Search THT:

Or you can search by:

November 06, 2010

Where did all the runs go?

The following is an excerpt from the introduction to the Hardball Times Annual 2011:

The Hardball Times Annual proudly displays statistics you won’t find anywhere else, Batted Ball Stats. Even web sites like FanGraphs and Baseball Reference don’t provide what you can find in the Annual. I like to think of these numbers as a combination of statistics and scouting—numbers that quantify not only how well each player performed, but how he did it.

To give you a sense of how these numbers work, I’m going to review them in the context of 2010, the "year of the pitcher." Here are some facts: In 2007, major league teams scored 23,322 runs. In 2010, they scored 21,308 runs. Two thousand runs have been lost in the past three years. Let’s see where they went. First, let’s look at strikeouts and walks as a percentage of plate appearances for the last four years:

    Year     K%      BB%
    2007    17.1      9.5
    2008    17.5      9.6
    2009    18.0      9.7
    2010    18.5      9.3

The 1.4 percent increase in strikeouts in just three years is huge. The walk rate had also been climbing, helping to offset the run-dampening effect of the strikeouts, but it dropped quite a bit in 2010. Forget home runs or ballparks—this little table explains over half of the decline in offense since 2007.

Our system applies a "linear weight" to each batting event, a weight that reflects the average impact each event has on run scoring. When you multiply the quantity of each event by its weight, you get a number that is roughly equal to the total number of runs scored each year. The system works pretty well.

So when you apply the appropriate weights to the total number of strikeouts and walks the past three years, you find that the net impact has been a decrease of about 400 runs, 20 percent of our total.

But there is another consequence of an increase in strikeouts: The total number of pitches put into play has decreased. Strikeouts and walks have grown from 26.6 percent of appearances to 27.8 percent. As a result, there were about 5,000 fewer balls put into play in 2010 compared to 2007. According to our linear weights, the net impact of this drop was about 700 fewer runs. If you add the 400 and 700, you get 1,100 runs. Over half of the decrease in runs from 2007 to 2010 has been the result of more strikeouts and fewer walks.

Okay, so what happened when the ball was hit? Here’s a list of the percentage of batted ball types for all balls put into play (ground balls, line drives and fly balls):

 Year    GB%   LD%   FB%
 2007   43.5  18.6  37.9
 2008   43.9  20.2  36.0
 2009   43.3  18.9  37.8
 2010   44.3  18.2  37.5

I should tell you that our statistics partner, Baseball Info Solutions, has video reviewers watch every batted ball to classify it. They even have people review the video reviewers. Still, it’s hard to tell the difference between a line drive and a fly ball, so there are certainly some judgment calls and biases in the data.

But when the overall data tell you that ground balls were up a full percentage point in 2010, you can believe the trend. And when the data tell you that line drives were down two full percentage points in just the last two years, you can believe that something was going on. As you can imagine, the average ground ball generates fewer runs than the average line drive. I estimate that the movement toward grounders and away from liners has resulted in about 250 fewer runs.

The rest of the difference, about 650 runs, is the result of the outcome of each type of batted ball. Below you will find a few factoids about batted balls: Outs per ground ball and the average number of runs generated by each grounder (GBR); the average number of runs generated by each line drive (LDR); and three different facts about outfield flies: home runs per outfield fly, outs per outfield fly and runs generated by the average outfield fly.

    Year   Out/GB    GBR     LDR    HR/OF  Out/OF    OFR
    2007    73.9    .046    .398    .103    82.9    .181
    2008    74.1    .045    .386    .107    84.2    .175
    2009    74.7    .041    .388    .109    83.0    .189
    2010    73.9    .043    .383    .102    82.8    .179

This mishmash of data accounts for 650 fewer runs during the three years under review.

