Baseball Prospectus is a small business run by a handful of exceptionally dedicated but utterly overworked individuals. This is occasionally exasperating, but has more often been exhilarating; we’re always facing new challenges and have grown accustomed to learning on the fly. It does mean, however, that we do not have a lot of redundancy in place. When someone leaves, or has to pull back on their contributions, whether because they’ve become a father or joined a major league front office or decided to pursue another business opportunity, it is not a trivial matter to replace them.
It was barely a year ago when I launched FiveThirtyEight.com, a political number-crunching website that I expected to receive a few hundred hits a day and occupy perhaps five hours of my time per week. Since then, thanks to a combination of being in the right place at the right time and making a few lucky predictions, the site is accumulating both many degrees of magnitude more traffic than that, and occupying a much larger fraction of my time than I could have ever anticipated. I feel very, very fortunate about all of this; indeed, there have been many moments, such as upon appearing on Stephen Colbert’s show, when I felt as though I’d won the nerd lottery. However, as you’ve undoubtedly noticed, these other opportunities have meant that I’ve been able to devote less of my time to Baseball Prospectus.
Fortunately, we are a team of clutch performers, and Kevin Goldstein and Dave Pease have somehow found the hours to step up their contributions and keep the company running smoothly. Without the dedication of these two individuals, and others like Christina Kahrl, Joe Sheehan, and Will Carroll, I’m not sure that BP could have continued to exist in its present form. Kevin is now our Managing Partner, and he should be your primary point of contact for any and all business-related inquiries.
Other processes have not been as smooth, particularly the production of the PECOTA cards this year, which took far longer than is acceptable. The delays in the production of the PECOTA cards were 100 percent my fault, and came in spite of, not because of, the hard work of folks like Dave and Jeff Pease, Bil Burke, and Clay Davenport. For this you have my profound apologies. It may help to tell you a little about how the sausage is made. Production of the PECOTA forecasts is an exceptionally labor-intensive exercise. Some of the reasons for this are unavoidable. We have made an enormous number of improvements to the system over the years (this year, for instance, retrofitting the Davenport Translations database all the way back to 1980), but each of the improvements has added a layer of complication, requiring more and more data to be cleansed, merged, and managed, and making the process of producing the forecasts more cumbersome.
However, another reason why PECOTA has tended to be burdensome to produce is because it’s a program designed by a non-programmer (me): a lot of the code is poorly written, and very little of it is automated. More problematically, because the code is not well documented, I was probably the only person on the planet who knew how to sift my way through it. Thus, its timely production relied on my pulling 100-hour weeks and getting really hopped up on Red Bull and reheated Thai food, something I was strangely happy to do in the past, but simply didn’t have the ability to do this year.
I realize that most of you don’t care about this; you just want to see the damned PECOTA cards already, and be quick about it! But the reason I bring this up is because we’ve now begun the process of standardizing, documenting, and automating PECOTA, and devoting more and better computing power to it, all things that we should have done many years ago. Once this process is complete, the upshot is that we will be able to produce the PECOTA cards not just on schedule, but ahead of the schedule that you were used to seeing in years past, while also better integrating it with our depth charts and the other products in our Fantasy portfolio.
In transitioning my management responsibilities to Kevin and Dave, and in working with our tech team to automate the production of the PECOTA cards, my objective has been to free up as much of my time as possible for writing, which has always been the part of the job that I’ve enjoyed the most. Although I probably will not be able to write about baseball with the frequency that I once did, I do hope and expect to continue writing about baseball regularly, both here and for our partners at ESPN.
In the meantime, we appreciate that in these economic circumstances, plopping down 40 bucks on a subscription to a baseball website may not seem like the best use of your resources. That said, we have never raised our prices, and we operate on a very conservative budget, so those subscription revenues go directly toward improving your experience at Baseball Prospectus by recruiting new writers, developing new features, and improving site usability. While we are always indebted to your dedication to Baseball Prospectus, we are especially so at times like these, as we know how much harder many of you are working to provide for yourselves and your families. Smaller and smarter companies are holding up better in the face of the recession than larger and bulkier ones, and thanks to all of you, we have been no exception. We look forward to continuing to share our love of baseball with you for many years to come.
