Table of Contents

Loading...

Sunday, April 13, 2008

Markov: Dusty Baker's lineups aren't half bad

Update: Due to several errors with how I was using John Beamer's Markov model, this study is frankly a load of hooey. I am leaving it here for archival purposes, but please disregard pretty much everything here. Sorry about that--I had done several checks to be sure I was "doing it right," but it turns out that the specific ways I was thinking about the input were absolutely incorrect. Embarassing to say the least, but that's what happens with research now and then...

I'll post an updated version of this study when I get a chance. The results are far less surprising, and much more in line with other work on lineups than these were.

There was a chorus of complaints from Reds' faithful over the Reds' opening-day lineup, and this has continued in reaction to subsequent lineups over the Reds' first two weeks of play. I asked folks to submit to me what they felt the opening day lineup should have been in a "Can you make a better lineup than Dusty Baker" contest of sorts.

I've now taken those lineups and, with the help of PECOTA '08 projections, I've plugged them all into John Beamer's Markov Chain spreadsheet that came with the Hardball Times 2008 Annual. The results surprised me, and I expect that they'll surprise a good number of you as well.

Background - Evaluating Lineups (you can skip if you want)

The past several years have seen increasingly sophisticated work done in the area of lineup construction. Among the most widely-publicized tools that stems from this effort is David Pinto's lineup tool, which I first discussed roughly two years ago. It is based on a set of studies that used linear regressions to relate player OBP and SLG at each lineup position to runs scored. Those regressions indicated that we should make some changes to how lineups have traditionally been designed. Around the same time, The Book was published; it used a different approach, but arrived at many of the same conclusions. Check out my old post for details.

The problem with approach upon which Pinto's tool, in particular, is built is that a lineup is an incredibly dynamic thing. Regressions just report typical relationships between OBP and SLG across different lineup spots based on how MLB managers have filled out their lineup cards in the past. That's a different thing from having a tool that you can use to try out radically different lineups, as Pinto's tool permits one to do. For example, if you hit the pitcher 1st, that will have large effect on the run-producing opportunities of the #2 and #3 hitters compared to hitting an on-base machine like Scott Hatteberg 1st. In other words, the player placed into each of the lineup slots will have direct effects on the opportunities of all other players in the lineup, and the consequences of a seemingly minor substitution might not be immediately apparent. Regression simply will not capture these interactions.

Enter Markov Chains. Markov chain models are models that organize complicated processes into steps. At each step, you input a certain probability that a variety of specific events will occur. The result is a series of branching event chains, which are then summarized according to their probabilities. John Beamer described them here in his introduction to his model.

It turns out that this is a great way to model a lineup's performance--if you can input the chances of different offensive events happening for each player (using, for example, PECOTA projections), you can have Markov step through a lineup throughout a game, keeping track of outs and innings, all the while keeping track of the entire range of possibilities in terms of offensive production. In other words, if you can design a Markov model that fits the game of baseball, and give it accurate data, it will provide you with more precise estimates of offensive production by a lineup than with the regression coefficients can ever hope to do because it actually attempts to simulate baseball.

In the 2008 THT Annual, John Beamer released an excel-based Markov chain model that is apparently capable of accurately modeling baseball just as I described above. It is probably the best publically-available tool for lineup analysis.

2008 Opening Day

First, let's look at the Opening Day lineup, isolating our choices to only those players that Dusty chose to play (i.e. no Joey Votto, no Jay Bruce, etc). That way, we can focus more on the effect of moving players around the batting order, and less on player substitutions.

Below is a table of the Reds' opening day players, along with their 2008 PECOTA projections broken down into my favorite set of diagnostic stats:

