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Opening Day for 2017 is Monday, April 3rd! Are you tangentially interested in baseball, but think it's very boring? (It isn't!) Do you have a team nearby, but don't know what to watch for? Are you a foreigner/space alien, trying to blend in? Ask your questions here! You can also ask theoretical questions!  There are no stupid questions! We love baseball and want you to love it too. It's a game rich in history, due to the nature of 1-on-1 matchups that allow us to create statistical models that can be compared over time, unique to the sport! The "Rick & Tony" bit in the title refers to an old thread that was just about spitballing hypothetical players who operate in one specific fashion (such as a player who only walked, struck out, or hit home runs) and how the league would react to them. Common Questions (I'll update this from time to time)  What happens if a team's plane crashes?  Rule 29 draft! What is a shift, and why does it work? The fielders move to the side players are likelier to hit towards, and it works because nobody teaches people to bunt anymore
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Mar 22, 2017 17:04
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Figured this is good to bring up. New rules for 2017: Stricter balk rules, No pitch intentional walks, and play review time limits
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Mar 22, 2017 17:51
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So here's something I've been mulling over: WARP is wrong The generally-accepted definition of WARP is "production you could get from any readily-available AAAA-player off any team's scrap-heap (a replacement-level player); the bare minimum that, if your team collectively posted 0.0 WARP, you would win ~62 games in a season" BUT! There are so, so many players in the league, making millions of dollars and posting year after year of 0.3 or less WARP, who continue to have jobs and veteran contracts, that I believe WARP is flawed and too low. There might not actually be players freely available for that cost-controlled, $475,000 contract that could easily produce 0.0 WARP for teams. If there were, no one would hire the world's Jed Lowries for $4m+. I propose WARP is revised upwards, to account for this, and thus a true replacement-level player should be much worse than currently they are considered. Thoughts?
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Mar 22, 2017 18:17
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Hi I'm a baseball newbie and my question is, what the heck is "WAR"? I found this website called Baseball Reference and it said Mike Trout had 10.6 "WAR" last year. Could someone explain how that is calculated, and walk me through how they got to that 10.6 number from his raw stats? Thanks
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Mar 22, 2017 18:31
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"Wins Above Replacement (player)" is WAR/WARP. Essentially, there's an old saying that you will win 60 games and lose 60 games in a season no matter what, and the rest is what you're actually playing for. If you took scrubs and minor-league castoffs and had a 25-man roster of just-barely-major-league players, you'd have a 0.0 WAR team. They would win 60 games, just through luck. Those are your replacement-level players. If you added Mike Trout to that team, theoretically he is so damned good that he'd have enough games where he hit an extra home run and you'd win 70 games instead of 60. Stack up enough Mike Trouts, and you've got a 90-win playoff club. WAR has a couple ratings - batting and defensive. Generally, 10 runs created (via hitting HRs, getting on base to let others drive you in, etc) is worth about 1 win. So Mike Trout created an additional 102 runs the year he had 10.2 WAR. Making outs (via strikeout or hitting pop-ups the fielders catch for outs) is bad, and subtracts from the formula. So that's how Adam Dunn had a 40 homer season where he was a sub-1.0 WAR player. dWAR is calculated on a sliding scale, where the more work you do, at the more critical position, is worth more. So even though Mike Goldschmidt is pretty good at playing first base, he'd need 10 seasons of gold-glove play to come close to the value of a middling Shortstop or Catcher, just because of how much rarer elite skills at those positions are. Shrecknet fucked around with this message at 18:42 on Mar 22, 2017 |
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Mar 22, 2017 18:39
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Back in my days we used VORP  *yells at cloud*
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Mar 22, 2017 18:42
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Dr. Angela Ziegler posted:So here's something I've been mulling over: WARP is wrong Dave Cameron looked at it a few years back and there was only 1 player in the last 30 years who made it to 6,000 plate appearances while having a career fWAR below 0 and that guy had a run of several seasons around average so it was understandable why teams kept hiring him. The way financials are setup in baseball is to reward veteran players who make it to free agency and free agency money is heavily set by what you've done. Jed Lowrie can get $4M because there are so many pre-arb players making roughly the league minimum leaving teams tons of money to spend and because that's what it costs if you want to sign a free agent who has proven he can hang at the major league level. Teams are willing to pay the extra money because it's a better risk than some guy who's barely ever played above AAA. Lowrie, in particular, was once a very solid middle infielder so his past stats indicate that the market should definitely pay him above the minimum. He's also made enough money that he could just walk away if a team doesn't want to do that (see Angel Pagan right now) so he's got a lot of leverage. If Jose Bautista is worth $18 million and you pay him $20, you're not really overpaying. you're paying the $18 million he's worth and an extra $2 million to make the Orioles or the Indians worse. You're pay the extra 2 so that you get to remove the extra 2 or 3 WAR from your rival team since they will hopefully be forced to use a lesser player in his stead. The Pussy Boss posted:Hi I'm a baseball newbie and my question is, what the heck is "WAR"? I found this website called Baseball Reference and it said Mike Trout had 10.6 "WAR" last year. Could someone explain how that is calculated, and walk me through how they got to that 10.6 number from his raw stats? Thanks  nice try, hoss.tadashi fucked around with this message at 19:09 on Mar 22, 2017 |
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Mar 22, 2017 18:58
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Intruder posted:Back in my days we used VORP Hah, it took me until literally just now to realize I hadn't seen this in years Boy the game of baseball passes you right by
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Mar 23, 2017 00:40
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Okay, new question: I don't think I quite "get" balks. I read through the rules, but then I see videos like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEmmenaEjOM and don't think I understand it in practice. I've seen a lot of pitchers delivering from the stretch just twitch their front leg like that before delivery and can't figure out when that's okay and when that's a balk. (Maybe it's just a bad angle to see movement towards home?) What sort of movement is disallowed in practice?
