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Wednesday, October 07, 2009WAR vs. winsOver at FanGraphs, Dave Cameron took a look at how well WAR and actual wins match up this year: For 2009, the correlation between a team’s projected record based on their WAR total and their actual record was .83. This is a robust number, especially considering that WAR is almost completely context independent and currently includes some notable omissions – base running (besides SB/CS, which are included in wOBA) and catcher defense are both ignored in the calculations. We also don’t have an adjustment for differences in leagues, so we’re not accounting for the fact that the AL is better than the NL. If I'm reading this correctly, Dave is essentially saying that because a teams win totals and their projected record via WAR are generally very close, it shows that WAR "works". The commenters at FanGraphs seem to agree with him as well. Maybe, it is just me, but I don't understand why a high correlation between WAR and wins would verify the accuracy of the stat. The whole point of WAR is to attempt to separate luck from controllable skills. With a teams win totals being so highly influenced by such things as bad luck on balls in play and timing, you wouldn't expect WAR to have a high correlation with wins. In fact, as Dave later shows in the article, Pythag record has a higher correlation to win totals than WAR. Does that mean that Pythag works better than WAR? Of course not; it just takes out less of the variance in actual wins than WAR, so it will naturally correlate better. Let me be clear, I'm not saying WAR doesn't work. It absolutely does. FanGraphs implementation of WAR, if I'm not mistaken, uses the average Linear Weights run values of each event for the year. That separates it from other stats like OPS or RC, which don't necessarily have any empirical meaning, because it will literally match up perfectly with runs and wins in the aggregate. If you want a metric that shows how well your team would have played that year if timing was taken out of the equation, WAR is your guy. I'm sure Dave knows all this, which is why it's confusing to me to see WAR being compared to win totals to show it's accuracy. Indeed, you would almost rather have WAR correlate poorly with win totals, as it strives to strip away all of the luck associated with them. WAR and wins measure two different things, and saying that the former works because it correlates with the latter makes no sense. A better test of WAR, in my opinion, would be to show how it projects future wins, because you have no reason to expect a teams good or bad luck to continue. The Inaugural THT Live RoundtableThis is the beginning of a regular feature you'll see here on THT Live--it's just too bad I couldn't think of a catchier title to start off with. Feel free to leave your always witty suggestions in the comments. Well the season ended yesterday with a bang, as the Twins defeated the Tigers in an extra inning affair. And what a game it was. Good pitching, big home runs, plays at the plate, and the home team walking off with the victory. What could be a better compliment to a long night of baseball than some roundtable goodness? This week features Pat Andriola, Alex Pedicini, Jeremy Greenhouse, as well as myself, Dan Novick. A Mets fan, a Red Sox fan, and two Yankee fans walk into a chat...I swear I've heard that one before. Enough introduction. On to the questions... Question #1: Ryan Franklin has been awful for the Cardinals in September despite a stellar season overall. If the Cards are up by one on the road in the 9th inning, should Tony LaRussa stick with Franklin, or trust the ball to somebody else? Pat Andriola: It depends. I think one of the worst things a manager can do with the bullpen is decide specifically who will pitch at what times prior to a game. This sets biases when it comes to game-time decisions. If TLR needs Franklin for an out in the seventh, he should be willing to use him, etc. But more importantly, he needs to be able to mix and match even if it is the ninth inning. There seems to be some precedent set with the relatively new role of the closer since it's appearance in the latter half of the 20th century: you let your guy finish the inning, because goshdarn it, he's a closer, and that's his job. This goes along with much of the machismo that encompasses baseball; but more importantly, it creates disincentives for managers to ever pull their closer from the ninth inning, even if more favorable match-ups are available in the form of other pitchers. But LaRussa isn't going to mix things up, and will probably stick to Franklin. Franklin only had 8.1 innings pitched in September and October, so the sample size isn't big enough to get all too worried. However, his xFIP-ERA is 2.32, so we may be seeing the beginning of some regression. Long answer short, my response to the question was the first two words of what I wrote: it depends. Click for more... What next for Detroit? The Tigers were considered a vaunted team going into 2008, and we all know what happened. 