Last First PA %K %BB BABIP AVG OBP SLG ISO OPS lwts_RC R/G wOBA
Patterson Corey 458 16% 5% 0.306 0.268 0.307 0.402 0.134 0.709 56.3 4.76 0.300
Keppinger Jeff 514 6% 8% 0.317 0.305 0.364 0.418 0.113 0.781 70.6 5.82 0.336
Griffey Ken 435 16% 11% 0.283 0.268 0.350 0.480 0.213 0.830 65.7 6.20 0.354
Phillips Brandon 629 16% 6% 0.302 0.274 0.325 0.444 0.170 0.769 86.4 5.43 0.324
Dunn Adam 579 25% 16% 0.298 0.261 0.388 0.549 0.288 0.937 103.0 7.73 0.392
Encarnacion Edwin 561 16% 8% 0.308 0.285 0.356 0.493 0.208 0.850 88.5 6.51 0.354
Hatteberg Scott 278 9% 11% 0.296 0.285 0.368 0.440 0.155 0.808 40.3 6.12 0.352
Valentin Javier 208 12% 9% 0.287 0.269 0.333 0.424 0.155 0.757 27.1 5.22 0.327
Pitcher Pitcher 363 35% 3% 0.202 0.123 0.156 0.153 0.030 0.309 ---
 ---
 ---
Note: Markov pays no attention to plate appearances, except to generate frequencies of each even happening. Therefore, it doesn't matter if a player has 200 or 500 PA's, what matters are the number of singles, doubles, strikeouts, walks, etc, per plate appearance. Also, Markov doesn't know about lefty/right splits--it just assumes an average pitcher, who is mostly (but not entirely) right-handed. :)

I received 14 different lineups from users both here and at RedsZone, and I threw in a few of mine own as well. There are actually 9! = 362,880 possible lineup combinations of these nine players (counting the pitcher slot) that we could theoretically try, but I think these represent a good part of the diversity of recommendations that most folks might like to try. Below, I list all of those lineups, as well as the Markov-based estimate of runs per game that those lineups could be expected to provide. The +/- Baker column lists the season-level differences in performance of each lineup compared to Dusty Baker's true opening day lineup (in italics).

Name 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th 9th R/G R/162G vBaker
Bluzer-OD Keppinger Hatteberg Phillips Dunn Griffey Encarnacion Patterson Valentin Pitcher 4.90 793.6 4.5
Chris-OD2 Keppinger Encarnacion Dunn Phillips Griffey Hatteberg Patterson Valentin Pitcher 4.89 792.9 3.8
Pickoff-OD Keppinger Encarnacion Dunn Griffey Phillips Hatteberg Patterson Valentin Pitcher 4.88 790.5 1.4
Baker-OD
 Patterson Keppinger Griffey Phillips Dunn Encarnacion Hatteberg Valentin Pitcher 4.87 789.1 0.0
AVG-rank Keppinger Encarnacion Hatteberg Phillips Patterson Griffey Valentin Dunn Pitcher 4.86 788.1 -1.0
brad-OD1 Keppinger Hatteberg Griffey Dunn Encarnacion Phillips Patterson Valentin Pitcher 4.86 787.6 -1.5
SLG-rank Dunn Encarnacion Griffey Phillips Hatteberg Patterson Valentin Keppinger Pitcher 4.86 786.8 -2.3
OPS-rank Dunn Encarnacion Griffey Hatteberg Keppinger Phillips Valentin Patterson Pitcher 4.84 783.4 -5.7
OBP-rank Dunn Keppinger Hatteberg Encarnacion Griffey Valentin Phillips Patterson Pitcher 4.83 782.7 -6.4
texasdave-OD Keppinger Hatteberg Dunn Encarnacion Griffey Phillips Valentin Patterson Pitcher 4.80 777.7 -11.4
Chris-OD Keppinger Hatteberg Encarnacion Dunn Griffey Valentin Phillips Patterson Pitcher 4.79 775.7 -13.4
jinaz-OD Encarnacion Dunn Keppinger Griffey Hatteberg Phillips Valentin Patterson Pitcher 4.77 772.2 -16.9
jinaz-OD-exploit Encarnacion Dunn Hatteberg Griffey Keppinger Phillips Valentin Patterson Pitcher 4.76 771.5 -17.6
Trace's Daddy-OD Hatteberg Dunn Griffey Phillips Encarnacion Keppinger Valentin Patterson Pitcher 4.76 770.7 -18.4
justincredible-OD Hatteberg Keppinger Griffey Dunn Phillips Encarnacion Patterson Valentin Pitcher 4.75 770.0 -19.1
OesterPoster-OD Hatteberg Keppinger Griffey Dunn Phillips Patterson Encarnacion Valentin Pitcher 4.74 768.0 -21.1
mlbfan30-OD Hatteberg Keppinger Dunn Encarnacion Griffey Phillips Patterson Valentin Pitcher 4.72 764.8 -24.3
Degenerate-OD Hatteberg Keppinger Dunn Encarnacion Griffey Phillips Patterson Valentin Pitcher 4.72 764.8 -24.3
fareast-OD Hatteberg Keppinger Phillips Griffey Dunn Encarnacion Valentin Patterson Pitcher 4.70 761.4 -27.7
brad-OD2 Hatteberg Dunn Encarnacion Griffey Phillips Keppinger Patterson Valentin Pitcher 4.69 760.6 -28.5
joel-OD1 Hatteberg Dunn Encarnacion Griffey Phillips Patterson Valentin Pitcher Keppinger 4.68 758.9 -30.2
redsmanrick-OD Hatteberg Dunn Encarnacion Griffey Keppinger Phillips Patterson Valentin Pitcher 4.66 755.5 -33.6

