Okay...let's try something out here for a week...

[blogguy]

I've been able to come up for air for a few days here in this month off. The half dozen people who were visiting the house for the past week have now gone off on a trip...taking with them everyone in the house but me and the pet bird.

The month spent preparing was worth it...amazing how much junk you accumulate over the years...then you have no place to put when six people ages 9 to 70 are sleeping over. Nothing more to throw out...nothing more to clean...no blogs to write since I took the month off...let's see if we can make a baseball think tank work.

We laid the groundwork at the beginning of the season...and many of you made some great contributions. I'm hoping to hear from more of you in the coming week as we hopefully put our heads together to find something we can create for all of our own benefits on these pages.

Personally, I've got to decide what my role is going to be in the world of forums down the road. Being part of a group of handicappers/fans/thinkers that's trying to learn and discover new possibilities has always been a dream. Arguing with people about whether or not soccer players are the best athletes in the world, whether or not basketball players who play great defense are worthless, whether or not guys who assault their wives in public should be suspended immediately or allowed to pitch in their next start...has not been. I need to spend ZERO percent of my time with stuff like that...and I'm not sure why I kept jumping into non-debates where it was clear that one side just wasn't even trying to deal with reality. Debates can be fun, especially when everyone studies the issue and tries to reach a consensus about what's really going on. I guess I was thinking those kinds of Mess Hall debates would head in that direction...but I've learned they usually don't.

Spending a week with people aged 9-70 helps you see that kind of stuff, and the futility of devoting any time or energy to the nonsense.

So...down the road...I might be just a writer who helps provide content to the site...I might be a volunteer who helps coordinate an effort to have a year round think tank...I might be a lurker...but I'm not going to get into any more of those dumb Mess Hall debates.

To get the first week after the ASB started, I was thinking it might be good if we can put our heads together to come up with a list of key pitching stats that we might be able to compile every day in a kind of matchup format. I made up a list of my own...but I wanted to wait a few hours to see what everyone else thought should be on this kind of list. As a handicapper, what are the key things you look at with a pitcher. I don't care how obvious, or how obscure they might be. If you think they'll help handicappers, let's hear about them.

My list has a few obvious things...and a few obsure but relatively easy to find things. Let's see if we can put something together that paints a picture of each starting pitcher in a way that will help us visualize what's most likely to happen on the field on any given night. Since we'll hopefully be compiling a list of things we can use to create our own matchup previews (I'll ask for volunteers later...maybe 3-4 of us can dig up the numbers for the card each night...I'll take the first 4 games on the schedule, another guy takes the next four, etc...), see if you can make it something that's available at a common stat site. I went through Don Best, Covers, and Jim Feist this morning to look for ideas. Hopefully we get some things that aren't in your morning newspaper, and are important to having a detailed understanding of each pitcher.

Share your thoughts!

[Soonerfan64]

First time pitching in the majors, first time as a starter in the majors, a pitcher that is normally a reliever getting a start, high pitch count last time out, pitcher left with an injury or nagging problem last time out, how a pitcher does the following game after his last game was either rained out or he started but left early due to long rain delay, how a pitcher does after he is shelled his last time out ( I suppose you could define it as not making through 5 innings or giving up x amount of runs ), how he does his first three starts after returning from the DL, how a pitcher fairs against a team that he has a high winning/losing % against. I would suppose one could go on and on.

I thought for next season we could come up with some categories and reliable people could track a certain stat or two. I would be willing to keep up with a couple either this season or next as we get more ideas gathered.

SF64

[capperks]

Blog, Sooner... some good ideas posted. I think you may have to look at the bullpens also, as the pens are quite often responsible for destroying a solid outing by a starter by allowing inherited runners to score or losing a big lead and costing the starter the "W".
Another thing to think about is, do you seperate inter-league games from the stats and make 2 catagories... many times the opposing team is facing the pitcher for the 1st time and they usually only see this pitcher once per season. Guys like Bondrman, Halladay etc have been pounded in IL games, but come back in their next start to shutdown an offense that they're familiar with.
I'd be willing to follow up on a few also.

[blogguy]

Thanks Sooner and Capperks. Obviously the element of pitching inspires a zillion possible directions. I guess I had more simple things in mind at first. We've got to walk before we can run. Looking at the several great ideas in Sooner's post and the key key point from Capperks about bullpens would be steps down the road I think. But...very important steps needless to say.

