The Hardball Times -- Sal Baxamusa

The Hardball Times -- Sal Baxamusa http://www.hardballtimes.com/main Baseball. Insight. Daily. en studes@hardballtimes.com Copyright 2013 2013-05-24T08:08:15+00:00 Know your no-nos http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/know-your-no-nos/ http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/know-your-no-nos/#When:08:45:15 Ubaldo Jimenez's no-hitter a few weeks ago? At what point did you begin to think that he could actually do it? In the third inning? Fifth? Seventh? Every game starts as a no-hitter. If you're ESPN or MLB Network, when do you start giving live updates? If you're flipping through games on Extra Innings, when should you put the clicker down?

The following plot shows the probability of a team recording its first hit as a function of inning. The red dots are data culled from the roughly 14,600 MLB team games from 2007-2009, and the black line is a simple statistical model. The model is grounded in basic probability: The probability that the Nth hitter records a team's first hit (treating walks, HBP, errors, etc. as non-events) is

PROB = (AVG)x(1-AVG)^(N-1)

where AVG is a composite batting average. I used .265, the MLB batting average from 2007-2009. You can see that the model matches the reality pretty well.

A team recorded its first hit after "zero" innings (eg, the leadoff batter gets a hit) about 27 percent of the time, a tick higher than the league batting average. The fourth batter got a hit after the first three failed about 10.9 percent of the time; the model predicts 10.5 percent.

Something interesting happens around the fifth and sixth innings (zoomed in view below). The data points do not drop as rapidly as the model, suggesting that maintaining a no-hitter the third time through the batting order is a tough hurdle for pitchers looking to make history.

Another way of asking the question is: In what percentage of games is a team held hitless for X innings? That's what the next plot shows:

A team records its first hit within the first inning 60 percent of the time. After 2.1 innings, 90 percent of teams record their first hit. And 99 percent of the time, a team picks up its first hit within the first five innings. Five no-hit innings is a 1-in-100 kind of feat.

But no-hitters are super rare. Rare like The Last Unicorn rare. The model suggests that the chance of a no-hit inning is about 40 percent. That means that sustaining a no-hitter for nine innings has only a .025 percent chance of happening, roughly once every 4,000 games. Strangely, the model predicts that we should have seen three or four no-hitters over the last three years. We've seen eight. And the funny thing is that the model works pretty well until the last out. Is there something magical about that last out? Is there really a difference between having no-hit stuff and near no-hit stuff? Do fielders concentrate extra hard on the last out when the no-hitter is at stake? (Given the sample size, it is probably a statistical fluke. But that is a boring answer.)

Let's split the difference and say that we should have seen about six no-hitters in the last three years. That's .04 percent of all the games played over that time. Using the simple model, .08 percent of teams record their first hit after outs 19 and 20, roughly speaking. So, if a pitcher takes a no-hitter a few outs into the seventh inning, he has about a 50 percent of chance of completing the feat. Whether you choose to invest your emotional energy in rooting for a no-hitter before then is up to you.

Click here to learn about THT's download subscriptions.]]> Sal Baxamusa 2010-05-03T08:45:15+00:00 Five questions: Oakland Athletics http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/five-questions-oakland-athletics4/ http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/five-questions-oakland-athletics4/#When:10:30:15

Great bullpen, or greatest bullpen?

Great performances on bad teams are rarely appreciated, so it would be a shame if the A's bullpen were overlooked again this year.

The relief corps last year accounted for somewhere between six and seven wins, by far the best in the majors (the Yankees were around five wins and everybody else was less than four). For a team that stunk so badly last year, the bullpen was truly outstanding. The core of the bullpen—Rookie of the Year Andrew Bailey, Brad Ziegler, Craig Breslow, and Mike Wuertz—is returning this year, and a post-Tommy John Joey Devine will be thrown into the mix. Nobody is expecting these guys to put up a collective 3.35 FIP again, but these are some seriously talented relievers. I'm not positive, but I'm fairly certain the A's are projected to have the best bullpen in the American League, probably around four and a half or five wins.

The IQ on the mound exceeds the combined IQ in the huddle. (Icon/SMI)

They're a fun bunch, too. Bailey is the fire-breathing failed starter let loose in the bullpen. Ziegler is the submarining deception artist. Breslow is the intellectual. Wuertz is just some dude until he unleashes the best slider in the majors. The A's have tons of questions in the rotation—Ben Sheets, Dallas Braden and Justin Duchscherer are coming off major injuries—but if they can get the game to the bullpen, this group will close it out.

If they're not all injured. Which, apparently, can happen very quickly—in one day last week, Devine, Breslow, Wuertz and Bailey were all injured.

Who's going to be your boy this year?

Every year, an Athletic is designated "my boy." When "my boy" does something even marginally good, like reach base on an error, I run around the house screaming "That's my boy!" It reconfirms to my wife that despite my advanced degree, mature parenting, and calm-but-strong leadership of the househould, I am actually a grade-A buffoon.

