Wednesday, April 17, 2013
Granillo: “Rise of the Robot Umpires”
(www.baseballprospectus.com)
It troubles me that the world is just one big rip-off of Ferro Lad.
Read More...We’ve all thought it. Heck, many of us have even said it. Watching the exploits of Eric Gregg, Phil Cuzzi, Jim Joyce, and so many others, it’s hard not to believe it at least once. “We want robot umpires!”
A new project by Dan Levy is working to explore just what might happen if baseball ever heeded that call. Rise of the Robot Umpires is a graphic-style novel set in the not-too-distant future where the commissioner finally ...
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Page 8 of 8 pages
‹ First < 3 4 5 6 7 8There are various sources of error but defense is clearly the #1 source of error. When the defensive metrics agree one of two things could be happening: 1) The different approaches come close to measuring true talent 2) The defensive metrics all have the same inherent bias and are all wrong in the same direction. If option 1 is correct then averaging the defensive results (think Nate Silver and presidential polls) is the best approach.
I cannot express my hatred of averaging results enough.
The example of BPro's FRAA and Beltre is a good reason to reconsider averaging as a method, at least a wholesale averaging. Clearly BPro is doing something very radical there, and I am intrigued to know what.
Fielding Win Shares Above Bench ranks Cabrera #2 (and Beltre #3) among AL 3bs, another anomaly, but one I think I understand.
And Lawrie's value (#6 in FWSAB, #1 in DRS and #5 in UZR) seems dependent on how one treats plays made in the shift.
Averaging seems to me more likely to taint any one system's results than improve on them.
In the light of Ray's contrast of Cabrera's home runs against Trout's stolen bases, I looked at the different components of their batting lines, and considered how they are valued by wRAA. One reason Trout gets an advantage is a sizeable gap in IBBs. Cabrera has 17 to Trout's 4.
The problem, in using WAR in an MVP debate, is that WAR penalises the IBB recipient by (quite rightly) not awarding the full value of the walk. But I'm not sure that is being subjectively fair to Cabrera. It's not his fault that the bat was taken out of his hands; if anything, it represents TEH FEAR, which we like to laugh at, but suggests something about how the opponent values the two players. But potentially so does the reluctance to walk Trout.
One could interpret the low number of IBBs as indicating teams were afraid to put Trout on base, because that could just make matters worse; but they didn't even want to risk pitching to Cabrera, because that, too, could make matters worse. Have we got the balance of that right in WAR's coefficients?
I know that. I just don't know if he has time to read all these threads.
It's a different way of regressing to the mean. It will unfortunately compress defensive value to a level smaller than what I think the differences actually are. The error doesn't necessarily average out so you end up with a number that is regressed but still contains the same amount of error as your worst defensive system. In other words your system becomes more accurate but not more precise. For example suppose Trout's defensive contribution averages to +0.9 and Cabrera's to -0.5. Then your WAR numbers become 9.5 and 7. However, the range of the probability distribution is still (for example) 7.5-11.5 and 5-9 (assumed stdev, not calculated). Those distributions mean there is a 1% chance that Trout provided 6.5 wins more than Cabrera this year and a 1% chance Cabrera provided 1.5 wins more than Trout.
I'm with you that I wouldn't add any system I thought was more incorrect than correct. GIGO.
I think you could lump that into error calculating baserunning wins.
I think the baserunning part is the most rock-solid component of WAR. Even more so than the batting component. With batting the main source of disagreement is the use of park factors. Is Anaheim really that extreme a pitcher's park? How many years should be used to calculate it? Should park factors be generic when we know parks have different effects on different players' strengths?
With baserunning park doesn't matter much. The opportunities definitely even out over the course of a season that we can be confidant that a player who goes 1st-3rd 80% of the time is better than one who makes it 40% of the time - for a series this may not be true, but for a season it works. If you have a normally good baserunner have a really bad year, you can probably explain it by looking at specific outs on base. Those can be fluky, but they represent real opportunities lost, and it is correct to include them as part of a single season metric.
