Overrated = Brian Roberts?

[Frobby]

I think RShack has a very valid point here, though when the posts get very argumentative and overly long, that point sometimes gets lost.

His point is this. Joe Fan can watch a game, keep a box score, get a calcualtor and figure out BA, OBP, SLG and OPS very easily. With just a little knowledge, he can even come up with RC or RC/27.

Joe Fan can watch a game, keep a box score, get a calculator and figure out fielding % and range factor pretty easily. But Joe Fan can't even come close to doing the more exotic defensive stats on his own. And Joe Fan knows that fielding % and RF are very crude, kind of like if all you knew about a hitter was BA and RBI.

Joe Fan can spend hundreds of hours reading about ZR, RZR, OOZ, UZR, +/- or whatever else, but at the end of the day he has to trust that the inputs regarding where the ball was hit, etc. were accurately recorded by someone else, and that the criteria were reasonable to begin with, etc. And, Joe Fan can see that the super-experts (James, Tango, Dewan, etc.) don't all agree on which system is best.

The result is: Joe Fan trusts the offensive stats and is suspicious of the defensive stats. Therefore Joe Fan tends to weigh the offesnive stats overly heavily when evaluating players.

Seems like a valid point to me.

[Sports Guy]

I think RShack has a very valid point here, though when the posts get very argumentative and overly long, that point sometimes gets lost.

His point is this. Joe Fan can watch a game, keep a box score, get a calcualtor and figure out BA, OBP, SLG and OPS very easily. With just a little knowledge, he can even come up with RC or RC/27.

Joe Fan can watch a game, keep a box score, get a calculator and figure out fielding % and range factor pretty easily. But Joe Fan can't even come close to doing the more exotic defensive stats on his own. And Joe Fan knows that fielding % and RF are very crude, kind of like if all you knew about a hitter was BA and RBI.

Joe Fan can spend hundreds of hours reading about ZR, RZR, OOZ, UZR, +/- or whatever else, but at the end of the day he has to trust that the inputs regarding where the ball was hit, etc. were accurately recorded by someone else, and that the criteria were reasonable to begin with, etc. And, Joe Fan can see that the super-experts (James, Tango, Dewan, etc.) don't all agree on which system is best.

The result is: Joe Fan trusts the offensive stats and is suspicious of the defensive stats. Therefore Joe Fan tends to weigh the offesnive stats overly heavily when evaluating players.

Seems like a valid point to me.

But at the end of the day, who cares?

It is what it is....So, either except it, use what you have and move or argue about 40 times a day and never get the answers you want.

Which do you think is the way to go?

[RShack]

Are we still discussing defensive stats with Rshack?

Rshack, i have some advice for you(not trying to be smart ass either).....Write to the guys at BP or Tom Tango or Bill James or whatever.

See if they can give you the answers you are looking for.

But I think I understand what the main problems are. Maybe I don't, I certainly could be wrong. But I think I understand, more-or-less. So I'm not really looking for easy answers, because I don't think there are easy answers (yet). At least none that aren't hidden trade-secrets.

I'm not the guy who's saying it's easy and straightforward, and everybody just doesn't understand how good the D-stats are. I already agree that it's hard. I was just trying to boil-it-down, so that everybody doesn't have to make a huge homework project out of it, just to understand where the hold up is, that's all. It's Baltimoron who's saying my understanding is completely wrong, but he wont say how or why it's wrong.

Isn't this kinda-sorta about baseball too? Does everything have to be an argument about a maybe-trade? I used to think that we couldn't talk baseball, we had to talk about only stats and trades. But now it seems we can't even talk about stats unless we just rollover and automatically agree with the people here who like to think they're experts in it. What's up with that?

[Frobby]

But at the end of the day, who cares?

It is what it is....So, either except it, use what you have and move or argue about 40 times a day and never get the answers you want.

Which do you think is the way to go?

So, there are no subjects that you are arguing about 40 times a day at the moment? No points that you have beaten to death?

By the way, just curious, is Andy MacPhail moving quickly enough on trades in your view?

