MLBAM and new stats
Reading my latest copy of Baseball America, I came across this in an Alan Schwarz interview of MLB Advanced Media (they run MLB.com for MLB) CEO Bob Bowman, and there was this update on something I thought had been forgotten:
AS: Several years ago, you said your grand plan to outfit every stadium with a multicamera system that would capture both pitch and hit speeds and trajectories, allowing for all sorts of new data on which to rate players [sic]. What is the status of that?
BB: We tested the program, it works great. I anticipate that we will embark on starting to install devices in parks this year, even this baseball season. Our only hope is that the cameras that we put in there will be able to capture and distribute the data in real time. I would anticipate that we would have an announcement on what we’re going to do certainly by September.
Duuuuude. The possibilities are immense. The ability to look at fielder ranges in composite, for instance, and compare them, to see that one second baseman is great on slow-hit balls anywhere but can’t go to their glove hand on line drives, or… defensive metrics have always been the worst statistical tools we have, and while I don’t yet know how you’d turn positional, speed, and even route information into a stat, the opportunity would be awesome.
I don’t like MLB.com, which has started playing video highlights every time I load whether I want them or not. I didn’t like that putting all the sites on one page stifled team innovation, because the Mariners were ahead of other teams but also because it meant that team sites had personalities. But MLBAM has done some great things in making advanced stats available to fans along with hit charts and good stuff of that nature, and I’m all for advancing fan knowledge and research in general.
This thing could be truly, deeply cool if it’s done well. I’ll keep my fingers crossed.
Comments
23 Responses to “MLBAM and new stats”
In Schwartz’ book The Numbers Game (which I recommend and has been plugged several times on this site), there is a chapter about the future of statistical analysis that touches on these kinds of possibilities. There is an interview with someone from MLBAM and it is clear that THEY GET IT. What they get, of course, is that a some fans are willing to pay extra for data-saturated coverage. When MLB smells a revenue stream, don’t underestimate them. Now if they could just get the MLB.tv blackout policies straightened out…
That would be unreal if they made it available to fans. Besides the use for analyzing players, think how much fun and how much time you could waste if you had access to a video vault for the entire year.
But knowing mlb, they would charge access to it, to make even more money.
You can disable that automatic playing of video clips, DMZ. There’s a link somewhere around where the video clips play that says “don’t play” or “turn off” or something like that.
I agree with you on the standardization of the team sites – the initial Mariners site rocked – especially in comparison to most of the rest. Ah, the good old days.
Rob, why wouldn’t they charge for it? It’s certainly not going to be cheap to create or maintain. I have no problem with people charging for worthwhile products.
For instance, you’d never hear me complain if USSM turned into a pay site (which the authors have made clear they have no intentions of doing). Some things are worth it.
The Flash laden MLB sites are just crap. I send them bitch mails about once a month. It never seems to gget any better. In spite of having a fast broadband connection, the sites load slow, and their HTML generators don’t even work with all current browsers. I much prefered the old team specific websites. (Remember the Safco Cam?)
And while I’m bitchin…
Being forced to watch a fair number of Mariner games on MLB TV (anything on channel 11 never gets here) I really resent being blacked out (regardless of which game I want to watch) just because they sold A certain Specific Saturday game to Fox. That wasn’t the deal when I signed up for MLB TV.
My worry about these new camera systems is what will happen if the broadcasters start encorporating that stuff real-time into the broadcast. I’m not convinced there is anything to be gained when just watching the game to have predicted ball landing zone and best path to the ball projected on the screen in real time.
Mercifully, Baseball has been free of stuff like the projected lines you see in NFL games on tv. Baseball is one thing that TV does well, (especially the safeco camera crews – the best in the country IMHO). And I’m not sure adding any of this stuff improves it at all. I think Kzone adds nothing usefull, and this idea sounds like Kzone on steriods. (oops forbiden topic).
Troy,
Because as a whole I think the teams would pay for it. They would use it everyday, im just afraid how much mlb would charge for it.
I, too, am excited about the possibility of using video for defense ratings. I’ve been saying for a few years that human judgement is the best way to rate defense and video is going to allow people to analyze routes, speed, jump, field conditions, and 35 other factors that affect a player’s ability to catch and throw a ball.
