BaseballPhD's Xanga

The Lee Gambit

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 19:41:53 GMT

This is a move that all managers should understand in playoff series. I have dubbed it the "Lee Gambit." It's taking out your ace pitcher early in a lopsided playoff game, to allow him to start again on shorter rest than usual.

If a playoff game becomes lopsided early, and your ace pitcher started, you should take him out! Let your 4th or 5th starter go the rest of the way. It lowers your chances of winning this game very slightly, and increases your chances of winning a later game by a lot, because your ace can come back 2-3 days later instead of 4-5! Because you have one or two starters available out of the bullpen, having a starting pitcher "eat up innings" or "save the bullpen" is much less relevant than it would be during the regular season. (Plus, you have an offseason coming up soon anyway.)

A perfect situation for the Lee Gambit is this: you're down 3-1 in the series, your team is ahead 8-0 after three innings, and your ace has thrown 40 pitches. I'm confused by what exactly you gain by leaving him in there. Managing a pitching staff in the postseason is about trying to get your best pitchers in the highest leverage situations. Routine and tradition should not matter one bit.

Is Everyone REALLY This Bad At Thinking On Their Feet?

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 01:59:56 GMT

It's game 5. Your team is down 3-1, and your lone ace pitcher is starting today. Let's call him "Biff Lee." Tomorrow is a day off, meaning a potential game 7 would be 3 days from now. You have a 6-1 lead in the 5th inning, and Biff's pitch count is still low. PULLING HIM TO USE IN GAME 7 SHOULD BE A NO-BRAINER!

You must win this game AND the next two to win the World Series. The "if we lose today, it's over!" attitude is absurd. Your probability of winning this game given the current situation is roughly 93%. Leaving Biff in cannot possibly boost this number very much. This is what we call a "low-leverage" situation. Starting a reasonably fresh Biff in game 7, on the other hand, will increase the probability of winning THAT game by quite a bit. No one seems to understand this. Not analysts, fans, nor Biff's completely hypothetical manager.

A Plea to FOX

Sun, 18 Oct 2009 00:39:58 GMT

This is not my normal analytical type of post. I'm just upset.

Please fire Joe Buck and Tim McCarver. Or at least do not allow them to cover postseason games. These supposedly "professional" broadcasters do not even have the standards and decency to learn how to pronounce the names of players in the starting lineups of the LCS. It's embarrassing. I understand that Maicer Izturis is not on their beloved Yankees, but it's still sort of nice to show him the simple courtesy of knowing how to say his name when the game is on national television.

AL Cy Young

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 14:41:46 GMT

There's no need to construct strawman arguments as long as Joe Morgan's still out there:

"I would vote for CC ... I would vote for him because when he came to the Yankees, he was under extreme pressure to do three things: 1) win games; 2) be the ace of the staff; 3) beat Boston. The only thing left to do is lead them in the playoffs, but the votes will be in before the playoffs. There have been a lot of guys that they brought to that staff to be the ace and haven't, guys like Randy Johnson. CC will have more innings pitched, Greinke may have better other numbers. But for me it's innings pitched and wins and losses. But you can not take away from what Greinke has done. I would not argue with anyone who votes for him."

That's certainly cordial of you, Joe, to not argue with the people who are obviously right. Your argument is essentially: "Yeah, Greinke's pitched a lot better than Sabathia, but Sabathia plays for the Yankees!" Then you go on to cite wins and losses. You do realize, don't you, that Sabathia's edge in W-L is completely due to the fact that he has the Yankees behind him, while Greinke has the Royals? Just checking. Greinke has SIX games in which he has gone at least 7 innings, given up 0 or 1 run, and did not get a win out of it. Sabathia has one such game. How can anyone possibly hold this against Greinke?

Yeah, also Sabathia has pitched 4 more innings than Greinke. Wooooooo innings pitched!

Greinke: 2.06 ERA, 1.07 WHIP, 237 K, 223.1 IP
Sabathia: 3.21 ERA, 1.10 WHIP, 194 K, 227.1 IP

This is not hard. You take your AL Cy Young ballot, and you vote for Greinke. Doing otherwise is justification for being placed in a mental institution

Never, Ever Make This Argument

Sat, 19 Sep 2009 20:11:01 GMT

Regarding voting for pitchers for MVP, I have heard a certain sentiment expressed many times lately. It's come from fans, broadcasters, and writers. It is the following:

"Pitchers should not win MVPs, because they can only help their team once every five games."

