rluzinski

There may have been 3-4 teams willing to easily beat the Brewer's offer to CC. If that is true, it wasn't a "fair" offer. As for Prince, him having Boras as his agent suggests that, like millions of other Americans, Prince is interested in making as much money as he can. Perhaps staying in Milwaukee is worth $1 or $2 mil a year to Prince. If another team offers 7/$140, the Brewers might be able to "match it" with a 7/$126. That's a 10% discount, so hoping for more than that is probably unrealistic.

Do you have to just write about game theory being applied to a specific topic or also perform actual analysis? I assume you've seen Levitt/Kovash's recent study related to baseball game theory? http://tangotiger.net/files/kovash_levitt_w15347.pdf http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/site/comments/game_theory_on_pitch_selection/ As you can see by the comments, many of the readers at insidethebook blog were skeptical of the findings. Perhaps you could improve or take a different approach on the pitch selection topic? MGL wrote a recent fangraph article about when to attempt a sacrifice bunt but it only serves to illustrate how complicated that subject is and how little data there is to help answer questions. A lot of game theory in baseball has to do with forcing the defense to adjust their positioning, which is difficult/impossible to analyize, sicne their's no data on the actual positioning. Sacrifice bunt/suicide squeeze attempt, stolen base attempt. Bunting against a lefty supershift? A pitcher throwing over to first has always bothered me, since game theory tells you to throw over 99% of the time (assuming no chance of an error, at least)? If we assume the batter is completely guessing on pitch location and the only outcome is "strike" or ball", how often should a pitcher throw a strike at various pitch counts and how often should the batter swing? It would be a theoretical construct but might yield interesting information?

Just did the 2009 AL, non-pitchers. Used 1.8OBP+SLG. Looks like a bell curve but it's not! http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif I'd like to see what the distribution looks like for actual skill (not just sample stats).

This might be obvious but I'll point it out, regardless. The MLB distribution of something like OBP, might look roughly like a bell curve but it's more complicated than that. In terms of skill, the pool of players MLB draws from is from one extreme tail of the bell curve. Even bad major leaguers are 3+ standard deviations away from the average skill level of the population of adults playing organized baseball. So it's really more like a pyramid. It's just that the AAAA type major leaguers don't get as many PA's, which somehwat cuts down the fat end of the pyramid. I'm not sure what the resulting distribution looks like exactly. Can we use BR.com to estimate the # of PA in 2009 that was between a certain OBP?

This might be obvious but I'll point it out, regardless. The MLB distribution of something like OBP, might look roughly like a bell curve but it's more complicated than that. In terms of skill, the pool of players MLB draws from is from one extreme tail of the bell curve. Even bad major leaguers are 3+ standard deviations away from the average skill level of the population of adults playing organized baseball. So it's really more like a pyramid. It's just that the AAAA type major leaguers don't get as many PA's, which somehwat cuts down the fat end of the pyramid. I'm not sure what the resulting distribution looks like exactly. Can we use BR.com to estimate the # of PA in 2009 that was between a certain OBP?

A 4 WAR player is more rare but you can just use two 2 WAR players to get the same value. It's rare to find a team that already has all 2 WAR players. If a starting lineup was just 2 batters and 1 pitcher, I'm speculating that a 4 WAR player would be exponentially more valuable than a 2 WAR player. Now, it still gives you a little more flexability to have one 4 WAR player over two, 2 WAR players, so it's reasonable to conclude the 4 WAR player is worth more than twice a 2 WAR. Tango has concluded that teams don't pay more than twice. Perhaps injury related risks of having so much value tied to one player compensates for the small flexibility advantage? Not sure if I explained that any better the second time. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

According to Tom Tango (tangotiger.net), teams pay linearly for wins above replacement. A guy who's 4 wins over a AAAA player is twice as valuable as a 2 win player. While the 4 win player is much more rare, it doesn't appear to translate into exponentially more value. I think there's just enough slots to fill that a 0 - 2 WAR upgrade is always available. If a team had only 3 slots to fill, I think the 4 win player would be worth non-linearly more.

It's not so much that it's the same teams every year, it's why they are always there.

Baseball related bio-mechanics kind of seems like a pseudoscience to me. If you don't have evidence to support theory, it's just words. Are there studies to support the his theories? Is this guy a PHD? Of course, neither are necessary for his theories to be correct but I am just skeptical.

Ticket prices are based on supply and demand. So is average player salary. If the NHL is more affordable, it's because it's less popular. And guaranteed contracts are about as fair as a player not being able to opt out of a contract whenever he wants. Neither side can break the contract, so that's the definition of fair. The NFL is less fair in comparison. And don't get me started on the arbitration rules. I'd like to see more competative balance as well but suggesting it would be a good thing if MLB went bankrupt kinda seems silly.

