Need a little stat help here

[Ohfan67]

29 minutes ago, Frobby said:

I think it would take some serious digging to figure that out.  What was average?  What was the worst, and how many guys were down there?  What was very good, and how many guys were up there?  You’d need to know what the whole curve looked like compared to today.  

There’s a simple stat called coefficient of variation that is designed to compare variances like this. But you are definitely correct that putting the data set together would probably be pretty painful. 

[Morgan423]

19 hours ago, Frobby said:

It is theorized that a team full of replacement level players would win about 47 games. 

I was about to make a snarky comment about the 2023 Oakland A's, but then I remembered that we had a year similar to this when our last competitive window slammed shut, and I made myself sad.  

[Baltimorecuse]

13 hours ago, Frobby said:

Oh, you mean like that famous home runs per game stat that everyone uses all the time?   

It’s just wrong that virtually every stat is stated as an average.   Not even most of them are.  

But what’s your point?  If someone wanted to calculate WAR/game, or WAR/inning, it could easily be done.  But longevity is part of greatness.   Who’s better, the guy who batted .300 for 5 years or the guy who batted .290 for 20 years?  

 

Come on Frobby.  Name a whole bunch of stats that aren't stated as an average when being analyzed.  No one takes career slugging percentage by adding each seasons slugging percentage or OPS.  

[Baltimorecuse]

Here's what I meant about defense.  29 of 30 teams are fielding at 98%.  If there is no measurable difference in efficiency in the whole league.  I think it neutralizes defense as a differentiating stat unless we go to the subjective.  Major leaguers are expected to catch the ball.

Edited July 15, 2023 by Baltimorecuse

[Can_of_corn]

20 minutes ago, Baltimorecuse said:

Here's what I meant about defense.  29 of 30 teams are fielding at 98%.  If there is no measurable difference in efficiency in the whole league.  I think it neutralizes defense as a differentiating stat unless we go to the subjective.  Major leaguers are expected to catch the ball.

The fault is you are going by fielding percentage.

[Chavez Ravine]

The logic of weighting oWAR and dWAR equally makes sense, but are there counter arguments? Were there eras when scoring a run was more valuable than stopping one?

[24fps]

4 hours ago, Baltimorecuse said:

Here's what I meant about defense.  29 of 30 teams are fielding at 98%.  If there is no measurable difference in efficiency in the whole league.  I think it neutralizes defense as a differentiating stat unless we go to the subjective.  Major leaguers are expected to catch the ball.

That some teams are defensively better than others is easily observable but you seem to be arguing that it’s not possible to measure it precisely enough to be meaningful. Measuring differences is the whole point of the statical revolution in baseball that’s been going on for around 35 years now.  If you are saying that the defensive aspect of that revolution has thoroughly failed then how so?

I don’t know what fielding at 98% means, but if 29 teams out of 30 are doing it, then I think I want to know.

 

 

[Hallas]

23 hours ago, Baltimorecuse said:

I listed Belanger's stats and was question how that led to a lifetime WAR of 41.  Notice the question I asked.  "I need a little help here".  Virtually every stat in baseball is stated as an average but not lifetime WAR?  Why is that?  

Now everyone bashes Mateo's offense.  It's not any worse than the immortal Belanger.  The difference is that in today's game SS is supposed to hit.  I haven't seen anything get by Mateo that Belanger would have caught.

Have you seen Belanger play?  I really don't know how old you are so it would help to understand where you're coming from if you have.

 

Total Zone ranks Belanger so far ahead of his peers that he is able to be an all-star caliber SS despite being a zero with the bat.  His 4 best seasons were well over +20 in total zone.  Mateo was +14 last year.  Another thing to keep in mind is that baseball players have gotten better over the last 40 years, and defensive stats are generally scored against the league average.  So even if Mateo is just as good as Belanger was, the difference between Mateo and the league average is much smaller than the difference between Belanger and league average of his era.

 

Lastly, Mateo's wRC+ for 2023 is lower than Belanger's career mark.  We're complaining about Mateo because he's clearly below the inflection point where his negative bat is a bigger liability than his fielding.  Belanger's stat line tells us that you have to be an all-time great fielder to stick around with a negative bat.  If Mateo isn't an all-time great fielder (and I don't think anyone would argue that he is) then he can't stick around with a Belanger-level bat.

 

Regardless of all of this, you are still very much within reason to be skeptical of pre-analytics-era players whose WAR numbers are entirely derived from defense.  While most of it does jive with anecdotes of the time (TZ ranks players like Ozzie Smith, Brooks, and Belanger as all-time great fielders, for example) the error bars on their WAR numbers is massive.

[Hallas]

10 hours ago, Baltimorecuse said:

Here's what I meant about defense.  29 of 30 teams are fielding at 98%.  If there is no measurable difference in efficiency in the whole league.  I think it neutralizes defense as a differentiating stat unless we go to the subjective.  Major leaguers are expected to catch the ball.

 

Total Zone calculates defense in the pre-statcast pre-BIS era by parsing Retrosheet game logs, charging infielders based on the number of ground ball singles went into left/center field or were scored infield hits, and giving them credit for when they successfully threw out a runner.

 

Players like Belanger fielded a massive number of balls that led to groundouts compared to their peers.  He led the league in shortstop assists 3 straight years and was top-5 6 different seasons.  Again this isn't an exact science for players of past eras (it's not an exact science for players of the current era either, but I digress.)  We have no idea how hard the ball was hit, if other factors could have affected the play, etc. so you're right to be skeptical.

Edited July 16, 2023 by Hallas

[Baltimorecuse]

3 minutes ago, Hallas said:

Have you seen Belanger play?  I really don't know how old you are so it would help to understand where you're coming from if you have.

 

Total Zone ranks Belanger so far ahead of his peers that he is able to be an all-star caliber SS despite being a zero with the bat.  His 4 best seasons were well over +20 in total zone.  Mateo was +14 last year.  Another thing to keep in mind is that baseball players have gotten better over the last 40 years, and defensive stats are generally scored against the league average.  So even if Mateo is just as good as Belanger was, the difference between Mateo and the league average is much smaller than the difference between Belanger and league average of his era.

 

Lastly, Mateo's wRC+ for 2023 is lower than Belanger's career mark.  We're complaining about Mateo because he's clearly below the inflection point where his negative bat is a bigger liability than his fielding.  Belanger's stat line tells us that you have to be an all-time great fielder to stick around with a negative bat.  If Mateo isn't an all-time great fielder (and I don't think anyone would argue that he is) then he can't stick around with a Belanger-level bat.

 

Regardless of all of this, you are still very much within reason to be skeptical of pre-analytics-era players whose WAR numbers are entirely derived from defense.  While most of it does jive with anecdotes of the time (TZ ranks players like Ozzie Smith, Brooks, and Belanger as all-time great fielders, for example) the error bars on their WAR numbers is massive.

I'm 77.  I may have seen Belanger in Rochester.  I certainly didn't see him every night in Baltimore, so it was 50 games maybe max.  Belanger wasn't really a target.  I am not a WAR fan.  I do not believe Belanger was miles ahead of Aparicio.  You're right, shortstops today are just better athletes than in Belanger's era.