September 26, 2006
Moving On
During this season I've run into two problems. I've been circling the first problem all season, and after some time in the desert to think about it, I've become convinced that there are too many baseball numbers on the Internet. Of course that makes me part of the problem. I've decided the world would be a better place if we would just go with ZiPS or PECOTA, and work in current season results, with no other numbers beyond that. That's something of an oversimplification, but that gets to the heart of matter.
The second problem is more immediate. As you may have noticed, the 2006 Cardinals aren't an appealing bunch. I watched "Titanic" on the flight back from Phoenix, and right now I care more about the sorry state of the wreck at the bottom of the Atlantic than the sorry state of the of the wreck at Busch III. I'm tempted to call myself a fairweather fan, but I cared much more about the 2003 bunch than this group. I think this is a symptom of two bigger issues. First, this mockery of a pennant race drives home an ugly point, that MLB has set-up a system that doesn't adequately distinguish the great teams from the mediocre (or worse) teams. Bud Selig has earned a swift kick in the backside for making the hunt for a playoff spot unwatchable. Second, I don't see how Walt Jocketty or anyone else can restore this team to glory without a fair heaping of luck. The Cardinals don't have much of a farm system, they don't win bidding wars and the Twins aren't handing over Joe Mauer for Carmen Cali and the Yankees aren't handing over A-Rod for Juan Encarnacion. The Cardinals can buy their luck in a weak division, but there's not much art in that.
When I put the two together, I come to a natural conclusion: I'm getting off my soapbox and shutting my laptop down. Thanks to Josh for the opportunity here. I've really appreciated it. Thanks to anyone else that's shown up, even the folks who called me an idiot. Take care all.
September 18, 2006
On The Road
As far as my teams go, I picked a great weekend to wander around the country, missing the action. Michigan crushed, killed and destroyed Notre Dame in South Bend, MattyMo returned to St. Louis and the NL Central pretty much wrapped itself up. Well, at least I got to see a 19-pitcher baseball game and something called Centex gave me an Eric Byrnes t-shirt. I expanded my foreign language skills -- Claudio Vargas is Spanish for Jason Marquis -- and it's not hard to see why Mark Mulder lives in Scottsdale.
June 27, 2006
What Would Crash Do?
Kyle asks:
What's with the lack of actual "baseball" talk on this site lately? The team is falling apart at the seams, and the posts on this site show up about as often as Yaddi gets on base.
Good question. That is to say, the last day or two I've been preparing an explanation for my own silence.
My answer starts here: The Cardinals are a mediocre baseball team in a weak division. I think you can guess my reasoning, even if you don't agree with it. A while back I hypothesized that this kind of team would make for great blogging, the theory being that they'd have plenty of obvious weaknesses to analyze while being good enough that you wouldn't just give up on them. In this case, the Cardinals are in first place, but everyone's favorite mediocrity currently leads Cardinal outfielders in WARP and the pitching's not been good. The farm is weak, with the only valuable trade-bait -- Reyes and Wainwright -- almost untouchable due to the needs of 2007 and beyond, so what you see is what you get.
The problem is that, well, these weaknesses are obvious to Cardinal fans. I can quantify them, spin them or maybe sneer at them. The first one seems pointless -- unless you live in a cave you know about the struggles of Mulder, Marquis and Edmonds -- I don't have the chutzpah to do the second, and the last one, while perhaps most appropriate, doesn't hold much appeal for me these days. Whenever I'm tempted to follow that path, I remember my favorite quote from the other Bill James:
The mood of a Schopenhauer or a Nietzsche,- and in a less degree one may sometimes say the same of our own sad Carlyle,- though often an ennobling sadness, is almost as often only peevishness running away with the bit between its teeth. The sallies of the two German authors remind one, half the time, of the sick shriekings of two dying rats. They lack the purgatorial note which religious sadness gives forth.
I don't want to sound like a dying rat.
Jocketty's offseason work was much criticized, and looking back, the offseason is proving a mixed bag. Looper has been adequate and the 2B situation has worked out well enough in spite of the Spivey debacle. Encarnacion, like Sanders in 2004, has struggled with his OBP, but again probably would be best classified as mediocre. Ponson's gotten by as a starter. Left field has been a mess, although that's partially a function of Taguchi's place in LaRussa's pecking order. Overall the offseason was filled with filler, nothing more and nothing less.
We've been conditioned to expect 'more'. The thing is, with the benefit of hindsight we know this is a mediocre team. Unless Brian Giles could've been coaxed into leaving his hometown, along with another thing or two, it's clear we weren't getting that 'more'. If Jocketty had flushed away the farm, he would've ended up like Sizemore on Luna's bloop Monday night -- about ten feet short and hoping somebody covered for him. In fact, if it weren't for Bernie Miklasz banging the payroll drum, it probably would've been a good idea to let Spivey, Encarnacion and Looper pass, even though it probably would've cost the Cardinals a couple of games.
This is a wait-it-out season (so what is Sterling Hitchcock doing these days?). Neither a buyer nor seller be. Win an ugly division, let LaRussa continue his LDS mastery, and hope the Cardinals hit .450 with RISP in the LCS and World Series. I don't like this situation. I also don't see any point to dwelling on it. Baseball's supposed to be fun.
May 15, 2006
Help Wanted
I'm now up to Chaos, and I think I may be better served to start watching old episodes of Kung-Fu. In the mean time, Kurt C is looking for a copy of Game 5 of the 2005 NLCS. If you can find anything, can you drop me a line or leave a comment? I've checked MLB.com, which should have it somewhere or the other, but I don't have much luck navigating that site. Actually I watch Cardinals games via MLB.tv, and after hearing
Tying run at second, two out... Palmeiro... over the head of Jenks... Uribe charges, throws... Out! And the White Sox have won the World Series!
from Joe Buck about a hundred times this year, I'm convinced MLB.com is actively discouraging me from spending money there.
In other developments, I recently received a list-serve email from the San Diego Padres. Here are the highlights:
PRIMARY DUTIES & RESPONSIBILITIES:
Assist with database manipulation and integrity
Assist with internal web coding and building
Assist with research projects
Assist with data entry
SPECIAL INTERNSHIP PROJECTS TO BE COMPLETED:Help complete internal database/website functionality
Implement data integrity and uniform schemasJOB REQUIREMENTS:
Currently enrolled student in a college or university or recent graduate
within 2 years majoring in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or
some other form of a Science/Analytical background.Experience with data manipulation (PGSQL preferred).
