MLB: Bannister not sold on day-night split

Look out Prospectus Idol 2010!

Those that know Brian Bannister know he is an analytical guy.

He studies stats. He looks at trends. Simply put, Bannister explores the game of baseball.

So the easy answer is, yes, Bannister has looked at his extreme day-night splits.

He’s seen the numbers—a 15-6 career record with a 4.31 ERA during the day, and a 13-26 record with a 4.83 ERA at night.

And Bannister thinks he has the answer. It’s nothing more than one of those curious baseball oddities, he says.

“I have the exact same opponent batting average and my ERA is almost identical [in day and night games],” Bannister said. “So the answer to that is my team scores more runs for me during the day.”

University of Missouri – St. Louis: Symposium on Statistics and Operations Research in Baseball

What would Babe Ruth do if he faced Pedro Martinez?
How would Tony LaRussa have done managing Whitey Herzog’s roster?

Paul Bessire of Fox Sports’ What-if-Sports Unit will demonstrate how he simulates these scenarios.  Paul is among the featured speakers at the Third Symposium on Statistics in Sports. 

The third Symposium on Statistics and Operations Research in Baseball will be another meeting of the baseball, industrial, and academic worlds. The focus is on how Statistics and Operations Research methodology is used within baseball and associated businesses and on how baseball inspires the expansion of the frontiers of Statistics and Operations Research as scientific fields. The theme of this year’s Symposium is “Answering Sports Questions with Rigor.”

Not THE Dr. Rigor!

Twinkie Town: Peterson: Runs Batted In: Opportunity vs Execution

Screw Hanley Ramirez...Morneau’s already a top run producer!

Justin Morneau: Elite Run Producer, or lucky to be batting behind Joe Mauer?

Over the past three years, no one on the Minnesota Twins has driven in more runs than the 2006 MVP, Justin Morneau:

2006: 130 RBI

2007: 111 RBI

2008: 129 RBI

That’s a lot of RBIs. Buthow much of this is Morneau the elite run producer, and how much does he take advantage of hitting behind one of the truly elite OBP guys in Joe Mauer? Let’s take a look at the number of RBI opportunities Morneau has had relative to the rest of MLB.

“Expected" Runs Batted In

How do we normalize each batter’s RBI opportunities? First we must create a baseline. I collected data from the entire 2008 and partial 2009 (through 7/1) seasons, counting the total number of RBI for each inning situation (e.g., one out, runner on second base). I used this data to calculate the average number of RBI that one would “expect” a batter to drive in for a given situation. I call this “Expected RBI”, or “eRBI”. Not surprisingly, bases empty, zero or one out (0.028 eRBI) is the least RBI-friendly situation, and one out, bases loaded (0.766 eRBI) is the best situation for driving in runs. I then added up the eRBI for each player across all of his plate appearances during the season. Who were the leaders in expected RBI?

WSJ: MLODINOW: From banking to baseball, winning streaks owe much to the laws of chance

And do Drunkard’s Walk more than DiMaggio did? All this and more!

DiMaggio’s hitting streak was an inspiration in troubled times. The pursuit of any record comes with pressure—Roger Maris lost some of his hair during his attempt to break Babe Ruth’s home-run record in 1961—but most records forgive you an off day as long as you compensate at other times. Not so with a streak, which demands unwavering performance. And so DiMaggio’s streak has been interpreted as a feat of mythic proportion, seen as a heroic, even miraculous, spurt of unrivaled effort and concentration.

But was it? Or was this epic moment simply a fluke?

Recent academic studies have questioned whether DiMaggio’s streak is unambiguous evidence of a spurt of ability that exceeded his everyday talent, rather than an anomaly to be expected from some highly talented player, in some year, by chance, something like the occasional 150-yard drive in golf that culminates in a hole in one. No one is saying that talent doesn’t matter. They are just asking whether a similar streak would have happened sometime in the history of baseball even if each player hit with the unheroic and unmiraculous—but steady—ability of an emotionless robot.

That randomness naturally leads to streaks contradicts people’s intuition. If we were to picture randomness, we might think of a graph that looks jerky, not smooth like a straight line. But random processes do display periods of order. In a toss of 100 coins, for example, the chances are more than 75% that you will see a streak of six or more heads or tails, and almost 10% that you’ll produce a streak of 10 or more. As a result a streak can look quite impressive even if it is due to nothing more than chance.

Basement Dwellers: What’s wrong with Bronson Arroyo?

