Vegas Watch

Handicapping the 2009 Home Run Derby

2009-07-12T17:50:00.005-04:00

First a disclaimer: This is mostly just for fun. I have no idea if there's any correlation between these stats and performance in the Derby. If I had to guess, I'd say there is, but it's probably not very strong. Odds taken from The Greek. Stats through Thursday's games.

The Favorites

Albert Pujols, +200
2009 AB/HR: 9.2
Career AB/HR: 16.4
Current ZiPS AB/HR: 12.9 (2nd of eight contestants)
Avg. Std. Distance: 415.8 (3rd of 108 qualified in MLB)
Derby History: Lost in finals in '03; lost in semis in '07

Ryan Howard +250
2009 AB/HR: 15.5
Career AB/HR: 12.1
Current ZiPS AB/HR: 12.5 (1st of eight contestants)
Avg. Std. Distance: 415.7 (4th in MLB)
Derby History: Won in 2006; eliminated in semis in 2007

The fact that he's hitting homers 78% more frequently than his career average gives you an idea of what an absurd year Pujols is having. According to both the odds and stats above, these two are the favorites. Howard has a slightly stronger (and more recent) history in the event, while Pujols has the advantage of being the best hitter on the planet. But I seriously doubt that, short of winning multiple HR Derby titles, someone could separate themselves in terms of their skill at hitting home runs in this context sufficiently enough to be expected to win 29% of the time (or, in Pujols' case, 33% of the time). It seems very unlikely that there would be value in the two biggest names in the field at such short odds.

Second Tier

Prince Fielder +350
2009 AB/HR: 13.8
Career AB/HR: 15.4
Current ZiPS AB/HR: 13.6 (3rd of eight contestants)
Avg. Std. Distance: 404.4 (32nd in MLB)
Derby History: Eliminated in first round in 2007

Adrian Gonzalez +500
2009 AB/HR: 12.5
Career AB/HR: 19.2
Current ZiPS AB/HR: 16.5 (6th of eight contestants)
Avg. Std. Distance: 396.8 (62nd in MLB)
Derby History: Has never previously participated.

Carlos Pena +600
2009 AB/HR: 12.9
Career AB/HR: 15.9
Current ZiPS AB/HR: 14.0 (4th of eight contestants)
Avg. Std. Distance: 391.0 (85th in MLB)
Derby History: Has never previously participated.

Next are a series of guys known for their power, but not with the same reputations of Howard and Pujols, and without any track record of success in the Derby. Oddly, they each score lower than you'd think in average standard distance, especially Pena. None of these odds are particularly attractive.

Late To The Party

Joe Mauer +650
2009 AB/HR: 15.7
Career AB/HR: 38.9
Current ZiPS AB/HR: 29.1 (8th of eight contestants)
Avg. Std. Distance: 387.5 (92nd in MLB)
Derby History: Has never previously participated.

After a ridiculous 11 homers in his first 81 ABs (7.4 AB/HR) of 2009 it was inevitable that Mauer would slow down a bit, and he has, hitting only four homers in his last 151 ABs (37.8 AB/HR). He has continued to rake (.358/.422/.503), but singles aren't going to be of much help on Monday night. Mauer's only +650 because he's a really good all-around player and got off the the hot start, but his ZiPS projection shows that he's nowhere near the power threat that of the five hitters listed in front of him (and one listed behind).

"Who?"

Nelson Cruz +800
2009 AB/HR: 14.0
Career AB/HR: 19.8
Current ZiPS AB/HR: 14.5 (5th of eight contestants)
Avg. Std. Distance: 414.3 (8th in MLB)
Derby History: Has never previously participated.

Brandon Inge +1000
2009 AB/HR: 15.5
Career AB/HR: 30.9
Current ZiPS AB/HR: 23.6 (7th of eight contestants)
Avg. Std. Distance: 408.9 (22nd in MLB)
Derby History: Has never previously participated.

The viewership of the Derby on ESPN has got to be a pretty casual crowd; how many of them do you think will recognize Nelson Cruz's name when he's announced on Monday night? Three percent? Five?

It's that anonymity that gives him value here, in my opinion. If you just look at the stats he'd be the third favorite behind Pujols and Howard, and obviously his odds don't reflect that. But I can't think of any reason he would only be the seventh most likely guy to win this thing; his long odds seem to be solely a result of Cruz not being a household name.

And we're not just going off his 2009 numbers here; his ZiPS projection is a product of 152 HRs his extensive minor league career, including 37 in 383 ABs (10.4 AB/HR) in AAA last year. If you can do a bit better than +800 (which shouldn't be difficult in the market Matchbook recently opened), I think Cruz is the best bet in the field.

