Statistics & You

[Mephistopheles]

Anyways, the only component of WARP I like is EqA. I don't give a darn about PRAR and FRAR. Give me say pitcher's K:BB, FIP, xFIP, etc and UZR please.

[nilodnayr]

wOBA is an interesting stat outlined in The Book

[nilodnayr]

For batters, I like a standard AVG/OBP/SLG line - I think OPS is overly used, and an inaccurate representation of a players' worth, as SLG is overrepresented in the overall stat (although OPS+ is very useful).

 

UK has a very useful method for weighting OPS toward OBP, i can't remember what the exact weight is, though.

 

Usually, you'll see ((1.6*OBP)+SLG) to get an adjusted value. I forget where it was mentioned but someone had mentioned OBP was undervaled 3 times its present value, which is nuts.

 

Every stat has value, where and when to apply it adds less or more value. The more you know, the better off you'll be, as it's more like a puzzle and each stat is a piece of that puzzle rather than a beauty competition looking for the most attractive stat.

 

I try and look for both sides of the equation, not only analyzing how well a player has done as far as his numbers, but what does he do physically that got him to that point.

 

Tangotiger values OBP a little bit more. Good explanation of it here

[TruffleShuffle]

this thread has become way awesome

[Mephistopheles]

ive always used 2OPB+SLG, not because its better but because i can do that math in my head on the fly. the accuracy of 1.7 is not needed when you can get EqA quicker.

[nilodnayr]

Like some have said here, I like stats that can isolate and explain. I like to know why. Why did RJ and Peavy have bad years. Did they even have bad years? How does that halp us predict how they are going to perform in the future. How can we isolate results inwhich they have control over, vs outcomes that can be influenced by luck or other players.

[A New Era]

this thread has become way awesome

 

This thread has become waaay to much reading. :lol:

 

No offense. I just don't like reading. Carry on!

Edited March 1, 2007 by A New Era

[Mephistopheles]

i bet you would find a decent sized correlation between health and BABIP for pitchers, but trying to look at this would involve a lot of anecdotal evidence. But that was with Johnsons back. Peavy ought to have been not lucky.

 

My guess is that BABIP bad luck is more or less more mistakes getting hit

[Mephistopheles]

this thread has become way awesome

 

This thread has become waaay to much reading. :lol:

 

sorry, i can be very loquacious

[A New Era]

this thread has become way awesome

 

This thread has become waaay to much reading. :lol:

 

sorry, i can be very loquacious

 

Woah. Big word. :P

[nilodnayr]

i bet you would find a decent sized correlation between health and BABIP for pitchers, but trying to look at this would involve a lot of anecdotal evidence. But that was with Johnsons back. Peavy ought to have been not lucky.

 

My guess is that BABIP bad luck is more or less more mistakes getting hit

 

So, I guess the question is why. Are those pitchers throwing more mistakes? Or are batters hitting more mistakes that are thrown to them? A lot I guess would be digging into the PBP and pitch location data, BA on balls over the plate vs BA on balls not over the plate and such.

 

I wonder if there is a correlation between BABIP over expected and BB/9, although one would imagine that high BB/9 pitchers who actually make it in the majors probably are also high K/9 pitchers so they would have less balls in play and therefore probably a greater variance in BABIP over (or under) expected, but it would be an interesting study none the less.

 

I really love all this play by play data and think the more advances that are made in recording and mining it will lead to many many more really cool insights into the game. I see it going toward tracking the trajectory and speed of pitches along with the batter's decision and result in order to dig deeper into how pitchers can exploit batters and visa-versa. I know it will be criticized for taking the "human element" out of the game and turning players into robots, but I just call it using all the information available.

[Brian]

I gotta admit, statistical analysis really does nothing for me. It might be my intense hatred of mathematics. I like to watch the game. I don't have anything against all these new statistical analysis and agree for those that wish to do so they give a much better look into the game, but I just don't really spend my time reading up on them and analyzing players against each other.

 

This is not to say i prefer new stats to old stat or any of that. I don't care about RBI, and agree that OBP is better than AVG. I just don't care to get into all the really involved stuff.

[biittner77]

I think a big part of the problem with traditionalists isn't so much that they're unwilling to use new stats so much as there are so many new stats with complicated formulae that they get intimidated. So as soon as they comes to grips with a new stat like OPS- which even feckless Boobs like John Kruk understand- it gets replaced by OPS+.

 

The reason why people like Chass cling to batting avg and ERA is that they know they could do the math themselves if they had to.