[Sports Guy]

So, there are no subjects that you are arguing about 40 times a day at the moment? No points that you have beaten to death?

By the way, just curious, is Andy MacPhail moving quickly enough on trades in your view?

Well, those things have a point and those things are being argued by the whole board.

Only rshack is arguing this.

[RShack]

Well, those things have a point and those things are being argued by the whole board.

Only rshack is arguing this.

Which proves what, exactly?

That it's somehow more valid to have the 3,576th post about who should come back from the M's?

Any, BTW, exactly what is it that you think I'm arguing? You think it's wrong for me to provide a way to help people understand how D-stats are missing stuff that we have everyday about O-stats?

[Sports Guy]

Which proves what, exactly?

That it's somehow more valid to have the 3,576th post about who should come back from the M's?

Any, BTW, exactly what is it that you think I'm arguing? You think it's wrong for me to provide a way to help people understand how D-stats are missing stuff that we have everyday about O-stats?

To be honest with you, barely read your posts anymore...They really bore me.(not trying to offend you, just my feelings)

And, FWIW, I agree that defensive stats aren't that great and that they are inconsistent but just accept that fact and move on.

Use them as a guide...Use your eyes as a guide and compare the 2.

This really all started because you are on a crusade to make LH seem to be a league average guy. He just isn't unless he defense is off the charts good...Unfortunately, to figure out if he is league average, you need to use stats more than your eyes, even though those stats aren't 100% because you need to weigh it against his offense and figure out how good or bad a guy is.

So, even though you have to use that stats that aren't 100% accurate, it is still the only thing we have.

So, you either accept or continue to ask a bunch of questions that really can't be answered....That is why I suggest to you to go to the source and ask them....I would think they would open to trading emails with you.

[RShack]

To be honest with you, barely read your posts anymore...They really bore me.(not trying to offend you, just my feelings)

In that case, you don't know what I'm saying. In which case, why do you bother responding?

You wouldn't be one to make posts when you don't have a clue about what you're talking about, would you? ;-)

Although, in fairness to you, you're certainly not the only one who snipes without thinking.

So, who should we get back from the M's? We could prolly use some more thoughts about that.

ps: If you want to see the things I say just die, the best way to get what you want is to just ignore them. As a general rule, when I post something about how I make sense of these things, almost nobody pays much attention anyway. My guess is that most folks don't even read them if they're more than 3 or 4 sentences. So, one side-effect of your sniping is that it interferes with the goal of not seeing posts from me. From *your* point-of-view, sniping like this is just counter-productive.

[Sports Guy]

In that case, you don't know what I'm saying. In which case, why do you bother responding?

You wouldn't be one to make posts when you don't have a clue about what you're talking about, would you? ;-)

Although, in fairness to you, you're certainly not the only one who snipes without thinking.

So, who should we get back from the M's? We could prolly use some more thoughts about that.

ps: If you want to see the things I say just die, the best way to get what you want is to just ignore them. As a general rule, when I post something about how I make sense of these things, almost nobody pays much attention anyway. My guess is that most folks don't even read them if they're more than 3 or 4 sentences. So, one side-effect of your sniping is that it interferes with the goal of not seeing posts from me. From *your* point-of-view, sniping like this is just counter-productive.

I never quoted one of your posts or anything like that...I offered advice to find answers and then it went from there.

[RShack]

So, you either accept or continue to ask a bunch of questions that really can't be answered....

Here's an actual question for you (not a smart-ass question). If you're so against the idea of asking questions that we can't answer, then how come you just posted this:

What exactly are the Mariners willing to give up and what is the least AM and the Orioles willing to take for Bedard?

I would love to know these answers.

Isn't that asking questions that we can't answer? Yet stuff like that gets discussed about a million times a week, with people mostly repeating pretty much the exact same stuff they said last week.

If it all comes down to opinion, how come opinions about trades are fine, but opinions about how to best balance the value of a player's O and D are not fine? Why is that?

