Beyond the Box Score

The last time the NL Cy Young was this close

2009-11-23T16:39:41Z

This year’s NL Cy Young vote was one of the closest in history, but 1987’s vote was the closest ever. Let’s take a quick retrospective.

Rank		Tm	Vote Pts	1st Place	Share	W	L	ERA	G	GS	SV	IP
1	Steve Bedrosian	PHI	57.0	9.0	48%	5	3	2.83	65	0	40	89.0
2	Rick Sutcliffe	CHC	55.0	4.0	46%	18	10	3.68	34	34	0	237.1
3	Rick Reuschel	TOT	54.0	8.0	45%	13	9	3.09	34	33	0	227.0
4	Orel Hershiser	LAD	14.0	2.0	12%	16	16	3.06	37	35	1	264.2
5	Dwight Gooden	NYM	12.0	1.0	10%	15	7	3.21	25	25	0	179.2
5	Nolan Ryan	HOU	12.0	0.0	10%	8	16	2.76	34	34	0	211.2
7	Mike Scott	HOU	9.0	0.0	8%	16	13	3.23	36	36	0	247.2
8	Bob Welch	LAD	3.0	0.0	2%	15	9	3.22	35	35	0	251.2

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 11/23/2009.

Steve Bedrosian? Whiff!

Let's consult Rally's Historical WAR Database to find the "shoulda been" winner.

	WAR
Steve Bedrosian	2.6
Rick Sutcliffe	5.6
Rick Reuschel	3.8
Orel Hershiser	6.7
Nolan Ryan	5.5
Doc Gooden	3.8
Mike Scott	5.7
Bob Welch	6.6

It turns out Orel Hershiser was the guy, but he had 16 losses, which is of course is anathema. His teammate Bob Welch was equally as good, and yet received only one lowsy 3rd place vote. He checked in with just 15 wins. Good performance but wrong era, guys.

Nolan Ryan was as good as Rick Sutcliffe, but despite 270 strikeouts, Ryan obviously didn't know how to win. Pssshh.

For all the holy outrage against certain newbies who are now voting BBWAA, just take a gander at 1987's results. People have done a lot crazier things with their ballots.

Assorted Links

2009-11-22T16:05:10Z

Jonah Keri explains why the Yankees should go after young players. So...you're saying Matt Holliday, right?

Doug Glanville explains the allure of free agency, or you never knew Arlington could be so seductive.

Dan Turkenkopf peeks his head above ground and declares four more years of HR/FB park factors. "Notorious Hitter's Park" Citizen's Bank Park's four-year average is a scant 94, while the bottom three are Petco (75), Kaufmann (78), and Busch Stadium (84).

Is it time to rethink the traditional fantasy auction? Brian Mills suggests a second-price, sealed bid auction. For my part, you can have my open auction if you're willing to come to my mom's basement and fight me for it.

Colin Wyers has a short guide to setting up a Retrosheet SQL database. He has promised more detailed instructions to follow.

Maury Brown has revenue sharing figures for 2002, 2003, and 2005. How about Les Expos?

Why Don't Losses Count Anymore?

2009-11-21T23:12:13Z

Winning games is the whole point of baseball. Yet all these voters seem to have forgotten that. For whatever reasons these "educated" voters gave the best pitcher awards to pitchers who lost a combined 15 games in 65 appearances. Bollocks says I. Forget these calculators and mathematical equations and focus on what matters: winning games. Or, inversely, not losing games. The illustrious Herm Edwards once said "You play to win the game," right on Herm. That's why the best pitcher in the league is none other than Hideki Okajima. Oh, I'm crazy you say? Look at these artifacts of record:

68 games, 6 wins, 0 losses

That's more games than San Francisco Giants pitcher "Tim Lincecum" or Kansas City Royals pitcher "Zack Greinke". Oh, you can point to their increased win totals but that's just dishonest. Okajima is a reliever, one who never let his team down. You can't say that about these other jokers. In wins he held opponents to a .100 batting average and 100% of his hits allowed were home runs - showing that he let his defenders take the games off in which he won. What a great teammate.

It's time we put the bed sheets and new-fangled numbers behind us. Old-timers will tell you what really matters (wins) and that lead paint looks better than any water-based type.

As for the rest of my ballot:

Brian Bruney 5-0

Joe Nelson 3-0

John Grabow 3-0

Tony Sipp 2-0

Tim Lincecum's Outstanding and Fatiguing Season

2009-11-21T21:08:07Z

More photos » by Ben Margot - AP

Lincecum unleashes a four-seamer

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Tim Lincecum eeked out his second straight Cy Young on Thursday. While the voting was close and, to some, controversial, he's a deserving winner.

The Giants eeked everything out of Lincecum's campaign, with its 225 innings ranking 3rd in the NL and 8th overall. He didn't exceed his workload from 2008 (by two innings) but he did show some wear-and-tear, starting as early as a missed start in September. That extra rest was needed to recover from back spasms.

