Friday, September 4
Tony LaRussa and pitch tipping
I had some thoughts on John Smoltz and the claim that he was tipping pitches in Boston over at Yawkey Way Academy. I don't think I buy it and I wonder if LaRussa actually buys this theory.
Shortest match-up ever?
Pedro Martinez went seven strong innings against the Giants last night lowering his FIP to 3.74 on the year and increasing his K/BB to 7.67. He's getting lucky in the LOB% category but overall he's looking like a very useful fantasy pitcher.
And I know they each went seven innings but don't you think the Pedro/Lincecum battle last night might have been the, um, "shortest" match-up ever? And it sure seems likely that last night the pitcher's mound in Philly was the best showcase of talent per pound in baseball history.
And I know they each went seven innings but don't you think the Pedro/Lincecum battle last night might have been the, um, "shortest" match-up ever? And it sure seems likely that last night the pitcher's mound in Philly was the best showcase of talent per pound in baseball history.
Breaking down Alfonso Soriano
Entering 2009 I was high on Alfonso Soriano and thought he could return to big things. His walk rate made me cringe, but with his SLG at .560 in 2006 and 2007 before the injured 2008 season he was well worth the drag.
His Strikeout rate is up to 24.3% this year from a career rate of 21.9%. Although not a large jump he seems to be having trouble with fastballs, which used to be his big skill. He has had a career pitch value per 100 pitches of 1.95 on fastballs. He has now dropped to 0.85 this year and removed any value he had.
He's also seeing fastballs at the lowest rate in his career. Only 46% of the pitches he has seen were fastballs, which is the second lowest in the league to only Ryan Howard. The fastballs have turned into cutters (which he actually hits better than fastballs slightly) and sliders.
Soriano has trouble with any pitch that isn't a fastball or cutter so a drop in those means more pitches he has trouble handling. The real problem isn't so much the contact though as we saw the strikeout rate only went up slightly. The problem for the most part has been power. His ISO has gone from consistently in the .200-.280 range for 7 years now. This year he has been at .184 and has a career low HR/FB% of 11.4%.
Trying to determine a reason for power loss can be tough, but according to HitTrackerOnline he has 30% "Just Enough" homers. That is higher and the league average. So not only is his power down this year, but it might be possible to drop even more.
Injuries have not forced him to the DL this year, but he has been DTD a few times for knee soreness and also dislocating his pinkie in July. It's tough to explain the power loss on injuries that we know of. His worse 2 months were May, June and August with SLG of .396, .311 and .284 respectively. Both injuries came in late July and August and would only explain August.
In both April and July he was SLG near .600 and looked like the Soriano of before. This makes his 2010 value very tough to define. He has started to accumulate little injuries, but are these the only reason for his fall? Could pitchers finally realize that you stick to offspeed on Soriano and frustrate him.
I am avoiding Soriano in 2010 drafts at all costs unless he falls ridiculously late. I would like to know what everyone here thinks. Is Soriano done? How early would you draft him? Do you have him in a keeper league?
His Strikeout rate is up to 24.3% this year from a career rate of 21.9%. Although not a large jump he seems to be having trouble with fastballs, which used to be his big skill. He has had a career pitch value per 100 pitches of 1.95 on fastballs. He has now dropped to 0.85 this year and removed any value he had.
He's also seeing fastballs at the lowest rate in his career. Only 46% of the pitches he has seen were fastballs, which is the second lowest in the league to only Ryan Howard. The fastballs have turned into cutters (which he actually hits better than fastballs slightly) and sliders.
Soriano has trouble with any pitch that isn't a fastball or cutter so a drop in those means more pitches he has trouble handling. The real problem isn't so much the contact though as we saw the strikeout rate only went up slightly. The problem for the most part has been power. His ISO has gone from consistently in the .200-.280 range for 7 years now. This year he has been at .184 and has a career low HR/FB% of 11.4%.
Trying to determine a reason for power loss can be tough, but according to HitTrackerOnline he has 30% "Just Enough" homers. That is higher and the league average. So not only is his power down this year, but it might be possible to drop even more.