Advanced knowledge of PHP5.
Familiarity with a scripting language (Perl, Python, or Ruby
preferred).Flexible scheduling - may be required to work evenings, weekends and
holidays as needed for position.
For us stat-head amateurs, that's a reminder that modern-day baseball teams have the kind of information we don't have. Perhaps more importantly, they should know which data is meaningful and which is noise. For example, any numbers-guy worth his salt knew that Junior Spivey had a much better track record than Aaron Miles, but Miles presently sports a .425 on-base average in the bigs and Spivey's hitting .175 in Memphis (and may be headed to further surgery). Sample size yadda yadda yadda, but it certainly looks like somebody knew what they were doing. I don't want to give the Cardinals a free pass -- I think So Taguchi was in a crucial pinch hitting role Sunday because of a silly bases loaded split -- but blindly trusting the Cardinals brass isn't a bad forecasting method.
Some more mundane questions:
• When does the Spivey Experiment end? He homered tonight, but both sides must know Junior's odds of playing in St. Louis get dimmer by the day.
• Could Juan Encarnacion please have more than a walk per month? Currently he has fewer walks than Skip Schumaker and Mark Mulder.
• Why do the Cardinals have 8 relievers on the roster? OK, it fills two tables for bridge in the bullpen. So I'll ask why would you ever double-switch when you have 8 freaking relievers on the roster?
• How long will it take the other Cardinals brass to figure out radio? I did some traveling last week and I know missed having KMOX serving up games.
• Can this be right, that the Cardinals' playoff chances went from 49% to 58% during one Saturday in May? Now it was a near-perfect day with the Cardinals winning while everyone else in the NL Central lost, but, geez, it's May.
May 08, 2006
Randomness
I've been off thinking a little too much. In particular, I've been reading Nassim Nicholas Taleb's Fooled by Randomness, and, well, let's go to a table. Suppose an investor has a mythical portfolio that has an a priori 15% annual "real return" and a 10% "error rate". This investor has a magic spreadsheet hooked up to Bloomberg and he can get an instaneous update on his portfolio. This table describes what he'll see:
PROBABILITY OF MAKING MONEY AT DIFFERENT SCALES
| Scale | Probability |
|---|---|
| 1 year | 93% |
| 1 quarter | 77% |
| 1 month | 67% |
| 1 day | 54% |
| 1 hour | 51.3% |
| 1 minute | 50.17% |
| 1 second | 50.02% |
That's a good portfolio, but if this investor of ours is refreshing his portfolio every couple of seconds, then he's going to ride a roller coaster. Taleb further claims that the stress of negative news isn't evened-out by the (more frequent) moments of positive news. In other words, it's in this investor's best interests to check his portfolio infrequently.
This is all a long-winded way of saying I'm trying not to focus on the ups-and-downs of the baseball season. OK, that's not quite right, since I'm watching or listening to every game (Mulder is Mulder again, Encarnacion's getting a walk per month and John Gall must've done something unspeakably awful). I'm trying not to analyze the ups-and-downs. In spite of the methods used to boost the signal-to-noise ratios in-season (e.g., for pitchers use K/BB instead of W/L or, of course, good ole-fashioned scouting), there's still a lot of noise in the data.
Taleb noted that he'll allow himself to be fooled by randomness, like wearing a lucky tie or some similar superstition. In fact, he claims these kinds of irrational emotions are necessary for survival. In this case, there's something to be said for the "poetry of baseball", as cliched as that sounds. Again though, losing myself in the analysis of randomness can take me down many blind alleys, and I'm getting too old for that. That's leaving me at a loss for words.
* * * * *
One thing I've decided has decent signal is BPro's Postseason Odds Report, since it makes use of a larger data set. Even if PECOTA's too high on the Brewers, it changes the way I'm looking at the pennant race. The Cardinals aren't as strong as their record indicates, in large part because they've played so many games against the dregs of the National League (Washington, Florida, Pittsburgh, Chicago), and that needs to be accounted for. This could be a pretty good fight.
Two idle thoughts:
(1) Did you see in the PD that Mulder's back pain goes back to 2000? While no pitcher's ever perfectly healthy, I suppose this says something about the clean bill of health given to Mulder at the time of the trade.
(2) Dave Duncan on Sidney Ponson's injury: "We have two off days in the next 10 days. Hopefully we can work it out and go with just four pitchers." Instead of being hopeful that they can get by on four starters, isn't this an opportunity for Anthony Reyes?
April 19, 2006
Listening to Classic Rock Radio is Bad For You
I'm getting this on the first take.
Oh lord, won’t you buy me a power hitting left fielder?
Our rivals have Adam Dunn or a similar big stick wielder.
Worked hard all my lifetime, no help from the stadium builder,
So lord, won’t you buy me a power hitting left fielder?
Oh lord, won’t you buy me a perfect lockdown closer?
One that goes through the ninth inning like a Caterpillar bulldozer.
Prove that you love me, cause I'm tired of this poseur.
So lord, won’t you buy me a perfect lockdown closer?
Oh lord, won’t you buy me an optimized lineup card?
The bases should never be empty when Albert's going yard.
I’m counting on you, lord, but it shouldn't be that hard.
So lord, won’t you buy me an optimized lineup card?
Oh lord, won't you buy me a prospect-loaded farm?
With Edmonds getting older, we need it to re-arm.
I hope you understand why I'm always raising the alarm.
So lord, won't you buy me a prospect-loaded farm?
Everybody!
Oh lord, won’t you buy me a power hitting left fielder?
Our rivals have Adam Dunn or a similar big stick wielder.
Worked hard all my lifetime, no help from the stadium builder,
So oh lord, won’t you buy me a power hitting left fielder?
That’s it!
March 07, 2006
Sold Out
Fungoes details his plight in finding single-game tickets during the 2006 season. I tried on Saturday too, got the "High Volume" message the first time, and like the 26th man, said something along the lines of "Forget this." The way season tickets have flown out the door, I didn't see a positive outcome to this battle.
