Chronicles of the lads is working on converting the Probabilistic Model of Range numbers to runs. Start with the previous link and work forward in time.
Update: It’s open source basebal research!
Posted by David Pinto at 7:49 pm | Defense | Permalink | No Comments
January 31, 2005
Knee Deep
If you’re planning a trip to Arizona to see Barry Bonds swat home runs, you need to go in late March. Bonds will be recovering over the next six weeks from knee surgery.
Posted by David Pinto at 4:20 pm | Injuries | Permalink | 1 Comment
January 31, 2005
Rearranging the Divisions
Baseball Think Factory links to an article in which Jim Bowden suggests that divisions should be arranged by revenue so that more teams have a shot at the post season.
It’s not really a bad idea, although revenue shouldn’t be the standard. There are low revenue teams that do win, after all. I like [...]
Posted by David Pinto at 4:10 pm | Division Races | Permalink | 15 Comments
January 31, 2005
Probabilistic Model of Range, Centerfielders
Here is the table lising 2004 centerfielders on the field for 1000 balls in play.
Probabilistic Model of Range, Centerfielders, 2004, 1000 balls in play.
Player
InPlay
Actual Outs
Predicted Outs
DER
Predicted DER
Difference
Wily Mo Pena
1211
144
135.42
0.119
0.112
0.00708
Corey Patterson
3830
324
301.71
[...]
Posted by David Pinto at 1:40 pm | Defense | Permalink | 11 Comments
January 31, 2005
The Price of Sosa
Ivy Chat has a good handle on how much the Sosa trade is costing each side in terms of Sammy’s salary.
Posted by David Pinto at 1:02 pm | Trades | Permalink | 4 Comments
January 31, 2005
Thoughts on Range
There’s a great discussion of the Probabilistic Model of Range going on at Dodger Thoughts. I was going to leave the following comment, but I keep getting an error so I’ll leave it here.
I think it’s important to realize that I’m not measuring total defense here, I’m simply trying to measure range. So [...]
Posted by David Pinto at 12:59 pm | Defense | Permalink | 1 Comment
January 31, 2005
Phillies Phielding
Tom G likes what the Probabilistic Model of Range is telling him about the Phillies defense and the composition of the pitching staff.
Posted by David Pinto at 12:35 pm | Defense | Permalink | No Comments
January 31, 2005
Nomar Trade
Edward Cossette and others have raised objections to my characterization of the Nomar deal (see comments). Edward writes:
To me, your data only confirms the veracity to Theo’s reasoning that defense was the reason for the trade.
As others have pointed out, Epstein didn’t have the luxury of hoping that Nomar was just “rusty.”
Indeed, isn’t that [...]
Posted by David Pinto at 8:38 am | Defense | Permalink | 2 Comments
January 30, 2005
Probabilistic Model of Range, Second Basemen
Here’s the table for major league second basemen in 2004. Again, fielders are included if they were on the field for 1000 balls in play.
Probabilistic Model of Range, Second Basemen 2004, 1000 balls in play.
Posted by David Pinto at 5:33 pm | Defense | Permalink | 5 Comments
January 30, 2005
What a Catch!
Mike Piazza was married Saturday to Alicia Rickter of Playboy and Baywatch fame.
I guess this means he’s not gay. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Posted by David Pinto at 11:44 am | Other | Permalink | 7 Comments
January 29, 2005
Probabilistic Model of Range, Shortstops
It’s time to start looking at individual players. We’ll start with the position to get the most opportunities, the shortstops. As the following table shows, it wasn’t a great season for these middle infielders.
Probabilistic Model of Range, Shortstops 2004, 1000 balls in play.
Player
InPlay
Actual Outs
Predicted Outs
DER
Predicted DER
Difference
Pokey Reese
1532
206
200.75
[...]
Posted by David Pinto at 5:40 pm | Defense | Permalink | 23 Comments
January 29, 2005
Probabilistic Model of Range
I’ve been working on the software for this during the week, and have acquired updated ball in play data as well. I’m now ready to go full bore with the study.
First, however, an update of a couple of tables shown previously. The good people at Baseball Info Solutions have been busy recording batted [...]
Posted by David Pinto at 3:36 pm | Defense | Permalink | 1 Comment
January 29, 2005
K-Mart Special
The Chicago Sun-Times has more on the Sosa trade story, speculating that Jorge Julio might be in the deal as well. Julio does one thing well, strike out batters. Unfortunately, he also does two things not so well; he walks a lot of batters and gives up a lot of home runs.
Hairston or [...]
Posted by David Pinto at 8:47 am | Trades | Permalink | 8 Comments
January 28, 2005
Orange Sosa?
There’s an unconfirmed report that Sammy Sosa is being traded to the Orioles. It looks like the Cubs will get Jerry Hairston and two prospects and still have to pay most of Sosa’s 2005 salary. Unless these prospects turn out to be Trammell and Whitaker, it doesn’t sound like a great deal for [...]
Posted by David Pinto at 11:10 pm | Trades | Permalink | 11 Comments
January 28, 2005
Three Beane Soup
Athletics Nation has a three part interview with Billy Beane, starting here. The Baseball Crank links to the interview and pulls out his favorite excerpts, if you don’t have time to read the whole thing.
It appears that Mr. Beane reads blogs and has high praise for them.
I’ve always felt this incredible support from the [...]
