The Case for the Six-Man Rotation

The New York Mets will be going into the 2008 season with the most expensive pitcher of all time. But in order to finally get to the World Series after two years of late-season futility they will have to set another first: the six-man rotation.

By adding Johan Santana and his $150 million salary over seven years (provided that options are picked up) the Mets have arguably built the strongest rotation in the National League. But even with Santana, the Mets management will have to be creative in handling its starters in order to give itself a chance come September and October. Although Santana has logged at least 219 innings in each of the last four years the rotation will have to be treated with care. Because Santana isn’t the problem, they guys that follow him in the rotation are.

In 2006, the Mets’ run to the Series was halted by two ninth-inning runs by the Cardinals in game seven of the National League Championship Series. That they even got to the NLCS was a small miracle considering the injuries to Pedro Martinez and Orlando Hernandez. The Mets’ dearth of pitching in the play-offs, which did bring on the emergence of…

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Winning Tout Wars

Earlier I had posited that I could win Tout Wars or LABR, two expert 5x5 Rotisserie Leagues. I had explained that everyone essentially values the players identically and everyone also has pretty close to identical information about the players. So, how exactly would I win?

The answer begins with putting a team in position to win. Nobody can predict perfectly what players will do. So, there is a level of uncertainty. The goal is to use that uncertainty as a positive rather than a negative. The goal is to create a minimum baseline of success. In a 5x5 AL league let's look for 75 points as that minimum. Seventy-five points is safely 4th or 5th place in the AL Tout Wars league and even better in LABR. How does one guarantee 75 points but maintain upside without any real downside?

The first step is to manage risk. It's impossible to avoid or predict injuries, so I don't mean that type of risk. Instead, I mean point risk. The biggest risk is paying for saves. While the top closers produce in ERA and Ratio and even strikeouts, the second tier closers can actually hurt you in two categories and not help you…

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Cricketball:  Why Cricketers Make the Best Moneyballers

Outside of the Commonwealth, most of us think of cricket as a sport for the slow, the weak and cabdrivers. We mock cricketers’ starched white shirts and pants, ridicule their sweater-vests and laugh uproariously at the fact that half-time is actually called “taking tea”.  We marvel at the complete lack of urgency that surrounds the sport and the masochism that it takes to sit through, let alone play, a five-day game. Yet, absurd as it may sound, the Moneyball-disciples among us shouldn’t scoff at the sport with the outrageously high score-lines, rather, we should worship the ground cricketers walk on.

Recently, batsman Shivnarine Chanderpaul of the West Indies faced 168 South African pitches without ever making an out. His at-bat lasted more than five hours, a good but by no means exceptional feat in international Test cricket. Imagine the havoc Chanderpaul could wreak on a baseball pitching staff if you converted him to a lead-off hitter who routinely fashioned 100-pitch at-bats. Most starting pitchers would have reached their pitch-limit after facing just one batter. In fact, a closer study of cricket’s masters of defensive hitting would lead us to believe that the cricketer would actually make the perfect Moneyball hitter.

Grinding…

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The 3 Stages of Rotisserie Grief

I have submitted my video application to join a documentary project based upon the book Fantasyland by Sam Walker, about his participation in Tout Wars the expert Rotisserie Baseball League. The prize is an entry into Tout Wars American League, one of the competitions for Rotisserie League experts.

While my trials and tribulations about making the video itself would probably be an entertaining read, I’d like to devote my first Rotisserie column on becoming a tout myself and explaining how to win a league like Tout Wars or LABR and other Stage 3 leagues. Maybe I’ll be selected to participate in Tout Wars or LABR as an at-large entrant, not part of the documentary.

For those not familiar with Stage 3, it is concept developed by Alex Patton, one of the first, and in my opinion, the greatest strategy tout for Rotisserie baseball. Alex developed the theory in the late 80’s and early 90’s that leagues and individual owners move through developmental stages, much like the Kubler-Ross Stages of loss and grieving.

Summarizing, Stage 1 is when owners spend all of their money early in the auction. This is usually in newer leagues where the owners have little experience and are…

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Believe Pythagoras or not? A look back

In all of major league history, there were seven teams prior to 2007 that met the following criteria:

1. Had a winning record;
2. Were outscored;
3. Exceeded their Pythagenpat expectation by at least eight games.

Arizona, in 2007, is now #8. The other seven teams are:

Detroit, 1905 AL (79-74, 65.6 expected wins, +13.4)
St. Louis, 1917 NL (82-70, 71.6 expected wins, +10.4)
Pittsburgh, 1932 NL (86-68, 76 expected wins, +10.0)
New York, 1972 NL (83-73, 71.8 expected wins, +11.2)
New York, 1984 NL (90-72, 78.3 expected wins, +11.7)
San Francisco, 1997 NL (90-72, 80.1 expected wins, +9.9)
New York, 2001 NL (82-80, 73.2 expected wins, +8.8)

I found it really odd that three of the seven teams were Met teams.

