Tom Tango, a consultant for the Cubs, did similar work along these lines. He showed up in the comments (I still can't believe how cool that is, by the way) and pointed me towards his previous work, which can be found here. He expressed interest in some further analysis along these lines; with that in mind, I'm going to review each Cubs start this year, assigning each of the (now 6, including Bill James' original and my modified DiPS) scores to all of the games.

First, we'll look at the top and bottom 3 games for each score.

Bill James

#1 Jeff Samardzija, 4/1/2013 (8 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 9 SO, 0 HR) – 86

#2 Scott Feldman, 5/1/2013 (9 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 1 BB, 12 SO, 2 HR) – 84

#3 Carlos Villaneuva, 4/12/2013 (8 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 3 SO, 0 HR) – 74

–

#3 Scott Feldman, 4/5/2013 (4.2 IP, 5 H, 4 R, 4 BB, 1 SO, 1 HR) – 35

#2 Scott Feldman, 4/11/2013 (4.1 IP, 7 H, 6 R, 3 BB, 3 SO, 0 HR) – 33

#1 Edwin Jackson, 4/30/2013 (4.2 IP, 11 H, 8 R, 2 BB, 6 SO, 1 HR) – 14

Pure Runs

#1 Jeff Samardzija, 4/1/2013 (8 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 9 SO, 0 HR) – 91

#2 Carlos Villaneuva, 4/12/2013 (8 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 3 SO, 0 HR) – 87

#3 Travis Wood, 4/4/2013 (6 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 4 SO, 0 HR) – 78

#3 Scott Feldman, 5/1/2013 (9 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 1 BB, 12 SO, 2 HR) – 78

–

#3 Edwin Jackson, 4/14/2013 (5.1 IP, 5 H, 5 R, 4 BB, 9 SO, 0 HR) – 24

#2 Scott Feldman, 4/11/2013 (4.1 IP, 7 H, 6 R, 3 BB, 3 SO, 0 HR) – 8

#1 Edwin Jackson, 4/30/2013 (4.2 IP, 11 H, 8 R, 2 BB, 6 SO, 1 HR) – -10

SO-BB

#1 Scott Feldman, 5/1/2013 (9 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 1 BB, 12 SO, 2 HR) – 77

#2 Jeff Samardzija, 4/7/2013 (5.2 IP, 4 H, 4 R, 4 BB, 13 SO, 0 HR) – 69

#3 Jeff Samardzija, 4/1/2013 (8 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 9 SO, 0 HR) – 67

–

#3 Edwin Jackson, 4/25/2013 (6 IP, 5 H, 3 R, 4 BB, 4 SO, 0 HR) – 42

#2 Scott Feldman, 4/11/2013 (4.1 IP, 7 H, 6 R, 3 BB, 3 SO, 0 HR) – 42

#1 Scott Feldman, 4/5/2013 (4.2 IP, 5 H, 4 R, 4 BB, 1 SO, 1 HR) – 33

FIP (Tom Tango)

#1 Jeff Samardzija, 4/1/2013 (8 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 9 SO, 0 HR) – 75

#2 Jeff Samardzija, 4/7/2013 (5.2 IP, 4 H, 4 R, 4 BB, 13 SO, 0 HR) – 68

#3 Jeff Samardzija, 4/13/2013 (6 IP, 7 H, 2 R, 4 BB, 13 SO, 0 HR) – 62

–

#3 Jeff Samardzija, 4/19/2013 (7 IP, 6 H, 5 R, 1 BB, 4 SO, 2 HR) – 37

#2 Travis Wood, 4/27/2013 (6 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 1 BB, 5 SO, 2 HR) – 36

#1 Scott Feldman, 4/5/2013 (4.2 IP, 5 H, 4 R, 4 BB, 1 SO, 1 HR) – 29

DiPS (Myles Handley)

#1 Jeff Samardzija, 4/1/2013 (8 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 9 SO, 0 HR) – 86

#2 Scott Feldman, 5/1/2013 (9 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 1 BB, 12 SO, 2 HR) – 77

#3 Jeff Samardzija, 4/7/2013 (5.2 IP, 4 H, 4 R, 4 BB, 13 SO, 0 HR) – 72

–

#2 Scott Feldman, 4/11/2013 (4.1 IP, 7 H, 6 R, 3 BB, 3 SO, 0 HR) – 38

#2 Travis Wood, 4/27/2013 (6 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 1 BB, 5 SO, 2 HR) – 38

#1 Scott Feldman, 4/5/2013 (4.2 IP, 5 H, 4 R, 4 BB, 1 SO, 1 HR) – 18

Linear Weights

#1 Jeff Samardzija, 4/1/2013 (8 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 9 SO, 0 HR) – 94

#2 Carlos Villaneuva, 4/12/2013 (8 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 3 SO, 0 HR) – 84

#3 Scott Feldman, 5/1/2013 (9 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 1 BB, 12 SO, 2 HR) – 82

–

#3 Scott Feldman, 4/5/2013 (4.2 IP, 5 H, 4 R, 4 BB, 1 SO, 1 HR) – 34

#2 Scott Feldman, 4/11/2013 (4.1 IP, 7 H, 6 R, 3 BB, 3 SO, 0 HR) – 32

#1 Edwin Jackson, 4/30/2013 (4.2 IP, 11 H, 8 R, 2 BB, 6 SO, 1 HR) – 10

I thought it would be illustrative to show first what the consensus outlier performances were. In that vein, I gave each system a "vote" for the 3 worst and 3 best (3-2-1). These were those results:

Best

#1 Jeff Samardzija, 4/1/2013 (16 pts) (3-3-1-3-3-3)

#2 Scott Feldman, 5/1/2013 (9 pts) (2-1-3-0-2-1)

#3 Carlos Villaneuva, 4/12/2013 (5 pts) (1-2-0-0-0-2)

#3 Jeff Samardzija, 4/7/2013 (5 pts) (0-0-2-2-1-0)

Worst

#1 Scott Feldman, 4/5/2013 (11 pts) (1-0-3-1-3-3)

#2 Scott Feldman, 4/11/2013 (10 pts) (2-2-2-0-2-2)

#3 Edwin Jackson, 4/30/2013 (7 pts) (3-3-0-0-0-1)

Additionally, I took a look at the games with the lowest standard deviation among game scores. These are sort of the platonic ideal of what a Game Score is (because, for good or ill, all of these types come to a relative consensus).