I've had some pretty embarassing choices in years past—Esteban Loaiza was a disaster of the highest order—but I did well in choosing Braden and his 3.73 FIP last year. So which player will reduce me to sheer idiocy this year? This year, I am going with Daric Barton. Did you know that Barton had laser eye surgery and is being more selective at the plate? Why, it's almost as if he were in the best shape of his life! There's no way he won't come on like gangbusters!

Due to veteran deference, poor roster management, and perhaps a vain attempt at contention, it's possible that the A's do something bizarre like platoon Eric Chavez and Jake Fox at first base. That would be foolish, however, since it would require optioning Barton back to Triple-A. With super-prospect Chris Carter rocketing through the system, this is the year for the A's to see what kind of hitter they have in Barton. If he's the .400 OBP/40 doubles machine that everybody thought he was a few years ago, then maybe the A's have to see if Carter can fake a passable left field. The likelihood that Barton is the kind of player that forces a top-15 prospect into a position change is slim. But it's worth finding out, since Carter-as-firstbaseman renders Barton wholly redundant.

Come on, Barton. You're my boy!

Shouldn't the A's have extended Miguel Tejada instead of Eric Chavez?

The next person who says the A's should have kept Miguel Tejada over Eric Chavez is going to get a severe poke in the eye from yours truly. I am not inclined to rehash that silly discussion. Nor am I in any mood to discuss in detail the delicate interplay between Chavez's health and the A's 25-man roster.

It suffices to say that the A's stand to lose a useful player on waivers—maybe Jake Fox, maybe Eric Patterson—if they include Chavez on the roster as a utility infielder. Chavez is unlikely to contribute much with the bat or the glove and he's going to get hurt soon anyway. What's best for the team is the failed comeback of my favorite player. I find this position so untenable that I prefer to ignore this ugly reality rather than confront it.

I'm not going expend emotional energy hoping for Beulah to reunite and stage a comeback tour, but that doesn't mean that I can't still enjoy Emma Blowgun's Last Stand. In the same vein, there's no harm in reflecting on Chavez's career.

This is how I choose to remember Eric Chavez (Icon/SMI)

At the close of 2005 season, Chavez had picked up five consecutive Gold Gloves, consistently hit for a 120-130 OPS+, and had missed significant time only due to an injury sustained on a hit-by-pitch. With normal aging and reasonable health, he would have finished his career as one of the top five position players in Oakland history and even had an outside shot at the Hall of Fame.

Then, everything fell apart. His back, shoulder, butt and hamstrings all exploded; superstar body parts were scattered all over the disabled list. There was rehab and surgery and whispers of retirement. Chavez managed to keep things together long enough to put together a nice 2006 season, but he has been an unmitigated disaster since then. Chavez and his comebacks have turned into something of a running gag, and while I can't fault the professional snark peddlers, it's worth remembering just how good Chavez was when he was on. For that bit of reminiscing, I turn to one of my favorite bloggers, erstwhile proprietor of Catfish Stew Ken Arneson:

The latest jaw-dropper took place last night. With one out, runners on second and third, and Texas one run down, Chavez took a chopper near the bag, and quickly tagged out Mark DeRosa trying to return to third base. Now, I can't ever remember seeing a 5-unassisted at third base like that before, but Chavez didn't stop there. After tagging out DeRosa, he jumped over him into foul territory, planted his feet, and fired across the diamond to throw out the batter, Ian Kinsler. Double play, inning over.

Mouth agape.

What can you say after a play like that? Only two words come to mind.

"Time machine"?

Is Ryan Sweeney better than Jacoby Ellsbury?

No, but it's closer than you think. Over the last two years, Ryan Sweeney has a wOBA of .328 and .330. Jacoby Ellsbury of the Boston Red Sox is at .333 and .354. But wait! Ellsbury plays in a great hitter's park; Sweeney, not so much. Their park- and team-adjusted linear weights over the last two years, according to Sean Smith's Baseball Projection, are 4.3 runs/700 PA for Sweeney and -3.3 runs/700 PA for Ellsbury. Put it all together and throw in some regression and Ellsbury and Sweeney have similar values as hitters. Indeed, both the THT forecasts and CHONE project them to be almost identical hitters in 2010.

The defensive numbers say that Sweeney is slightly above average fielder in center field and well above-average in the corners. The opinion on Ellsbury is mixed; he's had stellar seasons and he's had awful seasons, depending on the year and the defensive metric. Sweeney's got a good arm; Ellsbury doesn't. Tango's Fan Scouting report suggests they are rough equals in the field. I buy that.

So Sweeney and Ellsbury are pretty much the same player, except for two important differences. First, Ellsbury is massively better on the bases, perhaps by as much as one win. This gives him additional value afield that Sweeney will likely never match. Second—and I'll bet you'd never guess this—Sweeney is a year-and-a-half younger than Ellsbury. I have this image in my head as Ellsbury as some young buck, but he turned 26 last season. On the other hand, Sweeney seems like a failed prospect trying to build a second life for himself as a role player. He just turned 25.

