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From: tom dunne on 1 Jun 2007 13:59 John Kasupski wrote: > On Fri, 01 Jun 2007 09:54:49 -0400, David Short > <David.no.Short(a)Spam.Wright.Please.edu> wrote: > >> coachrose13(a)hotmail.com wrote: >>> On May 31, 6:02 pm, Ron Johnson <john...(a)ccrs.nrcan.gc.ca> wrote: >>>> Put simply, if Ks were important in modelling team runs >>>> scored, our models wouldn't work. There's no room for >>>> Ks to matter more than a couple of runs per team per >>>> year. >>> MODELING??? I thought teams were actually trying to score runs. K's >>> only cost a team a couple of runs a year, huh? Stay with your fanasty >>> league all you want; I'll watch real baseball where it is ALWAYS more >>> important to put the ball in play than not. >> This is one of the fundamental chasm's that sabremetrics cannot cross. >> >> There are people who do not believe in math. They do not understand it. >> They don't know what it does. When the math doesn't fit what they think >> they know, it MUST be the math is wrong. > > Would you pay $250 for a seat in the Diamond section at GABP to watch > guys in three-piece suits sit down in front of tables with computers > on them and run numbers through Excel to determine which team wins the > championship every year? > > That's basically what fantasy baseball is about. > > In the real world, that's not what baseball is about at all. > > One of the things by which people are going to test sabermetrics is > whether or not it agrees with reality. Which is a good test. In fact, > Grabiner even says so in his manifesto. > > The reality in real-world baseball is that on each and every day when > a game is played, each team has an opportunity to win a game that day. > There's no guarantee that he team that math determines to be the > better team is going to win any particular game. And at the end of the > season, the teams that have won the most games in each division make > the playoffs, along with the non-division winning team with the most > wins. That's the reality. Like it or not, ultimately the only thing > that really counts is the number under W in the standings. > > This is why I'm with coachrose13 on this one. A lot of what Saber > works with sounds great for the fantasy baseball leagues where the > players are just numbers on a sheet and the winners and losers are > determined based on the math, but...well, who was it that said that > every journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step? A team's > journey to the playoffs begins with tonight's game. Math is simply not > up to the task of determining who is going to win tonight and who is > going to lose. That's going to be determined by factors that no > equation can hope to quantify. > > I don't know offhand what the Reds' record was in one-run ballgames > during the 2000 season. But in any one of those games, if a guy comes > up with a runner on third and less than two outs and instead of > striking out, he grounds out while the runner scores and ties the > game, then what? > > The math that tells us the difference is only a couple of runs a year > can be correct, but the contention that it therefore makes no > difference whether the guy strikes out or puts the ball in play does > not take into account the timing of WHEN that handful of runs is > scored or not scored. > > That's where the math fails the test of whether or not the math agrees > with reality. Perhaps the Reds win that game in extra innings. As a > result of that one statistically insignificant play, the Reds get one > more W and instead of finishing in a tie with the Mets, they win a > postseason berth outright. And as we all know, once a team gets into > the postseason the sample size for a 5-game or 7-game series is so > small, neither sabermetrics nor anything else has any hope of > accurately predicting the results. > > I remember a guy who hit one HR all year long who hit two in the same > game in a WS. Based on stats the probability was that the guy wasn't > going to homer at all during that series. But he did, however much to > the consternation of the mathemeticians who must explain it away as > "small sample size" because no equation can quantify all of the > factors that will determine the outcome of tonight's game. Which is a > Good Thing. Otherwise there would be no point in playing the games. And just like that, John has just illustrated David's point far better than David could have...
From: Ron Johnson on 1 Jun 2007 14:24 On Jun 1, 11:29 am, "Bob Braun" <oxspo...(a)hotandsunnymail.com> wrote: > "David Short" <David.no.Sh...(a)Spam.Wright.Please.edu> wrote in message > > news:46602529.6050808(a)Spam.Wright.Please.edu... > > > > > coachros...(a)hotmail.com wrote: > >> On May 31, 6:02 pm, Ron Johnson <john...(a)ccrs.nrcan.gc.ca> wrote: > >>> Put simply, if Ks were important in modelling team runs > >>> scored, our models wouldn't work. There's no room for > >>> Ks to matter more than a couple of runs per team per > >>> year. > > >> MODELING??? I thought teams were actually trying to score runs. K's > >> only cost a team a couple of runs a year, huh? Stay with your fanasty > >> league all you want; I'll watch real baseball where it is ALWAYS more > >> important to put the ball in play than not. > > > This is one of the fundamental chasm's that sabremetrics cannot cross. > > > There are people who do not believe in math. They do not understand it. > > They don't know what it does. When the math doesn't fit what they think > > they know, it MUST be the math is wrong. > > > dfs > > I understand the math. I understand the models. I understand the concepts. > I don't think K's are as costly as some may think. BUT........ > when we are talking about ground balls, fly balls, moving runners and the > relative percentages, I still prefer a ball in play. How many times does a > runner advance on a K? > > The numbers are also skewed by the selfishness of modern day baseball > players. They simply don't adjust. People have been saying that since ... well I suspect it goes back to the day after baseball became a clearly distinct game. Al Spalding was talking about fans not being able to identify with players making vast sums of money in the 1880s (and how all that money was making players selfish) and the first "damned selfish players not playing the game the right way" quote that I'm aware of goes back to Dickie Pearce (Who was 35 when we first got organized leagues) > Situational hitting is a lost art, and > it's often times not discernable on a stat sheet. Well we've got PBP data going back to the mid 50s (and beyond. We have most of 1911 for instance) Wouldn't be a lot of work to get (say) Willie Mays' productive outs and I can tell you that Bob Horner reached on error more frequently than Mays did -- selfish, slow and K prone as Horner was. I can also tell you that the models we use work about as well for the 50s as they do now. In other words 50 years ago they weren't doing the little things often enough to skew our models (Dead ball baseball is a different story. Kamikaze baserunning in particular screws up the models. Reaching base just isn't as important when you steal bases at less that 50% success rate) Hell, Tom Ruane (who else) has run a number of studies on the stuff (baserunning, runner advancement, timing of base stealing, reaching on errors -- you name it) It always basically comes out in the wash (worth checking though -- you never know) I mean Tom Kelly's teams were consistently good at getting extra bases. Easy to verify from the PBP data. We're talking maybe 5 runs a year. Usually less than that.
