Monday, July 12, 2004
Damn you Pythagorous
I share the sentiments of most when it comes to stathead writers: they sometimes have interesting things to say, they are arrogant about the superiority of their methods of analysis as opposed to “traditional methods,” and they probably aren’t getting laid that much. They should run a “Blind Date: Baseball Prospectus,” addition to see how many of the dates end up gouging their own eyes out as their male counterparts tried to explain the importance of measuring performance above replacement level.
If Bill James is the Little Richard of sabrmetrics, we can consider Rob Neyer to be the Pat Boone: a slightly dumbed-down, safer version of statheadism for the general public. I have grown to like Neyer despite his flaws as a writer. He has toned down his arrogance in the last few years, and while he still needs to have that operation to remove Billy Beane’s balls from his chin (can we call it a de-moneyballoscomy?) Neyer has written some good stuff this year, particularly about putting players in historical context.
But come on, you didn’t think I would write this article just praising him did you? I am here to complain about the over-reliance of Neyer, BP, and statheads in general Pythagorean Records. A team’s Pythagorean record is a direct function of its runs scored and runs allowed, giving an “expected” record. Of course, a team’s actual record is almost never equal to a team’s “expected” record. Thus, the real relationship between runs and wins is: Wins= F(Rscored, Rallowed, z) In other words, wins are a function of runs scored, runs allowed, and an unknown factor, represented by zed. Rob, like most statheads, doesn’t like to admit that he doesn’t know everything. Thus the stathead explanation for this discrepancy, between expected and actual wins is “luck,” which is conveniently inexplicable.
I have serious problems with this term, mostly on a common sense ground. For example, in his article on the division races, Neyer writes about how the White Sox run differentials have been equal or superior to the Twins’ in the last three years, while the Twins have finished with better records. Rob what’s the saying? Fool me once…shame on…me. If something keeps happening over and over again, it’s probably time to stop using “luck” as an explanation, and try and use those critical thinking skillz you statheads value so much to come up with something else.
So what is z then? To provide some analysis, I am going to piss of statheads even more by relying on “observation,” and throwing out some theories with no statistical backing whatsoever.
1) The likelihood of your offense to vary its scoring. Sample: From July 4th to July 10th of 03, the White Sox outscored their opponents by 2 runs, yet lost 5 of 6 games. Neyer would say this was really bad luck. I would say this is called the offense crapping the bucket for a week. The White Sox did manage to win one game 11-0…but of course this isn’t college football, and there is no reward for blowing out teams. What would make a team more likely to score 11 runs one day and then 0 the next? Splits is one argument, for example if an entire team killed lefties, or was a team of fastball hitters.
2) Another reason is that a team built on drawing walks and power might be more likely to murder bad pitching while losing an advantage over good pitching. Pedro Martinez for example: when he pitched against the Yankees or Indians, he was more likely to give up more walks and home runs then against the D Rays. But he still wasn’t giving up that many walks or dingers. The Yankees might score one more run against him, whereas against a crappier pitcher, the Yankees or Red Sox might use their superior patience to score three or four extra runs. This would lead to a greater run differential, but not necessarily greater success. Tougher pitching negates the benefits of having a team with a high walk and homer rate (that usually coincides with a higher strikeout rate) because good pitchers by definition walk fewer batters and give up fewer homers. This is the essence of the “good pitching beats good hitting” argument.
3) All runs aren’t created equal. As a game remains close longer and longer, the chances that the next run will be the deciding run in terms of win or loss increase. Thus, what becomes important is not a team’s ability to score runs in general throughout nine innings, or over 162 games, but in that specific inning in that game. These are different abilities: Speed, baserunning, defense, and the ability to successfully sacrifice bunt become more important. Example: Red Sox on Sunday lose to the Rangers by one. The ninth inning featured Pokey Reese getting picked off at first and Mark Bellhorn working a 3-1 count, then striking out by watching to close pitches go by. (Uh Mark, on a 50-50 ball there are two options, either you get out and we lose, or you walk and we are still losing.) Thus for the series we outscored Texas by like 15 runs, but still only went 2-1
What it comes down to is that wins are what matter, not runs. And while a team needs to score runs and prevent the other team from scoring to win, there is some other quality that helps some teams win more than “expected.” This quality may be these factors, or a combination of all of them, or something totally different. But it aint luck, its part of building a winning baseball team: and the team that can figure out what it is will have an advantage over everyone else.
