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Thread: John Erardi Gets It -- "Who's Counting"

  1. #421
    Will post for food BuckeyeRedleg's Avatar
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    Re: John Erardi Gets It -- "Who's Counting"

    Quote Originally Posted by edabbs44 View Post
    A problem I have with a stat like "Runs created" is that it gives me the same feeling that passing yards, TDs or even points scored does in football. It is missing context.

    The stat obviously has value. It obviously correlates to runs. That's wonderful.

    But if someone goes 4-4 in a game with 2 doubles and 2 singles but the team gets shutout, he created zero runs in that game no matter what any formula tells you.

    Context is what is missing from these equations. Watching a QB throw for 60 yds and a TD in the last drive of a blowout game puts points on the board and pads stats, but has zero direct correlation to winning a game. Watching Marcus Allen score 15 one yard TDs looks great on paper, but doesn't do much otherwise.
    But why would you want to know this in the micro? You know he went 4-4 with 2 doubles and 2 singles. Of course runs created wouldn't do anything for you in this situation.

    What do you need to know other than he had a great game?

    RC, as MWM mentioned, is more about the macro, but it can be divided to measure what a player contributes per game (on average).


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  3. #422
    RaisorZone Raisor's Avatar
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    Re: John Erardi Gets It -- "Who's Counting"

    Let's not forget that there can be negative runs created too.

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    Re: John Erardi Gets It -- "Who's Counting"

    Quote Originally Posted by bucksfan2 View Post
    This is a reason I struggle with these kinds of stats. "Context is more important in the micro". Isn't what happens in the micro (each at bat) more indicitive of the outcome of a game than what happens in the macro (on average). I would imagine a RC stat would be important for an agent trying to get a bigger contract and a GM trying to decide who is worth the money.

    You also lose the importance of an occurance. Is every run created equal? Is every hit, BB, IBB, 2B, etc created equal? On paper a 2 run HR is the same whenever it happens but in the context of a given game it can have two completely different impacts.
    This gets at my issue with these measures. I absolutely acknowledge their value in measuring data over time, but each game is an individual battle that must be played and managed to be won. One run in a given game often is more valuable than the potential for four runs. That one run may knock a starting pitcher out of the game earlier. It may force the opponent to begin playing the infield in in later situations, creating opportunities for hitters. That one run could be incredibly valuable, even if the percentages say you're more likely to get a big inning if you don't play for one run (by sacrificing, making "productive outs," etc.).

    This really isn't a criticism of RC as a stat. It's more of an observation on the imperfections built into judging players almost entirely on these seasonal and career statistical measures. There are plenty of guys whose value to winning a given game goes far beyond a stat like RC (Keith Hernandez, Derek Jeter come to mind) and other players whose value to winning a given game doesn't seem to match their RC or similar stats (Dunn, Bobby Abreu, etc.).

    Clearly, RC isn't designed to measure my "value to winning a given game" stat. But it and other similar stats often are thrown around on this board and elsewhere as the best way to measure the value of a player. They're a valuable piece in measuring value, but only a piece.

    RC doesn't seek to measure the "importance" of runs; it seeks to attribute the number of runs a team scores to individual players. It measures run production, not wins. Whether or not a team wins a game is irrelevant.
    Some might say that's the only relevant stat.

  5. #424
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    Re: John Erardi Gets It -- "Who's Counting"

    Quote Originally Posted by edabbs44 View Post
    But some runs mean more than others.
    Only in hindsight. Is the 6th Run scored in a 6-0 game really less valuable than any of the other Runs? What happens to how we view that 6th Run if the opposing team comes back to score 6 in the ninth Inning to tie the game? Is the 7th Run that ends it really more valuable than the 6th, when we know that the 7th couldn't have been scored without each preceeding Run already on the board?
    "The problem with strikeouts isn't that they hurt your team, it's that they hurt your feelings..." --Rob Neyer

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  6. #425
    RaisorZone Raisor's Avatar
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    Re: John Erardi Gets It -- "Who's Counting"

    Quote Originally Posted by SteelSD View Post
    Only in hindsight. Is the 6th Run scored in a 6-0 game really less valuable than any of the other Runs? What happens to how we view that 6th Run if the opposing team comes back to score 6 in the ninth Inning to tie the game? Is the 7th Run that ends it really more valuable than the 6th, when we know that the 7th couldn't have been scored without each preceeding Run already on the board?
    That game really was a "soft run" advocate's nightmare, wasn't it?