For this early foray, I was thinking more along the lines of basic stats about the starting pitchers. Sorry I didn't make that clearer. After running through the sites I mentioned to see what was out there in the matchup postings on the web, I came up with this as a beginning list:

*ERA and IP per start overall (the two basic fundamentals that describe the effectiveness and impact of each starting pitcher)

*ERA and IP per start in terms of the home/road split (road numbers for the road guy...home numbers for the home guy), so we can make sure to account for pitchers who are either helped or hurt by their home parks.

*Strikeouts. First I started out with K's per 9 innings because we were using that in an earlier thread about pitchers. But...it's something that you have to calculate yourself as best I could tell. Don Best had easy to compute numbers for the first two categories I listed...and they have "average strikeouts" per start already listed. This serves our purpose quickly enough...and should be helpful for those of you playing "props" on total strikeouts for a starting pitcher. I've read that some of you look at that. This number will tell you right away what the normal expectations are for each starter.

WHIP (walks plus hits per inning pitched): There were several variations of this out there. I kind of like the 9 inning one better because things jam up in per inning stuff (1.1 is great...1.8 is lousy...but 7 tenths of something doesn't seem like much when you're just glancing). Don Best has this handy though...so me or volunteers putting together the stuff each day could just grab that number instead of hopping around.

GB/Flyball data: You know I like this particular stat because it gives you a sense of how the guy might pitch in that night's conditions. If you follow ballparks and weather, then this is a big deal. Earlier we were using the overall percentage as projected by Baseball Prospectus. I saw that covers.com has just the pure ratios in relatively easy to find form (with their pitching matchups)...so I went with those.

There are other things we can include as well obviously. For now...here's an approximation of what I'd have in mind as a starting point. We could then embellish this with information Sooner talked about regarding pitch counts and injuries (those play a huge role in foreshadowing "non-normal" performances...and the matchup formats would largely represent "normal")...as well as notes about the bullpen. We've had several discussions about bullpens in the past. I prefer the quick and simple bullpen ERA's as posted at covers.com. Spraguer has put together very complicated but much more accurate "leveraged" bullpen data that he's discussed. Might be hard to find an easy to use consensus. Personally, I'm going to go back to using that 1-point, 2-point, 3-point format from that experimental methodology we were using a few weeks ago. We can talk about that down the road. Take a gander at these and see what information you think should be added:


KANSAS CITY: DUCKWORTH
5.33 ERA and 5.4 IP in all starts
4.50 ERA and 5.3 IP on the road
3.4 strikeouts per game (low)
1.8 WHIP (poor)
1.07 GB/FB ratio (fly ball)
Nutshell: Struggling, very little going for him...but not the worst guy in the majors.

DETROIT: BONDERMAN
3.46 ERA and 6.6 IP in all starts (ace stats)
4.53 ERA and 6.4 IP at home (surprising home troubles)
6.1 strikeouts per game (strong)
1.1 WHIP (second best to Liriano on tonight's card)
1.74 GB/FB ratio (ground ball)
Nutshell: The numbers of a staff ace except for the home ERA. That's a big surprise because that park shouldn't hurt him. Maybe the infield is messed up or something, lol.

OAKLAND: LOAIZA
6.43 ERA and 5.6 IP in all starts
7.05 ERA and 5.6 IP on the road
2.5 strikeouts per game (a joke number in a joke season)
1.6 WHIP
0.93 GB/FB ratio (fly ball)
Nutshell: A disastrous season, and the A's are just hoping he'll find his old form somewhere. He's basically been Jose Lima without the anti-hype.

BOSTON: LESTER
3.06 ERA and 5.3 IP in all starts
3.50 ERA and 5.5 IP at home
5.0 strikeouts per game (strong for a rookie)
1.5 WHIP (stunningly horrible for a good ERA)
1.03 GB/FB ratio (fly ball)
Nutshell: Volatile stats in an unsustainable combination. He's putting on baserunners left and right...and apparently stranding ALL of them! If you throw out ERA, he's basically a left version of Baltimore's Cabrera. You know how wild that guy's been. Either the baserunners will go down...or the ERA will go up. No way this set of numbers could possibly hold up. He's pitched with GREAT luck so far...but his strikeout numbers are terrific. Gotta tame his stuff.

TEXAS: PADILLA
4.44 ERA and 6.0 IP in all starts
5.49 ERA and 5.8 IP on the road (surprising)
5.0 strikeouts per game (very good)
1.3 WHIP
1.06 GB/FB ratio (fly ball)
Nutshell: Usually Texas kills an ERA, so it's weird to see the big home/road split the other way here. Maybe he likes the heat. Some Hispanics are more comfortable in the heat because they grew up in it. Very strong SO/WHIP combo.