[Sports Guy]

Here's an actual question for you (not a smart-ass question). If you're so against the idea of asking questions that we can't answer, then how come you just posted this:

Isn't that asking questions that we can't answer? Yet stuff like that gets discussed about a million times a week, with people mostly repeating pretty much the exact same stuff they said last week.

If it all comes down to opinion, how come opinions about trades are fine, but opinions about how to best balance the value of a player's O and D are not fine? Why is that?

Not neccassarily...The question was posed after a M's fan had chimed in...Maybe he has heard something? Maybe there are insiders on the Mariners board or maybe he has a feel based on things said in Seattle but that we don't hear here.

As for your second point, this stuff obviously gets discussed but many people, including myself, have gotten enough answers about it, accepted it and moved on. You don't want accept it.

So because YOU can't accept it, you put everyone else under the same umbrella and talk about how all we care about are trades. Its just bs but it gets the point where discussing it with you is a big waste of time.

[Frobby]

Let's be honest: It's mid-January, very little has happened in the last 4 weeks since the Tejada trade, and we are simply running out of new things to talk about. That is the reason everyone (RShack, SG, me and everyone else) is repeating the same points over and over again, and getting irritated when others do the same thing. That's the reason I promised last week that I simply wan't going to make any more posts about trade rumors or proposed trades, until an actual transaction occurred and was formally announced by the team. I've kept my promise for a solid week now.

So let's be a little kind to each other. We're all bored of this.

[RShack]

I genuinely believe that The Fielding Bible methodology is the best tool out there for evaluating defense and comparing the fielding skills of different players, but it's still incomplete. It doesn't evaluate many aspects of a players defense, such as the strength and accuracy of his throws, the ability to catch and relay throws and to deter opposing base runners from being adventurous. It makes no attempt to evaluate catchers' defense at all. Plus, it's not normalized for the amount of playing time a player gets. If Adam Everett only gets 37 percent of his team's playing time at SS because he's such a pathetic hitter, then Adam's +/- rating drops into a tie for 4th among major league shortstops. Adjust Adam's rating to reflect the number of innings that Troy Tulowitski played, and Adam easily takes over the lead among shortstops by an 11-point margin!

Obviously, Tulowitski was a much more valuable player than Everett, not just because of the runs generated off his bat but because he was able to stay in the lineup and prevent runs on defense where Everett wasn't able to do that.

But if you adjust for playing time and want to evaluate players on defensive ability alone, without factoring in how much a weak bat prevents them from applying their fielding skills to the fullest, then the +/- numbers are the best tool that we have. The Fielding Bible team reviews the videos of every play in every major league game, assessing every ball that's hit by the vector, velocity, and elevation it's hit on, and then record the results. As the system is summarized at the Fielding Bible website,

A player gets credit (a "plus" number) if he makes a play that at least one other player at his position missed during the season, and he loses credit (a "minus" number) if he misses a play that at least one player made. The size of the credit is directly related to how often players make the play. Each play is looked at individually, and a score is given for each play. Sum up all the plays for each player at his position and you get his total plus/minus for the season. A total plus/minus score near zero means the player is average. A score above zero is above average and a negative score is below average. Adam Everett turned in the highest score we’ve had in four years of using the system with a +43 at shortstop in 2006. That means he made 43 more plays than the average MLB shortstop would make.

I can't imagine any better way to evaluate defensive contributions, for the portion of defense that the +/- system covers. Yes, it's unfortunate that the +/- system doesn't include the runs a strong-armed, accurate right fielder prevents or the errors that a fabulous first baseman prevents by scooping throws out of the dirt, but it's still a great beginning. I'm sure that the sabermetricians at The Fielding Bible are working on ways to incorporate those factors in too, as well as assessing what a catcher brings to his team, but they aren't satisfied enough with what they've got up to this point to be willing to publish it.