NOTHING! He has one bad start out of every six or seven which screws up his ERA! Bronson Arroyo is the solution to all the Yankees’ proble...(sudden dismissive hand wave - Diet Coke ascites retention alert)

What I’m seeing here is a steady decline in his k/9 rates from mid-last season until now. His k/9 rate this year is its lowest since 2005 when with the Red Sox, and to me is looking pretty scary. I’ve long believed that Bronson’s bellweather stat is his strikeout rate, so color me concerned.

I’m no scout, so I can’t give you a precise cause. But let’s play a bit: his fastball run value has taken a huge hit this year, and appears to be where the problem lies among his major pitches from the pitch value data. But his fastball velocity, as he said, is essentially unchanged vs last year. And his fastball pitchf/x movement looks similar (maybe a slight drop in vertical movement, but not as large as 2007 vs 2008). Run values on his curve ball and change are actually improved this year, and are mostly unchanged on his slider, so those pitches look fine.

His walk rate is up this year. So, here’s a hypothesis: Arroyo’s not spotting his fastball this season, and so he can’t use it to properly set up his breaking slop as he usually does. And he’s behind in the count more than usual, causing him to give better pitches to hit. I can’t do my own pitchf/x at this point, but would someone like to test this who can assess strike zones? Maybe compare balls vs strikes on all 3-1 and 3-2 counts in 2009 vs. 2008 in which he threw a fastball? I’ve gone as far as I can go.

Fangraphs - Cameron : Morgan = Dunn

When the Nationals signed Adam Dunn over the winter to a 2 year, $20 million contract, the reaction from the sabermetric community was almost unanimously positive towards the move for Washington. For a fraction of his original asking price, they got the guy who had become something of a poster boy for the kind of player that statistical analysts have been claiming is undervalued for years. The walks and power skillset produces a lot of runs, and Dunn has a master’s degree in the walks and power skillset.

When the Nationals acquired Nyjer Morgan yesterday, the reaction from the sabermetric community was almost unanimously negative towards the move for Washington. He was routinely called a no-power fourth outfielder, easily replaceable, and a 29-year-old with no upside. The Nationals were destroyed for giving up on a “talent” like Lastings Milledge to acquire Morgan. Analysts I have quite a bit of respect for, like Keith Law, Dan Szymborski, and our own R.J. Anderson, hailed this as an easy win for the Pirates, as none of them see much value in Morgan.

Here’s the problem. Nyjer Morgan and Adam Dunn are nearly equals in value, and the polar reactions from the sabermetric crowd puts the blindspots that have been developed over the last 10-15 years on full display.

OC Register: Chone Smith Can See The Future

Forget Miss Clio… Call CHONE now!

SAM MILLER/OCR: Before I go to some players outperforming or underperforming projections, though, this is quoting you… you were asked which Angel could collapse, which would break out: “If I have to pick one maybe Howie Kendrick. I’m worried about the injuries and inability to lay off the slider outside stalling his development. With his lack of patience, he has to hit .300 to be an asset, .270 would be a disaster. … Weaver will take the step forward to become an ace, like Lackey, Santana, and Saunders have before him. My projections see him as the equal to Lackey and Santana.” You’re a witch!!!

Chone Smith: That looks pretty good. But I take no pleasure in Kendrick’s struggles.

SAM MILLER/OCR: Do you think our projections will get any better, or have we reached the limit of what we can feed into them?
Chone Smith: I thought they had reached some kind of limit, and actually hoped that I’d have a stable system so I could focus on other projects, but there is a lot more I can do. David Wright has taught me that in the past week. (Editor’s note: Wright has an unheard of batting average on balls in play this year, so he’s hitting for high average despite setting new personal highs in strikeouts and lows in home runs.)

The developer of the CHONE projection system, Sean Smith, on his way to fame and fortune. Or at least fame.

Baseball Musings: Pinto: Streaking Suzuki

Ichrio more than made up for it with his bat, however. He doubled and scored a run to extend his hit streak to 10 games. Impressively, his last seven games have all produced multiple hits, bring his batting average up to .375. The AL batting race is setting up to be a classic, with both Joe Mauer and Ichiro producing very high averages.

Since Ichrio came into the season with a higher career batting average than Mauer, .331 to .317, we should start watching Ichrio’s chance of hitting .400 as well. Like Joe, Ichiro missed some time at the start of the season, so we’ll also chart two probabilities, one for 162 games, one for 154 games.

Cockcroft: Citi Field is costing the New York Mets—and their opponents—home runs in 2009

It’s a musgraveyard for flyballs!

According to Rybarczyk, the most significant change in ballpark effect by the Mets’ switching from Shea Stadium to Citi Field this season has been in terms of home-run production. In the first 37 games of Citi Field’s existence, the Mets and their opponents have been “robbed” of a combined 36 home runs that might have cleared the fences at Shea. Compare that to only two home runs—both hit by fellow fantasy first-rounder Chase Utley of the Phillies—hit at the Mets’ new home that would not have been round-trippers at Shea, and you’re talking a staggering difference in ballpark factors.

