rluzinski

Make an extra payment on out mortgage? I'm sure my wife has other plans!

I wouldn't use the iserror function anyway, as it may catch other misc. errors. There has to be a better function than vlookup to look for a match within a column but I have no idea what it would be.

This is pretty crude but it will work. In C1, put this equation: =IF(MAX(A$1:A$9)=A1,B1,"") Copy it down the colum and hide it. In D1, put this: =IF(B1=VLOOKUP(B1,C$1:C$9,1,FALSE),"yes","no") and copy it down. The problem is that the cells in column D could never return "no", since if VLOOKUP can't find an exact match in column C, it returns the error, #N/A. I assume that it doesn't really matter anyway (just check if it returns "yes") but if it does, you could make yet another column and use: =IF(ISERROR(D1),"no","yes"). Of course, there's probably some excel wizard out there pointing at his computer screen and cackling at my solution but hey, it works! http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif I'm sure there's a better way, however.

Most of the questions on mythbusters are interesting as well.

http://www.plowsunlimited.com/images/mythbusters/bustedplacard.jpg

Ken Tremendous is friggin' Mose?

OK, then, Russ, since Bush, Capuano, Kendall...can all have somewhat logical statistical defenses presented on their behalf, how 'bout a nice challenge? Kendall is junk, IMO. I don't think they the numbers show that he should have a good year. His 2008 projections look terrible, even for a catcher. He's also has an embarrassingly bad arm. "The numbers" suggest that Bush and Cappy might be average starting pitchers (4.5ish ERA). Is that really such a bold stance? I didn't like Vargas or Estrada when Melvin traded for him and I still don't. I didn't see anything in "the numbers" to make me optimistic about them. In fact, "the numbers" suggested that they wouldn't be very good in 2007 and they didn't disappoint. Tony Gwynn Jr? He seems like a really nice guy. I'm not rejecting the analysis, Russ; I'm disagreeing with the conclusion and I'm presenting what I feel is a fair counter-analysis based on the "rules" implied through the original analysis. Sorry for the confusion. I wasn't referring to the selective sample battles you and Ennder were having in this thread, since I don't see the point either way. As I said, the whole idea of consistency is lost on me. I don't care what order the good and bad starts came in. And I doubt the criteria you used to decide what starts were good and bad (IP, ERA and win/loss?) are the same that Ennder would use anyway.

Without seeing the actual spreadsheet, I can't seem to sort out exactly what you are aiming for. Email it to me if you like. (rluzinski, hotmail).

He's concerned about the subjective element of designating balls as line drives. It's a valid concern but he uses it to reject all play-by-play-based defensive metrics and any attempts to separate pitching and fielding. It would be like rejecting all scouting information because it relys on subjective observation. Of course, Pete is trumpeting the value of subjective observation, so I can't seem to sort out his logic. At the very least, you can analyze the fielding independent stats of a pitcher (walks and strikeouts being the big two). Or would that be relying too much on the umpire to accurately call balls and strikes? Don, If you want to argue that Cappy is not among the 5 best starting pitcher options for the Brewers in 2008, I'm not going to call you wrong. I simply objected to your claim that a playoff caliber team can't afford to have a pitcher like Cappy in their rotation. I don't think you appreciate how low the bar is set for an average #5 pitcher, including teams that are playoff caliber. That or his winless streak has convinced you that Cappy is the worst pitcher, ever. And I also don't appreciate how you can act so surprised that people would be defending Cappy when they are carefully laying out WHY they are more optimistic about him than you are. You are rejecting the analysis because you disagree with its conclusion. I don't think that's really fair.

a pitcher succeeding 50% of the time (Quality Starts, whatever you want to use for your metrics) is not what playoff-caliber teams need to win. You think a playoff caliber team has 5 above average starting pitchers in their rotation? Everyone is always talking about what a playoff caliber team has to be and apparently it's one that have an above average player at each of their 25 roster positions (above average #1 pitcher, above average 2B, above average bench, etc...). Nevermind that such a team has never existed and would probably would win 125+ games if it did.

Make a new column and check each row using my equation, except have it return 1 or 0. Then in E3, have: =if(sum(new column)>0,"yes","no") I assume that more than 1 row could pass your test, since multiple cells in the A column could contain the max value?