It seems to me there's something wrong when tickets sell that quickly. Don't misunderstand me; as a fan, I like to go to games and, as a little cog in corporate America, I like to keep my money in the stock market. But I think the Cardinals underpriced their tickets for 2006. I suppose there's a PR-angle to consider -- the Cardinals don't want Bernie Miklasz kvetching about ticket prices and then re-hashing payroll promises and urinal sales again -- and there are long-term relationships to maintain. My amateur opinion is still that prior to St. Patrick's Day a baseball team shouldn't be a virtual sellout for the entire season.
As for spring training, I am trying to convince myself not to squirm when the runs allowed pile up. As long as there's good news to report, I suppose that will work, even if the Mets fan at work is asking about mercy rules during Grapefruit League games. Rolen's starting Tuesday and almost as helpful to my emotional well-being is this tidbit from Leach on Jason Marquis:
This year, however, he intends to complement the sinker with a changeup as his primary offspeed pitch."I think it's really going to help me and make my sinker that much better," said Marquis. "I always should have been a fastball-changeup guy. I've always had a better feel for my changeup than anything -- of my offspeed pitches."
Woo hoo!
VEB raised a point about Brad Voyles. I think back to the 2003 season when the pitching-starved Cardinals had mid-season acquisitions like Esteban Yan, Pedro Borbon and Sterling Hitchcock, called up minor league journeymen like Gabe Molina and Kevin Ohme (who currently has the lowest MLB ERA in history!), and rushed Dan Haren to the majors. Left off that list was the 2003 PCL ERA leader, Jay Ryan. I've always assumed that the reason Ryan didn't get the call was LaRussa and/or Duncan saw him in spring training and didn't think he had the stuff to get major league hitters out. Judging by Ryan's subsequent record, they would've been right. All that is to say Voyles may have moved up a spot or two for the opening in July when Jason Isringhausen has his annual owie.
March 06, 2006
Rollforwards
Ben Jacobs at the Hardball Times and Newton at the Batter's Box have previews for the Cardinals up. Both articles raised a lot of questions in my head. For example, just how much will it hurt to lose Reggie Sanders? While he had an 886 OPS, he only had 295 at-bats and evidently he had a poor season in the field (how pathological is it to pop-under ads on a browser that's set to block pop-unders?). How do you compare Sidney Ponson against Matt Morris -- Ponson's sucked the past couple of years, but the presence of Anthony Reyes and Adam Wainwright should mean a short leash and it's not like Morris was anything more than mediocre in 2005. Could Ray King really have been a contributor? And really why is it that both Jacobs and Newton omitted any mention of my favorite Al Reyes? Does the author of their Q document still hold a grudge over the Nomar wrist incident?
I don't think they're Cardinal fans, so these questions probably aren't as interesting to them as they are to me. It dawned on me that historical Win Shares spreadsheet could be useful in answering the non-Reyes the Elder questions. So far the Cardinals have lost 89 Win Shares from the 2005 squad, which works to almost 30 wins of production. So now we compare that to prior years and, while we're at it, also examine prior improvements along the lines of what we're all expecting from Rolen in 2006.
In fact we can go one better and roll the win total from season X to season X+1. For example, the Cardinals won 105 games in 2004, lost 24.7 "wins" (i.e., thirds of Win Shares) from defectors such as Edgar Renteria and Woody Williams, got 28.7 wins in 2005 from players not on the 2004 roster and experienced a Rolen-fueled 9.0 win net reduction among players retained from the 2004 roster. Add 'em all up and you're at 100 wins. We can further break up that "retained player" gain/loss into guys who went up (e.g., So Taguchi) and guys who went down (Ray King). Here's a table:
| Year | Prev Wins | Sub | Add | Ups | Downs | Curr Wins |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1976 | 82.0 | -20.3 | 24.7 | 12.3 | -26.7 | 72.0 |
| 1977 | 72.0 | -19.3 | 27.3 | 21.3 | -18.3 | 83.0 |
| 1978 | 83.0 | -16.7 | 23.7 | 5.7 | -26.7 | 69.0 |
| 1979 | 69.0 | -5.0 | 14.7 | 19.0 | -11.7 | 86.0 |
| 1980 | 86.0 | -12.3 | 18.0 | 4.7 | -22.3 | 74.0 |
| 1981 | 74.0 | -30.3 | 32.8 | 19.5 | -2.3 | 93.7 |
| 1982 | 93.7 | -18.5 | 27.3 | 13.3 | -23.8 | 92.0 |
| 1983 | 92.0 | -6.0 | 11.7 | 8.3 | -27.0 | 79.0 |
| 1984 | 79.0 | -5.7 | 13.0 | 15.3 | -17.7 | 84.0 |
| 1985 | 84.0 | -25.3 | 35.0 | 19.7 | -12.3 | 101.0 |
| 1986 | 101.0 | -17.0 | 10.3 | 15.0 | -30.3 | 79.0 |
| 1987 | 79.0 | -12.0 | 12.0 | 27.3 | -11.3 | 95.0 |
| 1988 | 95.0 | -18.3 | 19.3 | 11.3 | -31.3 | 76.0 |
| 1989 | 76.0 | -13.7 | 19.0 | 18.0 | -13.3 | 86.0 |
| 1990 | 86.0 | -9.7 | 25.0 | 11.7 | -43.0 | 70.0 |
| 1991 | 70.0 | -27.7 | 7.7 | 36.3 | -2.3 | 84.0 |
| 1992 | 84.0 | -6.3 | 19.3 | 17.3 | -31.3 | 83.0 |
| 1993 | 83.0 | -18.0 | 27.7 | 12.3 | -18.0 | 87.0 |
| 1994 | 87.0 | -13.3 | 11.8 | 10.8 | -21.0 | 75.3 |
| 1995 | 75.3 | -27.0 | 32.5 | 14.4 | -24.9 | 70.2 |
| 1996 | 70.2 | -30.2 | 42.7 | 13.8 | -8.5 | 88.0 |
| 1997 | 88.0 | -10.7 | 28.7 | 3.0 | -36.0 | 73.0 |
| 1998 | 73.0 | -20.0 | 18.3 | 23.0 | -11.3 | 83.0 |
| 1999 | 83.0 | -37.0 | 29.7 | 16.7 | -17.3 | 75.0 |
| 2000 | 75.0 | -28.7 | 47.7 | 14.0 | -13.0 | 95.0 |
| 2001 | 95.0 | -22.0 | 28.3 | 10.3 | -18.7 | 93.0 |
| 2002 | 93.0 | -14.3 | 27.7 | 9.7 | -19.0 | 97.0 |
| 2003 | 97.0 | -17.3 | 14.3 | 11.7 | -20.7 | 85.0 |
| 2004 | 85.0 | -23.7 | 42.0 | 12.7 | -11.0 | 105.0 |
| 2005 | 105.0 | -24.7 | 28.7 | 15.0 | -24.0 | 100.0 |
| 2006 | 100.0 | -29.7 | 30.8 | 13.0 | -17.9 | 96.2 |
I've pro-rated those awful strike years to 162 games. Obviously the 2006 additions and ups/downs won't be available until October, so I've naively averaged the past ten seasons.
