Current activities

I finally finished a post at Red Reporter that I've been working on for almost a month (and planning since September). I'm not sure the result is as fabulous as all of that would imply, but it's an investigation of the degree to which the Reds were hurt by playing time shortfalls in it starters compared to simply failing to perform when healthy. Punchline: aside from Volquez (who accounts for 35% of the overall ~7 WAR shortfall), mostly it was simply a failure to perform.

At BtB, I'm managing the Sabermetric Writing Awards. I thought of the basic idea for the awards while working on my baseball class (more on that in a sec). The BtB crew were very enthusiastic about it when I pitched it to them, and in the internal discussion, the idea expanded from ~3 categories to the 7 we are currently running. Nominations are going pretty well, though I think there is a bias toward stuff done over the past few months. Still, I've already seen a bunch of stuff that I had missed, and that's sort of the main point.

The baseball class, which I announced here, starts on Monday. I'm a bit anxious about it, but I think I'm about as well-prepared for it as I can be, and I'm excited to get started. I'm perhaps naively hoping that the students will follow my obsession in player valuation, but we'll see. First thing I'm going to do is have them pick the topics for the semester. It will probably be the case that this class will be the extent of what I can do baseball-wise for at least the first half of the semester. But one of my classes ends at spring break--just as spring training really gets underway--so that should help.

I also wanted to link to my post on the Hall of Fame ballot from December. It's gotten some decent play (Neyer link, for example), and apparently Sky did something similar at ESPN this week. The one guy I left off of my ballot, Dawson, is the guy who got in--but I have no problem with that. What I do have a problem with is all of the deserving individuals who should have gotten in before Dawson.

Reds Season Review

Image via Wikipedia

I completed a "sabermetric" (I still don't like that word, but I've become resigned that I have to use it to be understood) review of the 2009 Cincinnati Reds at Red Reporter. Here are the parts:

• Part 1 - Introduction & Overview
• Part 2 - Hitting
• Part 3 - Fielding & Total Win Value
• Part 4 - Pitching

Did some fun things here:

• The introduction piece has a nice historical angle to it that I really like.
  
• The position-by-position run above average plots in the position player pieces were a nice way of summarizing the overall team performance.
• The hitting info included full baserunning from baseball prospectus pull park corrections, so I think it's the best available right now for Reds players.
  
• The fielding info incorporated fan scouting data in a semi-crude, but still useful way. Again, I think it's the best available for Reds players.
  
• I also really like the introductory graph for the pitcher piece. People can complain about one metric vs. another, but when all three approaches show the same thing, I think it paints a pretty strong picture.

Well, that's enough patting myself on the back for one day. It's exam week and I have to figure out what I'm going to do if school gets snowed out tomorrow.

BtB Power Ranking Season Reviews

Earlier this week, I completed my season-by-season reviews of all MLB teams. Fun exercise. Here they are:

AL East

AL Central

AL West

NL East

NL Central

NL West

Here's what I wrote about the Reds:

I root for laundry of this color. It was a rough season, but after dwelling in the basement for much of August and early September, a hot-hot-hot streak at the end of the year got them up to 26th place in the rankings and 4th place in the division over the last few weeks. cW% was substantially lower than true W%: 0.441 vs. 0.481. The reason was a slight underestimate of runs scored, and a slight overestimate of runs allowed, plus the fact that even straight-up Pythagoras had the Reds as a bit lucky. This was quite possibly the best fielding team in the National League, but their pitching was just a tad below average. And that, coupled with an offense that flirted with the 0.300 wOBA line for most of the year, spelled disaster. So, for the 9th consecutive season, Reds fans are wondering if next year will be the year they finally win more than they lose again.

And here are the final 2009 Beyond the Box Score Power Rankings. I really enjoyed doing that series this year, even if occasionally was a bit contentious (:cough: Giants :cough:). Very well received, and might go even further next season if we can keep it going. Just need to figure out some strength of schedule adjustments.

Now that I'm done with that series for a while, I have some Reds work I'm planning. Look for a recap of the 2009 season at Red Reporter sometime next week if all goes well. I also have a minor league study about half written up at BtB. Stay tuned...

Barry Larkin for the Hall

I finished a piece last night, running today at Red Reporter, arguing for Barry Larkin's induction into the Hall of Fame. Response has been very positive, with links from BBTF (Repoz) and Rob Neyer, among others. Everyone seems to think that Larkin should get in (as I show, that's clearly supported by the data), but some think he might have some trouble. Hopefully he'll get in before guys like Jeter start appearing on the ballot.

Regarding Mudgate: I will read from a prepared statement

I did it. It's all my fault. Yes, the attendant rubbed the balls correctly and thoroughly. But I cleaned them. With soap. And a Snuggie.

I deeply regret my actions and apologise to my family, friends, and the baseball community. I will accept any consequences that MLB/Dave Duncan/Tony La Russa deem appropriate.

This concludes my statement. On the advice of my lawyer, I will not be taking questions.

Thank you.
Justin

Reds offense

I posted a short article on the Reds' offense at Red Reporter. Excerpt:

As a result, in many cases we like to look at context-neutral offensive stats. There are a number to choose from, but my personal favorite is the one I calculate for Beyond the Boxscore: I estimate runs scored based on linear weights of offensive events (wRC at fangraphs) and baserunning stats from Baseball Prospectus (EqBRR). Based on this measure, after park corrections, through Sunday's games, the Reds trail the Astros 634 runs to 606 runs. Why? Despite their park disadvantage, the Astros rank ahead of the Reds in AVG, OBP, and SLG, as well as baserunning (0 RAA for Astros vs. 9 runs below average for the Reds). The Reds have just been a bit "lucky" in terms of how their offensive events have translated into runs, whereas the Astros have been a tad "unlucky."

The games disparity mentioned above still applies, so you can convert those totals to a rate stat. I prefer wOBA, which has the Reds trailing the Astros 0.319 vs. 0.309 (wOBA uses the same scale as OBP, but properly weights all offensive events--in this case, I'm even including EqBRR baserunning). The Reds rank ahead of only San Francisco by wOBA.

CTrent on Defense

CTrent has a nice article on the Reds' fielding. To my disbelief, he actually quotes me from an e-mail exchange we had:

"Through Wednesday's games, I had the Reds at 49 runs above average in the field," Inaz wrote in an e-mail. "That's an average of two different fielding stats (UZR and a team-level one from Hardball Times), plus catchers. Since 93% of all runs are earned runs, that would mean that we'd add ~46 runs to the Reds' ER if they were an average fielding team, shifting their team ERA from 4.31 to 4.62.

"tRA, which is my personal favorite fielding- and context-independent pitching stat, they have the Reds' actual runs allowed as 73 better than predicted in their model (I'm getting that from the xRR number), which would be ~69 more earned runs than expected. That pushes team ERA from 4.31 to 4.81," Inaz said. "Last one: the Reds' FIP, another fielding-independent pitching stat (this one only looks at k-rate, bb-rate, and hr-rate), puts the Reds expected team ERA at 4.66 compared to their ERA of 4.31. That one matches up well to the first estimate."

Pretty fun to see my crap alongside quotes by Baker, Arroyo, and Rolen, even if I'm clearly the least articulate of the bunch. :)

It's probably pretty obvious, but the e-mail exchange between myself and CTrent led directly to my fielding post at Red Reporter, which comes at this stuff from a slightly different angle.