Namely it gives you more than just the mean it let's you estimate the likely variance in player performance. Has BP ever gone back to prove the predictive value of those reported variances? I don't think they have.

It seems pretty easy, which means I probably don't understand the question completely. This is how I would do it: =IF(AND((AX=MAX(A?:A?)),BX=B3,C3=CX,D3=DX),"y","n")

Let's be honest, if the Brewers are to compete this year, they need a more consistently-good effort out of their starting pitching. When baseball fans say their favorite team needs more consistency, what they really mean is that they want better overall results. I think we all want that. really, though, if Cappy has 4 good starts followed by 4 bad ones, how is that any worse than alternating back and forth? it results in the same number of wins, so it seems pretty irrelevant to me. The absolute best statistic for defense is runs allowed and the Brewers had 776 (IIRC) If you mean defense to be fielding + pitching, I would agree. If you mean to say that trying to untangle the two is so hopeless that it's not even worth trying, I can't agree and neither would the majority of people studying such things. Hell, if you want to throw out all the advanced fielding metrics that rely on ball location and velocity, because of the uncertainty of its accuracy, that's a defendable position to take. But you'd also have to throw away all the defensive independent events that occur (walks, Ks, HRs). At the very least, you could use something like FIP to give you a better understanding of relationship between runs allowed, pitching and fielding. Is that a yes or a no? Is it derived from a stringer looking at videotapes and assigning a general value? And you have no idea whether observation is more accurate or not. Is your contention that casual observation might be more accurate than observations that have some kind of standards behind them and are recorded on an event by event basis? If you want to say both are unreliable, fine, but your position (as I understand it) is pretty hard to understand. If you simply mean that it might be correct by random chance.... well, OK then. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

I looked up this issue after I made my guess. What I found is that all that exists out there are educated guesses. Kinda disappointed me, since it seems a fairly easy thing to estimate--at least if you have a graduate degree in Stats or the equivalent. The average run value of each event has been calculated many different ways (multivariable liner regression, simulations, mathematical models, etc...). Russ, the scale I like best is: Yeh, I say that on Hardballtimes, which is what prompted me to do this in the first place. very handy. It goes on to explain that the actual value can vary minutely from year to year, with the biggest variances occurring in run values of homers. Tango does a nice job illustrating the dependency on event run values on the overall offensive environment: "Have you ever played in a softball league where the typical team scores upwards of 20 runs in a 7-inning game? Such a team will send say 51 batters to the plate, 21 of which will be out, and 20 of the other 30 batters will score. If a runner that gets on base will score two-thirds of the time, how much more valuable is the home run compared to a single? In softball, because the run environment is so high, it is important just to be able to get on base, because you know that you have a good chance at scoring. Take an even more extreme example. Imagine playing in a run environment with 100+ runs scored in every game. 90% of the baserunners end up scoring. In this environment, there is very little difference between a home run and a single. Just by virtue of getting on base, you are bound to score. There is far more value in getting on base, than of moving runners over. Take an extreme example the other way. Pedro Martinez provides his opposition with a very low run environment. Getting on base is not enough. Very few of those runners will end up scoring. However, if you can hit a home run, you will be adding alot of run potential to the runners on base. Not only that, but when you hit a home run, you are always guaranteed 1 run." http://www.tangotiger.net/runscreated.html

I think you mean variance or deviation on runs / inning. Wouldn't the distribution (average) of runs / inning run parallel to ERA? What I meant was, how often he gives up x amount of runs per inning. A pitcher who gives up "big innings" more often than his ERA would suggest would give up a higher percentage of 3+ run innings than expected. Here's how NL teams distributed their run scoring per inning in 2007: 0 runs: 71.3% 1 run: 15.5% 2 runs: 7.1% 3 runs: 3.5% 4+ runs: 2.6% The distribution is going to be slightly different for starting pitchers, I would presume. It's almost parabolic: he struggles early, then settles in, and starts to fall off around 90 pitches. That he gets less effective later on in games isn't all that surprising, but I don't think that his first inning / first 15 pitches numbers are typical around the majors. On average, teams score the most runs in the1st inning and the 6th inning (in that order). While Bush might struggle more than the average pitcher in the 1st inning (don't know for a fact but that OPS in the first is ugly), it's a tough inning for all starting pitchers. Baseball reference lists a pitcher's stats for each inning: http://www.baseball-reference.com/pi/psplit.cgi?n1=bushda01 It would be interesting to see what the NL average was for starting pitchers.