That doesn't make Sweeney a better player than Ellsbury, nor am I suggesting that he will be in the future. But Sweeney and Ellsbury are basically the same player at the plate and in the field. And Sweeney's youth (and build—this guy could sell jeans) suggests that he might have room to grow. His swing, which was defnitely not built for power, doesn't make me optimistic, but he's still just a kid.

So what was the point of my comparison? I'm not really sure. But you know what? Ryan Sweeney is better than you think he is.

Will the A's make the playoffs?

It's possible, but they're far from the favorites. The AL West is going to be close this year. Texas and Anaheim are probably 85-90 win teams, Seattle between 83-88, and Oakland just a tick behind. That's close enough that unexpectedly good performances—c'mon Barton, you're my boy!—and just plain dumb luck can drag any team to the top. Oakland is an interesting case, though. If the A's are playing well enough to challenge for the division—an unlikely but not ridiculous hypothetical—there is a good chance that the team playing down the stretch is not the team that is projected to be around .500 at this moment.

Why? Because if the A's are contending late into the season, it will almost certainly be because Sheets is healthy and ace-like, the only anxiety surrounding Duchscherer is that of opposing batters, and players not on the Opening Day roster are making key contributions. In other words, if the A's are playing well late in the year, they will be a 85-90 win true talent team. To some extent, this is true for many teams. But I imagine this effect is greater for the A's given the injured pitchers with the potential for high-end performance and the star prospects waiting in the minor leagues.

Click here to learn about THT's download subscriptions.]]> Sal Baxamusa 2010-03-22T10:30:15+00:00 State of sabermetrics: Insights from the 2010 Sloan Sports Analytics Conference http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/state-of-sabermetrics-insights-from-the-2010-sloan-sports-analytics-confere/ http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/state-of-sabermetrics-insights-from-the-2010-sloan-sports-analytics-confere/#When:10:30:15 Mark Cuban.

Most of you probably know that Mark Cuban is the brash billionaire owner of the Dallas Mavericks. Kevin Kelley is just a high school football coach from Little Rock, Ark. He has become something of a minor celebrity since he adopted a punt-free approach to football offense and led Pulaski Academy High School to multiple state titles. On the surface it might seem a little gimmicky. I disagree. He didn't just look at the numbers; he was willing to follow them to their logical conclusion. He is one of the important innovators in North American sports of the last ten years.

The numbers tell Kevin Kelley to go for it on fourth down, so he does. Photo credit: John Marcus, MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference.

Don't believe me? At the 2010 MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, held last weekend in Boston, Kelley was featured on a panel alongside Avery Johnson, Buck Showalter, and Nate Silver. And with plenty of sports brainpower on stage, it was Kelley who made the most important statement. After an hour-long panel discussion on the influence of analytics on coaches, a conference attendee asked if there was a method of presentation that made them more receptive to analytics. Showalter and Johnson, two very strong personalities and master showmen, dominated the conversation. Kelley, barely managing to get a word in edgewise, said, "It's not just the method in which it's said, it's who says it."

Why won't anyone listen to the stathead?

Well, fellow statheads, that's just it, isn't it? We can bang the WAR drum all day. We can refine our PITCHf/x studies until we find the one pitch that even Pujols can't hit. We can play all the fancy analytical tricks we want. But when it comes to using these analytics, teams have to do more than just hire a few quants to sit under the stadium and code all day. Lots of teams have lots of good sabermetricians working for them. A decent number of teams have analytically minded general managers. But in talking with and hearing from various front office personnel, one recurring theme kept coming back: integrating serious, rigorous sabermetric thinking into a formalized decision-making framework is hard.

John Dewan, of Baseball Info Solutions and pioneer of fielding statistics, said that his organization meets with lots of baseball teams, not just the sabermetric-friendly ones. He was candid in his assessment that some teams that he speaks with don't understand how to effectively use the defensive data that's available. John Abbamondi, the assistant GM of the St. Louis Cardinals, gave an example of a colleague who wanted platoon splits for relief pitchers over a one-week period—data with such small sample sizes so as to be rendered irrelevant as a predictive tool.

These are smart people, and you can hear it in the language they use. Abbamondi views vesting options on player contracts as an arbitrage opportunity. Tom Tippett, director of baseball information services for the Red Sox, produced the world's best baseball simulator when he built Diamond Mind. Shiraz Rehman, director of baseball operations for the Arizona Diamondbacks, even dropped a Black-Scholes reference on the audience. But it's not enough to be a smart person, even in an organization receptive to these ideas. The whole culture of an organization has to immerse itself not just in the latest and greatest stats, but in the rigorous processes that precede them. It was the otherwise unimpressive panelist Dan Duquette (the former Red Sox GM) who told the audience, "Teams that have effective decision-making processes are the ones that are at the top of the division." It sounds obvious, but as a sabermetric conceit, it's hard to say that it has been successfully implemented in all but a few major league organizations.

