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Thursday, March 28, 2013
Wolfley: Broadcasters sound off on sabermetrics
Didn’t Bob Gamere mention WHIP one time and get into all sorts of trouble?
Orel Hershiser, an analyst on “Sunday Night Baseball,” contended that “it’s easier to bring the stat to the broadcast if it’s a formula that everybody understands.”
“All of us on this call listening to my voice right now, nobody can tell me the formula for WAR,” Hershiser said. “We know what it stands for, wins above replacement, but how do you come up with a number? I think people know what an RBI is, know what a home run is, know what a walk is. Those are easy to explain. People have a huge reference point.”
By that standard, no one in a National Football League telecast should bring up quarterback rating, because no one can give you the formula for it, either. Yet NFL broadcasts routinely reference quarterback rating.
“It’s baseball and it’s an eyes test,” Hershiser said. “(Giants manager) Bruce Bochy and (Giants general manager) Brian Sabean won two out of the last three World Series. I don’t know if you can name me the WAR of any guy on their whole club. Buster Posey probably has the best one, Matt Cain, maybe Pablo Sandoval. I know those three guys are probably the core of their team.”
...Shulman said in a conference call with reporters earlier this week that he sees the value of “the new-age analytics,” as he called them, but he’s not going to hand over his call to them in part because he does not think many viewers are into those numbers.
“I think the vast majority of our audience, I bet for everybody on a Monday morning who said, ‘Do you know what Mike Trout’s WAR (wins above replacement) is?’ I bet there are 10 people who say, ‘Did you see he hit his 30th home run?’ or stole his 49th base or whatever.
“If you go back 15 years nobody was even talking about on-base percentage, that came in and then, of course, OPS came in. OPS (on-base plus slugging percentage) I think is fairly common now. So things are moving. They’re just not maybe moving that the sabermetricians would like.”
Repoz
Posted: March 28, 2013 at 09:41 PM | 25 comment(s)
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1. LooseCannon Posted: March 28, 2013 at 10:07 PM (#4398872)ESPN should hire someone to come up with a completely new one-size-fits-all statistic which looks different from some of the other metrics. I'm not up on the latest ideas, so don't lambast me if I miss one, but perhaps a metric like Total Quarterback Rating, manipulated so that the average player is supposed to be 50 and the range is from 0 to 100. Being able to attach a face to a stat would help to sell it within the ESPN style of doing things.
I am sympathetic to the idea that viewers don't want to be deluged with stats. Perhaps they can cherry-pick and only cite things like WAR if it suggests a player is under-rated by conventional stats but not when the player is over-rated.
If a guy is leading off, OBP. If a reliever is coming in, K/9 or K%. I'm not sure that there's a particularly good situation to use WAR during a telecast because its not situationally applicable and doesn't describe a player's attributes.
Huh? "He's arguably the most valuable player in the league right now. He leads the league with a 4.5 WAR."
As Ray sorta notes, they're gonna talk about all sorts of things during the broadcast. "Y'know Bob, while he doesn't have eye-popping batting numbers, that little Jose Altuve is a really nice player. He does a lot of little things right like baserunning. Says here he's added half a win already just with his baserunning." "And defense Joe! OK, he's no Darwin Barney but who is. Still, he ranks third among AL 2B in runs saved on defense."
One thing I found interesting was how quickly writers (not so much broadcasters to my knowledge) adopted Dewan's "Fielding Bible" when it came out. They didn't seem to get particularly worked up about the crazy numbers. Some of that was just the clever title of his book I think. So I propose the "little things index" -- Rbase + Rdp + Rfield. When you publish, don't mention the formula. Don't tout it as the next great saber super-numbers. In fact, tout it as "finally a stat that measures all the smallball stuff those stupid statnerds ignore."
I'd probably go with the run equivalent, in that instance. I think part of the factors conspiring against WAR gaining common currency is that its use of the word "win" is rather abstract. What is half a win, after all? This isn't hockey. You can't tie.
Also, replacement level. The entire concept seems to make some people see red, and requires a long and boring explanation/justification even for those who don't dismiss newfangled statistics out of hand.
"Above" is good, though. I think America is ready for "Above."
We can thank Garrison Keillor (wow, I spelled Keillor right) for that.