I can imagine a better one. Which is not to diss the "+/- Play" idea, I agree that it seems like progress. The main problem I have with it (in addition to it being a secret) is that it's all relative. It's like having OPS+ but with no OPS. What's missing is something that tells you how a guy did, what difference he made, apart from how other guys at his position did. What we need is something that can tell us how each guy did on his own, and then compare different guys based on their numbers about that. That's what we do with hitting and pitching, and that's what we need to do about fielding too.

I can imagine a way to do that, one that would replace all the insane silliness about what is-and-isn't an E with something that is both better and a lot more meaningful. Here's an example scenario. Let's say Brooks is still playing, and somebody hits a screamer down the line that would be a double unless Brooks makes one of his hero-plays, OK?

• If Brooks dives and lands on his nose, but it gets by him anyway, then it's a double, just like God intended. Brooks gets no credit but he also gets no penalty.
• If Brooks grabs it and throws the guy out, then Brooks gets credit for saving 2 bases, plus he gets credit for creating an out that wasn't supposed to be an out.
• If Brooks grabs it and his throw is late (or bad, or whatever) and the guy is held to a single, then Brooks gets credit for turning a double into a single.
• If Brooks grabs it and throws it away, such that the batter winds up on 2B, then it's just like it got by him, Brooks doesn't get any credit, but he doesn't take an E either, because what he did made no difference.
• If Brooks grabs it and throws it away, such that the batter winds up on 3B, then Brooks takes a hit for making everything one-base worse than God intended, he turned a double into a triple.

To me, that seems fair. It certainly paints a better picture about the impact Brooks had on that play than anything else I can think of. Of course, the main problem is in how to do it. But we already accept the idea of trusting the judgment of observers. We trust Untrained Observers for E's. We trust Trained Observers to be umpires. And we seem to be adding a new kind of Trained Observers for +/- Plays. If we're gonna trust Trained Observers left and right, I'd prefer to trust them to tell us what we want to know in real-time, and put it in the box score, instead of waiting for some company to crunch numbers for a year and then sell us the secret results.

EDIT: I think we prolly need a few years of "+/- Play" data as a basis to go by before it would be possible to do this decently.

[Migrant Redbird]

Best post in the thread so far, in my opinion. Frobby cuts to the chase and captures my sentiments exactly.

I think RShack has a very valid point here, though when the posts get very argumentative and overly long, that point sometimes gets lost.

His point is this. Joe Fan can watch a game, keep a box score, get a calcualtor and figure out BA, OBP, SLG and OPS very easily. With just a little knowledge, he can even come up with RC or RC/27.

Joe Fan can watch a game, keep a box score, get a calculator and figure out fielding % and range factor pretty easily. But Joe Fan can't even come close to doing the more exotic defensive stats on his own. And Joe Fan knows that fielding % and RF are very crude, kind of like if all you knew about a hitter was BA and RBI.

Joe Fan can spend hundreds of hours reading about ZR, RZR, OOZ, UZR, +/- or whatever else, but at the end of the day he has to trust that the inputs regarding where the ball was hit, etc. were accurately recorded by someone else, and that the criteria were reasonable to begin with, etc. And, Joe Fan can see that the super-experts (James, Tango, Dewan, etc.) don't all agree on which system is best.

The result is: Joe Fan trusts the offensive stats and is suspicious of the defensive stats. Therefore Joe Fan tends to weigh the offesnive stats overly heavily when evaluating players.

Seems like a valid point to me.

Most useful post:

Migrant Redbird,

Read this.

I'm still reading the links (primary and derivative) and trying to absorb the lessons contained therein. I have a feeling that it's going to take me a few days, if not semesters. Great references!

Post I disagree with most. (Discounting the extremely annoying discussions of "precious ones" and "fannies")

To be honest with you, barely read your posts anymore...They really bore me.(not trying to offend you, just my feelings)

Even when Shack is ripping my opinions a new one, I still enjoy reading his posts. I find them very educational. I'm 61 years old and I could fill encyclopedias with what I don't know about baseball, but there is very little which I find more enjoyable than increasing my understanding of it. I absolutely love stats, even as I recognize (or try to recognize) their shortcomings, but I value the judgment of competent scouts more. The problem is, I don't know very many scouts and they don't share their opinions with me unless I subscribe to some very expensive services, so I have to rely upon stats to help me sort out my opinions on baseball players.

