Chris Dial

Tango’s souting report is ready, and he’s added some extra info other than data.  There are pieces about the “best” fielders in the report.

A good number of people provide input, so the results are very interesting.  Hopefully, Tango can see about aligning these results with what UZR (or something) says about each player’s defense.

Tango has the new scouting work up.  We all need to get in there and evaluate our players.  With all the game chatter participants, we should generate plenty of data.  With it being “in season”, you can keep adding as you watch more games down the stretch.

While you are at his site, brush up on your Marcels and see how everyone is doing.

If this site hasn’t been posted to, I’ll be shocked.

Dr. Reifman has tons of analysis.  This is very “Tango-pagey”, with some useful tools.

Studes runs through some numbers at THT.

I don’t agree with some of his conclusions, but the data is very interesting.  Frinstance, Halladay’s issue may well be BIP distribution.  At this point in the season, there is no reason to think BIP chances have evneed out.  While it may well be the fielders, that’s far from a sure thing.  It doesn’t take a lot of line drives, only the right time for them.

I also think that 80-100 IP is too early to tell if any particular pitcher is very good at inducing pop-ups. 

I think what may be the key is actually IF/BIP.  That tells me who induces pop-ups.  I think.

UZR is nice, but it isn’t readily available.  Dave Cameron is trying to bang out some rough team estimates.  I think park factors are a significant factor, but most improtantly, actual BIP distribution.  Nonetheless, it’s interesting.

Michael Wolverton, the creator of SNWAR, offers up a mostly opinion piece - okay, an entirely opinion piece - on ERA vs. RA.

I haven’t done a study of ERA vs UERA, but it seems to me, the effects will be mostly negligible.  Michael states that good pitchers are under-rated and bad ones are overrated, but by how much?  Is there a pitcher that truly “gives up runs with impunity” after an error?  I don’t buy that.

His list of pitchers that have given up the most UER had al the knucklers.  Yes, but when you are talking about a subset of 10 pitchers out of, what, 7000, it isn’t a compelling reason to me.

I like errors.  I think they serve a purpose.  I think there could easily be some improvement on the passed ball (like for a knuckler it isn’t a passed ball), and I think errors by the pitcher should count against him (or I almost think that).

None of this is to say RA isn’t of value as well.

Personally, I waver on the fence of game theory - no, the pitch that Bonds hits after the error is *not* the same pitch he would have gotten leading off the next inning.  Position of runners impacts pitch selection, as do number of outs etc, etc.

Anyone done anything similar with UER?