GatewayRedbirds.com

Wow, very interesting stuff.

Mitchel,

I have heard that the Red Sox use the computer simulation game Diamond Mind Baseball as a tool in doing analysis. What kind of tools are used with the Cardinals, and have you considered using something like Diamond Mind?

Mitchel-

After Tango posted the link and the recommendation, I read the DIPS Revisited article. What, if any, headway has been made by individual teams to marrying traditional scouting info and sabermetric conclusions?

Specifically, I wonder if there are any common traits among pitchers who tend to yield fewer hits on outfield line drives or who yield more infield popups.

It seems to me that the biggest thing limiting the next level of sabermetrics is technology.

Just in the past few years there has been so much more data readily available for people to mine with more and more people getting their hands on batted ball data. Obviously the data has it limits as seen by some of the inconsistencies in BIS line drive data people noticed when Pinto put out his latest PMR but clearly it is good data eventhough the methods are pretty simplistic.

How much longer will it be till teams or companies are tracking the actual speed, distance, trajectory, path, etc. of every batted ball? It seems once you have that data then it be a lot easier to truely measure range/defense/etc.

I'm sure the Stats. Inc and BIS batted ball data is all very good but how hard are people pushing for even better data?

Any chance of you releasing any new super lwts data? There really isn't a lot of total player value type stats out there right now beside Win Shares.

Thanks

Thanks so much for answering our questions and being so detailed.

Chatting with someone like you always reminds me that there's far more to baseball than meets the eye. There's always more to learn and analyze.

Sorry if this or something like it has been asked already...

First, when Jocketty or the front office are looking into acquiring a free agent or trading for a player, what part do you and sabermetrics play in the process?

Second (and you knew this was coming), if Jocketty asked you to target one available player for a deadline trade who would you target and why?

First, thanks again for sharing your expertice with us.

My question is this: Is there anything about the game that statistical analysis hasn't yet or can't show us? Or, put another way, is there anything you wish you could know about the game that statistical analysis can't reveal?

WentCrazy wrote:Mitchel,

Thanks for dropping by and taking some questions! Below are some of the things I wonder about.

1. How would you rank the defensive positions in terms of importance for an average team. How much does that change depending on the pitching staff, GB:FB ratio, etc? Would you care to add color to the traditional thoughts on the defensive impact of Catchers and 1Bs?

I am not sure what you mean by "defensive importance." Traditionally, we hear about good teams being "strong up the middle" (2B, SS, CF, and C). As is often the case, that is silly. What does that even mean? The better you are at each defensive position, the more games you will win and vice versa. If you have an average SS and a great 3B'man (say Eckstein and Rolen, although Eck is probably a little above average, or Bell and Rollins for Philly), you are pretty much as well off as if you had an average 3B'man and a great SS (say Ensberg and Everett).

That being said, the spread of talent at each position is a little different (some positions have a more narrow spread than others). That is generally because the SS, 2B and CF get more opportunities to field balls than the other positions. That means that for any given player who is above or below average, their talent (above or below average) will be accentuated at those positions. That does not mean that it isn't harder to play SS or CF. It is. It also does not mean that it may not be more difficult to find players who are adequate SS, 2B CF, and C. It may be (although the fact that the more difficult a position defensively, the more we tolerate poor hitting, mitigates this potential problem of scarcity at the right end of the defensive spectrum).

The best defensive players overall are at SS, then 2B, then CF, etc. And of course, to play SS, 2B, and catcher, you need "smart" and experienced players, not just athletically giften ones.

C is a unique position. I don't like to include it in the defensive spectrum. Bill James puts it in the spectrum at the far right end (the most difficult), but I am sure that he recognizes that it is a unique talent and probably does not belong in the same "category" as the other positions. Of course each position requires a certain set of unique skills, so we can't really extrapolate exactly how a player will perform when he moves from one position to another (although we can and do try). For example, Biggio was at least an average 2B. He "should have" been an above average OF'er. For whatever reason, he was terrible in the OF. And of course it generally takes some "getting used to" when a player moves positions, especially from the IF to the OF (like Soriano) or vice versa, which is more rare of course.

