As an aside, how good is Howie Kendrick? He has a lovely .341/.361/.514 batting line which is good for a 130 or so OPS+. He also has a BABIP approaching .400. I know he maintained a very high BABIP in the minors but is a .375 BABIP sustainable? I hope so. I love unique players and a guy who can be one of the better players in baseball without hitting for much power or drawing walks is certainly unique.

As an aside, how good is Howie Kendrick? He has a lovely .341/.361/.514 batting line which is good for a 130 or so OPS+. He also has a BABIP approaching .400. I know he maintained a very high BABIP in the minors but is a .375 BABIP sustainable? I hope so. I love unique players and a guy who can be one of the better players in baseball without hitting for much power or drawing walks is certainly unique.

Robinson Cano does this, but better. Yawn.

263/298/390 is better?

Yawn because Cano sleeps through the first half?

I like short, succint posts as much as the next guy, but it does feel like some info is missing...

Robinson Cano does this, but better. Yawn.

Robinson Cano, you mean he of the current .692 OPS?

Sure Cano has a track record, but really, what have you done for me lately?

263/298/390 is better?

Yawn because Cano sleeps through the first half?

I like short, succint posts as much as the next guy, but it does feel like some info is missing...

2005-2007 count too.

Robinson Cano does this, but better. Yawn.

Cano has much more HR power than Kendrick. Howie is hitting a lot of doubles but only has 3 homers on the season and only 12 in over 800 career AB.

Cano has much more HR power than Kendrick. Howie is hitting a lot of doubles but only has 3 homers on the season and only 12 in over 800 career AB.

2B often turn into HR as a player ages. See also McLouth, Nate.

Academia and other fields are full of people who come up with explanations after the data are in. The author's points in the article could easily have been made about the 07 Diamondbacks, or other teams viewed in retrospect. But the 08 Snakes aren't out-pythagging, are they now, and I doubt the Halos will continue From This Point Forward to be gaining one 'lucky' win per every 10 games they play. Yes, the 3 points the author make all have some validity, but the effcts simply cannot be this huge. I'd guess they add up to maybe a gain of 10-20 'net extra runs' = 1-2 wins... not 7 to 10 wins.

Cano has much more HR power than Kendrick. Howie is hitting a lot of doubles but only has 3 homers on the season and only 12 in over 800 career AB.

2B often turn into HR as a player ages. See also McLouth, Nate.

Given that Cano and Kendrick are less than 8 months apart in age, this doesn't really seem to prove much. Not only would a huge percentage of Kendrick's doubles have to turn into home runs for him to have the same power as Cano, but you'd also have to assume none of Cano's would as he ages.

Academia and other fields are full of people who come up with explanations after the data are in.

Right, because it's much better to pre-ordain the conclusion and then mangle the data to support it. ;-)

The only thing Cano has over Kendrick is the ability to stay on the field... which is a huge plus. Of course hitting the way cano has hitthis year, it isn't so much of a plus.

I think reasons for beating a pythag at this point (other than easily demonstrable ones like a grossly imbalanced starting pitching staff talent wise) probably require a lot of evidence in support.

There appears to be a situation where most of the things that might lead a team to beat their pythag are either:

1. Not repeatable.
2. The types of things that are not advisable to repeat (EG, giving up on a large number of games in the fifth inning and putting the scrubs in).
3. The types of things everyone is already doing, so whatever the latest methods being used are to calculate "pythag", the pythag results tend to be accurate anyway.

I've found this in soccer: the strategies employed to preserve leads or make up deficits do affect the goals scored totals, but all it really affects in terms of predicting win percentages is how much your formula differs from poisson. Most strategies designed to maximize win percentages given your goals scored and allowed tend to be pretty universal and therefore easily captured in the formula.

The author's points in the article could easily have been made about the 07 Diamondbacks, or other teams viewed in retrospect. But the 08 Snakes aren't out-pythagging

Actually, I did write an article like this last year about the '07 D-backs, keying in on the two points about the bullpen. The '08 Snakes ain't overachieving as you note, but then again the front half of their bullpen isn't as good as it was last year and the mop up men aren't as bad. Releivers fluxuate like none other.