BALTIMORE: CABRERA
5.15 ERA and 5.4 IP in all starts
6.35 ERA and 4.9 IP at home (not major league caliber)
5.8 strikeouts per game (only saving grace)
1.7 WHIP
1.03 GB/FB ratio (fly ball)
Nutshell: Wild thing that makes opponent's heart's sing thus far. He's Lester and Loaiza in a blender.

CLEVELAND: LEE
4.76 ERA and 6.1 IP in all starts
4.63 ERA and 6.2 IP on the road (innings muncher)
4.0 strikeouts per game
1.4 WHIP
0.48 GB/FB ratio (extreme fly ball)
Nutshell: Generic journeyman kind of numbers. Can work well with a strong offensive team, which Cleveland does have. The kind of guy who works as a 4-5 starter for a top team...but not an ace.

MINNESOTA: LIRIANO
1.83 ERA and 6.6 IP in all starts
0.67 ERA and 6.7 IP at home
7.0 strikeouts per game (huge numbers...Cy Young stuff)
0.8 WHIP
2.20 GB/FB ratio (extreme ground ball---kind a lefty Halladay numerically)
Nutshell: Only fear is overwork ruining his arm. Twins are watching that carefully. One of the guys where the numbers tell the story better than words do. Players and managers have had trouble coming up with superlatives. A stat profile likes this helps you see the depth and magnitude of what the guy's doing. Clevfan and others noted up in the Mess Hall that Liriano was down in the Dominican when he got called up at the last second for the All-Star game. He might not be in position to have a peak outing tonight because of his crazy week.

HOUSTON: OSWALT
3.15 ERA and 7.0 IP in all starts
3.10 ERA and 6.5 IP on the road
4.5 strikeouts per game (not quite overpowering)
1.2 WHIP
1.68 GB/FB ratio (ground ball)
Nutshell: He's not Roger Clemens...but he basically gets the same results in his own unique way. Ace stats.

FLORIDA: WILLIS
4.01 ERA and 6.9 IP in all starts
7.18 ERA and 5.7 IP at home (horrible at home, great on road)
4.2 strikeouts per game
1.4 WHIP
1.45 GB/FB ratio (ground ball)
Nutshell: This guy has a history of fast starts and poor finishes. Something to think about in the coming weeks. Horrible troubles at home this year...but solid as a rock on the road.

COLORADO: FRANCIS
4.04 ERA and 6.0 IP in all starts
4.40 ERA and 6.1 IP on the road
3.8 strikeouts per game
1.2 WHIP (stingy considering ERA)
0.91 GB/FB ratio (fly ball, not one of Colorado's groundies)
Nutshell: A lot like Lee of Cleveland...fewer baserunners though.

CINCINNATI: MILTON
5.24 ERA and 6.2 IP in all starts
5.63 ERA and 6.1 IP at home
3.6 strikeouts per game
1.3 WHIP
0.52 GB/FB ratio (extreme fly ball, 15 HR's allowed this year)
Nutshell: Gopher city...don't back him in high HR environments

LOS ANGELES: BILLINGSLEY
5.27 ERA and 5.5 IP in all starts
5.29 ERA and 5.6 IP on the road
2.8 strikeouts per game
1.8 WHIP (an awful combo...no strikeouts and a lot of baserunners)
1.95 GB/FB ratio (extreme ground ball)
Nutshell: Unimpressive start for the rookie. All he does so far is get ground balls.

ST. LOUIS: MARQUIS
5.55 ERA and 6.5 IP in all starts
5.38 ERA and 6.3 IP on the road (surprisingly good IP numbers)
3.0 strikeouts per game
1.3 WHIP (everyone who gets on scores!)
1.03 GB/FB ratio (fly ball)
Nutshell: A step backward from previous years. Another guy like Lee and Francis...similar WHIP and fly ball data...but his strikeouts are much lower. That's what's leading to the higher ERA. The additional balls in play are getting hit hard and doing some damage. WHIP doesn't account for power...so Marquis looks to be giving up some him impact shots.


I said something in that thread to BostonGambler about the Red Sox pitcher tonight. Look at how similar he is to the wild Cabrera in some key stats:

Lester:
5.3 IP in all starts
5.0 strikeouts per game
1.5 WHIP
1.03 GB/FB ratio (fly ball)

Cabrera
5.4 IP in all starts
5.8 strikeouts per game
1.7 WHIP
1.03 GB/FB ratio (fly ball)

Cabrera gets more strikeouts, but puts more guys on base. But...when you look at a big sample of all starters, these guys are pretty close to being clones in the areas listed. Amazing that Lester's got an ERA of 3.06, while Cabrera is at 5.15. Be careful with Lester...he's been playing with fire according to these numbers.