–Nate Silver
Chicago, IL
March 22, 2009
As part of Nate’s stepping back and my stepping forward into the Managing Partner role, I was asked to also provide a comment for the state of the Prospectus piece. It’s a strange position for me, at least on a writing level. When it comes to my Future Shock column, I feel I’m at my best when I’m getting information from others and relaying it to our readers. I don’t have that luxury this time. I have no phone calls to make, or sources to mine. Nobody is scouting us and our universal grade-20 across-the-board tools (hey, at least we’re grinders with makeup that is off the charts), and my lack of a safety net has left me staring at a black screen on my laptop in this hotel room in Seattle for far more time than it’s had me writing. Besides, I have a World Baseball Classic final to divert my attention.
When looked at it from another angle though, I have nothing but safety nets all around me. My position is Managing Partner, with an emphasis on the second word in that phrase. Prospectus Entertainment Ventures is a small(ish), owner-operated company with a lot of partners. I’m just the guy sitting in the driver’s seat on this bus, and luckily I bring with me a pre-baseball life of executive-level work in the internet and entertainment sectors. At the same time, plenty of people are helping with the steering and the gearshift.
This offseason was not without it’s fair share of bumps in the road, of course, especially with PECOTA, as Nate mentioned above. Nobody here at BP is happy with how that turned out, but more importantly, many of our customers were unhappy. To make up for it, all fantasy customers who signed up on or before February 26th (when the issues occured) have had their fantasy subscriptions bumped up to full subscriptions, giving them access to all of the premium features that come with it. We hope that you enjoy all of the outstanding content you now have access to, and accept this as our mea culpa-it’s not going to happen again. In fact, the steps we’re taking to ensure a smoother delivery in the future will actually improve the product on a groundbreaking level.
The main purpose of my note however, is to look forward. I really can’t begin to describe to you how much I love this place. I think we are better than anyone at what we do, and I’m excited about the future of this company as we strive every day to retain the title. We have plenty of exciting features and additions in the works, as our editorial team looks for new ways to cover the game (and we have some new faces, with more on that soon), while our technical team is working harder than ever to bring our data and analysis to you in a new, more usable, and more enlightening way. The season hasn’t even started yet, and we already have many things to be excited about. Once again, our big annual, Baseball Prospectus 2009, has hit various bestseller lists, and we’ve embarked on our deepest, most ambitious tour ever to support her, with outstanding crowds at every stop. In addition, we already have game-day events over the first part of the season in St. Louis and Chicago, with hopefully more to come. We’re also thrilled about our new partnership with ESPN, one that exposes our unique view of the game to a whole new audience, while also allowing us to ensure that every piece we produce for ESPN’s Insider offering is always available to our existing subscribers.
Nate put my e-mail address in his portion, but I’m repeating it here: kgoldstein@baseballprospectus.com. That’s the address everyone has, as there’s no super-secret “real” e-mail, and while I don’t always have the time to respond to every message I receive, I can guarantee you that I read each and every one. Our subscribers are our greatest asset, and we value you and your thoughts immensely.
You’ll be hearing from myself, from Dave Pease, and from others over the next few months as we introduce some new features to Baseball Prospectus, but in the meantime, if you ever have any feedback, you have a direct line to me.
–Kevin Goldstein
Seattle, Washington
March 23, 2009
P.S. That slider that Yu Darvish just threw was filthy, but the run that crossed the board makes me want to bear down on this game. I’ll have more on Darvish in an upcoming scouting notebook, and let me assure you that I’m not dialing back my writing role in the least; I’m just adding more time around it, and the enthusiasm I have for the future of this company gives me the energy I need with plenty to spare.