Injuries have not forced him to the DL this year, but he has been DTD a few times for knee soreness and also dislocating his pinkie in July. It's tough to explain the power loss on injuries that we know of. His worse 2 months were May, June and August with SLG of .396, .311 and .284 respectively. Both injuries came in late July and August and would only explain August.
In both April and July he was SLG near .600 and looked like the Soriano of before. This makes his 2010 value very tough to define. He has started to accumulate little injuries, but are these the only reason for his fall? Could pitchers finally realize that you stick to offspeed on Soriano and frustrate him.
I am avoiding Soriano in 2010 drafts at all costs unless he falls ridiculously late. I would like to know what everyone here thinks. Is Soriano done? How early would you draft him? Do you have him in a keeper league?
Thursday, September 3
Buster Posey September Preview
The absolute disaster that is Bengie Molina at the plate has been a drain on the Giants all season. Their playoff chances are up to 31% after tonight's win against the Phillies, but they have carried a catcher who totaled a line of .261/.281/.437. That's 12 walks in 448 PA for a 2.6% walk rate.
They have a chance now with a lingering quadriceps strain to find some at bats for prospect Buster Posey to get a shot. Let's look through his minor league numbers to see what he has shown so far since being promoted to Triple-A for 146 PAs.
K% - 18.3%
BB% - 11.9%
Line - .310/.384/.508
First up is what type of playing time can you count on? Unfortunately the Giants continue to fail at lineup selection and according to Bruce Bochy he will not be starting. Late innings replacement, double switches and pinch-running?
It looks like Posey is nothing more than a add in keeper leagues, but most should have had him added already. If your in a single league there is no reason to add him for 2009. Looking to 2010 though expect him to be a potential starter and a huge sleeper.
They have a chance now with a lingering quadriceps strain to find some at bats for prospect Buster Posey to get a shot. Let's look through his minor league numbers to see what he has shown so far since being promoted to Triple-A for 146 PAs.
K% - 18.3%
BB% - 11.9%
Line - .310/.384/.508
First up is what type of playing time can you count on? Unfortunately the Giants continue to fail at lineup selection and according to Bruce Bochy he will not be starting. Late innings replacement, double switches and pinch-running?
It looks like Posey is nothing more than a add in keeper leagues, but most should have had him added already. If your in a single league there is no reason to add him for 2009. Looking to 2010 though expect him to be a potential starter and a huge sleeper.
Tuesday, September 1
Wasting Thome
The Dodgers picked up Jim Thome today and are apparently planning to use him in a lefty pinch hitter, Matt Stairs type role. Matt Stairs' name was in fact mentioned in several articles about the deal, as though the fact that the Phillies carry an above average bat on their bench is a good reason for the Dodgers to carry a very good bat on theirs. Although Thome's ground balls are up a bit this year he is still second in the majors in HR/FB% and is currently carrying a wOBA of .373, in the same neighborhood as guys like Carlos Pena, J.D. Drew, and Hideki Matsui and just a shade under players like Andre Ethier, Nelson Cruz, and Ryan Zimmerman. Simply put, this is not a group of guys that you would want to get only about a half dozen at-bats a week if they were on your team.
Using Thome in a Matt Stairs type role is probably the only way that he could play in the National League so this isn't really a bad move for the Dodgers but it is still a tremendous waste of talent. Imagine the Red Sox announcing that once Dice-K returns to the rotation Jon Lester would be used strictly as a lefty/lefty specialist for a batter or two per game - that's kind of like using Jim Thome as a pinch hitter.
Using Thome in a Matt Stairs type role is probably the only way that he could play in the National League so this isn't really a bad move for the Dodgers but it is still a tremendous waste of talent. Imagine the Red Sox announcing that once Dice-K returns to the rotation Jon Lester would be used strictly as a lefty/lefty specialist for a batter or two per game - that's kind of like using Jim Thome as a pinch hitter.
Yawkey Way Academy Launched
Today is the day. Lee and I are launching a new Red Sox site centered on Sabermetric research and analysis. Yawkey Way Academy will be the site if you are interested in learning the why through statistical analysis(instead of just listening to the regurgitated crap Joe Morgan tells you), we welcome your readership and support.
