Isn't chaining just a model for the optimal strategy assuming no replacements are brought from outside the club? I suppose it assumes that managers like to use roles instead of some kind of best-at-any-one time calculation, but either model would be a preferable alternative than just citing his WARP3. WXRL exists, right? 6 wins is just not what he's going to be worth. The Twins are paying him 11.25MM, which means we should expect the answer to be in the 2-4 win range. Sky's article on Insider using chaining found he'd be worth 2.6 WAR. CHONE projects him for 3.3 WAR. 6 is twice that and suggests he should be paid like Chase Utley.
Why did Pizza use WARP3 at all? BP has an in-house metric that makes way more sense to use, not to mention that all other reasonable estimates differ wildly from WARP3. I don't know what PECOTA projected since he's not on the depth chart anymore and there's no line on his PECOTA card, but you can still see his projected WXRL for 2009 and 2010 from the '09 PECOTA.
2009: 3.1 WXRL
2010: 2.6 WXRL
2.6, which just so happens to coincide with what Sky found. Here's the link:
Isn't chaining just a model for the optimal strategy assuming no replacements are brought from outside the club? I suppose it assumes that managers like to use roles instead of some kind of best-at-any-one time calculation, but either model would be a preferable alternative than just citing his WARP3. WXRL exists, right? 6 wins is just not what he's going to be worth. The Twins are paying him 11.25MM, which means we should expect the answer to be in the 2-4 win range. Sky's article on Insider using chaining found he'd be worth 2.6 WAR. CHONE projects him for 3.3 WAR. 6 is twice that and suggests he should be paid like Chase Utley.
Why did Pizza use WARP3 at all? BP has an in-house metric that makes way more sense to use, not to mention that all other reasonable estimates differ wildly from WARP3. I don't know what PECOTA projected since he's not on the depth chart anymore and there's no line on his PECOTA card, but you can still see his projected WXRL for 2009 and 2010 from the '09 PECOTA.
2009: 3.1 WXRL
2010: 2.6 WXRL
2.6 just so happens to coincide with what Sky found in the aforementioned article. Link here
http://insider.espn.go.com/blog/tmi-mlb/post?id=697&blogName=tmi-mlb&sort=oldest
We're talking about since '02. That's a lot of games. I'd want to see the math before accepting that as in need of serious correction or regression.
Not to mention that adjusting for DL days seems to explain the Angels and White Sox continually overperforming their PECOTA.
i assume you mean would not have been green? and i'm a little surprised that the difference is so miniscule since Texas lost the 3rd most days to the DL since '02 and the Sox lost the fewest.
David Gassko @ THT:
http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/the-year-after-effect/
Various sabr-sorts have discussed their reservations as well:
http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/site/comments/yae/#comments
http://sabermetricresearch.blogspot.com/2009/03/verducci-effect-revisited.html
The consensus is generally that this is, as Tuck says, regression. In the very least, it would be nice if this kind of stuff got addressed before Will gave whole hearted approval.
if there's no value added, and recent comparisons suggest there isn't, then the complexity is just getting in the way. CAIRO, Marcel, CHONE and ZiPS were out well in advance of PECOTA. there's no reason they can't have a stripped down version up and running just as rapidly.
there isn't much if anything you can't get Sean Smith to tell you about CHONE. it's free and among the most popular projection sets, it's the only one doing better than Marcel lately. ZiPS is somewhat more proprietary, but there's nothing to suggest that it isn't in the same neighborhood as PECOTA.
given how unwieldy PECOTA seems to be next to CHONE or ZiPS, which come out rapidly and more or less complete, it might be time to do some serious house cleaning. in the very least, BP needs it's own Marcel-like benchmark to show its readers.
i don't doubt they can work it out with Clay (and the new hires hopefully), but i think the transition (and, according to Nate, his bad code) has been a little less than smooth.
"One of the wonderful elements of a research-oriented community is that you can have robust debates, as certainly occurred/is occurring on Bradbury's article, without excluding people because you disagree with their conclusion."
Yeah and apparently they've been happening without you. It is not my argument that JC is wrong therefore he's dishonest. I've witnessed it over the course of however long The Book Blog and JC have been having their back and forth. All I did was read. His problems are obvious enough to me and I'm no expert. Tom and Mitchell are and they agree with me. So does Colin Wyers. Where are JC's expert defenders? Patriot, Sean Smith, Jinaz, Phil Birnbaum, various THTers, the new hires, etc. Where do they stand? If they stand at all, it's not with JC. If you weighted everyone's answer equally, JC would not come close to winning. But that's exactly the opposite of BP's approach here, which privileges JC's argument for BP readers.
In case you're skeptical, I did a quick search on my google reader. Here's Tango and commenters on JC and replacement level, from 2008:
http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/site/comments/even_more_about_replacement_level
It's pretty obvious whoever signed off on this didn't talk to Colin Wyers.