Following Lincecum's penultimate start of 2009 (against the Cubs on 9/25), I posted about a sudden drop in velocity, coming in his third start following the brief shutdown.

Should the Giants Back Off Tim Lincecum? - Beyond the Box Score
Zambrano peaked at 96.3, Zambrano was strong, just outside the top third of his peak range. His average fastball speed (93.8, with or without sinkers) was 7th out of 73 starts in average fastball speed (two- and four-seam combined). It was also he best average fastball velocity of 2009. So, there was probably nothing "in the air" that night pushing The Freak's speed numbers down. Lincecum topped out at 94.3 - that's his lowest peak on record. He averaged 91.4 mph. Throw out the two-seamers and he's at 91.6. Out of Lincecum's 77 PITCHf/x starts, that's dead last.

Lincecum's Cy Young campaign had one more stop on October 1. Hardly a stop, seeing how each of his final two starts were in AT&T Park. Another thing that didn't stop was that decline in velocity.

Despite warm weather (at game time), Lincecum's fastball velocity remained sub-par. He throws (at least) two fastballs, which I'm splitting them into "fastballs" and "sinkers". The so-called sinkers just tail more, and occasionally have some more downward movement (actually less backspin or "rise"). Call them what ever you like. Sometimes he sinks the ball a little more and sometimes he cuts it a little, but I'll stick with two groups.

Why the weather and the split of fastballs? I wondered about the effect of pitch selection on the range of speed on his combined set of fastballs, seeing how he threw a few more sinkers than fastballs during the final start. The aforementioned warm weather, meanwhile, can not be blamed for the apparent drop in speed. It doesn't look like the sinkers are to blame, either. They're not a likely culprit to begin with, as they're thrown as hard as the other fastballs.

What Can Be Learned From the AL MVP Voting?

2009-11-21T15:40:29Z

More photos » by Reinhold Matay - AP

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On Monday afternoon, I fully expect Joe Mauer to win his first MVP award after finishing sixth in 2006 and fourth last year. Joe led the AL in batting average while hitting for respectable power (28 HRs) in only 138 games, most of which were as a catcher. He led the Twins into the postseason after they trailed by three games with only four games left, thereby forcing and winning a playoff game with Detroit.

Other than Mauer winning, I expect Mark Teixeria to finish high in the voting after leading the league in HRs and RBIs (categories that have traditionally been important to voters). I also expect Derek Jeter to finish high even though he doesn't have great traditional stats this season (.334 AVG, 18 HR and 107 runs scored). He did have one of his best years with a 7.4 WAR value, his highest since Fangraphs began keeping track and his third-highest total when compared to Rally's WAR ranking.

Truthfully, I have no problem giving the award to Mauer. He had a great season and helped the Twins to the playoffs. The real question with today's vote, to me anyway, is where do Zack Greinke and Ben Zobrist end up in the rankings?

Using WAR values as a guide, both Zack (9.4 WAR) and Ben (8.6 WAR) had a better season than Joe (8.4 WAR). The problem is that the mainstream media is barely touting if at all Greinke or Zobrist. Going to MLB.com, Zack gets an honorable mention while Ben gets no mention (though four of Ben's teammates got mentioned: Evan Longoria, Jason Bartlett, Carl Crawford and Carlos Pena). At cbssportsline.com and USAToday.com they have no mention of either Greinke or Zobrist.

Two groups of internet voters have released their results. SBN, our parent website, had a vote and Zack came in sixth overall, while Ben came in second. When the Internet Baseball Awards released their results, Zack came in fourth and Ben came in sixth. I really don't expect either of these players to finish as that high in the final votes with the BBWAA, even though no two players in the AL did more to help their team win games this last season.

Let's look at how Zack and Ben final voting placement can say something about the makeup and thought process of the BBWAA.

Zack Greinke - Do pitchers even matter in the MVP voting?

Here is a little background on how pitchers have done in the MVP voting:

Since 1956, when the Cy Young Award was created, a pitcher has won the MVP Award 8 times or 8% percent of the time. Before the Cy Young was created, pitchers won the award about 1 in 5 times (19%).
The last pitcher to win the MVP was Dennis Eckersley in 1992.
Since 1992, the average final position for the top pitcher vote getter is 8.4, with Pedro Martinez about winning the award in 1999 by finishing with only 3% less vote than Ivan Rodriguez.

There is not much precedent for MVP voters voting for pitchers, especially ones with 16-8 records. The average finish of the top pitcher in the MVP voting has been between the 8th and 9th spot, so this makes a good dividing line to see if the writers noticed Zack's great season (despite the horrible defense and run support he had all season). Zack had the 31st highest ranked season ever in ERA+ with 205, which is the highest total since 2003 when Pedro Martinez finished with an ERA+ of 210.

If Zack finishes eighth or higher, hats off to the voters. If ninth or lower, shame on voters.

Ben Zobrist - Do name familiarity and defense matter in the MVP voting?