Verducci Effect a Myth? Q&A with Brian Burke of Advanced NFL Stats
We welcome Brian Burke, who has been so gracious to take time out of his busy schedule to answer a few questions for us. Before dedicating time to his hobby of football at Advanced NFL Stats, Brian flew 21 combat missions in the Navy. Brian tackles a lot of game theory, and his site is a must read for football fans.
Brian Burke, Advanced NFL Stats: My hunch was that these injury-prediction theories were all biased by a number of factors. Injuries are by their nature very random, so I am skeptical whenever someone claims to have a valid prediction system. The bottom line is that injury-prediction systems usually fail to account for systematic biases in their analysis.
First, it's always true that athletes will tend to get more prone to injury as they age. Therefore, any comparison of a year "after" something else, such as RB carries or additional innings pitched, will appear to have a slightly higher injury rate than other years.
Second, high-IP or high-carry years are by definition healthy, non-injury years. Whenever you make observations about seasons "after" those years, you are also making observations about "other than" those healthy years. You're removing known healthy years from the data sample, and years left over in the sample will appear to have higher than normal injury rates. But the higher rates are just an illusion caused by the exclusion of healthy years.
It all depends on the type of analysis performed. It's not perfectly clear what the exact methodology the Verducci effect is based on, but I think it's fair to expect explicit and rigorous research on it before we buy into it.
RS: You talk a lot about different types of bias in your articles, including the popular 'Myth of 370', can you explain why that's important for a fantasy player?
Burke: The Curse of 370 is a classic example of what's known as "multiple endpoints." Readers should always be skeptical whenever someone makes a claim based on a very exact cut-off of carries, innings, or whatever. What's going on is that the analyst is intentionally choosing a cutoff that makes his claim appear true, but only due to a statistical quirk or fluke that occurred in the past and will not hold for future events. For example, if I said Jamal Lewis has had more games of over 70 yds rushing than any other RB in history, you'd think he's bound for the Hall of Fame. But Lewis might only be 17th in games with over 75 yds because he happened to have lots of mediocre games.
For fantasy players, the debunking of myths like 370 mean that all top players can be expected to regress to the mean following high-performing seasons. The higher the performance, the stronger the regression. So the best bet is to go after the top guys and not worry about curses, injuries, etc. Sure, they'll tend to regress, but so do all the other guys too.
RS: One of the reasons we can't dig deeper into some methodologies is because they are 'proprietary'; do you get better observations out of academic papers?
Burke: Actually, I don't have blind faith in academic papers either. Many of them are peer-reviewed by professors who don't understand the nature of the sport, and gross errors in logic get through. I'm very, very skeptical of anything that calls itself proprietary. Whenever I read that word, I think "unverifiable and off-limits to criticism." I can understand why people want to protect their intellectual property, but they should also understand why readers should be skeptical.
RS: I've heard the 'age 27 peak', expect regression from postseason pitchers as facts across many platforms. What would be the best advice to understand the difference between causality and correlation?
Burke: I would agree there is probably a peak physical age, and players will tend to decline past their late 20s, especially those who are primarily dependent on their speed instead of strength or power.
Correlation does not equal causation. This is the first rule of inferential statistics, and it is violated 100 times a day in sports, business, and politics. All players tend to regress toward their mean--their true performance level from which their stats will vary from year to year. Phenomenal (or "outlier") pitching seasons are characterized by lots of things going right all at once--health, luck (BAPIP), solid defense, weak opponents, etc. Those things are far less likely to continue than they are to revert to normal, so we should expect pitchers with the very best seasons to regress the most the following year. And since we find the best pitchers leading their teams in the postseason, very often they will appear to have bigger drop-offs in performance the following year. The tendency to decline is not due to the postseason at all, just due to the fact they had a higher perch from which to regress. Playoff appearances and statistical declines may be correlated, but one doesn't necessarily cause the other.
RS: Finally I loved the idea and inspiration behind your Fantasy Football Projection system. This is one must-have projection system, even just for name only purposes...