It certainly isn't a good thing to lose players like Walker, but note that the Cardinals had similar exoduses in 1981, 1996 and 2000. The 2003 decline was mainly a result of retained players not performing more than replacements not matching departers (and there's also the accounting problem from the Cardinals outperforming their 2002 Pythagorean and underperforming their 2003 Pythagorean). The 2004 uptick was powered by newcomers, although counting Chris Carpenter as a newcomer is cheating a bit. A couple of graphs might be useful here:
I'm simplifying some things here. McGwire naturally created many more Win Shares in 1998 than in 1997 (was an "up") since he was traded mid-season in 1997. The second graph though suggests that players don't improve much after their first year with LaRussa, perhaps because there haven't been many youngsters the previous ten years and the most prominent of those few youngsters was an MVP candidate from Day One. In other words, what seems to have driven the Cardinals' recent success is either Jocketty's maneuvers, players responding immediately to LaRussa, or some combination of the two.
March 02, 2006
Yahoo!
I woke up, fell out of bed, and found this on my computer:
I'll drive many hours just to see a game, even a minor league game, so the aesthetics of the sport appeal to me. But there's something about the almost-daily results of baseball that's special, and today that begins in earnest. I'm ready, darn it.
February 22, 2006
Prospects
Baseball America has started its top 100 prospect list for 2006. No Cardinals in 51 through 100, and there probably will be only one (Anthony Reyes, duh) in the top 50. Baseball Prospectus has its top 50 out, along with their methodology (no roundtable this year evidently; both articles are free and on my computer at least there are ads for the BA Prospect Handbook). Reyes shows up 25th at BPro, even though he's a flyball pitcher. I don't know who has the best list, and I've reached the age where I don't care. I do tend to pay more attention to BA though, because their "scouty" information is something I can't find at the Baseball Cube.
* * * * *
In spite of the fact that it's the busy part of the year for me, we've been interviewing for summer internships. We have a lot of candidates for these positions, so we tend to weed out folks based on certain facts. If the applicant's GPA is around 2.0, or the applicant has no computer skills beyond Internet Explorer or the resume was written in crayon, then that person probably won't be allowed in the interview room. Once candidates make it past that first cut, we try to flesh out their resumes and find out a little about their makeup. After all, part of the goal is to find candidates for permanent positions and in the long-term, attitude will likely play a significant role in career-building.
We go to a bunch of schools to do this and no one person wants to conduct all those interviews, necessitating a committee approach. One day the committee was discussing one strange candidate, when I found myself thinking "Put a Milo on that one." Unfortunately nobody else on the committee had read Moneyball, so my extraordinary wit was wasted. It did occur to me though that what we're doing is basically the same thing as evaluating baseball prospects. We use facts -- stats really -- to cut down our work and then we try to figure out what's important -- sometimes it's qualitative and sometimes it's quantitative -- from there.
All this may be obvious to you, but I've had minimal interest in the whole employer-employee mating ritual, and so I'm happy for the framework to rely upon. For example, I won't get carried away with our prospects, even the toolsy ones, because odds are they won't be superstars. I won't get carried away with any one aspect of a candidate, as again, odds are they'll need other skills to be successful in our field. Finally, no matter how good our process is, we're going to get some duds and we're going to miss some good ones. We do the best we can, but of course we're not handing out million-dollar bonuses to our picks, so there's not quite the drama of Beane's war-room. It is nice however to find some work-use for all the time I've spent thinking about baseball.
January 01, 2006
Zippity Doo Da
Not-so-happy new year!
ZiPS are up for the Cardinals and the executive summary isn't pretty. With the standard caveats about "computer projections" -- and the caveats shouldn't be taken lightly -- I've got the Cardinals scoring 810 runs and giving up 740, which would sum to a 88-win team. The problem isn't the offense, even with modest assumptions regarding production from the middle infield, Larry Bigbie and Yadier Molina. Rather it's the pitching, specifically the starting pitching. Again, there's stuff here that I don't think will happen in reality. ZiPS has left me with Mark Mulder's ennui face though.
Before I get to the gory details, a couple of notes:
• I did this last year and actually did pretty well according to BPro's adjusted standings. Of course there's the ongoing question of whether those extra 8 or 9 wins are luck or skill. I don't have a strong gut feeling, one way or the other.
• Unfortunately the Cardinals are moving into a new park. We're all going to live on the assumption that the Cardinals offense will be helped/hurt as much as the defense. Actually if the park plays like, say, Petco, that probably isn't the case for all those groundball pitchers. (And I'll be really ticked if we have to do those home/road splits for Pujols and Edmonds the same way they're done with Brian Giles. This could cost Edmonds a shot at Cooperstown and Pujols a shot at Musial.)
Numbers and notes below the fold.