Fielding is still the toughest to nail down.
I don't disagreeing with anything you have said in comparing Trout and Cabrera. I am a Tiger's fan and while I would be happy for Cabrera to win the MVP, I think it should go to Trout.
That being said, I am genuinely surprised how Cabrera's narrative is "only" the triple crown stats. He willingly switched positions to enable the Tigers to sign a big bat at 1b (something even Capitan Jeter himself was unwilling to do). He clearly worked hard to be a less awful 3b, all the while keeping his batting stats up. His drinking problem seems under control, so he has the redemption angle. Not that this is a better story than a rookie putting up a season for the ages while seemingly turning around the Angels' season (as well as Pujols'), just that there are some nice story lines for Cabrera beyond the three stats.
It seems small to you, but given the 54-53 advantage to Cabrera in Rbat, it does have an impact on Cabrera's advantage in his strongest area relative to Trout. My interest is in interpreting the values displayed in WAR numbers.
Cabrera hits one home run per 15 PA, two XBH per 8 PA. For Trout that XBH figure is about 9 PA. 17 IBB possibly cost Cabrera a home run and a double. Or maybe he would have struck out 17 times. We don't know.
Or not. He moves in mysterious ways, like Michael Young trying to field a ground ball.
I don't get this. Maybe, I'm missing something, but is it really true that the Tigers would not have signed Fielder if Cabrera said "I'm not playing 3b?" Doesn't Leyland just put Fielder at DH?
I've seen several writers mention the Tigers making the playoffs and the Angels not as a point in Cabrera's favor. Which is absurd in that (a) the Angels have won more games than the Tigers, (b) the Angels failed to make the playoffs because they crapped the bed in April, while Trout was in the minors, and (c) the Angels record in games that Trout has played is one of the best in baseball and easily playoff-caliber. But I agree with you, Cabrera has a perfectly fine narrative: Triple Crown, switching positions, team comeback to win division.
I understand that it was important to Fielder to play 1b. Everything I have read is that the Tigers went to Cabrera to make sure he was willing to make a move (regardless of whether this was true or even necessary). So even if it is false, it certainly makes a nice story about Cabrera and what he has done to help the team this year.
Also, Victor Martinez is back next year and expected to DH. That will leave the Tigers with three players for two positions.
Good point. I have seen this argument a couple of times, but it has been much less than I normally recall hearing or reading, so it slipped my mind. Although perhaps I have just dismissed it as a junk argument (in large part because even though the Angels did nto make the playoffs, Trout helped them fight until the last days of the season).
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By the way, I ask again whether people would, right now, take Trout or Bryce Harper going forward. I don't have a point - this doesn't relate to the WAR discussion - I'm just curious. Do you base your decision on the great season from the 20 year old, or the good season from the 19 year old? I'd have to still take Harper.
I don't know if this was the case, but stories along those lines have been hinted at. I recall one article reporting/speculating that if Cabrera had not agreed to go along, it is not clear that the Tigers would have even approached Fielder. I tend to doubt it, but it is out there - and frankly, that makes the good storyline.
Even if it is not true, spinning Cabrera as the selfless team player who changed to a position he had not played in 5 years (not counting the 14 games at 3b in his first year in Detroit) sounds great when arguing the he should be the MVP. Why more people have not latched on to it is what I am surprised about.
I would chose Harper, but that it because (a) I have much more exposure to him since I live in the DC area and (b) I love his attitude. He seems to have a just the right edge to him that makes me enjoy watching him and his reactions (personally, I loved how he handled the Ozzie thing). Maybe Trout has that edge as well and I just don't know about it.
Of course, if those were the top two players available in a draft, I would be more than happy to stuck with the number two pick.