Buck Showalter, haunted by the trophies of the teams that followed his. Photo credit: John Marcus, MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference.

Showalter paid lip service to the goal of successfully blending scouting observation with statistical innovation. But he delighted in telling the anecdote of the analysts who suggested that Nelson Cruz be placed in center field. Showalter obliged but predicted defensive disaster, and after a miserable two games in center (as Showalter told the story), the analysts came back with their tails between their legs. In this particular instance, it's quite possible that the analysts were dead wrong and Showalter correct (despite a sample size of two games). And I'm not going to blame Showalter—who is not only human but by my account is a terrific person in my short interaction with him—for feeling vindicated. But his story highlights the nature of the problem: The decision makers need to be convinced, and the people convincing them are bright but they are not in a position of real authority.

Worse still, GMs are fired, assistants are promoted, analysts come and go. There's organizational turnover, especially in an industry where teams will make a change just to say they made a change. The organizational culture can't come from a GM, no matter what kind of fiefdom he has the freedom to run in the baseball operations department. What teams need is something like The Dodger Way for their management.

Which brings me back to Mark Cuban and Kevin Kelley. Kelley, the high school football coach, noted that it's not what the geeks say, or even how they say it, but who they are. And Mark Cuban, to my mind, is the first true stathead owner in North American sports. His approach to thinking about basketball is couched in the analytical approach (one gets the feeling that if his entrepreneurial ventures hadn't been successful, he'd be sitting in his mother's basement blogging about sports like the rest of us losers).

Maybe baseball analysis really is dead

I derided Gary Huckabay's proclamation that "baseball analysis is dead." On its face, it is simply untrue. But one-liners aside, his true message referred to the state of baseball analysis within major league organizations. Quoth Huckabay:

That means that if you want to change something within an organization, you need to make the case. And making the case means showing a compelling reason why the organization should commit to some investment, or overhauling some existing process. The bar for ‘compelling’ in that sentence is usually set extremely high. ... They need to develop a culture receptive to adopting the changes implied by this newfound wisdom."

There are many ways to make that happen, but the simplest, and likely the most effective, way that I can think of for baseball analytics is to have a stathead buy a team. That's why the prospect of having Cuban purchase a major league team should excite statheads. (Cuban, to his credit, stated that the Pirates were not put on sale because there is no financial disincentive to losing games in MLB, as there is in the NBA.) I think the orthodoxy suggesting that owners should be check-writing vehicles for the real brains in the baseball operations department is incorrect. Daryl Morey, conference chair and unabashed stathead GM of the Houston Rockets ("we don't make any decisions based on the belief in clutch"), said that an active owner is a good owner, and that a franchise with an absentee owner is going to have a harder time being successful. I agree, given the caveat that the owner should be dedicated to sound and rigorous decision-making as an organization.

Somebody give this man a baseball team. Photo credit: John Marcus, MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference.

The process can show up directly on the field. If there is an organizational buy-in, from the owner all they way on down, on the importance of understanding leverage when deciding when to bring in your bullpen ace, I imagine (hope?) there would be a lot less kvetching from relief pitchers about their inability to perform when they "don't know their roles."

Okay, so maybe it's asking a lot for a stathead to buy a team. The fabulous wealth that Tom Tango generated from sales of The Book won't make him the winning bidder for a Montreal-based expansion franchise anytime soon. But it is fitting that the Sports Analytics Conference was hosted by a management school, because it is poor management, and not poor analytics, that prevents baseball teams from making sabermetrically sound decisions.

The frontiers of baseball analysis

So where can proper management of analytics make a difference? Rob Neyer, moderator of the baseball analytics panel, posed a direct question to the participants: What is something that you don't know that you want to know? Tippett nailed it when he said, "We want to get career tracks on players on an individual basis." (In fairness, he first snarked that he wanted to know how to prevent the Yankees from ever winning a World Series.) I would take the liberty to make it even more specific: Given a pool of minor leaguers or even college players, can you identify which ones will produce at a star level in their pre-arbitration years and return huge surplus value to their teams?

It sounds almost too simplistic, but lots of the cutting-edge analytical work that is being done contributes to this goal. PITCHf/x is a great tool for putting a quantitative slant on traditional scouting. The real breakthrough will come when we can use PITCHf/x to tease out the good young pitchers from the future great ones. A similar argument could be made for a rigorous injury-analysis, prevention, and treatment program.

A recurring theme at the conference was that teams wanted an organized way to understand player psychology—in scoutspeak, "desire" or "make-up." That goes directly to the heart of understanding career tracks of individual athletes. Abbamondi noted that when a player's make-up is "off the charts," then it is time to get a bigger chart. As it stands, a player can get a bad rap—a Milo hung around him, as in Moneyball—simply by how many yessirs and nosirs he gives to an amateur scout. Rehman agreed.

