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.
data
Heater Magazine – Home
Looking for batting order information for Matt Murton and Cliff Floyd earlier today I remembered that Heater Magazine has such stuff. I nipped over to www.heatermagazine.com, downloaded the giant weekly compendium of stats, charts, baseball writing, more charts, graphs, lists and more charts and found exactly what I was looking for. Plus the writing of this year’s Guide rookies, Craig Brown and Jeff Sackman, and the always excellent Dave Studeman and Deric McCamey.
There’s also a Saturday supplement. This is what Baseball Weekly might have done with their stat pages, but instead John Burnson put it together. It’s cheap. Just $19 samoleans for the whole season.
The only problem is that all the information really makes me want to have one of those 30″ Apple CinemaDisplays on my desk. But even without it, this is one useful bunch of baseball/fantasy information.
Ps. I don’t make any money on this. It’s just highly recommended.
Last Patton $ on Disk 2007 Update is Live
For those who have been tracking the P$oD07 updates all spring, the final one was posted last night. It includes the Patton software, merge files for those looking for updated bid prices from Alex Patton, Rotoman, and Mike Fenger, my latest (and last) projections for the year, and text lists and an Excel file for those who simply want the stuff.
Thanks to all of this year ‘s and future customers. May you kick butt all season long.
Patton $ on Disk 2007 update posted
Newly revised bid prices and updated projections with tweaking to reflect the latest news (Javy Lopez released!) is now posted in original program files, as an Excel file and in text files. Follow the link to buy the package.
If you already bought it go to the original download page for the updates.
Same Pitchers, Different Stats
Same Pitchers Different Stats 2006
This is an excel file about 100K.
We’ve run this chart in the Guide in the past, when we’ve had an open page, and I had a request from a reader that I post it. Here’s what the caption said in the Fantasy Baseball Guide 2005:
ERA and Ratio do a decent job of describing what a pitcher did, but not necessarily everything about how well they did. While putting together the magazine we consistently look at the BB/9, K/9, and HR/9 metrics. These tell us how well a pitcher kept runners off base, got outs without the ball being put into play, and kept the ball in the park. These pitchers are ranked by their relative effectiveness in these three measures last year, from best to worst.
The other two columns show the opponents batting average against a pitcher on balls in play (HR and strikeouts are removed), and for all at bats. We’re less sure what to do with these, though a high AVG-BIP is thought to indicate that the pitcher had some bad luck. Have fun.
Looking at the results, it’s clear that comparisons between starters and relievers don’t have much validity. And with two 100 IP starters near the top of the chart, workload probably plays a part there, too.
Still, if Ben Sheets can stay healthy he clearly has his effectiveness back. He’s not going to be cheap but he could be a bargain.
Patton $ on Disk 2007 is now available
For those who swear by it, the release of POD07 is a big day. We’ve been squashing some bugs the past week, as it were, and everything seems to be working okay now. So, if you want the software that has my projections, Alex Patton’s and my 4×4 bid prices (actually mine aren’t in yet, but they will be by the March 1 update at the latest) and Mike Fenger’s 5×5 bids, lightning fast operation and a myriad of ways to incorporate your own ideas into the mix with ours, now is the time.
There will be updates on March 1, 15, 22, 29 and April 5. Getting all the projections and bids balanced to league budgets and up to date is a constant project for us, and the data develops as spring training progresses.
I encourage you to visit the discussion board over at alexpatton.com, to ask users about the software and your expected uses of it.
HitTracker :: Home run tracking and distance measurement
HitTracker :: Home run tracking and distance measurement
Greg Rybarczyk, an engineer with an interest in the flight of major league baseballs, has created a rather amazing trove of information about last year’s home runs, including his special formula for determining the actual (he calls it “true”) distance a ball would have flown if it didn’t land above grade in the seats or hit a light standard or the glass wall of a right field dining establishment.
This sort of information is very important when we look at other people trying to track the steroid era or the juiced ball era or what have you based on homer distances.
Greg includes his weather and altitude correctors so that other adjustments can be made.
I’m not really sure how much real value this is going to have in its present form, but I hear that he’s hoping to enter this information for all batted balls in 2007. While that will duplicate at least some of the information that Baseball Info Solutions is keeping, it’s hard to argue that we don’t want multiple sources for what is inevitably less-than-objective data.
We’ll leave it to the next generation to figure out how to get all the data keepers interested in sharing.
But I Regress…
Dave Studeman — The Hardball Times
I always thought that Regression Analysis took its name from the fact that you start with the outputs and determine by regressing to see how important the inputs are, though I now have no idea whether that’s based on anything but my own magical thinking.
Dave Studeman’s story here is fascinating for the historical content (which has nothing to do with baseball, a little to do with statistics and much to do with other things) and because he does such clear work showing the dynamics of regression to the mean (which may well be the origin of the term) as they pertain to baseball.
At the end he references a story by Chone Smith about player projection which turns out to be an interesting rabbit hole in its own right, but that’s for another time.
Straight Draft Post Mortem
The link is going to take you to a page that requires a subscription of some sort to baseballHQ.com. I’m going to tell you what Ray Murphy’s straight draft research tells me that’s of interest to all of us: Fantasy teams that finished higher, on average, than other teams in the National Fantasy Baseball Championships had younger players than teams that finished lower. They also had players who had lower reliability scores (Shandler’s system) than other teams.
I’m fairly confident that the whole idea of reliability scores is a crock. Well, not in intent, but as a measurement. Manny Ramirez earns $31-$33 every year, until we decide that’s a reliable benchmark, and then he doesn’t. The problem with all ballplayers is that by the time they can be judged reliable, they’re old enough to become unreliable.
Ray’s conclusion is right, however. You need to stock up on the reliable players, and then take chances when the choice is between a reliable mediocrity and anybody else whose pulse might beat proudly.
I know, you knew that, but seeing the excellent numbers the NFBC throws off really helps. Which is a good reason to become a baseballHQ.com subscriber. For smart fantasy baseball analysis (and lots of it) there’s no better site.
Ask Rotoman This Week
This week, why there can be more to a trade than the players involved, learning something about 12 offensive categories, using BABIP, Component ERA and Defense Independent Component ERA to find buy-low pitchers. Plus chatter about the Rockies pitchers, Justin Verlander, Stephen Drew and Chris Denorfia. With lovely charts. Really lovely.