Peter Keating: O's Rebound a Mirage

[SrMeowMeow]

If you are not trying to be condescending' date=' why not soft-pedal the use of "ignorant" in your posts. I'll try not to be condescending either, but what I have high-lighted is a fallacy.[/quote']

No, it's not a fallacy.

[VTmook213]

What the stats crowd usually calls "luck" they really mean is randomness.

As in, while it is entirely possible to flip a coin and get heads 10 times in a row, the true probability is 50% ... so over a large enough sample, the amount of heads will grow closer and closer to 50%, rather than remaining at 100%.

When stat-heads say that a player is "lucky" or "unlucky" because he has a currently unsustainable BABIP it simply means that there is a current streak of abnormal numbers. Just as Drungo always says that it's possible for a a true 85 win team to win 90+ games, it's also possible for a true 4.50 ERA pitcher to have a "lucky" season and end up with a 3.50 ERA. It's just not likely he'll repeat that performance, as the results will tend to regress toward his actual talent.

I don't understand why everyone is so up in arms about this article.

[Frobby]

Are you really going to say that there has not be a change in the style and effort of the O's play since Buck arrived? And that that kind of play hasn't helped the pitchers play at the level they have been performing to?

I do not see how you can interpret what I wrote this way. I said the fact that the team was improved was not an illusion, but the extent of improvement is an illusion. That's not a knock on what Buck has accomplished, it's a simple truth.

If you think we could simply re-sign the existing team and go 102-60 next year, let me know. If you think our starting pitchers will have a collective ERA somewhere between 3.00 and 3.10, let me know.

I do think the team is playing better baseball, separate and apart from wins and losses. Just to take a trivial example, every time I've seen that Buck has asked someone to lay down a sac bunt, they've done it successfully, usually on the first attempt. That hasn't been the case for several years. The defense has been sharper, and the pitchers for the most part are being more aggresssive.

All those things are great, but this isn't a .630 baseball team.

[Singleton]

There's your problem, actually watching baseball. Any thing you see on the field is a mirage. The true game can only be seen in the numbers. If the numbers don't show it, it doesn't exhist. You know like the tree falling in the woods.:smile11:

Teams look good when they win and bad when they lose. Lots of not so good (or even bad) teams have good 40 games stretches but can't maintain it. If you think just because a team plays good ball for 40 games that they are a good team then how do you explain good and bad streaks for teams.

I hope you are right and then now we're just a great ball club but it seems very unlikely.

[wildcard]

I do not see how you can interpret what I wrote this way. I said the fact that the team was improved was not an illusion, but the extent of improvement is an illusion. That's not a knock on what Buck has accomplished, it's a simple truth.

If you think we could simply re-sign the existing team and go 102-60 next year, let me know. If you think our starting pitchers will have a collective ERA somewhere between 3.00 and 3.10, let me know.

I do think the team is playing better baseball, separate and apart from wins and losses. Just to take a trivial example, every time I've seen that Buck has asked someone to lay down a sac bunt, they've done it successfully, usually on the first attempt. That hasn't been the case for several years. The defense has been sharper, and the pitchers for the most part are being more aggresssive.

All those things are great, but this isn't a .630 baseball team.

This is not a .630 team because we can't expect them to stay healthy all year.

The reason the players are successful buntingis that Buck only asks the guys that can bunt to bunt. Jones, Izzy. I haven't seem Wieters be asked to bunt. Nor Wiggy or Luke.

The pitching staff has pitched to a 3.57 ERA since Aug 1st. If everyone stayed healthy all year including all defensive players they may well be able to achieve that over a year. But of course that does not happen. Nor will some pitchers be back next year like Millwood.

[Slappy]

I'm not trying to be condescending. But what you said is ignorant, and honestly insulting.

Things can be a result of luck, you know? It's not a cop-out of it's true. And something like a 50 point swing in BABIP is a result of luck. And while we don't have much data on the pitchers themselves to regress to, we do have the history of baseball.

If a hitter comes up straight from the draft, no minor league track record, and hits his first major league pitch for a home run, do you project that he will homer on every pitch he sees? Of course not. You look at the fact that nobody ever has hit a HR on every pitch he sees. And what you've just done is regress that player to the mean of the set of major league players.

Something else no player has ever done? Sustained a BABIP as a pitcher under .246, and most of those guys played in a different era.

I'm not saying that the pitchers will sustain such low BABIPs next year. Those will likely go up, sure. Hope that doesn't insult you.

But what else is there in the article? The FB/HR ratios have come down, but they are still above the league average of about 7.5%. The defense has improved because we have an actual major league 2B now. The stats during the current run, outside of BABIP, are not unsustainable.

The BB/9 for the young pitchers has also improved rapidly under Buck, and that should not be overlooked or written off as "luck":

Matusz 3.7 vs. 2.2

Arrieta 5.7 vs. 2.9

Bergesen 2.8 vs. 2.6

We expected these young pitchers to be good, so why is everyone so surprised and cautious when they actually start to pitch up to expectations? This should be what we expect. This fanbase seems to have really low expectations for its team!

[Sports Guy]

There is a reason why you are never as good as you look when things are going great and never as bad as you look when things are going bad...its called luck.

People look at that as if its some dirty word but it is what it is.

Look at last night...That ground rule double was hammered...but it was lucky for us that it hit where it did and went over the fence, thus saving a run. That's luck. That's the ball bouncing your way.