#1 Edwin Jackson, 4/25/2013 (6 IP, 5 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 4 BB, 4 SO, 0 HR), 3.8 point standard deviation (Largest Deviation: SO/BB)

#2 Jeff Samardzija, 4/13/2013 (6 IP, 7 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 5 SO, 0 HR), 4.2 point standard deviation (Largest Deviation: LW)

#3 Edwin Jackson, 4/3/2013 (5 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 5 SO, 0 HR), 4.2 point standard deviation (Largest Deviation: LW) Interestingly enough, LW "overvalues" this start and "undervalues" the second one.

These are all what you would put in the family of "quality starts." The average game scores (respectively) are 48.7, 57.2, 57.1.  These are perhaps not as illustrative as you'd like, so here are the closest "bad" and "good" starts by standard deviation so far:

Scott Feldman, 4/5/2013 (4.2 IP, 5 H, 4 R, 4 BB, 1 SO, 1 HR), 6.3 point standard deviation (Largest Deviation: DiPS)

Scott Feldman, 5/1/2013 (9 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 1 BB, 12 SO, 2 HR), 9.4 point standard deviation (Largest Deviation: FIP)

Something very important to consider when comparing one Game Score metric to another is that their variances, well, vary. FIP by nature has a very low variance, as does SO/BB. On the other hand, both LW and Runs have much higher than normal variance. To get a more accurate picture of how these systems have varied historically (and I'd like to thank Berselius for reminding me that this is important to do), I took the first 300 games pitched in 2012 and computed the scores for each of them.

BJ: 16.5 standard deviation, 51.6 average

Runs: 25.9 standard deviation, 48.9 average

SO/BB: 9.5 standard deviation, 50.9 average

FIP: 15.7 standard deviation, 48.4 average

DiPS: 21.3 standard deviation, 46.3 average

LW: 21.1 standard deviation, 48.2 average

The upshot of this is that a 65 in FIP is much more impressive than a 65 in Runs (to whit: of the 27 starts the Cubs have made this year, 9 of them have a 65 or greater in Runs, and just 2 in FIP). This makes a direct comparison like the one above quite a bit more difficult. To really do so, you'd likely have to rebrand each game score by standard deviations from the mean, and make comparisons that way. That's both beyond the scope of the analysis I wish to perform, and perhaps obfuscating as well.

Going back to the first bit (the 3 best and worst Cubs starts so far by score aggregate), it's fairly interesting to see how often each game score put a game in the top 3.

BJ: 3 of 4 best, 3 of 3 worst

Runs: 3 of 4 best, 2 of 3 worst

SO/BB: 2 of 4 best, 2 of 3 worst

FIP: 2 of 4 best, 1 of 3 worst

DiPS: 3 of 4 best, 2 of 3 worst

LW: 3 of 4 best, 3 of 3 worst

FIP was the worst at placing it's extremes into the consensus, and LW and BJ were both perfect at it. I'm not sure this is entirely relevant, but it's kind of fun.

It's difficult to really say which of these are better or worse. I'm partial to my own system (the standard deviation is such that the majority of starts should ball between 25-67; that is enough to clearly show which start is "better" without such a huge deviation as to brand merely good starts as stellar) and FIP (for the same reason, but his is even better because of the near-perfect standard deviation), but they all have merits. The differences between my system and Tom's are really not so different (and his are perhaps rooted in a stronger statistical background than my own, for what that's worth); we merely give slightly different weights to SO, BB, HR, and I give a slight incentive to accumulate outs (he has 40 + 2.5 per inning, I use 15 + 6 per inning). Runs is clearly the most volatile (and in my opinion least illustrative) score available (and a good way to show discrepancy is Edwin Jackson's March 30th start: -10 in Runs, 54 in SO/BB). The most optimal standard deviation IMO is from Bill James' version: I'd like a standard deviation of 15 centered around 50 if possible.

If we were to synthesize these scores into a cohesive group, we would unfortunately have to start by adjusting each score for their variance. To do so, I weighted each score in such a way that the ones with a higher variance were weighted lower and vice versa. 

BJ: 16.8%
Runs: 10.6%
SO/BB: 28.9%
FIP: 17.6%
DiPS: 13.0%
LW: 13.1%

If you wanted to "ballpark it," you could go (15/10/30/20/10/15).

This change in weight puts each score on the same playing field. What follows would be the top 3 scores if all systems were weighted equally in this way:

#1 Jeff Samardzija, 4/1/2013: 80.2 SuperScore (#1 consensus score and "dumb" average of 83.3)

#2 Scott Feldman, 5/1/2013: 75.3 SuperScore (#2 consensus score and "dumb" average of 75.7)

#3 Carlos Villaneuva, 4/12/2013: 65.9 SuperScore (#3 consensus score and "dumb" average of 69.8)

#1 Scott Feldman, 4/5/2013: 30.4 SuperScore (#1 consensus score and "dumb" average of 29.8)

#2 Edwin Jackson, 4/30/2013: 31.4 SuperScore (#3 consensus score and "dumb" average of 25.6)

#3 Scott Feldman, 4/11/2013: 36.0 SuperScore (#2 consensus score and "dumb" average of 33.5)

For reference, the Wood 20-K game would have a SuperScore of 107.2. That's pretty cool.

The closest game to 50 in this group would then be Travis Wood, 4/27/2013. That's 6 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 1 BB, 5 SO, 2 HR. 

A way to know that we're likely on the right track is to consider what standard deviation really means. In a normal distribution, 68.2% of each data point should fall within a single standard deviation of the mean. In this case, the standard deviation of our new score is 11.3 (and the average of 53.1 illustrates that Cubs' starting pitching is slightly better than average thus far). We would therefore expect 18 of the 27 data points to fall within the range (41.8, 64.4); so far, 21 do. On the extreme end, we'd expect either 0 or 1 value both 2 standard deviations higher and lower then the mean of 53.1; we've got one on the high end and one on the low. I imagine that as the sample size grows, these will hold as well.

This, of course does little to adjust for the "accuracy" of any of the 6 game scores. Really, that seems difficult to run meaningful statistical analysis on. I don't like Bill James' version or Runs because they use things that are out of the pitcher's control, but you might like them because they use the currency of games (the run - not the unearned run) where as FIP/DiPS/LW use runs only tangentially and SO/BB not at all. I could run tests on interconnectivity and things like that, or regress each game score for a correlation with wins (and I might, someday), but honestly that stuff is somewhat beyond the scope of what I feel comfortable doing (and let's face it: this post is already extremely long). 

