sbrylski

Prince Fielder was worth about 50 batting runs above replacement level this season. Even if we replace him with Brad Nelson, we only drop to 8th or 9th. There are free agents or (Mat Gamel) that would cut the loss in offense in half, resulting in us falling only to 5th or 6th. Overall, Felix and Price were both worth about 62 runs above replacement this season, and mid-6 win players. Given that we've basically been marching out replacement level players in one of our rotation spots this season, we'd probably see a gain of most of that 62 runs. Straight up, it would actually be a rather even trade I think, and would balance out our team. We might have to kick in an extra prospect or something, but coupled with a free agent signing (or just playing Mat Gamel at first), our team would improve by probably around 3 wins.

An interesting effect of Russ' method - the sum of the individual's PPA's on a playoff team would equal one, while the sum of the individual's PPA's on a non-playoff team would equal zero. Kind of neat.

That is a tremendous video actually, the captions were great. Shows what is really going on during an AB. And yeah, I've got zero problem with it.

A note to self about the original metric - if I'm trying to model the average season, I should probably use a team's third order wins or something, rather than their actual number of wins, to remove team luck.

Russ, I can't find PPA+ and PPA- anywhere. ---- Pitch, I know you go on to make other valid criticisms (with a nice concise response to those thoughts by Russ), but I'll focus on this comment because its directly concerning the construction of the metric, rather than the use or its validity. I understand that Prince's "Most Valuable-ness" at the end of the season only adds 0.5% to the playoff odds. I just don't believe that that number is a constant throughout the season. And that's what I think the metric needs to improve on. No, it wouldn't be a constant value throughout the season. But isn't the final tally the one that's most important? Do MVP voters care about who was projected to make the playoffs in mid-June? Neither does the system for deciding who moves on to the postseason - all that matters is the final standings. In the Brewers case, Prince was pretty darn valuable than 0.5% to the playoff odds. In my opinion, without a Prince Fielder on this year's team, the Brewers would be lucky to win 70 games. That even includes having a Ryan Braun on the team and a "Lyle Overbay" or "Sean Casey" type of player as the replacement first baseman. Yeah, but we can't assume we would have a Lyle Overbay ready to go. If Prince would have broken his leg in May, we probably would have had Brad Nelson or Adam Heether up with the club and getting starts. And really, Prince added 0% to the playoff odds, because we didn't make the playoffs with him. There's two methods to get a meaningful number: what I tried above, using the average number of wins it takes to make the playoffs, and Russ's idea to use a real time aggregate, which in the end will probably be pretty close given that most seasons will be about an average season.

You would suggest using real-time postseason odds as well then? What if a player adds .25 WPA, but the team loses and drops 4%? What we'd almost need is a kind of LI designed for the importance of each game, rather than each AB. For example, a team enters a game and if they win they get +4% PPA, and if they lose they are expected to get -6%. So the "LI" for the game is the spread of 10%. If a player nets a .25 WPA in the game, he gets .25 times the spread of 10%, for .25 PPA, regardless if they win or lose.

The Rays have Upton, the mentioned Desmond Jennings, and Fernando Perez. No doubt they should be willing to trade from their CF stock. He's been hashed a time or two around here, but I'd target Fernando Perez - we might be able to afford him. Extremely small UZR/150 center field sample, just 161 major league innings, but at 51.7 it matches his raving scouting reports. Obviously that will come down, however. His career minor league line of .288 / .374 / .401 / .775 was achieved being older at every level, but if he can produce something like .270 / .350 / .380 / .730 while playing 1-2 win defense, that's about equal to the value we can expect of Cameron. Considering some upside and six years of control, I think I'd rather pay the prospect to get Perez than the $8MM to keep Cameron, if the potential trade is fair.

I would be down with that Texas trade proposal. I like Smoak a lot, and Holland as well.

A strong defense would improve the Brewers pitching staff. Unfortunately, we really have no where to go but down in regards to center field defense.

We need more Bonnie Brewer's running around. http://puttingoutthevibe.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/bonnie_brewer1.jpg

Holy cow that's awesome. I laughed out loud when I had to click "Aye!" to accept a friend request.

One last note: This analysis also excludes players that changed teams mid-season. It can be done, but I'd need split WAR stats for those players to see how much value in postseason odds they added to each of their teams. I'm not sure the WAR splits are available though. Cliff Lee and Matt Holiday would be the two that might score well, but I highly doubt they would be near the top of the leaderboards given they spent half a season earning a PPA around zero. Anyway, comments definitely welcome! I want to hear why this metric sucks! (Or how it can be bettered, of course.)

