2006 MLEs (Preliminary, Build 2)
The link.
This is the new build of the complete MLE spreadsheet and the Barebones version. All the known bugs from the first public version have been fixed, including a couple not discussed. Nobody’s said anything, but someone who really dissected the formulae would have seen a couple rather small, but stupid order of operations foibles I made when cleaning up my spreadsheet for ease of use. The effects on the results are pretty minimal, generally 5-10 points of OPS one way or another.
Another thing that hasn’t been brought up in the comments but I’ve received a few e-mails about is why I don’t translate any minor league pitcher as having an $H of greater than .320 in the majors. Essentially, while there are very good reasons to believe that minor league pitchers, as a group, are going to be worse at controlling balls hit into play than major leaguers, there’s also a practical ceiling involved. Once we’re up past .320, we’re at the level of how non-pitchers have pitched professionally and I have serious doubts that anybody with enough skills to pitch professionally are going to be worse at this than an outfielder stuck on the mound for an inning in a blowout.
For a decided unscientific examination of this, take a zone rating chart to a baseball game at batting practice and estimate what a major league team would have fielded. Even with a pitcher making no attempt to get the batter out, two-thirds of those balls hit in play are still going to get fielded by major league defensive players (I did this myself a few years ago after Voros suggested the “hitters’ pitching $H ceiling” to me in a conversation). In a weird DIPS twist that hasn’t been mentioned before (I don’t believe), Voros had also found pitcher height to be a positive in $H, suggesting that scouts are right in preferring taller pitchers in at least one respect.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License. This author hereby waives any attribution requirement, though it would nice, as would free beer.
Dan Szymborski
Posted: September 14, 2006 at 12:08 PM |
14 comment(s)
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That's a little lower than the number I've been using - I typically use .333, but I exclude bunts, so I'm probably not that far off the .320 number when bunts are added back in. But it is a "practical" ceiling on BABIP; any pitcher who can't come in below that isn't going to have a career.
-- MWE
This would be freakin' great to see in practice, though; put a team of major leaguers in the field, a guy throwing batting practice on the mound, and see what happens.
Yes. With major league defenses, I think we're at or near the practical ceiling here.
Isn't it possible that some of these guys are actually worse than outfielders brought in to pitch?
I guess it's possible, but I find it doubtful. On the reverse side, some pitchers can hit, but I find it doubtful that very many professional hitters with full-time experience would hit worse than the .330 or so OPS that pitchers in the majors average. And pitchers as a group have a lot more hitting experience than hitters have pitching.
I agree with that. However, it might be useful to include the "projected" $H as well (if you can), because that should be an indication of whether or not the pitcher is likely to even pitch in the majors.
-- MWE
1) Jack Cust, OF, Portland (SD): .270 .429 .447 876
2) Alex Gordon, 3B, Wichita (KC): .286 .373 .493 866
3) Joseph Koshansky, 1B, Tulsa (COL) .270 .339 .523 862
4) Josh Phelps, 1B, Toledo (DET) .299 .360 .497 857
5) Joey Votto, 1B, Chattanooga (CIN) .276 .351 .476 827
Plus, pitching machines strike out less batters!
There's a wider spread of BABIP among hitters than pitchers.
89 1/3 IP, 52 H, 2 HR, 9 BB, 99 SO.
His New Britain translation was a more realistic 4.73.
With my MLE's I don't worry about that. If a guy allows a $H of .375 against minor league pitching, I'll likely have him as higher than .375 in his MLE. Its in the projections that I fit $H into a more sustainable range.
For my pitcher MLE's I take ($H/team $H) * (MLB $H) * adjustment factor (which results in the average $H being a bit higher for minor leaguers than major leaguers).
My take is that there's not much point in doing an MLE for a guy like that, because he's unlikely to have major league success.
-- MWE
I do them for everybody. How about a guy allowing a .375 $H at one stop, a .245 at the next, and .290 the year before? The MLE's will be drastically different for each line, but his projection will include a healthy dose of regression.
Defense will be somewhat accounted for in my formula, unless they only play horrid defense for that pitcher and OK for the rest of the team.
Which is entirely possible in the minors, since minor league teams often swap 2 guys of vastly different defensive ability at the same position. The MiL team I follow played two SS's this season, one of whom made 40-odd errors, the other of whom played at a near-MLB level. Unless each pitcher had the same proportion of "good SS" starts, someone's going to get screwed.
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