  7. #426
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    Re: John Erardi Gets It -- "Who's Counting"

    Quote Originally Posted by pahster View Post
    Do you disagree with the notion that better players create more runs than lesser players?
    Absolutely agree with you.

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    Re: John Erardi Gets It -- "Who's Counting"

    Quote Originally Posted by Chip R View Post
    Then all stats should be excluded then, right? Batting average, HRs, RBIs, ERA, the whole lot.
    They all should be viewed together.

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    Re: John Erardi Gets It -- "Who's Counting"

    Quote Originally Posted by osuceltic View Post
    Some might say that's the only relevant stat.
    Some might. But it's silly to criticize a measurement for failing to measure something that it doesn't attempt to.

  10. #429
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    Re: John Erardi Gets It -- "Who's Counting"

    Quote Originally Posted by SteelSD View Post
    Only in hindsight. Is the 6th Run scored in a 6-0 game really less valuable than any of the other Runs? What happens to how we view that 6th Run if the opposing team comes back to score 6 in the ninth Inning to tie the game? Is the 7th Run that ends it really more valuable than the 6th, when we know that the 7th couldn't have been scored without each preceeding Run already on the board?
    Here we go with the donut theory again.

  11. #430
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    Re: John Erardi Gets It -- "Who's Counting"

    There's always been an effort to adjust stats for various things, like park-adjusted stats for instance. Or the assumption that good stats against September call-ups don't mean as much. So I guess that's why there's an urge to adjust stats for game conditions.

    The two schools of thought seem to be ... if you need a run in this situation, you want your most solid runs creator up there ... vs. ... a guy who knows that the third baseman is not moving well so he exploits that weakness and disrupts the defense until he can manufacture a run in this particular case.

    I suppose the argument will continue, with one fan saying, "all we needed was a run and the big dude struck out again" and the fan in the next seat saying, "but over the course of a season he has an RC value of ..."

  12. #431
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    Re: John Erardi Gets It -- "Who's Counting"

    Quote Originally Posted by SteelSD View Post
    Only in hindsight. Is the 6th Run scored in a 6-0 game really less valuable than any of the other Runs? What happens to how we view that 6th Run if the opposing team comes back to score 6 in the ninth Inning to tie the game? Is the 7th Run that ends it really more valuable than the 6th, when we know that the 7th couldn't have been scored without each preceeding Run already on the board?
    Many discussions are in hindsight. MVP voting, for example, happens after the season. So that way you can fully appreciate what the player meant to the team.

  13. #432
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    Re: John Erardi Gets It -- "Who's Counting"

    Quote Originally Posted by bucksfan2 View Post
    This is a reason I struggle with these kinds of stats. "Context is more important in the micro". Isn't what happens in the micro (each at bat) more indicitive of the outcome of a game than what happens in the macro (on average). I would imagine a RC stat would be important for an agent trying to get a bigger contract and a GM trying to decide who is worth the money.

    You also lose the importance of an occurance. Is every run created equal? Is every hit, BB, IBB, 2B, etc created equal? On paper a 2 run HR is the same whenever it happens but in the context of a given game it can have two completely different impacts.
    But the purpose and value of these things isn't in a single game. It's in measuring a player's overall value, or in trying to understand where your team weaknesses are so you can address them. It's a decision making tool. You don't build teams for what might happen in an individual game. If a guy creates a lot of runs, you generally want him on your team. If he doesn't, you generally don't unless they bring something else to the table such as great defense.

    None of the stats you've listed as what you like to look at work in the micro either. Help us understand how your micro (each at bat) way of looking at things helps you put together a team. It doesn't. It helps looking at an individual game and understanding how that game was won or lost. But over the long term, games are won or lost by scoring more runs than the other team.

    That's where Pythagorus comes in to complete the story. People have argued that certain runs mean more, so that socring more runs doesn't always lead to more wins because you either score 10 or 2. Ultimately, if that were the case, then Pythagorus wouldn't be so accurate and you'd see more variation that could be tied to more variable run scoring. But I'm not aware that we've seen any of this.

    The accuracy of runs created added to the accuracy of Pythagorus is pretty hard to dispute. If you fill your lineup with people who "create" runs, you're going to score a lot of runs. And with equal pitching and defense, you're going to win more games. All the little things that can happen in an individual game you can't plan for and make personnel decisions based on; and over the course of the year, the randomness equals out so that you get back to runs created approximating runs scored.