From: Ron Johnson on 1 Jun 2007 15:18 On Jun 1, 12:48 pm, John Kasupski <kc2...(a)wzrd.com> wrote: > On Fri, 1 Jun 2007 11:29:52 -0400, "Bob Braun" > > <oxspo...(a)hotandsunnymail.com> wrote: > >I understand the math. I understand the models. I understand the concepts. > >I don't think K's are as costly as some may think. BUT........ > >when we are talking about ground balls, fly balls, moving runners and the > >relative percentages, I still prefer a ball in play. How many times does a > >runner advance on a K? > > I've seen guys score on a double-play grounder. I can't remember ever > seeing a runner score on a K. Of course you have. And there are game situations where two outs for a run is a great deal. Of course the infield is in then. But baseball's a game of the long run. Only two situations where you can score a run on a DP groundout. Bases loaded nobody out and first and third, nobody out. The math's pretty simple: Situation: Average number of runs Bases loaded, nobody out 2.54 After K 1.70 After DP 1.41 (This counts the run that has scored) In other words, despite having a run on the scoreboard, you're .29 runs worse off. First and third 1.92 After K 1.24 After DP 1.12 And these are good situations for a DP. Most DPs are far more costly. Yeah I know. Part of the issue is the relative value of 1 run versus the potential of a big inning. But that really only applies to the late innings of a close game (and as I said, they've got the infield in if the run is that important) I mean we're playing in a high scoring era (and talking about a team that plays in a good offensive park too) The issue isn't that productive out have no value. The problem is that there are limited opportunities to make a productive out, that they generally don't gain a great deal -- their value is measured in tenths of runs compared to Ks and that a single DP erases the value of around a half-dozen productive outs. Players who make productive outs tend to give back what they gain via the DP and it basically comes out in the wash.
From: John Kasupski on 1 Jun 2007 15:38 On 31 May 2007 10:36:05 -0700, Ron Johnson <johnson(a)ccrs.nrcan.gc.ca> wrote: >Another way to look at this. We know that we can estimate >team runs scored to within about 20 runs most of the time >using the basic stats you can get from baseball-reference. What value is there in the ability to estimate that, considering that last season, the top six teams in the major leagues in terms of runs scored did not qualify for postseason play, one of the teams that did make the playoffs was 26th out of 30 teams in runs scored, and the team that won it all was 17th? Just wonderin'. John D, Kasupski, Tonawanda, NY Reds Fan Since The 1960's http://www.kc2hmz.net
From: Lance Freezeland on 1 Jun 2007 15:44
On Fri, 01 Jun 2007 15:38:29 -0400, John Kasupski <kc2hmz(a)wzrd.com> gave us: >On 31 May 2007 10:36:05 -0700, Ron Johnson <johnson(a)ccrs.nrcan.gc.ca> >wrote: >>Another way to look at this. We know that we can estimate >>team runs scored to within about 20 runs most of the time >>using the basic stats you can get from baseball-reference. >What value is there in the ability to estimate that, considering that >last season, the top six teams in the major leagues in terms of runs >scored did not qualify for postseason play, one of the teams that did >make the playoffs was 26th out of 30 teams in runs scored, and the >team that won it all was 17th? >Just wonderin'. No, you're contructing a straw man argument is what you're doing. You know very well that one half of the game is scoring runs (what Ron's talking about) and one half is preventing the other team from scoring them (pitching and defense). -- Lance "South American men, for the most part, smell like jerked goat." Rudy Canoza ----== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com - Unlimited-Unrestricted-Secure Usenet News==---- http://www.newsfeeds.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! 120,000+ Newsgroups ----= East and West-Coast Server Farms - Total Privacy via Encryption =---- |