So what’s causing such a dramatic effect? Rybarczyk illustrates the vast difference in outfield dimensions between Shea and Citi Field in the diagram to the right. But it’s more than that. As he adds: “Keep in mind that the fences at Citi Field are considerably taller than those at Shea Stadium, and that for a typical home run ball, each additional foot of fence height is equivalent to moving the same height fence back by 0.84 feet. So, the 16-foot fence in left field at Citi Field is not only much deeper than the left-field fence at Shea Stadium, it is 8 feet taller, which equates to about another 6 feet of distance.”

Fangraphs: Eric Seidman: Perplexed About Lee

With the Indians tanking and Lee’s value likely higher than it ever will be, it makes sense for Shapiro to kick the tires on a potential deal netting him prospects, but for some reason, more rumors and trade talks have involved guys like Marquis, who is actually making almost double Lee’s salary this year, and is a free agent at the end of the season with no option on which to hang his head. I am honestly perplexed as to why Lee has not attracted more attention; or if he has, why we have not heard about it yet. It is almost as if teams are still waiting for the massive regression to occur, when we now have a year and a half of awesomeness from the Indians lefty proving his worth.

Since the beginning of last season, Lee has thrown 334.1 innings over 47 starts, with a 2.67 ERA almost matched by an equally low FIP, a 1.17 WHIP, a sub-2.0 walk rate, and a 4.2 K/BB ratio. The only thing missing is the reputation that usually accompanies the name of a pitcher with numbers like that over an extended period of time. It is time to start realizing that Cliff Lee has become a very good pitcher, not a back of the rotation upgrade. If any of the Phillies, Brewers or Rangers is serious about solidifying their rotation by trading a young stud prospect, they should start amping up efforts to acquire Lee. He might not win the Cy Young Award again, but given his contract and current established level of performance, as well as the lack of health issues, no other pitcher being discussed as a trade target would be a more significant upgrade.

Main reason why people aren’t trumping Cliff Lee as possible trade bait. People still think he’s a fluke.

Amazin’ Avenue: Stop Talking About David Wright’s BABIP Like It’s An Achievment

Or as Wee Willie Keeler’s brother, Profumo used to say..."Hit em where they ain’t...####! THEY MOVED OVER!”

That’s why writers and broadcasters need to stop saying things like:

The Mets only hope that inflated mark of .460 has more to do with Wright being good than being lucky. -Britton

It’s luck.

The thing that Wright has been able to do this year that has made his BABIP soar, is adjust his swing so that he is producing more clean line drives as opposed to upper-cutting and hitting fly balls. -Bleacher Report

You made that up.

What that means is that Wright, for whatever reason, is hitting ‘em where they ain’t. It can’t hold up forever—or can it? -DiComo

No it can’t.

BDD: Baer: Statistics Are Not Like Bikinis

Does this mean I have to chuck my Jaime Lynn Fox/Paige Hopewell DVD?

I say all of this, of course, in regard to the article that Brian (Joseph) wrote yesterday about Sabermetrics. Some of the criticism was valid, but he didn’t identify the correct target, which should have been us, the fallible humans. His criticisms (such as Sabermetrics being subjectively objective) didn’t put any chinks the armor of Sabermetrics because Sabermetrics — essentially one of baseball’s sciences — is adaptable. If there’s a problem with an aspect of Sabermetrics, go ahead and change it.

Additionally, Sabermetrics — contrary to the claims of many who don’t trust it — is not adhered to religiously. Just because PECOTA says Matt Wieters is going to smoke some American League pitching doesn’t mean that he is, in fact, going to smoke some American League pitching. We can choose to accept what various analyses say, or we can reject them. Just because one prefers DIPS to ERA doesn’t mean one is bound to the conclusions reached via DIPS and cannot utilize ERA in analysis.

I don’t write this as a jab back at Brian, what with me being someone who utilizes Sabermetrics. I welcome and enjoy reading well-written, well-researched criticisms of the sciences because it can only help us improve. It is important, though, to identify who or what is really at fault, and in the case of Brian’s criticisms, it’s the people using the science and not the actual science itself.

BDD: Butterflies & Dr. Statlove (or How They Learned to Stop Watching Baseball and Love the Numbers)

or...Two Hours to of DOOM?

