The Best and Worst Advanced Metrics, Part One

The advanced number-crunching has been shedding light on the baseball universe for well-nigh a generation now, sufficiently long, and sufficiently entrenched into the fabric of the game, that it should hardly be called new anymore. 

It's also been stirring the baseball pot for long enough that we have competing analyses, overlapping metrics and even obsolete "new" statistics.

The new analysis has given us a bouillabaisse of acronyms and measuring sticks: WAR and WARP, OPS and wOBA, FIP and FRA, BABIP and Zone Rating, and the projections systems PECOTA, ZIPS, STEAMER, MARCEL, etc. 

As you might imagine, some are more useful than others. Over the next few weeks, let's sift through them and see which make it through our colander. First, the king.

The grand, high, exalted, mystic ruler of offensive statistics is Offensive Wins Against Replacement, or oWAR, the alpha and omega of offensive stats. oWAR considers a player's offensive contributions in total, adjusts for the park and compares it to a replacement level player at the same position. It helps us compare Robby Cano to Miguel Cabrera even though the latter plays an offensive position and the former a defensive one. Indeed, it helps us compare players across eras, relative to their competition.

Suppose you want to compare 60s and 70s Yankees second baseman Horace Clarke to just-released outfielder Jeff Francoeur. You can do so, despite the passage of years and different positions. Dan Shaughnessy or Murray Chass might note that Francoeur hit over .280 four times., slammed 140 bombs and knocked in 100+ runs twice while Clark hit .280 once, totaled 27 homers his entire career and never reached 50 RBI in a season. In their eyes, Frenchy was clearly a more valuable asset at the plate.

oWAR tells a very different story. It corrects for era -- the late 60s represented the basement of offensive baseball -- and for position -- the bar is set lower for keystoners. Clarke wasn't a better hitter than Francoeur but he would have been more difficult to replace. Francoeur was worth two wins over a replacement outfielder in his career while Clarke was worth 14 wins over a replacement second baseman.

That's because, although Francoeur hit 8% better compared to league average, Clark stole three times as many bases at a much higher success rate, played a position that required more defensive skill and came to the plate 300 more times. (This assumes Francoeur is done. It does appear that way.) 

(Clarke took home about $350 grand in his career. Francoeur's grandchildren can thank the Marvin Miller and the MLBPA for $26 million in career earnings.)

The glaring shortcoming, or rather, limitation, of oWAR (and its many cousins: VORP, wRC, BWARP, etc.) is that it doesn't address the bottom of the inning. If Clarke had been a butcher in the field and Francoeur a magician, the latter might have been more valuable. (Not only isn't that the case, adding defense actually accentuates the difference. But there are other players for whom it's more of an issue.) Fielding statistics are still not wholly reliable, though they are improving all the time, which is why WAR and WARP are not yet among statistical royalty. Their day is coming, though.

Next time, we'll consider the life and times of BABIP, which created an epiphany in baseball analysis and was then relegated to the dog house.

The I-95 Balance of Power

Assuming Cliff Lee chooses lucre over loyalty -- and why else hire Scott Boras and drag on negotiations for a month? -- he'll bring seven years of his other-worldly command to the Big Apple, not the Big D. 

Except the sabermetric websites are burning up the ether about the likelihood that Lee's control falls off the Cliff before the pinstripes stop paying him $25 million annually, perhaps long before. K/BB ratios of 10/1, which Lee delivered in 2010, have notoriously short half-lives. Indeed, just three years ago, Lee fanned fewer than two batters for each free pass he issued, leading to a 6.29 ERA and a 5-8 record for Cleveland. Perhaps more than any other pitcher, Lee's ability to retire batters is dependent on his ability to paint the corners on demand.

Knowing that he might deliver four champion-grade seasons before returning to earth for the last $75 million of his contract might perfectly satisfy the brass in the Bronx, where the revenue streams run richer with gold each year. In Arlington, though, that's $75-million the club won't have to spend on, say, an entire infield, including the catcher. That kind of weight can sink a franchise burdened with spending limits, such as, well, everyone but the Yankees.