To summarize (and to answer Tom's question partways):

The "beauty" of the different game scores are such that no one person could probably answer it correctly (as to which one is better). The other cool thing is how relatively easy it is to compute it: to do this adjustment probably increases your work (over just using BJ) by an order of magnitude. However, we can start that discussion by realizing that the way the measure games is different as to need a weighting adjustment anyways. Those weights are above: I've also included the weights if you remove my personal game score from consideration here:

BJ: 19.3%
Runs: 12.2%
SO/BB: 33.3%
FIP: 20.2%
LW: 15.0%

Which reduces pretty nicely to the generalization of (20/15/30/20/15).

If you want to really stay in the spirit of Tom Tango's original piece, you'd also omit BJ from this. In that case, you've got these 4 coefficients:

Runs: 15.1%
SO/BB: 41.2%
FIP: 25.0%
LW: 18.6%

Which reduces to (15/40/25/20).

The next step, if you're adventurous, is to then toy with the new number to play with the standard deviation (currently 11.3, optimally whatever you want it to be, and remember the ultimate goal of Game Score is to simulate a winning percentage). 

When I get a good chunk of spare time (with a 4-week old at home, not the easiest thing to do), I'd really like to expand this to all games pitched this year. I built my file with this in mind, so it actually won't be too big of a pain.

The post Cubs Games Scores #1 (April 2013) appeared first on Obstructed View.

When I first fell headlong into baseball analysis, I kind of took K/BB as my pet statistic. I loved how it was essentially "luckless": the only things the pitcher couldn't control was the discipline of the batter and the strike zone of the umpire, the two things he can only understand (but never master). Not only was it good at explaining the two fundamental pitching statistics, it did it in a way that aped the GPA system in the American school system. If you had a 4.00 GPA, you were an excellent student: a 4.0 K/BB meant you were an excellent pitcher. 

After a while, though, I began to have my doubts. Is a pitcher that strikes out 9 per 9 innings and walks 3 in the same span really only half as good as the guy that strikes out 6 and walks 1? If we assume a normal BABIP (lets say .300 exactly), these two pitchers profile thusly (over a 27 out span):

Pitcher A: 9 strikeouts, 18 regular outs, 7.7 hits, 3 walks, 10.7 baserunners

Pitcher B: 6 strikeouts, 21 regular outs. 9 hits, 1 walk, 10 baserunners

Pitcher B has a 6 K/BB, but allows nearly as many baserunners as Pitcher A does. Not only do they allow baserunners at close enough a rate as makes no difference, Pitcher B actually allows more active baserunners. I'd expect Pitcher B to allow more runs per 27 outs than Pitcher A does. 

This sort of trickery is what allows Joe Blanton to accrue such gaudy K/BB totals while being a mediocre pitcher at best.

The post Better Know a Statistic: (K-BB)/PA appeared first on Obstructed View.

Jeff Samardzija is the de facto ace of this staff. All 5 of Fangraphs' projections has him sliding in FIP, and I might agree with them. When the FANS projection slates you for 3.72 coming off of 3.66 and 3.55 (albeit 2011 was in relief), something is a little wonky. He's been getting lit up in the Spring, but he says he's just working stuff out (he actually said he threw a belt-high fastball down the center of a plate so a dude could hit a home run off him, so he could work with empty bases (or something like that). He's a good bet to be a solid #2 rotation guy. 

Travis Wood is scary. He looked bad last year and he was actually really lucky by FIP-standards. He doesn't have a great fastball and he doesn't change speeds well: his FB last year sat at 89.4, his changeup at 79.6. He's a pitch-to-contact guy who had an obscenely low .244 BABIP last year – unless some part of his kit has drastically improved he is going to get rocked this season. A team with 2012-vintage Wood getting 20 starts is a team that loses over 90 games. In an ideal world, he'd be a LOOGY (wOBA of .279 against lefties).

Chris Volstad was a total disaster last year. He struck out less than 5 people per 9 innings. You can do that if you are an incredible pitch-to-contact type that induces groundballs: Volstad is not that guy. His LD% has steadily risen over the past 5 years. According to Pitch f/x, he didn't have a single league-average pitch last year.

Paul Maholm started the year of really poorly but became a solid starter for most of the year. The Cubs traded him for Arodys Vizcaino, and that move will probably work out for both teams (a definite win-win for both sides at the time of the trade – Maholm had another year of cost-control). 

Matt Garza could have possibly netted a Top 50 prospect at one point, if not more. At this point, the best the Cubs could probably hope for is a Christian Villanueva-type. He might sign a team-friendly extension, or a prove-it deal with the Cubs, but if the injuries didn't make him a vastly inferior pitcher, he's still a large injury risk for whatever team ends up with him. It sucks, but that's the truth.

Ryan Dempster had an incredible run with the Cubs last year. Shenanigans with the trades aside, he ended his tenure with the Cubs as a generally good player. He wasn't very good for the Rangers after the trade, and he's not going to like it in Boston either. 

Justin Germano has played parts of 7 SEASONS despite sporting a career ERA of 5.27. He is the very definition of a replacement-level pitcher and played like one for the Cubs. That might be a little harsh given his freakish strand rate and .339 BABIP, but at some point you have to realize that you are giving 12 starts to a 30-year old non-prospect with no future in your organization and move on. The Cubs have.

Chris Rusin is not very good. He was another guy who just had an awful strand rate last year (64.7%) which points to either an inability to pitch from the stretch or variance. We'll probably see which it is, unfortunately, because the Cubs don't have many backup options before they get to Chris "I can give you 5" Rusin.

Edwin Jackson is this year's big FA acquisition. He's probably going to give you 190 innings of slightly-above-average pitching, which is just fine by me. He's a #3 on an average team, which means he's probably our second-best pitcher depending on how you feel about Garza, and his contract and age will still be fine when the Cubs are a good team again. He did lose a mile from his fastball last year, but he lost a mile from all of his other pitches too, so I'm not incredibly worried that he's suddenly incredibly hittable. It'll be very interesting to see if he can keep down his LD% like he did last year.

Carlos Villanueva isn't very good. He was hit-lucky and strand-lucky last year, and those worked in concert to mask a year that wasn't as rosey as it looked. He's an ideal 5th-starter/swingman type, and he'll likely occupy that role with Chicago this year. 

Scott Feldman was the anti-Villanueva last year. He FIPed 3.81, but had an ERA of 5.09. He left only 61.0% on base, and his BABIP went from .239 the year before to a fairly-high .318. If he repeats his peripherals from last year, he'll be just fine, and he's got the stuff to work as a 4th of 5th starter on an average team. 

Scott Baker is a huge injury concern. If he comes back at the level he used to pitch at, he could be a great steal for the Cubs. However, he signed with the Cubs, so he'll probably spend half the year on the DL, and the other half doing his best Chris Volstad impression.