This is a mind-bogglingly stupid argument. There's something counteracting it that's being completely neglected. When Tim Lincecum is pitching, he affects the outcome of the game FAR more than his teammates do individually. Whether it's five times as much, more, or less, is a legitimate issue to ponder. The statement above, on the other hand, is so blindingly ignorant it makes my stomach hurt.

MVP Races

Sun, 13 Sep 2009 20:29:32 GMT

I was going to write an entry claiming emphatically that any MVP voter would be completely nuts not to have Albert Pujols and Joe Mauer at the top of their ballots. And sure, I'd still vote for those two. However, it's closer than you'd think. And kudos to you if you can identify the close second player in each league*.

Chase Utley is the guy in the NL (though Hanley Ramirez isn't far behind). Utley's right up there in all of the important offensive categories. He's 19/19 stealing bases. He gets bonus points for being a 2nd baseman, and then more bonus points for being a GOOD second baseman. I'm predicting Utley will finish about 5th in the voting, because the voters as a whole do not understand positional differences, and that's where a lot of Utley's value comes from.

The AL player is... are you ready for this? Ben Zobrist. Yeah. I'm serious. He's actually been pretty comparable to Utley. Only slightly less gaudy numbers, great defense (at 2nd and elsewhere), and he plays in a less hitter-friendly park. Zobrist also won't get too many votes near the top. Anyone who understands positional differences and defensive value is already voting for Mauer. And the neanderthal voters who don't will pick Teixeira, Youkilis, or Cabrera. Then they'll go to a local bar, bash an attractive woman (or man) with a giant club, and drag them back to their caves.

*If you want to vote for Greinke or Lincecum, I won't argue. I'm going to fall on the side of pragmatism here, and acknowledge that you need really extraordinary circumstances for a pitcher to actually win an MVP.

Pythagorean W-L Is Smarter Than You

Sat, 22 Aug 2009 05:45:55 GMT

Sigh. Once again, the Angels are outperforming their Pythagorean W-L, and once again, my BS meter is going nuts listening to all the ridiculous explanations of their special abilities that manifest themselves in this precise way.

The explanation is not complicated. They've outperformed their Pythag six years in a row. The probability of the Angels doing this by random chance is only about 1.5%. However... the probability of SOME team doing this over a given six-year stretch by random chance is about 37%. Since we identified the Angels as the special team AFTER observing this phenomenon, the 37% is the relevant probability here, not the 1.5%. Post hoc in all its glory.

Until I hear a compelling causal explanation, I'm sticking with that very non-trivial possibility that it's just random chance.

*Edit: Actually, it's even more severe post hoc than this. Not only did we identify the team after the fact, but we identified the accomplishment itself after the fact. It's not as if somebody declared in March of 2004 in the Imperial Scrolls of Honor that we should note whether or not a team outperforms its Pythag W-L for the next six seasons!

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 03:17:35 GMT

I've accepted the fact that I will never understand the massive love affair the media and the public have with Derek Jeter. I will now turn to my new point of outrage, following the Manuel/Phillies all-star debacle, which is: why do people still think Ryan Howard is really good?

Howard's OPS in his first 4 full seasons (2009 included): 1.084, .976, .882, .870. Does it maybe seem like something's changed for him*?

Yes, he hits home runs. That's it. That's the only positive aspect of his game. This is a guy who, in 2008, hit 48 home runs, and had an OBP of .339. That is astounding. There were 27 other players who hit at least 30 homers in 2008, and 25 of them beat Howard in OBP. Most of them by quite a bit. By the way, I know I could use more sophisticated metrics here, but I want my points to be as transparent as possible.

Howard's recent OPS numbers are actually misleading, because a huge proportion comes from his slugging percentage. Though there's no exact agreement on the weights, it's pretty well understood than OBP is more important than SLG. In any case, he's still not currently in the top 40 in OPS in the majors. He plays first base. Last I checked, first base was the premium offensive position. Stud first basemen tend to crack the top 40. Stud first basemen such as:

Albert Pujols
Prince Fielder
Kevin Youkilis
Justin Morneau
Russell Branyan
Lance Berkman
Miguel Cabrera
Todd Helton
Mark Teixeira
Adrian Gonzalez
Carlos Pena

These guys are all crushing Howard this year. That's 11 players, out of the other 29 teams. Howard is on par with Paul Konerko and Kendry Morales. That's the level of value you should be thinking.

And don't even talk to me about his RBI totals. Thanks to the Phillies' stud offense, he had 691 plate appearances last year, and my rough qualitative estimation tells me that Chase Utley was on base for about 500 of them.