Sometimes I think there are baseball fans of the sabermetric sort that would rather watch FanGraphs’ Live Scoreboard than actually watch a game of baseball. This isn’t a knock on how people choose to enjoy the National Pastime, just an observation. Heck, having seen Adam Eaton pitch more times than I care to remember, there have been times I wish I wasn’t actually watching the game.

Those who love the numbers of the game are often refer to sabermetrics and almost treat as a way of life when discussing how they choose to enjoy the game. Wikipedia defines sabermetrics as the analysis of baseball through objective evidence, especially baseball statistics. While this is a simplified definition, I always found the definition ironic. The notion that sabermetrics is truly objective is silly when there are a number of ways to “objectively” look at a situation statistically depending on your subjectiveness toward the game. Take player value, for example. Some prefer VORP, others look at WAR and others consider Win Shares. Each serves a purpose and each way to evaluate players has its following and detractors. So, it is truly not objective.

...I know, I know. I’m hard on those who love sabermetrics. My guess is while I love the numbers of the game, I will never be truly accepted in the sabermetric fraternity. But, at the end of the day, you can’t understand baseball just by looking at the numbers. The statistics of the game are too malleable to make an iron-clad complex argument without someone else manipulating the numbers slightly to fit their hypothesis. And no matter how snarky you are in your commentary or how sure you are in your conclusion, there’s another way to look at it.

It’s chaos theory, at it’s best. Too bad it sometimes brings out the worst.

S.I. : Marchman: A tale of two brothers: What’s the difference between the Uptons?

I see Hal Trosky mentioned, which reminds of the two ML broadcasters (don’t ask me who they were as I was repairing my legless Billholden end table) that came across his name yesterday...and didn’t know who he was.

The varying approaches that Tampa Bay and Arizona took with their wildly talented players show in some wildly varying results. More than his inconsistent hitting lines, B.J.’s struggles are reflected in an inconsistent approach. In 2006, for instance, he swung at 14 percent of pitches outside the strike zone; the next year, it was 19 percent, an increase of more than 35 percent. In his three seasons Justin has ranged from 24 percent to 26 percent. B.J.’s isolated power—slugging average minus batting average, a measure of pure extra-base hitting—dropped more than 100 points from his first to his second year, increased 150 points in his third year, and has dropped steadily since; Justin’s has increased each year.

Again, this is surely partly a reflection of talent, that slight and indiscernible difference in genetics that some genius some day may be able to isolate under an electron microscope. Blind as we may be to the specific mechanics, there is no mystery here. But if, injuries and early promotion aside, B.J.’s fundamental problem has been an inability to fix on one aspect of his game and master it, it’s hard not to tie that to the inconsistent way in which he was treated in his formative days as a major leaguer, when no one even seemed quite able to decide what position he should play, let alone what style he should adopt at the plate.

THT:Colin Wyers: How well can we predict ERA?

Ability vs. Value

I have written at length before on the basic principles of ability (or true-talent level) verus value. There’s just one point I want to come around and reemphasize.

People tend to lean upon defense-independent estimates of pitching performance because they better predict future performance. (And, strictly speaking, they do.) This leads to a lot of fantastic confusion about the issue, with the argument being that if we want to look at past performance, we should ignore defense-independent measures and look at actual results.

This is wrong for the same reason that we look at a pitcher’s ERA instead of his win-loss record. A team does not consistently score the same amount of runs every game; thus it is possible for different pitchers, even different pitchers on the same team, to have vastly different amounts of run support. This is not a function of pitching, and the credit or blame for this should not righly be assigned to the pitcher.

It is the same with defensive support. Two pitchers, even two pitchers on the same team, cannot be presumed to have the same quality of support from their defense. Defense-independent pitching statistics seek to give us a way to compare pitchers with different defensive support fairly.

But for a value measure, we do not care if a result came from luck or skill. We attribute defensive performance to the defense, not because the pitcher has no control over it, but because someone else does have control over it.

Home runs, on the other hand, are not under the purvue of the defense (except for a few, very rare cases). Thus, for a value metric, it is appropriate to credit a pitcher for the precise number of home runs allowed, and not an estimate thereof.

THT: Carty: More on the LIPS/FIP discrepancy

As a couple of readers pointed out, while almost all of the players on my list from Monday had abnormally high or low HR/FB rates (which is to be expected since FIP doesn’t normalize HR/FB), there were a few pitchers who saw a big disparity between FIP and LIPS yet had completely normal HR/FB rates. How could this be?

The answer is that while the biggest difference between LIPS and FIP is the fact that LIPS normalizes HR/FB, LIPS also takes into account a few other things that FIP does not. So today, I’m going to look at a few of the starting pitchers with at least 40 innings pitched and at least a 0.50 LIPS/FIP difference and examine why this difference exists.