Thank you for reading
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Man, you sell yourself waaaaay short. You should take full credit for the accuracy of your analysis. Regardless of which side of the political fence you live on, you have to admire the precision and thoroughness involved in fivethirtyeight's projections.
Congrats on your successes outside the BP realm!
And Kevin ... we the readers are behind you 100%.
Nate: Your writing is one of the reasons I have subscribed to this site from day one. Thank you for all your contributions over the years.
Kevin: Good luck in the new role, the MP position is in good hands.
Glad to hear PECOTA's getting a 21st century rewiring. I'll keep my finger's crossed for in-season updates.
The success of PECOTA has helped make BP more recognized than say 5 years ago. Nate's success in other ventures has tied up his time, but also brought more exposure to BP. Congrats Nate and keep it up.
At the same time I was introduced to BP, I subscribed to Kevin's Prospect Report. That report grew in popularity and lead to Kevin getting a job in baseball. Eventually Kevin joined the BP team and is now the Managing Partner. Congrats and keep up the good work.
BP will grow more and there will eventually be a need to add more writers. Perhaps that will be a subscriber whose writing is noticed in the comments of articles. You never know who is reading the replies.
That said, I recently had the opportunity to tell a locally-politically-active neighbor of mine, "I'm no Nate Silver, but I'd expect [local ballot initiative] to get 62 votes. So if you want to defeat it, that's your target number." And from the look on his face, I could tell he knew what I was talking about.
Nate, I look forward to more of your baseball writing this year as I sorely missed the weekly LDL column. Will you be bringing back the "PECOTA takes on Prospects" series? I always found it to be a wonderful counterpoint to Kevin's excellent Top 11's and Top 100.
(Note: I do realize Kevin incorporates the stats into his analysis as well.)
How much is entertainment worth per hour?
Taking my wife out to a nice dinner can cost over a hundred dollars per hour. Taking a family to an MLB game, with refreshments and other associated expenses included, costs over ten dollars per person per hour, significantly more than that in many ballparks. Taking the family to a movie approaches that same cost. Enjoying MLB Extra Innings at home, MLBAM blackout rules willing, costs a couple hundred dollars a year, a cost probably on the order of magnitude of a dollar an hour for the average viewer.
If every time I check PECOTA mid-season or consult Will Carroll's latest UTK or consider Kevin Goldstein's scouting reports or laugh at Joe Sheehan is counted, at forty dollars a year BP is one of my best entertainment bargains. There's no need to apologize, even if PECOTA was late this year. You guys (and gals) are great.
***
I'm delighted to see that PECOTA is being automated. Will this permit mid-season updates?
Um, wait a minute...
1. Matt Wieters' AA line of 365/460/625 (38/29 k/bb) and spit out 308/391/537; and
2. Max Ramirez had AA line of 354/450/646 (56/37 k/bb) in similar ABs, for .236/325/405.
From very similar input you get a Piazza Peak Year and a Jose Molina Peak Year. Can their home ABs or 1 year difference in age be that important? Does PECOTA hate Latinos? What gives?
2) the biggest factor might be that the translations are a bit weird:
AA Bowie .365/.460/.625 translated to .349/.426/.627
whereas
AA Frisco .354/.450/.646 translated to .298/.383/.567
Either Bowie is such an extreme pitchers park that its nigh impossible to hit there (basically making it so that opposing pitchers there are as tough as major league pitchers) or there's something screwy.
I'm sure that age and body type and what Weiters' did in A+ ball and his defense accounted for the rest of the difference in his Pecota. Its interesting to note that Ramirez basically did his AA damage in the first half of the year, and then spent the second half sitting on the bench in Arlington, DH'ing a bit, playing a little at first base, and then being sent down to OKC to go back behind the plate.
Even this year, he's pretty much a lock to be sent to AAA to start the year (though alot of that is a lack of at bats in the WBC due to some falsification by the Venezuelan team management).