If the Angels are overachieving for the reasons the author mentions, it's the bad long relief that's really doing it.

Record in blowouts: 11-13
Record in non-blowouts: 51-26

Normally teams that win 2/3s of their close games win a majority of the blowouts.

Someone should do a project next year where, in the preseason, they ask fans to predict which teams will outperform their pythag. I seriously doubt, even after taking into account all the factors mentioned, people will be able to do so.

The only thing Cano has over Kendrick is the ability to stay on the field...

Well, now that's just patently untrue. Even if you were to give Kendrick equal playing time, Cano was more valuable both of the last two seasons. Kendrick obviously has the edge on him this year (like pretty much every second baseman) but to go so far as to claim that the only thing Cano has is his health has absolutely no basis in fact.

Hey Voros -

Not to sidetrack this discussion or anything, but in your work on soccer, have you come up with ANYTHING that can help FCD? Ya know, besides putting MLS-quality players on the field, playing players in their optimal positions, not giving up stupid goals, etc.?

Yeah, but Pedroia is way better than either Kendrick or Cano. Maybe the best 2B ever.

/kevin

Dallas' problems are to an extent MLS' problems. Dallas absolutely had the right idea under Morrow, but it's a tough league to launch five year plans in since everybody is in contention all the time. There is no team in MLS with more young quality talent than Dallas, but waiting for it to come together seems to have been an unacceptable situation.

What Dallas did with Abdus Ibrahim I think highlights the biggest problem with MLS' business model. There's no upside to a player with upside, so what's the point of waiting several years for a teenager to develop? If he really develops, you lose him to Europe and, because of league rules, you pretty much get pennies on the dollar for it in terms of what you can put back into the club.

It's a mess.

OPS by leverage:


Unless the Angels are pulling all of their good hitters in blowouts, this has nothing to do with strategy or roster construction. And even then, most PA early in games are medium or low leverage. It's just plain ol' clutchiness. It's also almost entirely driven by BABIP.

LAA BABIP


I don't see how the Angels are constructed in a way to "confound" the model by hitting like Jeter in high leverage situations, like Scutaro in medium leverage situations, and like Neifi! in low leverage situations.

I'm not sure how you get around the business model issue though. I don't know that MLS is on firm enough financial footing to allow a NASL-esque capitalistic model yet. There have been calculated steps in that direction (though Garber would do well to eliminate the perception that NYRB, DCU, and the Gals are the favored children), but how much further can this go without moving into full free-for-all capitalism?

It's been reported that Steaua paid $2M for Toja. Toja should be getting 10% of that, with FCD (from what I've heard) getting about 2/3 of what's left. What will $1.2M buy on the transfer market WRT a strike partner for Cooper? Gotta find some way to score goals when running out 4 D-Mids in a 3-5-2, right?

Gotta find some way to score goals when running out 4 D-Mids in a 3-5-2, right?

I don't know much about MLS, but if you're running out 4 D-Mids in a 3-5-2, that strike partner better be 1994-95 Alan Shearer or something like him.

Haven't read the article, but this is why I think the Dbacks exceeded their pythag last year, and this is why I think the Angels are exceeding it this year (and I don't follow ANA much)

1) Very good rotation which keeps the Angels in games
2) Excellent bullpen which shuts down opposition in tied/close games
3) Great hitting success (high team OPS) in high leverage situations

Dammit, all my "excellent" points have already been made in this thread. Never mind

OPS by leverage:

Situation LAA AL LAA OPS+
High Lev. .828 .757 121
Med. Lev. .719 .735 93
Low Lev. .665 .748 80


Unless the Angels are pulling all of their good hitters in blowouts, this has nothing to do with strategy or roster construction. And even then, most PA early in games are medium or low leverage. It's just plain ol' clutchiness. It's also almost entirely driven by BABIP.

LAA BABIP

High Lev. .331
Med Lev. .290
Low Lev. .281


I don't see how the Angels are constructed in a way to "confound" the model by hitting like Jeter in high leverage situations, like Scutaro in medium leverage situations, and like Neifi! in low leverage situations.

