Another reason to scrap the DH

I'm pretty sure this means I'm a bad person, but I'm very uncomfortable with this idea.

The York Revolution have decided to find out by bringing in a former member of the Tampa Rays organization, 3'2 Dave Flood as a pinch-hitting specialist. ... "If I were seven feet tall I'd be putting a basketball through a hoop," said Flood. "I should be able to take advantage of my height to draw a walk. Sometimes this might be leading off a game, sometimes it could be as a pinch hitter with the bases loaded in the bottom of the 9th."

It's probably mostly just a publicity stunt by an indepedent-league team. But the thing is, I can't work out any reason to be directly opposed to this idea that isn't blatantly prejudicial. The only thing I can say is that I think that anyone who plays on offense should have to play defense as well, and vice versa. The only exception in my mind should be pinch hitting or pinch running, where you've chosen to remove a player from a game rather than allowing their weakness to be exposed.

Even then, however, I can't justify a reason to prevent teams from using one of their roster spots for someone who can only pinch hit, and will require a pinch runner if s/he gets on...which they will probably do at least 50% of the time (0.500+ OBP). It'll be interesting to watch this.

Update: Additional discussion at Tango's blog.

Friday Night Links

(I've gotten out of the habit of doing these, but they were fun to do last season and I'm going to try to get back into doing them this season. Otherwise, links just pile up in bloglines and never get shared...)


Will 2009 show an offensive spike?

Early word from hittracker that we might be seeing something interesting this year. My feeling is that this is probably just noise (no matter what the 2-sample t-test says), but you never know.

Update: more on this at Tango's site.


Is baseball's franchise value bubble about to burst?

I didn't see much discussion of this, but I thought Craig's post (and especially his excerpt from Ethan Stock's post) on this was pretty interesting...and something that could be a real problem for a small market franchise like the Reds.

If a team isn't worth as much as it was before, it might not be willing to take on the kinds of liabilities (i.e. player contracts) that it had before for fear of reducing the potential sale value of their franchise. At least, I think that's right (everything I know about economics I learned from Planet Money).


Q&A With Jeff Luhnow at BtB

Really excellent interview with the Cardinals' VP of Amateur Scouting and Player Development at BtB. Here's a good excerpt:

How would you compare advanced insider sabermetrics to public sabermetrics?

Great question. First of all, I am constantly impressed with the quality of the publicly available research on the game of baseball. It is clear that there are numerous very talented and smart people who study the game and develop amazing and true insights. MGL and Tango’s book is a great example of this, as is the work shared and discussed on their website. I’ve had a chance to talk to and work with both of them and they are first rate baseball thinkers. To me, these two and many more like them are an important part of our industry… both in terms of helping shape the game in some ways as well as generating public interest in the analytical part of the game.

As a baseball club, we read much, if not most, of the thoughtful research done on the topics that matter to us. When we know the people and the quality of the work, we consider the findings useful and may even act on them. However, since we don’t control the work and can’t do the quality checks to make sure the data was clean, the methods were up to our standards, etc, it becomes more difficult to act on the conclusions. That drives us to develop our own capabilities, which we have done for the past six years, since fall of 2003 when I arrived at the Cardinals.

Beyond the Boxscore has really improved over the past six months and has become a place I visit daily (at least on days I have time to visit baseball sites). Hopefully it's talent won't get poached as quickly as it did over at StatSpeak, though that is already starting to happen...

How important is fielding?

Two links on this one.

First, Tom Tango came up with a neat way of looking at the value of outstanding fielders that gets away from all these fuzzy math that tries to figure out whether a player should have gotten to a ball:

I selected the best twenty or so infielders (2B, SS, 3B) since 1993. It’s mostly the names you know: Everett, Sanchez, Bartlett, Rolen, Reese, Hudson, Inge, etc.
.....When the star fielders were on the field, their team allowed 4.60 runs per game, and when they weren’t on the field, they allowed 4.83 runs per game. Per 162 games, this difference comes out to 37 runs.....I repeated this exercise with the outfielders: Erstad, Beltran, Cameron, Endy Chavez, etc. Their teams allowed 4.89 runs with them, and 5.00 without them, for a difference of 19 runs per 162 game season......And I did the same for firstbasemen: Minky, Derrick Lee, Tex, etc. They allowed 4.89 runs with these great fielding 1B, and 4.99 without, for a difference of 15 runs......Roughly speaking, that gives us 26 runs (3 parts 37, 3 parts 19, 1 part 15) of fewer runs scored when you have one great fielder on the field, than when you don’t.

