Baseball Analysis 101: Top 5 Things that need to go

[Warner2BruceTD]

What? I'M intolerable? So because you make some statement about things "balancing out" in a data set and I ask you to back it up I'm intolerable?

Who backs up casual statements on a casual messege board with piles of statistics? If you don't agree with my blatantly obvious statement, fine, say so and move on.

Where do you get this notion that what you're trying to prove is blatantly obvious? Just because you remember something happening once at some point in time does not make it regular, significant and obvious.

No, "I dont remember something happening once at some point in time", I see guys take tough luck losses and get cheap wins every day during the baseball season. It is regular. I shouldnt need to do research to back that up.

It would be like saying, "gee, a couple of times per game, you see guys lose HR's by a few feet foul", and you coming back with "You can't say something like that without quantifying it with data. And please define what a couple means."

Sometimes talking to you is like talking to the computer in War Games, after it turns on Matthew Broderick and gets all snotty and sarcastic.

So now it's MY job to prove what YOU said right or wrong? Get real. No fucking wonder no one from a merged site stays here for more than a week or two, morons like you are running rampant. Jesus.

You challenged my statement. You cant prove it wrong any more than I can prove it right, which is the point i'm trying to make to you. It's pretty arrogant to expect everyone to back up points with data in an environment like this.

I mean, if you dont think there is a semblence of balance between harl luck L's and cheap W's, I dont know what else I can say to you.

[DJ Fog]

I'll go back to sucking at MW2, you go back to sucking at life.

Nerd.

[Bomberooski]

I'll go back to sucking at MW2, you go back to sucking at life.

Nerd.

Haven't followed this thread. Don't even know who maddog is talking to but it popped up on iSpy and this post made me laugh

[Warner2BruceTD]

OK Lefty, 5 minutes of Google search produced this:

-From 1984-1991 (first link I clicked), the winning percentage of starting pitchers who had a quality start was .674. If we define a "hard luck loss" as losing when recording a QS, that's roughly 33% of QS = L.

-Using the same years, the winning percentage of pitchers who did not have a quality start was .311. So roughly 31% of non-quality starts resulted in a W--"cheap wins".

So...33% of good starts resulted in a "hard luck loss", while 31% of bad starts resulted in a "cheap win". I would say that pretty much backs up the balance i'm talking about.

Now if you wish to challenge the sample size, please note that from 1957-2006 the winning percentage of pitchers who had QS was .675--.001 off from the 1984-1991 sample above.

Here are the links:

http://www.diamond-mind.com/articles/qstart.htm

http://www.retrosheet.org/Research/GehringerC/QualityStarts.pdf

Now please find the "Thanks" button located at the bottom of all of my posts regarding this matter, click them, and then kindly lick my balls.

Thanks.

[Warner2BruceTD]

I WILL give you a thank you for that post. Thank you both for the link to the cool article and for proving me wrong. Now was that so hard? Was queening out over me asking you to back up your statement (doing so apparently took only five minutes, right?) worth it? I would have much rather you just taken the five extra minutes when I first asked you to show your work rather than what you did.

doh!

I didnt really think it would be critical to the argument to prove a statement that should be obvious to anyone who has even casually followed baseball for any number of years.

Ok, so now that we have that in hand, what was your overall point about wins and them balancing out? Do wins mean more now or something?

DOH!

Yeah, more than what you and some others think, because if one would argue that W's are helped along by factors the pitcher cant control (such as tremendous offensive production offsetting a bad start), which is alot of what i've been reading in this thread, the counter argument to that point would be that pitchers lose just as many wins in good starts by factors they cant control (bad offensive output).

So basically, a large number of wins will generally tell you that a pitcher has pitched well. Although obviously, 1998 Rick Helling or 2004 Ben Sheets will go against the grain and over/under perform themselves in the W column based on the other numbers.

While not a be all end all, you cant just toss W's out the window IMO.

[chazmaniandevil]

OK Lefty, 5 minutes of Google search produced this:

-From 1984-1991 (first link I clicked), the winning percentage of starting pitchers who had a quality start was .674. If we define a "hard luck loss" as losing when recording a QS, that's roughly 33% of QS = L.

-Using the same years, the winning percentage of pitchers who did not have a quality start was .311. So roughly 31% of non-quality starts resulted in a W--"cheap wins".

So...33% of good starts resulted in a "hard luck loss", while 31% of bad starts resulted in a "cheap win". I would say that pretty much backs up the balance i'm talking about.

Now if you wish to challenge the sample size, please note that from 1957-2006 the winning percentage of pitchers who had QS was .675--.001 off from the 1984-1991 sample above.

Here are the links:

http://www.diamond-mind.com/articles/qstart.htm

http://www.retrosheet.org/Research/GehringerC/QualityStarts.pdf

Now please find the "Thanks" button located at the bottom of all of my posts regarding this matter, click them, and then kindly lick my balls.

Thanks.

Player A in 2009 - 10-13, 4.03 ERA, 1.354 WHIP
Player B in 2009 - 16-9, 4.38 ERA, 1.378 WHIP
Player C in 2009 - 15-10, 4.67 ERA, 1.515 WHIP

lets go with player A, seems like he had an off year, 10 wins, 13 losses, something you see out of a poor 4 pitcher or a good 5 pitcher on good teams. but, lets look at his era and whip.