Roy Halladay - Worse than FIP indicates

Halladay’s difference is being driven by the same two factors as Cook.

1) The Rogers Centre inflates run scoring by 3.1 percent.
2) His infield fly ball rate (2.7 percent) is lower than league average (3.9 percent).

Chris Young - Better than FIP indicates

Chris Young has the most extreme LIPS/FIP difference of any pitcher in baseball this year, whether under or overvalued. Three factors are driving this:

1) PETCO reduces run scoring by 7.7 percent.
2) He induces more than twice as many infield flies (7.7 percent) than league average (3.9 percent).
3) He hits fewer batters (0.24 per 9) than league average (0.35 per 9)

NYT: Shpigel: Mets’ Wright Goes Where Few Hitters Have Gone Before (RR)

Great Krynzel! He has the powers of Ichiro Suzuki, Juan Pierre and Dave Kingman!

In a sense, Wright has become a composite of the best and worst traits of Ichiro Suzuki, Juan Pierre and Dave Kingman, on pace to hit 11 homers, strike out 159 times and steal 48 bases while batting 51 points higher than his career average.

...According to the Web site Baseball-Reference.com, only three players have struck out at least 159 times in a season and hit better than .300: Ryan Howard, in 2006 (181, .313), Bobby Bonds, in 1970 (189, .302) and Sammy Sosa in 1998 (171, .308) and 2000 (168, .320). Only Bonds (26) hit fewer than 50 home runs during those seasons. Through the Mets’ first 62 games, Wright has 4.

...Actually, that is basically what is happening. Through Tuesday, Wright had hit safely on 49.7 percent of the balls he has put in play, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. That is the highest percentage in baseball this season, and if Wright maintains that pace he will hold the career record, surpassing Babe Ruth’s 48.1 percentage compiled in 1923.

mlbtraderumors.com: Possible Type A Free Agents

Eddie Bajek has reverse-engineered the Elias rankings, and we’ll now be providing that information exclusively at MLB Trade Rumors.  Today let’s take a look at the 2010 free agents who would be Type A, if the season ended today.  Click here for an explanation on free agent compensation.

Catchers

* Victor Martinez*
* Jason Varitek*
* Bengie Molina

First Base/Outfield/DH

* Matt Holliday
* Aubrey Huff
* Jason Bay
* Magglio Ordonez*
* Johnny Damon
* Bobby Abreu
* Jim Thome
* Jermaine Dye*
* Xavier Nady
* Randy Winn

Rob Neyer: AL pitchers feasting on NL?

Have you noticed something strange lately? Seems like every time a starting pitcher does something fantastic, he just happens to be pitching for an American League team against a National League team.

Just my imagination? To check, I scanned ESPN.com’s scoreboard pages, from last Friday through last night’s games, looking for headlines in which the winning starting pitcher was mentioned. I found 15. See if you notice any sort of pattern ...

No, it’s not scientific. No, the list doesn’t include fine games pitched by the likes of National Leaguers Matt Cain and Brad Thompson (or for that matter, American Leaguers Kevin Millwood, A.J. Burnett, Brad Bergesen, and Brian Bannister). But among the 15 starting pitchers who made headlines for winning, 12 made headlines for pitching brilliantly (or near-brilliantly) against National League teams. Jered Weaver threw his first shutout, Luke Hochevar needed only 80 pitches to dispatch Cincinnati, and Gil Meche threw his third shutout in 225 career starts. CLiff Lee took a no-hitter into the eighth, and Felix Rodriguez took a one-hitter into the ninth.

Sure, it’s only 15 games, and 15 games that were subject to the whims of ESPN.com’s headline writers. But I mean, c’mon. It’s obvious, isn’t it, that the American Leaguers are playing a different game? A better game?

sigh.

Yahoo: AccuScore: Playoff shifts after week 10

NATIONAL LEAGUE

The Rockies have won 11 straight (7-0 in Week 10) including an impressive sweep on the road in Milwaukee. This performance has helped them skyrocket by plus-11.8 percentage points, more than quadrupling their playoff chances. Another NL West team, the Giants, also had a good week going 5-2. They won two of three on the road vs. division rival Arizona, which helped them improve by nearly eight percentage points and hurt Arizona by lowering their chances by six percent. The Dodgers have held on to their lofty #1 spot by going 3-2.

The Brewers offense has struggled, scoring just eight runs in their home series vs the Rockies. This should be a temporary setback, but it was enough to drop them by minus-6.5 percent. Despite their drop-off, the Brewers still have the best chance to win the division at 38.6 percent. They were helped this week by the poor performance by the Cardinals (2-4). The Cubs were just 2-4, but they moved up because the Brewers and Cardinals struggled. You may wonder why the Cubs at .500 are projected to do substantially better than the .500 Reds. The Cubs have underperformed and as players like Alfonso Soriano(notes) start to play better they should win more than half of their remaining games.