All I can say is "wow." Dusty's lineup didn't come out as #1, but it was darn hard to beat, and only an estimated 5 runs per season behind Bluzer's top-rated lineup.

Think about that. Baker's lineup violates one of the biggest "rules" for lineup construction that us stat people harp on--his leadoff hitter is projected to have a miserable 0.307 OBP this season. And yet, the interactions between players in his lineup are such that his lineup results in more wins per season than most other variants...at least, according to Markov. My own lineups, which I designed based largely on the lineup chapter in The Book, rated as a fairly middle-of-the-pack lineup, and came out a good 17 runs (~1.5 wins) behind Baker's model. And some of the user-submitted lineups, which look very reasonable to my eye, came out more than 30 runs per season behind Baker's. Again, "wow."

A few other observations and interpretations:
  • The range of performances of different lineups was about 38 runs per season, despite all lineups featuring the exact same players. That's almost 4 wins worth of variation! More than I expected to see.
  • Lineups with Keppinger leading off did better than lineups with Hatteberg leading off, despite them being rather similar hitters according to PECOTA--both are high OBP guys, though Hatteberg projects to have more power.
  • Most of the "best" lineups have Phillips batting in the 5th spot or higher in the lineup. Many of the "worst" lineups (like mine) have Phillips batting in the 5th spot or lower.
  • None of the lineups that bat Dunn in the #2 spot do very well, despite his crazy-high OBP.
  • My "idiot" lineups, in which I just ranked players by a rate stat like OPS, did pretty well for themselves (better than my "smart" ones). Ranks by AVG did particularly well, despite batting Dunn 8th!
Markov also can report how often each lineup slot will lead off an inning for any lineup configuration. Here is Baker's lineup, as well as the top-5 and bottom-5 lineups, broken down by how many innings each slot led off (on average):

 Lineup Slot - # Innings led off
Lineup Name 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 StDev
Baker-OD 1.76 0.77 0.81 0.95 1.04 0.86 0.89 0.85 1.06 0.30
Top 5 Lineups









Bluzer-OD 1.80 0.78 0.79 1.08 0.95 0.85 1.15 0.88 0.72 0.33
Chris-OD2 1.81 0.77 0.79 1.03 1.02 0.88 1.13 0.83 0.73 0.33
Pickoff-OD 1.86 0.77 0.78 1.03 0.97 0.89 1.14 0.83 0.73 0.35
AVG-rank 1.78 0.77 0.68 1.01 1.05 0.89 1.13 0.92 0.78 0.33
brad-OD1 1.8 0.8 0.8 1.1 1 0.9 1.1 0.9 0.7 0.33
Bottom 5 Lineups









Degenerate-OD 1.80 0.77 0.79 1.38 0.93 0.86 0.90 0.83 0.73 0.36
fareast-OD 1.82 0.76 0.68 1.37 0.95 0.82 0.90 0.85 0.85 0.36
brad-OD2 1.84 0.77 0.79 1.38 0.93 0.80 0.86 0.90 0.72 0.37
joel-OD1 1.82 0.82 0.67 1.37 0.96 0.80 0.87 0.90 0.78 0.37
redsmanrick-OD 1.84 0.77 0.79 1.38 0.93 0.81 0.87 0.89 0.72 0.37