If all BP had done was consistently link to the Book Blog, you'd be right there with the rest of us, as there's basically no one left defending JC. That, in fact, includes MGL, who started off assuming that JC could not possibly be making the elementary mistakes he was. Since then JC has been in the business of obfuscation, to the point where it's evident he's certainly not above wielding his status in service of his project.
Will says that he'd "love it if BP became the pulpit for discussion again." The title of the post is "Leading the Discussion". It's not like the discussion stopped while BP neglected to make the most of its proximity to the discussion (Moneyball came out in 2003). They dropped the ball when it came to the opportunity to lead the discussion. Thus when they wanted to start it back up, they came up with JC instead of any dozen better candidates, including folks on their own staff.
If they see it at all as part of their mission to keep their readers up to date on the latest sabermetric research, then they've simply failed in the recent past.
For example, it's weird in and of itself that there's no standard Link Roundup style post on a daily basis that links out to the best content beyond the site. Everyone does this. Links connect the nodes of the internet and create opportunities for community-building around related nodes. The Unfiltered blog would be a perfect place to start linking to THT, TBB, Baseball Analysts, BTF, etc.
That's probably the most basic step and BP hasn't taken it. How many interns have they had over the years that could easily handle such a task?
"Whether it’s a debate about steroids or a respected writer/thinker like J.C. Bradbury, I’d love it if BP became the pulpit for discussion again."
Sigh. Will, do you read Tango or MGL?
"It's certainly not insulting to you somehow that they provide him with a public forum to clarify his methods, which many people, including myself initially, seem not to be understanding."
The whole point is that he's been, at length, not forthcoming about his methodology. This is a significant trend. What have you read about his thoughts on replacement level? Like I said, I've been following this discussion for a long time. I'm pretty disappointed that there was no one up top at BP who hadn't done the same. I know that integrating the new hires to create a cohesive whole will take some time, but this is, at least, clear evidence that it hasn't happened yet. And may perhaps signal something worse.
I quoted Mike Fast first because he's a reputable representative of the saber community. But also because I see this as whole debate as, ultimately, a diversion from the point, which is that there have been numerous useful studies published, one by Nate Silver no less, that the readership (who presumably have questions about the matter if WC/CK/KG signed off in the first place) should have much more time with.
Ugh. Having read BPro, JC, Tango, MGL, etc. for a while now, I can tell you who's right: not JC. His various issues are long documented and if you're just coming to the party or never leave Sabernomics, you've been in the dark too long.
Tango and MGL are the best and The Book Blog is an incredible resource for folks who care about keeping up with the SABR community. It's totally free. By the way, it's no accident all that the new hires are all regular participants in The Book Blog comments. TBB has done an incredible amount to connect new members of the community and their work to a larger audience. In sum: they are awesome. Buy The Book.
Beyond that, it's really disappointing that whoever is in charge (KG?, Will?, CK?) of vetting this stuff let JC take the point. I re-upped with BPro because of the new hires, any of whom would have done a better job, both writing the article and responding substantively to criticism.
It's an indictment of the higher-ups that they would turn to JC of all people to lead this discussion. Hopefully Mike Fast (who might not object to being called a pitch f/x guru?) won't mind me quoting him:
"BP giving first serve to JC, who has decidedly the most intellectually inferior position of the three groups and isn’t really engaging either of them, is a very poor way to start. I’d like to see more debate between Phil’s ideas and MGL’s ideas. Instead we get stuck in a stupid rut learning nothing because JC defends his position against all comers and against all logic and will make no concessions."
He does later say
"...it’s tough to have the real debate in comments to an article, as Tango mentioned, but also, I and many others have no ability to have a voice in the “discussion” because we’re not subscribers. "
So I'm probably not out of order. See here:
http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/site/comments/the_latest_and_last_i_hope_jc_thread_on_this_site/#96
Ultimately, my point is that there's no real reason to be hosting JC here in this manner. Let him have his piece and a link or maybe even a full rebuttal, but to let him lead off is either shit-stirring or ignorant. I don't appreciate either.
"Did Colin cherry pick or have an inadequately large sample or neglect to factor in league context? Or is there really no predictive value to JC's study?"
it's the latter.
I think a nice tool would be tagging this information to the player. How did Player X do according to KG\'s rankings in 2006? 2007? 2008? Having some idea of the kind of turnover on these lists would be nice too. It seems like there\'s a ton and I\'m wondering if we\'re doing it right if that\'s the case.
my first response to this, as a baseball fan, is to like this idea. knowing who the likely major leaguers are is far more valuable than picking through the remains of some shoddy system for 11 guys. but as a white sox fan, i like being able to cling to the hope that one of the mentioned no-names will make it...so there\'s that.
Comment rating: 0