Answers to fantasy baseball questions (and much more) since 1996
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If pressed should teams rely on pitching, or cling to hitting? I think the answer (pitching) is clear. Especially if you can sing for Santana, Dump Carpenter (this post comes after the story was written), and stand by Brad Penny. At least until he fades.
Good luck into the second half.
This is a curiously interesting website devoted, mostly, to baseball bats. It’s young and a bit thin, but if the writers continue to enhance their materials it could become a comprehansive resource about baseball bats. I like the line in this story, the “facts,” saying that after Barry Bonds set the single-season home run record using a maple bat many other ballplayers moved to maple as well. Certainly true, and pleasantly focused on bats.
A while back I posted about a Joe Sheehan story that delved into the pitch by pitch data that MLB is making available. Here’s another story, by HT’s John Walsh, looking behind the news using those numbers. I’m still not sure what to make of it, his discussion about potential errors is very important, but nonetheless the potential for all this data to open up vast new areas of understanding about the game is obvious.
I haven’t seen anything new on this story, but this well-reasoned analysis and a comment indicating that Bradley and Bob Geren had words (at least), all seem to make more sense than the A’s original story.
Why would the A’s keep the story quiet? To keep Bradley’s trade value up, a move that seemed to pay off when they dealt him to Kansas City. But Bradley, who must be steamed (and who has been on the DL three times already this year), told the Royals he was hurt and the savvy Royals backed out of the deal.
For a Bradley owner who will lose him if he ends up in the NL this was a particularly cruel and troublesome turn of events.
The hed makes it sound radical, but this is really a quite useful and meaningful tweak. If you want to know how many batters a pitcher strikes out and walks (and you do), better measures are the percentages of each outcome compared to batters faced. The writer says the average pitcher strikes out 15 percent of batters faced and walks eight percent.
I’ve always tried to make this adjustment on the fly, when doing analysis, but this is a good argument for using the real numbers as a percentage rather than the per game ones.
I didn’t know about the Player to be Named Later rule, which is good reason to credit this story. At least we don’t have to worry about Brad Halsey being the guy named. Whew.
But I’m not being cranky about that. It’s funny that it’s Halsey, but it’s good to learn new things.
I’m not so sure about the notion of riding the hot hand between the major and minor leagues. While there has to be an advantage to roster flexibility, if only to rotate in the healthiest players you have, I have a hard time believing that anyone can predict that a hot minor league hitter should be promoted because he’s hot.
Hot streaks occur, I think it’s safe to say, generally because in small sample sizes players can get an inordinate number of favorable matchups. Or because in a small sample a player gets lucky. I believe Bill James showed early on that a player’s recent past results had no bearing on his immediate future results. Unless the next at bat, like the last two, is coming against Jae Seo or Jeff Weaver.
I still spend a lot of time in bars arguing this one, so there is money to be won and superstition to be debunked. Sure, there are hot streaks, but by the time you recognize one it’s probably over.
The Baseball Analysts: Joe Sheehan
What we’re going to do with all the data baseball is throwing off beggars my imagination, but I know that Joe Sheehan’s excellent survey of pitch location data in this study simply scratches the surface. So for now just let the data wash over you, figure out the perspective on these intriguing charts, and wallow in the possibilities.
I’m not contesting the idea that the Brewers are for real, I suspect they are, but I think the idea that you can tell this because their two recent blow outs have flipped their Pythagorean Ratio is a fallacy. Bill James’ Pythagorean Ratio held that a team’s winning percentage should be the same as its Runs Scored (squared) divided by its Runs Allowed (squared). When a team’s winning percentage deviates from the predicted outcome, it’s a good time to look for reasons. These are usually a disproportionate proportion of one-run outcomes one way or the other (in other words, better or worse than average relief pitching or clutch hitting).
The point is that it’s an evaluative tool that draws its power over the long term of the season. A reminder that it is easy to overuse any and all of the tools at our disposal.
Christina Kahrl gets mad at fantasy baseball
Ten years ago when people got mad at fantasy baseball it was possible to blame ignorance of the game, but recent spiels by George Vecsy and this one from Christina Kahrl of BP are mind-bogglingly daft (as irrational as Murray Chass ripping on Win Above Replacement as a measure of a player’s value).
There is no special virtue to real baseball fandom, and no decadent inevitability to following your fantasy team. What Christina derides as the mindless accumulating of points rather than the apparently higher calling of putting together a winning baseball team is, as Baseball Prospectus has done much to prove over the years, very similar to the putting together of a winning baseball team.
I’m a big fan of the BP blog, Unfiltered. The shorter format and less formal setting showcase the BP talents much better than the longer form pieces, at least on a daily basis. Even Christina’s misguided spew is sort of fun. Just don’t give it credit for any real thought, it’s really just a ladle of tomato-y gravy.
David Pinto doesn’t present any evidence that age is the reason for the drop in offensive production, he’s just spitballing here, but the accompanying chart, which shows average age per plate appearance from 1871 to last year, is eye opening. Not an answer, but a jumping off point for scores of questions.