    I used to scoff at stats. But I've worked with statistics in my life so much outside of baseball, that when I started to see how closely things correlated and how consistent the data was from year to year, I realized any arguments against it were futile.
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  14. #433
    Will post for food BuckeyeRedleg's Avatar
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    Re: John Erardi Gets It -- "Who's Counting"

    Here was my experience with the correlation study. Some of this is copy and paste from some of my older posts to make it relevant for this discussion.

    So how accurate is RC and OPS compared with Batting Average? Why is it better? Well, here is where correlation comes into play and I had never heard of it until just recently, when some posters on the Redszone guided me through the process. It was an awesome learning experience. You can correlate the different measurements (AVG, OBP, SLG, OPS, H, BB, K, HR, etc) to the actual number of runs scored to determine which stat is the most accurate in predicting the most important objective in offense - scoring runs. The reason I undertook the challenge was because I really wanted to understand why SLG, OBP, OPS were the best ways to measure a hitter or teams ability to score runs.

    Ok, so what I did was I went to a cool website called retrosheet.com and copy-and-pasted (into an excel doc) team stats for every season from 1955 on to 2005 (50 years of data). I wanted a large sample size to draw from, but it only took me 30 minutes or so to copy-and-paste each season into the spreadsheet. Once I had all team information from each year (Like 1200 rows of data), I could create separate columns off to the side and plug in the various RC formula's. Once these are figured out and it really doesn't take long, you can then correlate. To correlate all you have to do his highlight the two columns you want and then hit a button on your toolbar or type some weird jargon (can't recall right now) in the field and hit "enter". This then gives you a correlation between those two columns. What we want to correlate is runs per season (per team) to BA, OBP, SLG, and RC. You also can figure the standard deviation of error from one column to another, as long as it is a counting stat. However with the correlation feature, you can even correlate counting stats to Runs scored as well. Well, what I found was that RC correlates the best with the actual runs scored, followed, by OPS, SLG, OBP, and way behind was BA (batting average).

    RC (basic) .9650
    RC (SB) .9707
    RC (tech) .9750
    XR (extrapolated runs ) .9774

    Since the Bill James original (basic) RC formula, he as well as other baseball stat-wankers have altered it to make it even more closely correlated with actual runs scored. XRC, which is "EXTRAPOLATED RUNS CREATED" uses linear weights to determine the most accurate number that correlates with runs scored. The point here isn't that one RC formula does better than the other, because it's obvious that the more complicated the formula the higher the correlation. I think some are missing the forest through the trees with this fact. The point is that even the simplest form of RC correlates to actual run production at .9650 (at least in my study), which is significantly better than any other rate or counting stat.

    Now, see what follows with some other rate stats......

    OPS .8448
    SLG .8191
    OBP .7829
    AVG .7176

    and some counting stats....

    HR .7733
    BB .6166
    K .3611


    In fact to give you an idea of how bad batting average is to determine the most efficient run producers, all you have to do is look at the Reds of 2005. 4th in all of baseball in runs scored (820). 19th in team batting average (.261). This is an extreme micro example, but over the macro this proves true. What about strikeouts? Even K's correlate positively to scoring runs. Hmmm. We hear all the time how bad they are, but guess what, there is a correlation to the top run scoring teams and higher strikeout totals. In 2005, the Reds finished #4 in runs scored. In K's? Numero uno. The Big Red Machine teams of 1975 and 1976? 1975-1st in the major's with 840 runs scored. 2nd in OPS and believe it or not 4th in strikeouts. 1976? 1st in runs scored with 857 and #1 in OPS and 2nd in team K's.
    Last edited by BuckeyeRedleg; 05-16-2008 at 12:44 PM.

  15. #434
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    Re: John Erardi Gets It -- "Who's Counting"

    Quote Originally Posted by edabbs44 View Post
    They all should be viewed together.
    But that assumes that all stats are equally valid and equally meaningful. A stat like BA has a small modicum of usefulness, but really is about as pedestrian--and uselsss--as stats get. I don't understand why you'd want to mix in a stat such as BA with a stat such as RC, which correlates so much more closely with the run production value--and thus the inherent superiority--of a particular player.
    We'll burn that bridge when we get to it.

  16. #435
    My clutch is broken RichRed's Avatar
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    Re: John Erardi Gets It -- "Who's Counting"

    Quote Originally Posted by Raisor View Post
    Let's not forget that there can be negative runs created too.
    There's no reason to bring Juan Castro into this.
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