First the hitters, using Extrapolated Runs:
PLAYER BA OBP SLG AB XR Pujols .337 .434 .652 575 144.8 Edmonds* .269 .387 .542 475 96.8 Rolen .285 .384 .522 525 99.4 Spivey .273 .356 .442 275 41.5 Encarnacion .284 .342 .450 525 75.6 Rodriguez* .259 .331 .461 300 45.0 Eckstein .284 .351 .372 550 69.0 Redman .263 .324 .420 50 6.5 Bigbie* .257 .328 .384 350 44.6 Gall .256 .314 .404 25 3.1 Taguchi .274 .309 .386 250 28.8 Hernandez .260 .335 .340 25 2.9 Molina .264 .315 .369 450 50.8 Miles# .270 .311 .365 200 21.7 Cruz .270 .299 .384 200 21.3 Duncan* .232 .309 .366 25 2.9 Luna .253 .314 .351 225 24.4 Schumaker* .257 .305 .339 25 2.5 Hanson* .235 .284 .359 25 2.5 Bennett .236 .303 .306 150 13.7 Pitchers .176 .211 .227 340 11.9 TOTAL .271 .340 .435 5,565 809.7
• Pujols could have a decent little career, couldn't he? Some folks in my line of work spend their time projecting what will happen to their companies if a massive pandemic hits. My knee-jerk response is that (a) your company will go out of business and (b) nobody will give a rat's behind because everybody will be too busy trying to survive. That is to say, all we need to know about a serious Pujols injury is that it would very bad. The idea of Chris Duncan replacing Pujols in the lineup should provide plenty of comic material for jealous fans of NL Central rivals.
• Eckstein and Encarnacion's projections look aggressive, but Bigbie apparently is conservative. I've also got 600 at-bats in there for Cruz, Miles and Luna, which is a disgusting thought really. While this is Tony LaRussa's world, Prentice Redman's a decent enough RH OF that he should be on the roster over a fourth infielder who gets most of his playing time in the outfield. Besides, his middle name is Montezz.
• Just going by the stat lines Michel Hernandez looks like an improvement over Bennett. Why is Gary Bennett on the team again?
The pitchers:
PITCHER ERA IP RA Isringhausen 3.10 60 23 Carpenter 3.16 180 69 Reyes 3.72 130 59 Thompson 3.76 60 27 Looper 4.07 70 35 Flores* 4.13 40 20 Mateo 4.21 35 18 Mulder* 4.22 180 92 Wainwright 4.50 70 38 Suppan 4.52 180 99 Ponson 4.57 160 89 Marquis 4.68 180 103 Johnson* 4.82 20 12 Rincon* 4.91 40 24 Rundles* 4.91 10 5 Cali* 5.35 10 7 Pomeranz 5.52 10 7 Voyles 5.56 10 7 Webb 5.77 10 7 TOTAL 4.58 1,455 741
• I know nothing, nothing about Rundles, Voyles and Webb and I doubt they'll be on the roster. They're this year's Jarvis, Journell and Pulsipher for projection purposes.
• I thought Jocketty was loopy when he said his main focus was starting pitching. Now I understand a little better why he was so hot for AJ Burnett.
• Suppan's projected ERA was 4.50 for 2004 and 4.52 for 2005. Maybe his whole Glavine-like "not giving in to good hitters" thing doesn't register with ZiPS. Or maybe Suppan's been lucky, although he's rattled off enough average seasons that I'd give him the benefit of the doubt. On the other hand you have Jason Marquis. I gave up my dream of being an NBA center at an early age and so spent my time learning fractions. Marquis has made more progress with his dream of being a great pitcher than I did with mine, but some day he'll have to accept his Suppan-esque role in life as an innings eater and shelve the curveball.
• In his recent interview with the Birdhouse, Jeff Luhnow said their high-powered projections for hitters aren't that different from the publicly available forecasts. It's the pitchers where they think they have the edge. Gee, I hope so. I'd guess MGL threw up his hands when asked to project a pitcher just out of jail. And thus I worry that the Cardinals' expectations for Sidney Ponson are based on experience with Bob Welch and Dennis Eckersley, and those comparisons just don't work for me. Welch had some great years with the Dodgers and Eckersley started the 1982 All-Star Game, while Ponson's muddled along. There seems to be an analogue for Nichols' Law of Catcher Defense, that the talents of players with personal problems are more highly regarded than they should be.
• Among the pitchers, the obvious downsides from the stats are Carpenter and Reyes. I'd feel better about both of them if Reyes had taken a few major league innings away from Carpenter. I made it twelve hours into the new year without a whine about LaRussa's handling of starting pitchers.
The Cardinals have their work cut out for them, don't they?
October 16, 2005
Embarrassing
I'm going to confess to a character flaw. In spite of the fact that I understand the relevant numbers, I thought the series was over after yesterday's game. It's silly and I know it and I don't want to present it as a good thing. It's probably just a defense mechanism, an attempt to put psychological distance between me and the team I follow too closely.
So I know I have a problem, but before I can move up the next step of recovery, I get today's effort against Brandon F. Backe. It's the bottom of the third and Backe's faced the minimum. Gosh, this feels a lot like the 2004 World Series... or the 1996 LCS.
October 12, 2005
Silly Numbers
Many, many years ago I made the mistake of reading some sort of "Math Is Fun" book, and they told me how to do this:
| STL | 1.000 | HOU | ||||||
| 0.582 | 0.418 | |||||||
| 0.339 | 0.487 | 0.175 | ||||||
| 0.170 | 0.413 | 0.330 | 0.087 | |||||
| 0.085 | 0.292 | 0.371 | 0.208 | 0.043 | ||||
| 0.147 | 0.332 | 0.289 | 0.104 | |||||
| 0.193 | 0.307 | 0.121 | ||||||
| 0.604 | 0.179 | 0.128 | 0.396 |
This is a simple path-independent probability tree, and these calculations spit out that the Cardinals have a 60.4% chance at winning the LCS. I'll explain the meaning of all the other silly numbers under the fold. Suffice to say I really think it's a lot closer to 50/50 than 60/40, but I had to come up with something more complicated than "3 down, 8 to go."