So, that's saying that your top-notch defenders give you 25 extra runs a season saved vs. bench. Now, a star offensive player may provide you with 50 or more runs over a bench player with his bat, or more (Pujols was ~75-80 runs over bench last year on offense alone). So fielding isn't as important as offense. But it's important. 20 runs is the difference between a replacement player and an average player in the National League, so fielding can change your evaluation of a player from being a 25th man to being a decent starter (remember Adam Everett?). Or, it can cut your star offensive player's value in half (remember Adam Dunn?).

To that end, John Dewan posted this shortly afterwards, claiming it was "the most significant discovery" of his career:

The worst defensive team in baseball in 2008? The Kansas City Royals. Their defense cost them about 48 runs relative to the average team. Comparing the Phillies and the Royals, the difference between the best and worst defensive teams in baseball was about 130 runs.

Now, remember that number. 130.

The best run-scoring team in baseball was the Texas Rangers with 901 runs in 2008. The San Diego Padres were the worst with 637 runs. That's a difference of about 260 runs.

Here's the discovery, and I found it because the numbers just jumped out. The 130 difference in runs saved on defense is exactly half of the 260 difference in runs scored. That's exactly half. The implication is that defense is worth about half as much as offense.

(John should have said fielding instead of defense, because defense includes pitching.)

Anyway, I think we can reasonably disagree (and we have) that this was a new discovery. It was new to John because he just got around to finally converting his plus/minus stat into a runs-based statistic for his new book. But I don't think it's really new, as we've been talking about how important fielding is to teams and players in a quantitative way for years now. MGL has been posting UZR since at least 2003, for example, and I still consider UZR to be superior to Dewan's plus/minus stat.

That said, Dewan's post was a nice way of presenting the importance of fielding, and it's something that has seemed to resonate with people.

What should we use to estimate player or team offense?

Colin has the first of a two(?)-part series comparing run estimators. It's similar to what I did here, but with two improvements. First, he does more tuning (somehow) to give each estimator a slightly better chance at performing well within each season.

Second, and most importantly, rather than looking at team season totals, he instead uses the statistics to compare offense on a half-inning basis. In other words, for each 3-out sequence of play, which estimator is the best at predicting how well teams perform? This lets him compare run estimators across a huge range of run scoring environments, everywhere from 0 runs (which would be the most common in his dataset) to 10 or more runs in a half inning. In my study, I effectively compared across 3.5-5.5 runs per game, which works out to a range of just 0.4 to 0.6 runs per half-inning. Colin's way is much better because it considers a much larger range of situations.

The results? Base runs wins, though whether you think by a lot or by only a little might be open for interpretation.

It's worth noting that one of the basic reasons that Bill James's RC doesn't do as well here as BsR does (and wouldn't no matter what form of RC is used) is that it won't correctly predict a 1-run inning with a solo homer because home runs aren't given special consideration in RC. Base Runs will predict such an inning perfectly.

The best part is that Colin isn't done yet. As others point out, there are still problems trying to generalize his results to rating individual performances, which is what most of us like to do with these stats. Colin's next effort looks even more promising--looking at matched sets of games that are identical in all counting stats but one. I'm not sure how he's going to pull it all together, but it should be at least an interesting contrast to today's article.

Nick Adenhart

I don't know what to say about this except that it's just awful. It'd be like losing Johnny Cueto the night of his first start last season. A guy who worked his whole life to get where he was, and was just starting to show his promise, and now he's gone. My deepest sympathies to his friends and family. The link at the beginning of this paragraph is everyone's favorite Angels fan, Rally's, take on this. And here is a bit more of a personal story about Nick.


John Brattain

Same as above, except that instead of a young player we have a fellow fan and writer who has left us. I don't earn much in the way of money from running this site, but I had a little bit of cash left over in a Paypal account from a sponsorship I received a few years ago and sent a small donation to THT's collection pot to help John's family. If you can, I encourage you to do the same.