Bill Polian, president of the Indianapolis Colts, succinctly organized the task on three levels: One, isolate the characteristics that are unique to your sport and your organization; two, nurture those characteristics in young athletes as they mature from post-adolescents to adults; and three, improve any identified deficiencies in your athletes through coaching and training. Morey, Cuban, and Patriots executive Jonathan Kraft echoed the sentiment to varying degrees, and Cuban mentioned that the Mavericks have an organizational system in place for psychological testing and evaluation that he believes is way ahead of the NBA curve.

Psychology isn't the first thing that comes to mind when you think of advanced analytics. Indeed, "heart," "grit," and "determination" are snark targets among the sabermetric set. And at the major league level, that may be partly true. There is a huge selection bias for major league psychology—all major league players must have a minimum level of "heart" in order to parlay their talent into a major league career, and the spread in desire-as-talent is likely small. But the real value lies is in understanding and predicting which young or amateur players are going to turn into stars, and it's not out of the question that psychological talent hasn't been selected for at that level.

Maybe it is just random, and there is no way to increase your odds. But dollar for dollar, pouring resources into finding out is quite likely a better use of resources than, say, bringing the error bars on fielding metrics down from +/-5 to +/- 1. In the latter case, the marginal improvement is a couple of million dollars. In the former case, the marginal improvement is tens or perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars in surplus value.

Out of the basement, into the office

So I left the conference feeling both re-energized and depressed about baseball analytics. There is a lot to be done, but I am not certain that today's practitioners of sabermetrics are the ones who will do it. The innovations of the last 30 years were driven by maverick researchers, working alone or in small groups and inventing and re-inventing the framework of baseball analytics. These are the hard-working and bright writers and analysts that populate this and other popular sabermetric websites. Front-office analysts with whom I spoke last weekend were confident that their internal metrics were better than the freely available ones of the sabermetric community, perhaps because of better data or better methodologies. But the differences can be only marginal at best. The online sabermetric community is indeed the foundry for the analytics in modern baseball front offices. (Why else do they hire our best analysts?)

The future of analytical innovation in baseball, in my opinion, is going to move away from basement bloggers to the teams themselves, or companies founded specifically to consult teams on these issues. Industry events like the Sloan Sports Analytics Conference are going to be the germ for such analyses. MLB teams are far better equipped to deal with issues of mental and physical health than the amateurs, both in terms of competency and ability to invest intellectual and financial resources.

Understanding and predicting the career trajectories of individual players, if possible, is going to happen at a team level. As Morey put it, "If you can figure this out, I have a job waiting for you." In other words, don't expect the next revolution to happen at THT. Don't expect Michael Lewis to write a best-seller about it. Teams are going to clamp down on it and protect their competitive advantage as best they can.

Just hope that your team that figures it out first.

Click here to learn about THT's download subscriptions.]]> Sal Baxamusa 2010-03-11T10:30:15+00:00 Five Questions: Oakland Athletics http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/five-questions-oakland-athletics3/ http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/five-questions-oakland-athletics3/#When:05:06:15

We'll see if Oakland fans are so forgiving (Icon/SMI)

Who's going to be "your boy" this year?

Every year, I dub an Oakland Athletic "my boy." Whenever that player does something good, I run around the house screaming like an idiot, "That's my boy!" Past recipients of this dubious honor have been Bobby Crosby, Nick Swisher, Chad Gaudin, and—most embarassingly—Esteban Loaiza. My track record may not be great, but in sabermetrics it is the process that matters more than the result. Soldier on, I must!

This year, my boy is going to be Dallas Braden. Despite having been on the radar seemingly forever, Braden is only 25 years old. Over the last two years, he has struck out well over a batter per inning at Triple-A while walking about 2.2 batters per nine. His stuff is dubious, except for a mysterious screwball that he may or may not throw, but he deserves a shot at the rotation. He'll likely get one this year, and while he's not an All-Star, he could be worth up to two wins if he starts full-time. Getting that type of production from your non-prospects means not having to overpay for a guy like Oliver Perez.

Are the A's collecting the 2002 All-Star team?

If so, Jason Giambi and Nomar Garciaparra are a nice start. Oakland also made an ultimately unsuccessful play for Randy Johnson.

Remember when plugging holes with declining veterans was sabermetric anathema? Times have changed. Three or four years ago, multi-year deals for a guy like Jason Giambi would have been the norm. Think of the contracts that Jay Payton and Kevin Millar got. One-year contracts mitigate a lot of the risks involved with veteran gambits.

For the A's, Garciaparra is a non-Hannahanian hedge against the never-quite-right Eric Chavez. Orlando Cabrera, while nothing special, won't tilt the scales at zero wins above replacement, which once-and-future-MVP Bobby Crosby is liable to do. The A's, hoping to compete this year while they have Matt Holliday under contract, are doing the right thing. The downside is that, come next offseason, the A's will again be scrambling for solutions on the left side of the infield.