If Bill James is the Little Richard of sabrmetrics, we can consider Rob Neyer to be the Pat Boone: a slightly dumbed-down, safer version of statheadism for the general public. I have grown to like Neyer despite his flaws as a writer. He has toned down his arrogance in the last few years, and while he still needs to have that operation to remove Billy Beane’s balls from his chin (can we call it a de-moneyballoscomy?) Neyer has written some good stuff this year, particularly about putting players in historical context.
But come on, you didn’t think I would write this article just praising him did you? I am here to complain about the over-reliance of Neyer, BP, and statheads in general Pythagorean Records. A team’s Pythagorean record is a direct function of its runs scored and runs allowed, giving an “expected” record. Of course, a team’s actual record is almost never equal to a team’s “expected” record. Thus, the real relationship between runs and wins is: Wins= F(Rscored, Rallowed, z) In other words, wins are a function of runs scored, runs allowed, and an unknown factor, represented by zed. Rob, like most statheads, doesn’t like to admit that he doesn’t know everything. Thus the stathead explanation for this discrepancy, between expected and actual wins is “luck,” which is conveniently inexplicable.
I have serious problems with this term, mostly on a common sense ground. For example, in his article on the division races, Neyer writes about how the White Sox run differentials have been equal or superior to the Twins’ in the last three years, while the Twins have finished with better records. Rob what’s the saying? Fool me once…shame on…me. If something keeps happening over and over again, it’s probably time to stop using “luck” as an explanation, and try and use those critical thinking skillz you statheads value so much to come up with something else.
So what is z then? To provide some analysis, I am going to piss of statheads even more by relying on “observation,” and throwing out some theories with no statistical backing whatsoever.
1) The likelihood of your offense to vary its scoring. Sample: From July 4th to July 10th of 03, the White Sox outscored their opponents by 2 runs, yet lost 5 of 6 games. Neyer would say this was really bad luck. I would say this is called the offense crapping the bucket for a week. The White Sox did manage to win one game 11-0…but of course this isn’t college football, and there is no reward for blowing out teams. What would make a team more likely to score 11 runs one day and then 0 the next? Splits is one argument, for example if an entire team killed lefties, or was a team of fastball hitters.
2) Another reason is that a team built on drawing walks and power might be more likely to murder bad pitching while losing an advantage over good pitching. Pedro Martinez for example: when he pitched against the Yankees or Indians, he was more likely to give up more walks and home runs then against the D Rays. But he still wasn’t giving up that many walks or dingers. The Yankees might score one more run against him, whereas against a crappier pitcher, the Yankees or Red Sox might use their superior patience to score three or four extra runs. This would lead to a greater run differential, but not necessarily greater success. Tougher pitching negates the benefits of having a team with a high walk and homer rate (that usually coincides with a higher strikeout rate) because good pitchers by definition walk fewer batters and give up fewer homers. This is the essence of the “good pitching beats good hitting” argument.
3) All runs aren’t created equal. As a game remains close longer and longer, the chances that the next run will be the deciding run in terms of win or loss increase. Thus, what becomes important is not a team’s ability to score runs in general throughout nine innings, or over 162 games, but in that specific inning in that game. These are different abilities: Speed, baserunning, defense, and the ability to successfully sacrifice bunt become more important. Example: Red Sox on Sunday lose to the Rangers by one. The ninth inning featured Pokey Reese getting picked off at first and Mark Bellhorn working a 3-1 count, then striking out by watching to close pitches go by. (Uh Mark, on a 50-50 ball there are two options, either you get out and we lose, or you walk and we are still losing.) Thus for the series we outscored Texas by like 15 runs, but still only went 2-1
What it comes down to is that wins are what matter, not runs. And while a team needs to score runs and prevent the other team from scoring to win, there is some other quality that helps some teams win more than “expected.” This quality may be these factors, or a combination of all of them, or something totally different. But it aint luck, its part of building a winning baseball team: and the team that can figure out what it is will have an advantage over everyone else.
# posted by Marmaniac @ 9:45 PM 
