Read those last three sentences out loud in a Yoda voice. It works!

No, the syntax is all wrong. Or right, as it were.

You'd think the article would at least mention the main reason why the bunt is a better play than it might seem: the possibility that both the batter and the runner are safe on an error or failed FC.

I have no fear of numbers. My BS is in mathematics and my MS is in computer science. I don't have a problem with applying numbers to baseball. But here is my problem with some statistical analysis. Ball players are people. Sometimes I think that is forgotten by those that are pushing statistical analysis as the be all and end all....... I don't think all people that look down on statistical analysis are afraid of the numbers. Or think that the numbers are complex. I just think they don't believe the numbers tell the whole story. Or even close to the whole story. Sometimes I think they are right.

For another take on the value of a steal, check out the latest entry on beyondtheboxscore.com. I agree with the premise in that entry that win expectancy is probably better to use than expected runs. But once again, we have to be careful not to generalize. Let's say you're the 2005 Cubs and are down by one run going into the bottom of the ninth with the 9-1-2 hitters coming up. Your pinch hitter takes a walk, and you pinch run for him with a mediocre basestealer, say one with a 65% success rate. You're facing the Mets and Piazza is catching. I think there's a strong possibility that a steal is the right move in this situation. Piazza's poor arm, coupled with the fact that Corey Patterson and Neifi Perez are the next two hitters definitely changes the odds. I don't have any evidence to support this (just a hunch), so if there are any studies that have been done to contradict me, please point them out.

A runner on third and one out results in .9795 runs for a drop of 14 percent. While bunting here doesn’t necessarily help your chances of scoring a run, the effect is not that important. Teams will score a run with a runner on third and one out 98 times out of 100

This is wrong.

The .9795 figure is not a %; it's the # of expected runs in the inning. Using the same logic as the author, one should conclude that a team will score a run with a runner on second and no outs 113.85 times out of 100...

The question of helping the team's chances of scoring a single run is vastly different from the question of how many runs the team will be expected to score on average in the rest of the inning. The former question is not addressed in the article; the answer to the latter question is -14% after a SUCCESSFUL SACRIFICE bunt (not accounting for errors, base hits, freak double plays, etc.).

It is clear that sacrificing a runner from 2nd to 3rd is a disastrous play from a run-expectancy point of view. If the team needs a single run to win the game, then the bunt is justified when the odds of scoring THAT ONE RUN (not 98 out of 100, mind you!) after a successful bunt rise based on the skills of the bunter and the next couple of batters.

I believe the basic lesson from MGL's studies is that the average slightly-negative effect of a bunt play is far outweighed by the situational factors. Not only the inning and score, bunting skill of the batter, who's on deck, etc. but also such things as infield positioning. Because of that, a cursory look at the situation will basically always leave out important stuff.

I'm looking forward to reading what MGL and Tangotiger have to say about this in their book.

First, people who look down upon statistical analysis tend to do so because of the seeming complexities of the numbers.

Quite the opposite in fact. I look down on many statistical analysis because they have oversimplified things in their study and left out important stuff just as this article has. Far too often a study will conclude by saying "Phenomenon X does not exist" when all their study has truly shown is "My simplistic model of the situation does not detect the presence of Phenomenon X". These are vastly different things.

I thought the basic issues brought up were interesting and the quoted paragraphs and their anaylsis were pretty good.

But a couple of gripes:
I think A.J. Pierzynski is a pretty good example of another player who was undervalued due to perceived attitude issues. Uribe is another one with additional possible racial issues who was picked up on the super cheap. Podsednik, while hyped for other reasons was undervalued as well and that turned into a very good trade. There's probably more, but those are the ones I can think of right now.

As has been stated ahead, the mathematics involved are way oversimplified. When the probabilities are used the way they are in the article, you get a situation like with batting AVG. where people are swinging around the statistics in meaningless ways.

Using a run matrix while not accounting for specific players and situation is fun and makes us feel smarter than the people making the calls on the field, but it doesn't really mean much. I mean are we stealing second off of a lights-out righthander with a bad move or are we stealing it off of a homer-prone lefty with a great move? Without knowing the situation, we have no idea what the break even point when they chose to run or bunt.

Podsednik, while hyped for other reasons was undervalued as well and that turned into a very good trade.

It turned into a very good trade because they won the Series... (I don't think he was underalued)

Having said that (or typed it actually), wasn't there an article about Carlos Lee being a very bad clubhouse presence? Something about him terrorizing a rookie pitcher or something?