 

There is also, still value in observation. I don't need stats to tell me that Neifi Perez was bad at baseball or that Pujols is very good. Where stats are most useful are debunking the myth that a player like Juan Pierre is actually good. But even traditional stats sometimes do that. Pierre didn't have many RBIs and his BA was only .283ish that's horrible for someone that had 200+ hits.

[Backtobanks]

This is probably going to be more than you ever wanted to know about RP level, but here goes nothing,

 

Replacement level differs by each stat. Even though VORP and WARP stand for value over replacement player and wins over replacement player, the replacement player is not the same in each statistic.

 

VORP is based off of marginal value lineup rate (MLVr). MLVr is an extension of runs created but uses team runs created and calculates the change in OBP, SLG, SB and CS (and a few other small things) when the player is insterted in the lineup, compared to just an average player. There are three key things to notice here. First, it's how many runs his OBP and SLG etc add to a league average lineup and it's the difference in runs over a league average player. Secondly, MLVr is not runs added over a player at your position and finally MLVr is none other than runs added per game played.

 

Then MLVr is of course weighted for park, league, etc. Then it is converted to PMLVr which is runs per game added over an average hitter at the position played. Then it's converted to VORPr which is runs per game over a replacement level player at the players' position. A replacement level is described as about 70 points of OPS (35 each for SLG and OBP) lower than a league average player at that position. Finally VORPr is multiplied by games (which is actually figured out using PA% not games, duh) to find VORP. Of course they may physically calculate the differences in a different order, addition and subtraction are of course associative.

 

In practice VORP's replacement level player is basically a AAA player - which is justified by the concept of replacement player which should be defined something like: A player who is freely available at the position for a low cost.

 

WARP is quite a ways different. First, it's calculated based off of Equivalent Average, which put in simple terms is based roughly on total bases per plate appearance. Where total bases include SBs. It's a bit different, but for an informal definition that's fine. It's then scaled and adjusted for play into EqA on a scale of .260. This stuff is on their site I believe (it was like 2 years ago). I can go deeper if you want into how and the methodology behind it. EqA's scale is basically the same as BA. .260 is always average. .300 is good, .200 is bad and .400 is a top fifteen offense season.

 

WARP basically has three different components: BRAR, FRAR and PRAR. BRAR is batting runs over a replacement level hitter. BRAR is calculated the same for EVERY position, pitchers included. This actually causes AL pitchers to have higher WARPs than their NL counterpart because most pitcher's EqA's are well below a RP level hitter's level. A replacement level hitter has an EqA of .230 by definition. EqA when it's in its adjusted state is basically value per out. BRAR is calculated by 5*Outs*(EqA^2.5-.230^2.5). It's not too tough.

 

FRAR and PRAR are a lot different. As I said there's no position adjustement for BRAR. Their methodology runs that all hitters are hitters and should be compared to all hitters. The value so to speak of doing it at a harder position is factored in FRAR. The starting runs over a replacement player varies with position. It's based off of the James Defensive Spectrum: C, SS, 2B, CF, 3B, CO, 1B, DH. Notice there's nothing for pitchers. This is probably wrong. I hate WARP for pitchers. It's useless, but as bad as it has been for them, it gets worse. The runs per 162 games are set at 36, 32, 29, 24, 22, 14, 0 if my memory doesn't fail me. It's on their site somewhere. Then for each player they use Rate2 for the actual defensive component. Rate2 is something I am not familiar with the actual calculations other than that I know it's based off box scores and is easily one of the more terrible "new age" baseball defensive stats. Anyways Rate2 is based off 100 being average and is scaled to 100 games. If a player has a 109 Rate2 and plays 162 adjusted games at catcher (this is based on innings, not games played) then he's going to have a FRAR of 51.

 

PRAR is pitching runs over a replacement pitcher, where a replacement pitcher's ERA is roughly 6.10 in a league average park (think Jason Marquis and what we got out of our 4-5 spots last year). However, PRAR has a lot of more adjustments. First the ERA/RA used is based off of NRA, not RA/ERA. To compute this there's an adjustment for the team's defense and the resulting RA is scaled to have the same winning power against average 4.50 R/G or RA which ever you want to call it. You can find this using your favorite pythagorean win formula. So for NRA, league average is 4.50. Then it's (6.10-NRA)*XIP. What's XIP? It's based of IP for the player, but this is another part of the formula I hate. They try to synthetically inject leverage into the WARP calculations for pitchers (but not for hitters hypocrites). This is done by redistributing innings pitched based on things like Ws, Ls and SVs. I don't know if they include holds or not. So yes, having an extra loss can actually improve your EqA. They formulized this somewhere on their site, but when I tried to do what they did it never worked for me, but some of the things they do made me laugh. It's really absurd. Anyways once you have your XIP, PRAR is pretty fair.