In any case, a team should approach each potential player (in terms of personnel decisions) on a case by case basis rather than adopting any particular organizational philsophy with regard to defense or anything else. A position player's value to your team is simply his marginal run value in terms of his offense and defense combined. It doesn't really matter how a player's (or team's) talent is distributed (between offense, defense, and baserunning). While technically a run saved on defense is worth slightly more than a run saved on offense (in win value), for all practical purposes, they are one and the same. It also does not matter how that talent is distributed on the team, in terms of the defensive spectrum. +3 (or -5) runs at second base is the same as +3 (or -5) runs in LF (in terms of a defensive projection or defensive talent) or any other position.

So this whole idea of trying to be strong up the middle or a team "focusing on defense" (or offense or pitching), is silly. You simply try and put together the best overall team you can for the lowest amount of payroll (it is not quite that simple, but that is the basic idea).

If you happen to have a heavily laden GB or FB staff, of course the "average" defensive projections (based on a league average G/F tatio) for each player will change. The Cards have had a fairly heavy GB staff (rarely does a team overall have a heavy FB or GB staff because there are just too many pitchers on a staff), so obviously it behooves them to have a better defense in the IF than in the OF. It doesn't make all that much difference though. And of course, if you have a heavy RH pitching staff, you would prefer better defense at SS and 3B. If you have lots of lefties on your pitching staff, you can leverage your defense by having better defenders at 2B and 1B. Etc.

For an individual pitcher who is heavily FB or GB, it can make a large difference where the strength of your defense is. In fact, you can use "defensive" platoons with certain pitchers if you want (if you happen to have the personnel for that, which most teams don't). A few years ago, Boston had the opportunity to play Pokey Reese in the IF when Lowe was on the mound, even though he doesn't hit a lick, because his great defense was so accentuated behind a GB pitcher.

As far as 1B and catcher:

My opinion is that teams overvalue catcher defense. The average catcher is such a poor hitter these days that I believe there are many players in the majors and in the minors who "should be" catching in the major leagues because they are decent, good or excellent hitters, and can catch a little (e.g., Fick, Willingham, C. Wilson). They don't catch because teams (and pitchers I guess) do not like to catch players who are considered weak on defense (and in "handling" a pitching staff). Instead, players like Flaherty, Chavez, Diaz, Ausmus, and our own Gary Bennett, continue to have part time or full-time catching jobs even though they can't hit a lick. I believe that this philosophy is counterproductive, but I could be wrong.

Sabermetricians have had a hard time identifying significant differences among catchers in terms of how they call pitches and thus affect a pitcher's ERA (basically "catcher ERA"). That doesn't mean that those differences do not exist. It does suggest however that maybe catchers do not have as much influence on pitchers as teams (and the pitchers themsleves) think. (Maybe with a young staff, you need a good, experienced catcher, and with a veteran pitching staff it doesn't really matter - I don't know.)

That being said, catcher defense, in terms of PB, WP, throwing out and picking off baserunners, fielding bunts, and errors, appears to be worth plus or minus 10 runs a year or so in talent, about the same as a first baseman, not a huge amount to write home about, as compared to a middle infielder or CF'er (who can be worth plus or minus 15 to 20 runs a year).

While defensive metrics likke UZR and Dewan's (and others) system, measure first base defense well (in terms of fielding ground balls), not a whole lot of saber people have yet incorporated "receiving bad throws" into the "first base defense paradigm." Dewan has done some work on that. I'm sure some other people have as well. While it is definitely a skill that varies from player to player, my best guess (WAG) is that it is another plus or minus 5 runs at best, perhaps making a first baseman "worth" almost as much as a 2B and SS overall, and more than a 3B. Of course, 2B and SS get some extra "value" in terms of their ability to catch line drives and pop flies (and to a lesser extent 1B and 3B), both of which are generally ignored, for better or worse, in many of the advanced defensive metrics, including my own UZR.

2. How would you characterize the Cardinals' organization's ability/willingness to adopt to sabermetric thinking.

Touchy subject! To be purposely terse, at the managerial and coaching big league level (LaRussa and staff), very little. At the GM level (Walt and Mo), a little. At other levels in the front office, a lot. At the level of the principal owner, although he does not meddle too much in the day to day affairs of the team, AFAIK, a lot. At other levels in the organization and with other front office personnal, a little to a lot.

3. Many people have raved about the Cards' '05 draft. In your opinion is it more likely that was a lucky one-time shot or should we expect to see the Cards draft class to perform similarly in the future?