{exp:list_maker}The out rate on ground balls had been trending up, and the subsequent run rate of grounders down, but they both came back to norms in 2010.
The run impact of the average line drive has trended down. According to BIS, this is primarily due to fewer doubles and home runs off line drives. This trend could easily be a data classification issue, so we won’t dwell on it here.
The run impact of an outfield fly jumped up in 2009 but fell back again this past year. There were fewer outfield fly home runs, but the out rate (that’s of outfield flies that aren’t home runs) also stayed down, which helped negate the run impact of fewer homers. Again, this may partially be explained by the relative classification of flies and liners. Only partially, however. {/exp:list_maker}Lots of info in just a few paragraphs, huh? Let’s recap. Run scoring has trended down the past three years primarily because there have been more strikeouts and fewer walks. In fact, the strikeout/walk differences account for more than half of the change in runs scored.

The rest of the change has been characterized by two things: a movement toward more weakly hit balls (fewer liners, more grounders) and weaker results from both line drives and fly balls.

Of course, these sorts of statistics can also be used for individual players. In our stats, you’ll find 2010 batted ball stats for all batters with at least 100 plate appearances and all pitchers who faced at least 100 batters. Plus, batted ball stats for all major league hitters and pitchers are available as an Excel download.

To get access to Batted Ball stats, please support the site and purchase the Hardball Times Annual 2011.
Posted by: Dave Studeman

November 03, 2010

Your introduction to the Hardball Times Annual

The Hardball Times Annual 2011 has been put to bed, which means that it's been sent to the printer and will start shipping soon. I'm pretty excited about this year's book, and I'll be posting about it for the next couple of weeks. To whet your appetite, here is the introduction I wrote:

This is the seventh time we’ve published a baseball annual, and each one has included something special. Our very first Annual, way back in 2004, included a new idea from Robert Dudek: measuring the “hang time” of each batted ball to determine what its likely outcome would be. Six years later, we now have a baseball statistics company, Baseball Info Solutions, collecting that information and reporting about it in these pages.

In fact, this year’s Annual has a special section devoted to the current and future state of fielding stats, including commentary from well-known baseball writers Rob Neyer and Dave Cameron and fielding studies from well-known statisticians John Dewan, Ben Jedlovec and Greg Rybarczyk. We even show you what the graphical future of fielding analysis could look like, courtesy of Sportvision, the same folks who post those graphical strike zones on your TV. Whether you’re a stat nerd or just someone who enjoys watching a game at the ballpark, you will be intrigued by what you see.

Even if you aren’t, there’s plenty more to read. We begin with our review of the 2010 season, organized by division. Unfortunately, we rushed to get our book to the printer before the postseason was over (the sooner to get it to you, after all), so you’ll have to download our postseason coverage from the Internet. I’ll give you the instructions for that in a minute.

After the 2010 season section, you’ll find lots of general baseball commentary, written by staff and friends of the Hardball Times. One of our friends is Craig Wright, who has written a 15-page magnum opus on the handling of pitchers and pitch counts. 20 years ago, Craig was one of the very first people to study this issue in depth, and he still has plenty to say about the subject.

Another good friend of THT (that’s short for The Hardball Times) is Larry Granillo, of wezen-ball.com, who took the time to watch video of every 2010 home run to measure how long it took each batter to circle the bases. There’s also the aforementioned Greg Rybarczyk, who also watched video of each home run to measure its distance, speed off the bat and other physical properties of the ball. Two guys, watching the same thing with stopwatches in hand, for two entirely different reasons. There is room in the Hardball Times Annual for virtually every kind of baseball nut.

Our book contains baseball history and baseball analysis, too. You may have heard of PITCHf/x, Sportvision’s remarkable system that collects intricate detail of every pitch. Well, we have several people who specialize in PITCHf/x studies, such as Jeremy Greenhouse. Jeremy has devised a system for measuring the location and "stuff" of all major league pitchers.We even have a contribution from our good friend "Oliver," the system behind THT Forecasts. Oliver has generously donated leaderboard projections for the 2011 season. You can access updated projections all year long by signing up for THT Forecasts at our website.