All in all, the Cubs will at least have more depth than last year. That was a serious, serious problem last year (on the order of 5-10 wins lost to sub-replacement pitching), so we've improved pretty drastically in this area. However, we are still basically average at this point.

The post Assume the Position: MLB Starting Pitchers appeared first on Obstructed View.

First, I'll explain my methodology. I first made a system from 59 (complete non-prospect) to 100 (potential all-time great). The number assigned to each person takes two things into account: the upside, and the bust potential. For instance, I have 75 as a MLB backup, but Junior Lake is a 75. His upside is more like an 85, but his bust chance is way higher than normal, so I settled on 75. I then went down the minors and found 21 people that I thought were greater than 59. 6 missed the cut (Justin Marra, Rock Shoulders, Greg Rohan, Zeke DeVoss, Ronald Torreyes, Stephen Bruno, and Jae-Hoon Ha). 

The grading system is as follows:

100 is a potential inner-circle HOF that has a very low chance to bust. Maybe .5 prospects a year would get this rating, and none would this year.

95 is a potential HOF that has a low to mid chance to bust. This is probably the top 4-6 prospects.

90 is a potential MVP candidate at some point. This is probably the top 20 or so prospects.

85 is a potential All-Star candidate at some point. This is probably the top 50-60 prospects.

80 is a potential MLB regular. From this point, it's hard to put a number on the total prospects, but consider that there are 750 major league players at one time.

75 is a likely MLB backup.

70 is a potential backup, or a player without high upside but with a relatively high floor.

65 is a potential backup with low upside but a potential low floor.

60 is a longshot MLB backup but with some skill that makes them interesting.

Without further ado, here's the list.

#1 (90) Javier Baez SS

Baez is young and has a relatively high chance to bust for someone as good a prospect as he is. He doesn't have the greatest patience and might not be a plus defender anywhere on the infield (though he's rapidly improving at short). That being said, he's got truly elite bat speed and good power. He's young, arrogant, and good. If he repeats his 2012 performance at A+/AA, he'll be in the majors next year at just 20 years old.

#2 (87) Albert Almora CF

Almora might not ever garner MVP votes, but for a youngster he has a seemingly high floor. He can play great defense at CF even now, and is so advanced for the leagues he was in last year that he almost never struck out. He is the most likely of the Big Three prospects to actually play meaningfully in the majors, albeit with the lowest upside.

#3 (85) Jorge Soler RF-CF

Soler has 70 power (on the 20-80) scale, which is rarer than it sounds. He might have the only 80 tool in the whole organization with his arm. (EDIT: This is more apt of Junior Lake. Soler does have a fantastic arm, but Lake's is better.) His batting eye needs a little work, but not much, and he can run enough to play CF (but hasn't, inexplicably). He's got a chance to bust out for sure, but the upside is there.

#4 (82) Dan Vogelbach 1B-DH

#4 (82) Brett Jackson CF-OF

Vogelbach and Jackson are tied at 4 in my list, though they are completely different prospects. Vogelbach is a huge bust risk with his body (and the quick changes that he's making to it). He could lose his power with his weight or eat himself out of the league. That being said, he's got great plate discipline and hurts balls real bad. He's a defensive liability but could be an incredible force in the lineup. Brett Jackson is the other way: he can play good defense at any outfield position, but is a threat to strike out 40% in the majors. He works counts and has okay-ish power, and at worst right now he's a passable 4thOF. If the new swing really works, he could play in a few All-Star games, and if it doesn't, he's still got the toolset of a backup.

#6 (80) Gioskar Amaya 2B

I'm a huge Amaya fan. His plate discipline has always been solid (9% walk rate), and his power has developed every year. It's not common for 2B to put up ISOs of .200, but Amaya did last year. He's got to work on fighting his strikeouts, but the combination of speed, power, and patience make Amaya a potential great at 2B in the (distant) future.

#7 (78) Arismendy Alcantara SS

Alcantara doesn't walk very much, but he also plays the more premium position (relative to Amaya). Alcantara is also a switch hitter, so if he can cultivate that skill he could be slightly more valuable. He was injured last year, but all signs point to him being 100% now. I'm banking on him picking up where he left off in 2012. 

#8 (77) Jeimer Candelario 3B/LF

Candelario's biggest concern is his potential demotion to 1B from 3B. Candelario is young and he has good plate discipline for his age, but his drastically lower BABIP in '12 showed people what Candelario's true talent level was more like (and it was still high-ish at .327). Candelario is a guy who could really shoot up this board later on, but he's also equally likely to just be another dork at 1B/LF that busts out at AA.

#9 (75) Logan Watkins UTIL

#9 (75) Dave Sappelt OF

#9 (75) Marco Hernandez SS

#9 (75) Christian Villaneuva 3B

#9 (75) Junior Lake 3B

#9 (75) Matt Szczur CF-OF

75 is basically where prospects are too diverse to dissect meaningfully. Each of these guys are at different stages at their prospect-hood. I think Hernandez and Lake have the best chance to be above-average MLB starters, but they also have the best chance of busting out and never making it. Sappelt and Watkins are almost both shoo-ins to log some time at the Majors (Watkins have a better chance of starting at some point in a DeRosa role), but are unlikely to ever be more than primary backups. Villanueva and Szczur are somewhere in between those two groups. I can find something I like about each of these guys, and another thing I don't like about all of them. You could put these 6 guys in literally any order and I couldn't honestly disagree with you.

#15 (73) Josh Vitters 3B

Vitters still has a chance to make it, but boy was he awful in his first cup last year. His poor play in 3B was topped only by his ineptitude at the plate. He has a pretty swing and a history of making progress the longer he stays at a level, but he's only  worth anything if he can stick at 3B and he can more than double his BABIP from last year (double it, his OBP "climbs" to a Barney-esque .308). It's hard to believe he's only going to be 23 next year, but he's had 2,227 professional plate appearances in his career. It's hard to imagine a great change in his skills now. 

The post Myles’ Top 15 Positional Prospects List appeared first on Obstructed View.

The average wOBA for a CF in 2012 was .323.