This Week's Links (7/6-7/10)

2009-07-10T11:30:00.002-04:00

Who's MLB's best player, pound for pound? The result may shock you.

Posnanski on Roddick.

I'm somewhat upset I wasn't around for the Nats game on Tuesday night.

BA's midseason top 25 prospects.

Breaking down Jamie McOwen's 45-game Cal League hit streak.

Nate Silver did not win the WSOP.

FO unveils DVOA 6.0.

Obama First Pitch Odds

2009-07-07T19:28:00.004-04:00

5Dimes is awesome:

There are plenty of pictures of Obama throwing out the first pitch for the White Sox last October, but I can't find a video. It looks like he stood at the top of the mound, which is both good (he at least thinks he knows what he's doing), and bad (it's farther than in front of the mound). So if anyone can dig up that video, that'd be great.

If I remember correctly, it was a pretty decent pitch, easily making it to the catcher on the fly. I'd lean "caught in air" for now, but it is a lot of chalk, and I'm definitely going off minimal evidence at this point.

AL Update: 13 Weeks In

2009-07-06T11:54:00.014-04:00

How well did the game lines from April and May (that's simplifying it, but those are basically the time frames) predict those in June (through 6/28)? Pretty closely:

I can't think of any reason for the April lines to be weighted more heavily than the May odds; that's probably just a fluky thing. Combined, the lines from the first two months explain about 57% of the variance in the June lines, and there's not a whole lot of regression towards PECOTA/CHONE; in fact, the two weights add up to over one (1.05). For this post, I weighted the months as follows: 40% June, 30% May, 20% April.

RS/G, RA/G: Through games of Sunday, 7/5.
Current: Current team strength in wins per 162 games against an average schedule.
Current Div%: Current percentage chance of winning division, as of 7am EST on 7/6.
Prev Div%: Percentage chance of winning division as of six weeks ago.
Diff: Subtraction.
Div: Best odds available on team to win division.
Site: Where those odds can be found (BetUS, SportsBetting, Bookmaker)

The division from hell. I have the ALE winner averaging 98.5 wins, which isn't that impressive until you consider strength of schedule. Even more telling is that the third place team comes in at 87.2 Ws, right up there with first place in the Central (87.8) and West (88.7). It's entirely possible that the Rays will have the best third-order record in baseball, and finish third in the East. In the simulation the WC winner came from the East an impressive 96.5% of the team. At this point it seems like the playoffs will consist of two ALE teams, the Dodgers, and five overwhelmingly mediocre squads.

Why do the game lines have the Yanks so far ahead of Boston? Let's find out:

n: Number of starts.

W%: Average implied team W% in those starts, according to game lines.

OU: Average over/under for the game in those starts

RS: Pythag expectation for team RS in those games, taken from previous two columns

RA: Pythag expectation for team RA in those games, taken from previous two columns

This doesn't adjust for strength of schedule or park factors, although the former should come close to evening out for the guys who have been making regular starts, and I wouldn't even know how to adjust for the latter, since the Yankees have only played 42 games in the new park.

Sabathia helps, but unless you throw some crazy NYS park factors into the mix -- and it's not like Fenway is a pitchers' haven -- it's New York's offense that's made the difference. Back in reality, the Yankees had scored 24 more runs than Boston coming in to Monday. But, contrary to what the lines had expected, the Red Sox have allowed 39 fewer runs than the Yankees. Part of that can be "blamed" on NY allowing 37 runs in Wang's second and third starts of the year, but certainly not all, as the Red Sox have had some ugly games themselves.

The Twins are definitely interesting, with the best run differential (+33) and best third-order record (45-38) in the division, to go along with the strongest club according to the game lines. Detroit's 4.8 R/G is respectable, but most of that has been good timing: their AEQR is 20 runs fewer than that, and their team OPS+ is just 93. Throw in some regression from Jackso, Porcello (who's being skipped in the rotation to keep his innings down), and Rodney's save percentage and it's easy to see the Tigers falling off a bit in the second half.

Toronto may have a stretch in August or September that's tougher, but, as pointed out by USSM, this has to be close to the most difficult nine game road trip of the year:

The odds expected the Mariners to go 3.3-5.7 over those games, a .369 W%. As you can see, Seattle actually won five of nine, keeping them right in the mix in the West. Going 5-4 may not seem all that impressive, but if you keep every other team's results constant those nine games boosted their ALW odds significantly, from 11.4% to the 15.3% seen above.