2009 saw a greater emphasis on pitching and defense, and they improved as a result. Obviously, it wasn't good enough. What are their three biggest weaknesses heading into the offseason? What do they have to address to get into the October dance? Click for more... Projecting JJ HardyThe Brewers are facing a decision about their SS situation, with phenom Alcides Escobar seemingly ready to contribute at the MLB level, and J.J. Hardy coming off a season-long slump that even saw him get demoted to AAA Nashville. The situation presents many options; trading Hardy, keeping Escobar in Nashville another year, having a player shift positions, etc. But it is clear that the largest variable in any of the above equations is what we should expect to get from Hardy next year in terms of production. A few quick notes on how I constructed my basic projection: --I use a version of Linear Weights values for offense, set to the scale of batting average, much like EQA. .263 is league average. For defense, I use UZR regressed by 66%, and add in TangoTiger’s positional adjustments (I use +7 as the baseline for SS). --I use 5-3-2 weighting, a standard aging curve, park factors… all the trimmings. Now, Hardy had ~75 PA’s in AAA this season. As a quasi-shortcut, I simply used his MLE from Minor League Splits and added that to his MLB statline. Even if you don’t like their MLEs (and to me, they seem much more reasonable than most), this does not make a very large difference any way you slice it. Here’s how that projection looks:  Now, the first thing that jumps out at you is Hardy’s ’09 BABIP. “So, this is one of those BABIP articles, where the author tells us nothing has changed.” Not true. Hardy’s BABIP can explain away some chunk of his ’09 decline, but nowhere near all of it. If I set Hardy’s ’09 singles rate to his ’07-’08 level (a pretty generous thing to do; it basically assumes the low-BABIP of ’09 was 100% luck, 0% skill decline), here’s how his projection changes:  While regressing the singles rate certainly paints a much rosier picture, Hardy experienced some changes in ’09 that generally aren’t explained by random fluctuation. His contact rate took a significant dip, and his power wasn’t up to his norm. Hardy did go through a period of back spasms earlier in the season, and also had one or two minor flare-ups involving his shoulder, which has been a problem for him in the past. Perhaps nagging injuries are a culprit; nonetheless, they deserve to be a data point. While there is certainly reason for concern, this is no Bobby Crosby. Hardy still figures to be at least a worthwhile everyday player going forward. One major reason is his defense. UZR plain old loves Hardy, and if you cross-reference their rankings against Tango’s Fans Scouting Report and BPro’s Fielding Runs, nothing seems too far out of line (and I regress the hell out of defense anyway). And if his offense can rebound to ’07-’08 levels (which is no major reach), you’ve got one of the 6-7 best SS in the game. Thus, it’s hard to imagine a scenario in which the Brewers come out ahead by trading Hardy this offseason. Due simply to his performance, his value won’t get much lower. Also, if they knew an offseason trade was a strong possibility (and they must have), they really shot themselves in the foot by demoting him. Odds are, Hardy is at least a league-average SS next year for somewhere around $5m. If the Brewers are of the mindset that they must deal him—and they seem to be treating him like dead weight—some team is going to be making a great buy. Tuesday, October 06, 2009Game One OddsThe Twins made it real interesting but they went ahead and "validated" my prediction anyway. (That is, of course, tongue-in-cheek - I don't think anyone predicted a game quite like that.) Anyway, your Game One odds (win percentages listed are for the home team): Twins at Yankees - 0.673 The Twins used everything they had to get this far, and are now left throwing Brian Duensing against CC Sabathia at Yankee Stadium. The odds are not in their favor. Red Sox at Angels - 0.526 Jon Lester and John Lackey are two very evenly-matched pitchers, but Lester definitely can expect better bullpen support. The Angels have home field, and that makes them the favorite. Cardinals at Dodgers - 0.491 The advantage one gets of starting off game one of the playoffs at home is somewhat mitigated when your starting pitcher is Randy Wolf. And Chris Carpenter is his own home-field advantage, apparently. Rockies at Phillies - 0.594 Ubaldo Jimenez is a good young pitcher. Cliff Lee is a monster, though. And the lineup behind him is no less impressive. We'll see if I can stay on a hot streak of predicting these games here. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||