Has Jason Giambi ever been to Oakland?

The Giambi signing makes a little less sense. Daric Barton isn't nearly the hitter Giambi is, but there's a decently-sized defensive gap. I wasn't a fan of the Giambi signing initially, considering it a lateral move at best, but I'm starting to come around. A little time at Triple-A could do Barton some good, and it's not likely that Giambi and Travis Buck are going to be healthy all the time anyhow. Barton will get a chance to contribute this year, and the Giambi signing is more about depth for the inevitable rash of injuries than it is an end to Barton's Oakland career.

And Giambi gets to follow in the footsteps of Mike Piazza and Frank Thomas, two other late-career sluggers the A's signed in the past few years. But Giambi is also very different than those two because of his previous history in Oakland. He was the central figure on the early-decade Oakland juggernauts. No Oakland fan will forget his walk-off homer against Mike Stanton, capping a late-August sweep of the dreaded Yankees and putting the exclamation mark on an 11-game winning streak. Giambi was supposed to the lead the A's to the promised land, past the Yankees, and into the World Series. Instead, he signed with the enemy. He went on Letterman and said bad things about Oakland. He was booed mercilessly in Oakland. I was there. I booed, too.

There's a certain bit of karmic retribution, then, to have Giambi come back to Oakland, ringless as the day he left for New York. Get on the field and earn your way back into my heart, G.

Do the A's seriously think they can catch the Angels?

They do, and they're not crazy to think so. The answer has little to do with the individual team rosters. Excuse me for a minute while I totally geek out.

Teams have some level of true talent, and analysts try to determine what that talent is. That true talent could be dynamic. That true talent might be calculated exactly by BaseRuns and Pythagoras, or it might be hard to know because a team has the clutchiest players who ever did clutch. It doesn't really matter how a team wins game, as long as we recognize that some teams are better at it than others.

When we look past the homers, the drama, and—yes—the fun, the baseball season is just a collection of weighted coin tosses. In any given 162-game trial, a 90-win team could win 90 times, and on average it will. But sometimes it will win 95 or 100 games, or maybe only 85. If a 90-win team wins only 85 games it doesn't mean that it is unlucky or unclutch. It just is, and it's something that a lot of baseball fans have a hard time accepting. By the same token, an inferior team—say, an 81-win team—can win 90 games in a 162-game trial.

So, there's a possbility that a .500 team out-wins a .550 team over the course of a season. How likely is it? I worked this problem out a few years ago, and I'll spare you the details, but the answer is about 1-in-6.

Are the Angels a better team than the A's? Probably. How much? That's up for debate. A reasonable estimate is that the A's are between four and six games worse than their rivals to the north. In that case, the A's stand about a 30 percent chance of winning the division.

Maybe you think all the numbers make me a killjoy. I beg to differ. The numbers show that, even when one team is clearly better, there's still a pretty good chance that we get the unexpected result. When teams are within a few games of each other, we've officially entered too-close-to-call territory. And, to me at least, that's what makes it so much fun.

Click here to learn about THT's download subscriptions.]]> Sal Baxamusa 2009-03-18T05:06:15+00:00 Dorkapalooza 2009: The sports analytics conference at MIT http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/dorkapalooza-2009-the-sports-analytics-conference-at-mit/ http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/dorkapalooza-2009-the-sports-analytics-conference-at-mit/#When:06:00:15

Statheads never gave Tim Purpura much credit, but maybe they should have (Icon/SMI)

Every year, MIT's Sloan School of Business holds a sports analytics conference. This year, there were over 450 attendees and 50 media outlets, including The Hardball Times. The conference brings analytics and fact-driven decision-making to the world of sports. Or, in the words of ESPN writer Bill Simmons, it's a complete dorkapalooza. But the melding of the dork minds from across sports made for some interesting discussions at the conference, which was held last Saturday, Mar. 7, at MIT.

How do you measure success?

"It's not good enough to beat the market index, you have to be better than everyone else."
— Daryl Morey, general manager of the Houston Rockets

That's just it, isn't it? When building a team, whether in baseball or otherwise, the goal is to win a championship. I'm sympathetic to the view that the playoffs are a crapshoot, but hearing a general manager state his goal unequivocally makes you realize that building a sports team is more like managing a hedge fund than a mutual fund. The bottom line isn't just winning; it's being better than every other team. It underlies the whole risk calculus of team building.

"You better deliver something other than a promise of winning. You can win with a bunch of no-name players, but you won't maximize your potential revenue."
—Brian Burke, general manager of the Toronto Maple Leafs

On the flip side, sports is an entertainment venture. It's all about the Benjamins. Speaking on a panel discussing the fan experience, Burke's comments centered around the theme that his job is to entertain consumers of the Maple Leafs. He understands that he's competing with vacations, new cars, and the Canadian Football League. To that end, he believes that marquee and high-skill players have intrinsic value, and that contact and fighting on the ice will encourage fans to come back for more.