Teaching Baseball

While this will only directly interest you if you happen attend my university (and no, I'm not out of the closet about my baseball life yet, so I'm not ready to share where this is), I have preliminary approval to teach a 2-credit freshman general education seminar on baseball next spring. The goal of these courses is to emphasize interdisciplinary subjects, reading, critical thinking, quantitative reasoning, and also serve as a student retention device. Here's the proposed course description:

Perhaps no other sport relies as much on tradition, hearsay, and loud opinion as baseball. But what is gained (or lost) when these claims are examined using a scientific approach? Can a player really watch the ball hit the bat? Do clutch hitters exist? Do steroids really help performance, and if not (or even if so) should they be banned? Why does a scrub MLB player earn 10x more money than a teacher? We will discuss these and other questions while considering studies from literature from exercise physiology, psychology, economics, and “sabermetrics.”

I hope it goes through all remaining channels, because it's going to be awesome. Reading list currently includes the Psychology of Baseball for sure, and may include JC Bradbury's new book if it's out by then or possibly Vince Gennaro's book. I will probably also supplement with readings from THT Annuals, or web-published studies. And I might even assign The Book.

Hopefully I can convince enough students to geek it out with me to make this class really work. :)


Mulling the future of this site.

The end of the semester is approaching! And while that will be coincident with the arrival of a new baby in our house (i.e. a time & energy suck), it also means that my first year of 12-credit/semester teaching will be over. I will always be busy with this job, but given that I won't likely have semesters with three+ new classes again, the days of spending 3+ hours every night preparing lectures will at least largely be over.

What this means is that I may have a bit more time going forward to toy around on the blog. And one of the things I'm considering doing (among many), since I live only a few miles from the Altoona Curve's home ballpark, is to start doing a little bit of work on the minor leagues. Player valuation, fielding, league comparisons, stuff like that. Some of this would probably include work on the Reds' minors, but it would also include work involving the Curve team as a way of following my local team.

So, I'm thinking about making some changes around here. One possibility that I'm strongly considering would be to make this more of a two-team blog, with content about both Reds and Pirates. Or even just moving away from an explicit focus on Reds altogether (though I'll always have a lot on them, as they'll always be my team). I am concerned that this change in focus might hurt readership, though, so another possibility would be to just start up a new blog to focus on issues related to the Curve and, by extension, the Pirates organization. Feedback is welcome...though part of the decision making process might depend on whether I can get a bitchin' domain name that I want. :)

Man, I looooove winning! Like, it's better than losing!

First win of the year. Votto's kind of a stud, isn't he? I probably need to get more on board with him than I have been around here.

Reds lose a low-scoring game at GABP

The start of a theme for this season? Hopefully we'll win as many as we lose.

13 walks in one game? Must have been freaking cold out there.

Thoughts on the opening day roster

--Opening Day roster:

Outfielders:Jay Bruce, Chris Dickerson, Willy Taveras, Layne Nix, Jerry Hairston Jr., Darnell McDonald

Infielders:Joey Votto, Brandon Phillips, Alex Gonzalez, Edwin Encarnacion, Paul Janish.

Catchers:Ramon Hernandez, Ryan Hanigan

Starting pitchers:Aaron Harang, Edinson Volquez, Micah Owings, Johnny Cueto and Bronson Arroyo

Relievers:Francisco Cordero, David Weathers, Jared Burton, Mike Lincoln, Arthur Rhodes, Daniel Ray Herrera and Nick Masset

Some thoughts:

* The biggie, of course, is Darnell McDonald making the team and starting on opening day. I understand the need for defense if Taveras is ill, but I also tend to think that Dickerson could play there competently in a pinch. I'd rather take a platoon-disadvantaged Dickerson over a platoon-advantaged McDonald, even against Santana. But whatever, it's just a start and there's no reason to think that he'll be around all season in any kind of significant role. Right?

The consequence of this, however, is that Gomes didn't make the team and may not agree to an assignment in Louisville. Yes, his terrible defense curtails his value, but Gomes might a better hitter than Bruce at this point in their respective careers. That sort of bat off the bench, or in a platoon in left, could be awfully valuable to a team that may struggle to put up runs. I hope he does take the assignment to AAA, because I'm sure he will get a chance to play this season.