Using video, a human being could be able to judge fielding performance. But there would be problems:
1. The scorer would have to know what an average fielder would have done.
2. The scorer would have to make a judgment. And we all know what controversy that can elicit.
But there are advantages:
1. This system does not rely on estimates or macro-level factors such as pitching or park. For example, we don’t need to know whether a pitching staff is a groundball or fly ball staff because it doesn?t matter. No credit is given to the pitcher in this proposed system because the actual play made by the fielder is compared to league average. It uses the actual play made by fielder as its only data. My main criticism of a system such as Win Shares is that it chooses an arbitrary number for the weight given the pitching. We don’t need to determine the percentage of fielding success given the pitching staff because it doesn’t matter when you look at the actual play.
Think of a line drive caught by an OF. How can one ever know if the pitcher “held” a hitter who might otherwise have hit a home run on the pitch or whether the pitcher made a mistake because normally the ball would have been a ground ball single?
2. The scorer can determine if the player was positioned correctly by the coaching staff. With this, the scorer may be able to judge that the coaching staff made the error if the ball was not caught.
3. The scorer can determine the effect of weather (sun, rain, etc.) and fielding conditions on the player. I am thinking Jose Cruz Jr. slipping on the grass on the ball he missed at PacBell in the Marlins series. In my view, it appeared the grass had gotten wet from the field crew watering the warning track because when you view the soil in the skid mark it was dark. Thus, the wet field caused the slip and resulting error.
4. The biggest advantage in my view is that this system gives us the information all of us really want to know — how many runs were prevented by each fielder. As you know, putouts and assists don’t tell the whole story. The relationship of put outs and assists to runs prevented is unknown. But the actual play made to runs prevented is almost perfectly known.
It is only by knowing the actual game situation and seeing the actual play will we know how many runs were prevented. Then we can evaluate defensive performance.
1. The scorer would have to know what an average fielder would have done.
2. The scorer would have to make a judgment. And we all know what controversy that can elicit.
No and no, in that order. Don’t think about having a scorer at all. Think of being able to look at “jump” — how fast does a fielder react to a ball and start to move towards where it’s going to land
“route” — do they take off in the right direction and run to where the ball’s going to land, or do they tear off randomly and then correct (ala Gipson) or take weird, zig-zag paths to where the ball lands (ala Ibanez sometimes)
Or even “probability of catch” — if a ball is hit within distance X of player Y, they’re 100% certain to get to it. Y distance is 90%, Z is 80%…
Or positioning — are a lot of doubles getting to left center because the center fielder’s consistently shading too far to right, and he can’t get to those balls to keep them to singles? With range and seasonal positioning data, you could attempt to answer that question.
This isn’t about scorers at all. You don’t have to care about what “should” have happened, which is an artificial construct anyway.
It is only by knowing the actual game situation and seeing the actual play will we know how many runs were prevented. Then we can evaluate defensive performance.
No. Fielding shouldn’t be evaluated like RBIs. It should be measured in ability and performance independent of situation, though situation will determine to some extent opportunity for OF assists, etc.
Once we have these data, we’ll be able to compare fielders on relevantly similarly hit balls and evaluate them like that.
Maybe then O-Dog will finally get his gold glove.
No and no, in that order.
No.
Someimes you come across as condescending. This time is one of those times.
A reason for evaluating defense is to determine runs prevented by fielder. It isn’t the only reason. Extreme example to illustrate, Hunter and Damon each make 10 over the wall catches to rob home runs. Hunter’s catches all come with the bases loaded so he saves 40 runs. Damon’s catches come with no one on base. Who is the more valuable fielder?
No and no, in that order. Don’t think about having a scorer at all. Think of being able to look at “jump† how fast does a fielder react to a ball and start to move towards where it’s going to land
“route† do they take off in the right direction and run to where the ball’s going to land, or do they tear off randomly and then correct (ala Gipson) or take weird, zig-zag paths to where the ball lands (ala Ibanez sometimes)
Or even “probability of catch† if a ball is hit within distance X of player Y, they’re 100% certain to get to it. Y distance is 90%, Z is 80%…
Or positioning  are a lot of doubles getting to left center because the center fielder’s consistently shading too far to right, and he can’t get to those balls to keep them to singles? With range and seasonal positioning data, you could attempt to answer that question.