Before the season, many people were familiar with the final MVP candidates, but few were familiar with Ben, and the few that knew of him didn't expect great production. Offensively, his 2009 season was nothing to laugh about (9th in the AL in Runs Created), but his defense is where he separated himself from the others for the top WAR values for positional players. He had a UZR rating of 26.4 which was good for 2nd best among all position players in the AL.

The question is, "Will any of this production really matter." Even though the Internet voters gave Ben quite a bit of love, I can see the BBWAA giving him a cold shoulder. I would be surprised to see him break the top 10. I really want to see the percentage of voters that put him in their top 5. This will give a nice understanding of the percentage of voters that look at and use WAR (or similar metrics) to compare players. If the percentage of voters that put Ben in the top 5 is above 10%, I will be amazingly surprised.

---

The award season for MLB is a nice time to look back at the the players that had a great season. The problem is that sometimes players that should receive recognition don't.

Assorted Links

2009-11-20T17:22:51Z

Dave Cameron on the value of depth, or how to minimize risk while adding wins. Of course, there is the difficulty of knowing whether a player whose production falls in the right-tail of the distribution is relying on luck versus skill, which makes the manager's decision difficult.

The Olympia Olympian has an interview with Mariners' head statistical analyst Tony Blengino. He discusses the free agent market and player valuation.

Tommy Rancel has an interview with new Rays' Director of Pro Scouting Matt Arnold. He discusses, among other things, how his economics background influences his scouting.

San Antonio College's The Ranger has an interview with economics professor and BtB alum Cyril Morong. He discusses what got him interested in sabermetrics. You can, of course, find his blog here.

Sky Andrecheck has a column at Sports Illustrated on why the free agent valuation system is an effective tax on Type A free agents. That'll teach those relievers not to rack up meaningless saves.

Cubs Trade Aaron Heilman To Diamondbacks; Also Re-Sign John Grabow

2009-11-20T02:42:38Z

More photos » by Frank Franklin II - AP

The Cubs handed a $7 million dollar contract to John Grabow, who has been worth $5.3 million dollars over his career. They later traded Aaron Heilman to Arizona for a pair of prospects.

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On the eve of Free Agency, the Cubs made a pair of moves involving relief pitchers.

First, the Cubs re-signed LHP John Grabow to a two-year contract reportedly worth $7-7.5 million dollars. If you're asking yourself why they would spend that much money on a player who has accumulated -0.1 WAR over the past three seasons, then you're in the right place.

Grabow is a serviceable relief pitcher, but he is nothing special. His fastball sits in the low 90s, and like a lot of other relievers, he mixes in sliders and change-ups. His change-up has proven to be a plus pitch, but overall he doesn't generate a lot of swings and misses (8.1 swstr% in 2009).

Results wise, Grabow has benefited from a shiny ERA, and that's probably why he got the contract he did. In 2008, he posted an ERA of 2.84 for the Pirates and followed that up with a combined 3.36 for Pittsburgh and Chicago in 2009. Advanced metrics, however, see past the ERA screen and rate Grabow about average. His FIP in 2008 was 4.54 and only slightly better in 2009 at 4.20. That's not terrible, but I'm not giving him $7 million dollars over two seasons to basically be replacement level--especially not the day before the market is flooded with cheaper, and in many cases better, options.

The difference in FIP and ERA looks to come from high walk rates. For his career, Grabow has a BB/9 of 4.15. This past season, that rate was a whopping 4.98, while he only struck out 7.09 batters per nine. He can thank a friendly BABIP of .279 (.251 in 2008), and a begging-to-be-regressed HR/FB% of 5.7 in 2009 (nearly half of his career average) for the stellar ERA numbers. Unlike most lefty relievers, Grabow has shown the ability to get out right handed batters, but for a guy who has been worth just $5.3 million dollars since 2003, it's just silly to hand him $7 million dollars.

The other move for the Cubs involved trading away another reliever, Aaron Heilman, to the Diamondbacks for two prospects. Heilman, like Grabow, was merely serviceable out of the Cubs bullpen in 2009, and he remains unspectacular. His 4.37 FIP was slightly above his career average of 4.13. Nothing in his BABIP or batted ball rates would suggest fluke, so it would seem his 2009 season is pretty indicative of what to expect going forward. He made $1.6 million in 2009 and is arbitration eligible for the final time. Given the mediocre season, he should see a marginal pay raise, which led some to believe he would be non-tendered. Although he has starting experience, he hasn't started a major league game since 2005, and reports are that Arizona sees him as a reliever.

In return for Heilman's services, the Cubs will receive LHP Scott Maine and 1B Ryne White. Besides sharing a first name with a Cubs legend, Ryne White doesn't look like much of a prospect. Drafted in the fourth round of the 2008 draft out of Purdue, White had mixed results in his first full pro season. Spending the entire season at A+ (Visalia) level, he showed a good eye, walking 13.5% of the time while striking out 20.8%. The favorable walk rate helped push his OBP over the .370 mark, however, he showed little power in the process. A "stocky" player in frame (5-10, 205ish), he hit just 25 XBH in nearly 500 plate appearances and slugged just .356 on the season with an ISO of .091. A left handed batter, he struggled against LHP and looks more like a platoon player going forward.