I felt like playing around with some numbers today, and with it being a hot topic around this time of year, I decided to model my own MVP award metric. I don't necessarily think this is the hands down, best way to name an MVP, however the logic behind it is more than fair. I call it: Postseason Probability Added (PPA). Here's the premise: I wanted to find the player that brought his team closer to the ultimate goal than any other. Now, what is the ultimate goal? Many say it is simply to win ballgames, and seek the player's that provided the most production in terms of win value. Others refuse to consider any players on non-playoff teams, because the playoffs are the ultimate goal. I wanted to try and combine those two sentiments and find which player increased his team's chances of making the postseason the most, by way of producing wins. I believe that a player on a non-playoff team should be eligible win the MVP Award. But I also believe that all wins are not of equal value, and therefore each win provided by a player to his team is not of equal value. For a team that is 61-100, their final game is meaningless. For a team that is 89-72, if they win their final game it happens to increase their chances of making the playoffs by around 11% in the average season. Big difference. I started by compiling every team's record since 1998, the last expansion year, and noted whether or not they made the playoffs. I then ran a logistic regression to find the odds of a team making the playoffs in an average season given their win total. Results: Postseason Odds = e ^ (0.4591 * W - 41.1605) / (1 + e ^ (0.4591 * W - 41.1605)) http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d175/sbrylski06/PostseasonOdds.jpg *The blue dots are the probability of the sample statistics, when I had multiple teams at the same win total. For example, there were five teams with 87 wins since 1998, only one made the playoffs, so a mark was added at (87,0.20). Now that I know each team's postseason odds in an average season, I can see how much a player increased his team's chances by his production expressed in wins above replacement (WAR)... The metric starts simply by calculating the team's odds of making the postseason in an average year with the player on the team, by using the team's current real life win total. Then it calculates the team's odds of making the postseason in an average year if they were forced to use a replacement level player instead, by subtracting the player's WAR from the team's real life win total. The difference between those two postseason odds is a players value in terms of postseason probability, or the odds of his team reaching the ultimate goal. Because the season isn't over yet, I don't know each team's final, real life win total. Instead, I used their average expected win totals from Baseball Prospectus. For the players, I calculated the metric for everyone with 250+ PA or 100+ IP. Here's the results: Name Team Wins WAR With Without PPA ---------------- --------- ---- --- ----- ------- ----- 1 Albert Pujols Cardinals 93.2 8.3 0.836 0.101 0.735 2 Chase Utley Phillies 94.3 7.7 0.894 0.197 0.697 3 Ubaldo Jimenez Rockies 91.2 5.2 0.670 0.157 0.513 4 Chris Carpenter Cardinals 93.2 5.1 0.836 0.329 0.507 5 Joel Pineiro Cardinals 93.2 5.1 0.836 0.329 0.507 6 Adam Wainwright Cardinals 93.2 4.9 0.836 0.349 0.487 7 Troy Tulowitzki Rockies 91.2 4.5 0.670 0.205 0.465 8 Chone Figgins Angels 95.0 5.7 0.921 0.459 0.461 9 Jon Lester Red Sox 95.6 6.1 0.939 0.482 0.456 10 Jason Marquis Rockies 91.2 3.8 0.670 0.262 0.408 11 Jason Hammel Rockies 91.2 3.6 0.670 0.280 0.390 12 Jorge de la Rosa Rockies 91.2 3.5 0.670 0.290 0.381 13 Kevin Youkilis Red Sox 95.6 5.1 0.939 0.596 0.343 14 Jayson Werth Phillies 94.3 4.1 0.894 0.562 0.332 15 Seth Smith Rockies 91.2 3.0 0.670 0.339 0.331 16 Josh Beckett Red Sox 95.6 4.9 0.939 0.618 0.321 17 Todd Helton Rockies 91.2 2.7 0.670 0.370 0.300 18 Dustin Pedroia Red Sox 95.6 4.7 0.939 0.639 0.300 19 Ryan Howard Phillies 94.3 3.8 0.894 0.596 0.298 20 Raul Ibanez Phillies 94.3 3.8 0.894 0.596 0.298 As you might have guessed, popular candidates for the award like Joe Mauer (139th) and Zach Greinke (294th) are nowhere to be found. That's because they only added 3.2% and 0.0015% to their team's chance of making the playoffs, respectively. And from the perspective used to design this metric, that makes sense. Zach Greinke had a tremendous season - without him the Royals would have the worst record in the AL. But with him, they have the, um, well they still have the worst record in the AL. Did Greinke help the Royals win a bunch of games? Absolutely. Did it matter? Nope. If your team's chances of reaching the ultimate goal are about equal whether you signed the player or not, his signing was of zero value in that given season. Same thing on the other end of the spectrum. Derek Jeter has the 12th best WAR in the league at 6.4. But even without him, the Yankees would have had a 95.7% chance of making the playoffs. Jeter only added 4.1% postseason odds. Cut Jeter and the Yankees still make the playoffs, easy. Can Jeter really be an MVP candidate if that's the case? So what we are really isolating here is which player truly put his team over the top, in an average season. And that is why you see so many Cardinals, Rockies, and Phillies on that top 20 list. Those three teams rank 5th thru 7th in wins this season. Their postseason odds in an average year range between 89.4% and 67.0%. If you cut a star player off of one of these teams, they will really feel it. Those players are, by definition, the most valuable to their respective teams. So by this metric, your 2009 National League MVP is Albert Pujols. If the Cardinals instead had to play a replacement level player at first base, their odds of making the postseason would drop 73.5%. Now that is what I call a valuable player. And in the American League, your MVP is Chone Figgins. Again, it is hard to argue with an increase of 46.1% in the Angels postseason odds with him on the team. Lastly, if you were wondering, I give you your Least Valuable Players* of 2009: *Subject to having 250+ PA or 100+ IP Name Team Wins WAR With Without PPA ---------------- --------- ---- ---- ----- ------- ------ Chris Davis Rangers 88.5 -1.1 0.370 0.494 -0.123 Garrett Atkins Rockies 91.2 -0.6 0.670 0.728 -0.058 Gary Matthews Jr. Angels 95.0 -2.0 0.921 0.967 -0.046 Delmon Young Twins 82.3 -1.7 0.033 0.069 -0.036 Alexi Casilla Twins 82.3 -1.5 0.033 0.064 -0.031 Alfonso Soriano Cubs 83.9 -0.8 0.066 0.093 -0.027 Garret Anderson Braves 87.2 -0.3 0.245 0.271 -0.026 Chris Duncan Cardinals 93.2 -0.3 0.836 0.854 -0.018 Emilio Bonifacio Marlins 85.5 -0.3 0.129 0.146 -0.016 Carlos Quentin White Sox 79.9 -1.1 0.011 0.018 -0.007 Phew, no Brewers (not that its necessarily a good thing), but we can all laugh at the Cubs with Alphonso Soriano making the list. The Brewers' worst were Looper (-.002) and Suppan (-.001). Prince was our best at .005.