There’s more, of course, and I’ve just insulted many good friends by not naming them in this intro. But keep in mind that commentary and articles are only half the book. We’ve also got 2010 statistics for you to pore over. Many of the stats are standard fare, but we’ve also included our patented "batted ball" stats. These aren’t available anywhere on the Internet and you can glean insights about players you won’t discover other places.

Tuck has drawn baseball 'toons for the book and Brandon Isleib has planted his aggravating yet wildly entertaining trivia quizzes throughout. Yes, the Hardball Times Annual is a veritable cornucopia of baseball bliss.

Oops. I always tell myself to start thanking people early, and I never do. But let me say that Baseball Info Solutions and ACTA Sports are tremendous partners. Thank you, Andrew Yankech, Damon Lichtenwalner and John Dewan. Greg, Ben, Mary and Donna too.

Fangraphs is a fantastic website and a lifelong friend of ours. Thank you, David Appelman, for your support and the stats. A big thanks, too, to Tom Tango, who has always been a huge supporter of ours. If you haven’t read The Book, read it as soon as you’re done with the Annual.

The Hardball Times website posts new content virtually every day of the year. Thanks to all of the THT writers, past, present and future, for making it go. And the biggest thanks goes to our editors—particularly our new chief editor Joe Distelheim—but also to Bryan Tsao, Jeremiah Oshan and Carolina Bolado Hale for their huge help with the Annual.

Doh! I knew I’d run out of room. Those download instructions are in the back of the book.

You can order the Hardball Times Annual from ACTA Sports or Amazon. Using these links will help us financially.
Posted by: Dave Studeman

August 19, 2010

THT’s latest Graphical Report

It's been two weeks since our last Graphical Report, and I apologize for that. But better late than never, and here is the Hardball Time's latest Graphical Report, laying out how well each team has been doing, or not doing, and why. It's a PDF file, so you'll need Adobe Acrobat to read it.

Happy Baseball!
Posted by: Dave Studeman

November 30, 2009

A THT Annual review

Steve Lombardi of Was Watching posted a review of the THT Annual. Steve has read and reviewed the THT Annual for several years, and he said that "this year’s edition is just as good, if not better, than the editions from the previous four years." This is the first online review of the book I've read.

We're always looking for feedback regarding the Annual—in fact, we made some changes to this year's book based on feedback from Steve and other reviewers last year. If you have a comment, such as a favorite (or least favorite) article or whether you like the stats or not, please leave it below.
Posted by: Dave Studeman

August 10, 2009

ChiSox, Jays both benefit from Rios waiver claim

Today, we found out that the White Sox were indeed the claiming team on Alex Rios. The White Sox received the 28-year old off waivers -- not even giving up anyone.

The waiver claim of Alex Rios generated quite a bit of furor in the blogosphere, much to the bewilderment of Dan Novick.

In the article, Novick passes judgment on the claim, saying that the Jays should be looking to build around Rios for the duration of the deal, not trying to dump him:

He's been worth just one win above replacement so far, which prorates to about 1.5 wins over a full season, compared to 5.5 wins in 2008, 4.6 in 2007, and 3.3 wins in 2006. The most notable difference this year for most baseball fans has been his offense. He's been slightly below average this year, with -1.7 batting runs (park corrected version). The last three years he's been between 12 and 25 runs above average.
...
Rios, who is right in the middle of his prime, is projected to be worth 31.5 runs above replacement. A three-win player like Rios on the free agent market would command somewhere between $12-$15 million per year in the short-term. Did I mention that Rios is making an average of $11.7 million over the next 5 years, and the Blue Jays hold a 2015 option for $13.5 million? In other words, Alex Rios is a bargain.

I'm going to go ahead and disagree here. I don't think Rios is anywhere near a bargain, and I think Rios wouldn't even sniff $12-$15 million in free agency, never mind net an average $11.7 million that he is making under his current contract. It's not to say that he's not valuable or he can't be worth that money for the remainder of his deal, but he hasn't been worth it to date.
Click for more...

Posted by: Evan Brunell


Click here for more THT Notes.