The other player headed to the windy city is 24 year-old lefty, Scott Maine. Drafted by the D-Backs in 2006, Maine looks like he could be a sleeper candidate for a bullpen spot as early as the 2010 season. A side-armer, Maine throws in the mid 90s, and not surprisingly gets his fair share of ground balls. After posting a 2.88 FIP in 47.1 innings at AA, he was briefly promoted to AAA where he put up an impressive 2.59 FIP, albeit in just 14.2 innings. He has struck out more than a batter per inning in his career, and seems to have a good handle on the long ball. That said, walks are a slight issue. If nothing else, Maine is a cheap, controllable asset which is something that can't be said for Heilman or Grabow.

Zack Greinke and Tim Lincecum by LOWESS

2009-11-19T23:51:51Z

Today it was announced that Tim Lincecum would join Zack Greinke as this year's second Cy Young award winner. Both had excellent seasons. While Greinke likely has the edge due to Lincecum's more favorable league and park, both exhibited no real weakness. Both struck out more than a batter per inning, both walked fewer than three batters per nine innings, and both allowed fewer than a dozen home runs.

After Greinke's furious start, there was some concern that his superlative season might be lost as he bumped slightly in the middle of the season. Lincecum, by comparison, appeared to be more consistent: he had no string of dominance as convincing as Greinke's April, but neither did he have any periods in which he struggled.

I decided to calculate each pitcher's single-game FIP and xFIP (based on batted ball data from FanGraphs) and run it through the R CLI. I then applied a LOWESS regression to each pitcher's season to give an idea of how each pitcher's fortunes changed from month to month. Here they are, by FIP (click to enlarge):

xFIP comparison below the jump.

Interestingly enough, because of Greinke's higher FB percentage (40.5% to Lincecum's 33.3%), Lincecum's xFIP LOWESS regression is lower than Greinke's for most of the year.

It's worth noting that there is a great deal of noise in all of these plots. What LOWESS does is apply a local polynomial regression; you can think of it as an improved moving average. For those who are curious, I used a smoothing factor of 2/3.

Is this a helpful way to visualize a pitcher's season? I'm curious what you think!

Assorted Links

2009-11-19T22:04:22Z

Jeremy Greenhouse's Visual Scouting Report 1.0: Bay vs. Holliday. The heat is on!

A Wrigley mystery contained in a photo. If you'd like to take a crack at it without seeing the answer, the question is: "of which game was this picture taken?"

Was Zack Greinke's 2009 more like Ben Sheets' 2004 or Mark Prior's 2003? Note that both Prior and Sheets gave up more home runs than everyone's new favorite sabermetrician.

J.C. Bradbury compares methods for evaluating player aging. This is his most even-handed blog piece on the subject to date.

The free agency market officially opens tonight at midnight. Who's ready to overpay a weak class?

Jim Tracy and Mike Scioscia Win Manager of the Year Awards

2009-11-18T19:29:40Z

More photos » by Julie Jacobson - AP

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Yawn.

Reward Retrospective - 1985 AL MVP - Right Team, Wrong Player

2009-11-18T19:08:12Z

Beyond the Box Score will be starting a new series, Reward Retrospective, that will look at past awards (MVP, Cy Young, ROY, etc.) that pique our interest and examine them with some of todays metrics. I hope you enjoy these looks back at various players and seasons.

In 1985, I was 10 and never knew that it would be the last time I would see my Royals in the postseason. As a hardcore Brett fan, I wanted to go back and see if he was deserving of the AL MVP in 1985.

Here is a table of top 5 AL MVP vote getters and their basic stats for the '85 season:

Name	Team	Vote Pts	G	AB	R	H	HR	RBI	SB	BA
Don Mattingly	NYY	367	159	652	107	211	35	145	2	0.324
George Brett	KCR	274	155	550	108	184	30	112	9	0.335
Rickey Henderson	NYY	174	143	547	146	172	24	72	80	0.314
Wade Boggs	BOS	159	161	653	107	240	8	78	2	0.368
Eddie Murray	BAL	130	156	583	111	173	31	124	5	0.297

Now here is a comparison using Rally's WAR data (thanks to Sky for the original idea and Justin Bopp for the graphic):

Using the traditional stats, you can see why Mattingly won. In the AL, he was 4th in homeruns, 3rd in batting average and led the league in RBIs (he had 21 more than Eddie Murray, who was second). The other top vote getters all trailed in at least one category. Brett and Boggs had lower power numbers. Murray had a much lower batting average. Henderson had neither the power nor the average. I see perfectly why the voting happened the way it did 25 years ago.

Looking at Rally's WAR numbers, you see a completely different story. Between the five players, the runs contributed by their hitting only differentiated them from one another by 7 runs (46 to 53). In other categories, however, the separation was more pronounced. Rickey Henderson had both superior base running and defense compared to the other four. Rickey got such a boost from those two categories that he accumulated 3.6 more WAR than Mattingly and 1.5 WAR more than Wade Boggs. The voters where looking at the right team, but wrong player.

