rolling sabermetrics and statistics thread

Not sure why that doesn't link. One more try:

https://www.mlb.com/news/mlb-players-vote-for-stats-they-value-most/c-274986480

something to be said for players ranking games played/innings.

probably the one I'd pick, if you're getting innings you're probably being pretty valuable to your team

or you have a really bad manager, in a few cases. i definitely that in general more playing time is a positive indicator, especially IP for starting pitchers. for position players, it's a little more muddy. for every star like joey votto, stanton, or blackmon in the top 10 list of games played of 2017, there's also an alcides escobar, rougned odor, and (non-2018 version of) nick markakis.

Shameless self-promotion: The Infield Shift has a tragic and hidden flaw and should be (mostly) shelved. @baseballpro https://t.co/lgVNAE5d3d

— Russell A. Carleton (@pizzacutter4) May 22, 2018

Wow, look at the single season leaders in strike outs at the plate and how many are from the last decade or so.

Rob Deer is a contact hitter by comparison.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/leaders/SO_season.shtml

Rank Player (age that year) Strikeouts Year Bats
1. Mark Reynolds (25) 223 2009 R
2. Adam Dunn (32) 222 2012 L
3. Chris Davis (30) 219 2016 L
4. Chris Carter (26) 212 2013 R
5. Mark Reynolds (26) 211 2010 R
6. Chris Davis (29) 208 2015 L
Aaron Judge (25) 208 2017 R
8. Chris Carter (29) 206 2016 R
9. Drew Stubbs (26) 205 2011 R
10. Mark Reynolds (24) 204 2008 R
11. Kris Bryant (23) 199 2015 R
Chris Davis (27) 199 2013 L
Adam Dunn (30) 199 2010 L
Ryan Howard (27) 199 2007 L
Ryan Howard (28) 199 2008 L
16. Jack Cust (29) 197 2008 L
17. Joey Gallo (23) 196 2017 L
Mark Reynolds (27) 196 2011 R
19. Chris Davis (31) 195 2017 L
Khris Davis (29) 195 2017 R
Adam Dunn (24) 195 2004 L
Curtis Granderson (31) 195 2012 L
23. Adam Dunn (26) 194 2006 L
Mike Napoli (34) 194 2016 R
25. Trevor Story (24) 191 2017 R
26. Ryan Howard (34) 190 2014 L
27. Bobby Bonds (24) 189 1970 R
Adam Dunn (33) 189 2013 L
Danny Espinosa (25) 189 2012 B
30. Jose Hernandez (32) 188 2002 R
31. Bobby Bonds (23) 187 1969 R

steve carlton's best K/9 in any season was 8.7 (it was 7.1 for his career)

so far this season the average, among 93 qualifying pitchers, is 8.6

read in a recent post that fangraphs will soon debut a K+ stat

One thing I think about modern baseball is just how big the whole league is anymore. Dudes like the Big Unit, Dave Kingman or Richie Sexton were odd balls of their day being so tall and now every team has a bunch of guys 6-5 and taller.

many of them pitchers.

https://imgur.com/a/NFXUl6u

https://imgur.com/a/NFXUl6u

I'm mad that Sixto Sanchez isn't 6'2"

Not sure if there would be an article out there on that but I’m interested in analysis about players who lose their ability or perhaps willingness to draw a walk as they age. Specifically thinking about someone like Albert Pujols, and whether or not it has mostly to do with pitchers challenging him more as his skills erode, thereby not pitching around him anymore + not IBBing him nearly as much (if ever!) I’m interested primarily bc of the many aging players who either retain those skills or sometimes even improve them over time (one example: Willie Mays drawing a career-best 112 walks in his age 40 season.)

My guess is there’s a lot related to bat speed and players having to cheat a bit more, which means they’re simply not going to be able to wait that extra split second anymore. But it’s interesting to me how some players completely lose a skill that seems to be one that would age well (and often and perhaps usually does!)

i think with pujols specifically it's that pitchers aren't afraid to challenge him anymore. same with the ghost of chris davis. i'm not so sure that they necessarily had a walk 'skill' so much as it was a by-product of their other skills

curtis granderson, on the other hand, has seen his walk rate go up even as his power fades. it is intersting

James once wrote about the Mays phenomenon--great hitters who lose their bat speed and become more selective to compensate.

I saw this stat and read the list and had a good chuckle on how many of these guys I knew as players from baseball cards or reading the Sporting News all the time as a kid.