This Week's Links (6/29-7/3)

2009-07-03T19:45:00.000-04:00

Posnanski questions Hillman's use of Meche.

Wyers on the reliability of UZR.

Brooklyn native Lance Stephenson signs with Cincy.

Nate Silver is playing in the WSOP.

Pos on The Great Mariano.

The OC Register interviews Sean "CHONE" Smith.

RAB looks at the accuracy of various MLB mock drafts.

These Weeks' Links (6/15-6/19, 6/22-6/26)

2009-06-26T14:47:00.002-04:00

Brandon Jennings made quite an entrance.

Steve Lyons really doesn't like sabermetrics. Neither does Harold Reynolds.

USC is the favorite to be the next school to commit an NCAA violation.

Simmons' draft diary.

What's the problem with the Indians?

Are golfers more aggressive on par puts than birdie attempts, even from the same distance?

Steinberg on the Boston invasion of Nationals Park.

Pujols calls his shot.

The whole Jerod Morris thing was rather absurd.

How much should Strasburg get?

2009 NBA Draft Live Chat

2009-06-25T17:40:00.002-04:00

Starting at 7pm EST.

2009 NBA Draft Live Chat

This Week's Links (6/8-6/12)

2009-06-11T19:36:00.002-04:00

I have $18MM in the "how much guaranteed money will Strasburg get" pool. I think I'm in pretty good shape, actually.

Get your Natinals shirts here.

Early HITf/x analysis from Pavlidis, Fast, and a bit more from Fast.

MGL and Gassko on out-guessing projections.

Road Trip Time

2009-06-10T21:34:00.003-04:00

Posting may be light over the next couple weeks, but at least I have an excuse:

There's also probably going to be a Royals game in there, we just don't which day.

I suppose I'll post if I have something really exciting to say about Cardinals-Indians, we'll see. Or maybe some pictures of my namesake.

Also, if anyone has any suggestions on what to do in Louisville (besides the Bats) and Dunbar/Charleston, we are very much open to ideas. The trip wasn't exactly planned around those two destinations.

Draft Things

2009-06-09T00:46:00.002-04:00

We are doing a live chat, starting at 6pm, at FanHouse, which can be found here.

Keith Law mocks: 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, and final. I might do a post after tonight on how the accuracy differs with each revision. Also, an argument on why Strasburg's chances of success can't really be compared to previous pitching prospects.

More draft links: Goldstein top 50 prospects, Law top 100, BA "fantasy" draft, Mayo mock, Law chat, BPro roundtable, Goldstein mock.

This Week's Links (6/1-6/5)

2009-06-05T11:52:00.002-04:00

No, Randy Johnson won't be the last 300 games winner. Who'll be next? Who knows.

John Sterling really just needs to stop.

Pro Football Prospectus won't be available in bookstores this year, but there will be a couple versions available online.

Should be interesting to see where Austin Wood and Mike Belfiore go in Tuesday's draft.

The Stephen Strasburg bonus outrage has already begun.

Prospective NBA Finals Lines

2009-06-02T00:38:00.003-04:00

Continuing with this week's apparent theme of random odds, I don't know that I've ever seen this before. SportsBetting has posted lines for games two through seven of the NBA Finals, despite the fact that the series doesn't even start until Thursday night. Here are their current lines for all seven games:

They also come with this disclaimer:

"Events classified as PROSPECTIVE will be labeled as such on our website.
* Due to the advanced posting of the lines event date and time are subject to fluctuation and may be amended or taken off the board at any time.
* No wagers will be canceled on PROSPECTIVE events due to line movements, player injuries or unforeseen circumstances.
* If the PROSPECTIVE event does not take place the wagers will be no-actioned and all monies refunded."

There are a couple things of interest here. First, we now have something to compare the actual Game 2 line to if, say the Magic win by 20 on Thursday. Or, if Kobe gets hurt.

But the more interesting aspect is that, as you can see, the lines are not the same for each game on either team's home floor. For both the first and final games in each city, the home team is laying an extra half point.

Why would this be? The two things that immediately come to mind are the crowd and travel. Does LA have an extra advantage in the first game because the fans will be so hyped up? Do the Magic get an extra half point in Game 3 because while LA will be checking into a hotel and sleeping in some random bed, Orlando will be coming home?

These may seem stupid and trivial, but that's the type of thing that makes up home-court advantage in the first place, and I don't think anyone denies that teams play better at home. It's probably worth going back through previous years to see if this pattern comes up in the lines for a larger sample.

2009 NFL Week 1 Lines

2009-06-01T22:18:00.002-04:00

From Sportsbook. They changed a bit between April and September last year, but not all that much.