I could be sold that:
Podsednik + his (early in the season) basestealing ability + his good-in-the-room chemistry > Lee (specificaly for the 2005 White Sox as a team). Perhaps that is one of the the feathers in the Guillen/Williams cap (the 'Big Picture').

Let's say you're the 2005 Cubs and are down by one run going into the bottom of the ninth with the 9-1-2 hitters coming up.

Okay. Sounds reasonable.

Your pinch hitter takes a walk

Now you've lost me.

I believe the basic lesson from MGL's studies is that the average slightly-negative effect of a bunt play is far outweighed by the situational factors. Not only the inning and score, bunting skill of the batter, who's on deck, etc. but also such things as infield positioning. Because of that, a cursory look at the situation will basically always leave out important stuff

I think that was the basic lesson from Ron Johnson in about 1998 in USENET.

I don't think a study can show that something is "outweighed" very well. It can show the margin isn't very great.

Having said that (or typed it actually), wasn't there an article about Carlos Lee being a very bad clubhouse presence? Something about him terrorizing a rookie pitcher or something?

I think it had to do with Lee slapping Damaso Marte on the back of the neck and making fun of him for coming from a poor neighborhood. Marte was better when Lee was around, so somebody else should start slapping him.

Uribe is another one with additional possible racial issues who was picked up on the super cheap.

Who was Uribe discriminating against?

Rather than run expectacy, what percent of the time does a runner score from 1st when there are zero outs? And what is the percent chance of a runner scoring from 2nd when there is 1 out?

A link to this data would be much appreciated.

Podsednik + his (early in the season) basestealing ability + his good-in-the-room chemistry > Lee (specificaly for the 2005 White Sox as a team).

Podsednik was also a lot cheaper than Lee. The Sox were able to sign Iguchi, Dye, Garcia and get Contreras, probably not all of which would have been possible with Lee, at least on their budget.

This season, Scott Podsednik, credited with leading the White Sox revamped offense, was caught stealing 23 times while successfully swiping 59 bases. He actually cost the White Sox runs by running so frequently.

"Cost the White Sox runs" is putting it a bit broadly. First off, 59 of 82 is as good as break-even. But what does the matrix say about steals of third? What were the situations? Was he running wild in 7-1 games, or was he picking his spots? Give me a game expectancy matrix.

Podsednik was also a lot cheaper than Lee. The Sox were able to sign Iguchi, Dye, Garcia and get Contreras, probably not all of which would have been possible with Lee, at least on their budget.
That's the point (I'm finally coming around). It's not that Podsednik > Lee. And if that was Williams' plan all along, then he should Exec of the Year. If it wasn't, well the guy got a break, bully for him.

Thats a very pretty website. Too bad the content wasn't really all that intresting. Most people have covered the problems earlier.

RonH - When the baseball authors index goes back up I can send you the matrix. I can't find the article where tango quotes it.

Thanks

I found it on Tango's website

Chance of scoring, from each base/out state

.....0 outs..1 out..2 outs
1B---.38--- .25--- .12
2B-- .61--- .41--- .21
3B-- .86--- .68--- .29

Tangotiger

The Sox were able to sign Iguchi, Dye, Garcia and get Contreras, probably not all of which would have been possible with Lee, at least on their budget

As honest, knowledgable baseball fans can we please stop propogating this myth, goddammit!

The Sox saved about 4-5 miillion on the trade, maybe. Iguchi ate up 2.5 of that. Garcia was 9 million. Contreras is 8 million. Dye is 5 million. All of the above, except for Iguchi, had already been signed by the time of the trade.

At the beginning of the season, silver-lining searchers decleared that the "logic" behind the trade was that it allowed the Sox to sign Iguchi, El Duque and A.J.. This was never mentioned by KW after the trade, BTW. Regardless, this was still stretching the truth but not by as much (since no one has included on this tab the one million dollar contract that the Sox had already given to Ben Davis). This entire rationalization was a ex-post-facto CYA in case the trade turned out to be a disaster. By the way, now that El Duque sucks and his contract is a big, ugly, dead albatross around the Sox necks, no one is including El Duque in the rationalization, are they? I look forward to next year when some moron claims that the trade allowed the Sox to sign Konerko or raise Ted Lyons from the dead or some other nonsense.

If you want to think that the addition of a pretty good OBP guy in LF instead of a power hitter there then, fine, you can believe that.

But, please don't tell me that this was part of some huge master plan. KW traded for Pods and Vizcaino because he wanted them. To think anything else would be to tell me that KW deliberately freed up money to sign Iguchi but then decided to wait two more months before actually doing it. To think anything else, would mean that the Sox somehow knew that the Giants were going to cut A.J. three days later and then they still waited nearly a month to sign him.

