User Comments, Suggestions, or Complaints | Privacy Policy | Terms of Service | Advertising
Page rendered in 0.5547 seconds
59 querie(s) executed
Dialed In — Monday, October 20, 2008Final 2008 Offense Plus Defense (OPD) ResultsWith the ALCS wrapped (Congratulations all you former Durham Bulls!), and three days off until the World Series starts, I thought I’d get the end-of-year results for offense and defense posted. It will enhance your “Who should be MVP?” debates. It will contain the best fielders and best hitters, so you can work out your Gold Glove and Silver Slugger pools. People can even pay off on their bets where “Who is better?” came up. Most importantly for all the fans of teams who are eliminated, you can look at players about to be free agents and decide who you want to sign. Sure, he can hit, but can he field? Is $10 million too much for a player going to provide you one win above average? The runs are rated above average at position. The offense is XR, park-adjusted, and specific to the number of outs a player has used up. Baseball-Reference tweaked their league batting pages to provide all the necessary categories in one place to calculate Extrapolated Runs, so this will be much easier than in years past to generate. Thanks, Sean! The defense is DRS (Defensive Runs Saved: ZR converted to runs), explained in my previous work. It is runs, not plays, above average. The units are the same, so I simply add the numbers together. The decimal places are for consistency’s sake, not meant to represent accuracy. There are several runs of give in these (and any) numbers, offense or defense. Also, for defense, actual chances are used instead of estimated, as those are now available. First I want to talk about the National League MVP. I think Albert Pujols clearly deserves it. He’s got a good lead over the next player, and was terrific all season. I was surprised to see that Hanley Ramirez’ bat at his position was every bit as valuable. If Hanley continues to improve on defense, he could be cradling the trophy very soon. Here are the top 15 in the National League: Year Lg Player LastName Age Team G POS XR+AA DRS OPD 2008 NL Albert Pujols 28 STL 148 1B 61.2 14.5 75.7 2008 NL Chipper Jones 36 ATL 128 3B 52.5 9.4 61.9 2008 NL Hanley Ramirez 24 FLA 153 SS 61.3 -0.6 60.7 2008 NL Chase Utley 29 PHI 159 2B 38.4 12.9 51.2 2008 NL Lance Berkman 32 HOU 159 1B 38.1 12.5 50.6 2008 NL Carlos Beltran 31 NYM 161 CF 34.6 6.7 41.2 2008 NL David Wright 25 NYM 160 3B 42.7 -4.8 37.8 2008 NL Matt Holliday 28 COL 139 LF 28.6 8.2 36.8 2008 NL Brian Giles 37 SDP 147 RF 25.4 11.3 36.8 2008 NL Ryan Ludwick 29 STL 152 RF 36 0.4 36.4 2008 NL Manny Ramirez 36 LAD 53 LF 31.9 2.2 34.1 2008 NL Brian McCann 24 ATL 145 C 33.4 -3 30.4 2008 NL Dan Uggla 28 FLA 146 2B 29.4 -2 27.4 2008 NL Jody Gerut 30 SDP 100 CF 17.5 9.6 27.1 2008 NL Jose Reyes 25 NYM 159 SS 35.3 -8.7 26.6 It is a list of the NL stars, with some Jody Gerut thrown in. What is interesting is the lack of any Cubs. And Manny Ramirez showing up in a third of a season. If you are looking for some of the MVP candidates that you read about in MSM articles, well, Ryan Howard is down there about 60th with 7 runs above average OPD. He’s seven wins behind Albert. Should he win, I suspect that will be the greatest traveshamockery of all time. The AL MVP race is pretty close. I would give the nod to Minnesota’s Joe Mauer, ekeing out a win over Grady Sizemore. Both played well, and a premium position. There was lots of late season talk about Dustin Pedroia, and he did keeps his level of play up and is just about 10 runs behind Mauer. He is as close to Mauer in fourth as the second place player in teh NL. So, he could win it, and while it wouldn’t be the best choice, it is not nearly as hideous as some we’ve seen in the past. The top 15 AL players: Year Lg Player LastName Age Team G POS XR+AA DRS OPD 2008 AL Joe Mauer 25 MIN 146 C 37.8 7.37 45.16 2008 AL Grady Sizemore 25 CLE 157 CF 35.6 6.78 42.33 2008 AL Alex Rodriguez 32 NYY 138 3B 41.1 -1.48 39.64 2008 AL Dustin Pedroia 24 BOS 157 2B 