Anyway...please share your thoughts on this kind of format...and on what other numbers might conveniently go into the mix. Then we can work on finding some volunteers to help put together the stuff each day. If I had to do all 15 games every day...I'd run out of gas pretty soon, and there'd be no mental energy left to actually THINK about anything...lol. IF four of us are doing 4 games a day...that's manageable. Then maybe Sooner can keep everyone updated on pitch counts...and Capperks and others can add in the bullpen element.

Thanks again to those who responded so quickly. Hope to hear from more of you as you work your way back into the baseball season and back into the THINK TANK!

blg...

[dinque]

you are looking to hard at angles and kind of ignoring numbers.how much better is oswalt then willis?how much better is the fla. offense.which fresh bullpen is worth how many cents?it is a better way of doing business then betting a pitcher who pitched a quality start while throwing between 70-95 pitches or whose last name has fewer letters then the other pitcher.we need to find a system for better linemaking not for finding winners,as the latter simply does not work.

one of the things i notice here is that people want to bet on quality pitchers and under on the same subset of starters.also,over and against the worst pitchers in the league.do you really think that is not part of the line.will liriano pitch a shutout everytime?it is not that easy which is why so many of us have either quit,follow others,or lose during this long and trying sport even tho we are given almost no juice to bet into.

i would like next season to develope a formula to make a good number,one which we could tweak a bit as the year progresses.blogguy of course will lead the way.

[blogguy]

Thanks for popping in dinque!

I'm not sure that Sooner was talking about angles. His post could be read to mean "effectiveness" rather than just wins and losses. If we're looking at what happens to ERA and IP per start after big pitch counts, or coming back from an injury hiatus...that effort could lead to making more accurate lines.

Guys like Sprager, Nino Brown, Superfly, and others are successful years coming at things from different perspectives. Not sure that it HAS to be done only by making better lines than Vegas. As I've said before, sometimes it's a matter of understanding the percentage likelihoods that something's going to happen when "cocktails" of influences come together. We've seen enough differences between averages and means to see that finding a "right" line based purely on stats can get kind of messy anyway. Could be that we would have had inspired debate about whether Jose Lima should have been a 180 dog or a 220 dog whenever he took the mound. Since the lines were 120 or whatever...that would have been quibbling when everyone basically agreed that the lines were wrong.

Probably, whatever a final blueprint looks like will be an open-ended piece that handicappers can use however they wish. I can't see us all finding complete agreement on everything...but the act of working towards a consensus should help us see things we weren't otherwise seeing. Certainly dividing up a listing of possible influences amongst different volunteers should help ALL readers see some things they hadn't noticed before. Before doing today's stuff...I hadn't realized how bad Willis had been at home....how much Bonderman had struggled at home relative to road games...and probably five other things that I'd have to go back to look at to remember!

Will be fun to see what develops this week...

[nfleqbc]

I personally tend to throw out individual pitching stats, especially for starters. I like to use overall team performance for the team when a given pitcher starts (measured a few ways, including run differentials and a power rating system I've borrowed from other sports), along with overall team performance when different other conditions are factored in.

Then again, thus far I'm down (but not that much) in my capping this season (about a month's sample)... the approach did very well (minus the pitcher factors... I sort of added the starting pitcher factors for this season on the theory that they had to be factored in) in 2004 (took last season off). So take this for whatever you think it's worth.

I think that successful handicapping ultimately boils down to making a better line than the bookmaker's/market's, whatever perspective you approach it from. That perspective does not have to be one of setting out to figure out the mythical true line. You write "it's a matter of understanding the percentage likelihoods that something's going to happen when "cocktails" of influences come together." Is it not the case that the understanding that a given cocktail of influences comes together to produce a win for Team A 55-60% percent of the time indicates that the true line should be something along the lines of -120 to -155 (thus making a breakdown along the lines of strong play at better than -115, no play at worse than -155, check for other factors in between, for instance)?

[blogguy]

It's easy to start talking in circles whenever baseball's the topic. I think we all pretty much agree that the goal is to find numbers that don't properly reflect reality. I know a lot of people believe the best way to do this is to make your own lines. I'm not necessarily disagreeing with that...just pointing out that there are other ways to go at the question.

Your question nfleqbc about the percentages and the moneylines applies very well to baseball team sides...but not really to totals, team totals, or most of the props people are considering. And...it's not really applicable to pointspreads in the other sports (but it as to moneylines of course). Yes...if you can have confidence that a team is going to win 55-60% of the time, you can use the parameters you outlined. I'm not convinced any of us can really "know" that with confidence just yet. Given all the variables in play (particularly in baseball), I'd be skeptical of ANYONE who would say "this line should definitely be Boston -155" or whatever.