I also believe that Wieters will start the year in AAA, but only because he's only in his second professional year.
One other thing (last thing I promise). Ramirez still needs some work on his defense (I am told), and he's not the receiver that other catchers in the Rangers system are. But there's one thing he can do, and that is block the plate on incoming runners. I remember him getting bowled over on July 7th 2008 and then getting up and throwing out another baserunner. Torii Hunter then knocked him down in his next game on the 10th. This time the collision occured in the 9th inning.
1) Yes, Wieters is a year younger. At 6'5" and 230 lbs, he's also 35% bigger that Ramirez.
2a) In Ramirez's Age 22 season, he put up a .261 EQA and a .264 EQA over 480 PAs in A+ ball. His Age 21` season showed EQAs of .238 and .249 in A ball.
In his Age 23 season, he put up a sweet line at AA (.313 EQA over 289 PAs), but then reverted back to a performance closer to his two-year track record in AAA and MLB (.244 and .256 EQAs).
His weighted mean projection for his Age 24 season is for a .258 EQA over 460 PAs, for a VORP of 6.1.
3) In Wieters Age 22 season, he put up a .310 EQA in 280 PAs of A+ ball, and then moved up to a .351 EQA in 250 PAs of AA ball. His Age 23 projection is for an EQA of .325 over 600 PAs, VORP of 50.6.
~Transparency~
EQA: Equivalent Average. A measure of total offensive value per out, with corrections for league offensive level, home park, and team pitching. EQA considers batting as well as baserunning, but not the value of a position player's defense. The EqA adjusted for all-time also has a correction for league difficulty. The scale is deliberately set to approximate that of batting average. League average EqA is always equal to .260. EqA is derived from Raw EqA, which is (H + TB + 1.5*(BB + HBP + SB) + SH + SF) divided by (AB + BB + HBP + SH + SF + CS + SB). REqA is then normalized to account for league difficulty and scale to create EqA.
Ramirez's actual lines for his age 21 and 22 seasons were:
21: .288/.408/.449 @ Rome, South Atlantic League
.307/.437/.465 @ Lake County, South Atlantic League
22: .303/.418/.505 @ Kinston, Carolina League
.307/.420/.500 @ Bakersfield, California League
Its hard to say that he "reverted" when he hit only .243/.293/.432 in 10 games in AAA and .217/.345/.370 in 17 games with Texas.
Unfortunately, he's now blocked by Jarrod Saltlamacchia and Taylor Teagarden
Do you know what "league average" was for those leagues in those years? Do you have more information to support a distrust of the DTs?
Since the translations aren't disclosed, you kind of have to take it on faith that Wieters would be Piazza to Ramirez's Bob Boone.
Another potential angle is that Ramirez has had more opportunities to demonstrate his "true" skill level, increasing the likelihood that his AA performance is perceived by the model an outlier; whereas Wieters has had fewer such opportunities, which perhaps reduces the likelihood that his AA performance is perceived by the model as an outlier.
:(
So your premium subscribers, your most avid supporters paid extra for no reason?
:(
I love BP, thats why I paid the full subscription. I renewed my subscription after the Feb 26 date so I guess it wouldn't affect me either way - but just the principle seems a bit irksome.
I still love BP and thanks for all your hard work guys. :)
Realistically they're not going to give money back, but can give product to those that weren't paying anyways. You could try and game it next year by buying Fantasy before upgrading, but I'm guessing this ship has already sailed.
Full sub buyers need fantasy info less than just fantasy buyers? Full sub buyers and their fantasy teams were less impacted than fantasy buyers? I think that's a rather poor and unfounded assumption.
This doesn't even affect me, and I wasn't really bothered by the PECOTA problems - but this solution bothers me. I have no desire to buy only fantasy and try game the system. I just don't understand why fantasy subscribers were upgraded and no recompense given to full subscribers who paid in full. I would consider those subscribers as important, if not more, than the fantasy buyers - not the other way around.