UPDATE AFTER GAME 1:
| STL | 1.000 | HOU | ||||||
| 1.000 | ||||||||
| 0.582 | 0.418 | |||||||
| 0.292 | 0.500 | 0.208 | ||||||
| 0.147 | 0.396 | 0.353 | 0.104 | |||||
| 0.199 | 0.375 | 0.228 | 0.052 | |||||
| 0.218 | 0.289 | 0.095 | ||||||
| 0.732 | 0.168 | 0.121 | 0.268 |
UPDATE AFTER GAME 2:
You didn't think this would be easy, did you?
| STL | 1.000 | HOU | ||||||
| 1.000 | ||||||||
| 1.000 | ||||||||
| 0.502 | 0.498 | |||||||
| 0.252 | 0.500 | 0.248 | ||||||
| 0.126 | 0.376 | 0.374 | 0.124 | |||||
| 0.219 | 0.375 | 0.156 | ||||||
| 0.564 | 0.218 | 0.157 | 0.436 |
UPDATE AFTER GAME 3:
| STL | 1.000 | HOU | ||||||
| 1.000 | ||||||||
| 1.000 | ||||||||
| 1.000 | ||||||||
| 0.502 | 0.498 | |||||||
| 0.252 | 0.500 | 0.248 | ||||||
| 0.147 | 0.396 | 0.209 | ||||||
| 0.377 | 0.231 | 0.166 | 0.623 |
UPDATE AFTER GAME 4:
| STL | 1.000 | HOU | ||||||
| 1.000 | ||||||||
| 1.000 | ||||||||
| 1.000 | ||||||||
| 1.000 | ||||||||
| 0.502 | 0.498 | |||||||
| 0.292 | 0.210 | |||||||
| 0.170 | 0.170 | 0.122 | 0.830 |
UPDATE AFTER GAME 5:
Don't give up, don't ever give up.
| STL | 1.000 | HOU | ||||||
| 1.000 | ||||||||
| 1.000 | ||||||||
| 1.000 | ||||||||
| 1.000 | ||||||||
| 1.000 | ||||||||
| 0.582 | 0.418 | |||||||
| 0.339 | 0.339 | 0.243 | 0.661 |
It starts at the top (probability = 1) and moves down a row each game, the horizontal direction depending on who wins (left for the Cards, right for the Stros). The numbers represent the probabilities of moving through each cell. Based on the rather unscientific method of averaging the Cardinals' and Astros' four levels of adjusted records, I've concluded the Cardinals are a true 0.591 team and the Astros are a 0.549 team. Using log5 I've concluded the Cards have a 0.542 probability of winning each game against the Astros in a neutral setting. Further I'll assume that it's plus-or-minus four percent for the homefield team. Thus the chance of a Cardinals sweep would be:
0.582 * 0.582 * 0.502 * 0.502 = 0.085.
The chances of the series being tied at 1-1:
0.582 * 0.418 + 0.418 * 0.582 = 0.487
There's a 30.7% chance of going to a Game 7. Yadi, yadi, yadi.
The various assumptions that drive this are problematic. The Astros are probably better than a 0.549 team now, six of the seven games could be started by the CY3 of Pettitte, Clemens and Oswalt, results of individual games aren't independent of each other, etc. The numbers are rough estimates, so I'm not suggesting anyone take it that seriously. I find the progression interesting though, and of course as the games are completed the 'errors' are corrected.
Enjoy the games, even if you have to find some weird way of getting FX.
July 04, 2005
Who's Hot & Who's Not -- Halfway Mark!
On Pace For: 102-60
Magic Number: 72
This doesn't feel like a 102-win team, does it? Nor does it feel like a 10.5 game lead. Yet here we stand. This being the halfway mark, I though I'd try something a little different.
One of my responsibilities at work is financial projections. The head honchos want to have some idea what they can expect over the next year and beyond. Then much fun happens when reality doesn't match those projections. Back in January, using Dan Szymborski's ZiPS as an engine, I attempted a Cardinals projection (hitting here and pitching here). Let's see who's exceeded expectations and who will get called to the CFO's office. First the hitters:
Name pOPS OPS pXR XR Var Alomar# 651 000 4.1 0.0 -4.1 Cedeno# 685 372 11.7 0.4 -11.3 Diaz 571 515 7.8 2.9 -5.0 Eckstein 661 742 30.9 42.5 11.6 Edmonds* 990 948 53.6 47.3 -6.3 Gall 781 000 2.9 0.0 -2.9 Grudzielanek 717 732 24.2 37.3 13.1 Hart 697 000 5.8 0.0 -5.8 Luna 699 516 12.2 1.3 -10.9 Mabry* 812 696 19.6 15.9 -3.7 Mahoney 661 000 2.1 0.0 -2.1 McKay* 617 000 1.8 0.0 -1.8 Molina 673 669 22.6 25.0 2.4 Nunez# 655 766 2.1 23.8 21.7 Pujols 1094 1031 75.7 74.0 -1.7 Rolen 931 792 55.9 22.8 -33.1 Sanders 757 905 31.6 45.6 14.0 Schumaker* 663 000 2.2 -0.5 -2.7 Seabol 766 696 2.8 7.0 4.2 Taguchi 635 722 7.0 19.9 12.9 Walker* 793 844 32.0 36.2 4.2 Pitchers 429 460 5.0 6.5 1.5 TOTAL 783 776 413.6 407.8 -5.8
The Cardinals scored 420 runs in the real world, 6 six runs better than projected, but their run components say they should've scored six run less. In other words the projection was pretty good in aggregate, although the Cardinals had a "nonrecurring gain" of 12 runs, if you believe the model. Until a couple of weeks ago I might have thought their baserunning was worth something extra, but there have been a couple of baserunning blunders that changed my opinion.
At the individual level there are two sources of variance, playing time and playing quality. Grudzielanek, for example, is hitting close to his projection rate-wise, but he's got almost 50% more at-bats than my projection assumed (290 versus 200 in the first half). Seabol actually has been a little bit worse rate-wise, but has had about 3X playing time. In raw numbers the biggest winner here is Nunez, but enough of his gain is inflated by a playing time difference that I'll give my first half Overachievers Award to Sanders. Rolen gets the Underachiever Award. You know, we really could get on Rolen about him being selfish when he didn't go on a rehab assignment.
