Doctoring The Numbers: The Amazing Danny Kolb
7/14Imagine spending a week at your cubicle at work, slaving away at that TPS report, and then as you hand it to your boss, she tells you, "Thanks, but the company just decided that they didn't need the report after all. I was just about to e-mail you the memo." That's about how I feel right now. Having painstakingly put together an article on Danny Kolb, which centered around Kolb's incredible stretch of surrendering no extra-base hits all season, I was all set to have the article published during the All-Star Break--and then Kolb ran into the unstoppable force that is the PECOTA-powered Wily Mo Pena on Sunday. (Yes, I'm aware that Jason LaRue homered off Kolb before Pena did. But I've been working as a journalist long enough to know it's considered poor form to let the facts get in the way of a good story.) So the article is ruined. But you're going to have to read it anyway, unless you really want to hurt my feelings. I've taken the liberty of making some small changes to the piece, in light of Kolb's Sunday meltdown. Most of the points made in the article still stand, even if the punchline has been spoiled.
Doctoring The Numbers: Scraping the Bottom of the Barrel
6/03It takes a lot these days to awaken me from my slumber and coerce me into penning a column for BP. Between taking care of a baby daughter at home and starting my own medical practice, the truly important things in life--like baseball analysis--have gotten short shrift of late. But finally, I have found a topic that arouses my passion. A question so intriguing as to get my heart racing, my blood pumping, my brain thinking. Finally, a puzzle worth being solved, a code worth being cracked. That question, of course, is: "Does Alex Sanchez have the emptiest batting average in major-league history?" Consider the evidence. Bolstered by an obscene number of bunt hits, Sanchez was hitting .359 going into Wednesday night's game, which ranked him third in the American League. (By the way, who had the exacta on a Melvin Mora-Ken Harvey-Alex Sanchez top three at this point in the season?) But Sanchez's impressive ability to hit singles is neutered by his inability to do anything else: hit for power (eight extra-base hits), reach base by other means (four walks, no HBPs), or make effective use of his speed (11 steals, 10 caught stealings). For the season, Sanchez is hitting .359/.371/.431. His batting average may rank third in the league, but his 802 OPS ranks just 43rd--in a tie with Jose Cruz, who's hitting .237. Put succinctly, Sanchez's batting average is about as empty as Le Stade Olympique. But is it the emptiest ever?
continue reading chevron_rightchevron_rightDoctoring The Numbers: Hot Starts, Part III
5/06Welcome to the third and final instalment of my look at the meaningfulness of the first few dozen games of a team season. (Go back and review Parts 1 and 2 here. There will be a test later.) This final article looks to merge a team's starting record with its established performance over the past few years, to come up with a formula that most accurately projects its final record based on the available data. Warning: If you thought Part 2 was laden with too many equations, you're not going to like Part 3 any better. I ended Part 2 with a projection that the Royals, based on their 17-5 start, are projected to finish with about 97 wins. The folly with that logic should be self-evident, but let me share some evidence with you to make the point a little more clear. When the Royals' record reached 13-3, my inner circle of fellow Royals fans finally got serious about questioning whether such a strong start really meant anything in light of the team's 100-loss season in 2002. I decided to look for comparable teams throughout history that had gotten off to a similar start. Using my database of all teams from 1930 to 1999, I found a total of 75 teams that started the season either 12-4, 13-3, or 14-2. Sixty-three of those teams, or 84%, finished above .500. As a group, they finished with a .545 winning percentage. But it's not all roses. Because I then whittled down that group to look only at those teams that had played less than .420 ball the previous season, which corresponds to a 68-94 record or worse.
continue reading chevron_rightchevron_rightDoctoring The Numbers: Hot Starts, Part II
4/28Welcome to Part 2 of our look at the importance of hot starts. If you haven't already, read Part 1 first. We'll wait for you to get back. Last time, I looked at how teams fared at season's end after starting the season with a particular record, varying the data by looking at starts of varying lengths. While I pointed out general trends in the data (as well as the exceptions that proved the rule), I did not sum up the data concisely into a single, coherent formula to predict a team's final record. That's what today's article is about. In Part 3--yes, there will be a Part 3--I want to examine how the interaction between a team's record at the start of the season, and its record the previous season, affects its final winning percentage.
continue reading chevron_rightchevron_rightDoctoring The Numbers: Hot Starts (a.k.a. Should Royals Fans Get Excited Yet?)
4/22Today, I want to look at the relevance of a hot start on a team's overall winning record. (I know--where do I get these ideas?) As I write this, the aliens who have collectively taken over the Kansas City Royals' entire roster are 14-3, the best start in team history. Not to be outdone, the Yankees are 15-3 and have outhomered their opponents this year by the miniscule margin of 35 to 4, which is a stat that deserves its own DTN article, if not its own episode of The X-Files. And both teams are trying to keep up with the Giants, who after Sunday's loss are 15-3 despite outscoring their opponents by the downright-reasonable margin of just 107 to 81. The topic of the meaningfulness of hot starts has intrigued analysts since the Tigers' remarkable 35-5 start in 1984 persuaded Bill James to look at the subject in his 1985 Abstract. One of the major problems with this sort of data analysis is just getting the data for the day-by-day standings for every day in baseball history. James, working by hand, only had data from 1965 to 1984, but then he did not have the services of the incomparable, indispensable David W. Smith (the W. stands for "Support Project Retrosheet!"), who graciously provided me with just the data I needed.