So assuming Lee leaves Texas and heads north, and considering the other significant off-season moves so far, a familiar phenomenon is shaping up. Other than Chicago, where the White Sox muscled up with Adam Dunn, the flow of talent has almost exclusively migrated northeast. The Yankees shored up their single largest weakness by acquiring Lee, the Red Sox added Carl Crawford and Adrian Gonzalez to the returns of Dustin Pedroia and Mike Cameron, and the rest of baseball serves, to some degree or another, as their minor leagues. We can only guess which new superstar -- Josh Hamilton, Joey Votto, Felix Hernandez -- is simply auditioning for the big spenders.

Looking ahead to 2011, fans in San Diego, Texas, San Francisco, and Minnesota might want to temper their expectations. The Padres dealt away 78% of their team VORP (value over replacement player; i.e., how much players are worth on offense compared to AAA replacements at their positions. This is another way of saying that San Diego almost made the playoffs in 2010 with a lineup of Adrian Gonzalez and the Brady Bunch kids. In 2011, it looks like Florence Henderson will be suiting up too.)

The Evil Empire will have sucked the life-giving force from the Rangers, whose center-fielder will have to play in '11 without the magic pixie dust that transformed him into an MVP in '10. The Twins get back Justin Morneau, which seems to be the kiss of death for them, and the Giants have already won their once-every-56-years flag.

And, of course, there's St. Petersburg. The imbalance of power has swung even more forcefully to the AL Beasts in NY and Boston and it's hitting the Rays squarely in the butt. The Rise and Fall of the Tampa Bay Empire will cover three years. Without any blockbuster free agent pickups left for bidding we have a pretty good sense how things are shaping up.

Plus, the Yankees now have the sexiest mascot in the majors.

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Boog, Will You Marry Me?

I suspect this is somehow illegal, but it's done with love. This was a guest column for Baseball Prospectus.

Building a Better Broadcast

by Jon Sciambi

Jon Sciambi, who does play-by-play of Major League Baseball games for ESPN, has been kind enough to grace the Baseball Prospectus site with a guest column.

Let me tell you about an argument I had with Chipper Jones. Last year, I came across an interesting nugget on Fangraphs while doing pre-game prep: Besides Albert Pujols, Chipper sees the fewest first-pitch strikes in the majors.

Chipper is open-minded when discussing hitting, even when he disagrees, so I decided to present him this information prior to the game. He was really surprised. He didn't believe the facts, even though the numbers were inarguable. Or, more to the point, he believed in what he knew (and himself) more than my stupid, never-played-the-game facts.

Chipper was so surprised that he went around the clubhouse asking teammates, one by one, if they were surprised. None of them were. Everyone saw it but him, the guy with ostensibly the best view. Chipper has great eyes, obviously, and great belief in those eyes, but those eyes can also occasionally lie to even one of the best hitters in the game.

I went on to ask why he'd swing at so many first pitches when the numbers suggest it's not a great play. Chipper explained that the first pitch is often the only time he'll get a "heater" the entire at-bat. "OK," I say, "but clearly, mathematically, factually, you’re not getting a ton of strikes." We go round and round for a bit without concession on either side and eventually I go upstairs to broadcast the game.

Fast forward to the top of the first. San Diego’s Tim Stauffer on the mound. Chipper digs in… and takes a 91-mph fastball right down the middle. He steps out of the box, finds our broadcast booth with those great eyes and, well, here’s what follows:

Chipper Jones 1, Stats 0. But Chipper, sample size!

Will Carroll’s "Be Stupider" post got me thinking: How can the broadcast world do a better job of delivering sabermetrics to the masses? And, more importantly, how do we make it "illuminating" instead of "coma-inducing?" Additionally, how do I get Chipper to understand I'm not a moron?

Like Will, I’m "mathematically challenged" and find lots of BP, Fangraphs, Tango, etc., tough to digest. I am somewhat "tentative" to push SABR-type stuff on air because of the aforementioned coma potential. That's not an excuse, just reality. But it's also on me to do better. During my years doing Braves games, I had the good fortune of working with a crew that was open to new ideas. All our player stat lines included OBP (not earth-shattering) and the bulk of our graphics were presented in rate-stat form. But the thing that made it work was my broadcast partner, Joe Simpson. If I dug up a non-mainstream stat somewhere online, I'd say, "You know, Joe, I was looking at 'I live in my mom’s basement.com,' and I found this note on Javy Vazquez…" He would giggle and poke fun, but he would always listen. You know what else? He would change his mind sometimes. Joe is very old school. But he’s fun enough to spitball in one of the classrooms of that old school. What's the line from Mr. Baseball? "I bet you didn’t start playing baseball as a kid because you wanted to work?" That’s right, Magnum P.I., I just quoted Mr. Baseball.