The Marlins had their first great week in over a month going 5-2. Their week would have been better if their wins had been against NL playoff competition. Their sweep in Toronto helps, but they are not in competition with Toronto for a playoff spot. The Phillies started the week out well winning two of three vs the Mets, but they ended the week continuing their poor play at home. They are now just 13-16 at home vs a stellar 23-9 on the road. The Phillies dropped minus-6 percent with most of that going to the Marlins.

S.I.: Posnanski: Talkin’ pitch counts and Nolan Ryan’s crusade, with Bill James

Joe: Something happened around 2001, too. I’m not sure what it was ... but while managers were definitely being more careful with pitchers throughout the 1980s and 1990s, it had not reached the point of absurdity. In 2000 managers let their starters throw 120 pitches or more about 12 percent of the time—there were 454 instances of a pitcher throwing 120-plus pitches. That was more or less in line with the 1990s.

But in 2001 the 120-plus pitch games were cut in half. By 2006 they were cut in half again. Last season there were only 71 games where a pitcher threw 120-plus pitches ... these games have become almost extinct. I do think it’s fear-driven ... most of the managers I talk to around the game privately DESPISE the pitch count. Or, more to the point, they despise the oppressive nature of pitch counts—“Sure, we have to be careful with pitchers,” one big-league manager told me. “But we’re to the point now where we’re babying them. You’ll see pitchers now throw five or six good innings, and they feel like they’ve done their job. That’s our fault.”

Bill: The problem with the move toward pitch counts was that there was never any logic or research that said that limiting a pitcher to 100 pitches would prevent injuries, as opposed to 130 pitches, or 130 for young pitchers and 160 for mature pitchers, or as opposed to getting the pitcher out of the game at the first sign of a problem, or as opposed to improving his training regimen. I am opposed to making decisions based on fear, and in favor of making decisions based on logic and research, and therefore I support what Nolan Ryan is trying to do.

I always admire people who have the courage to confront the conventional wisdom ... I mean, people within the system. Those of us on the outside ... it’s easy for us to say whatever we think, because there are no consequences to it. It’s much harder to say, “I think the conventional wisdom is full of beans, and I’m not going to go along with it,” when you’re inside the system and exposed to the possibility of actual failure. I think the people who do this drive the world to get better, whereas the people who snipe at anybody who dares suggest that the conventional wisdom is malarkey are, in my view, gutless conspirators in the mediocrity of the universe. To me, what Ryan is doing is the clearest and boldest example of challenging the conventional wisdom from within the system that I’ve seen in years, and I’m applauding.

Heh...he said “full of beans”.

NYT: Rosenheck: Backing Up an Agent’s Pitch (RR)

Dan R’s latest..Keeping Score for Stephen Strasburg.

But while ranking college pitchers is fairly straightforward, converting their statistics to major league equivalents is much more challenging. No two programs have the same schedule, and only a handful of players have gone straight from college to the majors, meaning there is little data against which to make a direct comparison.

To overcome these obstacles, analysts are forced to resort to the quantitative equivalent of duct tape and super glue to estimate the quality of college competition. Most statistical indicators say nothing about the overall level of play in a league: if both the pitchers and hitters at one level are better than those in another, their performances will cancel out. But a few figures avoid this effect, such as error rate (which measures the quality of the fielders) and the frequency of hit batsmen (which measures pitchers’ control). These numbers, taken together, can provide a quick approximation of a league’s strength. They suggest that Strasburg faced opposition roughly comparable to that of a middling Class A minor league squad.

Using those sketchy parameters, Boras’s assertion that Strasburg is a major league-ready talent is more than just a negotiating ploy. According to Clay Davenport of Baseball Prospectus, had Strasburg been pitching for Washington instead of San Diego State this year, he would have compiled a 3.54 E.R.A. (which would rank 18th among qualifiers in the National League) and struck out 9.3 batters per nine innings (good for ninth). By contrast, Prior’s college numbers were consistent with a 3.89 major league E.R.A., and Weaver’s with a 4.51.

The Good Phight: Cohen: Raul Ibanez and the Juice: Another Look at the Numbers

As Robothal recharges…

As you can see, what Ibanez is doing now is hardly unprecedented for him. Yes, this is his best 58-game home run streak and slugging percentage, but it’s not his best 58-game OPS (that was the 1.072 he put up through August 20, 2001) or his best 58-game ISO (that was the .354 he put up through August 21, 2002). His best RBI total isn’t even on this chart, as it’s through August 22, 2002, with 67 RBI.