Titans (+5) @ Steelers
Dolphins (+4) @ Falcons
Chiefs (+8.5) @ Ravens
Eagles (+1) @ Panthers
Broncos (pk) @ Bengals
Vikings (-3) @ Browns
Jets (+4) @ Texans
Jaguars (+7) @ Colts
Lions (+11.5) @ Saints
Cowboys (-3) @ Bucs
49ers (+6.5) @ Cardinals
Redskins (+6) @ Giants
Rams (+7) @ Seahawks
Bears (+3) @ Packers
Bills (+10) @ Patriots
Chargers (-6.5) @ Raiders

Never too early to start thinking about Survivor; at first glance New Orleans looks like the best option here.

Also of note: the AFC is currently a three-point favorite in the Super Bowl.

LeBron's MVPs

2009-06-01T01:07:00.005-04:00

From SportsBetting:

He's got one so far, which means he needs to win it in at least four of the next nine seasons for this to go over. He'd have to become the fourth guy in history to win five. Russell did it over an eight year span, and Abdul-Jabbar won six in 10 years. Jordan won five, but over 11 years, a pace that wouldn't be good enough for LeBron to go over this number.

My opinion means even less than usual when it comes to the NBA, but I'd have to lean under here. Yeah, he's great and all, but there's just so much that can go wrong. It's also such a silly, sometimes arbitrary thing; he could miss a few games one year, his team could have a down year, the voters could get bored with giving it to him every year, etc. There's also that Kobe guy, although I guess he's getting up there in age (31 in August). Those who follow the NBA more than two months per year (can't wait for the draft) would probably have a bit more insight.

SportsBetting also has odds on whether the big names in the FA class of 2010 will stay with their current teams. LeBron is -200/+155 to be on the Cavs on opening day 2010-11.

This Week's Links (5/25-5/29)

2009-05-29T12:53:00.002-04:00

Wieters!

RLYW breaks down Yankee Stadium's park factors.

Vote for Manny.

Posnanski unveils the official blog joke.

“I don’t know what will happen tomorrow. But we’re not losing tonight.”

Derrick Rose cheated (allegedly).

NL Update: Seven Weeks In

2009-05-29T01:02:00.006-04:00

RS/G, RA/G: Through games of Wednesday, 5/27.
Current: Current team strength in wins per 162 games against an average schedule, as described here.
Current Div%: Current percentage chance of winning division, as of 7am EST on 5/29.
Prev Div%: Percentage chance of winning division as of three weeks ago.
Diff: Subtraction.
Div: Best odds available on team to win division.
Site: Where those odds can be found (BetUS, SportsBetting, Bookmaker)

The Bookmaker odds aren't up as I write this, but 40:1 on Florida really jumps out. The Marlins are +700 at BetUS, and +1200 at SportsBetting. They were one of the main reasons I wanted to start adjusting PECOTA/CHONE by the game lines, and the difference of opinion between the projections and Vegas continues to be enormous. Here are the five teams that the odds indicate were most underrated by PECOTA/CHONE coming into 2009:

The Fish are 50% above the rest of the field. What's funny is that they have actually performed quite poorly so far; their third-order record, 20.1-27.9, is worse than Washington's. It does seem likely that Florida's lines were a bit skewed in their favor during and after their hot start, as that difference broken up into the first three and second four weeks is +.062 and +.040, respectively. Even so, the consistent, and very large (.050 is 8.1 wins) difference over a pretty good sample size is very interesting. It's possible that a number that's such an outlier like the Marlins' difference should be regressed more than the rest of them, but for now we'll have to wait and see.

St. Louis' run prevention has been tremendous; as a team, they have a 121 ERA+. All seven guys in the bullpen have better than average ERAs, although that looks to be more the product of fortune than dominance. It's the rotation that's been the most impressive, with a 198:90 K:BB and only 18 homers allowed in 285.1 IP. Part of that is unsustainable, but as a team they have a HR/FB of 8.0%, which is lower than average, but nothing out of the ordinary. St. Louis easily has the best third-order record in the division, at 27.1-19.9 (.577). The offense isn't much after Pujols, but it's not like the Cubs and Brewers are putting up runs in bunches either; Carpenter is the x-factor, but even if he goes down again it looks like the Cards are in this for the long haul.

Somehow, the Dodgers are in the exact same position they were three weeks ago, according to these numbers; really, there hasn't been much change in the NL except for the top half of the Central. It's interesting how much higher the scoring environment is in the East (10.0 R/G) than the other two divisions (8.9 in the Central, 9.1 in the West). There are 11.3 runs scored in the average Nationals game, which is over 40% higher than San Francisco's average of 8.0. None of the odds for the NLW squads are even vaguely interesting

AL Update: Seven Weeks In

2009-05-27T20:34:00.006-04:00

RS/G, RA/G: Through games of Tuesday, 5/26.