22.3 12.6 34.94 2008 AL Kevin Youkilis 29 BOS 145 1B 28.8 5.86 34.69 2008 AL Milton Bradley 30 TEX 126 DH 35.9 -1.95 33.95 2008 AL Carlos Quentin 25 CHW 130 LF 30.8 -0.97 29.87 2008 AL Brian Roberts 30 BAL 155 2B 24.6 3.6 28.23 2008 AL Aubrey Huff 31 BAL 154 DH 29 -1.64 27.32 2008 AL Nick Markakis 24 BAL 157 RF 30.5 -3.32 27.15 2008 AL Carlos Pena 30 TBR 139 1B 24.9 1.4 26.32 2008 AL Ian Kinsler 26 TEX 121 2B 25.9 -0.01 25.93 2008 AL Josh Hamilton 27 TEX 156 CF 32.2 -6.35 25.83 2008 AL Mark Teixeira 28 LAA 54 1B 24 1.12 25.08 2008 AL Marco Scutaro 32 TOR 145 SS 6.6 18.42 25.03 I didn’t really realize just how good ARod’s season was. He’s a good player. It’s still amazing to see three Oriole players right there. Mark Teixeira came over for a third of a season and ripped up the AL pretty good. He and Manny both had a big impact on the pennant races. The team OPD is also included in that spreadsheet. So open up the spreadsheet, poke around and argue away at who is the best, who your team needs, and who your team needs to jettison. |
BookmarksYou must be logged in to view your Bookmarks. Hot TopicsSteve Austin is not a Baseball Player
(159 - 12:27am, Jul 07) Last: Infinite Yost (Voxter) Defensive Replacement Level Defined (41 - 1:20pm, Mar 14) Last: Foghorn Leghorn Reconciliation - Getting Defensive Stats and Statheads Back Together (30 - 1:42pm, Apr 28) Last: GuyM Handicapping the NL East (77 - 2:02pm, Oct 15) Last: The Interdimensional Council of Rickey!'s Landing Buerhle a Great Move (79 - 8:43am, Feb 04) Last: Foghorn Leghorn Weekly DRS Update (Defensive Stats Thru July 19, 2010) (3 - 2:47pm, Sep 27) Last: Home Run Teal & Black Black Black Gone! You Have Got To Be Kidding Me (8 - 3:52am, May 01) Last: Harris Weekly DRS Update (Defensive Stats Thru July 4, 2010) (2 - 4:05pm, Jul 11) Last: NewGrass Weekly DRS Update (Defensive Stats Thru Jun 29, 2010) (5 - 12:47pm, Jul 04) Last: Harveys Wallbangers Weekly DRS Update (Defensive Stats Thru Jun 13, 2010) (15 - 1:51am, Jun 16) Last: Chris Dial Weekly DRS Update (Defensive Stats through games of June 6, 2010) (17 - 7:08pm, Jun 14) Last: Foghorn Leghorn Daily Dose of Defense (41 - 8:31pm, Jun 04) Last: Tango 2009 NL OPD (Offense Plus Defense) (37 - 11:22pm, Feb 17) Last: Foghorn Leghorn NOT authorized by Major League Baseball or its Member Teams (40 - 7:32pm, Feb 16) Last: GregQ 2009 AL OPD (Offense Plus Defense) (35 - 9:05pm, Jan 05) Last: Foghorn Leghorn Syndicate |
|||||||
|
About Baseball Think Factory | Write for Us | Copyright © 1996-2021 Baseball Think Factory
User Comments, Suggestions, or Complaints | Privacy Policy | Terms of Service | Advertising
|
| | ||||||
Reader Comments and Retorts
Go to end of page
Statements posted here are those of our readers and do not represent the BaseballThinkFactory. Names are provided by the poster and are not verified. We ask that posters follow our submission policy. Please report any inappropriate comments.
1. Moses Taylor loves a good maim Posted: October 20, 2008 at 05:55 PM (#2990137)Not really. The story about the Cubs this season was depth and very few black holes (by the end of the year, Fukudome was an offensive black hole, but that's about it; him and Theriot were the only regulars in the negative here*). They don't have any great players, and their best players didn't have their best years. IIRC, DeRosa was the highest ranked Cubs just about any time you updated this so it's not surprising at this time of year. As you're quick to point out, this was easily a career year for him and the Cubs can't count on this again next year.
*Should Derrek Lee be at a negative -10? That has to be a mistake.
Sell high on Scutaro.
Scutaro's offense shouldn't be compared solely to other SS since he spent most of his time at other positions.
His ZR really was off the charts good though, especially compared to what he's done before.
*I'm not counting Scuturo, since he wasn't a full-time SS.
With the time back from injury and a slight boost to his early season numbers when he was clearly still hurt, he would have caught Reyes too.