MLB

The Cubs had 5 players with over twenty starts at CF last year. 5! For some reason, I didn't include Joe Mather or Reed Johnson in this (who cares, really), and added Marlon Byrd because why not. He was terrible, and also on some sort of performance enhancing drug. One has to think what type of performance it was enhancing, because Byrdo was straight terrible last year. He's out of baseball, most likely. The starter at CF this year (and he logged the most starts on the Cubs at CF last year too; he was there most likely starter in both center AND right) is likely David DeJesus. He doesn't pass the eye test, defensively, but his "defensive metrics" point to an average-ish effort in any part of the outfield. He'll be a slightly-above average offering in center if he can hack it there, and should turn a nice profit at the trade deadline when the Cubs sell him off. I like DeJesus a lot, and he walked over 10% of the time last year, the first of his career. Tony Campana was seriously not good at baseball. He can't field even with his 80 speed, he has less power than you (and I mean you, dear reader) do on your beer league softball team, and he has poor plate discipline. That said, he has value as a pinch-runner on a team with a really good 4th OF. That isn't the Diamondbacks, but w/e. We got live humans for him, so I'm happy. I would have accepted dead humans, honestly. Brett Jackson has a retooled swing. Unless it cuts his strikeouts in half, I'm not terribly interested. That being said, there's still a place on the Cubs for a high-walk, high-strikeout, moderate-power CF that is a plus defensively. That's what Jackson could be without too much dreaming. If he could get his K's to just Adam Dunn levels (he's 7% away!), his line goes from .171/.303/.342 to like .200/.330/.370. On second thought, maybe he's got to get them lower than that….

AAA

No one. Seriously. The way it worked out, Jackson got to the majors, Campana got sent to Arizona, and Dave Sappelt was profiled in LF. Jim Adduci is gone, and Jeff Frazier played 1 game at CF for the ICubs last year. This is the first and last time you'll ever hear the collection a syllables coalesce as "Jeff Frazier" for the rest of your life.

AA

Jae-Hoon Ha is interesting, in a sense. He was thought of as a toolsy "developmental" prospect who never really developed…until last year. In 200 more PA than any other year, his walk rate went from 4.5% (his previous high, comically) to 9.5%. His ISO stayed the same, and his BABIP was relatively normal, but the result was a .273/.352/.385 line in AA at 21. Putting that into perspective, he's younger than Szczur is, but last year he performed well at a level Szczur barely reached (and struggled at). For good measure, he also walked at a higher rate than Szczur at AA. That's slightly disingenous considering Matt's track record and SSS at AA (158 PA), but if Szczur is a legit prospect (and I don't think he is) than Ha is at that level or better. Speaking of, Matt Szczur, the shine has rubbed off quite a bit. It's hard to get jazzed about a guy who is prospect-old at each level he gets to (and who doesn't completely dominate those leagues). He's got 10 pounds to grow into, and maybe that'll give him some power, but he needs to move up the ladder pretty fast if he wants to be thought of highly. Rubi Silva is a baseball player.

A+

Hate. Let me tell you how much I've come to hate you since I began to live. There are 387.44 million miles of printed circuits in wafer thin layers that fill my complex. If the word 'hate' was engraved on each nanoangstrom of those hundreds of miles it would not equal one one-billionth of the hate I feel for humans at this micro-instant. For you. Hate. Hate.

Also, there are no prospects at A+ because they either moved to AA or are Elieser Bonne (so, no.)

A

Taiwan Easterling was one of the oldest players on his team last year, but he still couldn't hack league-average. He's still young to the system (college senior; he was actually drafted in the 6th round in 2007), but his frame isn't projectable and he's been nothing but overwhelmed so far. His time is short.

A-

Darien "Trey" Martin angered me when I couldn't find him in fangraphs. He's been a nice little player so far. He did OK last year (crushed rookie league, was ok-ish at A-), though plate discipline is already a minor concern. Martin has a nice frame and can grow into some power (and out of center, possibly) and will still be 20 this year. He'd start at A if it wasn't for Albert Almora, who did everything he was supposed to last year. At 145 PA, I'm not going crazy for anything just yet, but he did very well in his first taste of professionals. Sure, his walk rate was incredibly bad. However, look at his K rate too; he wasn't overmatched, he was just too good for the league. He made contact with everything he swung at, and that contact was for the most part loud. Almora is plenty far away but could climb the ladder quickly until he reaches a level that he has to work at.

Rk

I am a happy camper so I guess I'm doing something right.  Happiness is like a butterfly; the more you chase it, the more it will elude you; but, if you turn your attention to other things, it will come and sit softly on your shoulder.

Albert Almora was here.

There's definitely some talent here. The Cubs have one potential superstar in Almora, and 3 people or so with a shot at contributing in the majors (Jackson, Ha, Szczur). Let's hope Jackson can take over for DeJesus after he's traded, because CF are pretty damn expensive.

Projected Rosters:

MLB: DeJesus

AAA: Jackson/Ha

AA: Szczur/Silva

A+: Easterling

A: Almora

A-: Martin

The post Assume the Position: CF appeared first on Obstructed View.

Note: I can't ask about the Cubs, specifically (there are NDAs about that sort of thing).

Obstructed View: Where do you want to be 10 years from now? Do you aspire to be a GM?

Tom: More of the same, I think. I have no desire to be a GM.

Obstructed View: How did you end up meeting MGL?

Tom: We both posted at an old baseball forum called BaseballBoards.com, which later became Fanhome. Voros, Patriot, David Smyth were also some of the posters there. (Note: How incredible would it have been to be in that environment?)

Obstructed View: I worry sometimes that my father might misunderstand sabermetrics because the barrier to entry is too high. Are you ever afraid that advanced statistics are off-putting to people who might just be getting into baseball, or are already overmuch familiar with low-quality stats like RBI and Wins? Do you have recommendations on ways to introduce advanced stats to those who may not be comfortable with all of the math, or is it just not for them?

Tom: I'm not worried about it being off-putting. Everyone should be comfortable with wherever they are.

I think the reliance on RBI and Pitcher Wins is a barrier, but as we saw with Felix and others, pitcher wins is starting to erode.

I think picking up an old Bill James Baseball Abstract through inter-library loan is the best way.

Obstructed View: The Book came out in 2006, almost 7 years ago. What part of it do you think has held up the best and what part do you think has held up the worst?

Tom: Sales every year has been pretty constant, which means it's getting pretty good word-of-mouth. Looking back, I don't think there's any one part that is better or worse in terms of timelessness. We wrote the book on the idea that it would be timeless.

Obstructed View: What aspect of baseball do you think is least understood, from a statistics standpoint? What is holding the sabermetric community back as far as exploring that subject?

Tom: Least understood by who? The only thing holding back the community is access to the relevant data. Without data, we have no way to test the hypothesis.

Obstructed View: Whose work in baseball do you most respect from a statistics standpoint? Whose work in baseball do you most respect from an “old-school” standpoint?

Tom: There are plenty of people. Bill James, Pete Palmer, MGL, Andy Dolphin, Tom Tippett, Dan Fox. Really, it's a very long list, and I can spit out another dozen names or three if you give me a few minutes. I'm just really happy to be part of such a community.