Gallardo with a B and Looper with a C+. And it's not like they don't appreciate the difference in run support each got. They mentioned it in both player's write ups. The "team offense" grade is very odd as well, IMO. They point out that only 2 other NL teams scored more runs and say, "[it] is, after all, the name of the game." But then they go on to complain about strikeouts and the running game and then slaps the offense with a B- grade. Half the explanation centered around them whining that Macha was too passive on the base paths. Does that mean the runs they scored were worth less somehow? Would an offense that scored less runs but had better base running get a higher grade than the Brewers? Maybe they just thought that only three NL offenses deserved a grade of B- or higher. Wouldn't you just love seeing this kind of stuff in NFL reporting? "The Colts scored the 3rd most points in the AFC last year. But while they had a good pass completion percentage, they dropped too many passes. They also weren't good running draw plays or screens: B-.

If a person wants to define their grading system in such a way as to give half the players being graded an F, that's their choice. If Yo is a B-, that's roughly what you end up with. And their's atleast a quarter run difference between the AL and NL..

I did that because if we only looked at qualified pitchers it made Yo's stats actually look worse - his rankings in terms of those stats would have been even lower (more C's, less B's). Someone would have griped that I wasn't comparing him to enough pitcher I'm just saying that you should compare him to all starting pitchers and then adjust for playing time. And if you aren't considering that Yo is making league minimum, his amended B grade is reasonable enough. I just don't get how can you only consider salary for a couple of players. It seems so... arbitrary. Using different criteria for each player turns this more into a "who I like the most" list. And if that's all you meant it to be, I can't disagree with any of the rankings, then.

If Yo had pitched only 100 innings this year, we'd be correctly discounting the value of his rate stats. Indeed, much of the criticism of Yo has focused on the fact that his high pitch counts have limitied the length of his starts and by extension, his total innings. But now we are going to measure his rate stats against some guys who may have pitches 50+ less innings? If you are going to use rate stats to measure the value of performance, you have to multiply by the rate stat's denominator at some point (games started, IP, whatever). A pitcher with identical rate stats to Yo but with 220 IP would obviously have had more value associated with his performance. Of course, we'd also have to see what he's getting paid, which is my other criticism of your analysis in your last post. How many of those guys in your list are getting paid league min? Like I said before, I don't think your list is bad but it seems like your analysis suffers with less than objective analysis with a couple players. I realize your grading wasn't based on some sophisticated methodology and it doesn't have to do. I'm just struggling to understand the basic concept still. It's value - salary, right? And the value of a guy with twice the PA or IP is double someone else in the same role? (pinch hitter vs. pinch hitter, reliever vs. reliever).

Yo was not even close to average this season, in terms of ERA. If his name was Bob Smith and he came out of nowhere to post a 3.73 ERA in 30 starts and averaged 6-1/3 IP/start while making league min, you'd be giving him an A++++ with a couple smiley faces after it. This comes down to expectations IMO.

If you are going to use an advanced metric like UZR/150, why not just use the run value of all the things you mentioned and then sum them? Seems like the proper way to weight everything. As for his defense, he had the second highest UZR in the league. His defense (according to UZR) was better than all but one qualified CFer. The fact that the one player destroyed his defense should matter little. He should be compared to the average defender, no?

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. Actually, we have to take into effect the odds of the team making the playoffs before the season started, right? If we assume every team has the same odds at the beginning of the season, an NL team has 4/16= 25% of making the playoffs. A team that made the playoffs collectively added 75% to their playoff odds over the course of 162 games.

And if K's don't matter for hitters, then they shouldn't matter for pitchers - you can't have that both ways. As a BF.net vet, you have many times read where this logic is flawed. For a pitcher, it's a matter of comparing the value of a ball-in-play with an unknown outcome vs. an out (a strikeout). But we already know the result of every Cam PA this year. We also know the average value of a K with a BIP out are close to even. As a result, his K totals are almost completely irrelevant when we are concerned with production. If we want to project a pitcher or Cameron, K rate is very important. I stated my argument for Cam - while his SLG and defense is very good, his OBP was below average Someone already mentioned this but I don't think Cam's OBP was every below average. The NL average this year was .331. NL CFers had an average OBP of .338. So: NL CF: .267/.338/.423/.761 Cam: .252/.345/.456/.800 Now, the use of BA, OBP and SLG as a measure of performance is also just somone's opinion but so is anything. I am just providing evidence. Gallardo hasn't gone as many as 7 innings since August 9th; he hasn't gone more than 7 innings since July 25th, and now he's shut down for the year. His performance in August and September have been awful - an ERA over 5.00 both months. Suppan/Parra/Bush/Looper aren't the only ones who have taxed the bullpen. He's 23rd in OBP-A, and 21st in OPS-A. 30th in the league in quality start %. I don't see how what he before or after August 9th has any relevance in this discussion. We are measuring their performance for 2009 as a whole, aren't we. If you are judging late season performance more than early season performance, fine, but you need to let us know. This is how I see it for 2009: Average NL Starter: 4.32 ERA, 5.8 innings/start Gallardo: 3.73 ERA, 6.2 innings/start All for league min and he get's a B-? We'll have to agree to disagree.