If you like the trade, great. But stop with the revisionism!

And if that was Williams' plan all along, then he should Exec of the Year. If it wasn't, well the guy got a break, bully for him.

In my write-up for the Exec Award, I said "the guy got a break, bully for him." I think that's accurate.

But stop with the revisionism!

Winners get to re-write history. The Sox won, they can say whatever they want. :)

Anyhow, that was a lousy trade from ChaSox perspective.

But stop with the revisionism!

You don't think that KW was going to invest that money he saved by trading Lee back in the team at all?

Sure, he didn't necessarily have those specific signings in mind (although the team looked at Iguchi for a long time), but before those signings happened, Williams made serious attempts at both Omar Vizquel and David Eckstein (that I know about).

Money clearly played a factor in the trade. You can't pretend that the White Sox didn't save the money, because they did. If Jerry Reinsdorf had stuck the money in his pocket, that'd be one thing, but they re-invested it back into the team. That makes it legitimate to include it as part of the analysis.

I don't think it was a lousy trade from the Sox perspective, and if the results were by design or by accident doesn't really matter. Carlos Lee is an overvalued player, and I don't think what he does merits the money the Sox were paying him. Especially when they already had a lineup full of right-handed power hitters.

That said, I think it does make sense for the Brewers to pay Lee $8.5 million per year. They needed a big righty power hitter, had money to spend and could even flip Lee for more talent this winter after getting a decent season out of him.

I think that the Sox got two modestly useful players back while dumping the contract makes it a decent move. Even though Lee has never been, nor every will be as good as he was in 2004, he was already cashing paychecks commensurate with that level of play.

Oh, and on this -

The Sox saved about 4-5 miillion on the trade, maybe. Iguchi ate up 2.5 of that. Garcia was 9 million. Contreras is 8 million. Dye is 5 million.

The Sox saved $6 Million - Lee made $8M last year, Podsednik and Vizcaino made a combined $2M.

They paid for Contreras and Dye (combined $12.5 M) by letting Valentin and Ordonez go.

They did increase payroll, but that was to cover raises to Mark Buehrle.

That's not to say that Williams didn't make any bad signings - bringing back Timo was a mistake, as was Ben Davis.

They did increase payroll, but that was to cover raises to Mark Buehrle.

This should be Mark Buehrle, among others.

After reading Moneyball, my conclusion is that statistcal analysis is as overblown as conventional scouting analysis. Moneyball spent such little time talking about the A's starting pitching it seemed to miss half the reason why the A's had so many wins.

If anything, Ozzie and Kenny Williams took the same philosophy as Billy Beane, namely finding baseball players as opposed to athletes. This is something Guillen stressed to the media after the 2004 season - he wanted baseball players, not athletes; hence the reason Carlos Lee was shipped out. Beane finds his ballplayers with statistics, Kenny Williams finds his some other way.

I just think it's funny that the White Sox decided not to build their roster the conventional way, but since they didn't do it the sabremetric way either the statheads sound as defensive as the conventional baseball people did when the statheads challenged them.

If anything, Ozzie and Kenny Williams took the same philosophy as Billy Beane, namely finding baseball players as opposed to athletes. This is something Guillen stressed to the media after the 2004 season - he wanted baseball players, not athletes; hence the reason Carlos Lee was shipped out. Beane finds his ballplayers with statistics, Kenny Williams finds his some other way.

Honestly, I have no idea what to make out of this unbelievably uninformed opinion. The White Sox are without question one of the most tools-oriented, athletically-oriented teams in the major leagues. They go out of their way to scout, draft and trade for players that are atheletes first and baseball players second. Seriously, this is the same GM that drafted Borchard AND Fields. This is the same GM that left Rowand in the minors and then didn't let him play CF because he Singleton and Lofton were better athletes. This is the same GM that left Crede in AAA for a full extra year so that he could trade for and play Royce Clayton. He's the guy that moved Graffanino and Durham (both baseball players) out of town so that he could give the job to Willie Harris. I've always liked the Miles for Uribe trade, but if that isn't a trade of a ballplayer for an athlete then there never has been one. The Sox had a number of "ballplayers" in their system this year, but nearly all of them (Rosy Brown, Gload, Burke) spent the year in Charlotte. Kenny Williams gave a spot on his 25-man roster to Kelly Dransfeldt!!!! Do some homework for gawdsake! Yeesh!

I just think it's funny that the White Sox decided not to build their roster the conventional way, but since they didn't do it the sabremetric way either the statheads sound as defensive as the conventional baseball people did when the statheads challenged them.