I've been doing this for a couple of decades. I've heard literally dozens of people say that you've got to make your own line. But, all of them do it differently...and all of them come up with different lines. To me that's the illusion of consensus rather than consensus.

I think it's easier to say "that's a bad line" than it is to say exactly what the right line is. Beating the oddsmakers doesn't HAVE to mean that you make better lines than they do. It just means you have to create a toolbox that finds likely mistakes.

We've seen this year that the toolbox in this sport could end up being huge. Many different people are having success with many different approaches. But, sample size is always an issue in any study like this. And, particularly with the indicators I try to come across (will Arizona start losing after a raid from the feds because of the distractions? Or because the hitter's stop juicing in fear of getting arrested?)...I don't think it will be possible to ever know if you were right or lucky...or wrong or unlucky. Best you can do is play the possibilities and put in stopping points where you "call off the jam" after a run.

Science constantly rules things out before coming to any sort of conclusion about what something is. We may not know exactly what the surface of Jupiter is like, but we can rule out a lot of things. We can't know exactly where a hurricane is going to hit landfall from 100 miles away...but we can rule a lot of places out. I'm hoping handicappers will turn their thinking a bit away from "we've got to make our own lines" and start looking at ways to "rule out" or "rule in" the lines we're seeing from oddsmakers.

Michelle Wie was -210 to miss the cut at the John Deere tournament, even though she's never made a cut at a PGA event. The evidence should have suggested that this was a bad number to anyone who thought it through. She wasn't likely to make the cut 1 in 3 times of a men's tournament. Maybe 1 in 5...maybe 1 in 7...maybe 1 in 10. Nobody had to properly determine whether it should have been -452 or -678 or something. They just needed the tools to recognize the error.

Baseball offers oppurtunities like this because pitchers have big downsides in certain situations (coming off of injuries, pitching through injuries, being a flyball pitcher when the wind is blowing out, being a pitcher who works the edges while an "over" umpire is behind the plate, being a mediocre lefty having to face Toronto, being a fly ball prone righty in Yankee Stadium when the wind is blowing out to right).

I guess you can say my philosophy is to find indicators that suggest possible errors in lines where the oddsmakers don't look to have taken these things into account...or really have no way to properly know for sure how to take things into account. Some people say the oddsmakers or the sharps account for everything...and the lines become perfected that way. I just haven't seen it....and I've seen overwhelming evidence that it's not true.

This initial run through with pitchers is just the starting point to building profiles that might help us see some of those things. I don't mean to imply that I'm suggesting any other approaches are wrong. Just trying to do something that can take advantage of the power of the collective from avid fans and handicappers. Could turn out that I just have to give up hope and go back to a cave and play with all of this stuff in private, lol...

[blogguy]

Did the profiles foreshadow Thursday night performances? Let's run through the starter's numbers quickly and see:

Oswalt: 6.1 IP and 1 ER
Willis: 7 IP and 1 ER
Willis did much better than his previous norms. Note the wind was blowing in here...the only park on the night that had any wind greater than minimal values. Game was 1-1 into the 8th. Doesn't mean for sure that the wind was a factor. Wind in a pitcher's park with big name starters can be a nice combo though, lol

Francis: 6 IP and 4 ER
Milton: 6 IP and 3 ER
Francis got nailed in the first inning with some bloopers and tweeners. He pitched a little better than those stats. Both guys were decent considering the high final score.

Billingsley: 5 IP and 0 ER
Marquis: 8 IP and 2 ER
Surprisingly strong night from Marquis. Billingsley made it through 5 and they got him out of the way. Still not doing impressive things, but he wasn't a big negative tonight.

Duckworth: 4.2 IP and 3 ER
Bonderman: 5.2 IP and 4 ER
Duckworth lived down to lame stats...Bonderman continued to struggle at home.

Loiaza: 5 IP and 3 ER
Lester: 5 IP and 1 ER
Loaiza still not in form. Lester AGAIN put 10 baserunners on but only allowed one to score. Still playing with fire....but not hurting his team just yet. Eventually the floodgate will bust open I'm afraid.

Padilla: 7 IP and 1 ER
Cabrera: 5.1 IP and 4 ER
More trouble for Cabrera. Padilla could coast with a lead.

