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There's some circular logic involved in these models, though - in that they are based in part on an underlying assumption that position players contribute more than pitchers. Win Shares, for example, assigns about 65% of the team total to position players (when you consider fielding), 35% to pitchers.
-- MWE
No no, you misread his post. He said there's no way YOU can make that statement with any degree of certainty.
How can you be so certain?
God is dead.
Well, you can do it with linear weights, which makes no such assumption, and you'll get essentially the same answer, regardless of whether you ignore the fielding part of the equation. And, in any event, these assumption in win shares are made at the team level, not the individual level. Any runs saved/excess runs produced type model can give you value relative to the average or a replacement player, and unless you have a truly dominant starting pitcher throwing a lot of innings, you just won't find that the very best pitchers can match up to the very best position players.
This is way over my head, but, in order to truly guage relative values of pitchers and players, shouldn't a metric measure at an even more micro level than innings? Do these models measure plays directly affected by a player, for instance? Wouldn't that help put more weight on the pitcher's effect?
Or, to make a wager actually relevant to your original (and somehow more ridiculous) statement, I will bet you $1000 that Bowden's career/peak will not compare favorably to Kazmir's.
Or the same with Ellsbury vs. Sizemore, or Pedroia vs. Wright. There are lots of options!
First, some of these stats depend on an accurate measure of replacement level. I don't think we really know what replacement level is (especially for pitchers), despite what some around here believe. It may be the case that replacing an elite first baseman with a decent player is a lot harder than replacing an elite pitcher who goes down to injury.
Second, some of these stats get tripped up when we are talking about elite pitchers or players. I'm confident, for example, that win shares does not accurately capture the value of an elite pitcher. As I understand it, it assumes that the percentage of credit that belongs to the defense is constant across pitchers, which I don't think is accurate. Take Pedro Martinez in his prime - I believe almost all of the credit for runs saved above replacement when he was pitching should go to him and very little to the defense, while that is clearly not true for other pitchers on his staffs. This is just one example of why we should use skepticism in automatically accepting the results of these stats. Even if most advanced stats agree, they are often based on similar assumptions that may not hold.
Third, we should be very careful about making assumptions about today's game based only on the players currently playing it. What I mean by that is that there are no truly dominant pitchers today, and obviously none as valuable as Pujols - but that doesn't mean it has to be that way. Pedro and Maddux in their primes were extraordinarily valuable, probably as valuable if not moreso than any hitter in the game.
Fourth, the ability of an elite pitcher to pitch more innings than a typical pitcher can have an added benefit not easily captured in the regular stats, by changing the use of the bullpen.
There's no way you can make that statement with any degree of certainty!
Or, to make a wager actually relevant to your original (and somehow more ridiculous) statement, I will bet you $1000 that Bowden's career/peak will not compare favorably to Kazmir's.
There's no way you can make that statement with any degree of certainty!
Hey it's fun!
I like!
There's no way you can make that statement with any degree of certainty.
There's no way you can make that statement with any degree of certainty.
There's no way you can make that statement with any degree of certainty.
This is what happens when cherished but idiotically conceived dogma is challenged.
-- MWE
Main Entry: self–aware·ness
Function: noun
Date: 1880
: an awareness of one's own personality or individuality
This is what happens when challenged but idiotically conceived dogma is cherished.
There, fixed it for you.
Not quite. There are some modifications based on strikeouts, for example. Win Shares has a baseline value for defense, but it can go up or down depending on certain characteristics of the team pitching staff and defensive quality. For example, if the strikeout rate is high, that's a bonus for the pitchers. If the percentage of balls put in play that end up as outs is high, that's a bonus to the defense.
I agree with this. I think it's not easy to measure this, but you could make a guess. I don't think it's ever going to be a really big factor, but if you're talking about comparing e.g. Halladay and Matsuzaka this year, it would probably be enough to swing it to Halladay even if Matsuzaka hadn't missed those starts while he was on the DL.
What I'm getting at here is that you can estimate a hitters runs created pretty well. You can then compare that with the average at his position and then make an adjustment for defense and get a pretty good estimate of what he's worth compared to the average player at his position. You can do the same even more easily for pitchers - just compare his runs allowed average with the league value, make some adjustments for home park and the quality of his team's defense, and there you go.