They're a high contact-low power team, right? This all reminds me of something that I saw at the recent SABR convention. Will Young expounds on it in post 58 of this tread:

If the results of clutch hitting truly occurred in a random sample and the players who over- and under-perform in the clutch are simply proof that someone has to be an outlier, then why were all of the players in the Top and Bottom 10 so similar to each other?

The top ten "most clutch" hitters were not randomly distributed among all positions and types of players. Instead, they were ALL singles hitters who put the ball in play. Scott Fletcher, Pat Meares, Desi Relaford, Sandy Alomar, Jr. were all in the Top 10. All are pretty similar in approach.

Then, on the flip side, you had guys like Richard Hidalgo, Earl Williams, etc. Guys much more likely to strikeout.

I don't know much about MLS, but if you're running out 4 D-Mids in a 3-5-2, that strike partner better be 1994-95 Alan Shearer or something like him.

I was being slightly facetious there. Unfortunately, the emphasis is on slightly.

Far as I can tell (and I'm no expert on the beautiful game, so keep the salt shaker handy), the Hoops are playing a 3-5-2 with two MLS-quality defenders (Moor and Davino), with Davino running slightly better than a Trabant. Hyndman can select from a bunch of quality mids, but none of them are terribly effective out wide, and the most offensive-minded one was Toja. I'm guessing the next best choice for an A-Mid is McCarty, but he makes David Eckstein look like a giant. Cooper's great, but he can't do it by himself, and if you could combine Thompson's skill and Oduro's pace, you'd have a legit second striker. It don't work like that, unfortunately.

Unless the Angels are pulling all of their good hitters in blowouts

They are, to some extent. Vlad and Hunter normally come out early in blowouts.

I don't see how the Angels are constructed in a way to "confound" the model by hitting like Jeter in high leverage situations, like Scutaro in medium leverage situations, and like Neifi! in low leverage situations.

I don't watch the Angels much, but they are a team that needs good in-play results to have *any* offense, so it's not terribly surprising to me that they can take advantage of the defense better in the late innings when trailing, when teams usually make defensive adjustments to prevent extra-base hits and the like.

-- MWE

Someone should do a project next year where, in the preseason, they ask fans to predict which teams will outperform their pythag. I seriously doubt, even after taking into account all the factors mentioned, people will be able to do so.

If you take the Angels of the past few years, you usually do all right.

There's also a factor of injury coincidence -- when Lackey was out, and Moseley/Adenhart were stinking up the joint with a 7.36 ERA, Kendrick & Figgins were healthy and raking. Then they (and Izturis) got hurt, and Lackey came back. Over the last 30+ games, when all have been healthy (and the team, uncoincidentally, has been scoring 5+ runs a game), I think the Pythag is something like the same as the actual Winning Percentage.

I don't know that MLS is on firm enough financial footing to allow a NASL-esque capitalistic model yet.

I disagree, but even excepting that, they can at least let teams reap the full benefits of coming up with a European quality young player. I mean a fat lot of good Jozy Altidore does the Red Bulls as a team, how much of that $8 million is actually allowed to be poured back into the club?

The incentives are all wrong. And so Toja winds up leaving and Dallas (the team) is going to get pretty much nothing from it. A model which incentivizes signing 31 year olds for a $100,000 a year over a 21 year old of similar quality for $40,000 a year, because the 21 year old will be lucky to last two seasons (at which time there may be nothing in your price range of similar quality to replace him) before leaving, while the 31 year old might get three or four years in...

It's just dumb. It's one of the main reasons why MLS' development programs are so stunted, there's not really much point to it under the current model.

And a FWIW when it comes to high-leverage situations: The organization absolutely stresses from bottom to top the centrality of hitting with runners in scoring position, especially with two outs. It sounds crazy, and probably is, but the last time I looked (which wasn't recently), they'd done pretty well on that front for something like 2 of the past 3 years.....

Voros/12: bingo.

Matt/27: So...would you bet on the Angels to do it again next year?