Well, Brett was not deserving of the award in 1985, but neither was Mattingly. Hats off to Henderson--at least he got an MVP award five years later with the A's. The voting in 1985 was a perfect example of baseball's past emphasis on RBIs instead of understanding a player's overall contribution. Twenty-five years later, many of these same voters are around and continue to use inferior statistics to influence their voting. I guess you just can't teach old dogs new tricks.

----

1984 NL Cy Young

Assorted Links

2009-11-18T16:41:19Z

J.C. Bradbury takes on the world! He argues players peak at age 29-30, then Phil Birnbaum replies, then Bradbury fires back armed with graphs, then Colin Wyers gets into it. Bottom line is that this stuff is hard and any attempt to analyze the data will include assumptions that are open to criticism. Stay tuned.

What is the value of inductive reasoning? Would your answer change if I told you you had only one data point? What about if I told you that outsiders (Football or otherwise) have systematic bias as well?

The Last Expo's 2004 is a living reminder that statistical flukes happen all the time. He somehow scored more runs than Ichiro! in the same year that the latter broke the single season hits record.

How to become a trade-rumormonger, or everything you ever wanted to know about Jon Heyman's job but were afraid to ask, by Matt Swartz. Sadly it is behind BPro's pay wall.

My favorite law review note of all time: "The Common Law Origins of the Infield-Fly Rule." For fun, read the footnotes.

Exactly How Awesome is Zack Greinke?

2009-11-18T07:40:04Z

Poll

What should Zack Greinke do in the off season?

The Curves of Zack Greinke

2009-11-18T06:00:15Z

More photos » by Charlie Riedel - AP

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Zack Greinke earned the 2009 Cy Young Award earlier today. It was well deserved, and not much of a surprise. I've covered Greinke via PITCHf/x on a few occasions* (here, here, here, here and here), so I'm taking this opportunity to look at Greinke's curveball -- which is thrown at a wide range of speeds.

*If you check out those links, you'll see some flight paths, learn about his sinker, compare his

fastball locations to Rich Harden's and explore head-to-head match-ups against Kevin Milwood and John Lackey.

Greinke's best pitch is his slider. It's one of the best pitches in baseball, and he complements it with two above average fastballs (four- and two-seam varieties), a change-up and the aforementioned curveballs. For starters, Greinke can vary his pitch speeds by nearly 40 mph -- high 90s fastball and a low 60s curveball.

But Greinke's curve is thrown anywhere from the lower 60s up to the lower 80s.

Greinke's average curveball is around 75 mph. I split them into three groups, making the cut-offs at 72 and 78 mph. Before doing that, I classified all of his pitches (7512 going back to 2007). It was important to keep the curves and sliders apart, especially at their respective upper and lower speed ranges. I can't say I'm 100% accurate in my splitting of pitches, but I'm more than satisfied with the results.*

*mostly manual folks, it's hard to automate the classification of pitches that are that close together. Not that "we" aren't trying.

Here's where I ended up with Mr. AL Cy Young 2009's curveball.

speed	#	MPH
fast	128	82.8
regular	235	74.9
slow	154	68.6
	517	75.0

Good mix. Obviously, we've wandered into the land of small sample sizes. Put on your error bar goggles.

speed	In Wide Zone	B:CS	Swing	Chase	Watch
fast	.445	2.9	.563	.437	.281
regular	.604	1.0	.319	.194	.585
slow	.571	1.6	.448	.303	.432
	.555	1.4	.418	.300	.477

Unless he's putting something extra on it, it's a strike. Well, it's a strike for more often than the average pitch (.53).

The relative wildness (for lack of a better term) on the faster variety serves a purpose. It gets more swings, especially out of the zone, than the slower varieties.

Opponents rarely seemed to swing at the main group of curves, taking a lot of strikes (nearly 6 of 10).

There is a difference already, with the slow group actually sitting in between the fast and regular in all the categories above. But now things start to change.

speed	Whiff
fast	0.375
regular	0.173
slow	0.348
	0.296

The changes in speed seem to help. Remember, both the fast and slow are chased out of the zone more often, which helps those whiff rates.

Hitters do make contact, quite often, and here's what happens.

speed	GB%	FB%	PU%	LD%	HR/FL%
fast	50%	25%	0%	25%	17%
regular	49%	29%	3%	20%	6%
slow	32%	35%	10%	23%	0%
	43%	30%	4%	22%	6%

HR/FL is home runs per fly ball + line drive (average is around 7%, your park may vary).

I love ground balls as much (if not more) than most baseball fans, but I'll take the slow curve. Pop-ups are almost automatic outs. And in the off chance that home run rate is not a fluke....