Pedro and Maddux in their primes were historically dominant. They account for four of the five live ball era performances in the top 10 in ERA+. The best ERA+ performance of the 1980's is closer to an average season than to Pedro's 2000. Maybe the game is changing a bit and things are getting more extreme for the best pitchers, because the strikeout, the walk and the homerun have become so much more important, and the run manufacturing by stringing together singles and stealing bases has become so much less important. I think this is more the counteracted by the decrease in innings pitched for the best starters. I also agree that there is room for a more durable version of Pedro to come along, and that hypothetical guy could easily be the greatest player in the game.
In any event, I think the specific statement was motivated by the ideas that (1) Pujols is more valuable than Santana so (2) any trade for Pujols would have to give up more value than the trade for Santana. On the other hand, I think we can also demonstrate that Pujols, as great as he is, isn't worth the package that Jensen suggested, except under very very specific circumstances.
That's not true. Win Shares gives more credit to a pitcher with high K and W rates, and more credit to the defense when a pitcher has low K and W rates.
There's no way you can make that statement with any degree of certainty.
You've never made a serious post in your life.
One mutton-heaeded one-liner. Strike 1.
two mutton-headed oone-liners. Strike 2.
Three mutton-headed one-liners. You're out.
And with that sorry-ass team you follow, I'm the least of things you should be wearied about.
No, I for one find Kevin to be very entertaining when he hijacks Yankee Threads...
The problem you have with doing that is this: Managers have a great deal of control over how pitchers are used; they have little control over how hitters are used. A manager is NOT going to use a league average pitcher in the same game situations as he would use an elite pitcher. A league average pitcher is going to come out of the game in certain high-leverage situations where an elite pitcher will stay in. The value of an elite pitcher is twofold - not only is he preventing runs while he is IN the game, but he is ALSO (in many cases) reducing the leverage of the situations in which other, lesser pitchers will have to pitch later in the game.
When pitchers were expected to pitch complete games, this didn't matter much. Nowadays, it matters.
-- MWE
I'm aware that these modifications are done at the team level. The question I have is about the modifications at the individual level, comparing one pitcher on a team to another pitcher on a team. Take a team like the 1999 or 2000 Red Sox. As I understand it, some calculations are involved first in determining how many total win shares should be awarded to the pitching plus defense. Second, it is determined what percentage of these win shares should go to the pitchers and what goes to the defense. You're left with a total number of win shares that goes to the pitching staff, alone, which are then distributed among the various pitchers.
What this does, if I'm correct, is diminish the win shares of each pitcher on the staff by relatively the same percentage. So if the 1999 Red Sox had 150 defense+pitching win shares, and 33% are awarded to the defense, than there remains 100 for the pitching staff. If there were 45 win shares awarded to the pitching + defense when Pedro is pitching, 15 will go to the defense, and 30 to Pedro. I think this is the wrong approach - Pedro is deserving of more than 30.
The correct approach, IMO, would be to determine the number of win shares that belong to the defense, and divide them on a per inning basis, rather than a percentage of each win share. If the defense contributes 5 win shares per 200 innings, then each pitcher should subtract five from their possible total.
That's not true. Win Shares gives more credit to a pitcher with high K and W rates, and more credit to the defense when a pitcher has low K and W rates.
This is incorrect, according to the sources I found on line (my book is at home). K and walk rates only come into play at the team level, when determining ther overall percentage of win shares that belong to the pitchers and defense. K and Walk rates are not used when distributing pitching win shares among the pitchers on a staff.
The system increases the share of the credit given to the pitcher, as opposed to the fielders, as the pitcher has more strikeouts, walks and home runs allowed. If he has few strikeouts, few walks, few home runs allowed, the "pitching share" could be a little over 30%, whereas if he is Herb Score, the pitching percentage could be close to 40%. The theory is that if the pitcher walks batters and gives up homers, there's not a lot that the defense can do about that, whereas if the pitcher just puts the ball in play and takes his chances, then the outcome is more up to the fielders. It's not based on the pitcher's "greatness" or effectiveness, but it's a similar concept.
It's not entirely clear that this adjustment is made to individual pitchers rather than to teams as a whole, but I interpreted it that way.
