Talent Distribution (Depth vs. Stars/Scrubs)

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JL21
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Re: Talent Distribution (Depth vs. Stars/Scrubs)

Post by JL21 »

pioneer98 wrote: OK I think I get it now. I was thinking "Deep With Stars" meant stacked with stars top to bottom (like the juggernauts above). But if I'm understanding correctly, the definition of "Deep with Stars" is more like you took one of the more basic "Deep" teams and added more star playing time.
Yep, pretty much. Take a deep- but not very deep- team, and give them lots of stars but not the top end of the star spectrum.

It's pushing perfect roster composition up to, like, 9. Going higher with stars is pushing it up to 11.

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Re: Talent Distribution (Depth vs. Stars/Scrubs)

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JL21 wrote:Adobe Illustrator will automate the dot plot part of it, and then I had to create the box plots with the max/min on my own.

I know there are tons of other programs that will do those graphs for you- coding it with R seems to be very popular- but I don't know how to use those. Basically I'm a designer so I stay in my lane. One day when I grow up, I'll learn R.
Learn Clojure instead. Much more powerful.

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Re: Talent Distribution (Depth vs. Stars/Scrubs)

Post by TheoSqua »

Fantastic read JL. Thanks for sharing.

It doesn't look like your article accounts for injuries at all. So this makes the Depth teams even more valuable. I bet there are a few seasons of teams that would have been Stars + Scrubs that turned into just Scrubs when their star had an injury plagued season. This wouldn't impact deep teams near as much.

All it takes is one injury and a stars and scrubs team is hanging out the passenger side of his best friends ride trying to holla at me.

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JL21
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Re: Talent Distribution (Depth vs. Stars/Scrubs)

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Big Amoco Sign wrote: Learn Clojure instead. Much more powerful.
Thanks for the tip. I know there's also Python out there, and I really need to learn D3.
TheoSqua wrote:It doesn't look like your article accounts for injuries at all. So this makes the Depth teams even more valuable. I bet there are a few seasons of teams that would have been Stars + Scrubs that turned into just Scrubs when their star had an injury plagued season. This wouldn't impact deep teams near as much.

All it takes is one injury and a stars and scrubs team is hanging out the passenger side of his best friends ride trying to holla at me.
Yep, no injuries accounted for. That would've gotten very difficult.

And I think your point kind of bears out in the floor that you see for the deeper teams- the bottom of the 3rd quartile in the box plot. If you're deep, no matter what other stuff happens, you've got 3-in-4 chance of being a .500ish team. If you're deep and avoid scrubs, you give yourself a puncher's chance at a playoff spot. Of course, it's also just that- a puncher's chance. The top of the 2nd quartile is still right around 87 wins.

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Re: Talent Distribution (Depth vs. Stars/Scrubs)

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Nice work, JL.

Learning something other than Illustrator for graphing might be good for convenience sake, especially if you want to play around with rough drafts or trying out different things, but it's worth pointing out that your current workflow seems to be working really well for you. Your sharp-looking graphics are pretty much your trademark, and you have the design skills and experience to get the most out of having maximum control over the visual output. I know you can do a lot to customize graphics in R or other languages, but for the most part the upside of those is that they are great at processing data and at automating steps. If you want to spend time fine-tuning each individual graphic to suit your eye, an illustration program may still be your most powerful tool. It may also be tricky to replicate something exactly in a programming language if you've already developed a specific look that you want for your graphics.

If you do want to try out R and want any help getting started, I've used it and can try to help with any questions or examples. I'm by no means an expert, but it might help with the basics at least.

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a_smith
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Re: Talent Distribution (Depth vs. Stars/Scrubs)

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Thanks for doing the work and writing it up. It was a well executed cool idea.

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JL21
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Re: Talent Distribution (Depth vs. Stars/Scrubs)

Post by JL21 »

Kincaid wrote:Nice work, JL.

Learning something other than Illustrator for graphing might be good for convenience sake, especially if you want to play around with rough drafts or trying out different things, but it's worth pointing out that your current workflow seems to be working really well for you. Your sharp-looking graphics are pretty much your trademark, and you have the design skills and experience to get the most out of having maximum control over the visual output. I know you can do a lot to customize graphics in R or other languages, but for the most part the upside of those is that they are great at processing data and at automating steps. If you want to spend time fine-tuning each individual graphic to suit your eye, an illustration program may still be your most powerful tool. It may also be tricky to replicate something exactly in a programming language if you've already developed a specific look that you want for your graphics.

If you do want to try out R and want any help getting started, I've used it and can try to help with any questions or examples. I'm by no means an expert, but it might help with the basics at least.
Thanks. I appreciate that, and I'll admit- knowing Illustrator does allow me to easily do what I need to do without digging in to D3 or R or Python.

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Re: Talent Distribution (Depth vs. Stars/Scrubs)

Post by planet planet »

I've loved JL for so long and his work has been published, as well as regular contributions to baseball sites, but I really think this is his piece de resistance! His data, stats, graphics, and passion for baseball were all palpable in this piece. Way to go, JL! Happiness, confidence, and marriage looks good on you!

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Re: Talent Distribution (Depth vs. Stars/Scrubs)

Post by AWvsCBsteeeerike3 »

I don't have much to add in the way of constructive criticism, but that was a very great article JL. Kudos to you and congrats on putting together a well thought out, interesting, and informative article!

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Re: Talent Distribution (Depth vs. Stars/Scrubs)

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JL21 wrote:
Big Amoco Sign wrote: Learn Clojure instead. Much more powerful.
Thanks for the tip. I know there's also Python out there, and I really need to learn D3.
Yes D3 is great.

Clojure has roots in the area as well.

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