While you may be able to "explain" pythag variances, you can't really control it. If you could, then we'd see teams outdoing their Pythags all the time. Anyway, if you'll allow me to pimp my own article: http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/outsmarting-pythagoras/

The 96 Yankees had Wetteland and Rivera at the top of the bullpen and hit better in High Leverage situations than in other situations. They beat Pythagoras by 4 games over a season. That's about par. That's also what the Angels have done with a similar profile during 05-07.

Beating Pythagoras by 10 games over 100 games takes a lot of luck. K-Rod has not been that great; he's walked plenty and there have been plenty of baserunners on. The timing of the blooper and the Baltimore chop cannot be counted on.

Voros, forgive my ignorance:

If Red Bulls sell Jozy Altidore for $8m, how much of that money do they keep, and where does the rest of the money go, and why? I don't mean stuff like tax and agents' fees, etc, which is everywhere, I mean the MLS business model.

Who within MLS is running development programmes, e.g. academies etc? Presumably it's not the individual teams, because I remember a while ago that LA Galaxy regularly didn't have enough people to fill out a reserve team and the manager was calling up random friends to just fill out numbers. So is MLS running these programmes centrally? Or do they simply not exist?

If Red Bulls sell Jozy Altidore for $8m, how much of that money do they keep, and where does the rest of the money go, and why? I don't mean stuff like tax and agents' fees, etc, which is everywhere, I mean the MLS business model.

I'm not Voros, nor do I play him on TV, but from what I've gathered from the Toja signing:

Altidore gets 10% off the top (so $800K).
NYRB and MLS split the remainder 67/33%.

That would be $4.8M, give or take. What they are allowed to invest back into the club this season is unknown, and a major source of frustration.

Voros -

I'm not trying to be disagreeable here...I'm probing for understanding.

1) Why do you believe that MLS is ready for a more open model?

2) If all the money is allowed to be poured back into the club immediately, doesn't this reduce MLS to something akin to Small World fantasy sports?

Matt/27: So...would you bet on the Angels to do it again next year?

I'd bet on exceeding projections by 4 or 5 games, not 7 or 10. But I'd bet on exceeding PECOTA by at *least* 10.

That would be $4.8M, give or take. What they are allowed to invest back into the club this season is unknown, and a major source of frustration.

So, wait, NYRB get $4.8 million (more or less) and can't invest it back into the club that year? Can they do it the next year? Or do they have to spend the money on...I dunno, fireworks nights?

Here's the deal with transfers. It used to be the teams pretty much divided the transfer money equally among all the owners and then handed the selling team an "allocation" (allocations are essentially permission to spend money you otherwise wouldn't be allowed to spend) worth about 10 to 15 percent of the actual sale price.

Now I think the selling team gets the lion's share of the actual money, but in terms of money that can actually be used to alleviate the spending limits, it's still pennies on the dollar. Sometimes the money is so insignificant, the teams never actually do anything of note with it (Clint Dempsey's sale to Fulham turned out like this, I believe). Outside of this designated player stuff, teams have a Salary Cap of around $2 million. It would be nice if you could use at least half of that $8 million to increase that cap figure for four years. No such luck. The league wants to limit spending ala the NFL, but because unlike the NFL there's substantial competition for players, all you're really doing is limiting the quality of player available to you, you're not actually suppressing salaries much.

As for development programs, just recently the league has started them up, but as is the league's habit, it just can't let teams work it out whatever way they think is best. It all has to be controlled top-down, and teams are limited in their ability to actually utilize the development program (you only get to sign like one player from it every three years). Throw in the slave labor market known as the NCAA and things are just a mess.

I'd bet on exceeding projections by 4 or 5 games, not 7 or 10. But I'd bet on exceeding PECOTA by at *least* 10.

For 2009? I would happily take either of those bets. Especially the PECOTA one.

Here's the deal with transfers...

Wow. That's a horrible system. What a mess.

So, wait, NYRB get $4.8 million (more or less) and can't invest it back into the club that year? Can they do it the next year? Or do they have to spend the money on...I dunno, fireworks nights?

That's correct. _Some_ of it can be spent, but the "some" is really just a fraction of that money. What the rest gets spent on? It pretty much goes into the general Energy Drink fund I assume.