OK, but 5 runs worse than Fukudome offensively?
Great stuff, BTW.
R Cedeno, D Ward, KOYIE HILL (10 G), F Pie, E Patterson (13 G), C MCGEEHEE (9 G), H Blanco, M HOFFPAUIR, M Murton (19 G)
Maybe it's just me, but mightn't there be a problem with the baseline Dial is using?
Is the baseline based on 2008 and only the player's league, or is it broader (e.g., a 3 year average of the position for both leagues)? If the former, does that mean that Hank Greenberg would be average or below average according to this system because he played in the same league as Foxx and Gehrig?
Seriously, the fact that he's using average as a baseline is no big deal. Works pretty well for full-timers and comparing the regular's rating to the team numbers will tell you what you need to know about the backups.
I love it!
Maybe it's just me, but mightn't there be a problem with the baseline Dial is using?
As #23 said in maybe not the clearest fashion, the baseline is average so playing time "hurts" you. In 9 games you can do little damage compared to the average player. Measure against replacement and Lee would come out much better.
Say you're 1 run below average per 15 games. That would make you 10 runs below per 150. That would also be about 10 runs above replacement per 150.
Now if you play in 150 games, you're 10 below average or 10 above replacement. If you play in 15 games, you're one run below average or 1 run above replacement. If you're in fact replacement level but play in only 15 games, you're still just 2 runs below average and "look better" than the full-time player who's a win above replacement.
At the team level, I think measuring vs. average makes sense. At the individual player level, if you limited it to "starters" or you were measuring/projecting for several seasons, average makes sense. For example, for HoF discussions, I think one should measure against average. But if you're measuring for a single season and especially if you're mixing part-timers and full-timers, measuring against replacement makes a lot more sense.
Then there's the ridiculously high baseline for average NL 1B in 2008. Adam LaRoche had a 120 OPS+ this year and came in below average offensively. This isn't so much a measure of how good LaRoche/Lee are compared to the average ML 1B (in terms of value or talent), it's how much value they produced vs. the average NL 1B in 2008. So don't get too worked up.
IIRC, last year JR House in 2-3 games had more value to the Orioles than Nick Markakis in 160. Maybe I just don't understand what this system is measuring, but this seems like a fundamental flaw with the system.
Ah...should have refreshed before I posted.
Then there's the ridiculously high baseline for average NL 1B in 2008. Adam LaRoche had a 120 OPS+ this year and came in below average offensively. This isn't so much a measure of how good LaRoche/Lee are compared to the average ML 1B (in terms of value or talent), it's how much value they produced vs. the average NL 1B in 2008. So don't get too worked up.
But does it make sense to compare LaRoche to the average NL 1b in 2008? Why not compare him to the average ML 1b from 2006-2008?
I use these kind of lists as a starting point -- list the regulars by position and fine tune for any unusual concentrations. (The team totals are most useful for teams who never truly settled on a regular.)
Works particularly well in the AL when dealing with DH versus am equally good hitter who happens to be a bad defensive player.
Ideally you'd want to establish a baseline at long-term replacement level and use a structure (like win shares) such that any defensive value is a positive -- it's simply a question of how much. But I can pretty much get there from Chris' lists. Sort by position and merge.
And which of Greenberg's good years would Foxx and Gehrig have driven him below average? Five other regulars after all and most of them weren't that good -- the other five starters averaged around .288/.356/.431 for the years in question.
Depends what you're trying to measure. Who was the most valuable (or best-performing) 1B in the NL in 2008? Did LaRoche have a good season? Where does LaRoche rank compared to MLB 1B in terms of performance over the last 3 years? How do we project LaRoche going forward?
The first question, which seems the one Chris is interested in answering with this spreadsheet (and expanding it to all players of course), should use just this year. The second one could be argued either way. The latter two you would want multiple years of data.
Chris isn't claiming that Derrek Lee is below average in terms of true talent, he's not claiming he'll be below average next year, he's not even claiming he was below average this year compared to MLB 1B -- he's just saying he was below-average in 2008.
The main thing to remember is that the man is providing reasonably complex, reasonably high quality information for free -- he can set the baseline wherever he wants. :-)
And which of Greenberg's good years would Foxx and Gehrig have driven him below average? Five other regulars after all and most of them weren't that good -- the other five starters averaged around .288/.356/.431 for the years in question.
Well, probably none, but let's remember the difference between mean and median. Pujols' monster year could well be pulling the 1B _average_ above the 1B median.