Current: Current team strength in wins per 162 games against an average schedule, as described here.
Current Div%: Current percentage chance of winning division, as of 7pm EST on 5/27.
Prev Div%: Percentage chance of winning division as of three weeks ago.
Diff: Subtraction.
Div: Best odds available on team to win division.
Site: Where those odds can be found (BetUS, SportsBetting, Bookmaker)

There's been an unusual amount of variety in the East over the past couple years, with the Rays taking the division last year and the Blue Jays getting off to the hot start in '09. That should continue in the coming years -- Tampa will be heard from again of course, and the Orioles are getting close -- but this year it looks like we'll be going back to Boston and New York in September and October. The Rays have dug themselves a hole, and there's no certainty they'll snap out of it with Kazmir DL'd and Sonnanstine's ERA hovering around eight.

The other three teams aren't entirely out of it, but as you can see above BOS and NYY combine to win the division about nine out of 10 times, splitting that number almost perfectly down the middle. Everybody pretty much agrees on this; my sim, Matchbook, the odds at various books. In theory that could mean a compelling race in September, but unfortunately the Wild Card comes out of the East nearly 95% of the time, so probably not. The WC certainly has its benefits -- I personally don't really have much to compare it to since I started following baseball right when it was implemented -- but given the way the AL is currently situated, it stands to minimize the importance of what could be some pretty compelling races in the coming years. Although it also prevents the second best team in the league from missing the playoffs, so it depends how you look at it.

So, Joe Mauer with power; that's like the perfect player, right? Over his first 104 PAs, Mauer has been worth 2.5 wins, and that's not even including his defense behind the plate. Over 633 PAs (that's how many he had last year) that projects to 15.2 wins. Throw in a couple wins forhis GG defense and we're talking about a 17 win player. Obviously it'd be nearly impossible to maintain that pace, but even doing that for four weeks is really amazing. Ibanez leads the majors in WAR at +3.0 (which is hilarious, really), and even that's over 170 PAs.

In my mind I've already awarded this division to Detroit, but that's clearly incorrect. They are the favorites, but in every division other than the NL West each team is available at at least even money to win the division. I'd normally argue that PECOTA/CHONE is underrating the Tigers, because Verlander and Jackson have been better than one could have foreseen, but that hasn't really come through in the odds, who have them as only a few percentage points better than the projections did in March. Maybe they'll start treating Verlander like the monster that he is, but we'll have to wait and see.

The sim indicates that the Indians are a good bet at +1175. I'm not saying they're not, but I don't know how much information the game lines are adding here. It's quickly becoming apparent that the '07 Fausto Carmona isn't walking through that door, and he'll probably continue to get less and less respect from the oddsmakers. Then there's David Huff and Zach Jackson, who had made a combined two starts this season when I ran these numbers, so obviously they're not sufficiently factoring in.

The odds out west are just strange, once again not adding up to 100% (96.2% this time). At BetUS, the Angels and Rangers are both at +100, but at Bookmaker LA is -220 with Texas at +180. Combine that with the long odds B'Maker is offering on the M's, and you get a rather strange situation.

The Angels have been the toughest team to project all year, but now that Lackey and Santana are back it should be easier to get a handle on them a few weeks down the road. This issue is the reason that the odds for Oakland and Seattle are a bit inflated above.

The game odds had the Rangers as +.030 and +.029 in the two segments I looked at, so they look to be coming in at about .478 if you don't regress those at all. Which isn't bad, but I can't don't see them improving too much on that, true talent-wise at least. Their rotation just doesn't strike anyone out, coming in dead last in the AL with 5.2 K/9. They've played well so far, yes, but outscoring your opponents by 19 runs over 46 games really isn't enough to change how they're viewed overall.

What Does Vegas Really Think?

2009-05-25T20:40:00.006-04:00

About a month ago I wrote two posts looking at the differences between how PECOTA and CHONE expected each team to perform over the first few weeks of the season, compared with the level of performance expected by the Vegas lines. The results of that study were fairly predictable; for the most part the two metrics tracked each other pretty closely (average difference: .021, or 3.4 wins over a full year), with a few large disagreements (most notably the Marlins and Nationals).