The thing that people don't seem to get is that while luck during the year is great and helps you win, its the ability of someone to take luck out of the equation and attempt to predict what will happen in the future...and there is no way this is a 600+ winning% team.

[Moose Milligan]

There is a reason why you are never as good as you look when things are going great and never as bad as you look when things are going bad...its called luck.

People look at that as if its some dirty word but it is what it is.

Look at last night...That ground rule double was hammered...but it was lucky for us that it hit where it did and went over the fence, thus saving a run. That's luck. That's the ball bouncing your way.

The thing that people don't seem to get is that while luck during the year is great and helps you win, its the ability of someone to take luck out of the equation and attempt to predict what will happen in the future...and there is no way this is a 600+ winning% team.

How does one take luck out of the example you just posted (and other instances when the ball literally bounced your way) and make predictions?

[Sports Guy]

How does one take luck out of the example you just posted (and other instances when the ball literally bounced your way) and make predictions?

You probably can't. I just used that as an example of "when things are going well".

Its not a bad thing..every team goes through it but you can't ignore it either.

[wildcard]

There is a reason why you are never as good as you look when things are going great and never as bad as you look when things are going bad...its called luck.

People look at that as if its some dirty word but it is what it is.

Look at last night...That ground rule double was hammered...but it was lucky for us that it hit where it did and went over the fence, thus saving a run. That's luck. That's the ball bouncing your way.

The thing that people don't seem to get is that while luck during the year is great and helps you win, its the ability of someone to take luck out of the equation and attempt to predict what will happen in the future...and there is no way this is a 600+ winning% team.

There is no question as to whether the O's have been a .600+ team since August 3rd. It has. There can be not debate about it. It is there in black and white.

The question of why is relevant. The question of can the keep doing it is a good one. But we can't say this is not a 600+ team since August 3rd because it is. Period. End of debate.

[Slappy]

The thing that people don't seem to get is that while luck during the year is great and helps you win, its the ability of someone to take luck out of the equation and attempt to predict what will happen in the future...and there is no way this is a 600+ winning% team.

You told me back in May that there was no chance in hell that the Reds make the playoffs.

You have advocated countless times for Alex Gordon, who has a .738 career OPS in nearly 1,500 AB, about the same numbers as the great Willy Aybar.

I won't mention other SG favorites Brandon Wood (.475 career OPS, 13/141 BB/K) and Casey Kotchman (.719 OPS in over 2,000 AB).

Nobody knows what will happen in the future. "Peripherals" change just like anything else. I've always thought if you just look for high OPS and low ERA, you'll probably to o.k.

[clapdiddy]

Is it not possible to be good and lucky at the same time? These things are not mutually exclusive.

The Orioles have played much better baseball over the last two months. They've also been very lucky.

I would expect the Orioles to be much better next year overall. I wouldn't expect them to be as good or as lucky as they've been lately.

No doubt it's possible to be lucky and good. I'm just saying that it almost implies in the article that the Orioles are winning by mere luck. Anyone who watches this team night in and night out can see that there's a lot more to it than that.

Yes, there's luck involved...but it sure seems to me that we're creating some of that luck.

[crawjo]

This is a good article to contemplate. I have been suspecting this same thing for some time (that there has been a lot of "luck" in the Orioles success under Showalter.) Basically the takeaway from the article is that if the Orioles think their current roster, as constructed, will play above .500 baseball over a full season, they are being fooled. The pitching is not as good as it appears, and the Orioles have been winning more than their fair share of very close games that easily could have gone the other way.

So, instead of criticizing the author or the methodology, I think it's best to acknowledge that the Orioles should understand they will need to improve on this year's team if they want to be good next year. Trotting out this same lineup and this same starting rotation for 162 games next year would not work.

[Hallas]

As anecdotally logical as this seems, it just is the case that pitchers are not able to make long-term shifts in the results of their flyballs. When that number goes up or down one year it invariably comes back to career norms at one point or another.

The things that pitchers exert significant control over, in order from greatest to least, are the number of strikeouts, walks, balls in play, groundballs, line drives, flyballs, and homeruns (not to be confused with HR/FB). They control the number of balls in play by controlling strikeouts and walks, and they control (to a lesser degree) homeruns by controlling GB and FB rates.

Somewhere waayyyyyyyy down on the list is the ability to limit homeruns on balls hit in the air. There is just not some magical ability to allow a ton of flyballs but to will them to stay in the park. In fact, pitchers don't exert much control - if any - on what happens to any ball hit in play beyond whether it's hit on the ground or in the air. I think that's intuitive when you really think about. Whether you want to believe it or not, it's true.

I'm not sure I agree with this, at least not entirely. Flyball pitchers exert some control over their infield FB rates, and thus exercise some control on their overall HR/FB rate. It is a weak correlation when looking at pitchers as a whole, but it is there. Neither FIP nor xFIP correct for this.

Guthrie does generally exhibit an above-average ability to induce IFFB, which accounts for his lower HR/FB rates.

[SammyBirdland]

Here's an interesting example:

Adam Jones hits a routine grounder and loafs to first base for the out. He returns to the dugout and Showalter gets on his case. A few days later, Jones is on first with two outs and Pie hits a routine pop-up to the shortstop. Adam Jones busts his butt all the way around the bases and ends up scoring on a freak error by the shortstop.

It was "lucky" for us that Scutaro missed a routine pop-up, but was it luck that Adam Jones had his hustle on?