There's a school of thought that winning drives attendance. It's a position that I, and I suspect many of you, take. But I'm a hardcore baseball fan and I can't understand why anybody wouldn't come out to support the local nine if they're winning ballgames. My stake as a fan is to share in a team's glory as they win.

But not every fan is like me. There are lots of ways to consume sports. Burke said that his job was to not only get a hardcore fan into the arena, but that fan's grandmother and boss as well. Burke suggested that over the long-term, every team was going to be about .500 anyway. Whether you think that's defeatist, self-fulfilling, or just the nature of the beast, building an entertaining brand to get a team through the lean times was part of his message.

When I was a kid, the Golden State Warriors were never more than a mediocre team. But they were an exciting bunch, and my dad kept taking me to games. Sure they'd lose all the time, but they'd score 120 points while doing so. Burke's a smart, successful guy—maybe he's onto something.

...and I'd like to pay $8 for that beer

"I have a 50-inch plasma TV at home"
—Bill Simmons, ESPN writer

Simmons served as the "voice of the fan" on the fan experience panel. Predictably, he complained about ticket prices. Who would pay money to go to the stadium when he could get better angles, better replays, cheaper beer, and access to email in their living room? It's a fair point, but teams are still selling tickets. So what keeps fans coming back?

Mark Donovan, senior vice president of business operations for the Philadelphia Eagles, defined what he calls "points of contact." From the time you leave your house to the time you return, his job is to make sure that you connect with the team and want to come back. It can as simple as the usher high-fiving you on the way out, or as complex as installing the most advanced HDTV displays in the stadium even at the expense of premium seating.

Burke, building on his earlier theme, gave several examples of ways to connect with fans that might seem bizarre to males 18-35 demographic. In his opinion, "Ob-la-di Ob-la-da" was the worst song ever written and recorded (it isn't; that distinction belongs to "We Built This City"). But it is frequently heard at venues because studies show that fans connect with the song. I guess the baseball equivalent would be Boston's tradition of playing "Sweet Caroline" during every home game despite the song's pedophilic undertones. In-venue voting via fan text messaging has nothing to do with the game, but fans enjoy it. The ridiculous polar bear mascot that the Leafs trot out has value to kids and families.

Donovan summed it up nicely when he said that "Our fans tell our story." The fan experience revolves around making sure that fans tell the right story. I exchange my stories on blogs with other hardcore fans. But word-of-mouth is still a powerful marketing force, especially among casual fans. I find "Sweet Caroline" annoying, but its continued use and integration into the "Fenway Experience" tells me that somebody is doing their job right.

Baseball analysis is dead

"Most of the actions suggested by rigorous analysis that haven’t already been adopted are difficult to sell to a skeptical audience, and inertia usually wins the day."
—Gary Huckabay, in a 2007 commentary published at Baseball Prospectus, famously proclaiming "baseball analysis is dead."

I have no doubt that even the most traditional organization will one day have a small army of quants analyzing their every move. The sabermetric sales pitch to front offices will have to be successful, because front-office personnel are coming from walks of life where a data-driven approach is the norm. Shiraz Rehman, director of baseball operations for the Arizona Diamondbacks, was a commodities trader and financial consultant in his previous life. As a panelist on the baseball analytics discussion, he said that the Diamondbacks have a database with information and video clips of every pitch thrown. They query this database not only for evaluative purposes, but also for advance scouting and game planning. Almost every team uses a similar system.

But can sabermetrics be used to improve the performance of players? That's a much tougher pitch. Tim Purpura, former GM of the Houston Astros, was never known as a sabermetric darling, but he made most of the most important comments of the day. He said that the Astros developed metrics to demonstrate to pitchers the importance of getting ahead in the count. They used it as a way to educate players about their own performance. It would take a special seamhead—or ballplayer!—to convince an athlete to change the approach that brought him to the top of his profession. Credit Purpura for being willing to use data not only to inform his own decisions, but to help his players reach their full potential. Yes, it was something as simple as pitching ahead in the count. But if you're going to bring the data directly to the players, you've got to start somewhere.

The Fielding Bible's John Dewan, the moderator of the panel, asked the panelists what they thought of the defensive shift used against pull-happy lefties. Rehman said that the Diamondbacks were very aggressive with using the shift, and that manager Bob Melvin was very receptive to the data suggesting its use. He said that the team occasionally took a hit with the local media for employing it so frequently, but that it was worth it over the long-run.

Baseball Musings blogger David Pinto said that the effectiveness of the shift at neutralizing lefthanders suggested that more hitters should attempt to dunk or bunt the ball the other way. Rehman was not optimistic, saying that for players it was a buy-in and ego issue that may not be worth broaching. He made a good point: how do you convince a slugger to dunk the ball the other way rather than rip a 400-foot bomb to right?