Robieaux DrWood Ph Smith Stevo pmg4 logan Johnson Jimbo AVE Linear Weights HR 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10.00 3 10.50 3B 8 7 9 7 9 9 7 7 7.88 2.2 7.70 2B 6 4.5 7 6 7.5 7 5 5.5 6.06 1.6 5.60 1B 4 2 4 4 4 4 3 3 3.50 1 3.50 BB 3 1.5 3 3 2.5 3 2 2 2.50 0.7 2.45 SB 1 1 2 1 0.5 1 1 2 1.19 0.4 1.40 Not sure what this tells us, other than those 8 did a pretty darn good job of guessing the realtive run values. The first "Linear Weights" column shows the relative run value of each event with a single set to 1; the second colum shows the relative values after setting the value of a single equal to the group's collective guess (3.5). HRs and SB were actually slightly undervalued by the group, which tells us that either the 8 participants are smarter than the average fan or my theory is completely wrong. I've read that even ML GMs appear to over value HRs, though, so maybe brewerfan.net just raises the bar!

I think that's also telling with Dave Bush. For him to get into triple-digit pitch counts, he needs to not burn himself out with high-pitch innings early-on. To some extent, it's a measure of his ability to avoid the "big inning" that really plagued him last year. Did he really have more "big innings" than a 5.10 ERA pitcher would be expected to? It would be interesting to see his distribution of runs scored/inning, compared to league average. I was very excited when Melvin aquired Bush but his last two years have tempered some of my optimism for him. Of course, if he's even a true 4.5 ERA pitcher, he still has a ton of value.

People are generally just too quick to declare a weak/short trend as something to always expect. If something happens three times in a row, it might as well have been 100.

I got a star on Mario Galaxy. I don't even try to watch the halftime show anymore.

Am I the only one who has no emotional investment with regard to what the Chicago media thinks about the Milwaukee Brewers? To be fair, I don't like in the Chicago area, so I'm not subjected to it on a regular basis but I'm certainly not going to seek it out. It's like listening to a conservative talk radio station when you are a liberal, and shaking your fist at the radio in disgust. What did you expect? http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

Thanks guys. You've convinced me to embrace my underdog status and build for the long term.

The two I buy regularly: Orange Ruffy Salmon I just bought my first tuna steak and wasn't impressed. I don't know if I just overcooked it, or what.

I'm kind of new to fantasy baseball and very new to auction and keeper leagues. I just agreed to join an already established league and will be taking over for a departing owener. As you can guess, the team I am taking over isn't very good... at all. To try and quantify where my keepers stacked up against the rest of the league, I compared each teams' keepers and what they get to keep them at vs. their worths, according to cbsportline.com. You are allowed to keep up to 5 players but I assume teams will only elect to keep "positive value" players. Here are the results: Team Savings # Team A $80 5 Team B $63 5 Team C $56 5 Team D $51 5 Team E $48 5 Team F $43 5 Team G $33 4 My Team $33 4 Team H $30 5 Team J $25 5 We all have $260 to spend but the way I see it, Team A actually has $47 more dollars than me to spend, team B has $30 more dollars, etc... Team A is just stacked. He gets to keep Hanley Ramirez, Fielder, Eric Byrnes, Kelly Johnson and Brian Mccan for a combined $73! Team B has Braun and Tulo for a combined, $17 (along with 3 other positive value players). I potentially get: Webb: $22 Hart: $17 Matt Kemp: $7 Aaron Cook: $7 My question is, am I over estimating the disadvantage my franchise has this year or should I just hand my $100 entrance to the commissioner and save myself some time? http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

Russ, I just broke my addiction to Conquer Club, and I'm getting so much more done. Just limit yourself to one move a day and only 4 games. Come on..... come back.... you know you want to......