Wait a second! JT Snow played this year? I take it a "I want to retire a Giant" sort of thing -- 1 game, no PA and, near as I can tell, never played the field. Wow, I didn't even know this counted -- he was named in the starting lineup then, apparently, replaced before the first pitch.
And he came up through the Yankees system?
HaHa. I guess my wording in #25 may have been a bit pompous. But, if I used my real name, I think many of you might recognize it.
Anyway, someone wrote that it's not a big deal, you can just convert the spreadsheet to repl level by adding 20 runs per 162G (or whatever). True, but why doesn't Dial just do that in the first place? Given the likely use this list will be used for by readers, why not simply make a reasonable stab at it. Or, make different lists of starters and backups, etc.
Any of those things are better than just having McGehee ahead of D Lee, them's the numbers, like it or not.
But the system appears to be measuring who the best player in each league was for 2008, and players like Howard and Lee seem to suffer when compared to players at other positions because the baseline at their position is so high.
From what I understand, he went in and stood around at first while the pitcher was warming up and then subbed back out before he actually had to play. The purpose being, of course, as you already guessed, to simply retire a Giant.
IMO< those players were less valuable because their teams' opponents were putting much better players on the field at their position. It's not impressive, nor particularly helpful for the Cubs, for DLee to outhit Cristian Guzman in raw numbers. DLee needs to outperform the other first basemen in the NL. He doesn't "suffer" - he under-performs compared to what other teams got from the position he plays. If the Cubs had gotten Joey Votto's performance instead of DLee's, they would have been a better team. Players are always (IMO) properly compared to how the position they played hits.
The system *is* measuring who the best players were in each league at each position.
1. There is no definition of replacement player that is demonstrable. If I use one, someone argues its the wrong one. There isn't a wrong "average".
2. I don't really want to, mostly because I don't believe in it, and it's just a different line.
3. I put the games played on there so you could just look at it and see who the starters were. The spreadsheet can be copied into your personal Excel where you can change it in whatever manner you'd like. It's pretty open source and freely available in a format for you to use.
(And good to see you - I was filing my travel report and thought of you today).
I'm not sure it would; Sizemore is a better baserunner than Mauer, but the average CF would be a better baserunner than the average catcher as well. I would guess that it'd be very close to a wash.
And Mauer is a very, very good baserunner. He has inherited the "deceptively quick, and surprisingly effective baserunner" role on the Twins from Corey Koskie who had inherited it from Paul Molitor. You'll rarely see Mauer thrown out on the bases yet he gets exceptional jumps and will go from first-to-third and other things much better than you would expect.
You'll get a good sense of where replacement level is by looking at the team OPD. My sense is that replacement level is something close to -30 per Ripkenseanson (IE every inning of every game) -- maybe -35, and yes some teams did worse -- so Lee's "true" value is something close to +18 (a replacement level player could be expected to be around -28 runs in Lee's playing time.) Mcgehee's set against a baseline of roughly zero and finished up at -2. Dead easy to incorporate into Chris' spreadheet. Won't have much impact on what Chris is interested in -- the MVP discussions.
NL RF's an instructive point on the danger of using single year as the baseline. Kearns put up an OPS+ of 66 (but Washington finished close to positional average as a team since Dukes played pretty well) and Francouer gave the Braves 155 games of a 73 OPS+ and there were other open wounds getting significant playing time (Jenkins with 72 starts for instance)
sorry I didn't get to this last night. My sister was in town with her family as a prospective student. Hopefully I can get to it this evening.
I *think* I have access allowed to the 2007 data shared in those Google Docs (or in the 2007 articles in my column). That gives you two years. I am working on having the entire pbp era OPD (1987-present) made searchable and accessible.
Then you wouldn't have to worry about much of this - because a database can have extra columns without as much maintenance.
I think Rollins will take his season over Reyes.
Rollins is prepping for the world series. Reyes is playing golf.
Then again....seeing as how Reyes performs in September...maybe he likes golf more?
Player Team Gms DRS
Bay PIT 106 -10.1
Bay BOS 49 -11.2
Ramirez LAD 53 + 2.2
Ramirez BOS 100 -10.8
That just seems wrong to me. Jason Bay isn't going to be mistaken for Carl Crawford, but his total DRS of -21.3 for 2008 is the third worst in the league, just behind Brad Hawpe (-23.2) and Bobby Abreu (-21.99) and just ahead of Carlos Lee (-21.1). I didn't see much of Hawpe this year, but what I've seen of him the last couple of years hasn't been pretty. I've seen plenty of Abreu this year, and on fly balls he seemed afraid that the gods would smite him for daring to step on the Warning Track That Ruth Built. He was observationally atrocious. Bay was not, at least not to me. (Anyone else?)
