In my first article, I wrote about the limitations of the linear weights system that wOBA is based on when it comes to the context of unusual team offenses. In my second, I explained how Tom Tango, wOBA’s creator, also came up with a way of addressing some of these limitations by deriving a new set of linear weights for different run environments, thanks to BaseRuns. Today, I will tell you about the next step in the evolution of run estimators — the Markov model. Tom Tango created such a model that can be accessed through his website, and I’ve turned that model into a spreadsheet that I’ll share with you here.

I’ve told you that the problem with the standard run estimator formulas is that they make assumptions about what a hit is going to be worth, run-wise, based on what it was worth to an average team. That means it’s not going to apply very well to an unusual team. What’s so great about the Markov is that it makes no such assumptions — it figures all of that out itself, specific to each team. And when I say it figures it out, I mean it basically calculates out a typical game for that team, given the proportion of singles, walks, home runs, etc. the team gets in its plate appearances. It therefore estimates the run-scoring of typical teams better than just about anything, but it also theoretically should apply much, much better to very unusual or even made-up teams.
Read the rest of this entry »

Note: it has come to the author’s attention that Georgia Tech right-hander Buck Farmer’s start on Friday at 4pm ET will be available via Watch ESPN. The senior recorded 14 strikeouts in 8.0 innings during his season debut last weekend against Akron.

Table of Contents
Here’s the table of contents for today’s edition of the Daily Notes.

1. Three Notable College Weekend Series
2. Action Footage: Virginia Tech Junior Devin Burke’s Changeup

Three Notable Weekend College Series
The college baseball season began last weekend and continues with games through this next one. While some — like the author’s jerky editor Dave Cameron — are impervious to the charms of the collegiate game, it’s demonstrably a fact that the best NCAA players of 2013 will become relevant major leaguers in the not very distant future. Furthermore, in the absence of actual professional baseball, the college game is a reasonably entertaining substitute.

With that in mind — and as he did last week — the author has provided below a collection of series this weekend that both (a) are likely to feature actual amateur prospects and (b) are available for consumption, via streaming video, through CBS Sports’ ULive service.

The author has benefited considerably from Aaron Fitt’s top-25 college preview at Baseball America in the composition of these previews. Also, his own impressive prose skills is another thing from which the author has benefited.

As noted, all games are available streaming on ULive. All times are Eastern.

Read the rest of this entry »

Don Baylor was equally adept at hitting baseballs and getting hit by baseballs. The erstwhile slugger was plunked 267 times, ranking him fourth all-time, and he banged out 2,135 hits, including 338 home runs. In 1979, as a member of the California Angels, he led the American League with 139 RBIs and captured the MVP award.

Baylor is also adept at teaching hitting. Currently in his third season as the hitting coach for the Arizona Diamondbacks, he previously served in that capacity for the Brewers, Cardinals, Braves, Mariners and Rockies. He managed the Rockies from 1993 to 1998 and the Cubs from 2000 to 2002.

Baylor shared his hitting philosophies — including what he learned from Frank Robinson and Tony Perez — in a spring training conversation last week.

——

David Laurila: What was your hitting philosophy when you played?

Dan Baylor: Going all the way back to when I was in high school, I didn’t strike out a lot. What I swung at, I usually hit. I popped up, grounded out or hit a line-drive somewhere. “Bat, meet ball,” was my philosophy.

When you play in the minor leagues, you kind of get an idea of who you are, and by the time you get to the big leagues they have expectations for you. When I was coming up with the Orioles, Frank Robinson was in right field. He was well into his 30s by then and I was kind of picked, along with Merv Rettenmund, to take his place. As a young guy, all of a sudden you have that pressure of 30 home runs and 100 RBIs. That’s kind of how the baseball world evolved for me.

DL: Was Robinson a mentor to you?

DB: Frank was a great mentor for me. He was for a lot of young players — and for veterans, as well. He taught you what to do in certain situations. He was a clutch player, there’s no doubt about it. With the game on the line, he wanted to be the guy. I kind of grew into that. Come the seventh, eighth, ninth innings, I wanted to be the guy to decide the ballgame.

DL: Tony Perez has said that with a runner on third base, all he cared about was the RBI. It didn’t matter if he made an out in the process. Is that a good approach? Read the rest of this entry »

Ben and Sam preview the Mets’ season with Jason Wojciechowski, and Pete talks to Newsday baseball columnist David Lennon (at 22:11).

Podcast (effectively-wild): Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

In my Monday post about the White Sox recent success beating preseason projections, I included a statement that I’ve mentioned a few times over the last few years:

But also, please just keep in mind that projections are not predictions. They are a snapshot of what we think a team’s median true talent level might be, and it should be understood that there’s a pretty sizable margin for error based on things that projection systems simply can’t forecast, and also the errors that come from having imperfect information or imperfect calculations.

