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Thread: Defending Dusty Baker by using Stats

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    Defending Dusty Baker by using Stats

    Wow, it seems that Dusty has ruffled a few feathers with his opinions on how to build a line-up, and most of those feathers belong to fans of spreadsheets and stats.

    I do want to say that I am a fan of spreadsheets and stats, however, I am have not drunk the kool-aid of Baseball Prospectus or any of the other major stat crazy sites. While I believe that Bill James is correct that one day, everything will be able to be explained and understood through stats, I also agree with him when he says that we are very, very far away from that day.

    My main problem with Saber fans, is that many (although not all) believe that we have reached the end of our understanding of stats. Because of this they accept that the conclusions that the Saber world has reached so far are dogma and indisputable.

    The reason why I have this problem is that our understanding of stats is at the very beginning stage and many mistakes have already been made. A perfect example is Voros McCracken and his theory on DIPS. That has been disproven and is no longer accepted as fact. It has been reworked by Tom Tippett and Mitchel Lichtman and a new better theory of DIPS is now available. I am certain that this will be the case with all Saber theories, they will all be reworked, re-examined and improved on in the future.

    I am going to use two examples to show that we have just touched the surface of understanding stats, and these two examples also defend Dusty Baker's views on building a line-up.

    I do want to add that I am not saying that Dusty absolutely is right, just that a defense can be made, by more closely examining stats.


    Dusty's First View: A Speedy Leadoff Hitter Who Steals Bases Is Better Than One With A High OBP


    This is rather simple, actually, although the stats only show that a base stealing leadoff hitter can be better than a high OBP hitter, depending on the numbers.

    Everything else being equal, a base stealer will get to second more often than a hitter who does not steal bases. That is a tautology. And a runner on second will score more often than a runner on first. That is indisputable. Therefore, if two player's OPB are equal, than the one who steals more bases will score more often, and be a better lead off hitter (unless you believe the main purpose of a batter is to get on base instead of scoring or driving in a run.)

    This also means that there will be situations where Player A could have a higher OPB, but since Player B steals a certain number of bases more than Player A, Player B is a better leadoff hitter. It all depends on the difference between the OBPs and the number of bases stolen. If you do the math, it comes out that every 10 stolen bases is worth around .005 OPB points. So if Player A has an OPB of .380 and Player B has one of .365, and Player B steals 40 more bases than Player A, then Player B is the better leadoff hitter.

    Therefore, Dusty's desire to want a speedy leadoff hitter is justifiable, if the leadoff hitter steals enough bases.


    Dusty's Second View: The Middle Of The Lineup Should Favor SLG Over OBP.


    This is far more complicated so I will only provide a summery of my examination of the stats. Anyone who wishes to see the full work can send me a private message and I will send it to them.

    Here is the general theory behind it, and I will show the stats that back up this general theory.

    A middle of the batting order hitter comes to the plate with a runner on first more times than any other situation with runners on base. In fact even more often than with a runner on second and a runner on third combined. Therefore, a middle of the lineup hitter who excels at scoring the runner from first is more valuable than a one who can excel at scoring a runner from second or third.

    Of course it depends on the actual stats. If Player A can score a runner from second and third five times more often than Player B, and if Player B can only score a runner from first twice as often Player A, than Player A is more valuable in the middle of the lineup.

    So just to see what the ratios are, I selected two middle of the lineup hitters, one known for his OPB, J.D. Drew, and one know for his SLG, Adrian Gonzalez. I am sure people can find other examples with different results, but I am only trying to show that Baker can be right, not that he is right all the time.

    Here are the numbers:

    Drew: .373 OPB .423 SLG
    Gonz: .347 OPB .502 SLG


    These translate to AG scoring a runner from first at a .327 rate, and JD scoring a runner from first at a .208 rate. That is a huge difference. And since scoring a runner from first base is more important, since it is a more common scenario, than JD really needs to kick some serious tail at scoring runs from second and third. He does do better than AG, which makes sense considering his higher OPB, but by only .314 to .301. That is not nearly enough for him to overcome AG's huge advantage in scoring a runner in from first.

    So basically, the stats show that in the middle of the lineup, is better to have a guy with a high SLG and a low OBP (unless he has a ridiculously high OBP), than the other way around. Meaning that Dusty is correct in wanting a hitter to be more worried about getting a good pitch to hit and driving the ball, than getting a walk. His goal should not be to not make an out, but to drive the ball for an extra base hit. That will help the team win more games.


    Anyway, have fun ripping this apart. I had fun putting it together.


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    Re: Defending Dusty Baker by using Stats

    I just want to correct my stats in the second part, I copied the wrong numbers from my spreadsheet. Here is the correct breakdown between AG and JD

    Scoring runner on first: AG - .242, JD - .223
    Scoring runner on 2 or3: AG - .306, JD - .309.

