Now use it to recalculate WAR

[Frobby]

3 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

Way to completely miss the point and deflect with meaningless details.  Mussina and Clemens were probably within a small margin of error in terms of overall value.  But Clemens out-polled Mussina in the Cy Young by three times because 20 assigned pitcher wins were valued by voters more than actual contribution to the team.  With WAR that happens way less often.

I honestly don’t know that WAR has much to do with the fundamental change in attitude about Cy Young voting.    It’s always been a point of discussion that sometimes pitchers benefit from cheap wins and offensive support and other times they’re just unlucky.   I still think the Cy Young discussion mostly hinges on the four old time pitching stats (wins, IP, ERA, strikeouts) but wins have been deemphasized in the discussion.    Partly that’s an evolution in thinking, and partly it’s a reaction to the way the game is being played now, with starters leaving games earlier and earlier and thus being less and less in control of whether they get credit for a win or not.     It was a lot easier to consider wins important when starters were completing half their games and pitching 7+ innings routinely.    Not that the stat didn’t have its obvious flaws then, but it’s even more flawed today.   

[atomic]

37 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

Way to completely miss the point and deflect with meaningless details.  Mussina and Clemens were probably within a small margin of error in terms of overall value.  But Clemens out-polled Mussina in the Cy Young by three times because 20 assigned pitcher wins were valued by voters more than actual contribution to the team.  With WAR that happens way less often.

I don't think using Clemens as an example to prove your point is not where you want to be going. He was a great pitcher.  Arguably the best of all time.   He won so many games because of his consistency.  

Probably not a good idea to use Rod Carew or George Brett as an examples of how players are overrated by batting average either. 

 

[atomic]

33 minutes ago, Frobby said:

I honestly don’t know that WAR has much to do with the fundamental change in attitude about Cy Young voting.    It’s always been a point of discussion that sometimes pitchers benefit from cheap wins and offensive support and other times they’re just unlucky.   I still think the Cy Young discussion mostly hinges on the four old time pitching stats (wins, IP, ERA, strikeouts) but wins have been deemphasized in the discussion.    Partly that’s an evolution in thinking, and partly it’s a reaction to the way the game is being played now, with starters leaving games earlier and earlier and thus being less and less in control of whether they get credit for a win or not.     It was a lot easier to consider wins important when starters were completing half their games and pitching 7+ innings routinely.    Not that the stat didn’t have its obvious flaws then, but it’s even more flawed today.   

That is a good point.   We might never see another 300 game winner.  Verlander is 75 wins away so I doubt he makes it as he will be 37 this upcoming season. 

[Frobby]

21 minutes ago, atomic said:

I don't think using Clemens as an example to prove your point is not where you want to be going. He was a great pitcher.  Arguably the best of all time.   He won so many games because of his consistency.  

Probably not a good idea to use Rod Carew or George Brett as an examples of how players are overrated by batting average either. 

 

Regardless of how great Roger Clemens was, he was extremely lucky to be 20-3 in 2001.   He got 5.74 runs per game of run support, and he left the game while trailing 9 times and yet came away with only 3 losses.    Mussina got 4.21 runs per game of support and only got bailed out twice when leaving while behind.    I’m not going to argue about the Cy Young award, but those are facts that illustrate why W-L record can be very deceiving and have little to do with the skill of the pitcher.    

[atomic]

Anyway the talk of Rodger Clemens just pisses me off about how bad the Hall of Fame is in baseball.  Don't they realize that having the best players of all time not in the Hall of Fame makes the Hall of Fame award less meaningful and weakens it.  Not having Clemens, Rose, Bonds in there along with other guys who should be in there like Schilling , Tommy John etc.

In other sports if a guy belongs in the Hall of Fame they put him in there.  I have no doubt that when Suggs and Yanda retire they will be in the NFL Hall of Fame.  Why is it so hard for baseball to do things the right way.

[foxfield]

On 1/8/2020 at 12:45 PM, DrungoHazewood said:

That's what I say about medicine.  I prefer to take a look at someone and declare that they have The Consumption, or have been overcome by the vapors, rather than rely on some newfangled "test" that gives us hard information on what's up and how to treat it.

So count you in when I am ready to move on from my mimeograph machine?  Got it!

[Satyr3206]

If you are into advanced stats that's fine. I understand most of them and can see using them as a tool. But the Baseball fan in me doesn't like the constant never ending use of them. When I sit down to watch a game I don't want to hear a bunch of stats, I want to watch the game.

Please, no condescending comments. I have my opinion and you have yours.

[Can_of_corn]

1 minute ago, Satyr3206 said:

If you are into advanced stats that's fine. I understand most of them and can see using them as a tool. But the Baseball fan in me doesn't like the constant never ending use of them. When I sit down to watch a game I don't want to hear a bunch of stats, I want to watch the game.

Please, no condescending comments. I have my opinion and you have yours.

I wish the announcers would talk a lot less in general.

[foxfield]

On 1/8/2020 at 12:49 PM, atomic said:

It makes discussing any of this boring.  You just stat WAR or this stat and we have nothing left to discuss as anyone can look up the information.  Really baseball talk has become incredibly boring.  No one mentions batting average anymore or strike outs by batters.  It is just WAR WAR WAR.  