Yonder Alonso: Similar Batters through 30

Sid Bream (966.4)
Doug Mientkiewicz (959.4)
David Segui (955.0)
Mike Ivie (946.9)
John Mabry (941.7)
Casey Kotchman (940.1)
Nick Etten (939.0)
Gerald Perry (938.2)
Babe Dahlgren (937.0)
Todd Benzinger (936.7)

https://www.tradingcarddb.com/Images/Cards/Baseball/80/80-445Fr.jpg

I’m not sure how, but a cleveland reliever got a save tonight in a 19-4 win

Think if you pitch three innings or more it doesn't matter what the score is.

https://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/24/sports/baseball/24rangers.html

Today around the #statcast lab we worked on naming/defining a bunch of new metrics around reaction, burst, & route-running, and I'm very excited for them to be ready. We also kicked around what's driving the xwOBA-wOBA gap we're seeing, because that definitely seems like a thing.

— Mike Petriello (@mike_petriello) July 19, 2018

the xwOBA-wOBA gap
😕

it's league-wide, too, right?

this gap is going to be the end of us all

here is the draft schedule for the Boston Saberseminar

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1VID-J4MUyRtzsXv3o9Ie7pH029VVb8GJ6jJfFNGBnOY/edit#gid=0

...so former players Fernando Perez and Nate Freiman will be presenting.

https://imgur.com/a/Z04LVtf
is this becoming a thing??

https://imgur.com/a/Z04LVtf

god, i hope it becomes a thing.

*sigh*
https://image.ibb.co/byvn8o/Screen_Shot_2018_07_24_at_9_22_55_PM.png

It was kinda bizarre listening to broadcasters extol the virtues of advanced stats for a half-inning; it was awesome, i don't know if it's a regular thing anyone does

BABIP is kind of a weird one to use

honestly if they could only pick 3, i'd take BB%, K%, and OPS. it's usually possible to get a decent idea of what kind of batter someone is by those measures alone

wRC+, OBP, ISO

bWAR, fWAR, GWAR

babip is also not a weighted metric

ha good catch

Got curious so searched for baseball's best inning-eaters and came across these numbers on a fantasy baseball site.

Starters throwing a heavyweight innings workload over a season are a declining breed. The number of starters pitching at least 180 innings has dropped year-on-year.

2014: 66 starters
2015: 56 starters
2016: 45 starters
2017: 35 starters

The trend is dramatic, and although it is unlikely to fall by another 10 this season, it is also unlikely to increase. So in 2018, there are only likely to be 30-35 heavyweight starters.

Looking up the top innings pitched numbers in MLB, there is a decent chance that the number might not hit 30 starters throwing 180 innings.

I created this tool that shows frequency of trade partnershttps://t.co/ncInXyCYKa pic.twitter.com/fPHGMWSlIc

— Dan Hirsch (@DanHirsch) July 28, 2018

This was kind of interesting.

From Day 1 of Saberseminar... BP has a new stat for you!

The highlight of the morning, however, did not focus as much on pitching. Instead it was a presentation by Jonathon Judge on a companion stat to DERA, Deserved Runs Created. DRC should appear on Baseball Prospectus in the next couple of weeks. And, it promises to be one of the best comprehensive hitting stats for overall offensive output. In particular, the DRC+ version (adjusted for parks) looks to be particularly useful. Judge was also quick to back up the data by showing the reliability of the stat for players switching teams as compared with alternative measures such as wOBA or wRC+.

https://thesportspost.com/mlb-saberseminar-boston-diversity-all/

further

https://www.fangraphs.com/fantasy/fantasy-relevant-information-from-saber-seminar/

I check the WAR leaderboard on Baseball Reference every two or three days, mostly with an eye towards the awards. Something I will never understand (i.e., not the first time I've encountered this): Scherzer's dropped by 0.3 from a couple of days ago without making a start.

Is it possible that it's a case of the R in WAR getting better?

I think I mentioned that as a possible explanation when I brought this up a few years ago. But the replacement level changing by a third of a win in a couple of days seems like a pretty wild swing.

Wonder if the replacement level calculation gets updated every so often rather than changing automatically.

could be other things getting updated, too, like park factors? i'm not sure. if the replacement level for calculation for pitchers was updated, wouldn't that affect all pitchers WAR?

Maybe on days when you're not playing, they factor in intangibles. Were you offering your teammates moral support from the bench, or did you spend the game in the clubhouse getting a massage? Were you out there for yesterday's bench-clearing brawl? Did you make yourself available for autographs before the game, or did you tell some seven-year old to take a hike?

4 bonus points for playing the game the way it was meant to be played

And that game in question was Euchre by clubhouse rules.

Baseball Statisticians Unveil New Analytics Model Measuring Precise Amount Of Joy They Suck From The Game https://t.co/4ljqgrBotM pic.twitter.com/lFpw3jOchd

— Onion Sports Network (@OnionSports) August 24, 2018