MLS' response to inquiries about how fair this is, is that the Red Bulls really didn't do anything to develop Altidore, so why should they benefit exclusively from his transfer?

But Voros - if a team were allowed higher spending limits because they were selling players, wouldn't that destroy the balance of the league? Red Bulls sell Jozy Altidore, get to increase their salary cap by $1m per year for the next 4 years. The current MLS salary cap is I believe $2.3m, so the Red Bulls now get to spend 40% more than the other teams. So the Red Bulls will get all the good young players in the US, and so will be able to make money selling those players on, and so permanent dominance enforced by the salary cap.

Shouldn't the MLS business model be based on player development, rather than internal competition for the best youngsters? I don't know much about MLS, I confess. But given that MLS will not, in the medium term, be able to pay, sustainably, for high-quality players, I would imagine that the business plan should be running academies, developing players as much as possible, then selling the good ones on overseas. That way you hope to progressively raise the standard of football being played, while generating revenues to pay for same.

What you say about the NCAA is true though. If talented players are going to college then the MLS is screwed.

Shouldn't the MLS business model be based on player development, rather than internal competition for the best youngsters?

But it isn't. It never has been. MLS teams by structure don't get to compete with each other over anybody. Any time two teams want the same player, they apply one of their rules and one team gets the player and the other doesn't. Amateur players are distributed through a draft.

So there's always been little point in teaching 12 year olds how to be a professional soccer player when he can just be drafted by someone else when he's 18, go to college or get signed by a team in Europe. If you can't spend the money on player development (because it would be a waste of money) and you can't spend the money on acquiring current players (because the league won't allow you) and you can't spend the money on keeping the players you have (again because the league won't allow you), the only place the Altidore money is going to go is to marketing Red Bull products in bars in Ireland and the UK. It's the only place the money is of any use to the company. Changing it so that spending the money on the team could actually be of use seems to me to be a dramatic upgrade to the business model.

Skimming through this thread, I don't even know what sport you guys are talking about anymore. Sheesh.

I was talking baseball.

For 2009? I would happily take either of those bets. Especially the PECOTA one.

PECOTA had them at 85 wins this year, and has historically underestimated the Angels more than any other team. They beat Pythagoras by an average of four games a year from 2005-2007, and will almost certainly pass that this year.

You make valid points Voros. How would you change things?

PECOTA had them at 85 wins this year, and has historically underestimated the Angels more than any other team. They beat Pythagoras by an average of four games a year from 2005-2007, and will almost certainly pass that this year.

Your grasp of statistics rivals that of a two-year-old. That's right, Scott Schoeneweis overestimated by two years.

Your grasp of statistics rivals that of a two-year-old.

PECOTA is a statistic? Rad.

Well we're already getting the "off topic" complaints so I won't pursue it. I think the main key is just a general one: strengthen the relationship between on the field success and financial success and give teams the freedom to pursue matters toward those ends and I think you start down the right track.

They beat Pythagoras by an average of four games a year from 2005-2007, and will almost certainly pass that this year.

From 98-06 the Yankees actual records were better than their Pythag records every year by an average of 5 games a year. These thing happen, I don't think you can read anything into it.

Thanks for those Angels number Matt. The PECOTA predictions are great. The Angels are plus 38 over the last four seasons coming into this year, with a good chance to add another dozen to the column this season.

Gee guys, you think you might be missing something?

These thing happen, I don't think you can read anything into it.

When a team consistently confounds multiple predictive systems, I think it's worth at least looking to see if there's any there there. And certainly worth a harmless Internet wager on the team you root for.

Far as I can tell (and I'm no expert on the beautiful game, so keep the salt shaker handy), the Hoops are playing a 3-5-2 with two MLS-quality defenders (Moor and Davino), with Davino running slightly better than a Trabant. Hyndman can select from a bunch of quality mids, but none of them are terribly effective out wide, and the most offensive-minded one was Toja. I'm guessing the next best choice for an A-Mid is McCarty, but he makes David Eckstein look like a giant. Cooper's great, but he can't do it by himself, and if you could combine Thompson's skill and Oduro's pace, you'd have a legit second striker. It don't work like that, unfortunately.