I'm sorry but if building your team around pitching and defense is notT the conventional way then what is? Seriously, what do you think that conventional baseball wisdom is?

Kenny Williams has always wanted to have strong starting pitching and good defense. He has always wanted athletes first and ballplayers second. He likes to have guys on his bench that can do several things. He and the scouting staff are usually very good at getting affordable, effective relief pitching. The White Sox are almost never get burned by trading a away a prospect for a proven player and they usually find solid bargains from other teams minor leagues. Those are admirable qualities that make KW one of the top 10-15 GMs. But none of that makes him a rebel against baseball conventions.

Celebrate Williams for a good season and for demonstrating some admirable qualities in minor league talent evaluation. But, please, stop there, you'll be on much more solid ground than the rest of the stuff that you put forward here.

By the way, now that El Duque sucks and his contract is a big, ugly, dead albatross around the Sox necks, no one is including El Duque in the rationalization, are they?

Yep, that four million bucks that El Duque will haul in this season will absolutely cripple them. For ONE YEAR! Such an albatross, huh?

But, please don't tell me that this was part of some huge master plan. KW traded for Pods and Vizcaino because he wanted them.

And he also wanted Iguchi and a decent fifth starter. Don't tell me that Williams planned on going to Spring Training with the team as is (or, 'was') after the Podsednik trade (with Harris at 2B, Grilli as the fifth starter), because I don't buy that one bit.

But you're probably right. Kenny Williams has absolutely no plan, is throwing (stuff) at the wall and hopes it sticks, and next year, they'll be lucky to win 71 games.

BTW -- I believe Iguchi was looking for Matsui like money -- i.e., a contract in the area of $7 million dollars. You're the only person I've seen put a negative spin on Williams landing Iguchi, by saying "To think anything else would be to tell me that KW deliberately freed up money to sign Iguchi but then decided to wait two more months before actually doing it".

Seriously, this is the same GM that drafted Borchard AND Fields.

I'm not sure if this was another jab at KW or not, but Williams was hired October 24th, 2000. Schuler, IIRC, was still the GM -- so he wasn't the sole 'person' who drafted Borchard.

I am not taking potshots at KW here. I've done that before, granted, but all I'm stating now is that we should not give credit to KW for things that he was not intending at the time. We should give credit to him for adapting to the circumstances and putting together a quality team. I have done that many times. We should give credit to him for his not-to-be-dismissed strenths (good minor league scouting, finding cheap cast offs) and I've done that here and repeatedly over the last several years.

Williams was the head of player development before he was GM. He was directly, intimately involved in the signing (and later the refusal to trade) Borchard. And, like Borchard, he was a former baseball-football player at Stanford. To say that the Borchard signing was anything except a collosal disaster would be to horribly misconstrue the facts.

I was not putting any negative spin on the Iguchi signing. You really need to read what I wrote. I said that it is not logical to conclude that Williams deliberately freed up money to sign Iguchi. If that had been his purpose, then he wouldn't have given all the other teams two months to steal Iguchi from him. The Iguchi signing was a good one and he deserves credit for it. The Pierzynski signing was a good one, as I've said so all along. All I'm pointing out is that Williams did not "plan" on signing either of them. Let's also keep in mind that in signing Iguchi and Pierzynski all that KW did was stop the bleeding at those two positions. The Sox production out of their catching and second base positions in 2005 was nearly identical to their production there in 2004.

As for El Duque, the contract was so bad that should be nearly impossible to rationalize for any thoughtful observer. He was a tremendously injury prone 38ish pitcher coming off three injured years. He had thrown 80 innings in two years. He was a bad choice even given the market (anyone still want to laugh at me for suggesting that Corey Lidle would have been a much, much better choice?). (BTW, Keith do you have any comment about this statement that you made back in March: Then again, if Hernandez is just an average pitcher, then I dunno, I guess baseball isn't for me... Further, the way that Williams reacted to his injuries during the season make me wonder if KW understood El Duque's injury history. And there's the whole question of paying 3.5 million for his awful 2005 season. And that's all before we look at his 4.5 million for next year. If you want to give credit to Williams for freeing up 5 milllion to do all kinds of miscellaneous things in the last off-season then don't you also have to criticize him for wasting 5 million that will keep him from doing all those things this off-season?

For the record, I've never said that KW doesn't have a plan. In fact most of the criticism directed at me has been in my asserting of a plan for KW. When I repeat the things that Williams says (we need a fast team, we need a team that can be aggressive, I don't care if we give up 150 runs to be more balanced) people always try to tell me that he doesn't really mean all that stuff but that he just says those things for public consumption.