I wrote about this distinction a couple of years ago, but I think it’s worth delving into the differences again. For one, FanGraphs has gotten a lot larger over the last few years, so many of you might not have read that piece, but also, I think there’s a few things that I could have stated better in that article, and I want to give more context for why I see the distinction as meaningful rather than being a semantical argument with no practical use.

Let’s start out by acknowledging that predictions are a subset of projections. Or, to put it another way, predictions are projections, but a projection isn’t necessarily a prediction. I know that’s a bit of a tongue twister, and seems like a semantical difference, but think of it like this: Mothers are women, but not all women are mothers. No one would suggest that it is simply semantics to clarify whether a women is or is not a mother. There’s a meaningful difference there.

Read the rest of this entry »

On the surface, Brett Myers seemed to handle his 2012 transition from the rotation to the bullpen pretty well. He notched 19 saves and eight holds between stints with the Astros and White Sox against just two blown saves. He posted a sharp 3.31 ERA, good for an 81 ERA-.

But it wasn’t all happiness for Myers, as he was on the unfortunate end of four walk-offs. Hunter Pence hit a solo home run off Myers with one out on May 15th. The other three times, Myers’s game ended with runners still on base in threatening situations: a runner on third and one out after a Dexter Fowler walk-off triple on May 28th, runners on first and second and nobody out after a Hector Sanchez walk-off single on July 14th, and a runner on second and two outs after a Jamey Caroll sacrifice fly on July 28th.

Those four situations — the runners he stranded (all allowed on by him, although one reached on an error) and the outs at the time — resulted in a combined run expectancy of 3.25. Myers pitched just 65.1 innings in 2012. Even accounting for the nine outs Myers would have needed to record to finish those four innings (and therefore realize the full run expectancy), these 3.25 runs would increase his ERA to 3.59 — a significant difference.

Read the rest of this entry »

Last summer, I wrote a little post titled 2009 Was a Million Years Ago that discussed how fortunes had changed greatly for a few players over just three years. Obviously, I could not cover everything, but I really missed something by not including the Blue Jays’ Adam Lind. In 2009, Lind finally got full season of playing time in Toronto and broke out at age 25, hitting .305/.370/.562 (140 wRC+) with 35 homers. Sure, he was a lousy defender in the outfield, but his bat looked like it would be good enough going forward so that it would play anywhere. The Jays certainly thought so, and bought out the rest of his arbitration years with a four-year, $18 million contract through 2013 that also included club options for 2014-16. It seemed like a no-brainer.

Fast forward to the present: Lind is in the last guaranteed season of that contract, and given his hitting over the last three seasons (combined with a lack of defensive value), it is probably a safe bet that his option for 2014 will not be picked up. Hope springs eternal, especially at this time of year. Lind is hoping that new (old) manager John Gibbons‘ approach with his players and coaching staff will lead to better communication, and thus to better results at the plate for Lind. There may be something to this, but after three consecutive seasons and more than 1500 plate appearances of poor hitting, this sort of seems like grasping at straws. Toronto made some big moves in order to turn itself into a contender, but while their lineup looks different in many ways, Lind is still set to be the team’s primary DH as they make a run at the playoffs in 2013. It is a conspicuous hole on a team clearly built to win now. Is there really any point to running Lind out there again?

Read the rest of this entry »

Table of Contents
Here’s the table of contents for today’s edition of the Daily Notes.

1. Some Brief and Mostly Important Disclaimers
2. The Top-Six Rookie-Eligible Hitters, According to the Fans
3. The Top-Five Rookie-Eligible Pitchers, According to the Fans

Some Brief and Mostly Important Disclaimers
Over the last week, the author has considered the top forecasts for rookie-eligible players, both according to the ZiPS and Steamer projection systems — where “top” was equivalent to “highest projected WAR” and nothing else.

What follows is the product of an almost identical exercise — except for, instead of ZiPS or Steamer, the author has sorted the FAN projection leaderboards, instead. As the name suggests, these are projections crowdsourced from readers of the site.

Below are the the top-six hitters (because there was a tie for fifth) and top-five pitchers who most aptly fit the aforementioned criteria. Alongside each player’s name are listed his 2012 line (for the level at which he spent the most time) and his 2013 projection. Finally, the author has appended brief comments to each entry to give the impression that he has not merely assembled a List of Numbers.

First, though, here are four caveats:

1. The FAN projections, unlike ZiPS, include playing-time projections.

2. FAN projections are generally optimistic, but also in a generally regular way. I asked managing editor Dave Cameron about this, and he replied: “I think we’ve seen an historical overprojection of total WAR by 15-20%. It might even be 25%. If you go with 20%, you’ll probably be in the ballpark.”

3. There are three players who appeared on either the ZiPS or Steamer top-rookie posts who have not reached the eight-ballot threshold for their projections. Those players are: Boston’s Jackie Bradley, Pittsburgh’s Kyle McPherson, and Seattle’s Mike Zunino. Click on their names to submit your projections for them.

4. In homage to Jonah Lehrer, the author has copy-and-pasted many of his comments below from the two earlier top-rookie posts.

Read the rest of this entry »