    Sorry about that, still it makes the same point, just not as drastically.

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    Re: Defending Dusty Baker by using Stats

    solid stuff but this post makes me glad I stay away from deeply analyzing stats I would drive my self nuts

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    Re: Defending Dusty Baker by using Stats

    Remember that if a runner is caught stealing a base, he has effectively lost every base before that. So, a runner caught stealing 2B should lose the hit or walk that got them on base.
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    Re: Defending Dusty Baker by using Stats

    Quote Originally Posted by Blue View Post
    Remember that if a runner is caught stealing a base, he has effectively lost every base before that. So, a runner caught stealing 2B should lose the hit or walk that got them on base.
    Good point. A runner who is caught stealing or picked off base is less effective than one who simply stays on base and makes intelligent base-running decisions. Under those circumstances, a high OBP is better than a base-stealer.

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    Re: Defending Dusty Baker by using Stats

    Quote Originally Posted by Blue View Post
    Remember that if a runner is caught stealing a base, he has effectively lost every base before that. So, a runner caught stealing 2B should lose the hit or walk that got them on base.
    That is figured into the equation, I just didn't mention it, sorry, my bad.

    I did exactly what you said. I just subtracted the CS from the times on base when figuring out each players OBP. I used a 80% formula, which is about average for most base stealers. So if a player stole 40 bases, I subtracted 14 times on base in figuring out his OBP. That gets you the ratio of 10 SB = around .005 OBP.

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    Re: Defending Dusty Baker by using Stats

    I'll go through this article a little more, but here are the Linear Weights Values...

    Basestealing Runs--The number of runs a batter gained through his stolen base attempts, figured as .22*SB - .38*CS.

    Last year Hopper was 14-6 so that's 3.08-2.26 = 0.8. That 0.8 is Runs gained by stealing, which translates to less than 1/10 of a Win.

    Freel was 15-8. so thats 3.3-3.04 = 0.26 Runs.. Even less

    The point is these guys are not very good base stealer's. They could hurt the team more than help, just on the basepaths. If A different player had a higher OBP but didn't steal at all, he would be more valuable. Now for those of you who say what about baserunning, well baserunnung has a value between +.5W and -.5W. At most there would be a 1 W difference. I could get baserunning values later.

    And BP 32-8 is a very good basestealer. He would be 7.04-3.04 = 4 Runs. That is still worth less than 1/2 a Win.

    If you have a speedy guy and a slow guy with the same OBP to leadoff, obviously you use the speedy guy. But if that were true, it wouldn't be an augment. The augment is that they want to put a speedy guy in with a much lower OBP.

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    Re: Defending Dusty Baker by using Stats

    Quote Originally Posted by 757690 View Post
    That is figured into the equation, I just didn't mention it, sorry, my bad.

    I did exactly what you said. I just subtracted the CS from the times on base when figuring out each players OBP. I used a 80% formula, which is about average for most base stealers. So if a player stole 40 bases, I subtracted 14 times on base in figuring out his OBP. That gets you the ratio of 10 SB = around .005 OBP.
    And it doesn't work like this... you just can't do this

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    Re: Defending Dusty Baker by using Stats

    Quote Originally Posted by mlbfan30 View Post
    I'll go through this article a little more, but here are the Linear Weights Values...

    Basestealing Runs--The number of runs a batter gained through his stolen base attempts, figured as .22*SB - .38*CS.

    Last year Hopper was 14-6 so that's 3.08-2.26 = 0.8. That 0.8 is Runs gained by stealing, which translates to less than 1/10 of a Win.

    Freel was 15-8. so thats 3.3-3.04 = 0.26 Runs.. Even less

    The point is these guys are not very good base stealer's. They could hurt the team more than help, just on the basepaths. If A different player had a higher OBP but didn't steal at all, he would be more valuable. Now for those of you who say what about baserunning, well baserunnung has a value between +.5W and -.5W. At most there would be a 1 W difference. I could get baserunning values later.

    And BP 32-8 is a very good basestealer. He would be 7.04-3.04 = 4 Runs. That is still worth less than 1/2 a Win.

    If you have a speedy guy and a slow guy with the same OBP to leadoff, obviously you use the speedy guy. But if that were true, it wouldn't be an augment. The augment is that they want to put a speedy guy in with a much lower OBP.

    I was never arguing for Hopper or Freel to lead off. I personally think Bruce should be the centerfielder and Votto should lead off.

    But you missed my point, which is that those stats that you quoted are not gospel, I was trying to show a different way to look at stats than the way that fans of Sabermetrics are looking at them now. I am not saying that my way is better, just that there is more than one way to interpret stats.