The Tigers were 62-90 in 1904. They fell back to 71-78 in 1906, although they exceeded their Pythagenpat again, this time by 6.1 games. They then reeled off three straight AL pennants and five straight seasons winning at least 85 games before crashing in 1912.

The Cardinals were 60-93 in 1916. They crashed back to the bottom of the league in 1918 and 1919 before slowly righting themselves as Branch Rickey’s roster makeover took root. The war may have…

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Predicting the 2007 Playoffs

Back in May 2004, Vinay Kumar published an article at The Hardball Times web site “So Billy, What Does Work in the Playoffs?” about how regular season statistics for a team could forecast its chances of success in the postseason. Last season, with my old hometown team the Tigers in the playoffs, I updated Vinay’s discoveries, and kept going right through to the World Series.

Given the chance to play prognosticator for 2007, I’ve dusted off the old spreadsheet and checked how this year’s playoff teams might be likely to fare.

The Categories

Vinay used 30 categories in his original research. But rather than using the data straight up, he used minimum splits between two teams in order to eliminate about half of the results, to ensure that the data only reflected when a team had distinct advantage over its opponent. I’ve calculated a winning percentage for each category, first with Vinay’s original research, and then incorporating the subsequent playoff results.

Team totals:			Vinay’s 2003 research	adding 2004-6
Won-lost record (+5 wins)			.563			.581
Runs Scored/Runs Allowed (+0.1)		        .516			.537

Batting records:
Runs scored total				.387			.415
Batting average					.455			.447
On-base percentage				.455			.452
Slugging percentage				.400			.459
Doubles					        .394…

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Barry Bonds-Double Duplicity

I have insight into the Barry Bonds “achievement” that I would like to share before he breaks Henry Aaron’s estimable record. Thus:

In addition to alleged steroid use, Bonds is unquestionably guilty of the use of a mechanism that confers extraordinarily unfair mechanical advantage: the apparatus that he wears on his front elbow. Many have remarked that his “protective” gear permits Bonds to lean over the plate without fear of being hit. Thus situated, Bonds sees the outside pitch (where most pitchers live) as a pitch down Broadway. This is unfair advantage enough but, in fact, only one of at least seven unfair advantages conferred by the apparatus. Other advantages:

2) The apparatus is hinged at the elbow. It is a literal “hitting machine” that allows Bonds to release his front arm on the same plane during every swing. It largely accounts for the seemingly magical consistency of every Bonds stroke.

3) The apparatus locks at the elbow when the lead arm is fully elongated because of a small flap at the top of the bottom section that fits into a groove in the bottom of the top section. The locked arm forms a rigid front arm fulcrum that allows extraordinary,…

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Fun With Leverage: Is Perception Reality?

Almost four years ago, I introduced a concept called Leverage Index. Leverage is the swing in the possible change in win probability. If there is a game with one team leading by ten runs, the possible changes in win probability, whether the event is a home run or a double play, will be very close to negligible. That is, there won’t be much swing in any direction.

But, in a late and close game, the change in win probability among the various events will have rather wild swings. With a runner on first, two outs, down by one, and in the bottom of the ninth, the game can hinge on one swing of the bat—a home run and an out will both end the game, but with vastly different outcomes for the teams involved.

You can spot a high-leverage situation, I can spot them, and pretty much everyone can spot many high-leverage situations. All that’s left for us to do is to quantify every single game state into a number. That number is the Leverage Index.

-- from Tango’s article at The Hardball Times.

Baseball fans - and sportswriters - who are not oriented toward statistical analysis tend to have a…

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SABR 37: Who’s Going?

SABR 37 will be held in St. Louis, July 25 to 29. With seven weeks to go, hopefully everyone has made (or is ready to make) their plans to attend. The special rate of $77 for the convention is still in effect.

Please post your plans here.

Gross Wins Above Average, 2006 Update

Well, it's January once more. The time of year when, as the weather grows colder, the thoughts of even the most hard-hearted among us turn to one thing: mostly pointless, vaguely self-indulgent baseball stats calculated out to several decimal places in order to give an illusory impression of precision. Naturally, I'm being facetious: every time of the year is a time when people's thoughts turn to mostly pointless, vaguely self-indulgent baseball stats calculated out to several decimal places in order to give an illusory impression of precision.

