More on silly numbers and gas bags
December 13th, 2012 by terrybenishSince 2001 there have been ninety playoff teams and eleven World Series winners.
Dave Cameron who is apexing on TV this week on the Clubhouse confidential pointed out that its not necessary to hit home runs to win the world series. He goes on to paint a picture of a blind squirrel finding an acorn and uses the example of the 2012 San Francisco Giants that hit 103 home runs and scored 715 runs and won the World Series.
I thought really that is the point? Maybe he’s right let us examine it. 90 playoff teams, 11 winners, what did the other ten look like:
2002 Angels 152
2003 Marlins 157
2004 Boston 222
2005 Chisox 200
2006 Stl. 184
2007 Boston 166
2008 Phil 214
2009 NYY 244
2010 SF 162
2011 Stl. 162
2012 SF 103
All other things equal I’d say you need to hit at least 150 homers a year to have a chance. A 1/11 chance. Nine percent odds.
During the last eleven seasons there has been nine playoff teams out of 90 that hit less than 150 home runs. Ten percent of all the playoff teams.
54 teams out of the 90 hit between 150 to 199 home runs in a year. Sixty percent. That would seem to give a team a more realistic chance than 103. Is it possible? The Giants showed that. Is it likely? Suckers chance.
The more interesting thing to do instead of poking at gasbags is to note that National League teams with more balanced lineups have won the last three world series. More balanced in that they use players that in have gap power and occasional power as opposed to all power guys. The 2009 Yankees were the last AL team to win and had 915 runs scored and hit 244 home runs
December 14th, 2012 at 9:54 am
As you may have noticed, I’ve been commenting at the USS Mariner site over the last few days. There is a war going on in the comments between the Cameron acolytes and others, including me, about the need for the Mariners to do something, anything, of note, to show the fans that there is a reason to care about the team. The tenor of the discussion in the comments there shows that there is a high degree of unrest among the more-than-casual fans. People are getting fed up, if they’re not already. Normally the commenters there play kissy face with Cameron, but many are calling him out for his selective cherry-picking of stats to support his arguments. Even the ones who normally shout down those who question the Cameron gospel seem to be questioning what is going on. As I’ve said there, if the Ms don’t do something more to make some sort of a splash this offseason, they better get out of the gate pretty quick or its going to be a long season of discontent and empty seats.
December 14th, 2012 at 3:25 pm
He’s been doing this for a while and does not lack for confidence. For years he said catcher’s defense didn’t matter, which of course it does and is the most important regarding strikes and outs from pitched balls. He’s kind of painted himself into a corner by saying the Ms don’t need bats and asserting that Michael Bourn is a great player, bad offense and above average centerfielder, but in no sense great. You need four good hitters, one great and two good hitters, but there are no metrics that suggest that not scoring runs is a viable way to win. Even his gibberish about home runs is just that. He’s rude and really big into self promotion and is everywhere now due to that. He uses WAR as an important measure even though dWAR is hugely flawed if not worthless because he wants one number that says how good a player is. Any number that says Michael Bourn is better than Prince Fielder and Josh Hamilton doesn’t work.
December 15th, 2012 at 9:36 am
I actually do not read a bunch of his stuff any more. At the end of the day if you go back over several years and read his suggestions about marginal players to add, mostly he misses. A few times not. He never acknowledges his misses and bans anybody that has the temerity to point how he has missed. The whole premise of WAR for instance oWAR especially rests on this long wave average of all players and use mathematics to ascertain to finely tune the shape of that curve around age groups and can tell you who the outliers about an age group, either real bad guys or good to great players. Then to buttress that they use metrics like babip and percentages about walking and striking out and line drives and home runs, but the WAR determines this mystical average player called a replacement player and then determine if the guy is like that player or much better. The defense portion of that does not work. When the game changes, i.e. PEDs start to predominate, the mean is weighted by history and misses the change. Now that PEDs are on the decline it misses the rapidity of the decline’s effect on where the replacement player might be.
I try to look at actual bases generated and allowed and the simplicity of OPS is that everybody can access it. It is not perfect and can be refined, and I use a measure that I’ve developed, but hesitate to use because it is not out there for others to universally access, although the components are all available.
December 15th, 2012 at 11:49 am
Are you the Westside Guy? You remarked on the post about Selig etc.
You’re a lawyer, I’ve lived in and around antitrust stuff for 35 years as an economist. What the piece wholesale ignores is that Major League Baseball is a Monopsony, they violate law and case history about labor market actions. They engage in three labor markets: 1. North American draft 2. Foreign free agency 3. Major league free agency.
The institution of “slotting” for draftees is no more than price fixing pure and simple. Secondly there was a practice of draft and follow where teams used lower picks to draft kids that they had no intention of short term signing and they would then follow through on summer and following spring ball and in the weeks before the next draft sign them to late first or second round money. MLBPA wanted that money for their members which do not include minor league or amateur players. Nothing more than collusion and theft. In 1919 MLB prevailed in a suit against Ban Johnson and cohorts who sued and said that MLB was a monopoly that instituted barriers to entry and controlled labor markets. MLB by dint of the decision has an antitrust exemption. Do you know what Federal Judge made the decision? Kenesaw Mountain Landis. Who shortly thereafter resigned from the bench and became the first commissioner of baseball. It is fair to say or infer that the fix was in.