disagrees. When Thole got called up to the majors, Jerry said that the rookie wouldn't play much against lefties: "I want him in spots where he can have success and build on that." Anyway, back to last night. Thole comes up, and Jerry decides that this matchup is just too unfair to Thole, and he has a righty catcher on the bench to boot! So up comes the lefty-masher Omir Santos. Here are Santos' 2009 splits entering that plate appearance: Righties: .282/.321/408 (174 at-bats) Lefties: .213/.242/.337 (89 at-bats) Is there much else to say? This is just Terrible Decision Making 101. So what happened? What else could happen? Santos properly drilled a go-ahead homer over the left field wall to give the Mets the lead. Hitting on 19 in blackjack and getting a deuce doesn't make your processing correct, and neither does going all-in with 7-8 against pocket queens and hitting a set on the river. A word to the wise, Jerry. Don't quit your day job to play percentage-based games any time soon. What's that? That basically is Jerry's job? God help us all. UPDATE: I wanted to post more numbers to give a better context: Omir Santos minor league career: 1248 at-bats (as far back as minorleaguesplits goes) Righties: .256/.308/.351 Lefties: .254/.287/.336 BIG difference there. .36 points in OPS. Josh Thole’s minor league career: 1314 at-bats Righties: .284/.375/.378 Lefties: .317/.399/.376 The Rays’ historic infieldAfter noticing Jason Bartlett’s ridiculous .327 batting average, I got to thinking whether he and Ben Zobrist were having the best season ever for any two middle infielders on the same team. According to Fangraphs, Zobrist has been worth 7.2 Wins Above Replacement (WAR), while Bartlett has been worth 4.6. Those numbers rank them No. 2 and 13 in the American League. I went into Rally’s historical WAR database to get a feel of just how impressive these numbers are. Rally’s database unfortunately doesn’t include position played, but it does include a positional adjustment. I sorted through the database to find any seasons where two teammates had at least five WAR as well as a neutral or positive positional adjustments. These might seem like arbitrary cutoffs, but I think it is meaningful for a team to have two players at premium defensive positions who are either All Stars or MVP candidates. In the Retrosheet Era, Mark Belanger and Bobby Grich of the 1976 Orioles were the only pair of middle infielders to fulfill my query. Both O's accumulated five and a half WAR. Bellanger was an enormously valuable fielding shortstop, while Bobby Grich is one of the best hitting second basemen of all time with a career .371 OBP and 125 OPS+. Derek Jeter and Robinson Cano of this year’s Yankees might also come close to matching Bartlett and Zobrist. But what makes this year’s Rays’ infield truly stand out is that I didn’t even mention that Evan Longoria has been worth over six WAR. I did find 19 other pairs of teammates who primarily played primarily primary defensive positions while amassing five WAR apiece. Bret Boone and Mike Cameron were an underappreciated historic pairing. They are one of two pairs of players to appear on my list twice. In 2001, they added 15.7 WAR for the Mariners, which is one win greater than the next closest matching. Cameron will likely pass Bernie Williams this year on the WAR career leaderboard, and he could end up as one of the most underappreciated players of my lifetime. Andre Dawson and Gary Carter make up the other pair who show up on this list multiple times. Dawson and Carter in 1980, 1982, and 1983 had greater than six WAR each year. 1983 was also the first of Tim Raines’ five consecutive years where he totaled five or more WAR as a left fielder, broken up by a stint in center in 1984. The two grittiest players to ever eat grits, Darin Erstad and David Eckstein make the list from 2002, with 6 and 5.5 WAR respectively according to Rally. Erstad was truly a remarkable player, as he managed to somehow be 11 runs worse than average with the bat, but through sensational fielding and baserunning, he was the most valuable player on a World Series Champion. However, Fangraphs’ WAR has Erstad and Eckstein at only 4.0 WAR apiece that year. Of course, Fangraphs’ WAR doesn’t measure heart. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||