That was interesting, but it wasn't clear how seriously we should take these differences. There was bound to be some random variation thrown in there, between facing unusually good/bad pitchers, and also an unusual number of teams that were under- or overrated. We didn't know how these differences would hold up in the future; it was obvious that there was some logic to them, but it seemed possible that the correlation might end up being quite weak.

It turns out that that's not the case at all. Here are the results of a regression with the early season differences as the x-variable, and the differences from the last month of play as the y:

It turns out that, even with just a few weeks of data, there isn't that much random variation at all. Basically, to figure out what a team's strength is going forward, you just need to take their PECOTA/CHONE W% and add 2/3 of the difference between that and their Vegas lines.

Here's an example. In late April the Marlins' PECOTA/CHONE strength was .448, and their difference was .062, so we could've implied that their actual strength in the future, adjusted for the Vegas odds, was .490. That would've gotten us pretty close; over the last few weeks their lines have indicated a team strength of .486 (unadjusted for schedule), and their difference has dropped from .062 to .040, almost exactly what we would've expected.

With the Marlins leading the way, here's what happened to them and the teams with the next four highest differentials:

Old Diff: Differential in the first three weeks of the season.
Pred. Diff: "Recent Diff" predicted by regression shown above.
Recent Diff: Differential over the last month.

The differences here are all in the same direction for both periods, and all five are still sizable in the more recent sample (the Rockies' recent difference amounts to a little over two wins per 162 games). The regression doesn't always nail the difference, but that's to be expected.

The next question is what to do now that we have seven weeks of data rather than three. The difference now should clearly be weighted more than the 68% we used a month ago, but we have no real way of knowing how much more.

There is also the factor that some of the lines may be a bit skewed because of recent performance; for example, Toronto's difference went from +.004 in the first three weeks to +.047 over the last four. To deal with that we would want to regress these to PECOTA/CHONE even more; in other words, to lower the percentage weight given to the difference. It is also possible -- if not probable -- that we should be weighting the differences in recent weeks higher than those from weeks 1-3, but lets treat them all equally for now.

There is no scientific way to figure out the correct weight going forward, but 75% sounds about right to me. Using that figure, here is the current strength of each team.

Tomorrow I'll use all this information in an updated simulation to see what it means for each team's playoff chances when combined with the current standings.

This Week's Links (5/18-5/22)

2009-05-22T11:48:00.003-04:00

A couple weeks ago I gave in and joined Twitter (@vegaswatch). Because, as Leitch says, "sometimes, I just don't think people have enough access to my opinions."

FanGraphs added pitch type linear weights.

Justin Upton is kind of good.

A very cool post with Dave Cameron and Dave Allen breaking down the M's lineup.

Jon Heyman's logic is flawless as usual. #11 pretty much sums it all up.

Visualizing the break of a curveball.

Late addition: Pavano!

Projecting Big Papi

2009-05-21T22:33:00.008-04:00

Prior to Thursday night's game, the folks at Bodog posted some odds on how David Ortiz will fare the rest of the year. Most notably:

Ortiz, as you likely know, has hit one home run thus far this season, on Wednesday night against the Blue Jays. Assuming he averages 3.34 PAs per Boston game the rest of the year -- which is what the projections I'll get to in a minute said at the beginning of the year --puts him at one HR every 22 PAs, according the the Bodog line.

Here's what four popular projection systems said about Ortiz's PA/HR prior to the season, along with what they say now if you use the standard method (in this case, 92% projection, 8% 2009 stats) to revise their predictions:

I would've expected both the magnitude of Ortiz's struggles and the publicity they've received to cause the Bodog line to be a good deal more pessimistic than the projections at this point, just because of the human element of it. But it turns out that the difference isn't all that big. PECOTA, which wasn't very high on Ortiz to begin with, is actually lower on Ortiz than Bodog. Marcel is within a PA of Bodog's inferred expectation, while CHONE and ZiPS are slightly higher on his future prospects.

It also would've been interesting, just in terms of the psychology of both the public and the oddsmakers, to compare the line prior to Wednesday night's homer to the line on Thursday afternoon. It seemed to me that a lot of people were relieved after he homered, and felt like now he'd get going. Of course, in the bigger picture, one HR through May 20th isn't anything to write home about. But I'd guess that the one HR on Wednesday night changed the line by significantly more than a single homer.

MLB Totals Contest Update (May 21)

2009-05-21T11:22:00.002-04:00

I realized that there's a much easier way to do these updates: just use the Matchbook odds. They're using the same numbers as us for all but three teams (TOR, NYY, TBR), I just made a slight adjustment to the odds for those three. Here are the current percentages, derived from the MB odds, for each team going over and under. And here's the current top 10, by expected points (max. is 55):

Everybody in the top 10 has the Dodgers over as at least their 8; if you have them as your 10, that's 8.9 points right there. HS has the White Sox under as his top play, and doesn't have a single one under 46%.