Now I want to make one thing entirely clear.  I really don’t care much about steroid use in baseball.  I really never have.  I enjoy watching whatever product gets put on the field.  I know the athletes do all sorts of things to get themselves ready that us mere mortals could never do:  much of it completely legal but still completely out of reach to the average person, some of it completely illegal, others of it in some gray area.  I just can’t bring myself to care.  For all I know, every player in baseball, including Raul Ibanez, is doing something fishy.  Or it’s only the small number who have been caught.  Or somewhere in between.  I’ll never know and just can’t bring myself to care.

So is Raul Ibanez juicing?  Like I said, I don’t care and I don’t and won’t ever know.  But, what he’s doing now is not unprecedented in his long and productive career.  There is just no spike in performance that is so unusual for him that we have to conclude that he is taking steroids.  That I do know.

SNY: Salfino: By the Numbers: Giving some PrOPS

PrOPS? PrOPS?? That’ll make Harold Reynolds produce more groaners than a steady stream of Tony Eveready antics.

Back in 2005, JC Bradbury of TheHardballTimes.com introduced PrOPS (predicted OPS). He concluded that line-drive rate, fly-ball ratio and rates of walks, strikeouts, hit-by-pitch and homers could be used to predict a player’s OPS. An adjustment is also made for the hitter’s home park; the more homer-friendly, for example, the higher the PrOPS.

Our friends at Baseball Info Solutions, stat provider to various big league clubs, are the source of the raw data that we plug into Bradbury’s formula. The result is a list of PrOPS that we then subtract from actual OPS to see which hitters have the greatest variance.

...At plus-.100 or more (i.e., lucky, according to PrOPS) are (in order of greatest variance): David Wright (plus-.159), Cristian Guzman (.152), Ichiro Suzuki (.135), Carlos Beltran (.132), Adam Jones (.126), Justin Upton (.126), Miguel Tejada (.125), Hunter Pence (.122), Brad Hawpe (.116), Carl Crawford (.108), Pablo Sandoval (.106), and Justin Morneau (.100).

I would not pay full market price based on current 2009 production for those guys if their value is largely tied to OPS. If they’re speed guys like Crawford and Suzuki (well, he used to run), and that’s what you need, feel free to indulge. Maybe Wright is a speed guy now, too, although his owners don’t want to hear that.

Kovacevic: Shapiro calls Huntington’s deal with Atlanta ‘good, tough decision’

And learn how intellectual baseball bloggers don’t have to pay for tickets!

Some, Shapiro added, will delve into such trades more deeply than others.

“What you’ll find is that the people on the intellectual baseball blogs will applaud you for it. But your market, the people who pay for the tickets, they might not. Those prospects you get don’t mean anything to them. That’s why I always say that your driving motivation has got to be to be right in the end.”

The latter is advice Shapiro said he has offered to Huntington.

“This way, when the Pirates’ fans look back in three or four years and Charlie Morton’s a legitimate No. 2 or 3 starter, blended right in with Paul Maholm, Zach Duke and Ross Ohlendorf, you guys are saying, ‘Wow, can you imagine that McLouth would be a free agent right now? We’ve got this guy, Hernandez is on the bubble, and Andrew McCutchen’s blossomed into an All-Star because we gave him a few months to get his feet wet.’ ”

Ump Bump: Exhibit A of why we need stats to properly evaluate defense

I hope Olney’s “Productive Out Percentage” leaderboard doesn’t get bumped for this crap!

Perfect evidence of why stats are so important to give a more realistic evaluation of defense, as opposed to just going on observation alone, can be found in the Baseball Tonight Web Gem leaderboards, which have finally appeared on ESPN.com’s “Baseball Tonght Clubhouse” page after weeks of claiming on air that the leaderboards were there when they were actually not.

Because which major league team is at the top of the leaderboards for most web gems by a single team? Why none other than the Washington Nationals, with 17 appearances by one of their players on Baseball Tonight’s web gem sequence. Yes, the same Washington Nationals who are in fact probably the worst defensive team in all of baseball, by any statistical measure.

I can only presume that the nats players have to dive so much because they reach the edge of their range so quickly.

NY Times (Schwarz): Pitching’s Bright Stars Sometimes Flame Out

Scouts have generally called Strasburg the best amateur pitching prospect they have seen. This is the rough equivalent of being rated the world’s No. 1 hydrogen dirigible. For all the promise Strasburg has shown, having names like McDonald, Prior and Taylor in one’s family tree would leave any pitcher digging for adoption papers.

