Daily Notes: Regressed Stats for the Dutch League, Also
Table of Contents
Here’s the table of contents for today’s edition of the Daily Notes.
1. Regressed Stats for the Dutch League, Also
2. Professional Humor Video: Holland vs. the Netherlands
Regressed Stats for the Dutch League, Also
Much as he did for the Italian Baseball League in the composition of yesterday’s Daily Notes post, the author has spent a not insubstantial portion of the past 24 hours both (a) copy-and-pasting Dutch baseball league stats into an Excel file, and then (b) formatting and applying a simple regression to those same stats, so’s to produce the leaderboards one finds below — which is to say, SCOUT-type leaderboards for that same Dutch baseball league
What’s a SCOUT-type leaderboard? A SCOUT leaderboard is essentially an attempt to — utilizing Russell Carleton’s excellent work on the reliability thresholds of various metrics — an attempt to produce something meaningful from small sample sizes. (Click here for more on that.)
Below are the final SCOUT leaderboards for the first division of the Dutch baseball league’s 2012 season, which appears to have taken place between early April and early July. Ages are as of July 1st, 2012.
By way of reference, below are the teams in the Dutch League, or Honkbal Hoofdklasse.
ADO – Ado Lakers
AMS – L&D Amsterdam Pirates
HCA – Mr. Cocker HCAW
KIN – Corendon Kinheim
NEP – DOOR Neptunus
PIO – Vaessen Pioniers
SPF – Sparta/Feyenoord
UVV – UVV Utrecht
SCOUT Leaderboard: Dutch League Hitters
Below is the final SCOUT batting leaderboard for the Hoofdklasse Honkbal. SCOUT+ is calculated using regressed home-run, walk, and strikeout rates, where 100 is average and above 100 is above average.
| Player | Team | Age | Pos | PA | xHR% | xBB% | xK% | SCOUT+ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sidney de Jong | AMS | 33 | C | 184 | 1.6% | 24.3% | 10.9% | 164 |
| Wesley Connor | AMS | 27 | OF | 194 | 3.2% | 12.8% | 13.4% | 144 |
| Bryan Engelhardt | KIN | 30 | 1B | 120 | 3.1% | 13.7% | 14.6% | 142 |
| Mark Duursma | PIO | 30 | C | 160 | 0.3% | 17.1% | 7.5% | 133 |
| Rafael Jozefa | NEP | 27 | OF | 190 | 1.2% | 15.0% | 13.2% | 127 |
| Mervin Gario | KIN | 26 | 2B | 178 | 0.3% | 18.2% | 12.9% | 125 |
| Michael Duursma | PIO | 34 | SS | 182 | 0.3% | 14.5% | 7.7% | 124 |
| Vince Rooi | AMS | 30 | 3B | 95 | 0.8% | 18.1% | 16.7% | 124 |
| Quintin de Cuba | KIN | 24 | 1B | 167 | 1.3% | 16.3% | 17.4% | 123 |
| Lennart Koster | NEP | 26 | OF/C | 153 | 0.7% | 13.5% | 9.8% | 122 |
SCOUT Leaderboard: Dutch League Pitchers
Below is the final SCOUT pitching leaderboard for the Hoofdklasse Honkbal. SCOUT- is calculated using regressed strikeout and walk rates where 100 is average and below 100 is above average.
| Player | Team | Age | Arm | IP | TBF | xK% | xBB% | SCOUT- |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rob Cordemans | AMS | 37 | RHP | 53.0 | 246 | 38.3% | 8.2% | 33 |
| Derek Tarapacki | UVV | 26 | RHP | 20.0 | 138 | 41.0% | 11.1% | 34 |
| David Bergman | KIN | 30 | RHP | 79.0 | 317 | 31.9% | 7.8% | 51 |
| Dushan Ruzic | NEP | 30 | RHP | 32.0 | 131 | 33.9% | 11.1% | 54 |
| Joey Evans | PIO | 27 | RHP | 72.0 | 329 | 30.7% | 8.6% | 56 |
| Luke Sommer | KIN | 27 | LHP | 76.0 | 287 | 26.5% | 8.1% | 67 |
| Berry Van Driel | NEP | 27 | RHP | 11.0 | 62 | 30.0% | 13.3% | 72 |
| Arschwin Asjes | KIN | 26 | RHP | 20.0 | 88 | 27.1% | 12.2% | 77 |
| Kyle Ward | UVV | 23 | LHP | 46.0 | 152 | 27.0% | 12.3% | 77 |
| Ben Grover | AMS | 27 | RHP | 52.0 | 306 | 22.6% | 9.1% | 81 |
Notes
• Three of the pitchers listed here are included on the Netherlands’ provisional roster for the World Baseball Classic: David Bergman, Rob Cordemans, and Berry Van Driel. None of the batters among the Dutch leaders appear on the national-team roster.
• The offensive leader in 2012’s edition of the Dutch league was Amsterdam catcher Sidney de Jong, who walked more than twice as often as he struck out. Per Baseball Reference, that sort of plate discipline isn’t anomalous: in most competitions, de Jong has posted OBP over 100 points better than his batting average.
• At 37, right-hander Rob Cordemans is one of the longest-tenured members of the Dutch national team, having participated in both the 2006 and -09 WsBC, and also many other international tournaments to which Americans pay ~0% attention. Cordemans was dominant in league plays this season, posting a 94:5 strikeout-to-walk ratio.
Professional Humor Video: Holland vs. the Netherlands
Surfer of the internet Don Hammack brought this professionally made — and legitimately helpful — humor video to the attention of the author via Twitter yesterday:
Carson Cistulli has published a book of aphorisms called Spirited Ejaculations of a New Enthusiast.
This is probably as good a place as any to ask the Internet for input on the honkbal excursion I’m planning in April (3 days in Amsterdam that span 2 Pirates games). Does anyone who’s been to a Honkbal Hoofdklasse game have recommendations on ticket purchase, cheering practices, etc? What should I be looking into to report back to the Graphitariat?
Games are hardly ever sold out, so you should be able to just go to the ground and buy some tickets. As for cheering practices, it is basically the same as in the States, only with fewer people. One thing I did notice in the States was that fewer people actually stretched and sang along with “take me out to the ball game” than over here in the Netherlands.
– Although I should probably mention I never been to a hoofdklasse match myself, I’ve only seen games , which have larger crowds with more inexperienced people, so that might explain the 7th inning enthusiasm.