I think the Red Sox are a great example to show that money and a good front office might be 50/50? Money is at least 50%, IMO.

I'm not saying that pitching coaches don't provide a valuable service. I just don't think there are big differences between them, at least not that teams can identify. They are a dime a dozen. If there were a million Pujolses, they would all make league min. And guys like Counsell don't get paid $10+ mil a year, so as much as they are celebrated by the fans, media and franchises, teams have a decent handle on the true value of grit.

Since there's no actual definition of what an MVP is, there can't be a metric designed to satisfy everyone. Like TooLiveBrew pointed out, I think sam's metric does a reasonable job to try and quantify the most

I think it is obvious that even the franchises don't think that some pitching coaches can affect pitching performances significantly more than others. I believe the Rangers are paying Maddux $600,000 this year. Assuming an average pitching coach get's $0.5 mil less and teams pay around $4.5 mil for each win via free agency, does that mean Texas thinks Maddux is worth .5/4.5= 1/9th a win more than an average pitching coach? Leo Mazzone was perhaps the most celebrated pitching coach ever but only got $0.5 mil/year when he moved to Baltimore. So if the franchises don't think these guys are very valuable, why do the fans?

I understood the grading to be players 2009 production vs. their individual past performance and compared to the rest of the league at that position. The author said: The only factor other than performance that had any impact was salary Part performance has nothing to do with it. In my opinion it's the most useful way to grade players, so I'm glad to here it. Performance - salary = value. His hitting has been and remains terrible. So bad that he was kicked off the team for a spell and won't even have enough plate appearances to qualify for a batting title. Melvin sending Hardy doesn't and shouldn't influence an independent, objective analysis of Hardy's value (beyond what the limited PA does to his offensive value). The numbers are the numbers. A guy like Neifi Perez was allowed to accumulate 5500 PA with a career line of .267/.297/.375/.672. It was because his defense was awesome and the team's he played for knew it. there are other examples as well. Adam Everett has a career line of .245/.297/.351/.648. Ozzie Smith is in Hall of fame with a line of .262/.337/.328/.666 (different era, obviously). The point is, if a SS plays very good defense for a given year, he can stink offensively and still have value. Whether some franchise recognize that (or feel they have a better option) is irrelevant. If you think UZR overvalues Hardy's true defensive talents, fine. As for expectations, I think anyone expecting more than a 3.73 ERA and 185 innings from Gallardo this was setting themselves up for disappointment. If you are concerned about some of his secondary stats, that's understandable considering what it does to his future projection. We are just talking about performance, though.

So, production vs. cost? Start with the last column here: http://www.fangraphs.com/winss.aspx?team=Brewers&pos=all&stats=bat&qual=0&type=6&season=2009&month=0 And compare that to their actual salaries: http://www.brewerfan.net/ViewTeamSalary.do?teamId=1 Some notables, with your grade for them: Fielder: +$20 mil (A+) Braun: +$20 mil (A) Lopez: +10 mil (A) Cameron: +$10 mil (B-) Just an example of baseball fans getting hung up on BA and K when they shouldn't. You are grading "prettiness" here, not production. Hardy: +$1 mil (D) Hardy's D probably makes him worth about what he was paid this year. That just illustrates that a good defensive SS can hit bad and still have lot's of value. He should get a C grade unless you care about expectations. Hoffman: +1$ mil (A) Now, he get's to work in higher leverage situations, so you can say his production is worth more. Even if you double the value of his production, it puts him at +$8mil. Gallardo: +$12 mil (B-) A 3.73 ERA in 185 IP for league min. No pitcher was even close to being this valuable but Yo get's a B-? I don't think this is a bad list by any means but your grade for Cam and Yo are way off, IMO.

OK, I got that mixed up. WPA/LI neutralizes context. What I'm proposing is for each game, find how much a win or loss drops a teams playoff odds (call it PPA and -PPA). Like I said, I thought coolstandingss.com had those. Then just use this: MVP= (WPA x PPA) - (-WPA x -PPA) Would that work?