But winter is also the time when these stats get applied to Hall of Fame debates. As such, I thought it was time to bring out an update to the Gross Wins Above Average (GWAA) stat I introduced in this article in April. Though the full methodology and reasoning behind the stat can be found in the link, basically GWAA (nee NWAA) involves calculating the RCAP (Runs Created Above Position) for hitters and RSAA (Runs Saved Above Average) for pitchers for each season in a player's career, converting this to wins above and below average, and then only counting the above-average seasons. I think this gives a better picture of a player's total value,…

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Starting Rotation Analysis

Three years ago my White Sox Fan Brother and I were talking baseball, something we regularly do. His White Sox had just finished another disappointing season behind the Minnesota Twins yet again. White Sox Fan Brother knew what their problem was. Their fifth starters' abysmal performances had sunk the squad. That's hardly fair, I countered. Number five starters always stink. Almost all teams just have a revolving door of craptacular pitchers at the end of their rotation. Your bad fifth starter gets evened out by their bad fifth starter.

"Chris," White Sox Fan Brother replied, "the White Sox fifth starters won only three games this year." ". . . OK. Now that does sound bad."

We both had a point. You shouldn't really expect league-average pitching from your team's fifth slot. That happens about as often as getting an MVP caliber year from your first baseman. On the other hand, White Sox Fan brother was right; just because fifth starters normally stink doesn't mean a team can't get especially bad performances from their fifth starters.

How bad was it for that south side squad? Well, that's unexpectedly hard to say. Dan Wright, Josh Stewart, Mike Porzio, and Neal Cotts did indeed…

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Hey, You!  Get Off of My Ballot! – Out in the Cold in 2007

You may have heard it said that a civilization is judged by how it treats its weakest members. The care and concern shown for those on the margins of a society reflect the quality of those leading it.

Compare this to how the BBWAA treats those on the margins of the Hall of Fame. There are now officially 196 players from MLB enshrined in the Hall. Most of these have deficiencies that make them less-than-obvious choices, leaving them open to arguments that they don’t belong with the Hall’s greats. At the same time, there are a hundred guys outside the Hall who also fit in to that class. The challenge for the electors is to continually evaluate the players on the in/out margin and determine who should rise above the rest.

Unfortunately, the system in use does not allow them to do this. Many players around the Hall’s margins are quickly dropped from consideration. Indeed, there are many constraints that discourage the writers from performing a continuous evaluation of candidates. The most pernicious of these is the 5% rule. Due to this rule, nearly every year there are quality candidates dismissed after only one year of consideration.

The 5% rule was…

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Zito in Line for a Big Payday

Barry Zito should thank Roy Oswalt.  Forget that, he should take him, and his entire extended family out to dinner.

Thanks to Oswalt, the 28 year old former Oakland Athletic left-hander is sure to get a huge contract this upcoming off season. See, it wasn’t too long ago (this past August) when Oswalt, 29 years old, signed a five year, $73 million contract extension with the Houston Astros before he was to hit the open market this off season.  Since the Astros had exclusive negotiating rights when the contract was offered, meaning there was no other teams available to outbid them, I think it is fair to say this huge contract is actually lower than what Oswalt would have gotten as a free agent.

Zito, though, is going to test the free-agent waters and is likely to make more money than Oswalt—on both a per-year basis, and a total contract basis. 

But is he as good? 

Using a great statistic found over at Baseball-Reference.com called ERA+ we will attempt to begin to answer this question.  ERA+ is great because it is adjusted to the level of competition of the league the pitcher pitched in, and to his home ballpark.  It is…

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Balancing Peak Value vs. Career Value

It's the eternal question when it comes to evaluating players for the Hall of Fame: peak or career? Are a few years of true greatness worth more than a long, consistent career? One even occasionally hears those who enjoy debating such matters describe themselves as "peak" or "career" guys.

There are many metrics available for gauging the value of a player's career that use a bar of replacement level (like Baseball Prospectus's WARP3) or lower (like Bill James's Win Shares). Yet many, including myself, feel that these statistics give too much weight to a long period of mediocre performance and not enough to a superstar-level peak--in fact, it's fairly common for people to compare players' peak years along with their overall career numbers when using these stats. A stat with a bar of average will give more weight to a great peak, but it will (in my view, unfairly) penalize a player like Rickey Henderson, who stuck around for a number of years after he was no longer a very good player.

There have been several attempts to find some middle ground between peak and career, the most notable probably being Jay Jaffe's JAWS. However, I recently thought of an approach…

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The Unauthorized History of Baseball

((CABRAL + STEFAN MART) * BASEBALL) = BEN SAKOGUCHI
”The Unauthorized History of Baseball’s” Developing Legacy

Ben Sakoguchi has done it again. And again. If you go to Los Angeles City College’s Da Vinci Gallery this month, you will see what I mean.

You may remember our exploration of his “orange crate art” (OCA) baseball paintings in these pages a couple of years back (you can find the article in the archives, but—alas—you won’t find the images); if not, here’s a nickel tour. We characterized Ben as the inheritor of a painting tradition that engaged a key myth in America—the myth of a pastoral paradise.