Lee: 5.2 IP and 2 ER
Liriano: 5 IP and 4 ER
Clevfan and Shoebox foreshadowed this potential up in the Mess Hall. Liriano gave up 3 home runs...but still had a 5-1 ratio on ground ball outs. Ground ball pitchers can give up home runs when they don't have their stuff...important to remember in those "wind out" games. Some guys automatically take ground ball pitchers when the wind is blowing out. Not an issue in the Metrodome of course...but...I"m just saying...

On the whole...reality resembled the profiles to a good enough degree. There were a few good surprises (Willis and Marquis), and a bad one (Liriano). Right after a 3-day break, it's hard to say what's really expected and what isn't. Offenses have been dormant for 3 days. Some pitchers are on rotation, some aren't. Some had to fly in from the Dominican at the last second on Tuesday. A zillion variables...

Still waiting for more of you to share your thoughts on pitching stats. Don't you dare let me believe that I got it right the first time through!

[Spraguer]

Bloggy, this is a fantastic thread and I will be contributing... tomorrow, as I have to drive my partner to the airport in five hours... I ought to get some sleep.

I've been a baseball nerd for much longer than I've been a bettor... in fact, I'd link to some of my stuff if I were comfortable exposing my name (I'm not a professional baseball analyst or anything, but some of my stuff - both research and prose - is out there in the blogosphere).

At any rate, I will drop by this thread tomorrow to discuss pitching, if you're interested.

[Soonerfan64]

I will say this, I like others here could ramble on for hours. Baseball can be approached from many angles and you can at least survive and not be burned at the stake.


However, IMHO, the best way to do well is to watch as many games as possible and CLEARLY understand the game which might be said for any sport or area(s) of investment.


What I think we can all be in agreement on is this, we are trying to simplify the process a bit and look for a positive return.


As for my original post, I am not sure over a 20 year period that any of the ideas I listed would yield a profit over the long term played every time the situation existed but I think that at least a couple of them might. They were not intended to be angles but merely factors to consider as Blog mentioned.

The problem I have, at least one problem, is during the summer months I have several projects that I get involved with that cuts into my baseball viewing and capping ( to a point where I almost abandon it totally during July and August ) So, essentially simplication would be a big bonus during these months. I am sure I will add more later.

[Soonerfan64]

I will make one more point involving angles. I have no problem with people using them if they can identify why they are working and can identify them early on. Like a lot of things in life being in on the ground floor is a must.


Some of the best angles, that I can remember, were in college football during the late 70's to mid 80's involving both Kansas and K State. However, as the coaching staff's, facilities, and recruiting improved these angles all vanished but I am sure some publication, looking for filler, still uses them.

[Soonerfan64]

edited for double post

[Immanuel Kant]

I'm not about to argue with anyone who has a "method" that works for them...........I do believe that the more information available, the better a handicapper can decide what is valuable to him/herself........

I think this is a great thread and would like to help....

Allow me to show (in hindsight, I know) my prep notes for a game yesterday and my notes from watching the game...........they don't all work out like this one...lol.........

I'm not saying this is THE way to handicap....I'm saying it's my way.....and maybe some brighter folks in this thread can find something to quantify from it. I play on teams and pitchers I have watched! I watch a lot of baseball!

Prep notes for Tex(Padilla)/Balt(Cabrera)

-Padilla on a decent run
-Tex winning record on the road
-Tex 1st pl in AL West
-check temp in Bal,(hot+ humid++)
-Teixeria ready for big 2nd half?
-Tex dead red hitters
-Cabrera wild, baserunners +++
-O's finished?
-Padilla's splits r vs l big
-O's lineup is r +++
-line value on Tex as a dog
-Tex steam

Game notes

-Tex run in 1st....HBP, BB, SacFLY...thanks Daniel
-End of two....neither guy is going to last at this rate..both having to throw hard...working in heavy weather
-Palmer says Cab will not throw a change...tough to be a 2 pitch pitcher when the curve/slider cannot find the strikezone....neither can the fastball
-End 4.....Tex blowing chances, runners...Mora/Tejada don't care!
-must kill Mazzone to watch this guy pitch
-O's look like a team ready to lose a lot of games
6th inning.....boom!
-O's pen no thanks


As I said they don't all work out this well:

To summerize:

I believe in

-watching pitchers for control, toughness, deep counts, pitch counts
-watching teams/players for attitude, give away AB's

-using stats for righty/lefty splits on pitchers, home/away splits


Anything I can do to help Blog..let me know

[blogguy]

Thanks to everyone who's posted since the last time I popped in! I'll be back in a bit with a few more comments and ideas on how people can contribute within the frameworks of their own time constraints and what they're already doing.

For now...

*Yes Spraguer I'd LOVE to hear your thoughts about pitching and any ideas you have for stats we could monitor in this kind of format.