And I'll also assure you of one thing. I acknowledge there are significant shortcomings in my store of baseball knowledge, but I'm not going to wait until I know everything before I deign to share some of it with the rest of you.

And now that I've got that out of the way....

I can imagine a better one. Which is not to diss the "+/- Play" idea, I agree that it seems like progress. The main problem I have with it (in addition to it being a secret) is that it's all relative.

I do not have the impression that the +/- system is "secret" at all. BIS explains very clearly how they do it and anyone who wanted to spend the time could duplicate their work by watching all the videos of every ball game that's played, making their own record of the vector and speed of balls in play, recording whether the play results in an out, and compiling all that voluminous data into the +/- ratings which are published for everyone to read. Oh, it's too much work, but you want to audit what they're doing to decide whether they're recording the data accurately and compiling it correctly? Sorry, but that part of the process is proprietary, and rightly so. You are allowed to duplicate their work -- if you could -- but they're not going to turn over their intellectual property for every Tom, Richard, and Harry (me) to populate his own website with, and I don't blame them. It's annoying that there's no electronic copy of The Fielding Bible and I have to manually retype anything I want to quote from it, but I acknowledge that to be the price which I have to pay for using it!

[RShack]

Even when Shack is ripping my opinions a new one, I still enjoy reading his posts.

Thank you for your support.

I do not have the impression that the +/- system is "secret" at all. BIS explains very clearly how they do it and anyone who wanted to spend the time could duplicate their work by watching all the videos of every ball game that's played, making their own record of the vector and speed of balls in play, recording whether the play results in an out, and compiling all that voluminous data into the +/- ratings which are published for everyone to read. Oh, it's too much work, but you want to audit what they're doing to decide whether they're recording the data accurately and compiling it correctly? Sorry, but that part of the process is proprietary, and rightly so. You are allowed to duplicate their work -- if you could -- but they're not going to turn over their intellectual property for every Tom, Richard, and Harry (me) to populate his own website with, and I don't blame them. It's annoying that there's no electronic copy of The Fielding Bible and I have to manually retype anything I want to quote from it, but I acknowledge that to be the price which I have to pay for using it!

I never said (and I don't believe) that the people doing it are doing anything morally wrong by making a buck. I don't expect them to be a charity. (Personally, I think MLB oughta hire them to do both ML and MiL games and then just publish the results online as they evolve. I imagine that MLB is paying them to do that anyway, they just won't tell us.) And I never said I think they're undertaking some plot to score things wrong. I explicitly said that I'm not bothered by relying on trained observers. My point was not to argue about the merits and shortcomings of having decent D-stats be influenced by the free enterprise profit system. I was just talking about baseball stats, that's all. My use of the word "secret" was a comment on the fact that somebody knows the relevant info and won't tell us what the stats say for a whole year. To me, that's keeping them secret. Just because they're motivated by profit, that doesn't mean they're not keeping secrets. They are.

And the secret part *is* the main problem I have with them (along with the scores being relative). That's doesn't mean I think they're doing anything immoral. (The main problem I have with BMW and Mercedes Benz is that their cars cost too much. That doesn't mean I think they're doing anything wrong. I'm not saying the dang gov't should buy me one. I'm just saying their cars cost too much, that's all. Same thing here.) If you're happy waiting a year to get meaningful D-stats and then having to pay for them, that's OK, you can like it, I don't mind. You can like whatever you want. I'm just saying that I don't like it, that's all. What I want is D-stats we can actually use without waiting a year to see them and without having to pay to see them. This is not because I want to undermine anybody's entrepreneurial spirit. It's because IMO stat-users are unlikely to give D the respect it deserves until we get that.

Now, as you may have noticed, the fact that I don't like the secret aspect of it was parenthetical. The main point was that we need good-D numbers that are absolute, not relative. What's your opinion about that? ;-)