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.
― earlnash, Tuesday, 5 June 2018 23:40 (five years ago) link
many of them pitchers.
― the ignatius rock of ignorance (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 5 June 2018 23:42 (five years ago) link
https://imgur.com/a/NFXUl6u
― Van Horn Street, Wednesday, 6 June 2018 01:16 (five years ago) link
― Van Horn Street, Wednesday, 6 June 2018 01:22 (five years ago) link
I'm mad that Sixto Sanchez isn't 6'2"
― challops trap house (Will M.), Wednesday, 6 June 2018 02:40 (five years ago) link
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!)
― omar little, Sunday, 17 June 2018 20:17 (five years ago) link
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
― mookieproof, Sunday, 17 June 2018 21:01 (five years ago) link
James once wrote about the Mays phenomenon--great hitters who lose their bat speed and become more selective to compensate.
― clemenza, Sunday, 17 June 2018 22:41 (five years ago) link
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)
― earlnash, Thursday, 12 July 2018 02:12 (five years ago) link
https://www.tradingcarddb.com/Images/Cards/Baseball/80/80-445Fr.jpg
― earlnash, Thursday, 12 July 2018 02:14 (five years ago) link
I’m not sure how, but a cleveland reliever got a save tonight in a 19-4 win
― k3vin k., Thursday, 12 July 2018 03:07 (five years ago) link
Think if you pitch three innings or more it doesn't matter what the score is.
― timellison, Thursday, 12 July 2018 05:28 (five years ago) link
https://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/24/sports/baseball/24rangers.html
― mookieproof, Thursday, 12 July 2018 14:14 (five years ago) link
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
― mookieproof, Friday, 20 July 2018 17:17 (five years ago) link
the xwOBA-wOBA gap😕
― a shomin-geki poster with some horror elements (WilliamC), Friday, 20 July 2018 17:22 (five years ago) link
it's league-wide, too, right?
this gap is going to be the end of us all
― Karl Malone, Friday, 20 July 2018 17:27 (five years ago) link
here is the draft schedule for the Boston Saberseminar
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1VID-J4MUyRtzsXv3o9Ie7pH029VVb8GJ6jJfFNGBnOY/edit#gid=0
― the ignatius rock of ignorance (Dr Morbius), Friday, 20 July 2018 17:59 (five years ago) link
...so former players Fernando Perez and Nate Freiman will be presenting.
― the ignatius rock of ignorance (Dr Morbius), Friday, 20 July 2018 19:24 (five years ago) link
https://imgur.com/a/Z04LVtfis this becoming a thing??
― francisF, Wednesday, 25 July 2018 01:39 (five years ago) link
https://imgur.com/a/Z04LVtf
― francisF, Wednesday, 25 July 2018 01:40 (five years ago) link
god, i hope it becomes a thing.
― Karl Malone, Wednesday, 25 July 2018 01:47 (five years ago) link
*sigh*https://image.ibb.co/byvn8o/Screen_Shot_2018_07_24_at_9_22_55_PM.png
― francisF, Wednesday, 25 July 2018 01:48 (five years ago) link
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
― francisF, Wednesday, 25 July 2018 01:54 (five years ago) link
BABIP is kind of a weird one to use
― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 25 July 2018 01:55 (five years ago) link
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
― Karl Malone, Wednesday, 25 July 2018 04:10 (five years ago) link
wRC+, OBP, ISO
― k3vin k., Wednesday, 25 July 2018 04:15 (five years ago) link
bWAR, fWAR, GWAR
― challops trap house (Will M.), Wednesday, 25 July 2018 18:32 (five years ago) link
babip is also not a weighted metric
― ant banks and wasp (voodoo chili), Thursday, 26 July 2018 01:51 (five years ago) link
ha good catch
― k3vin k., Thursday, 26 July 2018 04:18 (five years ago) link
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.
― earlnash, Friday, 27 July 2018 00:37 (five years ago) link
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.
― earlnash, Sunday, 29 July 2018 21:42 (five years ago) link
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/
― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Monday, 6 August 2018 14:46 (five years ago) link
further
https://www.fangraphs.com/fantasy/fantasy-relevant-information-from-saber-seminar/
― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 7 August 2018 06:35 (five years ago) link
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.
― clemenza, Thursday, 23 August 2018 15:44 (five years ago) link
Is it possible that it's a case of the R in WAR getting better?
― challops trap house (Will M.), Thursday, 23 August 2018 15:50 (five years ago) link
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.
― clemenza, Thursday, 23 August 2018 15:54 (five years ago) link
Wonder if the replacement level calculation gets updated every so often rather than changing automatically.
― timellison, Friday, 24 August 2018 01:06 (five years ago) link
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?
― Karl Malone, Friday, 24 August 2018 01:11 (five years ago) link
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?
― clemenza, Friday, 24 August 2018 01:34 (five years ago) link
4 bonus points for playing the game the way it was meant to be played
― Karl Malone, Friday, 24 August 2018 02:13 (five years ago) link
And that game in question was Euchre by clubhouse rules.
― earlnash, Friday, 24 August 2018 03:16 (five years ago) link
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
― mookieproof, Friday, 24 August 2018 16:59 (five years ago) link
guest Onion editor Goose Gossage
― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Friday, 24 August 2018 17:16 (five years ago) link
https://sabrstatanalysis.blog/2018/09/11/what-a-drag-it-is-getting-old
good old players are disappearing . . . since roughly around the time that steroid testing really kicked in
and yet further CBA ramifications
― mookieproof, Tuesday, 11 September 2018 20:01 (five years ago) link
useful link for the future: http://tangotiger.com/index.php/site/article/re288-run-expectancy-by-the-24-base-out-states-x-12-plate-count-states-recu
the first image is the good old run expectancy chart, broken out by pitch counts:
https://i.imgur.com/sfBkCBd.png
the second is the same data presented in a different way, relative to the 0-0 count. it took me a second to figure out wtf was going on, but you start with the number of outs and the position of the runners on base. then move to the 0-0 column. from there, it tells you how every subsequent pitch to that batter affects the run expectancy.
https://i.imgur.com/riTvIO0.png
― Karl Malone, Monday, 3 December 2018 03:01 (five years ago) link
Quite interesting:
http://www.billjamesonline.com/jack_kralick/
Was Jack Kralick the best pitcher in the American League in 1961? WAR says yes (bWAR, anyway), James says "Are you kidding?"
― clemenza, Friday, 4 January 2019 16:23 (five years ago) link
Baseball Prospectus followers: did they ever publish the detailed mechanics/formulae/algorithms of DRC+, like they said they'd do back in December? Couldn't immediately find it in the archive, and although I'm not a subscriber, it seems that is not the reason, as the titles of other subscriber-only articles do show up.
― anatol_merklich, Wednesday, 6 February 2019 20:58 (five years ago) link
There was a good reddit thread where JJudge mentioned some more info was coming...
― Jersey Al (Albert R. Broccoli), Wednesday, 6 February 2019 21:09 (five years ago) link
https://www.reddit.com/r/baseball/comments/a747wg/hello_im_jonathan_judge_bachlaw_senior_metrics/
― Jersey Al (Albert R. Broccoli), Wednesday, 6 February 2019 21:10 (five years ago) link
given the monumental wealth of statistical information available now, and advances in AI, surely 95+% of managerial decisions could be outsourced to a real-time computer? and if this is true, wouldn't it be borderline negligent not to?
― illegal economic migration (Tracer Hand), Saturday, 16 February 2019 11:09 (five years ago) link