By the way, according to Yahoo! Babel Fish translator: Chacarron Macarron ---> Chacarron Tubular Powder

You are all winners in my eyes then. I am the only loser.

I was afraid of this, being wrong or overlooking something. It was me who even brought up Van Halen, not sure why I thought it wasn't him anymore. Anyway - YEAH BALDKIN! WE HAVE A WINNER!!!

Reminds me of Space Balls: http://www.ladyrattlerathletics.com/dark%20helmet.jpg

A lot of good songs posted, unfortunately none have been the one I'm looking for. Not that I blame you guys, I haven't given much to go off.

Nope. Emphasis on piano intro - I remember at the time thinking it sounded like Van Halen but that was quickly ruled out. Thanks for the guesses guys.

Holy cow that's awesome.

Nope and nope. Decent guesses though. Keep 'em coming if you got ideas. Another help: Sung by a guy.

Nope, sorry.

While I would hate to see Fielder go while the Brewers still hold his rights another year Two more years.

Okay, give this one a go, BF.net! For the life of me I can't think of the name of this song - its right on the tip of the tounge. It begins with a "chord-y" piano intro, lasts 30 seconds or so. Probably an 80s song. The song title is likely to be the main line in the chorus, something short like "hold on" or "don't look back," but I'm pretty sure neither of those are it. Its not an obscere song, I heard it on XM radio at a restaurant and made a mental note of the lyrics so I could look it up when I got home, but of course I remember nothing. So if you know anything that fits that short list of criteria, throw it out there. You'll be my hero.