Burke: "Koko" the fantasy football monkey is named after George Costanza's nickname at Kruger Industrial Smoothing. The system is a simple regression from the previous year's fantasy performance and is intended to be the bare minimum baseline of predictive accuracy. If other fantasy predictions aren't much better than Koko, they are a waste of time. My hunch is that outcomes in fantasy football are so subject to randomness, such as freak injuries, that even a monkey can be just as competitive as any expert out there.
When not claiming Fantasy expertise, Ryan writes about Mid-Major College Basketball at SienaSaintsBlog.com.
Brian Burke, Advanced NFL Stats: My hunch was that these injury-prediction theories were all biased by a number of factors. Injuries are by their nature very random, so I am skeptical whenever someone claims to have a valid prediction system. The bottom line is that injury-prediction systems usually fail to account for systematic biases in their analysis.
First, it's always true that athletes will tend to get more prone to injury as they age. Therefore, any comparison of a year "after" something else, such as RB carries or additional innings pitched, will appear to have a slightly higher injury rate than other years.
Second, high-IP or high-carry years are by definition healthy, non-injury years. Whenever you make observations about seasons "after" those years, you are also making observations about "other than" those healthy years. You're removing known healthy years from the data sample, and years left over in the sample will appear to have higher than normal injury rates. But the higher rates are just an illusion caused by the exclusion of healthy years.
It all depends on the type of analysis performed. It's not perfectly clear what the exact methodology the Verducci effect is based on, but I think it's fair to expect explicit and rigorous research on it before we buy into it.
RS: You talk a lot about different types of bias in your articles, including the popular 'Myth of 370', can you explain why that's important for a fantasy player?
For fantasy players, the debunking of myths like 370 mean that all top players can be expected to regress to the mean following high-performing seasons. The higher the performance, the stronger the regression. So the best bet is to go after the top guys and not worry about curses, injuries, etc. Sure, they'll tend to regress, but so do all the other guys too.
RS: One of the reasons we can't dig deeper into some methodologies is because they are 'proprietary'; do you get better observations out of academic papers?
Burke: Actually, I don't have blind faith in academic papers either. Many of them are peer-reviewed by professors who don't understand the nature of the sport, and gross errors in logic get through. I'm very, very skeptical of anything that calls itself proprietary. Whenever I read that word, I think "unverifiable and off-limits to criticism." I can understand why people want to protect their intellectual property, but they should also understand why readers should be skeptical.
RS: I've heard the 'age 27 peak', expect regression from postseason pitchers as facts across many platforms. What would be the best advice to understand the difference between causality and correlation?
Burke: I would agree there is probably a peak physical age, and players will tend to decline past their late 20s, especially those who are primarily dependent on their speed instead of strength or power.
Correlation does not equal causation. This is the first rule of inferential statistics, and it is violated 100 times a day in sports, business, and politics. All players tend to regress toward their mean--their true performance level from which their stats will vary from year to year. Phenomenal (or "outlier") pitching seasons are characterized by lots of things going right all at once--health, luck (BAPIP), solid defense, weak opponents, etc. Those things are far less likely to continue than they are to revert to normal, so we should expect pitchers with the very best seasons to regress the most the following year. And since we find the best pitchers leading their teams in the postseason, very often they will appear to have bigger drop-offs in performance the following year. The tendency to decline is not due to the postseason at all, just due to the fact they had a higher perch from which to regress. Playoff appearances and statistical declines may be correlated, but one doesn't necessarily cause the other.
RS: Finally I loved the idea and inspiration behind your Fantasy Football Projection system. This is one must-have projection system, even just for name only purposes...
Burke: "Koko" the fantasy football monkey is named after George Costanza's nickname at Kruger Industrial Smoothing. The system is a simple regression from the previous year's fantasy performance and is intended to be the bare minimum baseline of predictive accuracy. If other fantasy predictions aren't much better than Koko, they are a waste of time. My hunch is that outcomes in fantasy football are so subject to randomness, such as freak injuries, that even a monkey can be just as competitive as any expert out there.
When not claiming Fantasy expertise, Ryan writes about Mid-Major College Basketball at SienaSaintsBlog.com.
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