Observations:
  • Baker's lineup is very different from the others:
    • It has the lowest frequency with which the leadoff hitter would lead off innings, though only by a small amount. Still, it might be enough to help diminish the problem of Patterson leading off.
    • It has the highest frequency with which the #3 hitter would lead off innings. The #3 hole is the spot in the lineup that most frequently bats with two outs and runners on in real baseball, but Baker's lineup might reduce this effect compared to the others.
    • Baker's lineup also has the pitcher leading off innings more often than any other lineup. That can't possibly be a good thing, can it?
  • Top-5 lineups vs. Bottom-5 lineups
    • The #4 slot leads off innings an awful lot for the bottom-5 set of lineups. This is typically a power hitter spot (either Griffey or Encarnacion in these cases), so you'd normally want runners on base when they're hitting. This problem is minimized in Baker's lineup.
    • One really neat finding: the standard deviation among lineup slots in the frequency with which they led off was consistently lower for "good" lineups then for "bad" ones. This might mean that the "bad" lineups have more bottlenecks that tend to kill innings, resulting in certain lineup spots being more likely to lead off the next inning. So, perhaps good lineups distribute the best hitters around the lineup more than poor ones?
...I'd like to do a bit more with these data, breaking down the different lineups based on their rate stats, but this has taken long enough to get written as it is. So, let's move on to the Best of the Organization lineups.

Best of the Organization Lineups

The other set of lineups I requested involved folks' choice of any players from within the Reds' organization. I received 26 of these lineups. Here they are, again along with Dusty Baker's opening day lineup, as well as a few of his others from the first week.

Name 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th 9th R/G R/162G vBaker
mikegrayson-Best Bruce Keppinger Griffey Dunn Encarnacion Phillips Votto Ross Pitcher 5.01 811.3 22.2
brad-Best Keppinger Votto Bruce Dunn Griffey Encarnacion Phillips Valentin Pitcher 5.00 810.3 21.2
Chris-Best1 Keppinger Dunn Griffey Bruce Votto Encarnacion Phillips Valentin Pitcher 4.99 808.8 19.7
jinaz-Best-exploit Votto Dunn Bruce Encarnacion Griffey Keppinger Phillips Valentin Pitcher 4.95 802.0 12.9
ED44-Best2 Keppinger Votto Dunn Phillips Griffey Encarnacion Patterson Valentin Pitcher 4.95 801.9 12.8
Alex-Best Keppinger Votto Dunn Phillips Griffey Encarnacion Patterson Valentin Pitcher 4.95 801.9 12.8
Alex-best3 Freel Keppinger Dunn Phillips Griffey Encarnacion Votto Valentin Pitcher 4.94 799.7 10.6
Baker-Game4 Patterson Keppinger Griffey Phillips Dunn Encarnacion Votto Valentin Pitcher 4.93 798.0 8.9
ED44-Best Keppinger Bruce Dunn Phillips Griffey Votto Encarnacion Valentin Pitcher 4.92 797.7 8.6
Chris-Best2 Bruce Keppinger Encarnacion Dunn A_Phillips Griffey Phillips Hanigan Pitcher 4.90 794.0 4.9
justincredible-Best Votto Keppinger Griffey Dunn Phillips Bruce Encarnacion Ross Pitcher 4.88 789.8 0.7
mlbfan30-B Votto Keppinger Dunn Encarnacion Griffey Phillips Bruce Valentin Pitcher 4.88 789.8 0.7
Baker-OD Patterson Keppinger Griffey Phillips Dunn Encarnacion Hatteberg Valentin Pitcher 4.87 789.1 0.0
Alex-best2 Hopper Keppinger Dunn Phillips Griffey Encarnacion Votto Valentin Pitcher 4.85 785.7 -3.4
redsmanrick-best Votto Dunn Encarnacion Griffey Keppinger Bruce Phillips Ross Pitcher 4.85 785.6 -3.5
Enquirer-vsR Votto Dunn Encarnacion Bruce Griffey Phillips Valentin Keppinger Pitcher 4.84 783.9 -5.2
jinaz-Best Votto Encarnacion Dunn Phillips Griffey Bruce Keppinger Valentin Pitcher 4.83 782.0 -7.1
joel-Best1 Votto Dunn Encarnacion Griffey Bruce Phillips Valentin Pitcher Keppinger 4.81 779.8 -9.3
brad-Best Votto Dunn Encarnacion Griffey Bruce Phillips Keppinger Valentin Pitcher 4.80 778.4 -10.7
joel-Best2 Keppinger Dunn Phillips Bruce Encarnacion Griffey Ross Pitcher Gonzalez 4.80 778.2 -10.9
joel-Best3 Keppinger Dunn Phillips Encarnacion Griffey Patterson Ross Pitcher Hatteberg 4.79 776.5 -12.6
DannyB-B Keppinger Dunn Griffey Encarnacion Votto Phillips Hopper Valentin Pitcher 4.77 773.2 -15.9
texasdave-B Keppinger Votto Dunn Encarnacion Griffey Phillips Ross Hopper Pitcher 4.76 771.3 -17.8
fareast-Best Votto Phillips Griffey Dunn Bruce Encarnacion Gonzalez Ross Pitcher 4.76 770.5 -18.6
PastAndPending-B2 Freel Keppinger Bruce Griffey Phillips Dunn Votto Ross Pitcher 4.74 767.9 -21.2
Bluzer-B Hopper Keppinger Dunn Phillips Griffey Encarnacion Valentin Pitcher Freel 4.74 767.4 -21.7
Baker-Game2 Patterson Keppinger Griffey Phillips Dunn Encarnacion Votto Bako Pitcher 4.73 766.3 -22.8
PastAndPending-B Hopper Keppinger Griffey Phillips Dunn Votto Encarnacion Valentin Pitcher 4.72 764.9 -24.2
JamesB-B Hopper Keppinger Griffey Dunn Phillips Votto Encarnacion Valentin Pitcher 4.72 764.4 -24.7
redsmanrick-best2 Keppinger Phillips Dunn Encarnacion Griffey Ross Votto Pitcher Hopper 4.71 763.2 -25.9
DannyB-B2 Hopper Dunn Griffey Encarnacion Votto Phillips Gonzalez Ross Pitcher 4.69 759.3 -29.8
Enquirer-vsL Keppinger Dunn Phillips Bruce Encarnacion Griffey Ross Gonzalez Pitcher 4.68 758.7 -30.4
Baker-Game3 Freel Keppinger Griffey Phillips Dunn Encarnacion Hatteberg Bako Pitcher 4.63 750.1 -39.0