You play like a League 2 team. very direct.

They beat Pythagoras by an average of four games a year from 2005-2007, and will almost certainly pass that this year.

Just BSing it a bit, using .500 as a baseline:

The chances of 255 or more wins out of 486 (12 games better than .500) is around 15% if the chance of a win in each game was 50%. So it's well within the realm of chance, particularly when you consider all of the multiple endpoints problems with the stat. Those numbers don't change much if you shift the expected win% to each game up to 55% (I'm assuming that's closer to the Angel's expected pythag over the time?)

I really think that the burden of proof here is on the "Angels are doing something special" rather than the "they're not." I suppose they could be, but I'm not particularly convinced yet.

Your grasp of statistics rivals that of a two-year-old. That's right, Scott Schoeneweis overestimated by two years.

As always GMSoRP is the voice of reason. I can't wait to hear him rip into statistical duncehead Nate Silver next -
"Getting (modestly) more serious for a moment, there may be some systematic factors in the teams that tend to beat their PECOTA projections. The teams that have finished ahead of PECOTA tend to be well-run, cohesive organizations with good scouting departments and organizational cultures; these teams may have more capacity to right the ship as the season advances onward. There also may have been some bias toward underrating teams that play good defense (which PECOTA didn’t account for until 2005) or that run the bases well (which PECOTA didn’t account for until this season)."

Don't let me down now - you tell Nate how much of a moron he really is.

When a team consistently confounds multiple predictive systems, I think it's worth at least looking to see if there's any there there. And certainly worth a harmless Internet wager on the team you root for.

Let's not pretend that PECOTA or any projection system is perfect and any deviation from the projection means a team is getting lucky or unlucky. There's a lot that projections don't account for. There are some things they don't account for that we probably haven't even thought to look at (Rumsfeld's unknown unknowns). Maybe for most teams the unknowns even out, but for whatever reason the Angels don't.

This past offseason PECOTA made a series of team predictions. I remember the first set they had the Rays a bit over .500, then the projection crept up and up, until I think they were around 87 at the start of the season. From what I remember the explanation was defense - for the last few years they were adjusting the pitching by expecting the defense to play at about the same level it played in recent years.

Not until the middle of the 2007-08 winter did PECOTA project defense by actually looking at who was supposed to take the field for the 2008 season.

I wonder if we take the projection and actual results from 2005-2007 and see what teams are under/over projected we could tell what direction the 2008 projections will be off.

You play like a League 2 team. very direct.

That would work...except that FCD already lost in the USOC to a USL-1 side.

3-1.

At home.

And the game wasn't as close as the final score indicated.

I really think that the burden of proof here is on the "Angels are doing something special" rather than the "they're not."

Agreed. As I said above, a lot of the spike this year was (I think) due to the weird timing of injuries.

Yeah the number representing the team may be static but during a season any team, and especially this one, is not at all.

I wonder if we take the projection and actual results from 2005-2007 and see what teams are under/over projected we could tell what direction the 2008 projections will be off.

The correlation between PECOTA's 05-07 under/over projection of a team and their '08 under/over projection is -.129. So, it doesn't look like it, at least at the moment.

Over the last 30+ games, when all have been healthy (and the team, uncoincidentally, has been scoring 5+ runs a game), I think the Pythag is something like the same as the actual Winning Percentage.

I hadn't noticed this, but you seem correct. Over the last 30 games, the Angels have outscored their opponents 150-114; by the traditional Pythagorean, they should have a winning percentage of .633, which would come out to 19 wins.

They have 20.

3) Great hitting success (high team OPS) in high leverage situations

Then wouldn't it imply that it would lead to more runs until it reaches a non-high leverage situation? I mean, they still are going to hit with high team OPS when up 1, up 2, no?

Do they do Pythag by innings, or differentiation between first (say) 6 innings, and last 3?

And over the last 40 games, they're only 2 games ahead of the traditional Pythagorean. In the first 60, they were 5 over.

I haven't run the numbers recently, but I believe if you pull the A'ss games out of the Angel's season, the Angels pythag matches up near perfectly.

Scoiscia's #### just doesn't work against the guy that wrote that book.