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Mar 23, 2017 04:40
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E4C85D38 posted:Okay, new question: I don't think I quite "get" balks. I read through the rules, but then I see videos like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEmmenaEjOM and don't think I understand it in practice. I've seen a lot of pitchers delivering from the stretch just twitch their front leg like that before delivery and can't figure out when that's okay and when that's a balk. (Maybe it's just a bad angle to see movement towards home?) What sort of movement is disallowed in practice? Watch his right foot, he picks it up and sets it twice. If I'm right, that's the balk.
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Mar 23, 2017 05:46
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E4C85D38 posted:Okay, new question: I don't think I quite "get" balks. I read through the rules, but then I see videos like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEmmenaEjOM and don't think I understand it in practice. I've seen a lot of pitchers delivering from the stretch just twitch their front leg like that before delivery and can't figure out when that's okay and when that's a balk. (Maybe it's just a bad angle to see movement towards home?) What sort of movement is disallowed in practice?
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Mar 23, 2017 06:49
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Due to the vagaries of the cable TV business I'm able to watch Astros games again, which means I'm going to pick up watching baseball again. Other than WARP seeming like the new go-to stat, intentional walks being automatic now, and instant replay, have there been any other major rule changes in the last five years?
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Mar 23, 2017 12:26
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Dr. Angela Ziegler posted:There is no loving way that adjusting your plant foot like that is a balk and whatever the gently caress Carter Capps does is totally legal. well have I got some news for you, pal. Whatever the gently caress carter capps does is not legal anymore.
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Mar 23, 2017 14:41
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What's the beat way for a total moron to get into fantasy baseball? I understand baseball stats and everything but I have no idea how any part of fantasy baseball works.
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Mar 23, 2017 15:53
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Comptroll The Forums posted:What's the beat way for a total moron to get into fantasy baseball? I understand baseball stats and everything but I have no idea how any part of fantasy baseball works. There's 2 major types of fantasy baseball: rotisserie and head to head. Roto is basically where your team is ranked points based on your team's collective stats, and you're assigned points based on how well you rank compared to the other teams in your league. Head to head is similar to fantasy football, in that each week you play against a different opponent, and compete on different stats. Most leagues have basic stats for AVG, HR, RBI, SB and R for hitting, and W, ERA, K, S, and I think WHIP for pitching. Of course, custom leagues can modify which stats they play with. Roto is the most popular, but I find H2H more fun. ESPN and Yahoo have public leagues you can join, too.
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Mar 23, 2017 17:04
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OK, here's the first "Rick and Tony" question of the new season! Rick and Tony are both equivalent defensively at the same position. They both slug .500. HOWEVER! Rick hits doubles (and only doubles) such that over 600 ABs, he bats .250, hitting 150 doubles, and otherwise strikes out/gets out on a fielded ball/walks at a league-average rate. Tony, on the other hand, ONLY hits Home Runs. Which means he carries a .125 BA over a full season, but hits 75 homers. Same "other outcomes" average. Which player is more valuable? (I know it's probably Tony because walking at a league-average rate would drive his OBP up farther since there are more PA's that aren't homers, but assume we control for that and say both men have an equivalent OBP, somehow)
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Mar 23, 2017 18:45
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Dr. Angela Ziegler posted:OK, here's the first "Rick and Tony" question of the new season! I think Tony still because when he hits those homers he will will always drive in at least one run, and every other baserunner ahead of him is guaranteed to score. Rick is not guaranteed to generate a run and hitting doubles leaves room for bad baserunning/slow runners ahead of him to result in fewer overall scores from his hits.