Oh yeah, and Citizens' Bank Park isn't exactly pitcher-friendly.

*Hint: he can't hit pitches that aren't fastballs

Saturday, July 11, 2009

Sat, 11 Jul 2009 05:32:00 GMT

The NL all-star roster this year is just appalling.

1. Pablo Sandoval not being on the roster is inexcusable. He's currently sitting at .331/.382/.572. (Jayson Werth is .268/.372/.523, Shane Victorino is .314/.379/.472, and several other starters and reserves are worse.) Sandoval is an interesting, exciting player. He's 7th in the NL in OPS, ahead of such names as Ryan Braun, Adrian Gonzalez, and David Wright, who's starting at his position. Charlie Manuel earns an epic fail for not including Kung Fu Panda.

2. Freddy Sanchez is the backup second baseman. The Pirates need a representative, and Sanchez is having a fine year. Fantastic. So... why the hell does Orlando Hudson need to be there? You don't complain about a .767 OPS from a second baseman, but you also don't send him to the all-star game. Utley should play the whole game anyway, he's in a class by himself among second basemen.

3. The Braves' pitching got absolutely hosed. Jair Jurrjens and Javier Vazquez are 5th and 6th in starter ERA in the NL (Vazquez is also 2nd in strikeouts). Several guys well behind them are going. Is it their fault the Braves aren't scoring runs for them? In addition, don't you think there should be a place for a reliever with these stats:

1.55 ERA, 0.91 WHIP, 40.2 IP (more than any reliever selected), 53 Ks?

That's Rafael Soriano, certified badass. I'm not saying that any of these three guys is an egregious omission individually, but leaving all of them out is just a slap in the face to the Braves.

4. There is absolutely no excuse for Ryan Howard. Do we really need a FOURTH first baseman? If so, it should at least be Lance Berkman. You know, on account of him being better at baseball and all. Ryan Howard is SEVENTH in OPS among NL first basemen. This is awful. Just awful. Charlie Manuel should be ashamed of himself.

When someone asked Rob Neyer how to improve the all-star game, he said something along the lines of: "Oh, I don't know... maybe HAVE THE BEST PLAYERS GO?????" The game is just not that exciting, because when it's all on the line at the end, you have Jason Marquis pitching to Brandon Inge.

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 17:47:32 GMT

I'm an NL fan, but the fact that the AL has been stronger for the past several years is inescapable. The AL is ahead in interleague play so far in 2009, and (thank you to Rob Neyer for printing these totals), in the past 4 years, the AL has been:

149-103 (2008)
137-115 (2007)
154-98 (2006)
136-116 (2005)

in interleague play. In terms of winning percentages, that's .591, .543, .611, and .540, for an overall total of .571. This is very, very statistically significant. The AL is stronger, deal with it.

The more interesting question, though, is WHY the AL is stronger. Before we start harping on about DHs and smart executives, let's look at some telling numbers.

Year         Average AL Team Salary         Average NL Team Salary
2009              $93.3M                          $84.3M
2008              $96.9M                          $83.1M
2007              $92.8M                          $73.7M
2006              $83.7M                          $72.4M
2005              $75.5M                          $70.9M

(I got each year from a different source, but in any given year, the AL & NL numbers are from the same source. They're not exact, there are different ways of measuring this, I know, I know. Take them as rough estimates, I don't care.)

The obvious reaction to this is: well of COURSE the AL does better, their average salaries are noticeably higher. And certainly yes, that does give them an edge. I'm going to do some crude analysis to show you that it does partially explain the results.

Here's another table. This one shows the difference in average salary computed from the info above, and, courtesy of FanGraphs, the price of a marginal win, from 2005-2008.

Year         Salary Difference         Price of a Marginal Win
2008               $13.8M                      $4.5M
2007               $19.1M                      $4.1M
2006               $11.3M                      $3.7M
2005               $4.6M                      $3.4M

If we divide salary difference by marginal win price, we find that the difference in expected win totals between the average AL & NL teams should be 3.07, 4.66, 3.05, and 1.35, equivalent to season winning percentage differences of .019, .029, .019, and .008.

These are the differences we'd expect against average competition. In interleague play, you have above average teams playing against below average teams (in aggregate). So, the difference in winning percentages should actually be magnified a bit. This is quite a large expected difference in performance, but it still explains less than half of the AL's success. If you compute a z-score for the 2005-2008 results using this information, regardless of what assumptions you make, you're going to get something more than a couple standard deviations from the expected results. Thus, there's something else going on here.