That was the easy part. Now you've got to deal with the defense. The first step is to divide defensive Win Shares between pitching and fielding. This done through a complicated formula that accounts for FIP elements that can be attributed only to pitchers (home runs, walks and strikeouts) as well as a team's DER (Defensive Efficiency Ratio, adjusted for the ballpark) and other fielding statistics such as passed balls, errors and double plays. Typically, about 70% of defensive Win Shares are credited to pitching, and 30% to fielding. The Win Shares system is bound so that pitching never is credited with less than 60%, or more than 75%, of defensive Win Shares.
Next, you allocate pitching Win Shares to individual pitchers. This is accomplished through an even more complicated formula that starts with each pitcher's marginal runs not allowed (same approach as team marginal runs not allowed), wins, losses and saves. Special consideration is given to relievers by estimating the number of high-leverage innings they pitched (ninth innings with one-run leads are more important than first innings with no score) and something called "Component ERA" which is essentially ERA re-calculated according to the actual underlying run elements.
I interpreted this to mean that K and walks are really only important at the team level, and not the individual.
Elite pitchers also tend to run deeper into games, saving the bullpen for days when they are needed more. The benefit of this is twofold: 1) it saves the top relievers from facing more high leverage situations. 2) it reduces fatigue, making them better prepared to face the high leverage situations they will be called upon to face.
How one can measure that benefit with any degree of confidence, I have no idea, which is why I'm hammering people on that, on making false assumptions based on the latest popular circulating metric du jour.
People here all want answers when they really should be endeavoring to understand the questions.
This is a major problem I have with FIP. Home runs, walks, strikeouts, and ALL other events do depend directly on the defense. All it takes is a dropped foul ball that should have been an out and a subsequent pitch in that AB which leads to a positive offensive result, or a great snag at the wall to rob what otherwise would have been a home run. Even in a situation where the batter doesn't even make contact, there's the matter of how good the catcher is at framing the pitch, blocking the ball, and calling the game. Now, I don't profess to be an expert on FIP, DiPS, cERA, or anything else along those lines, but I do think that these metrics are flawed in that they are trying too hard to separate two things which are inextricably linked. I understand that the events I mentioned are rare over the course of a season, but they still happen often enough to make a difference in a pitcher's production and, I'd imagine, his underlying component production.
Same can be said for elite hitters, no? An elite hitter creates runs that sometimes allow managers to avoid putting in their elite relievers in high leverage situations.
No, not really. At least not nearly to the same extent. For pitchers, its not just run prevention, its that the pitchers actually pitch longer in games. An elite hitter might alter the score a little, allowing the starting pitcher to stay in a little longer, once in a blue moon, but an elite starting pitcher goes longer in games all the time.
An elite starter probably gets mid to hig 20 in quality starts per year. How many times does a Pujols break a game open a year? Sincere, if stupid, question.
For a hitter to have the kind of impact you are talking about, they need to be responsible for having such an impact on the game that it completely changes the way a team uses its bullpen. I'd guess that would be very rare, even for someone like Pujols.
Well, there were other issues in the past. Managers used to use spot starters a lot more to shuffle their rotations around, and get particular pitchers pitching against certain teams.
In the modern era, it's pretty clear, at least to me, that not missing starts is far more important to the team than going deep into games. Bullpen usage patterns, while having some effect on the team, are relatively minor to the effects on most teams of having to use the 6th starter. LOTS of teams have trouble finding a sixth starter who can put up an ERA below 6. Comparatively fewer teams have trouble finding relievers who can do that (in terms of true talent level, not the actual results). Even if they do have a single reliever who is that bad, they can usually hide him in low leverage situations, even if their bullpen has been a bit overused recently. Almost every team has three or four decent relievers out there. Missing a start is a killer. Look at almost any surprise good team and you'll see either healthy starters, or very good luck in getting someone to fill the missing starts. Disappointing teams almost always have injuries in the rotation. For this reason, I might buy the idea that the replacement level for starting pitchers has generally been set too high. I don't buy for a second the idea that reliever usage patterns make more than 5 runs a year worth of difference to a team based on the difference between the reasonable extremes in recent years among ace starters. Based on Livan Hernandez versus some guys with ERAs like his, it might make a bigger difference, but he's truly a special case.
Perhaps the problem is a severe structural one in most teams. Going away from having a long reliever/spot starter type guy means that teams generally have to go to the minors when they need a starter. It also means that they are probably using guys who could be decent starters in relief roles, and who usually stay in relief roles even when they would be needed to fill in in the rotation.
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