Thoughts:
  • Player choice matters: here we see that Baker's opening day lineup can be beat regularly by employing Joey Votto and Jay Bruce in favor of Scott Hatteberg and Corey Patterson.
  • The difference between the best and worst lineups in this case was about 5 wins. That's lower than I expected given the 4-win range in the opening day dataset, but then again the personnel differences among these lineups aren't that dramatic.
  • I was gratified to see that my "exploitative" lineup, which takes advantage of the lack of information in the model about L/R splits and strings together Votto, Dunn, and Bruce in the top-3 slots, did quite well. So I'm not completely hopeless...
  • Mike Grayson's top-rated lineup has Jay Bruce and his projected 0.336 OBP in the leadoff slot, again indicating that the issue of OBP in the 1-hole is less of a big deal than it's often made out to be.
Let's look at the distribution of how often hitters lead off innings from this dataset and see if we see a similar trend to the prior dataset:

 Lineup Slot - Innings led off
Lineup Name 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 StDev
Baker-OD 1.76 0.77 0.81 0.95 1.04 0.86 0.89 0.85 1.06 0.30
Top 5 lineups









mikegrayson-Best 1.77 0.77 0.78 0.94 0.98 0.88 0.91 0.90 1.06 0.30
brad-Best 1.80 0.78 0.77 1.07 0.89 0.88 1.17 0.88 0.77 0.33
Chris-Best1 1.79 0.77 0.77 1.03 0.89 0.88 1.17 0.87 0.83 0.32
jinaz-Best-exploit 1.78 0.77 0.77 1.38 0.87 0.89 0.87 0.88 0.79 0.35
ED44-Best2 1.80 0.78 0.79 1.08 1.02 0.83 1.14 0.84 0.72 0.33
Bottom 5 lineups









JamesB-B 1.77 0.78 0.79 1.03 0.97 0.79 0.91 0.92 1.05 0.31
redsmanrick-best2 1.79 0.80 0.73 0.95 1.06 0.91 1.12 0.84 0.80 0.32
DannyB-B2 1.75 0.76 0.78 1.03 1.02 0.88 0.77 0.93 1.07 0.30
Enquirer-vsL 1.83 0.76 0.67 1.36 0.95 0.81 0.89 0.91 0.82 0.37
Baker-Game3 1.76 0.77 0.78 0.95 1.05 0.86 0.91 0.87 1.07 0.30

Not the same trend. Mostly. The top lineups continue to have a fairly low standard deviation (at least compared to the bottom 5 from the opening day lineups), but we see low variation here among the bottom lineups as well. What's different?

Well, the bottom lineups tend to have inferior players to the better lineups this time around. Norris Hopper appears frequently instead of Corey Patterson in these lineups, which is a poor trade according to PECOTA. And Baker's game 3 lineup includes Freel and Bako instead of Patterson and Valentin.