Whatever. Just my 2c. I'm not cancelling my subscription, I'm not going to boycott, I'm not going to raise an angry mob. I just feel the need to point this out - the people who paid the most and supported BP the most got kinda hosed here, and were no less affected by the issues affecting the fantasy subscribers.
From a business prospective what they are doing is smart. They are trying to make some disgruntled customers happy by giving them something for free. Plus they probably figure some of those fantasy subscribers will get hooked on the other content and pay for a full subscription next year.
1) I know fantasy only subscribers, that's how I found out in the first place.
2) From a business perspective, they're catering to those who spent less than their premium subscribers.
3) Why do you assume that the fantasy-only subscribers are automatically MORE disgruntled than the premium subscribers?
There's nothing wrong with trying to make disgruntled customers happy, that is smart business. But why only one segment of subscribers, when the other segment was affected in exactly the same way?
I'd love to see more full subscribers for BP. I wish more success for BP. That benefits us all. What I don't understand is the preference shown to those who didn't pay full rate, when full-rate customers were affected in the same way.
For example, Nate's letter was the first time I heard about the PECOTA card delays. It certainly didn't affect me at all, hence I'm not bothered in the least that a class of affected individuals were given a bonus.
"No, I subscribe to BP.com for the articles" -- a 21st-century update of a 1960s-era excuse, perhaps?....
I don't think I could do a Colbert interview without just laughing at him when he goes mock serious. Or maybe I'd have just thrown up from all the nervous energy emanating from my stomach.
Also, I can't be the only one that's been worried for a few months that we were going to lose Nate completely. I'm glad to hear that isn't happening. That said, congratulations on all your success out side of bp! That's great to see.
Kevin, congratulations on the new role! As jasonandrew77 mentioned, you guys aren't obligated to give us updates like this, and I appreciate that you respect us enough to do it.
I will say that I've stopped reading fivethirtyeight despite my liberal tendencies. I didn't like what looked like unprovoked fighting with David Sirota. I'd love to see more politics-free baseball writing, i.e. more Lies, Damned Lies. Happy to see my wish is coming true.
As an erstwhile programmer myself, I also appreciate just how tough "fixing" messy code is. The code for PECOTA must be staggering. Heck, I'd probably enjoy helping to fix it (if you're interested).
If so, I can imagine the tech folks are asking you to take it apart verrrrrrrry carefully so they can put it onto something a little more bulletproof.
Thanks for the update, guys!
--Elitist
Great to hear that it is finally being automated and agreed that it is $40 well spent.
If there's one bit of advice I could give, it would be to try and engage with the rest of the sabermetric blogosphere a bit more. I'm sure it happens constantly behind the scenes, but from an outside perspective, it seems like BP is sort of running on a parallel track with the other big players in the field such as Fangraphs, THT, and Tango's Blog, which have much more overlap and interaction.
As free sites, I'm sure they operate differently. Perhaps you don't intend to share that space with them. But it would be welcomed.
In any event, keep up the great work.
Could we just clone you? Would that work? I think it would be a great idea...
On a much more serious note:
I would be very interested in traffic statistics or referral logs showing how much traffic BP has directly driven 538 versus how much 538 has driven BP, both overall and unique or first-time visitors.
One note about the WBC: There should be no doubt by anyone that the best two teams met in the final. They played as if they had an extra month to prepare. Watching the U.S. team Sunday night made me think that nearly any individual MLB team would've fared a lot better. They were pretty shabby defensively and probably either made some bad choices on who was playing where, or they just didn't have enough choices on their selections. And it showed that it really is(or should be) spring training.
Looking forward to more great stuff from all of you!
And to put in my voice: Nate's been great to work with the last few years. Been fun to watch him get famous.
I'm speaking just about the WBC final, but feel free to fill in your own punchline.