 

WAR....HUH...What is it good for?  Say it again!!!!!  Sorry, couldn't help it.

11 hours ago, DrungoHazewood said:

Yea, it was much better when you had no baseline to put different types of contributions on, or common context, so all value arguments were largely subjective.  If you wanted to say that Omar Vizquel was more valuable than Mike Schmidt you could do it with a straight face. You just say that shortstop defense is 10 times more valuable than slugging and third base defense and... well... there you go.  If you thought Rollie Fingers should win the Cy Young award, go for it, it's all guessing anyway.  All things are possible when you're eyeballing it.

If you think more definitive, contextualized, rigorous data is boring I don't know what to tell you.  Maybe you should move to a primitve area off the grid.  Most of the rest of the world is moving ahead.

I agree with this post.  But that doesn't mean that knowledge and experience are not valuable.   For example on the whole eyeball test.  Who here hasn't heard "Oh my God, that is NEVER going to fit in there!"?  I have been married darn near 25 years and my hand to God, I hear it every single time we go on vacation.  But I put it in anyway and it always fits. I am never surprised and she is always absolutely amazed. And every time I just close the trunk and we roll.  No measurements, no science.  Just the ole eyeball.

 

What...oh you're filthy.  

10 hours ago, atomic said:

Cal had a lot more than 3 errors in 1990.  The scorers were just calling errors base hits.  I was at several games in 1990 when Ripken made obvious errors and they were called hits. 

This is blasphemy..  Don't even start with the whole watering system malfunction.  Well unless it actually turns out that you are Kevin Costner, and if that is the case...well then we want the real scoop.

[DrungoHazewood]

15 hours ago, Frobby said:

I honestly don’t know that WAR has much to do with the fundamental change in attitude about Cy Young voting.    It’s always been a point of discussion that sometimes pitchers benefit from cheap wins and offensive support and other times they’re just unlucky.   I still think the Cy Young discussion mostly hinges on the four old time pitching stats (wins, IP, ERA, strikeouts) but wins have been deemphasized in the discussion.    Partly that’s an evolution in thinking, and partly it’s a reaction to the way the game is being played now, with starters leaving games earlier and earlier and thus being less and less in control of whether they get credit for a win or not.     It was a lot easier to consider wins important when starters were completing half their games and pitching 7+ innings routinely.    Not that the stat didn’t have its obvious flaws then, but it’s even more flawed today.   

It helps to provide another easily understood value metric to take the place of old ones.  People have always wanted a simple way to judge players rather than on their own try to figure out how 18 different elements come together.  With pitchers, for nearly a century, that was wins.  We now know that's kind of ridiculous, and WAR has largely taken its place.

[Frobby]

58 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

It helps to provide another easily understood value metric to take the place of old ones.  People have always wanted a simple way to judge players rather than on their own try to figure out how 18 different elements come together.  With pitchers, for nearly a century, that was wins.  We now know that's kind of ridiculous, and WAR has largely taken its place.

I don’t consider pitcher WAR a simple metric.    I have no idea how it’s calculated, and the results of the two versions vary widely.    I use it, but it wouldn’t carry much weight with me in a Cy Young discussion.

PS - I really dismiss pitcher fWAR.

[Frobby]

On 1/8/2020 at 3:47 PM, Frobby said:

Overall, not a huge difference between the various defensive metrics for the O’s infielders.    Here’s Rtot, Rdrs, UZR and OAA at each position.    Keep in mind that the first three are measured in runs, while OAA is measure in outs (= 0.6 runs per out, I believe).

1B Davis (769 innings): -1, -2 (0), 0.4, 0

1B Mancini (449 innings): 1, 1 (-1), 1.9, 0

2B Villar (733 innings): -2, -7 (-11), -4.6, -7

2B Alberto (612 innings): 5, 2 (5), 4.0, 4

3B Ruiz (843 innings): 1, -5 (2), 1.8, -5

3B Alberto (474 innings) 6, 0 (-2),  -0.6, 3

SS Martin (785 innings): -7, -14 (-8), -4.2, -5

SS Villar (658 innings): 4, -4 (0), -1.4, -4

SS Iglesias (1169 innings): 8, 7 (8), 5.9, 12

Rdrs (the second stat shown) is used to calculate rWAR, UZR (third stat shown) is used to calculate fWAR.

I read today that the method of calculating DRS for infielders has been changed over the winter, for all years dating back to 2013.    Basically, to take better account of shifting.    I’ve put the new numbers in the second column above, and left the old ones in parentheses so you can see how our 2019 players (plus Iglesias) were affected.    The most affected player was Rio Ruiz, who went from +2 to -5 at 3B.    Also, Richie Martin went from -8 to -14.   Ouch!

If you want to read about the details of the change in methodology, you can find the explanation here:  https://sportsinfosolutionsblog.com/2020/03/02/notable-updates-to-defensive-runs-saved/

Shout out to @Enjoy Terror, who posted a thread about the change on the MLB board.