Obstructed View: What statistic do you like the most that you DIDN’T invent? Any moments where you were surprised someone “got there” before you did?

Tom: Well, Voros invented DIPS, which is about the most important finding in the last 15 years. Pete Palmer introduced us to Linear Weights. I'm never surprised, since everyone has their own creative input. We're all building on the work of others.

Your question seems to suggest some single-lane race, when really, it's about all of us on some scavenger hunt, coming from all over the world, picking up items on our journey, and agreeing to meet at Times Square, and see what we can all share with each other by the time we get there. It's cooperation, not competition.

Obstructed View: Many managers have started to embrace the new thinking as far as sabermetrics are concerned. In your opinion, will people with a purely statistical background ever be on-field coaches, giving strategic advice? How far away might we be from having, say, Dave Cameron advising Eric Wedge on when to use his bullpen?

Tom: I don't even know what "purely statistical background" means. Are you suggesting someone who only has a vocation in some various mathematical disciplines, but has no baseball experience at all? That would be the worst person to put on the field. You need a subject matter expert, and that means someone who lives and breathes baseball as the first requirement. 

Obstructed View: I'm afraid I may of framed the question incorrectly. I meant to say someone who perhaps never played baseball at a high level, but has a masterful grasp of the percentages and that sort of thing. With Billy Beane, Theo Epstein, Andrew Friedman, etc. changing the way front offices operate, I was curious if you thought that a similar thing might happen in the dugout (if it hasn't happened already). I think some managers are becoming much more receptive to the idea of using more and more specialized stats already.

Tom: Ah, I see. Well, I'm not really qualified to answer that question.

Obstructed View: How important do you think FIELD f/x will be as far as clearing up defensive metrics? Will we ever get to a place where fielding is as well understood as hitting? Should FIELD f/x ever be made public?

Tom: Tracking player movements and ball movement is critical. We do it all the time with our eyes. So, now we need to have a systematic, precise way to do all that on a large scale. A system that does that will remove all the uncertainty we currently have.

Obstructed View: From previous interviews, I know that you aren't a fan of the current system of the Hall of Fame. Do you think there is a place in the hall for sabermetricians and internet writers to have a say in who gets in? Do you think we'll live to see the day where someone like Bill James gets inducted for his contributions to baseball?

Tom: There's some really passionate fans out there, who devote their time and energy on baseball and its history and they don't get paid for it. Any time I run my many polls, I'm quite happy with the results I get. The IBA shows how you can have a good system with good fans produce good results.

Obstructed View: Anyone who has heard you speak about Rock Raines knows you believe he’s a no-doubt Hall-of-Famer. In my mind, Edgar Martinez is in the same boat – his numbers look to me like he’s better than maybe half of the Hall (not to mention that 3B are SORELY underrepresented in the Hall), and he hasn’t really received any support (languishing in the
mid-30’s). With the growing backlog of worthy players that will “take votes away” from Gar, he most likely won’t make it in until the Veteran’s Committee, if at all. Do you think Edgar should make the Hall? Do you think he will?

Tom: If you think a Hall of Fame should have about 20-25 new members every ten years, then Edgar would likely be part of that group. If you think it should be 10-15, he's probably outside that group.  If you think it should be 30-35 members, he's easily inside that group. So, you have to first decide the size of your hall of fame. The readers on my site have suggested that we should have 20-25 new members every ten years.

Obstructed View: Are there any players in particular that you think are “better than their numbers?”

Tom: It's a given that some players are better than they've performed so far, and others are worse. It's just a sampling issue.

Obstructed View: What topic would you most like to research, but haven’t been able to?

Tom: There's a long list of things, and I'm really happy that we've got a broad community that someone somewhere is addressing each one and will eventually publish it.

Obstructed View: How good are these Blackhawks? Are they for real?

Tom: I've only been following the Canadiens and Devils so far, but eventually, I'll pick up on a few more teams. I still they think have the best uniform in all of pro sports in USA/Canada.

Thanks again to Tom Tango for answering the questions.

The post Interview with Tom Tango (aka tangotiger) appeared first on Obstructed View.

The league average 1B last year had a wOBA of .337.

MLB

Anthony Rizzo had himself a nice little half-season last year. I'd like to see some more walks, but I'm happy with his contact numbers (generally) and his power has developed nicely. He's a cheap, good, middle-of-the-order type of hitter. He is swing-happy, but as long as he can put a bat on the ball who cares? He also crushes off-speed offerings, so he's going to get hittable pitches. Hooray!

AAA

Greg, of Rohan is probably a Quad-A guy. He put up solid numbers last year, but it was his first taste of AAA at 26. I wouldn't hate having him as the backup 1B (and he bats righty, so he'd presumably platoon well with Rizzo), but his numbers indicate he's eminently replaceable.  Blake Lalli was the primary backup to Rizzo but he's gone now. 

AA

Justin Bour had a nice little season. He's still young enough to maybe be on the periphery (he'll be 25 in AAA this season) and he's shown ability at every level in his career. He could be a solid backup as early as late 2013/2014.

A+

Rebel Ridling is org filler at this point. He'll be 27, in AA, hitting league average, next year. Going to go ahead and pass on him. The first time I ever heard of Richard Jones was research for this article. It's the last time you'll ever hear of him, too: he's coming to a Home Depot near you. 

UPDATE: Both of these guys were released. MLBTR has nothing on either of them, apparently they are THAT useless. Thanks to OV Platinum Member Chet Masterson for the tip.

A

Paul Hoilman is too old to be in A without absolutely dominating. He's a 2011 draftee, so the book isn't completely written on him, but he better get good in a hurry: 473 PA of .718 OPS ball from 1B is not so good. Ryan Cuneo was released by the Cubs when he couldn't hit himself out of Peoria. He will not be missed. Jacob Rogers brought the thunder in his first taste of professional action, putting up a .999 OPS in Arizona and a .913 OPS in Peoria. He takes a ton of walks. He should be a fast mover in the system; he's already 22 so he should have a pretty firm grasp of minor-league quality hurlers. He's a fringey-prospect but someone I'll be keeping an eye on.

A-

Call me crazy, but I'm not sure Daniel Vogelbach isn't the 2nd best prospect in the Cubs organization (Baez is one with a bullet). Vogelbach has a few years to get in shape to play first (and I've heard the first whispers that he could even end up at left field if he improves as rapidly as he has). I don't care about getting him to the outfield; if he plays at first, he could be a special hitting prospect. Using this handy tool (and assuming A numbers, since A- doesn't fit in there), Vogelbach was already better than Vitters was last year (dying laughing). He's got very good plate discipline. He makes contact. He's got legitimate plus-plus power, and that includes doubles power (he hit 21 in 283 PA last season). He's got one of the best 5 or 10 bats in all of the minor leagues, and the Cubs are lucky to have him (and 1B prospects are slightly thin at the moment, anyway). Rock Shoulders hit very well in his limited time, too. He's not a high-quality prospect, but he could put himself there with a nice season in 2013.