 

Finally to compute WARP we have to add all of PRAR, BRAR and FRAR into one RAR stat, let's just call it total runs over replacement player (TRAR idk what, if anything, they call it). Someone earlier in this thread (or another?) mentioned that Rs --> Ws is roughly 10 per. While that's true, WARP takes it a step further. There's a diminishing marginal runs per win effect. So each successive run added is not worth as much as the one previous. WARP for ALL players is wins added starting at a replacement level team. This team is not as good as the 2003 Tigers. Think the immortal Cleveland Spiders. A RP team for WARP is good for about 20 wins. Yeah that's low. Anyways so the WARP column you see is not a good indicator of how many wins the player added, so at the point, what's the point? No pun intended.

 

In practice a replacement level player for WARP is about a AA player. A lot of people think this is way too low. And they're probably right.

 

Wow, that was long. I hope this clears it up and doesn't confuse you even more.

 

This is an example of why some of us (traditionalists with a few of the newer stats) are traditionalists. If I have to spend an that much time reading and digesting what some obscure statistic means, then it becomes work and not enjoyment. As I stated before, some of the newer stats are one way to compare players, but you don't need a bunch of statistics to see that Pujols is a great hitter and Neifi Perez isn't.

[TB_11]

This is an example of why some of us (traditionalists with a few of the newer stats) are traditionalists. If I have to spend an that much time reading and digesting what some obscure statistic means, then it becomes work and not enjoyment. As I stated before, some of the newer stats are one way to compare players, but you don't need a bunch of statistics to see that Pujols is a great hitter and Neifi Perez isn't.

 

I find the value that the newer statistics provide is when they show some of the traditional thoughts about baseball to be incorrect. Some of the standard examples:

 

- 6'1", 220 lb Kevin Youkilis is a more valuable leadoff man than Juan Pierre

- Unless a runner has a high success rate (I think the breakeven is near 70%), attempting stolen bases does not increase a team's expected runs scored

- Randy Johnson did not deserve a 5.00 ERA last year

- Albert Pujols, even though he was injured for part of the season, was a more valuable player than Ryan Howard last year

 

It's also one of the main reasons that newer statistics are disdained by some. It's hard for Joe Morgan to believe that Kevin Youkilis is a better leadoff man when the prevailing thought has been that a leadoff hitter should be a fast, slappy hitter.

[CuseCubFan69]

This is an example of why some of us (traditionalists with a few of the newer stats) are traditionalists. If I have to spend an that much time reading and digesting what some obscure statistic means, then it becomes work and not enjoyment. As I stated before, some of the newer stats are one way to compare players, but you don't need a bunch of statistics to see that Pujols is a great hitter and Neifi Perez isn't.

 

I find the value that the newer statistics provide is when they show some of the traditional thoughts about baseball to be incorrect. Some of the standard examples:

 

- 6'1", 220 lb Kevin Youkilis is a more valuable leadoff man than Juan Pierre

- Unless a runner has a high success rate (I think the breakeven is near 70%), attempting stolen bases does not increase a team's expected runs scored

- Randy Johnson did not deserve a 5.00 ERA last year

- Albert Pujols, even though he was injured for part of the season, was a more valuable player than Ryan Howard last year

 

It's also one of the main reasons that newer statistics are disdained by some. It's hard for Joe Morgan to believe that Kevin Youkilis is a better leadoff man when the prevailing thought has been that a leadoff hitter should be a fast, slappy hitter.

 

How do you even know if someone even has a 70% steal rate if you don't steal?

[Magnetic Curses]

This is an example of why some of us (traditionalists with a few of the newer stats) are traditionalists. If I have to spend an that much time reading and digesting what some obscure statistic means, then it becomes work and not enjoyment. As I stated before, some of the newer stats are one way to compare players, but you don't need a bunch of statistics to see that Pujols is a great hitter and Neifi Perez isn't.

 

I find the value that the newer statistics provide is when they show some of the traditional thoughts about baseball to be incorrect. Some of the standard examples:

 

- 6'1", 220 lb Kevin Youkilis is a more valuable leadoff man than Juan Pierre

- Unless a runner has a high success rate (I think the breakeven is near 70%), attempting stolen bases does not increase a team's expected runs scored

- Randy Johnson did not deserve a 5.00 ERA last year

- Albert Pujols, even though he was injured for part of the season, was a more valuable player than Ryan Howard last year

 

It's also one of the main reasons that newer statistics are disdained by some. It's hard for Joe Morgan to believe that Kevin Youkilis is a better leadoff man when the prevailing thought has been that a leadoff hitter should be a fast, slappy hitter.