Seriously, I'd take Trout. He may never perform as well as he's performed this year again, but he doesn't have to to be a tremendously valuable and entertaining player. Harper's got crazy upside, but less certainty of getting there I'd think.
I'd love to see some quotes, because I have not seen it or heard it except for one mention here on a different thread. I don't pretend to read a ton on this topic, but it seems like an easy one to make.
And even if he didn't want to switch, and it was the only way to get Fielder on the roster, I'm still not sure how much meaning it should have. If he was as much of a disaster as many people predicted, then he's only hurting the team. If he makes it to below-average, then he still gets overrated by the people whose opinion doesn't go much past triple crown stats.
I think you are way too down in the weeds on this. The story is that he took one for the team by making a move that he perhaps did not want to but that seemed, on its face, to be good for the team. To someone focused on the Triple Crown stats and who hates new fangled ideas like WAR and the like, this sounds like an intangible that supports voting for Cabrera. Add in that he was not historically awful at the position (and probably looked decent at times) and you have the non-thoughout argument that he is helping the team. Jeter would not do it, yet Cabrera did thus demonstrating leadership and character. I don't believe this, yet am surprised I just have not seen that position advocated very often. Then again, maybe it has been I have just not seen it.
I do.
I agree. Cabrera deserves a lot of credit for being willing to switch positions, and handling 3B better than anyone thought he would. He had any easy out too - remember when he took a ground ball to the face in his first game there? It would have been hard to blame him if he didn't want to go back there. His position switch though was not necessary to sign Fielder. The two could have split 1b/DH. I don't think the Tigers back away from that move if you tell them it means Delmon Young is out of a job.
When that happened, I figured the experiment was over. I was very surprised he continued with it.
His position switch though was not necessary to sign Fielder. The two could have split 1b/DH. I don't think the Tigers back away from that move if you tell them it means Delmon Young is out of a job.
I can't imagine it either. I recall reading an article about the Tigers consulting with Cabrera before the signing to make sure he was on board. The article hinted that if he had vetoed such a move, the Tigers would not have made the offer, in part because of Victor Martinez returning in 2013. I also remember laughing and thinking that they would be happy to deal with that issue then.
Here's a ranked list of AL 3bs, having at least 600 innings at their position:
Moustakas
Cabrera
Beltre
Lawrie
Seager
Inge
Hannahan
Donaldson
Callaspo
Youkilis
A-Rod
Middlebrooks
Plouffe
Betemit
And here is a second list:
Moustakas
Cabrera
Beltre
Lawrie
Seager
Youkilis
Callaspo
Hannahan
Inge
Donaldson
Plouffe
Middlebrooks
A-Rod
Betemit
Fairly close, don't you think?
The first list is ranked by Fielding Win Shares Above Bench.
The second list is ranked by DPs turned.
I don't quite understand how, but for this season ranking AL 3bs fielding by Win Shares seems to track their ability to turn the double play.
Colin Wyers did something like this with hitting stats. I totally forgot about that article until your post jogged my memory. Thanks. It is one of my favorite sabermetric pieces of the online era.
Evaluation/Evolution:
When "The Hidden Game of Baseball" came out in '84, I was fascinated by the first rudimentary attempts shown at using Linear Weights to evaluate offensive and defensive contributions. Offensively LW has held up fairly well over the years but defensively, not so much. At any rate -at the time one of the things that intrigued me was Rabbit Maranville. According to LW, he should have been the NL MVP in 1914 - the "Miracle Braves" season - because even with a negative bat, his defense was saving so many runs above average (almost 60)that his overall ranking was the best in the league. At first my reaction was "No way could somebody be 60 runs better than average in the field" - but then I began to think about Stephen Jay Gould's comments about evolution as applied to baseball. Looking back at it now - 1914 was almost a century ago now - I have no doubt that the "average" player then was significantly worse than the "average" player today. This would mean it could be entirely feasible that one truly outstanding player might really be 60 runs better than average, and there may also have been players 50 or 60 runs below average. I think with the level of play at the time it would be entirely possible to have such a wide range of variance. It would also maybe explain how Maranville was actually elected to the HOF by the BBWAA and not the Veterans Committee - he really was viewed during his playing days as an unbelievably exceptional fielder and +60 runs in a season would certainly indicate that.