* Bailey didn't make the rotation, and was sent to Louisville rather than risk losing Nick Masset to waivers. I have to say, while I understand the move on some level, I think this sends a terrible message to Bailey. The kid clearly did everything he possibly could do, drew raves from everyone who saw him, including claims that he'd made more progress in the offseason than he had in the past two years. So what do they do? The same thing you would have done if he'd screwed off all offseason and had gotten lit up in spring training. Part of me hopes that Arroyo is, in fact, going to have to go on the DL, just so Bailey can get back to Cincinnati as soon as possible. It's time for the guy to be on this roster, period. Keeping him down so that the Reds can keep the 7th man in the bullpen under their control leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

* The only other move that looks mildly controversial is Bray being sent to Louisville in favor of Daniel Herrera. But if Bray really has lost 5 mph off his fastball velocity as Baker suggested a week or so ago, then I can't disagree with this. Hopefully it's just a matter of building up arm strength. Because with all due respect to Arthur Rhodes, this team needs a healthy Bill Bray in its pen.

* I have no problem with Janish over Rosales, especially given Alex Gonzalez being the question mark that he still is.

* What, just two catchers? Is that legal?

Update: Here's something I wrote in response to Chad's link to me and the subsequent comments at redlegnation. It basically amounts to a rant, but here it is anyway:

@Chad, I probably stole the 3-catcher comment from your and Bill's podcasts, which I've started listening to now and then on my ipod during my commute. :)

@Nathan (and in general), I'm sure they did have a good conversation with Bailey about this. But we're dealing with a guy who is FINALLY getting where we want him to be from a maturity standpoint. And my feeling is that this is a stupid thing to do to a guy who you're trying to encourage.

If I were Homer, no matter what was said in that conversation, I'd be at the very least disappointed and at worst really pissed off. Opening day roster spots are definitely overrated, and I have no doubt we'll see a lot of him this year. But I think it's the wrong way to handle him. It probably won't make much difference in the long term...but I still don't like it.

As for Masset's experience and the peculiarities of a bullpen gig...what I'll say is that this team won't make or not make the playoffs based on whether they have an experienced long reliever in the bullpen. Masset just doesn't matter very much. What could matter, however, is keeping an encouraged, hard-working Homer Bailey on the staff and exposed to big league hitters every outing early in the season. I mean, seriously, what good is going to come from him pitching effectively in AAA?

I don't frankly care if my long man can only pitch twice a week--you shouldn't need him more often than that with as many pitchers as a modern team carries. As Baker himself said, there are a lot of top-flight starters that made their debut as a long man in the bullpen and spot starter before securing a full time starter job. It's a good way to break in.

Or heck, another choice is to option Herrera and keep both Masset and Bailey. We already have Rhodes for LOOGY duties. Some successful teams don't carry even a single left-hander in the 'pen.
-j

Baby Sheldon

Congrats to beat writer Mark Sheldon on his new child!

first things first -- Congrats are in order to the usual author of this blog and his family. Mark Sheldon and his wife's clan got bigger by one baby boy this morning. Everyone is healthy and happy. So Mazel Tov to the Sheldons and all their family.

Have to say, though...I know you can't always plan these things, but the timing kind of stinks given that the season is just beginning and road trips are on their way.

Then again, thinking as a father of one young child and someone expecting his second in about 6 weeks, maybe that was all part of Mark's plan!

"What? Make another bottle? Change another diaper? Hold the screaming baby? Sorry, babe, I gotta go!"

Keppinger traded for PTBNL

Per John Fay.

What does this do to the team? To try to figure this out, I again used CHONE projections and my playing time allocations from the 5 questions study.

Keppinger previously received 294 PA's with a strong offensive projection. I was already allocating playing time to Rosales, Richar, and Janish, so I had a hard time figuring out who to replace Keppinger with on my roster (Valaika? Gil came to mind, but he's apparently a pitcher now). So instead of moving up a new player, I increased Jerry Hairston's PA's to the maximum allowed by his CHONE projection (about a 90-PA boost, assuming he'd play more shortstop now), and then split the rest of Kepp's PA's evenly between Rosales, Richar, and Janish.

What was the effect of this? Overall team offense projections declined to from 25 runs above average to 20 runs above average. And overall team fielding projections improved from 9 runs below average to 7 runs below average. So, the net effect of this move on the team is probably negligible, and certainly within the margin of error in my estimates here.

I'll be sorry to see Keppinger go, as he was a nice player to have on the roster. Good contact hitter, good plate discipline, and with a history that includes good gap power. Apparently, though, the Reds weren't convinced he'd rebound this year. Maybe there's scouting to back that up. He definitely is a player that needs to hit to have much value.