No, definitely not "lucky." Myself (not so much anymore) and some other stat guys, along with other front office and scouting people, have put a lot of time, energy, and research (especially statistical analysis of college players), into the amateur draft. You never know of course (IOW, "luck" plays a large role in the ultimate success of the draft, as it does in all aspects of baseball), but expect the Cards to continue to have stellar drafts. It is and will continue to be one of the Cards really strong areas, even as compared to the other saber teams, like Oakland and Boston. This bodes well for our future.

Popeye_Card wrote:I'll add another one.

3.) A lot of sabermetricians seem to have a love-hate relationship with Tony LaRussa. They love that he bases a lot of decisions on stats, but they hate that he seems to make moves that defy their logic. So when it comes down to it, who do you put the stock in? Sabermetricians, who are only crunching what numbers they have at their disposal, or LaRussa, who not only can sit and crunch the numbers, but also has the ability to talk to the players to see if they are really comfortable facing the pitcher, etc. or not?

--P--

Also a little touchy and I have to speculate as I do not know Tony very well at all. Although I have talked to him, we don't confer on a regular basis, by any stretch of the imagination.

My opinion is that he is a very good manager. He appears to get a lot out of players, he keeps his bench players fresh by playing them often, he usually puts together a good, consistent lineup, he is not superstitious (AFAIK), the bane of many managers, he is excellent at managing his bullpen, he generally does not overuse his starters, and he is well respected by his players and coaches. That is a lot of positives.

As far as him "crunching numbers," I am not sure what that means or what numbers he "crunches." He is known to make extensive use of batter/pitcher matchups (the notorious "index cards" he carries in his pocket). That is "nice" but we have pretty much shown in our book (with some great research) that batter/pitcher historical results, even for very many PA (20, 30, 40), have no predictive value (over and above the usual platoon and log5 matchup). So as far as I am concerened, he can throw those index cards away (and I don't know that he has or uses them). In my opinion (which he wants no part of), he can manage his bullpen a little better (as can all managers) by using his better short relievers more often in high leverage situations and less often in low leverage situations, he can put together slightly better lineups, he can sac bunt or not more optimally (again, as can all managers), he can use or not use the IBB more precipitously (ditto for all managers again), and he can scrap the silly hit and run play, which he likes to use a fair amount of the time. He can also probably give some our good, young pitchers more of a chance in the rotation. I believe that we have a couple (Thompson, Reyes, and maybe even Wainwright) who would turn out to be better (perhaps far better) than Ponson and Marquis (neither of whom I like very much at all - as pitchers of course).

The thing about sabermetrics in general, is that it NEVER tries to supplant traditional baseball methods or concepts (unless they are flat-out wrong). It tries to augment them. It is, after all, the search for truth in baseball, using the scientific method. So any manager, GM, coach, etc, would be well-advised to understand and implement sabermetric principles, by definition.

skmsw wrote:A long time ago, Pete Palmer suggested that baseball is 50% hitting, 44% pitching, and 6% defense.
Does this balance seem about right to you? In building a team, what do you see as the ideal balance in emphasis between pitching, defense, and hitting?

As I have sort of alluded to before, I don't think that a team has to have a focus or strategy in building a team, in terms of pitching, defense, offense, etc. In fact, that is usually counterproductive, as it can be based on faulty, silly, or meaningless concepts.

I don't even know what it means when someone says that baseball is 50% hitting, 44% pitching, etc. And even if one knew what one meant and had the right distribution, I am not sure what relevance it would have in terms of building a team.

That being said, Palmer probably underrated defense and offense a little. Bill James in his Win Shares book, allocates 52% to pitching and defense and 48% to offense I think. Tangotiger, a great sabermetrician and my co author has his own "split," although I don't recall what it is off the top of my head.

Again, I don't really know what those numbers mean and we probably should not care what the true values are even if we knew what they represented.

A marginal run is a marginal run is a marginal run. A player that saves 10 runs on defense per year has around the same value (around 1 win) as another player who adds 10 runs on offense. And a pitcher who adds one win due to his pitching talent is worth the same as well. Who cares whether pitching is 40% or 60% of baseball, or defense is 5% or 15%?

That being said, in baseball, offense, defense, and pitching are independent and "additive." So when we talk about what percentage responsibility there is in offense, defense, and pitching, we are really talking about the relative spread of talent in major league baseball among pitchers, batters, and defenders. If all pitchers had the same talent, we could say that pitching was 0% of baseball, even though that techincally would not be true.