 

How do you even know if someone even has a 70% steal rate if you don't steal?

 

if you don't steal, then you don't need to worry about it because you aren't hurting the team by running into outs time and again.

 

pierre is a particular poor baserunner, for all the credit he gets for "making things happen" on the basepaths.

[CuseCubFan69]

This is an example of why some of us (traditionalists with a few of the newer stats) are traditionalists. If I have to spend an that much time reading and digesting what some obscure statistic means, then it becomes work and not enjoyment. As I stated before, some of the newer stats are one way to compare players, but you don't need a bunch of statistics to see that Pujols is a great hitter and Neifi Perez isn't.

 

I find the value that the newer statistics provide is when they show some of the traditional thoughts about baseball to be incorrect. Some of the standard examples:

 

- 6'1", 220 lb Kevin Youkilis is a more valuable leadoff man than Juan Pierre

- Unless a runner has a high success rate (I think the breakeven is near 70%), attempting stolen bases does not increase a team's expected runs scored

- Randy Johnson did not deserve a 5.00 ERA last year

- Albert Pujols, even though he was injured for part of the season, was a more valuable player than Ryan Howard last year

 

It's also one of the main reasons that newer statistics are disdained by some. It's hard for Joe Morgan to believe that Kevin Youkilis is a better leadoff man when the prevailing thought has been that a leadoff hitter should be a fast, slappy hitter.

 

How do you even know if someone even has a 70% steal rate if you don't steal?

 

if you don't steal, then you don't need to worry about it because you aren't hurting the team by running into outs time and again.

 

pierre is a particular poor baserunner, for all the credit he gets for "making things happen" on the basepaths.

 

But if 70% or above actaully helps the team, how do you know a guy can steal if you don't do it?

 

And speed does help "make things happen" in a positive way if you do it right.

[cubweiser03]

I echo much that has already been said so ill add these stats i pay particular attention to.

 

B's

ISoD-Not all OBP is equal, gives me an idea on plate discipline.

BB/K-Gives an idea on plate/strike zone coverage. Some guys have high OBP but terrible plate/strike zone coverage. I find this especially usefull for minor leaguers.

HR's and Double-Old School but i use this more than SLG and OPS.

 

Ps'

BAA-Measures 'stuff'

BB/IP and K/IP. WHIP is all nice and quick but your gonna have to look at these 2 stats anyway to get 'inside' WHIP.

I wish SLG againsts and OBP against were more readily available.

 

Defense

Ugh im pretty old school i guess. Range Factors and Zone Ratings are neat but they still need to put in context, Errors are damn usefull, plus yes i prefer what i see in the field. Did i just set off the NSBB fire alarm...

 

VORP is usefull at the end of the year, i dont use it during. Anybody use this for evaluating minor leaguers, never heard or seen much of that.

 

Ohh and just gotta say this.....Voris McCracken and his 'stat' can kiss my ass.

[CoolHandLuke]

 

Ohh and just gotta say this.....Voris McCracken and his 'stat' can kiss my ass.

 

Why?

[Magnetic Curses]

But if 70% or above actaully helps the team, how do you know a guy can steal if you don't do it?

 

there are so few players who are actually good at both getting on base and stealing bases that it's worthless to talk about. yes, if the cubs could get a guy with a high OBP and a high steal percentage, i wouldn't mind it. however, aside from the few guys in the league, they just don't exist.

 

i'll take a guy like youkilis over a player who isn't really good at anything, like pierre.

 

And speed does help "make things happen" in a positive way if you do it right.

 

it's overvalued, although not as much as it was before. teams are learning from sabermetrics and moving on, leaving teams like the 2006 cubs in their wake.

[CuseCubFan69]

But if 70% or above actaully helps the team, how do you know a guy can steal if you don't do it?

 

there are so few players who are actually good at both getting on base and stealing bases that it's worthless to talk about. yes, if the cubs could get a guy with a high OBP and a high steal percentage, i wouldn't mind it. however, aside from the few guys in the league, they just don't exist.

 

i'll take a guy like youkilis over a player who isn't really good at anything, like pierre.

 

And speed does help "make things happen" in a positive way if you do it right.

 

it's overvalued, although not as much as it was before. teams are learning from sabermetrics and moving on, leaving teams like the 2006 cubs in their wake.