...

Well, there's obviously a lot more to do on this front. I feel like we've really just started to scratch the surface on this issue. But I wanted to end with a summary of some of the tentative conclusions that I'm taking from this work.

1. There isn't one best way to make a successful lineup. Lineup interactions are such that there may be several very different styles of lineups that each result in similar overall performance.

2. In general, playing the best players is more important than lineup order. That's not to say that lineup order doesn't matter, but a poorly structured lineup with great players can beat a perfectly structured lineup with weak players.

3. Spreading one's best (and worst) hitters out to prevent bottlenecks may be an overlooked yet highly influential means of improving the performance of a lineup. The first dataset indicates to me that it might be more important than some of the other things we tend to worry about (like OBP in the leadoff slot). At the very least, it's worth further study.

4. Seemingly small differences between players can cause substantial differences in lineup performance when they are swapped between lineup spots. It may be that different sets of players may require substantially different lineup designs for optimal production.

5. We fans may not know as much about lineup construction as we think we do. In my case, at least, I'm feeling pretty clueless after working through this project. This post by J.C. Bradbury seems pretty apt. So, I'm inclined to give Dusty Baker the benefit of the doubt with his lineup order at this point...though I reserve the right to complain about personnel choices!


That's about as far as I'm willing and able to go for now. If you have suggestions, specific tests (or specific lineups) you'd like to see done, etc, let me know. I'm happy to continue working on this stuff as my (limited) time permits.

A few caveats and notes:
  • All of the above results are obviously dependent on the quality and reliability of the Markov model upon which they're based. It seems really solid, but we should always keep this in mind. Again, I'll refer to the Bradbury post.
  • As implied above, a different set of players--say, #1-#9 lineup splits for NL teams...not to mention AL teams--might result in very different findings. Such is the nature of this sort of thing.
  • For pitchers and their pinch hitters, I just used 2007 Reds' pitcher totals. Maybe I should have used #9 hitter totals instead, as they would recognize the contributions of pinch hitters. But I didn't think about that until about a minute before hitting "publish post."
  • With some assistance from John Beamer (thanks John!), I modified the spreadsheet to automatically input the actual % times each hitter led off an inning, based on the output of the model. You'll need to do this as well if you want to replicate my results. Drop me a line and I can help ya out on that.
  • I used the standard baserunning tables in the spreadsheet, and I did click the Update SBA button after constructing each lineup. I have no idea how much modifying those baserunning tables might affect the results.
  • I also just wanted to again thank John Beamer for publishing his Markov model with the Hardball Times Annual. If nothing else, it's provided a lot of food for thought!
Photo by Getty Images/Jonathan Daniel

Additional discussion about this project can be found at:
Posted by at 31 comments:
Labels: ,

Saturday, April 12, 2008

Friday Night Links: Goodyear, Dunn's clutchiness, and MLB customer service

Reds headed to Goodyear

With a successful vote by the Goodyear City Council, the Reds are destined for Goodyear in 2010. I still think that this probably is not in Goodyear's best interests. But then again, it apparently is still possible that the Arizona Sports and Tourism Authority could still end up chipping in for a significant portion of the Reds facility, so it might turn out to be a smaller investment on Goodyear's part than we originally had heard. Furthermore, apparently there is at least one financial plan indicating that Goodyear can still accomplish much of what Joanne Osborne previously stated were the priorities for the city alongside the investment in the Reds' facilities. We'll have to wait and see: I'm sure some economist out there will study the impact of these investments at some point. Should make for a decent, low-risk dissertation in five years or so.

But I do think that this move is going to be very good for the Reds, and for the Reds fans who come out here for vacation. Vegas and San Diego's beaches are each just 5.5 hours away (in different directions), so a trip to the Southwest can make for a fine little vacation.

Of course, their arrival in AZ is going to come about two years too late for me. I'm heading to Altoona (or thereabouts) this summer. But maybe we'll come back to visit friends and catch a spring training game while we're here some day in the future.


Is Adam Dunn "unclutch?"

Baseball-Reference now offers splits by leverage, breaking up plate appearances into high leverage (LI above 1.5), medium leverage (LI between 0.7 & 1.5), and low leverage (LI below 0.7). Given that Dunn is the Reds' "unclutch" representative in the Great Clutch Project, we'd expect to see some historical performance dip in the highest of clutch situations, right?