The full standings are here.

The Dangers of Losing Velocity

2009-05-20T20:44:00.007-04:00

Things really have not gone well for numbers two through five on this list:

08 FBV: 2008 fastball velocity.
1st 3W '09: Fastball velocity during weeks 1-3 of 2009.
Diff: Percentage difference between those two velocities.
2nd 3W '09: Fastball velocity during weeks 4-6 of 2009.
Diff: Percentage difference between weeks 4-6 of 2009 and all of 2008.
1'3-> 2'3: Percentage difference in fastball velocity between weeks 4-6 and 1-3 of 2009.

The declines, particularly in the first three weeks, were significantly larger than the gains in the top five. The former averages -2.2%, while the latter is only +1.4%. Part of this is just regression, since the guys I'm looking managed to stick around in the majors for the majority of '08. But that doesn't explain the entire discrepancy, since the average among all 85 guys was -0.5%.

I think some of it can probably be explained by guys pitching hurt. Perez was sent to the DL on May 5, and Glen Perkins, who barely missed the list at -1.8% was placed on the disabled list on Monday. The other three starters from the 85 I looked at who have hit the DL* were Carlos Silva, Scott Olsen, and Carlos Zambrano, who were all between -0.3% and 0.0%.

And it's certainly possible that some of the other guys who have lost velocity may end up on the DL at some point. There has been talk that Kazmir isn't healthy, and I doubt that will change after his 4.1IP, 8H, 7R, 4BB performance on Wednesday night. And it's not like the other two non-knuckleballers are doing any better; Cabrera has been relegated to the Nats' pen (he'll fit in perfectly there), and Eveland is currently struggling mightily in AAA.

Go a little farther down the list and the news gets a bit better; Perkins is on the DL, but Pineiro is getting by despite not striking anyone out, and Harang and Lincecum are doing just fine. But, unless this is some incredible fluke, it looks like guys who lose at least 2% of their FB velocity over the first three weeks of the year shouldnt feel too secure about their spot in the rotation.

*- I think, I may be missing someone. If someone on this list has hit the DL over the last month, let me know.

All stats from FanGraphs, and DL info from the Injury Tool.

2009 NFL Wins Over/Unders

2009-05-19T20:34:00.007-04:00

I was thinking it was a bit early for these, but I posted them on May 12 last year, so apparently not. From Sportsbook:

Once again, the Pats have the highest total, a full win above the Steelers (and five cents more juice as well). Not surprisingly, the winless Lions have the lowest number at five, but the Rams and Raiders aren't far behind (or ahead), especially considering the juice.

Ignoring the juice, here are the averages for each division:

Last year there was a big difference between the AFC and NFC (8.03 vs. 7.72), but that has closed almost entirely this season, with the AFC barely ahead, 8.03 to 8.00. Which is interesting, especially when you consider that Sportsbook has installed the AFC as a three-point favorite in the Super Bowl. The location of the best teams is more important for that type of thing, and indeed the AFC's top four (NE, PIT, IND, SD) average 10.4, while the NFC's four best (NYG, PHI, DAL/MIN/GB) come in at 9.4.

The NFC West is at the bottom for the second straight season, although this year they're joined by their AFC counterparts. At the top, the NFCE and AFCS have swapped spots. For the most part these are pretty similar to the '08 numbers, with thie biggest difference being the NFC South jumping from 7.13 to 7.88. They have the Falcons, who went from 4.5 to 8, to thank for that.

The only other teams to see their totals change by two or more wins were the Ravens, going from 6 to 8.5, and the Jaguars, dropping from 10 to 8.

Ramming Speed

2009-05-18T19:21:00.006-04:00

Here's a second look at the five starters who saw the biggest increases in velocity over the season's first three weeks.

08 FBV: 2008 fastball velocity.
1st 3W '09: Fastball velocity during weeks 1-3 of 2009.
Diff: Percentage difference between those two velocities.
2nd 3W '09: Fastball velocity during weeks 4-6 of 2009.
Diff: Percentage difference between weeks 4-6 of 2009 and all of 2008.
1'3-> 2'3: Percentage difference in fastball velocity between weeks 4-6 and 1-3 of 2009.

All five guys continued to throw harder in the second three weeks of '09 than they did in '08, with Zito, Verlander, and Galarraga each maintaining increases of over one mph. Galarraga has actually thrown harder since my original post, while Billingsley and Oswalt have regressed a bit.