The pitchers get a little more complicated. Carpenter, for example, has thrown his hat into the Cy Young race, but he's actually given up more runs than I projected (39 versus 37) and the reason, of course, is that he's thrown 50% more innings than I assumed. So I got cute and made use of the "replacement level" device. I'll set 6 runs (total runs, not just earned runs) per 9 innings as replacement level. That's a little high, but since I'm looking at variances, that should be fine for my purposes. Here's how my projected versus actual "values over replacement pitchers" line up:
NAME pERA ERA pVORP VORP Var Ankiel 5.59 sigh -0.3 0.0 0.3 Borland 4.00 1.3 0.0 -1.3 Cali 4.89 10.50 0.3 -4.0 -4.3 Carpenter 3.81 2.60 16.3 41.9 25.6 Eldred 4.57 1.00 3.0 5.0 2.0 Flores 4.75 3.60 0.3 1.7 1.3 Isringhausen 3.00 2.05 9.0 11.6 2.6 Jarvis 13.50 0.0 -2.8 -2.8 Journell 10.38 0.0 -3.1 -3.1 King 3.66 2.22 7.0 10.2 3.2 Lincoln 4.08 5.0 0.0 -5.0 Marquis 4.28 4.11 12.7 12.7 0.0 Morris 4.13 3.31 11.7 19.8 8.1 Mulder 3.63 4.54 22.7 13.3 -9.3 Myers 4.39 2.3 0.0 -2.3 Pulsipher 6.75 0.0 -0.3 -0.3 Reyes,Al 4.09 1.89 5.0 15.2 10.2 Reyes,An 4.11 6.0 0.0 -6.0 Rust 4.64 0.3 0.0 -0.3 Suppan 4.52 4.34 11.3 6.6 -4.8 Tavarez 3.25 2.43 9.3 12.7 3.3 Thompson 4.44 1.99 0.3 9.1 8.8 White 2.16 0.0 3.6 3.6 Wainwright 4.70 0.3 0.0 -0.3 TOTAL 4.09 3.54 124.0 153.0 29.0
The model predicted 361 runs allowed, compared to 327 actual. There were also 7.5 fewer innings pitched, so I compute +29 rather than +34 VORP. I found my VORP to be a decent proxy for a more respected VORP, if something from the Swedish Chef's vocabulary can be respected. Obviously the big winner here is Carpenter (duh), but aside from Carpenter the pitching has matched expectations. In particular, the 3M starters Mulder, Morris and Marquis net to zero. Al Reyes, the guy who couldn't find a major league job last summer, has a higher VORP than Mark Mulder. Stupid Spartan.
One little thing I noticed from this exercise is that the Cardinals have given up a lot of unearned runs, 44 to be precise. That's the 5th-most in baseball, and they have the highest UER/R ratio in all of baseball. I'll leave any allocation to the reader.
*****
On a completely unrelated note, congratulations are in order for Edmonds, Rolen, Eckstein, Pujols, Carpenter and Isringhausen. There are definitely problems with the selection process -- Beltran is more smooth than great and at least Andruw Jones hasn't popped into a GIDP recently -- but it's still a great honor.
Happy Independence Day. And, hey, let's be careful out there.
February 02, 2005
Cubs ZIPS
With the recent Sosa trade and subsequent Burnitz signing, the Cubs appear to be done this off-season. So how do they stack up? I'm projecting the Cubs score about 785 runs next season, basically the same as their 789 tallies in 2004. I've also got them giving up about 695 runs in 2005, 30 runs worse than in 2004 (the Cubs underperformed their Pythagorean by 5 games in 2003). That's a Pythagorean of about 90 wins, or a game behind my similar quick and dirty projection for the Cardinals.
The error bars around these kinds of projections are probably 5-6 games and that's if you have perfect information, which I don't. From where I sit, the Cards and Cubs are statistically even. (You might want to visit here before continuing.)
I could give a big list of caveats -- Will Dusty really give Dubois 300 at-bats? How much will Nomar's defense hurt? Can the young starters stay healthy? Etc. -- but I'll keep it short and say this is for entertainment purposes only. Here are the particulars; note that I've hedged a tad with the innings for the Cubs' Big Four starters:
Name AVG OBP SLG AB XR Barrett .278 .338 .463 400 59.8 Blanco .201 .258 .343 150 12.5 Burnitz .232 .311 .461 450 64.9 Cedeno .228 .269 .313 25 2.1 DuBois .272 .345 .500 300 50.1 Garciaparra .288 .339 .487 550 86.4 Hairston Jr. .286 .354 .387 400 54.3 Hollandsworth .266 .333 .432 400 54.8 Jackson .244 .301 .367 25 2.7 Kelton .242 .305 .415 100 12.7 Kopitzke .217 .271 .261 25 1.6 Lee .280 .375 .512 600 113.2 Lewis .262 .321 .383 25 3.0 Macias .239 .276 .347 150 13.5 Patterson .275 .320 .449 600 85.3 Perez .238 .273 .313 100 7.8 Ramirez .287 .346 .522 550 94.8 Reyes .295 .335 .440 25 3.4 Walker .278 .341 .419 400 55.2 Pitchers .162 .186 .227 325 7.4 Total .264 .328 .440 5,600 785.6
Name ERA IP RA Borowski 3.63 60 25.8 Dempster 5.11 60 37.4 Farnsworth 4.16 60 30.4 Fox 4.86 30 17.8 Guzman 4.83 30 17.4 Hawkins 3.12 60 22.3 Leicester 5.45 45 30.0 Maddux 3.98 190 92.3 Mitre 4.50 45 24.5 Prior 2.79 190 64.4 Remlinger 4.34 60 32.1 Rusch 4.22 160 82.0 Wellemeyer 5.00 30 18.1 Williamson 3.97 60 28.5 Wood 3.91 190 90.9 Zambrano 3.52 190 80.8 Total 3.92 1,460 694.7
January 27, 2005
Jocketty
The Birdhouse pointed out a Bob Nightengale column in Sports Weekly in which we learn Jocketty's getting lowball offers from the Cardinals. A Google news search (Google in general is the greatest thing ever, and Google News in particular is cool beyond words) turns up this link. Thus spaketh Bob Nightengale:
St. Louis offered Jocketty a three-year, $2.1 million extension — paying him $650,000, $700,000 and $750,000 — well below market price considering Jocketty's tenure. Jocketty, 54, not only would remain one of the lowest-paid GMs in baseball, but he would be paid nearly one-third of what GMs John Hart of Texas and David Dombrowski of Detroit get. They earn $2 million a year.
I don't know what to make of these rumors. It's possible that the numbers are wrong and it's possible that the rumor of Jocketty replacing Garagiola is just a negotiating ploy. Again I don't know, but if the reported numbers are accurate, then ownership isn't that interested in retaining Jocketty and Jocketty's been on the other side of the table enough to recognize that.
LaRussa of course already has his big extension, which suggests the Cardinals are taking the anti-Moneyball approach of prizing their field manager and regarding their front office talent as easily replaceable.