So how do we make a better broadcast? It's gotta be fun. Entertaining. To us. Yes. But, by extension, to the audience.

What else? Well, it's as much about eliminating certain stats from the lexicon as it is about adding them. We need to slowly erase the "noise." Stop mentioning and graphically supporting with stats like RBI and wins because that stuff doesn't make people smarter.


Let's not forget "it's the search for objective knowledge about baseball." The goal is not unveiling newfangled stats; it's about getting people to understand basic ideas and concepts. To achieve that, we can't just slap stats up on the screen and explain them. Understanding has to come in the form of analysis. We have to use the stat and explain it. Sometimes it needs to be the PBP guy playing analyst and getting the color guy to react:

If Ryan Howard is up, I can talk about RBI and why dependent stats don't evaluate individual performance well; RBI aren’t what reflects Howard’s greatness, his SLG does. I can mention that Howard's massive RBI totals may be due to the fact that no player has hit with more total men on base than Howard since 1492 (I believe this is a fact but didn't feel like looking it up). Point is, there are dead people who could knock in 80 runs hitting fourth in that Phillies lineup. (OK, I probably wouldn't say that on-air.)

The metrics are getting so advanced that we're in danger of getting further away from the masses instead of closer. We, as broadcasters, have to find better and entertaining ways of explaining the math in bite-sized terms. Simplified, we need to explain that one of the problems with batting average, as opposed to slugging percentage, is that batting average values a single and a home run equally. We can't assume that's understood just because we understand it. And the only way it gets embedded is to keep beating the audience with it so that it becomes ingrained the way ERA eventually did, even though that once passed for advanced math. That, and we should all wear blue blazers with an emblem that reads, "OBP is life."

I also believe, as it relates to the masses, the PBP guys can’t move the analysis needle much. The masses will always find former players more credible, period, and the BP base needs to be more open to that—if the goal is indeed to inform the masses and not be "right."

The average fan wants the analysis from McCarver, not Buck. Joe Morgan may not be popular in these parts, but last year I worked a Tigers/Angels game with him in Anaheim. At one point, I mentioned UZR, UZR/150, and other defensive metrics. As we were going to commercial, Joe said that he'd like to talk about defensive metrics when we got back. What followed was a pretty straightforward, simple discussion about defensive metrics without disdain or dismissal on his part.

Look, there's still a ways to go. We need a former player to look into the camera and explain properly why this guy:

.250/.380/.475

is a better offensive player than this guy:

.300/.320/.475

We need to get to where the masses understand there is no choice. This isn't subjective. I evaluate offense with OBP and SLG while you like RBI and runs scored is not the same as "I like strawberry, and you like vanilla." It’s "strawberry is better than vanilla." More accurate and, therefore, more delicious. To be clear, I don't speak for ESPN here, just me, but I think we have a responsibility to inform correctly. If a majority of teams are using advanced metrics to inform decisions, then we should do some of the same in analyzing those decisions.

In 2008, Dick Cheney was informed that two-thirds of Americans thought the war in Iraq was not worth fighting. Cheney’s response? "So?" We need a little bit more of that 'tude. This isn’t to say I agree with his politics. Or the war. Why am I even going here? Eject!

I'd liken this task to how The New York Times operates. The Times places the stories it deems most important above the fold and to the right. The majority of other papers go with what they think we think are the most important. The goal is to be the Times. If we eliminate the noise of RBI, runs, etc., keep it basic and utilize the slash stats, I believe that, slowly, the desert masses will drink the sand. The BP base must understand: VORP, EqA, WAR, and Robert Parish are not walking through that door. Not for a while. But it can only help if the broadcasters are a team, too—in uniformity (together, I mean, not wearing those blazers) while patiently holding that door open.

What Was Mussolini's Lifetime ERA?

What do these questions have in common:

What is the municipal budget of Lake Wobegon?
Who killed Paul McCartney?
What did Pee Wee Herman know and when did he know it?
How much is the square root of your grandmother?
Does Zack Grienke have enough wins to deserve the American League Cy Y0ung award?

The answer: they're irrelevant.