As noted, talk about how a player is considered a whiz defensively, and how he rarely gets caught stealing, and how he's one of the best in the league at going from first to third on a single.
Geesh, it's a GAME.
If WAR ever gains the traction that OPS did, fine. But why do we have to forcefeed fans?
What I don't want is the announcer to say things like "Jeff Francoeur is a star, I don't care what the numbers say." The reflexive stat bashing that these guys do is as boring as a recitation of WAR, UZR and OPS+ would be.
They shouldn't bring it up because it's a bad stat.
They tried to do that with QBR and it was, rightfully, a dud.
To use AROM's example I'd want to hear "Trout has scored from second on a hit 27 out of 33 times, that's 3rd best in all of baseball." It's not much wordier but it's considerably more descriptive.
No one wants to hear announcers spew out WAR or Isolated Power numbers; those are incomprehensible to 99.5% of the listening audience and would demand explanations that take away from the immediate game description.
I agree you need to provide context. I'd prefer that as a comparison to league average rate instead of a rank, so you don't have to deal with cutoffs - is Trout #3 behind a guy who is 5 for 5 or is that player not considered?
Either option can work. That's basically an editorial decision. At some point "Mike Trout is way above average at scoring from second on a hit" is less contextual than "he's third in the league." In the 5 for 5 example including/not including that player doesn't change that Trout is one of the best in the league which is what you want to get across (and of course you could say it just that way).
Like how everyone says Fernando Rodney last year had the best ERA for a reliever ever by making up an innings limit.
My Answer to "I Don't Like How Complicated WAR is and How It Is Constantly Changing."
Lowest ERA, 20+ Games Finished
Rk Player ERA ERA+ OPS+ SV GF IP Year Age Tm Lg1 Fernando Rodney 0.60 634 19 48 65 74.2 2012 35 TBR AL
2 Dennis Eckersley 0.61 603 13 48 61 73.1 1990 35 OAK AL
3 Rich Gossage 0.77 465 21 20 30 46.2 1981 29 NYY AL
4 Bill Henry 0.87 420 35 6 20 52.0 1964 36 CIN NL
5 Jonathan Papelbon 0.92 517 18 35 49 68.1 2006 25 BOS AL
6 Doug Henry 1.00 406 20 15 25 36.0 1991 27 MIL AL
7 Craig Kimbrel 1.01 399 1 42 56 62.2 2012 24 ATL NL
8 Dale Murray 1.03 374 34 10 23 69.2 1974 24 MON NL
9 Rollie Fingers 1.04 333 50 28 41 78.0 1981 34 MIL AL
10 Brad Ziegler 1.06 390 73 11 21 59.2 2008 28 OAK AL
11 John Smoltz 1.12 385 36 45 55 64.1 2003 36 ATL NL
12 Jose Mesa 1.12 418 40 46 57 64.0 1995 29 CLE AL
13 Tim Burke 1.19 356 31 18 30 91.0 1987 28 MON NL
14 Eric Gagne 1.20 337 4 55 67 82.1 2003 27 LAD NL
"Bob, that heady play adds nearly a half run to the Angels run expectation for this game, though obviously in the middle innings like now that only increases the Angels win expectation by 2%."
"And now Trout is taking a pretty big lead"
"Bob, that isn't advisable. Stealing third only adds marginally to run expectation for the inning, mainly in single run innings, while being caught off base is a hammer blow to multiple run expectations for the inning"
"Ed, shut up!"
"I can't shut up about this kid, from his on base percentage to his defensive zone rating to his base running efficiency, he's very, very, highly ranked! I've prepared a report on similar players by age and career length that I think our listeners will find fascinating. Starting from the end, player 100 most similar to Mike Trout is...."
Ed trails off as Mike Scoscia has entered the booth and begins choking him to death.
That's part of the problem. I don't think announcers understand how insignificant each individual play and player is, or if they did, wouldn't want to know or to remind their audience. Everybody "knows" the difference between a .300 and .250 hitter is "huge", the difference between a can't-miss Ichiro at-bat and a forgettable Mike Bordick or someone. Except that actually adds up to one hit per week, two runs per month, one win per year. We all know a single player can't take a baseball team to the playoffs as can Adrian Peterson or Tim Duncan, but it's always a bit shocking to realize how narrow the margins between baseball players really are.
Well above average and likely an early season league leader.
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