January 16, 2005
ZiPS for Pitchers
Using ZiPS, I crunched the numbers and forecast the Cardinals to score about 825 runs next season. Continuing on this process, how does the pitching stack up? Using ZiPS again, I came up with 720 runs allowed. Details of this computation follow in the rest of this post. The Pythagorean record for 825 runs scored and 720 runs allowed is 91-71.
There's an additional complication to pitching projections, since injuries affect (effect!) playing time so much. I don't know who the Cardinals will call up from Memphis when injuries inevitably strike, but odds are they'll take the best available pitchers. Just looking at the projections, not to mention the latest medical reports, Anthony Reyes right now is probably the first guy up (his AA stint in 2004 was downright Prior-esque). I've assumed a lot of 10 inning outings on the theory that the amalgamation somehow represents the potential downside for the 2005 pitching staff.
I've spent many sleepless nights trying to address one of the pitcher projections, leading me to wonder how difficult it must be to plan for the real world contingencies involving Rick Ankiel. ZiPS has him with a 6.59 ERA in 2005, and I ended up chopping a run off that. I'm not comfortable mucking with statistical projections, but this just seems like the most realistic worst-case scenario to me.
The total innings pitched is based on the average of the last three seasons. So here's how it all breaks down:
Pitcher ERA IP RA Ankiel 5.59 50 34 Borland 4.00 10 5 Cali 4.89 10 6 Carpenter 3.81 160 74 Eldred 4.57 60 33 Flores 4.75 10 6 Isringhausen 3.00 60 23 King 3.66 60 26 Lincoln 4.08 60 29 Marquis 4.28 170 88 Morris 4.13 140 70 Mulder 3.63 200 88 Myers 4.39 40 21 Reyes, Al 4.09 60 30 Reyes, An 4.11 75 37 Rust 4.64 10 6 Suppan 4.52 190 104 Tavarez 3.25 70 27 Thompson 4.44 10 5 Wainwright 4.70 10 6 Total 4.06 1,455 718
Using ZiPS I have 656 earned runs and 62 unearned runs. I'll guess the unearned runs are a little low and make the runs allowed 720. This group presents nice upside (the best four from Mulder, Carpenter, Morris, Ankiel, Reyes, Marquis and Suppan make for an impressive-sounding post-season rotation), but 91-71 is a disappointing result.
January 06, 2005
ZiPS for Cardinals Hitters
Somebody suggested we have introductory posts. Here's mine: My name is Rob and I'm a stat-aholic. I had a more thematic first post in mind, but I was having trouble preaching without sounding preachy, so I'll make it short: Some stats are of questionable value, among them fielding percentage, range factor (Eckstein transaction's still fresh), most "splits" and pitch counts.
But that's not much fun. Dan Szymborski has posted his ZiPS projections for the Cardinals, among other teams. Right now I'm projecting 830 or so runs scored for the 2005 Cardinals. More details if you click below... (trust me and ignore the virus warnings)
Without further ado, here's how the runs tally, based on rates projected by ZiPS, my guesses at playing time and Jim Furtado's Extrapolated Runs:
Name AVG OBP SLG AB XR Mahoney .255 .305 .356 40 4.2 McKay* .239 .285 .332 40 3.6 Molina .273 .332 .341 400 45.2 Hart .271 .315 .382 100 11.6 Luna .281 .342 .357 200 24.3 Pujols .347 .435 .659 600 151.4 Rolen .295 .393 .538 550 111.9 Seabol .271 .321 .445 40 5.6 Cedeno# .265 .322 .363 200 23.3 Edmonds* .287 .402 .588 475 107.2 Gall .280 .337 .444 40 5.8 Mabry* .278 .343 .469 250 39.2 Sanders .245 .310 .447 450 63.3 Taguchi .248 .289 .346 150 14.0 Walker* .254 .361 .432 400 64.0 Nunez# .245 .311 .344 40 4.2 Schumaker* .267 .330 .333 40 4.3 Eckstein .265 .333 .328 550 61.9 Grudzielanek .284 .326 .391 400 48.4 Alomar# .240 .317 .334 75 8.3 Diaz .224 .273 .298 200 15.6 Pitchers .175 .206 .223 325 10.0
Those are my guesses for the pitchers. Add them all up and you get 832 runs. The aggregate AB-H is 4,055 compared to a mean of 4,044 over the past three years, so let's call it 830 runs. As a team that's about 273/349/436, which is a little more OBP and 24 points less SLG than the Cardinals had in 2004.
There are a couple of caveats to this exercise. First, Alomar's on the list, even though it's only 50 at-bats; as long as Cody McKay doesn't get those 50 at-bats, that probably makes this projection a little low (yes, Alomar's been that bad). Second, the Luna projection is probably high, since Szymborski evidently believes Luna's only 23. Finally, I had to use Grudzielanek's Wrigley projection, which probably is a little high, and Eckstein's Anaheim/Los Angeles/Los Angeles of Anaheim hit-by-pitches, which maybe is a little low. So maybe the total should be closer to 825, although presumably Taguchi or McKay will get less playing time if they struggle that much. These calculations aren't that precise anyway.
As something of an aside, I'd guess Walker and Eckstein beat those projections. The Sanders projection is a little scary, but it's justifiable. I hope we'll see the real Jeff Suppan at the plate, the one that Thom Brennaman kept insisting hit .270 in 2004.
Edit: As Flynn noted, I missed Einar Diaz, who was with the Expos last year. Goodness, he's worse than Matheny with the stick. Today's PD makes it sound a tad more likely that Alomar will make the team, so I gave him a few more at-bats, mostly at Hart's expense. Add 'em up and get 827 runs, so with the Luna and Grudz comments still in mind, I'll estimate 825 runs scored.
January 01, 2005
Welcome to the Birdwatch
birdwatch (v) - To watch and study birds in their natural habitat
By birds, we mean redbirds, or Cardinals, and of course by natural habitat, we mean a baseball diamond. More specifically, we are a group of Cardinal fans who love to watch the games, analyze the moves and the stats, and just plain love the game. We've all been faithful readers of other Cardinals blogs, and some of us have even written for them, but now we're combining our efforts to maximize the value for you, the reader. So welcome fellow birdwatchers. We hope to be your guides through the ups and downs of the baseball season (and off-season). Enjoy the ride.