continue reading chevron_rightchevron_rightDoctoring The Numbers: The Five-Man Rotation, Part 3
8/30To wrap up our series on the merits of the four-man rotation, let's look at some of the ancillary benefits of making the switch: The four-man rotation simplifies a starter's between-start schedule. Most teams have their starters throw on the side once between starts, but no one really knows whether it's better to throw on the second day after a start, or the third. It's not even clear whether starters should throw only once. In Atlanta, Leo Mazzone has had continued success doing things his way: he has his starters throw twice on the side between starts instead of once. (He does this because he feels it gives the starter the same increased sharpness that comes from working on three days' rest.)
continue reading chevron_rightchevron_rightDoctoring The Numbers: The Five-Man Rotation, Part 2
8/20Today, we’ll pick up last week’s discussion where we left off. (Take a look at last week’s article if you haven’t already.) To answer the question I ended last week’s column with, it is very important to understand that my support of the four-man rotation is not, in any way, mutually exclusive with my belief...
continue reading chevron_rightchevron_rightDoctoring The Numbers: The Five-Man Rotation
8/13The five-man rotation is a failure. I don’t mean to be overly dramatic here. I’m not trying to frame ‘failure’ in a pejorative sense, the way we might describe Tony Muser, or airport security pre-9/11, or Bud Selig’s ceaseless efforts to acquire a human soul. I use the term "failure" in a purely literal sense....
continue reading chevron_rightchevron_rightDoctoring The Numbers: Defense in Colorado
7/16Continuing our discussion from last week on how to build a team at Coors Field, this time, from the run-prevention side.
continue reading chevron_rightchevron_rightDoctoring The Numbers: Defense in Colorado
7/16Continuing our discussion from last week on how to build a team at Coors Field, this time, from the run-prevention side. In Baseball Prospectus 2002, Joe Sheehan wrote: "If putting balls in play is the best approach for hitters in Denver, then it makes sense for the Rockies to favor pitchers who strike out a...
continue reading chevron_rightchevron_rightDoctoring The Numbers: Offense in Colorado
7/11This year marks the tenth season of major league baseball in Denver. It is clear now that none of us fully understood what we were getting ourselves into when we allowed Rocky Mountain thin air to be unleashed on our national pastime. Nine years and literally thousands of hanging curveballs, home runs, and destroyed pitcher psyches later, we're still trying to wrap our hands around the conundrum that is baseball at altitude. (And before you mention the word "humidor", consider that with the recent run of explosive offense at Coors Field, the Rockies and their opponents have combined to score 11.74 runs per home game, compared to 8.61 runs per game on the road - a 36% increase. It may no longer be the best hitters' park of all-time - Coors Field increased run scoring by 58% from 1999 to 2001 - but it's still the best hitters' park of our generation.)
continue reading chevron_rightchevron_rightDoctoring The Numbers: Doctoring the Numbers: Sweet Relief
6/18Nothing spoils us like greatness. It is so easy to take for granted the magnificence of once-in-a-lifetime talents like Barry Bonds or Alex Rodriguez, precisely because their greatness produces a consistency that lulls us into becoming accustomed to their exploits. Greatness isn't a quality reserved for those who take the field. The most dominant baseball figure of the past 25 years hasn't played in the major leagues since 1969. It has been 12 years since the playoffs started without a team managed by Bobby Cox, and he appears to be in no hurry to end that streak.
continue reading chevron_rightchevron_rightDoctoring The Numbers: Sweet Relief
6/18Nothing spoils us like greatness. It is so easy to take for granted the magnificence of once-in-a-lifetime talents like Barry Bonds or Alex Rodriguez, precisely because their greatness produces a consistency that lulls us into becoming accustomed to their exploits. Greatness isn’t a quality reserved for those who take the field. The most dominant baseball...
continue reading chevron_rightchevron_rightDoctoring The Numbers: Historic Walk Rates in Montreal
5/14When a team exceeds expectations to the degree that the Expos has, it's usually quite difficult to credit this phenomenon on a single aspect of the team's play. In this particular instance, however, it's dead simple. As Rob Neyer has waxed eloquent on two separate occasions, it's all about the walks.
continue reading chevron_rightchevron_rightDoctoring The Numbers: Historic Walk Rates in Montreal
5/14Last week, the Montreal Expos lost six games in a row. Before the season began, such an event would not have been at all surprising. What would have been surprising is that, despite the losing streak, the Expos are still over .500 and just a game out of first place. When a team exceeds expectations...
continue reading chevron_rightchevron_rightDoctoring The Numbers: Doctoring the Numbers: Improvement Ratio
3/06In the last installment of DTN, we examined the topic of whether left-handed pitchers take longer to have a breakout season than right-handers do. In the process, we had to define exactly what a "breakout" season is. I used a series of qualifiers to define the term, and it worked pretty well. But there is a much simpler definition: A breakout season is what Roy Halladay had in 2001.
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