Three weeks ago I noted that if Zito kept pitching like he had at the outset of the year, he could get back to being an average starter. Well, that's exactly what happened, as his K:BB ratio of 1.9 is right at the league average, and his GB% of 46% is slightly above that level. And since those averages include relievers as well, he's really doing well for himself. The FIP and ERA, both around 3.90 at the moment, will come up, since some more fly balls are going to start leaving the park, but cutting his '08 ERA by nearly a full run seems like an entirely realistic expectation.

A .354 BABiP is holding Verlander's ERA back, but he's been as good as just about anyone:

Lowest 2009 QERA, min. 30 IP

Appearing on this list despite a very poor GB rate is pretty impressive, but that'll happen when you're striking out almost 1/3 of the hitters you face. Really, it allows for some room for improvement, if he can somehow maintain the strikeout rate and get the GB% back up to his career rate of 40%. Regardless, it's pretty obvious that the Tigers' ace has benefitted from the early jump in velocity, which he has maintained over recent weeks.

The increased velo hasn't worked out quite as well for Galarraga. His K rate has been fine, actually improving from 6.4 K/9 last year to 7.1 K/9 this season. But that's not nearly enough of an improvement to cancel out the huge spike in walks, as he's issuing free passes to almost five guys per nine innings, up from three last year. He's always given up more than his fair share of homers, but coupling that with an excess of walks has resulted in disaster, with both his ERA and FIP increasing to 5.62.

Billingsley has parlayed the small jump in velocity into a K increase of a similar magnitude, but his walks are up as well. When his HR/FB gets back to a more reasonable level -- only one of the 50 fly balls against him has left the yard -- he'll probably go back to last year's level of performance, or maybe a bit worse. Not that an ERA in the low threes is anything to complain about.

Oswalt is the one guy here who hasn't benefitted at all from throwing harder. His strikeouts are down, his walks up, and his GB% has dropped precipitously, from a career mark of 48% all the way to 40%. This has caused his QERA to increase to 4.50. That represents, by far, the worst peripherals of his career, and it's especially concerning when considering that his FIP has increased in each year since 2005. He'll probably get a bit better as the year goes on, but you start to wonder how effective he'll be two years from now, when he's scheduled to earn $16MM.

These always end up running longer than I originally intended. Tomorrow I'll get to the guys from "Slowing Down".

All data from FanGraphs.

Maintaining Velocity

2009-05-17T21:33:00.006-04:00

A few weeks ago I took a look at pitchers that saw significant changes in their average fastball velocity from '08 to their first few starts of '09. At the end of that post, I wondered how sustainable those velocity increases/decreases were going forward, and how much of it was just noise.

As it turns out, those changes were quite sustainable. The regression below looked at all the guys in the original sample who have faced at least 60 batters since my initial analysis. It shows how each pitcher's fastball velo in weeks 4-6 of '09 is best predicted by a combination of their '08 FBV, and their velocity from the first three weeks of this season.

This was a very encouraging sign (unless you're Daniel Cabrera, I guess). After just three weeks, a pitcher's 2009 velocity is nearly three times as relevant as his '08 velocity. This was not terribly shocking, since velocity stabilizes so quickly, but the magnitude is impressive.

Another thing we can do is look at changes in velocity in conjunction with other improvements, like strikeout rate. Is a pitcher striking out more guys and experiencing a jump in velo more likely to maintain that K/9 increase than a guy throwing the same speed as last year? As it turns out, yes:

The first row tells us that for all pitchers in the sample, after three weeks we should use about 70% '08 K/9, and 30% '09 K/9. When we break it up into guys who have seen big changes in velo and guys who haven't, things become a little more clear. For the guys who have experienced at least a 1% increase or decrease in velocity, the ratio of '08 to '09 drops to 60/40. That makes sense, as we've got more info suggesting that something is inherently different with them.

But if the pitcher is throwing approximately the same speed as they were in '08 (+/- 1%), it seems more likely that the jump in K rate was just noise. For them, the ratio of how much we should weight '08 and '09 jumps up to 83/17, and the '09 coefficient actually isn't even close to being statistically significant, with a p-value of 0.41. And it's not like we're talking about ERA here; people legitimately get excited, and for good reason, when a guy bumps up his K rate early in the year. But it seems like that excitement is not always warranted.

That two pieces of info tell us more than one isn't surprising of course, but it's always nice to quantify something that intuitively makes sense. Tomorrow I'll take a look at the 10 guys we focused on a few weeks ago, and see how telling their changes in velocity ended up being.

All data from the great FanGraphs.