In that earlier article, we noted that Sakoguchi tended toward a gentler thematic approach with his OCA paintings dealing with baseball. In his new exhibition. “The Unauthorized History of Baseball in 100-Odd Paintings” (there are, in fact, 120 of them), that has changed.

Oh, how that has changed. As Sakoguchi became more immersed in creating a series that could encompass the entire history of baseball and its relationship to American culture, he found themes and subjects similar to those he had explored in his non-baseball OCA paintings. And in this collection, he has brought those themes…

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BTF Awards - 2005 NL Rookie of the Year

This race was just as close as our AL balloting, with the top 4 fighting it out and getting most of the votes.

Baseball Think Factory's 2005 NL Rookie of the Year - 1B Ryan Howard

Despite Jim Thome's injuries and offensive collapse, the Phillies still managed to get a 260/350/468, 31 HR performance out of their first basemen, thanks solely to Ryan Howard. After terrorizing the International League early on (371/467/690), the loss of Thome enabled Howard to step in and take the starting job. He made the most of his opportunity, crushing 22 homers in only 312 at-bats. The Phillies now have a real problem on their hands as Howard deserves the job but Thome is still under contract going forward.

2nd Place - SP Zach Duke

He's not really a Duke, but if the Pirates ever establish their own monarchy, the rookie starter is a lock to wind up a member of the peerage. Duke only required a half-season to take home the runner-up spot, going 8-2, 1.81 in 14 starts for the Bucs. Duke and Paul Maholm were good enough to make the Pirates forget about Oliver Perez' season, in which anything that could go wrong did.…

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BTF Awards - 2005 AL Rookie of the Year

Since no explanation is required, let's get right down to business.

Baseball Think Factory's 2005 AL Rookie of the Year - RP Huston Street

The man with the bad soap opera name takes home the award this year after taking over the A's closer job after Octavio Dotel's arm went bye-bye, racking up 23 saves and a 1.72 ERA in 78 1/3 innings. All this despite only 21 minor league innings since being drafted #40 in the 2004 draft. In fact, two Longhorns made it to the majors in their 2nd professional season this year - fellow first-rounder J.P. Howell made the Royals roster after 24 professional starts, though his name won't appear again in this article, for very good reasons. Street wins despite only appearing on 12 of the 20 ballots cast thanks to his 7 first-place votes.

2nd Place - 2B Robinson Cano

When Tony Womack is Plan A, nothing's more important than Plan B. Luckily for the Yankees, Robby Cano was ready to be called up and while he hardly had a dominating season (297/320/458), he still held his own and kept 2B from being a horrible, festering wound after Womack was benched (Hey Tony, might I tell…

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BTF Awards - 2005 Executive of the Year

Chicago White Sox General Manager Kenny Williams is the 2005 Major League Executive of the Year, according to a poll of the Baseball Think Factory’s scholars-in-residence.  Williams was named to five of the eight ballots cast, finishing first on four ballots and second on another for a total of 23 points. 

Cleveland General Manager Mark Shapiro finished in second place in the balloting with 13 points on five ballots. 

Atlanta’s John Schuerholz was named to only two ballots, finishing first on both, for 10 points and third place, while Milwaukee’s Doug Melvin earned nine points with three second place votes. 

Oakland’s Billy Beane and Detroit’s Dave Dombrowski tied for fifth with five points.  The Yankee’s Brian Cashman, who finished eighth in the balloting right behind Toronto’s J.P. Ricciardi, was the only other G.M. to be named to more than one ballot.  For various reasons, many BTF contributors were reluctant to cast ballots for Executive of the Year. 

In the fifth year of his term, Williams constructed a White Sox team that won the A.L. Central for the first time since 2000, led the American League in wins, and then won eleven of twelve post-season contests to secure the franchise’s first World…

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Running Wild

Did the 2005 Chicago White Sox really benefit from the stolen base?

The White Sox stole a lot in 2005, as everybody reading this knows, finishing 3rd in stolen bases and 1st in times caught stealing.

What do our basic sabermetric toys say about these players? Bill James' Runs Created certainly isn't a fan - the White Sox Runs Created goes up by 3 if they never attempted a stolen base all year. Linear weighted likes the Southside Speed Squadron a little bit more, giving all those stolen bases a value of a hair short of 1 run for the year.

Now, the downside of these statistics is that they weight all stolen bases and caught stealing equally. Stolen bases, after all, are the ultimate situational stat - batters always have to step to the plate but a manager can choose to only send the runner based on the situation. Being down by a run in the bottom of the 9th with 2 outs is a much different situation than being up by 7 runs in the 3rd inning.

Thanks to Phil Birnbaum, we have extensive data of how teams fare depending on the score, base situation, number of outs, inning,…

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