Posted by David Pinto at 12:27 pm | Interviews | Permalink | No Comments
January 28, 2005
Sick Jay
Jay Jaffe lets loose on the Yankees at Futility Infielder. I’m in agreement on so many things it’s difficult to pick one out, but this one’s my favorite:
I’m sick of being told how much better off the Yankees were with Tino Martinez than they are with Jason Giambi, and that they should have never [...]
Posted by David Pinto at 11:40 am | Fan Rant | Permalink | 4 Comments
January 28, 2005
Left Out
Sabernomics has noticed an anomaly among Hispanic baseball players; there are fewer lefties and he’s wondering why.
Maybe non-Hispanic switch-hitters are more likely to give up batting from the right side than Hispanics? This was my first thought, but the fact that the shortage of lefties occurs among pitchers as well leads me to think its [...]
Posted by David Pinto at 10:26 am | Players | Permalink | 10 Comments
January 28, 2005
Barry Bye-Bye
It looks like Barry Larkin is about to retire. Larkin’s doing a number of non-baseball activities this winter:
None of those pursuits, you might notice, have anything to do with playing shortstop in the major leagues.
Does this mean Larkin’s playing career is officially over? He won’t say those words directly, but it doesn’t take much [...]
Posted by David Pinto at 8:48 am | Players | Permalink | 5 Comments
January 27, 2005
Dream Come True
Eric Brown has a blog about spending a week at Mets Fantasy Camp. (Hat tip SaberMets.) Be sure to read about his great AB vs. John Stearns.
Posted by David Pinto at 6:38 pm | Blogs | Permalink | 2 Comments
January 27, 2005
Bended Knee
There are lots of Joe Mauer knee bending sightings over at Batgirl.
Posted by David Pinto at 1:32 pm | Injuries | Permalink | No Comments
January 26, 2005
Another Local Team!
Independent Thinking notes that Worcester, MA will have an independent league team in 2005. My mother-in-law lives just outside the city, so we’ll probably catch some games there this summer.
Posted by David Pinto at 11:19 am | Independent Leagues | Permalink | 1 Comment
January 26, 2005
Replacement Value
Sabernomics is looking for information on calculating the true value of a replacement player. He argues that it should not be league minimum.
Regardless of exact magnitude of the exploitation, certainly we can say the that teams receive more in value from reserved players than the wage they pay out to these players. To acquire [...]
Posted by David Pinto at 11:08 am | Management | Permalink | No Comments
January 26, 2005
Sabermetric Tracking
Red Sox Stats is a site that tracks sabermetric numbers for the Red Sox and their minor leaguers. It also maintains stats for all major league players. A useful reference.
I also learn from the site that the Mets got their second choice, trading for Boston first baseman Doug Mientkiewicz. Boston may have [...]
Posted by David Pinto at 8:28 am | Statistics | Permalink | 4 Comments
January 25, 2005
Gone Fishin’
Carlos Delgado has agreed to a deal with the Marlins which should net him close to $13 million a season for at least four years. A nice pickup for the Marlins. The Marlins got 14 win shares out of their first basemen last year. Delgado contributed 17 in a partial season. [...]
Posted by David Pinto at 6:37 pm | Free Agents | Permalink | 4 Comments
January 25, 2005
A Friend in Need
Baseball Think Factory has opened up a thread on Larry Mahnken’s disaster. Larry writes Replacement Level Yankees Blog as well as contributing to The Hardball Times. He’s also a frequent and excellent commentor on this site. Larry lost everything in a fire at his apartment building last night. If you can spare [...]
Posted by David Pinto at 10:11 am | Blogs | Permalink | 2 Comments
January 25, 2005
Iguchi Goochy Goo
The White Sox are about to add Tadahito Iguchi to their roster, their second Japanese import in two seasons. Iguchi will play second base.
At SoxFest earlier this month, Williams told a crowd of about 1,000 fans that the way they embraced reliever Shingo Takatsu last season was a big topic of discussion among Japanese [...]
Posted by David Pinto at 8:20 am | Free Agents | Permalink | 8 Comments
January 24, 2005
Asterisks?
Here’s one way to handle records set while using steroids.
Posted by David Pinto at 7:10 pm | Cheating | Permalink | 2 Comments
January 24, 2005
Behind the Pitcher
Update: I have improved data for the models, so I’ve updated the tables in a new post. They are in the extended entry. The order changes a little, but not enough to make a big difference.
Something easy for me to do with the software I’m developing is to look at the defense behind [...]
Posted by David Pinto at 6:23 pm | Defense | Permalink | 12 Comments
January 24, 2005
Maybe He Wanted to be on the Cubs?
Nina Maxwell writes:
I thought this would be of interest to your readers–Florida Marlins pitcher Al Leiter teamed up with 1-800 Flowers and eBay to auction off a handmade teddy bear this week, and all the bid proceeds go directly to Save the Children. This is a wonderful charity doing great work particularly now, in light [...]
Posted by David Pinto at 12:51 pm | Other | Permalink | No Comments
January 24, 2005
Age Old Problems
The Astros signing ancient reliever John Franco prompts Mike’s Baseball Rants to explore teams with old rosters. He looks at the teams with the most 40 year-olds on the roster. Not a lot of successful teams in the list although the 1958 Yankees won the World Series with four forty year olds.
Posted by David Pinto at 9:32 am | Team Evaluation | Permalink | No Comments
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