Rk

Trevor Gretzky sure looks like a bust. He's still only 19, but he has absolutely no power. He plays 1B and LF, neither all that well, and he's tall but not strong. He'll get his chances (7th round, 2011), but I'm not holding my breath. 

All in all, this isn't a bad bunch of players. I'm not sure where I'd put these guys in a list of our top prospects, but Vogelbach is certainly one, with Bour and Shoulders getting some fringe-consideration at the bottom of the top 30. 

Projected Rosters

MLB: Rizzo/Clevenger?

AAA: Bour/Rohan

AA: YOUR NAME HERE

A+: Rogers

A: Vogelbach (I'd love to see him start the season at A+ or even AA, but I'll take A+)/Hoilman

A-: Shoulders/Gretzky

I don't like keeping Shoulders at A-, but I do think it's where he'll start the season. 

The post Assume the Position: First Base appeared first on Obstructed View.

The MLB average wOBA for a catcher last year was .312.

MLB

Beef Castle is the definite starter next year. He's projected by BJ to have a wOBA of .318. I like him a pretty good deal: his minor league numbers indicate that he is ascending, he improved over the course of the season, and his defensive game-calling abilities are vastly underrated and overreported. Not an area of concern. Steve Clevenger's projection seems incredibly optimistic. I'm not sure I expect an wOBA above .285-.290. If he does reach .310, he becomes a very useful backup/utility guy; it's also the only he stays on the roster. Some people believe he played all of 2012 hurt, but that's either false or stupid (take your pick). Dioner Navarro is 5 years removed from being useful. He's the de facto backup, though he can't hit and can barely field so who knows how long it'll be until he's usurped by Clevenger or someone else.

AAA

Juan Apodaca is a 26-year old journeyman who put up very nice numbers in AAA last year. He's been with 4 organizations and never reached the bigs. I don't understand why: he's not old, he's walked at every level, and the very few scouting reports I've seen on him indicate he's not terrible behind the plate. He's got low power, but that's no game breaker: he maybe deserves a backup role somewhere but it won't be with the Cubs – they released him last year (he's with the Rangers now). I include him only because he was the primary AAA guy this year: the other guy (that wasn't Castillo) was the abortive Brian Esposito. I haven't seen his release notice on mlbtr so I assume he's still with the club: he's 33 and can't hack it at AAA. Blake Lalli was also booted. The Cubs had 4 primary catchers on the AAA roster last year and none of them will be back.

AA

Michael Brenly is the "favorite" to break camp with the AAA squad (if Clevenger isn't waived, clears, and accepts). He is the son of Bob Brenly, which is the only reason he was drafted. Since then, he's been an unspectacular, slow-moving catcher. I have no reason to believe he'll ever contribute at the MLB level. Luis Flores put up a .572 OPS as a 25 year backup in AA last year. 

A+

Micah Gibbs might be a backup one day, maybe? He walks and he's not particularly old for his level (I mean, he's not a prospect level, but he's not completely worthless yet). He's got no power and for a 3rd rounder has disappointed. Se la vie…Chad Noble was so bad last year that I couldn't even include him on this list. Rafael Lopez is too old for this level, but has been a solid performer so far. Catchers as a rule get a longer age-leash in the minors, so the book isn't entirely closed on him. He's got mediocre gap power, which for a catcher is pretty good.

A

Yaniel Cabezas had an OPS under .550 and thus didn't qualify for my list, because he isn't a baseball player. Sergio Burruel has youth on his side, but he's been in the organization for 4 years and has never slugged above his OBP. Chadd Krist inexplicably sounds like the name of a porn star to me. He had a very nice season in 2012 and should start the year as the A starter, or maybe the A+ co-starter.

A-

Wilson Contreras is young and adequate at Boise this year. He also had a 47% CS last year, which is probably unsustainable. He's been in the organization for 4 years and has always been average to middling with the bat, but that's no dealbreaker at all. Lance Rymel was a 28th round draft pick in the 2012 draft and got embarrassed in his 25 games. His BABIP was under .200 so he's a fair bet to look better next year, but he has some definite work to do if he wants to stick around. Carlos Escobar is another 2012 draftee (15th), and he acquitted himself quite well. He'll be 22 next year, and should grab the bulk of the starts for the club next year if not promoted to A outright.

Rk

Justin Marra is become Youkilis, destroyer of pitchers with poor control. He got a late start to his career after being drafted in 2011, but embarrassed the rookie league much like Vogelbach did (albeit in a much different way). He had a .397 BABIP, so he's a serious regression candidate (as is the fact that he very likely just took the walks given to him), but you couldn't ask much more from a guy in his first taste of baseball. Hits doubles, and walks, what's not to like? Alberto Mineo is 17 and has 62 career PA. I'd be lying if I told you I knew anything about him. 

I'm not going to do FRk, because it's so far from my periphery.

The Cubs don't have any real breakout candidates anywhere near ready to hit the majors. Depending on how you feel about Clevenger, you might not even have great depth at the major league level. I think that there are a few fringey-prospects in the deep minors (Marra, Escobar, Contreras) but absolutely no one that I'd feel projecting to ever start for the Cubs in the next 4-5 years. 

Projected Rosters

MLB: Castillo/Navarro/Clevenger

AAA: NRI/Brenly/Esposito

AA: Gibbs/Flores/Lopez

A+: Lopez/Krist

A: Escobar/Burruel/(Cabezas?)

A-: Contreras/Marra/Rymel

Rk: Mineo/?

The post Assume the Position: Catcher appeared first on Obstructed View.

Bourn

Age-29 : 6.0 WAR

Age-30: 3.5 WAR (projected)

Age-31: 3.2 WAR (projected)

Age-32: 2.8 WAR (projected)

Age-33: 2.2 WAR (projected)

Age-34: 1.4 WAR (projected)

This is a back-of-the-napkin estimate, where I took Age-30 to be 3.5 and depreciated by 10/10/20/40 percent. If a free agent is “worth” 4.5 million in free agency, then this table becomes

3.5 * 4.5 = 15.75 million

3.2 * 4.5 * 1.05 (inflation) = 15.12 million

2.8 * 4.5 * 1.05^2 = 13.89 million

2.2 * 4.5 * 1.05^3 = 11.46 million

1.4 * 4.5 * 1.05^4 = 7.66 million

So, a 3-year pact would look like 44.76, a 4-year deal worth 50.60 (10% decrease for 4th-year premium- otherwise 56.22), and a 5-year deal worth 63.88/57.49)

Let’s simplify that to 3/45, 4/56, and 5/64, as those seem reasonable.