Fast forward 50 years to the 1960s - I would think the level of play would have improved a great deal for a variety of reasons - racial integration & better fielding equipment for starters. Maybe at that time the range of variance between top notch fielders and the poorest with the glove would be about 60 runs total: +30 on the upside, -30 on the downside? This is in keeping with Gould's thoughts about evolutionary trends usually narrowing the variances. This is an important distinction to make, because according to LW, Bill Mazeroski was still having some seasons in the late '50s and throughout the '60s where he was +50 or more runs above average, with several others in the +40 range. This had a lot to do with building the narrative for Maz getting into the HOF. I think it is probably more realistic that he was at the +20 or +30 level which, when mixed with his slightly negative batting results (accounting for position), might still result in an All-Star player, but not necessarily HOF caliber.
Fast forward another 50 years to today's game - is the variance in fielding down to about 40 runs now? +20 on the upside and only -20 on the downside? I think many here at BBTF probably view it as such and some may even think we are at a point where the range is even narrower than that. How about only +10 at the top and -10 at the bottom? This becomes critical to the whole Trout/Cabrera comparison. If Trout is really +25 or +30 runs defensively and Cabrera is -10 or something like that at his position - that's a 35 or 40 run difference that could certainly overcome any edge Cabrera might have offensively in determining who actually helped his team more during the season. But if the gap between great and terrible fielders is only at most 20 runs these days - and if Trout is, say, only really at +5 or +10 and Cabrera at -5; then I can see how some would think that's not enough of a difference to sway the MVP vote in Trout's favor.
Furthermore, if the gap between good and lousy fielders has narrowed this much - shouldn't this become a whole new paradigm in lineup selection? Shouldn't the days of Omar Vizquel-type players be numbered? Shouldn't teams pretty much always go with the "good hit, no field" player over the "good field, no hit" player (if they are stuck with having to make such a decision) because there is a much larger gap offensively than defensively? Should Seattle bid adieu to Brendan Ryan?
I'm really curious as to where we go from here. Your thoughts?
The biggest conceptual problem with WAR is that risk-free replacement-level production is not obtainable in the marketplace. There are some good things about WAR, but that problem damages the model pretty badly. While the "old guard" may not have said exactly this, they've certainly noted things like the replacement player being fictitious.
If this is the biggest problem with WAR, then it is actually a damned good system. If you want to adjust the replacement level that is actually a fairly easy adjustment to make.
I think there is value in consistency and durability that is not captured in measurements like single season WAR, but it's also not captured by how the voters typically vote for the major awards, either. Otherwise you wouldn't have results like Terry Pendleton over Barry Bonds, etc.
Well, IIRC, there were a couple of factors back in the 1991 MVP balloting:
1)The Braves surprised everyone by having such a great season when they were lousy the year before - at the time people didn't realize it was the pitching staff turning things around and maturing that made the biggest difference. Years of continued success later people could look back and realize this. But at the time a lot of people thought Pendleton had joined the team, had a great season, the team improved dramatically, therefore he must be MVP.
2)The uglier part of the voting process was revealed when Peter Gammons mentioned he had interviewed several writers who had voted for Pendleton instead of Bonds. According to Gammons, almost across the board the Pendleton voters he talked to said they recognized that Bonds had done much more to help the Pirates than Pendleton had done to help the Braves, but Bonds had won his first MVP the year before and the writers hated Barry's guts and so were looking for any reasons to NOT vote for him and Pendleton gave them an excuse.
It's not how a vote should be carried out, but it wasn't the first (or the last) time writers would exhibit this kind of behaviour.
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