If we look at the approximate spread of talent on baseball, we find that there is a little more spread in offense than in pitching and a lot less spread in defense. Throwing out some ballpark numbers, pitcher talent is probably around .5 runs in SD per game, hitter talent about the same, and defensive talent around 15% of hitter or pitcher talent. Thus we could say that baseball is 47/47/6, not a whole lot different than James' estimate. But as I said, who cares? If I ran a team, it would make no difference to me what the true "split" was although it would be evident to me as I evaluated players, since, as I said, these splits are based upon the spread in talent among major league players.

Recognizing that different teams have different needs, in general, is a top-20% defensive catcher or shortstop with an OPS+ of 75 preferable over a bottom-20% defensive catcher or shortstop with an OPS+ of 100-110?

I hate to sound like a broken record, but these are all silly and counterproductive traditional concepts in baseball. Whatever gives a team the best total marginal win value for any given price is optimal. Obviously if you are weak in one area, it is generally easier to improve in that area. But if you have an opporunity to upgrade at a position in which you are strong, say by 1 marginal win, and it will cost you 2 million to do so, as opposed to upgrading 1 marginal win for 3 mil at a position in which you are weak, you choose the former. It is really quite simple.

Is a team with a deep lineup and strong defense at every position, but solid, unspectacular starters 1-5, equivalent to a team with a dominant pitcher or two and overall great rotation, but lineup and defense with multiple holes?

Obviously it depends on what you mean by deep, strong, great, holes, etc. I assume that you mean, "Does it matter where your strenghths and weaknesses lie if overall you have about the same run/win value?" The answer is no, it does not matter! The only caveat is that in a playoff situation, you can leverage one or two (or three) good or great pitchers. There are some other areas you can leverage in the regular season or post-season, but in general, the only thing that matters is your team's overall (pitching, defense, and offense) marginal run or win value. "Marginal" simply means above (positive or negative) a baseline such as league average or replacement (as long as you define replacement in terms of an exact number of wins or runs below league average).

Let me say a couple more things about building a team. A smart team is going to be able to get a lot of value from properly evaluating defense, as it is a lot easier for "stupid" teams to properly evaluate offense than defense. In Moneyball terms, the market is still quite inefficient with regard to player defense.

Pitching is generally overrated (a lot) by traditional baseball teams and front offices (and managers). (BTW, the idea that "good pitching beats good hitting" is a myth - we discuss and analyze that in our book as well.) Pitchers are much more expensive (per marginal win) than position players (on the FA and arb market). In fact, about 50% more expensive. So smart teams should likely focus on acquiring and developing position players, especially in the FA market. Acquiring a good pitcher or even developing one in your minor league system should be considered somewhat of a luxury or an accident.

One more thing. If you are building a team, if you remember nothing else, remember one thing: From the standpoint of economics, young talent is gold and veteran talent is dreck!

Michael wrote:Mitchel,
Thanks for taking the time to answer questions for us.

1) How did start your baseball career?
2) What type of work did the Cardinal organization ask you to do? Player valuation? Defensive metrics?

Some quick answers. I started doing sabermetric reading and my own research almost 20 years ago after reading James' abstracts, The Hidden Game, and The Diamond Appraised (another oldie but goodie, BTW).

It was not until around 5 years ago that I started publishing some of my work and ideas informally on the web, mostly on the old Primer and Fanhome websites (I don't and have never had my own web site). About 2 1/2 years ago, someone from the Cards front office "discovered" me, read some of my work, talked to some people who knew me and my work, talked to me, and was impressed enough to hire me as a consultant for a 2-year stint. They were trying to build an analytical department from the ground up at the time, spearheaded by Jeff Luhnow.

Most of the work I have done is in providing them with ongoing player evaluation databases (for salary and trade purposes), including defensive evaluation using my UZR metric, Superlwts (total player evaluation and projections for position players) for position players, normalized ERC projections for pitchers, some in-game strategy and bullpen managment suggestions, optimal linuep analysis, projecting season w/l records and playoff projections for each team, projections for DI college players for the draft, and a few other things, like organizational and player development philosophies. Sometimes, but not always, they specifically ask me my "opinion" on various potential trades and acquisitions, over and above what the projection databases "suggest."

My educational background is varied: math, physics, statistics, psychology, and law (law degree).