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Mar 23, 2017 19:18
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cis autodrag posted:I think Tony still because when he hits those homers he will will always drive in at least one run, and every other baserunner ahead of him is guaranteed to score. Rick is not guaranteed to generate a run and hitting doubles leaves room for bad baserunning/slow runners ahead of him to result in fewer overall scores from his hits. 450 outs generated with a combination of strikeouts and fielded outs is still a LOT of outs to make. Adam Dunn hit 40 homers for a sub-1 WARP a few years ago, then followed it with 30 bombs for a sub-0 WARP. Edit: (look at the years played)
Shrecknet fucked around with this message at 19:56 on Mar 23, 2017 |
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Mar 23, 2017 19:45
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Dr. Angela Ziegler posted:450 outs generated with a combination of strikeouts and fielded outs is still a LOT of outs to make. Adam Dunn hit 40 homers for a sub-1 WARP a few years ago, then followed it with 30 bombs for a sub-0 WARP. But you said both have equivalent OBP, so they're making the exact same amount of outs, and would have the exact same OPS. I think a better metric is to say each will walk 8% of the time. Rick's OBP would be 0.333, Tony's would be 0.205 assuming they walk at the same rate (48 walks over 600 PA). In this case Rick would be the much better player. If you're really saying that Rick is going to hit strictly doubles and never walks, and Tony hits strictly HR, and gets the same amount of walks, then I would pick Tony since it's a guaranteed run each time.
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Mar 23, 2017 20:34
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Dr. Angela Ziegler posted:OK, here's the first "Rick and Tony" question of the new season! If you're essentially saying their basic stats are similar other than the fact that one of them does it via HR and one of them does it via doubles then you can estimate it via weighted runs created. WRC takes batting outcomes and weighs them against the league to figure out how much each outcome is worth in a various season. Here are the values for last year: http://www.fangraphs.com/guts.aspx?type=cn wBB - .691 wHBP - .721 w1B - .878 w2B - 1.242 w3B - 1.569 wHR - 2.015 150 * 1.242 = 186.3 75 * 2.015 = 151.125 So my guess is that, all things being equal, Rick would end up more valuable hitter according to wrc/wRC+ in the context of 2016 scoring environment. It looks to me, just skimming that table I linked, I can't see a year where it looks like it would be different. If anybody is better with stats, I'd love to hear another explanation. E: If anyone is into these sort of weird baseball hypotheticals (or questions like how good would Clayton Kershaw be if he added a knuckleball), I cannot recommend the Effecively Wild podcast enough. It's very well made and entertaining. tadashi fucked around with this message at 21:26 on Mar 23, 2017 |
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Mar 23, 2017 20:53
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tadashi posted:If you're essentially saying their basic stats are similar other than the fact that one of them does it via HR and one of them does it via doubles then you can estimate it via weighted runs created. WRC takes batting outcomes and weighs them against the league to figure out how much each outcome is worth in a various season. Here are the values for last year: Shrecknet fucked around with this message at 21:40 on Mar 23, 2017 |
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Mar 23, 2017 21:37
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Dr. Angela Ziegler posted:Why is a HBP more valuable than a walk? They're both dead-ball plays where runners advance 1 (if obliged), aren't they? Is it the marginal value added that a pitcher who plunks too many guys gets thrown out and the opposing team has to go to the bullpen earlier? Pitcher is not going to intentionally walk a guy when a run can be walked in. An hbp is an accident most of the time.
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Mar 23, 2017 22:48
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Dr. Angela Ziegler posted:450 outs generated with a combination of strikeouts and fielded outs is still a LOT of outs to make. Adam Dunn hit 40 homers for a sub-1 WARP a few years ago, then followed it with 30 bombs for a sub-0 WARP. That has way more to do with the WARP formula than dingers vs outs. He played bad defense at 1B, no defense at DH, and was a slow, old baserunner. He stopped being able to get base hits hardly at all, but because he hit 75 dingers and walked almost 200 times in those two years he was an above average offensive player by basically every metric (OPS+, wRC, wOBA, tAV, pick one). Only the VORP part of WARP is valuable in this conversation. I hate the sentence I just wrote so very, very much.
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Mar 23, 2017 22:57
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Dr. Angela Ziegler posted:Why is a HBP more valuable than a walk? They're both dead-ball plays where runners advance 1 (if obliged), aren't they? Is it the marginal value added that a pitcher who plunks too many guys gets thrown out and the opposing team has to go to the bullpen earlier? HBP is basically a skill so players with lots of HBP are exploiting a rarely used tactic. You can demonstrate that some players are better at it, so it gets weighed according to how rare it is and how often a player does it so it ends up "more valuable" than a BB because some players are better at it than others. Also HBP happen so infrequently that it being more valuable than a regular BB by .3% (.003) isn't that big of a deal. It is kind of funny, though.