Twenty years ago, Louisiana State’s Ben McDonald was roundly hailed as the best college pitching prospect ever; he won 78 major league games before retiring at 30 with a bum shoulder. No one took McDonald’s consensus best-ever tag until 2001, when Mark Prior of the University of Southern California was such a steely-eyed, bazooka-armed, strike-throwing machine that he was nicknamed Robopitcher. Prior won 18 games for the Chicago Cubs two years later before an avalanche of injuries left him pitching’s Venus de Milo.

Three high school pitchers during this period also were electric enough to prompt best-ever hyperbole: Todd Van Poppel in 1990, Brien Taylor in 1991 and Matt White in 1996. Van Poppel won just 40 games in a meandering career, and Taylor and White descended into the moat of the minor leagues, never to be heard from again.

Strasburg, who turns 21 next month, is in fact the sixth once-in-a-lifetime pitcher of his own short lifetime. But this has barely distracted the raving scouts, whose job is to look forward, not back. This time, they mean it. Really.

SNY: Salfino: What about Wang in the bullpen?

It seems ProSolution Gel works for every sabermetrician!

The other half of the equation here is putting Wang in as a starter. I first looked at this question back in 2007. Unbeknownst to me at the time, Dan Szymborski at BaseballThinkFactory.com had a formula of his own. And since then, Tom Tango on his Web site and Harry Pavlidis at the TheHardballTimes.com have looked at the question, too. They have done it from the perspective of converting a reliever (Joakim Soria) into a starter. We all agree that the same pitcher is most likely to pitch significantly better as a reliever than as a starter. The question is how much better?

Tango and Pavlidis deal mostly with Wins Above Replacement, not simple enough for our purposes. I want to convert the stats that we all understand.

My Wang conversion (based on how he’s pitched as a starter for his career) is a 2.89 ERA, 5.71 K/9, and 1.08 WHIP (baserunners per inning). Of course, he’d still be an extreme groundball pitcher. (Note: my conversion formula is based on how a sampling of modern starters turned relievers actually performed through 2006.)

Szymborski says Wang as a reliever would have a 3.09 ERA with 5.4 strikeouts per nine innings and a 1.21 WHIP.

Baseball Musings: Pinto: Yankees Defense

Or as Jeter pretty much said..."We’ve had routine plays, spectacular plays - we’re making all of them, pretty much.”

The Yankees set a record Monday night, playing their 18th straight game without an error. Now, errors are a fairly overrated defensive statistic. While most are obvious, there will be variation among official scorers on some hard hit balls that players bobble. Also, compared to the early days of baseball, errors are rare. The ability to get to a ball (range) is a much more important factor that the ability to handle a ball cleanly. Fielders with hands of stone just aren’t going to last a long time in the majors.

...So the pitching is a little better in terms of strikeouts and walks, a little worse in terms of home runs allowed. It doesn’t seem like enough to account for the 2 1/2 run drop in runs allowed. Maybe the drop is better defense, including no errors. I noticed Jeter was well positioned last night. If someone has game by game defense for the Yankees, I’d love to see +/- or UZR comparisons.

SNY: Berg: David Wright: Examining numbers to investigate common criticism

And after that...it’s back to doing the Jack Fisher–Tyler Yates shuffle!

The bottom line: In the first two months of 2009, Wright homered less frequently and struck out more often than he normally does. Neither is a good thing, to be sure. But Wright has had similar power outages in his career, most notably in 2006, when he hit only six home runs after the All-Star break. That instance was chalked up to either fatigue or a change of approach following Wright’s impressive performance in the Home Run Derby, but it could just as easily be coincidence.

The strikeouts are more troubling and tougher to explain, especially because Wright’s strikeout pace decidedly picked up in the second half of 2008 and hasn’t really slowed down. Still, Wright has whiffed with some frequency for the length of his big-league career, and I’m sure a stretch of 53 K’s in 48 games really falls safely within the realm of standard deviation.

It’s natural to try to diagnose Wright’s problems in the early goings of 2009, but ultimately imprudent. I know I sound like a broken record, and I know it’s tough to keep in mind two full months into a season, but this season’s stats fall across a relatively small sample compared to the much larger one that is Wright’s entire career. The good news is that, due either to luck or some adjustment that can’t be accounted for in Wright’s rates, the balls he has put in play have fallen for hits at an enormously high rate. If that’s something real and lasting—which I doubt—then, well, great: A .432 on-base percentage makes Wright an incredibly valuable player even without a ton of power, and even with a lot of strikeouts.

More likely, though, it’s just the specter of random chance rearing its head again. I’ll resist grandiose statements about Wright’s season and tendencies until there’s much more evidence to support them.