This is the inherent problem with “fair market value”, though: is Bourn worth that much to the Angels, who already have a loaded outfield? Of course not. We aren’t trying to buy wins above replacement, we are trying to buy wins above replacing our guy.

Last year, the Cubs trotted out a .230/.303/.337 line at CF. Using this WAR calculator, we can see that the Cubs got 0.4 WAR from their CF last year. Bourn would provide 3.5 WAR, but only 3.1 Wins Above Alternative. The Angels, on the other hand, put up a .292/.365/.470 line, for a WAR of 7.3; Bourn is worth -3.8 WAA for the Angels (which, of course, is one reason they aren’t bidding for him). Of course, the Angels could move Bourn to RF or LF, but that diminishes with WAR, so his WAA will certainly improve but not by much.

If we think of players as providing Wins Above Alternative instead of Wins Above Replacement, we can get a much clearer picture of who teams are targeting and why they should be targeting them. You could even sort of predict who should offer a player more (I haven’t done the research, but it’d be very impressive if a team had a greater need for Bourn than the Cubs do).

The value of a WAA is certainly higher than 4.5 million (the average FA is not replacing a 0 WAR player, but obviously they are paid the same in my formula), but we actually don’t need that precise value to compute who should offer the most (all else similar- obviously, team payrolls and where they are in the contention cycle matters also). It is simply the team with the greatest potential WAA.

Of course, FA is way, way more complicated then just coming up with this number; I just thought it would be interesting to note. This will be much, much more useful when the Cubs are only a player or two away from being really competitive.

The post When is a win worth more? appeared first on Obstructed View.

I trust that most people have realized at this point that a team’s W-L record doesn’t tell the whole story. A great case is this year’s Colts; they scored fewer points than they allowed yet carried an 11-5 record. It’s a part of baseball and life that sometimes things don’t turn out the way statistics say they should (and in fact, it’s much more interesting that the better team doesn’t always win, or that the Orioles are allowed to make the playoffs once a decade). 

There are many attempts to synthesize a more accurate rating system for a team. You’ve likely heard of Pythagorean W-L, in which a teams runs are taken to some exponent and divided by that same number plus that team’s runs allowed to the same exponent.

This is generally a pretty good way to get closer to a team’s true W-L record. Clay Davenport has done some good work on this subject in the past. However, my problem with the stat is that it just isn’t intuitive. It makes sense from an esoteric standpoint, but there don’t seem to be baseball reasons why 1.73 is a better exponent to use than 1.78, except from a baseball fit standpoint.

There are also regression models that one can use: for instance; the formula for a team’s winning percentage last year was .500057 + .098455*RDPG (Run Difference Per Game) (current to 07/26 of last year, I gave up after the Cubs were so awful. Suffice to say, it does not change much). The Adjusted R-square for this formula was .732398. This is around as accurate a formula as I’ve found (I do the regressions in excel), but it’s actually more esoteric.

Eventually, I decided to come at it from a different angle. I asked myself what would happen if I compared the Cubs’ run total game by game with how many runs they allowed in every game?

First, an obvious caveat. What happens in game 52 is more-or-less dependent on what has already happened in game 52. While a bunt/sac fly is clearly not optimal in every case, in some cases it is more optimal then others, and so it may not be fair to compare game 52′s 4 runs with game 107′s 5 runs allowed (as those runs may have been reached in much different ways). 

That being said, I think it does a pretty good job of telling you what a team’s true talent level is. Essentially, you record the number of times a team has scored and allowed each number of runs. You then compare the two columns to see how often each run total would have won or lost. Then, once you have a winning percentage based on how many times each run total exceeded the number of runs allowed (in ties, you win 50% of the time), you calculate expected wins from the number of times each scenario actually occured. 

For example:

The Cubs scored 0 runs a staggering 16 times. They obviously could only win a game in which their opponent scored 0 as well: that happened 9 times, so they win 4.5 of those games. 4.5/162 is a winning percentage of 2.8% (5.6% of the time your opponent will score 0 runs at the “end of regulation,” and 50% of the time you win those games if you score 0 runs too), and 2.8% * 16 (the number of times this scenario occured) is ~ 0.4 Effective Wins.

When the Cubs score 1 run, they usually don’t win…but they would have any time they allowed 0 (and again, half of the times they allowed 1). The 24 times they scored 1 run resulted in around 2.7 Effective Wins.

When you’ve solved that for every total the Cubs reached this year, you add up all the Effective Wins and get a reconstituted record. In this case, the Cubs were 68.2 and 93.8. That means they were unlucky last year, to the tune of 7.2 wins.

This is where that caveat comes in. First, it’s difficult to attribute all of those 7.2 wins to luck, because in many cases (where close games are concerned) bullpens and other circumstances have a much greater leverage than they would otherwise: in those cases, it might be disingenuous to assume each team wins half of their ties, for instance, or even win games in which they are 1 run ahead or behind at the same rate. Perhaps that team loses (or wins) as many as 55% of those close games (this seems EXTREMELY unlikely, but not unthinkable). In that case, you can perform a similar action to see how many of these games occur:

As you can see, the Cubs played in 45.9 effective games where the score difference was -1 to 1. If instead of winning “50%” of those games (which this model does not believe; it is not centered about any win percentage in games decided by precisely 1 run in either direction), you could theoretically argue up to some number 45-55% of the time. That would give you a “margin of error” of around 2.25 wins. This won’t always be the case (and there isn’t necessarily a good reason to believe the 45-55% number), but it’s good enough for this exercise. 

Bringing it all back to the Cubs, I’d say that the Cubs “deserved” to win 68.2 games, with a +/- of 2.3 taking bullpen considerations and some nebulous clutchiness into account. For reference, the Cubs had a Pythagenpat (a further developed Pyth W/L) record of 65.2-96.8 and an actual record of 61-101. I’m not certain if my system is more or less accurate than the more refined methods out there, but it DOES seem intuitive to me, and it is almost certainly better than W/L. 

This is a rating system that seems pretty new to me, so it’s not well-tested or even necessarily well-thought out. If you’ve heard of this before, please let me know, along with any critiques of the system you might have. Hopefully this has been entertaining.

 Update: Full list here.

The post Reconstituted Record appeared first on Obstructed View.