Greinke has been the best pitcher in the AL this year by the length of Curt Schilling's ego. Pitching in front of the retread defense of the Kansas City Royals, Greinke has thrown 210 innings of a 2.52 RA, better by a half run than anyone else. He's second in the circuit with 224 strikeouts and second in K/BB ratio with a mere 44 free passes. His austerity with long balls -- just 11 -- is by far the standard in the AL, as is his WHIP of 1.06. (Home runs are relatively hard to come by in Kauffman Stadium, Greinke's home park, but it's densely populated with doubles and triples. The park effect explains a nominal percentage of his superiority.)

The statheads say that Felix Hernandez's superb performance this year has saved the Mariners 68 runs compared to an average fifth starter. Roy Halladay has saved the Jays 59 runs. CC Sabathia's been worth 56. Justin Verlander, 54. Impressive, all.

Greinke: 80 runs. Attention those of you mistrusted with the vote for this award: 80 is a lot more than 68. It's a lot more than 59 and a lot more than 56 or 54.

It's also a whole lotta more than 26. That's Mariano Rivera's savings. Now, Rivera is theoretically saving runs with the game hanging in the balance, though it's debatable how true that is with a three-run lead in the 9th. Nonetheless, that's such a mammoth difference as to repudiate any vote for him over Greinke.

In short, there's really no credible argument for anyone else. But some sportswriters will demur based on Greinke's low win total. Greinke's 14-8 record pales compared to Sabatha's (17-7), Hernandez's (16-5), Verlander's (16-8) and even Jered Weaver's (15-6, with an ERA over four). Here's the problem with this argument: it's got nothing to do with anything.

That Zack's team can't figure out a way to win after he shuts down the opposition on two runs over seven frames isn't his problem. He's not responsible for the ineptitude of the relievers who follow him or the emptiness of the batting order behind him. Conversely, CC Sabathia deserves no credit for a 6-5 lead provided by Murderers' Row and clamped shut by Rivera.

The Cy Young rewards a simple proposition: the best pitcher in the league that year. The only credible answer in the AL this year is Zack Grienke. Anyone who votes otherwise should have his voting privilege revoked.
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Hold This Stat

Every election, reporters -- particularly broadcast reporters -- dutifully relate how much money has been raised by candidates for everything from city council to president. Is this information relevant? Elections suggest it is not. Both Barak Obama and George Bush raised hundreds of millions of dollars and thumbed their noses at federal campaign limits. Is this information interesting? Do you really want to hear a list of candidates and how much they've raised?

So why is this information reported during each election cycle? Because it's so easy to obtain and understand that even a broadcast reporter can dig it up and spit it out.

And that, my friends, is why the Associated Press is now including the Hold in its baseball box scores, even though there is not a baseball fan this side of the Andromeda galaxy who puts any stock in this statistic.

Of all the many useful new measurements that could actually increase readers' understanding of the game -- VORP, BABIP, EQA, Win Shares -- the AP has decided to identify holds because any innumerate, third-rate intern on the overnight shift can figure it out while monitoring Sports Center and scanning the police blotter. VORP, on the other hand, requires a working knowledge of multiplication's profound complexities and division's subtle nuances.

Any reliever who comes in with a lead of three runs or less and doesn't blow it gets a hold. And I mean any. Thus, a right-handed 29-year-old gentleman named Bobby Korecky, despite a generally unimpressive 5.31 ERA, 11 walks and six strikeouts in 20.7 innings of MLB experience, can brag to his homeys that he was credited by the baseball world for "holding" the Rockies during his brief stint in the Diamondbacks' game on April 22, 2009. What Korecky did in unofficial terms was "stink," though fortunately for him Elias Sports Bureau records no such evaluation.

Here is a snapshot of Korecky's performance: He entered the game in the sixth inning with a 6-3 Arizona lead and managed to retire two batters before being run out of the game on a hit and two walks, two runs scored and the beginning of the rally that led to a 9-6 Colorado win. Way to hold 'em, Bobby!

Maybe I have it wrong. Perhaps publishing the hold is part of a diabolical AP plot to enhance the perceived value of the save. Only in comparison to the utterly worthless hold does the generally useless save vindicate its existence. Bwa-ha-ha-ha. It's a Machiavellian scheme by the evil geniuses at AP, I tell you!

Save us!

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