    I can promise you that

    "Basestealing Runs--The number of runs a batter gained through his stolen base attempts, figured as .22*SB - .38*CS"

    and

    "baserunnung has a value between +.5W and -.5W. At most there would be a 1 W difference."

    are not definitive. A better way to figure out the effect of basestealing will be developed, and re-developed, and re-developed... I think I have come up with one way to re-develop it, which has different results. I can gladly show my work in greater detail.

    That is my point.

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    Re: Defending Dusty Baker by using Stats

    Quote Originally Posted by mlbfan30 View Post
    And it doesn't work like this... you just can't do this
    Please explain why. I am not doubting you, I just want to know why since it make perfect sense to me.

    I am arguing basically that a stolen base should add a base to your total bases used for calculating SLG, and a caught stealing should be subtracted from your total bases used for calculating OBP. This seems very intuitive to me.

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    Re: Defending Dusty Baker by using Stats

    If I recall, Linear Weights are determined by using actual baseball data to show the probability of scoring runs. .22 per SB means that each successful SB scored a run 22% of the time and .38 per CS means that a caught stealing takes away a run 38% of the time.

    Here's a good article on OPS with correlation stats BTW:

    http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/ar...or-the-masses/
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    Re: Defending Dusty Baker by using Stats

    Quote Originally Posted by 757690 View Post

    Dusty's First View: A Speedy Leadoff Hitter Who Steals Bases Is Better Than One With A High OBP


    This is rather simple, actually, although the stats only show that a base stealing leadoff hitter can be better than a high OBP hitter, depending on the numbers.

    Everything else being equal, a base stealer will get to second more often than a hitter who does not steal bases. That is a tautology. And a runner on second will score more often than a runner on first. That is indisputable. Therefore, if two player's OPB are equal, than the one who steals more bases will score more often, and be a better lead off hitter (unless you believe the main purpose of a batter is to get on base instead of scoring or driving in a run.)

    This also means that there will be situations where Player A could have a higher OPB, but since Player B steals a certain number of bases more than Player A, Player B is a better leadoff hitter. It all depends on the difference between the OBPs and the number of bases stolen. If you do the math, it comes out that every 10 stolen bases is worth around .005 OPB points. So if Player A has an OPB of .380 and Player B has one of .365, and Player B steals 40 more bases than Player A, then Player B is the better leadoff hitter.

    Therefore, Dusty's desire to want a speedy leadoff hitter is justifiable, if the leadoff hitter steals enough bases.
    My first question is how are you getting that 10 stolen bases = .005 OBP points? As someone else pointed out you have to factor in the times caught stealing. I don't have the exact number but I think it's around 70% - if you don't steal successfully more often than that percentage you are taking away runs.

    I don't think anyone would argue with you that if OBP is equal, you take the faster guy. What happens a lot in MLB is that a fast guy with a vastly inferior OBP hits leadoff instead of a slower guy with a pretty good OBP. Even if the difference was .365 with speed against .380 slow guy, I don't think many people would complain.

    Quote Originally Posted by 757690 View Post
    My main problem with Saber fans, is that many (although not all) believe that we have reached the end of our understanding of stats. Because of this they accept that the conclusions that the Saber world has reached so far are dogma and indisputable.
    I honestly don't know where you are getting this - I bet there is not one person on this board who thinks that our current conclusions about baseball stats are "dogma and indisputable". People use stuff like OPS, Runs Created, VORP, etc. not because they are perfect, but because they are a lot better than the AVG/HR/RBI stuff everyone used ten years ago. You want to make the argument that the current sabrmetric stats aren't perfect - the problem is you're arguing against a position that nobody holds. We all agree they aren't perfect, but they are among the best stats we have at the moment, so that's why they get used on this board.

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    Re: Defending Dusty Baker by using Stats

    What about each individual pitcher's ability or not to be distracted by base stealers and the effects of this on his pitches to batter,or individual batters distraction,or second basemans moving to bag ,or shortstop,or outfielders positioning, or managerial decisions,are these varibles factored in.

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    Re: Defending Dusty Baker by using Stats

    Quote Originally Posted by wlf WV View Post
    What about each individual pitcher's ability or not to be distracted by base stealers and the effects of this on his pitches to batter,or individual batters distraction,or second basemans moving to bag ,or shortstop,or outfielders positioning, or managerial decisions,are these varibles factored in.
    Yes... What BaseRuns does is look at all occurrences in baseball for every outcome and every play. It assigns values that model numbers from real games. What each constant is, is actually coefficients that tells what is likely to happen. These values account for context such as league/park/pitchers/defense/etc. Your "nuances" of the game are already embedded in these equations because they represent the real result.

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    Re: Defending Dusty Baker by using Stats

    just like what SM said, I really do not know where you got the sb=.005 obp, but if that is true, then that would clearly mean that unless a player steals many bases in a season, they are clearly not as valuble as a leadoff hitter as someone with a higher OBP (in most cases)
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