Here are his career stats in those situations, listed as AVG / OBP / SLG / OPS / 1.8OPS

High Leverage - 0.237 / 0.395 / 0.500 / 0.895 / 1.211 in 862 PA's
Medium Leverage - 0.247 / 0.373 / 0.508 / 0.881 / 1.179 in 1573 PA's
Low Leverage - 0.254 / 0.381 / 0.534 / 0.915 / 1.220 in 1700 PA's

So...*maybe* he has a slightly lower AVG and SLG in high-leverage situations, though that's offset for the most part by the higher OBP (via walks). OPS shows a pretty miniscule difference. And if we use 1.8OPS (=1.8*OBP + SLG, which is a better weighting for OBP relative to SLG), any difference all but vanishes.

Also, keep in mind that Dunn is more likely to have faced left-handed relievers in high-leverage situations, because those high leverage PA's are more likely to occur later in ballgames after starters have exited the game. Dunn has an 0.085 OPS left/right split, so this probably works against him in the high-leverage situations.

So given all that, I'm not seeing much (if any) indication that Dunn has historically struggled in high leverage situations...certainly not enough to make for differences in prediction in any given plate appearance.


Great Clutch Project Update

While we're on the subject, here's an update on the Great Clutch Project:
  • "Clutch" players: 0.746 OPS, -0.85 WPA in clutch situations
  • "Unclutch" players: 0.781, +1.22 WPA in clutch situations
EDE's two clutch homers account for +0.95 WPA on the clutch team, the highest total of any player in the project. Where would the clutchers be without him? Insightful commentary, Jeff "I stand corrected" Brantley.


Does MLB treat their fans right?

There's been a series of snafus with respect to MLB's relations with its customers (i.e. the public) of late. Some of these things aren't new, per se, but they all fit a trend:
  • Chris is upset about the sudden removal of condensed games from MLB.tv. And, as StillFlash points out, they've also removed the links to the archives of previously released condensed games. It's almost like they're intentionally provoking people with this move.
  • Red Hot Mama got "red hot" (and not in the good way) about MLB's new (and ridiculous) internet policies when they were announced during spring training. Compare that to the attitude displayed by an NHL representative when talking about their online content: "We actually support people snagging content of ours," Mika said. "We love for our fans to share content and to send the links around. It's something we really encourage."
  • A CPA in Miami is challenging the Marlins' apparently bogus statements that they are losing money. I've only read about a third of it, but it looks pretty darn solid: while he's not the first to identify it, that team has been raking in the money. And yet, by claiming that they're operating at a loss (despite absurdly-low payrolls), they've managed to secure funding for a new publically-funded stadium...which will just bring them more money.
  • Last week, we talked about an unhappy Reds customer.
  • And then there was the whole battle over Extra Innings last summer.
Any large company is going to have problems like this here and there. But MLB, rich with its success, has to my eye become rather brazen with respect to their fanbase of late. At some point, that might come back to bite them.


The Best (Little League) Game Ever

Chad beat me to the punch on this one, but with a hat tip to one of my students, this was a pretty cool video. Can you imagine being (the parent of) a 10-year old playing in that game?



Red Shirt by Captain Kirk Interactions

I love it when someone decides to study something like this objectively. It's particularly funny when they take it to the absurd degree that this guy does. Brilliance.

Hat tip to studes.


Dusty Baker Lineup Project

Believe me, I'm working on it. Work has just been killing me this week. Models have all been run, I'm just trying to figure out some way of explaining the results...they're interesting. :)
Posted by at 5 comments:
Labels: , ,

Saturday, April 05, 2008

Friday Night Links: Clutch Project, Reds' Service, Salaries, and Pete Rose

The Great Clutch Project is Live!

Voting is closed on Tom Tango's clutch project, which I've talked about on this blog here and most recently here. And the project is now live!

As expected, Adam Dunn did not win the fan's vote for The Guy They'd Most Want At the Plate in a Key Situation. Instead, as Tom Tango tells it, there was a very close race between Encarnacion, Griffey, Hatteberg, and Phillips...all of which placed well ahead of Dunn. In the end, Eddie got the nod, so he will face off against Dunn in the Reds' representatives in the project.