4.03 ERA, 1.354 WHIP

so maybe we misjudged, this guy has the era and whip of a solid 4 pitcher or a crappy 3 pitcher (all these guys are NL)

lets take a look at player B, seems like he had a great year, id go with 16-9 from my ace anyday of the week, but lets look at his era and whip.

4.38 ERA, 1.378 WHIP

worse in both stats than player A, yet has +10 win differential

and finally player C, has a 15-10 record, servicable for a 2 pitcher, or a very good 3, lets look at his era+whip

4.67 ERA, 1.515 WHIP

ouch, talk about the luck of the irish. make sure you dont dig deep into your pockets to resign this guy




listen warner, im not saying your wrong, i do believe that USUALLY, they balance each other out, BUT there are exceptions. this isnt an honest stat, it often lies to you. if i showed those 3 players to my friend who isnt basebally savy, 9 times out of ten theyd take B or C. just saying.

btw for all you baseball nerds who want to know
a is barry zito
b is jorge de la rosa (go ahead, talk about how hard it is to pitch at coors is fuckers)
c is derek lowe

[chazmaniandevil]

and i agree that you cant just toss them out

[Warner2BruceTD]

And I agree with that, of course there are exceptions, and yes you will see deceptive W totals.

I'm not supporting W's as a top line viable stat, I just don't concede to tossing it out the window like its completely meaningless.

My point earlier in the thread of guys "pitching to the score" also has influence on things like ERA & WHIP, btw.

[chazmaniandevil]

i concur

[Warner2BruceTD]

You see, it's really not that obvious at all, as it takes a lengthy and pretty in-depth article written almost 20 years ago to prove your point. If it indeed was so obvious, the article/study would not be necessary, right?

It wasnt necessary, for me.

You thought for sure I would be wrong, and called me out to validate what should have been obvious. So I dug something up.

I shouldn't need numbers to support the obvious statement that the team that hits more HR's usually wins, but based on this thread, i'm pretty sure you'd want me to back that up with a link.

A bunch of other stuff

I'm not even sure there is a massive disagreement happening here. I find the W stat slightly more useful than you do. That's basically whats happening here.

[chazmaniandevil]

we dont throw wins out for the reason we dont throw era, or whip out

when you sit down at the end of the day, you look at all the combined stats together to see the whole picture

you should be able to tell if the w-l number is appropriate by looking at the whole picture, the way you can tell if the era is appropriate by seeing what type of ballpark they pitch in, etc.

its an interesting argument, but useless to bicker about

[Senser81]

Does using "metric" instead of "stat" make you seem smarter or something?

I've seen it used a dozen times by the 643 guys.

LOL, put two and two together...

[Senser81]

No team would be that bad, but the reasoning behind using such extreme values in a thought experiment like that is to avoid all the "well what if..." comments that were to follow.

Awesome...another "statistical analysis" thread by a guy who can't understand statistics!

Here was Lefty's reason for dismissing batting average:

"I will dispense with the long-winded diatribe about why batting average is inferior and instead pose a simple question: who is more valuable to a baseball team, a player that has a batting average of .310 over the season with 10 home runs, 12 doubles and 35 walks, or a player that hits .250 while clubbing 45 HR’s, 30 doubles and walks 90 times?"

Ignoring the pointlessness of Lefty's fictional example where he is mixing in both power and OBP variables to "disprove" batting average, lets play along with the thought experiment of extreme values.

Two teams are playing each other. Team #1 is made up of players who have a 1.000 slugging percentage by hitting a home run every 4th at-bat. Team #2 is made up of players who have a 1.000 slugging percentage by hitting a single every at-bat. If these two teams played each other, Team #1 wouldn't score in the top half of the first inning, while Team #2 would have an infinite amount of runs in the bottom half of the first inning.

The point of offense in baseball isn't to hit home runs, its to avoid making outs.

[FedEx227]

we dont throw wins out for the reason we dont throw era, or whip out

when you sit down at the end of the day, you look at all the combined stats together to see the whole picture

you should be able to tell if the w-l number is appropriate by looking at the whole picture, the way you can tell if the era is appropriate by seeing what type of ballpark they pitch in, etc.

its an interesting argument, but useless to bicker about

Thankfully this year, I think we saw the movement away from ONLY looking at wins in the Cy Young voting. Greinke winning the Cy Young in the AL with 16 wins beating out 3 19 game winners really showed the progressive movement. Ditto for Lincy beating out a 19 and a 17 game winner and winning the Cy with only 15.

[NAHSTE]

Thankfully this year, I think we saw the movement away from ONLY looking at wins in the Cy Young voting. Greinke winning the Cy Young in the AL with 16 wins beating out 3 19 game winners really showed the progressive movement. Ditto for Lincy beating out a 19 and a 17 game winner and winning the Cy with only 15.

I don't think this is progressive, as the most wins has not guaranteed you a Cy Young ever. See Pedro Martinez winning the NL Cy in 1997 with 17 wins, or Clemens in 2004 (18 wins), or Brandon Webb in 06 (16).

The average baseball fan is not nearly as stupid as you think, especially not those who vote on awards. Looking at modern stats does not make you a smarter baseball fan, just a modern one like everyone else.