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Mar 24, 2017 00:33
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Dr. Angela Ziegler posted:Why is a HBP more valuable than a walk? They're both dead-ball plays where runners advance 1 (if obliged), aren't they? Is it the marginal value added that a pitcher who plunks too many guys gets thrown out and the opposing team has to go to the bullpen earlier? There are mathematical reasons why it turns out this way, even if practically it doesn't make a lot of sense. The wOBA constants are determined by linear weights. Meaning, how much the average instance of that event increases your team's probability of scoring (totally ignoring the batter and pitcher skills). I looked it up and it turns out pitchers are significantly more likely to hit batters when there are already runners on base. This increases your chances of scoring by a higher margin than with the bases empty. In 2016, unintentional walks happened 7.51% of the time with the bases empty, and 7.97% of the time with runners on. But a HBP happened 0.82% of the time with the bases empty, and 1.00% of the time with runners on. Proportionally, the difference was much bigger than it was for walks, so the average HBP turned out to be more impactful.
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Mar 24, 2017 06:01
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Ice To Meet You posted:There are mathematical reasons why it turns out this way, even if practically it doesn't make a lot of sense. This is the actual answer. wRC+ is context neutral but the weights are still based on the actual outcomes of various batting events so you'll see small but meaningful differences between ostensibly identical events. ego symphonic fucked around with this message at 13:58 on Mar 24, 2017 |
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Mar 24, 2017 13:56
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Thanks for the correct answer, McFreeze.
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Mar 24, 2017 14:12
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Heresy time! I was taught this by goon Skaboomizzy: When you're keeping score of a game at a ballpark, set up your scorecard as VISITOR BATTERS | HOME BATTERS ------------------------------------------------------------- HOME PITCHERS | VISITOR PITCHERS So that you can easily add up the batting stats on the same page and jot them in below, rather than flip back and forth.
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Mar 24, 2017 14:14
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Dr. Angela Ziegler posted:Heresy time! This actually makes sense because the visiting team hits first against the home pitcher.
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Mar 24, 2017 15:56
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hypothetical (and probably something a simulator can handle) who in the long run would win this game more: the 25 best pitchers vs the 25 best hitters? the pitchers would not only pitch, but man the field and bat. you could do crazy switches per batter a la maddon if you wanted to. bullpen and bench are all pitchers too. likewise, the hitters would hit, man the field, and pitch to these pitchers. bullpen and bench are stocked with hitters too. my guess is the pitchers win this more.
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Mar 25, 2017 01:39
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Why do baseball players hate fun
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Mar 25, 2017 01:44
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Abel Wingnut posted:hypothetical (and probably something a simulator can handle) Someone asked this on twitter a while back, where it was 9 Trouts vs 9 Bumgarners. Obviously they didn't consider what would happen if you put really slow, left-handed guys at shortstop and second base.
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Mar 25, 2017 03:14
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Abel Wingnut posted:hypothetical (and probably something a simulator can handle) important research: http://www.amazinavenue.com/2016/7/13/12170246/a-league-of-bartolo-colons
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Mar 26, 2017 00:00
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E4C85D38 posted:Okay, new question: I don't think I quite "get" balks. Nobody gets balks. A few years ago a SBNation writer paraphrased the official rules thusly: quote:BALK RULES! IMPORTANT!
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Mar 26, 2017 21:11
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Ice To Meet You posted:Someone asked this on twitter a while back, where it was 9 Trouts vs 9 Bumgarners. Obviously they didn't consider what would happen if you put really slow, left-handed guys at shortstop and second base. Wouldn't you also be giving Trout lots of free steals on third base because of the extra time associated with throwing to third as a left handed catcher?
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Mar 27, 2017 15:24
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tadashi posted:Wouldn't you also be giving Trout lots of free steals on third base because of the extra time associated with throwing to third as a left handed catcher? Can't steal third if you strike out 25 times a game because Mike Trout can't handle pitching up in the zone.
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Mar 27, 2017 17:02
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I've been watching baseball my whole life and was a pitcher for a long time and I still have no idea what a balk is.
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Mar 27, 2017 17:13
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bewbies posted:I've been watching baseball my whole life and was a pitcher for a long time and I still have no idea what a balk is. It's when you get walked then ride the bat like a horse
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Mar 27, 2017 18:13
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bewbies posted:I've been watching baseball my whole life and was a pitcher for a long time and I still have no idea what a balk is. It's like hardcore pornography, you know it when you see it.
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Mar 27, 2017 18:38
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Dr. Angela Ziegler posted:Can't steal third if you strike out 25 times a game because Mike Trout can't handle pitching up in the zone. Agreed he's like barely an All Star if you can keep the ball between the belt and the bottom of the letters and never miss.
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Mar 27, 2017 22:26
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