 

Who said anything about getting on base and stealing? Are you saying that if a bad hitter like Izturis could steal at a 80% rate is not better than than an Izturis that could steal at a 62% rate?

 

Also, to get any steal rate you have to actually attempt to steal in the first place. On your team you have guys going station to station and play it safe depending on the batters skills ALL the time.

 

Isn't Youkilis good at getting on base? I would assume he is if you have him leading off thus he's good at something, correct?

[Magnetic Curses]

But if 70% or above actaully helps the team, how do you know a guy can steal if you don't do it?

 

there are so few players who are actually good at both getting on base and stealing bases that it's worthless to talk about. yes, if the cubs could get a guy with a high OBP and a high steal percentage, i wouldn't mind it. however, aside from the few guys in the league, they just don't exist.

 

i'll take a guy like youkilis over a player who isn't really good at anything, like pierre.

 

And speed does help "make things happen" in a positive way if you do it right.

 

it's overvalued, although not as much as it was before. teams are learning from sabermetrics and moving on, leaving teams like the 2006 cubs in their wake.

 

Who said anything about getting on base and stealing? Are you saying that if a bad hitter like Izturis could steal at a 80% rate is not better than than an Izturis that could steal at a 62% rate?

 

Also, to get any steal rate you have to actually attempt to steal in the first place. On your team you have guys going station to station and play it safe depending on the batters skills ALL the time.

 

Isn't Youkilis good at getting on base? I would assume he is if you have him leading off thus he's good at something, correct?

 

i don't understand what you're arguing, here.

[David]

But if 70% or above actaully helps the team, how do you know a guy can steal if you don't do it?

 

there are so few players who are actually good at both getting on base and stealing bases that it's worthless to talk about. yes, if the cubs could get a guy with a high OBP and a high steal percentage, i wouldn't mind it. however, aside from the few guys in the league, they just don't exist.

 

i'll take a guy like youkilis over a player who isn't really good at anything, like pierre.

 

And speed does help "make things happen" in a positive way if you do it right.

 

it's overvalued, although not as much as it was before. teams are learning from sabermetrics and moving on, leaving teams like the 2006 cubs in their wake.

 

Who said anything about getting on base and stealing? Are you saying that if a bad hitter like Izturis could steal at a 80% rate is not better than than an Izturis that could steal at a 62% rate?

 

Also, to get any steal rate you have to actually attempt to steal in the first place. On your team you have guys going station to station and play it safe depending on the batters skills ALL the time.

 

Isn't Youkilis good at getting on base? I would assume he is if you have him leading off thus he's good at something, correct?

 

Getting on base is primary. If the guy can't get on base at a good enough rate, you don't want him in the lineup anyway. Even if the guy can steal at 95%, you wouldn't want him playing because he would be a drain on the lineup by not getting on (I suppose that hypothetical 95% guy could be of some value as a pinch runner, late in the game when it's not likely he'd wind up having to come to the plate).

 

Sure, Izturis stealing at 80% is a better player than an Izturis who could steal at 62%, but neither one is getting on base enough for it to matter.

 

As for the bolded part, I'm not sure what you're getting at. We have plenty of past numbers on these guys that tell us how efficient they are at stealing bases, just like we have OBP numbers and SLG numbers and so on. We don't need to have, say, Soriano actually attempt steals to have a decent idea of how good he is at it. That would be like saying you need to see Neifi go out there and suck at the plate to know how good (er, bad) he is at the plate.

[CuseCubFan69]

But if 70% or above actaully helps the team, how do you know a guy can steal if you don't do it?

 

there are so few players who are actually good at both getting on base and stealing bases that it's worthless to talk about. yes, if the cubs could get a guy with a high OBP and a high steal percentage, i wouldn't mind it. however, aside from the few guys in the league, they just don't exist.

 

i'll take a guy like youkilis over a player who isn't really good at anything, like pierre.

 

And speed does help "make things happen" in a positive way if you do it right.

 

it's overvalued, although not as much as it was before. teams are learning from sabermetrics and moving on, leaving teams like the 2006 cubs in their wake.

 

Who said anything about getting on base and stealing? Are you saying that if a bad hitter like Izturis could steal at a 80% rate is not better than than an Izturis that could steal at a 62% rate?

 

Also, to get any steal rate you have to actually attempt to steal in the first place. On your team you have guys going station to station and play it safe depending on the batters skills ALL the time.

 

Isn't Youkilis good at getting on base? I would assume he is if you have him leading off thus he's good at something, correct?

 

i don't understand what you're arguing, here.

 

Regarding all 3 statements?

 

I'm asking you how do you even know what the steal rate could even be if you never steal?