*Sooner, I agree completely that watching a lot is best. That's not always workable, as you mentioned yourself within your own schedule. We may be able to find a way to pool the ideas and knowledge here in a way that gives each of us 20 eyes or 40 eyes instead of just two. Think we're all on the same page about that.

*IK, good to hear from you again too. Maybe we can come up with ways to numerically define some of the things you like to watch for in a way that fits the format (control, toughness, pitch counts).

I'm also thinking of starting a non-pitching thread to get people's thoughts on team "directions." I've heard a lot of people I respect say things along the lines of "Baltimore may have given up...Atlanta isn't what they used to be...Florida is better than people realize..."etc over the course of the seaosn. I'd have to estimate that about 12 of the 15 or so were correct in advance. The teams that people watching the games "sensed" had lost some fire did in fact have losing skids right afterward....and teams about to ignite did in fact have winning surges. Not 100% of the time...but enough of the time that it mattered. And...with surges, you're talking about multiple winners for an upside...and stop-losses helping to tame the downside. So...12 of these that go something like 8-3 really add up when copmared to 3 errors that go 0-3 at worst (doing something until a team loses three in a row for example).

No...I'm not saying we'll all go 96-45 playing hunches...but I wouldn't be shocked if the record reallly was something like that going back and taking stock of what everyone said before things happened (Arizona's bad month was a big boost to that record, and may be an abnormal thing that won't be replicated any time soon.).

If we find that several different people here are feeling the same way about Baltimore, or Philadelphia, or somebody else fading away...while we have agreement from people on possible surges (I always look for Houston and Oakland to have strong second halves...doesn't mean it's going to happen again. Anaheim has had some good second halves too if I recall).

THIS WAS GOING TO BE A SHORT POST, lol.

Back later with more thoughts....looking forward to hearing more from everyone else too...blg

[parlayin]

hey blog, not much to add about the baseball stats stuff, but i just noticed this thread and i wanted to say in response to your original post that i appreciate your opinions on some of the mess hall stuff that isn't necessarily gambling-related. i agree that it's not worth getting worked up over when the debate is obviously going nowhere, but it's good to hear an objective, policy-based approach to some of those issues. maybe it's just b/c i agree w/ u a lot, but please do pop in once in a while even if you can't respond to each and every post that responds w/ anecdotal or results-oriented evidence

[Spraguer]

Hmm...

Sorry I'm so late to the party here, guys. It's been a very hectic weekend.

I think that, in order to answer the question, we have to really figure out what it is that we are looking for. I think, in order to prevent this from becoming just a semantic issue, I'll respond as though the question were "which factors and/or statistics best predict a pitcher's contribution to his team's run prevention?"; if that makes any sense. This way, we can ignore things outside of the pitcher's control, such as defence, bullpen support and park factor. Ignoring these things can be tricky.

A pitcher controls: the walks he allows, the strikeouts that he gets, the homeruns that he allows, and batted ball type. The measures that we want to use are k/bb, k/9 and hr/9. Batted ball type is incorporated into this mostly through the hr/9 measure (groundballers don't allow as many, obviously).

How you want to weight those things is up to you. Any approach that focusses on the "three true outcomes" k, bb and hr, will work; you can find measures such as DIPS (defence independant pitching stats), FIP (fielding independant pitching), or BPV (base performance value).

The trick is to ignore ERA. Don't even look at it. It's very misleading.

Peripherals - BB, K and HR - are a better predictor of future ERA than is past ERA.

After you've determined how good the pitcher is, it's time to add in the contextual factors, like defence, bullpen support and park. Take somebody like Mike Maroth - he is a well-below average pitcher, but his defence, bullpen and park are so good for pitchers that a game started by Maroth is likely to be right at or even below league average in terms of runs allowed.

K, BB and HR rates (park-factored, of course) are remarkably consistent from year to year for each pitcher - but contexts change all the time.

What I'm trying to say is that you have to remove context first and boil it down to K, BB and HR, and then re-contextualize it based on the circumstances of the game that you are capping.

Figure out how good the pitcher is and then add in the context. Looking at past ERA just gives you hints about past context, which is no longer relevant to you.

Now, for re-incorporating the current contextual factors after you've weeded out the past ones, you have to decide how you want to handicap and weigh bullpens, defence and ballparks. That is a whole other topic.

[blogguy]

Spraguer,

I was hoping if I posted a quick example here, you could kind of go through your thinking process for evaluating the caliber of the pitcher. I think most everyone reading these has an instinctive feel for ERA because that's been the currency of exchange for eons. What do the three true outcomes tell us about these two Monday Night pitchers?