This isn’t about scorers at all. You don’t have to care about what “should†have happened, which is an artificial construct anyway.
Doesn’t a human have to make the judgements about jump and positioning?
Or are you implying that these aspects of fielding will be measured (in time, distance, probability) and the measurements are then compared for each fielder?
If measurement is all you want from the new video system, wouldn’t the system lack measurements of the intangible and quirky elements – such as whether sun blinded a player or a soggy field made a “jump” slower than lower? How about curvature of a batted ball – who takes into account whether the wind affects the jump and direction of a fielder?
It is these myriad factors that can’t be evaluated by a machine. That is all I’m saying.
BTW, you can set MLB.com to not auto-play. It’s subtle but there.
Doesn’t a human have to make the judgements about jump and positioning?
No.
Or are you implying that these aspects of fielding will be measured (in time, distance, probability) and the measurements are then compared for each fielder?
Could be, yes.
If measurement is all you want from the new video system, wouldn’t the system lack measurements of the intangible and quirky elements – such as whether sun blinded a player or a soggy field made a “jump†slower than lower? How about curvature of a batted ball – who takes into account whether the wind affects the jump and direction of a fielder?
In order: yes, yes, no. All of these, overall, would even out with time.
It is these myriad factors that can’t be evaluated by a machine. That is all I’m saying.
The data, even with flaws like “once Ibanez dropped a fly because of the sun and that’s counted here as a ball he got to but did not make a play on” would be far, far more valuable than anything we have now.
BTW, you can set MLB.com to not auto-play. It’s subtle but there.
I’ve gone through that. It’s worked sometimes, but mostly it still plays.
Someimes you come across as condescending. This time is one of those times.
I’m sorry for not holding your hand while I disagree with you and offering you a cuddle after every answer.
Ooorr was that too condescending there?
A reason for evaluating defense is to determine runs prevented by fielder. It isn’t the only reason. Extreme example to illustrate, Hunter and Damon each make 10 over the wall catches to rob home runs. Hunter’s catches all come with the bases loaded so he saves 40 runs. Damon’s catches come with no one on base. Who is the more valuable fielder?
They’re equally valuable. Hunter and Damon both made 10 brilliant catches. Whether there were runners on at the time has nothing to do with their ability to run to and catch those balls. If their ability to do so is equal, and you could replace one with the other and have the same outcome, they’re equally valuable.
Essentially you’re advocating rewarding fielders for having pitchers who suck and in particular for having other fielders who suck, because that means more baserunners and credit for saving runs. This has been a huge sticking point in the evaluation of defense (bad teams = better defensive ratings) that has plagued systems since the first cuts at better rate metrics.
Someone in one of the game threads suggested a plugin for Firefox that works great for killing the videos (Flashblock, I think, but I’m not at home to check). It really cleans up a lot of the annoying crap on the MLB web page, and others also.
I have long since stopped ranting about the invididual team pages getting swallowed up though. That change occurred several days after I realized why all the radio station feeds had messages saying they were trying to work out ad revenues for online streams during M’s games. Hint: they weren’t worried about ad revenue, MLB was setting up MLB radio to make extra cash.
The data, even with flaws like “once Ibanez dropped a fly because of the sun and that’s counted here as a ball he got to but did not make a play on†would be far, far more valuable than anything we have now.
Yes.
More valuable, but still not perfect.
More valuable, but still not perfect.
Lemme see… perfect, perfect… where did I say it was going to be perfect… hang on, I’m sure it’s here somewhere.
I have said it could be perfect. Where? Lessee…posts 7 and 8.
The key here is not to look for opportunities to be demeaning toward us..the key is to understand what is posted.
Ding ding ding. Everyone to your corners.
Paul, if you have a problem with Derek, email him. If you have any further comments on the topic itself, feel free to present them.
Good advice. Thanks.
#17, anybody else:
Flashblock here. It’s way cool. It makes viewing ESPN.com a lot less annoying.