FWIW, I'm willing to buy Coco Crisp plummetting to the worst CF, as he was also observationally bad this year. He took bad routes, he got bad jumps, and nearly every risk he took - and he took a lot of them - didn't work. He earned his mark.
And congratulations, Gary Sheffield, for winning the DRS Gold Glove for DH with +1.68.
Someone suggested an issue with Pittsburgh OF PF, but I haven't seen it too much in the numbers. A small effect, but not one that screams "PARK!"
Ideally, what I'd like to see is an adjustment for "degree of difficulty", based on the actual in-play distribution against a team and a refit of the zone responsibilities based on field characteristics (the latter would be primarily an OF effect, with some small infield effects due to differences in the amount of foul territory if we include popups, which some people do and some people don't). BIP distributions vary enough from team to team so that I think the underlying assumption that an average defender would post a 0.0 regardless of situation is inappropriate. Groundball pitchers do (to some extent) make it easier on their infielders and harder on their outfielders, and the converse is true for flyball pitchers. If Fenway LF is harder to play than a normal LF, we should try to account for that.
-- MWE
much of that is true. I have made some efforts to create a "wall-ball" spreadsheet. You and I have disagreements about how much BIP matters. I do think the zone is workable, in that the difference between a zone-based one and point-to-point analysis makes very small differerences. Yes, there are some advances to be made wrt chance difficulties (In an older version of this I made an effort to account for pitching staff stinkitudes). However, I also think that 20 years of data can do a good job of smoothing of the "wall-balls". It most certainly does wrt number of chances a fielder gets - the real versus projected data bears that out. I am reasonably close to creating park factors (which you will get to vet, of course).
As such, I think we can create a PF for Fenway that accounts for "wall-balls", and I suspect the depth of fielder is also accounted for. Yes, Bay will suffer more at first in Fenway (until he learns how and where to play), but so will his team. We're measuring plays made here, not Bay's "true talent".
I think we need an underlying assumption, and "average" is 0.0. If you can proffer a different baseline, I'm happy to hear it.
Asides from Dewan, BPro have baserunning numbers using Dan Fox's methodology.
I'm eager to learn.
He missed nearly a quarter of the season with injury. Given that there are other legit candidates his absence is not that surprising.
Why does your defensive system think so little of him, any idea what is different about them? Is it just that he stinks at in zone plays and your system weights that differently than others?
The same thing happened with Hardy last year if I remember correctly, half the systems thought he stunk and the other half thought he was above average.
good questions. When I watch Hardy, he doesn't look good to me. BIS zones are different and evidently smaller, but when I asked John about that he said he wasn't sure that all of the BIS zones were within the ZR zones. I don't know.
The possibility exists that he gets few line drives, but that shouldn't amount to more than about 3 runs if he is REALLY getting zero. So, I don't know.
When he gets OOZ plays in BIS, those could be regular plays in ZR.
Thanks for that reference; I hadn't seen those before.
They show Sizemore at +5.1 and Mauer at +4.1, so good call by Eric and Will.
After looking at your spreadsheet quite a bit, and your midseason updates, I have a strong suspicion that the Stats data for Fenway is absolutely junk for all 3 OF spots. If I am to believe DRS, then Boston's total defense was worth -34.51 runs, mostly on the strength of strong negative values for anyone who played the OF for the team at all. Something is going on in regards to Stats in Fenway or the positioning the Sox use or something, By THT's stats, the Red Sox had a .700 DER in 2008, good for 4th in the AL vs a league average of .691 (The Rays led the AL with a .712, for perspective). After park adjusting (mostly because of the LF wall), you're probably looking at 3rd or 2nd for the Red Sox in the AL (I saw park adjusted DER somewhere, but I can't recall where or find it at the moment). To get a .700 DER with the OF defense that DRS claims, the Red Sox would either have to be insanely lucky on balls in play or have pitchers that are amazingly good at inducing weak contact.
I'd be interested to see what the correlation is between DER and DRS by team.
Or they could be preventing singles at the expense of allowing extra base hits.
The fielding bible awards listed him as the #2 SS defensively.
plus/minus lists him #3 with +19
So obviously there is a fundamental differece between the various systems that seems to choke on JJ Hardy. From watching him he seems to make the routine plays but never seems to make a great play to me at least so I'm not saying your rating is wrong at all. I'm just trying to get a grasp on what the differences are that lead to such a huge difference on a single player. Most of the time the various sytems seem to agree on things but this is the 2nd year in a row that they were polar opposites on Hardy.
You must be Registered and Logged In to post comments.
<< Back to main