Koronka of Texas: 1.8 walks, 2.7 K's, 0.5 HR's per start
Lilly of Toronto: 2.8 walks, 5.2 K's, 0.8 HR's per start

I got these numbers from Don Best...and they're averaged per start rather than pro-rated per 9 innings. I'm trying to find numbers that our readers would have quick access to...not sure of places that have the data you listed in an easy to find format (you probably know of some). Since the DB matchups I've been using the past few days had them in this format...I went with this.

I picked this matchup because both guys have 18 starts this year. A lot of relatively new guys on the mound Monday Night...so I wanted to have a matchup with guys who have been in their rotations all season.

How can those of us new to the 3 true outcomes turn that data into something we understand in our gut? Please don't feel you have to write a ton about this. I know it's time consuming to have to explain things that can get technical. Maybe...just translate those numbers into words...and then explain how someone would pick the game based on the translation.

If possible, can you list a place that has the 3 true outcomes data listed daily so people don't have to calculate it by hand every day?

Thanks in advance for whatever you have a chance to provide!

[Spraguer]

I'll give it a shot, Bloggy.

There are a million ways to get you projected K, BB and HR numbers. You can use a projection system like PECOTA or some fantasy publication or you can whip up something of your own. You'll notice that K, BB and HR numbers are much less volatile from year to year for each pitcher than is ERA or any other secondary result: that is because they are a measure of skill and not circumstances/fortune. No matter what you are doing, I can't imagine doing it without Excel or Quattro Pro or some other spreadsheet program.

Let's just go with 2006 numbers, which aren't ideal because of sample size issues, but will work here for ease of explanation:

Lilly: 101.7 IP, 52 BB, 95 K, 16 HR.
Koronka: 105 IP, 34 BB, 50 K, 10 HR.

First, let's make a quick correction for park factor with the homerun totals. Texas' HR factor is 1.20, so we're going to divide half of Koronka's homerun total (5) by 1.2 and then add it back to the other half. That will give us 9.2 HR, rather than 10. Rogers Centre has a HR factor of 1.22 ... Lilly's total is going to be (then) 14.6 HR.

So, let's make our ratios using raw K and BB numbers and park-factored HR numbers:
Lilly: 8.4 K/9IP, 1.8 K/BB, 1.3 HR/9IP
Koronka: 4.3 K/9IP, 1.5 K/BB, 0.8 HR/9IP

There are lots of things that you can do with these numbers. By eye-balling it, I think its clear that Lilly has had the better season.

Those are the relevant numbers; what you do with them is up to you.

Anyhow, I weigh the three numbers according to research done by Ron Shandler, who's Baseball Forecaster books and BaseballHQ website are very good. He assigns weights of 6, 21 and 30 to K/9, K/BB and HR/9, respectively. This puts them on a roughly even scale, allowing you to add the first two and subtract the second one to give you a three true outcomes score, or BPV and Shandler calls it (his formula also makes a very small adjustment for batting average, which I've omitted here for ease of explanation; its impact is very minimal anyhow.)

Here we go - let's score Lilly.

8.4 K/9 * 6 = 50.4
1.8 K/BB * 21 = 37.8
1.3 HR/9 * 30 = 39

So we've got a dominance score (50.4), a command score (37.8) and a HR score (39). As any Jays fan can attest (I am one), these scores are not surprising.

Lilly's total score = 50.4 + 37.8 - 39 = 49.2

Now, for Koronka: 25.8 dominance score, 31.5 command score, 24 HR score.

Koronka's total score = 25.8 + 31.5 - 24 = 33.3

This shouldn't be shocking at all, that Lilly is better than Koronka.

A 49.2 score is equivalent to 4.7 runs allowed per nine innings.
A 33.3 score is equivalent to 5.3 runs allowed per nine innings.

Those equivalancies are based on two seasons worth of data from MLB pitchers (04 and 05). Making a chart of true outcomes scores to runs allowed isn't that hard; you do it once and your done.

So there you go, Bloggy. 4.7 and 5.3.

Since I've come this far, I will add the rest of the equation:

I've got the Jays bullpen at 4.12 R/9 and the Texas bullpen at 4.69 R/9. After weighing those 2/3 starter and 1/3 bullpen, you get Toronto allowing 4.51 R/9 in a Lilly start and Texas allowing 5.10 in a Koronka start.

I have Toronto's defence as neutral and Texas' defence at 1/10 of a run/game. So, the final numbers are

Toronto (Lilly) 4.51 Runs Allowed
Texas (Koronka) 5.00 Runs Allowed