The last measure are the run values. rv100 is runs allowed per 100 pitches relative to the league (MLB 2007-9) average. Negative numbers are better for pitchers. rv100E is the same thing, but batted ball outcomes (hits and outs, homers and singles) are discarded and league average rates for batted ball type (grounder, liner) are used instead. In other words, a ground ball is 3 parts out an 1 part single*, no matter what actually happened.

*not exactly, but you get my point

speed	rv100	rv100E
fast	-0.93	-1.85
regular	-0.11	-0.55
slow	-0.48	0.30
	-0.43	-0.62

Go figure. Fast wins, both ways.

In case you're wondering, Greinke's 2009 slider had a rv100 of -3.18 and a rv100E of -2.72.

Greinke's favorite time to throw the slow curve was when he was ahead of right-handed batters. In 0-1, 1-2 and 0-2 counts, it was his choice just under 10% of the time. On 0-0 counts against, it checked in close to 9%, and wasn't used in any other situation more than 5%. The most common usage against lefties was, again, when he was ahead, but just over 4% of those situations saw the slow curve. He did not throw the slow curve, except for rare occasions, when behind in the count.

The fast curve was most frequently used when ahead or even, against both lefties and righties. In those counts, it was around 7-8%. Again, it was least likely to b used when behind.

Helping push first pitch curves to righties to nearly 1 in 4, Greinke used the regular speed curve was on nearly 15% of first pitches against right-handed batters in 2009. He was willing to use the regular curve when behind in the count (perhaps aware of the accuracy and Watch rate). Still, when he chose to throw a curveball when ahead, it was usually fast or slow.

Andrew Bailey PITCHf/x

2009-11-17T16:33:47Z

Andrew Bailey PITCHf/x

A PITCHf/x scouting report on the 2009 AL Rookie of the Year

Assorted Links

2009-11-16T22:45:25Z

The art and science of well-timed acquisitions and trades. Why everyone looks like a genius in hindsight and true value is tough to find.

Tommy Rancel interviewed Andrew Friedman. He discusses the fact that he does not have a contract with the Rays, picking late in the draft, and Carl Crawford.

Michael Jong has disaggregated Tango's Fans Scouting Report and moved Dan Uggla around the diamond. He would likely be a few runs below average at both 3B and LF.

Albert Pujols is really good, even in Korea. Here's an excerpt:

Albert Pujols에 대해서는 별다른 설명이 필요하지 않을 것이다. 다만.. 초인적인 공격 스탯 외에도 주목할 부분은 바로 16 SB/4 CS이다. Albert Pujols가 팀내 도루 1위라니...!!! 그것도 80%의 성공률로..!!! 그는 그다지 발이 빠른 편은 아니지만... 메이저리그에서 아마도 가장 aggressive한 주자일 것이다. 때로는 지나치게 공격적으로 베이스러닝을 하다가 홈에서 아웃당하는 경우가 있긴 하지만... 상대의 허를 찌르는 도루 솜씨는 정말 훌륭하다. [emphasis in original]

Aggressive indeed.

Rookie of the Year and the Mythical Sophomore Slump

2009-11-16T17:00:41Z

More photos » by Gene J. Puskar - AP

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Time to bust out your Kirt Manwaring Rated Rookie cards, kids. It's that time of year!

Rookie of the Year is a bit of a strange award. It's given, I presume, to the rookie-eligible player who had the most valuable season in each league. It has good historical pedigree, as Jackie Robinson won the inaugural award in 1947 (when there was only one RoY for both leagues). Nevertheless, it produces some odd results and gives a lot of weight to the perception of the "sophomore slump."

Consider this: after you adjust for the development curve and the salutary effects of experience, would you expect a random player chosen from the pool of first year players to be better than a random player chosen from the pool of ten year players?

Your first instinct might be to say that it shouldn't matter; after all, if we're adjusting for age then the average player is the average player. Except, as in the classic Monty Hall problem, my setup makes the second choice more attractive by providing the chooser with additional information. In this case, the ten year player has survived the ruthless selection that occurs at the major league level. As a result, a Good Bayesian should update his priors and select the veteran.

So what, you say. It doesn't matter that the award is given to an overall less deserving set of players. The point is to recognize the best newcomer to the league!

Well, I'm not sure that makes sense either.

Two objections apply. First, players enter the league at staggered points on their aging curves. So, players who are called up for partial seasons (eliminating rookie eligibility) are penalized, as are players who are called up at a young age. As a result, players like Alex Rodriguez, Barry Bonds, Tim Lincecum, Johan Santana, and many others never have a chance to win the award. Further, players who enter the league late in their careers, like Ryan Howard, have a systematic advantage.

The second objection is that it is more sensitive to year-to-year fluctuations than other awards because the rookie year tends to be the first impression voters have of a player. The best way to illustrate this problem is with an analogy.

How many times have your too-cool-for-school hipster friends decried a band's second album? "Sophomore slump" they proclaim, or "they sold out!" Or how about the entire directing career of M. Night Shyamalan. These artists make one good cultural artifact, and everyone assumes they're geniuses. Then, when they inevitably fail to match their previous level of success, it's because of some personal flaw.