A few other tidbits from Rehman:

{exp:list_maker}He said that a greater understanding of replacement level and the talent available in the minor leagues helped drive the decrease in the value for contracts to veterans.
The Diamondbacks use analytics as a way to value players, but that they had no large scale effort to evaluate the effects of leadership or team chemistry.
My scientist's heart melted when he said that the objective process is just as important as the analysis itself. {/exp:list_maker}
Christina Kahrl of Baseball Prospectus mentioned that they had had finally updated their definition of replacement level and added a play-by-play defensive metric. It was nice to hear that Baseball Prospectus had responded to the constructive criticism offered by the sabermetric community over the last few years.

Basketball analysis is alive

Should this man be holding a baseball instead? (Icon/SMI)

"I code a lot in R"
—Mike Zarren, assistant executive director of basketball operations, Boston Celtics

That might scare a lot of would-be employees of basketball teams, but it got a very warm reception at MIT. The growth of basketball analysis has been completely unlike baseball analysis. In baseball, it took decades for front offices to realize the value of analytics. In basketball, teams are snapping up analysts before any of the good stuff gets out to the public. That's great for teams, but bad for statheads.

Zarren, Morey, and Denver Nuggets director of quantitative analysis Dean Oliver were all extremely circumspect in discussing their teams' use of analytics. ESPN columnist John Hollinger was surprised that teams didn't pool their resources, but none of the team employees seemed very receptive to that idea. Morey wouldn't even reveal how many analysts he had on his staff.

The most talkative of the panelists was Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban. That may not surprise ... well, anybody, but Cuban didn't open his mouth just to talk. Even when debating Hollinger on the merits of the now-infamous Devin Harris for Jason Kidd trade, Cuban was reasoned, analytical, and quantitative; he used terms like "assigning weighted probabilities" and "portfolio management." He might be North America's first stathead franchise owner.

I really hope that the fraternity of MLB owners lets this guy buy a team one day. It's clear that he loves to win and that he'll look at novel ways to help his team do that. Among his (many) comments:

{exp:list_maker}The least valuable data in basketball is the boxscore data. The Mavericks have to track and capture their own data. I'll note that this is in contrast to baseball, where boxscore data from a century ago can be translated to a variety of advanced metrics.
The Wages of Wins has the dumbest data he's ever heard.
The NBA needs video experts who can automatically read, interpret, and capture elements.
The Mavericks use a +/- system that is extremely similar to Tom Tango's WOWY analysis.
Basketball teams are most profitable when they're rebuilding, and the marginal value of a win in basketball is about half a million dollars.
There are thirteen guys on the court at any time, and three of them have 80 percent of the influence. The audience, familiar with his frequent criticism of officiating, roared. {/exp:list_maker}
The highlight of the discussion was when Cuban mentioned that they don't share any of their information with other clubs. Without missing a beat, Morey said that Cuban was always willing to share his referee ratings. The crowd loved it.

Until next year

My first year covering the conference, David Pinto attended on a press pass. This year, he was a panelist. It speaks volumes about the growing influence of analytics and the power of the online sabermetric community. Teams across all sports have been getting smarter about their decision-making. Events like the Sloan Sports Conference make sure that the trend will continue.

Click here to learn about THT's download subscriptions.]]> Sal Baxamusa 2009-03-09T06:00:15+00:00 BJ Upton’s sizzling postseason http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/blog_article/bj-uptons-sizzling-postseason/ http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/blog_article/bj-uptons-sizzling-postseason/#When:12:46:15
Click here to learn about THT's download subscriptions.]]> Sal Baxamusa 2008-10-15T12:46:15+00:00 The Red Sox have the best offense of any AL playoff team http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/blog_article/the-red-sox-have-the-best-offense-of-any-al-playoff-team/ http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/blog_article/the-red-sox-have-the-best-offense-of-any-al-playoff-team/#When:01:55:15
Click here to learn about THT's download subscriptions.]]> Sal Baxamusa 2008-10-01T01:55:15+00:00 The Dodgers have the best offense of any NL playoff team http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/blog_article/the-dodgers-have-the-best-offense-of-any-nl-playoff-team/ http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/blog_article/the-dodgers-have-the-best-offense-of-any-nl-playoff-team/#When:01:52:15
Click here to learn about THT's download subscriptions.]]> Sal Baxamusa 2008-09-30T01:52:15+00:00 6th Annual Fan Scouting Report http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/blog_article/6th-annual-fan-scouting-report/ http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/blog_article/6th-annual-fan-scouting-report/#When:12:00:15
Click here to learn about THT's download subscriptions.]]> Sal Baxamusa 2008-08-20T12:00:15+00:00 Projections now updated every week at THT http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/blog_article/projections-now-updated-every-week-at-tht/ http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/blog_article/projections-now-updated-every-week-at-tht/#When:23:20:15
Click here to learn about THT's download subscriptions.]]> Sal Baxamusa 2008-08-03T23:20:15+00:00