You can see the current leaderboards here, and I'm also including a link to it near the top of this page so that you (and I) can find it all year long. Currently, with just ~60 PA per group, the Unclutch group has a lead of almost a full win (according to WPA) vs. the Clutch group, despite Edwin's walkoff homer (+0.67 wins by itself) counting toward the Clutch group's total. It'll be fun to watch. :)


Reds Customer Service

Being a displaced Reds fan, I don't interact with the club much on the level of customer service and community relations. But I don't like hearing about things like this, responding to whether or not Cincinnati is a good baseball town:
Maybe at one point it was. It has lots of history. And a really good team in the Big Red Machine that they can continually run up the flagpole. They still skip work every Opening Day, and have a parade through downtown, which is pretty cool. But Opening Day is their only sellout, and they spend the rest of the season screaming at their best players.

Aside from the local media, who are about the worst I've seen, management of the team has not improved much under Krivsky. And I don't mean player management, I mean day-to-day management of a ballclub. I mean promising season-ticket holders first crack at buying extra single-game tickets (such as for the Red Sox series this year), but then opening the sales to everyone, and letting the scalpers take them all.

I mean holding a special "come watch batting practice at GABP" the Sunday before Opening Day, but then not allowing anyone to sit in the outfield. Seriously, ushers prevented anyone from going into the bleachers and catching homeruns. They didn't sell beer. They gave away hot dogs for free, and cans of pop, but all they had was Diet Pepsi and they had nowhere to recycle the cans.

Speaking of groaning at bunting, the decorative bunting in the stadium was pathetic. It consisted of about 20 half-moons, each about 6 feet long. That's all. For the entire stadium. When I saw it during the BP fiasco, I said "that can't be the decorations for tomorrow. That looks like the remains of whatever survived the winter, whatever is still up from the last day of the season." Nope. Came back the next day, that's all there was, 20 pieces of bunting.

The bunting may a fitting metaphor for the team. Whether it's Encarnacion or the decorations, the end result is a half-ashed effort and poor execution in just about everything they do.

Hat Tip: Tom Tango.

Maybe this is just another case of Internet Fan Sour Grapes. But I'd like to hear from you folks on this. What do you think of the Reds' customer service? Their effort level towards fans? Have things changed since Bob Castellini et al. took over? Or is it just more of the same? If it's more of the same, is that a bad thing?


Reds Salaries Announced

With a hat tip to John Fay, USA Today published '08 opening day payrolls. I've updated my payroll spreadsheet with that info.

There are some differences between the numbers I already had and the numbers in the USA Today tally.. I'm pretty confident in most of my numbers, so if there's a discrepancy, I'm sticking with my data. Heck, Javier Valentin doesn't even appear in the USA Today set, so clearly it's not flawless. I'm also keeping Stanton, plus his $500k buyout on the list this season, despite his recent DFA...that money still exists.

Patterson is apparently making $3 million this year. I pegged him as a $6-8 million player, so I still think this is a fine deal.

Was Pete Rose a lousy infielder?

I'm not much of a Pete Rose fan. I think he's overrated as a hitter and a rather unlikeable person. But I've never heard this knock against him, so I thought I'd bring it up to see how it matches folks' perceptions. Dan Fox's SFR system, which is essentially the same thing as Sean Smith's TotalZone (and usually is a few months behind Smith in development), rates Pete Rose as follows at his infield positions:

Year  Pos       Balls Runners    Diff     SFR    Rate
1963  Second      605     122     -15   -10.7    0.88
1964  Second      458     103      -5    -3.7    0.95
1965  Second      625     112      -4    -2.4    0.97
1966  Second      613     131     -19   -13.9    0.85
    Third        59      12      -3    -2.2    0.77
1967  Second      135      27      -2    -1.5    0.93
1968  Second        2       1      -1    -0.4    0.49
1969  Second        1       1      -1    -0.5    0.26
1975  Third       397      92     -23   -18.0    0.75
1976  Third       486     101      -6    -4.4    0.94
1977  Third       430      85       0    -0.1    1.00
1978  First         3       0       0     0.3    2.67
    Third       441      95      -9    -7.3    0.90
1979  First       307      38      -2    -2.1    0.94
    Third        14       4      -1    -0.5    0.84
1980  First       291      43      -2    -1.9    0.94
1981  First       212      30       0    -0.2    0.99
1982  First       339      47      -4    -3.1    0.91
1983  First       201      30      -1    -0.9    0.96
That's a total of -73 runs below average. Rose ranks in the bottom-10 since the 1950's at both second base and third base. I've seen Rose's arm rated as plus, so I'm particularly surprised that he (apparently) struggled so much at third base. Thoughts?
Posted by at 3 comments:
Labels:
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)