Consider what Larry at Wezen-Ball has found:

In the first 50 years of its existence (from 1947 through 1996), there were exactly 100 awards handed out. Thirteen of those players are currently in the Hall of Fame (Cal Ripken was the last winner to be inducted). In addition to those thirteen, Pete Rose is ineligible for the Hall, Andre Dawson is inching his way towards induction, Mark McGwire is sitting in limbo, Jeff Bagwell & Mike Piazza are not yet eligible, and Derek Jeter is still playing. Counting all six of those players, that puts the HOF-success rate of the Rookie of the Year award at 19%. It increases to 20% if you consider Lou Whitaker and his 69.7 career WAR as a HOF-worthy player (Dick Allen's 61.2 career WAR also has a case). Since 1997, Rookie of the Year award winners have included Carlos Beltran, Albert Pujols, and Ichiro!, all of whom are likely Hall of Famers.

Fewer than 20% of RoY winners go on to make the Hall of Fame (don't get me started on Dick Allen, who never once in his life got a fair shake). Why could this be?

Call it the Shyamalan Effect. He made "The Sixth Sense," which everyone loved. But the acclaim the film received was partly because the reveal was novel, partly because it had (some) good acting, and partly because Shyamalan does have virtues as a director. But many of the reasons why "The Sixth Sense" was a success were entirely unrelated to Shyamalan. So when his subsequent films disappointed, it shouldn't have come as a surprise. (Note the convenience of the WOWY style of analysis: we can eliminate Bruce Willis as the cause!)

The same phenomenon holds in baseball. To some degree, success in a given season, rookie seasons included, depends on factors outside a player's control. I tend to think of all circumstances outside an individual's control as "luck," but if you choose a different word that is fine. The essential point is that other factors may combine in your favor or they may conspire against you.

Because rookies are often unknown to the voters, they will select whichever one had the best performance in that one year. That is, their choice is unanchored by past performance, as it surely is in MVP consideration. So they are perhaps more likely to incorporate those contingent factors outside a player's control (team strength, for example, when looking at RBI, or defense, when looking at ERA) when determining whom to select.

I'm not suggesting the voters do a great job with the MVP or even that they do a particularly terrible job with the Rookie of the Year. But if Elvis Andrus collects his Rookie of the Year on the strength of his excellent defense and his .267/.329/.373 batting line with 33 SB, remember this. If we take away one hit a month and instead make it a walk, his line becomes .254/.329/.360 and he probably doesn't win the award.

This phenomenon is compounded by the path dependency of expectations. A player who was a Rookie of the Year will be given repeated chances to prove himself. (What, you don't believe me?) By contrast, a player who underperforms in his first shot may not get another fair shot for many years.

We've been spoiled by good Rookies of the Year in recent memory: Evan Longoria, Dustin Pedroia, Ryan Braun, and Hanley Ramirez are all poised to remain stars for several years. But the structure of the award still produces some bizarre results: Bob Hamelin? Marty Cordova? (On second thought, Hamelin's '94 might have been the last time a Royal slugged .599).

If you're searching for an explanation for why Angel Berroa won the award in 2003, remember that he was rewarded for contingent success as much as for inherent skill. And when this year's Rookie of the Year winners come back down to earth next season, remember that the only reason you thought they were breakout rookies was in part because they had good luck their rookie seasons.

I hope everyone who saw Unbreakable knows what I'm talking about.

Assorted Links

2009-11-15T20:44:45Z

2010 CHONE hitter projections are live. Gentlemen, start your spreadsheets. Here are the free agents.

Why game theory promises more than it can deliver. How often do you think, "we could solve this problem if only we had the right data"? It may not be true.

Bill Simmons does not enjoy following baseball. He blames the (wrong) numbers.

Some fool went and actually read the CBA. The Red Sox have not gone to arbitration (pre-FA or FA) since Theo Epstein became GM.

Ryan Doumit and the Prospect of "Selling Low"

2009-11-14T21:00:35Z

More photos » by Gene J. Puskar - AP

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The hot stove is in full effect, and teams are taking a hard look at their rosters to prepare for the winter meetings. One team that has already been busy is the Pittsburgh Pirates, as they previously acquired Akinori Iwamura from Tampa Bay.

Last year, one of the Pirates' most expensive players was catcher Ryan Doumit. After a .318/.357/.501 in 2008, good for a .367 wOBA, Doumit struggled with injuries in '09. He hit .250/.299/.414 and recorded a (below average for a catcher) .306 wOBA.

Prior to the 2009 season, Doumit signed a three-year, $11.5 million extension that will earn him $3.55M in 2010 and $5.1M in 2011. The deal also includes team options for 2012 ($7.25M) and 2013 ($8.25M). The speculation engines are revving up, and the suggestion is that Neal Huntington and the Pirates may deal Doumit and play Jeff Clement every day behind the plate. Additionally, it has been reported that the Brewers and Pirates discussed a swap of Doumit and J.J. Hardy.

However, some commentators have suggested Pirates would be selling low if they traded Doumit now. Here's Jorge Says No!:

Here is a guy, who is just a year removed from hitting .318 with 15 HR and 71 RBI. Doumit was one of the best hitting catchers in the NL in 2008, but he missed a large chunk of the 2009 seasons because of injuries. Doumit seems to be one of the few young catchers out there with a nice upside at the dish and he certainly did not have one of his better seasons in 2009.

So would it be a mistake for the Pirates to trade Doumit now?

I don't think so. There can be no doubt that Doumit is a risky play going forward. If the Pirates choose to keep that risk, they will keep both tails of the distribution--the world where Doumit returns to form as well as the one where he continues to scuffle. If they trade Doumit to another team, his value will necessarily be discounted by the amount of risk that comes with him.

Recently, there has been a mom's-basement size controversy over a column written by J.C. Bradbury entitled "Hot Stove Myths." He writes:

GMs can buy low and sell high -- [...] You can't sell high or buy low and profit financially because all GMs understand these things. You don't have to wait for a guy to get hot to sell him, nor dump him before he gets cold. In addition, the key knowledge of when the peak or trough is doesn't exist, except in the mind of message board posters. Fluctuations in performance create uncertainty, which affect the price that GMs are willing to pay.

It is certainly true that GMs tend to realize when a player is risky, like Doumit is, and discount his value accordingly.

But it also seems at least possible that in the short term, GMs make mistakes even in their initial valuations. If that is true, then it should absolutely be possible to find a player who is undervalued by his own team (and perhaps all other teams in the market for players with similar skill sets). If that is true, then at least some of the time, it will be possible to acquire a player for less than this true expected value.

This is especially true because of the information asymmetry created by injuries. Take Doumit. He has been a Pirate his entire career. Clearly, the team with the best knowledge of his medical circumstances is the Pirates.

Doumit's injury, which was to the scaphoid bone in his right wrist, is the sort that can frequently cause players to lose power and bat control. However, it is not an insurmountable problem, as players like Adrian Gonzalez (torn tendon) have recovered from serious wrist injuries to regain their power stroke and then some.

Any team seeking to acquire him will of course do their due diligence and ask Doumit to undergo a physical. However, a single examination is unlikely to balance the difference in information between the two teams. As a result, teams looking to acquire Doumit may be unwilling to bid as much for Doumit's services than they would if they knew everything about his health.

How might a savvy GM respond? For one, he could provide the other team with all possible information about the player's health in the form of expert reports and medical records. If the offer were credible and accepted, it would eliminate the information asymmetry and probably raise the offer.

Given Doumit's contract, the dearth of free agent catchers, and the Pirates' prospects of contending in the near future, it is likely that Doumit has more value to another team than he does to the Pirates. Whether a trade can be worked out to the mutual benefit of the Pirates and a trading partner remains to be seen.

However, it is not necessarily true that the Pirates would be selling low on Doumit. Rather, a good deal would represent realizing a fixed return on a risky asset.

2010 UZR Projections - Updated 11/15/09

2009-11-14T18:46:04Z

Note: I posted a spreadsheet on 11/14/09 that was not age adjusted. I would prefer for people to used the new age-adjusted spreadsheet. I posted it at 9:30 MST on 11/15/09, but will be leaving the non-age-adjusted one available. Sorry for this inconvenience. --Jeff

I created UZR projections for the 2010 season and the values are available on Google Documents Spreadsheet (original non age adjusted spreadsheet). I got 4 years worth of UZR numbers from Fangraphs. Then I did a 5-4-3-2 yearly weighting regressed to 125 games with a -0.7UZR aging factor (article where the math is explained).

I selected for the worksheet any players that played in at least 63 games at the position over the last 4 years. Some retired players are included, but I don't want to make any judgment on whether they will come back and play. Also, for players who played in less than 63 games, I added their UZR value if it was greater than 1 or less than -1. Sorry for the lack of team-wide charts, but I might add them near the beginning of the season once rosters are more finalized. Please let me know if you have any questions about the data. Here are a couple charts of the projected leaders and laggards at each position (players that played that position in 2009).

Leaders

Position	Name	Projected UZR
1B	Albert Pujols	5.5
2B	Chase Utley	11.0
3B	Evan Longoria	11.0
SS	Adam Everett	8.6
RF	Austin Kearns	8.3
CF	Franklin Gutierrez	14.8
LF	Carl Crawford	9.8

Laggards (glad my Royals keep trading for such great glove men)

Position	Name	Projected UZR
1B	Mike Jacobs	-5.6
2B	Kelly Johnson	-5.2
3B	Ryan Braun	-12.4
SS	Yuniesky Betancourt	-9.7
RF	Brad Hawpe	-19.3
CF	Jacoby Ellsbury	-9.0
LF	Adam Dunn	-13.4

Help with downloading the file after the Jump

A couple of people have asked, so the spreadsheet can be downloaded by going to "File" -> "Download as" and then selecting desired file type.