Running the 2008 season a hundred times
The results of my last couple sim seasons has been bothering me, since it diverged so far general opinion and from what I thought it would be. I decided to look at this in a lot more depth. I used the ZiPS projections for 2008 and SG’s quite useful RunDMB program, cranked up the USSM Labs Comp-u-matik 2000, and went at it.
Then I put together a likely M’s lineup, cheated a little by turning Betancourt’s defensive rating up, and ran a hundred seasons. This took a day.
Your 2008 simulated Mariners:
Average record: 77-85
Average runs scored: 716
Average runs allowed: 759
Number of times they won the division: 6
Number of times they won the wild card: 0
Best season: 93-69
Worst season: 59-103
Best offense: 804 runs
Worst offense: 607 runs
Best run prevention: 674 runs allowed
Worst run prevention: 866 runs allowed
Standard deviation for wins: 71-84
Standard deviation for offense: 674-757
Standard deviation for run prevention: 717-801
The division favorite was not the Angels but the torn-down Athletics, 47% to 42%, and Texas won the division almost as often as the M’s. The A’s-Angels thing is as much a shock as anything. General analyst-on-TV-or-radio seems to be that it’s all about the M’s-Angels, but Oakland fields the best pitching/defense combination in the AL and their offense is decent too.
Added: since this seems to be causing a lot of hostility, I’ll explain part of what’s going on here. The projection set doesn’t include known, current injuries — so when you look at a depth chart and you see that a bunch of their starters are likely to be guys like Saarloos or even Greg Smith because so many will be down for the start of the season, that’s the rub — these weren’t run with them starting off injured for x days and then coming back. You can make your own assessment of how important that is to the outcomes, but they only play two series against the A’s for five games in the first two months of the year. So even if you want to throw out their season finish, the M’s aren’t going to move up substantially in the win column by taking more games from Oakland.
Back to the M’s, though.
Here’s some graphs of the distributions:
That’s a scatter with smoothed lines.
And for the people who complain about graphs without absolute axis bounds:
And by request, the bar graph
Here’s the cumulative probability:
27% of seasons were 74 wins or under
50% of seasons were 76 wins or under.
77% of the seasons were 82 wins or under
95% of the seasons were 86 wins or under
99% of the seasons were 91 wins or under
I did a projection post back in January. Pre-Bedard-trade, of course, it’s still an interesting contrast. I guessed at ~795 runs scored and ~780 runs allowed. Compared to what I got simulating, that’s too optimistic on the run prevention and way, way optimistic on the runs scored. Clearly, replacing the fifth starter with Bedard and tossing Sherill aside makes a difference in run prevention, but it’s interesting that the overall difference wasn’t all that large — I’d have thought it’d be a lot more than 20 runs. But considering that the trade meant a pretty large defensive downgrade in right plus a whole in the bullpen, it’s reasonable.
The defense is baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad. Even assuming Wilkerson is healthy and passable in right, Ibanez makes that offense bad, and the infield doesn’t make up for it, dragged down by Sexson’s awfulness. And remember, I turned Betancourt’s defense up. The pourous defense particularly hits Washburn and Silva as you’d expect. As Dave told me, they should consider running Reed out in right field when Washburn starts just to keep Washburn’s head from exploding in frustration after giving up the seventh double of a game.
The other interesting thing to note is that DMB, in running through the whole season and simulating every game, does take into account the rotation matchups (which, as I’ve noted, don’t in practice have that much effect). So pushing everyone back a spot doesn’t help.
It’s the runs scored that really hurts. Here’s where the ZiPS differed significantly from the numbers I came up with “random guesses, hunches, wishcasting, and general skullduggery” but which was largely three-year averages:
- Ichiro’s down a little on OBP and off on SLG
- Shaves Beltre by 5 points of OBP and 10 points of SLG
- ZiPS is down on Lopez (.302/.369 versus my .320/.400)
- the Wilkerson ZiPS is lower than my Jones guess
- didn’t give Sexson as much of a bounce (.323/.441 vs my .330/.460)
- down on Johjima (.316/.405 vs my .325/.425)
Please note that when I disagreed with what an excellent projection system came up with, I was high every time, sometimes by a lot. Ponies for everyone!
Since I ran the season, I’ve stared at the results and tried to find a reason to not write this post. Some thing that would invalidate the results, or that would give me an excuse to change something and go back to do it all over with even more pro-Mariner assumptions. But there isn’t. The ZiPS projections have been excellent in the past, and if you use the PECOTA projections the team is just as bad.
If you start from last year’s team and make adjustments, it’s easy to come up with another five, ten, sixteen wins. But starting from scratch, using reasonable assumptions, the picture looks much bleaker.
If you like this post, buy the authors a refreshing beer.
How do you factor in defense here, DMZ?
February 9th, 2008 at 2:12 pmDMZ:
6% chance of playoffs is higher than I would’ve expected, to be honest.
Your graphs should really not have a ‘best fit’ curve drawn through the data: there’s no meaning to 82-1/2 wins. You would be better off with just the data plotted (no curve), or a bar graph, as the horizontal axis is discrete.
The data also looks quite noisy: at 100 samples spread over this much space you’re still getting small-sample-size noise on those plots. I don’t suppose your computer could handle running another 900 or so seasons, huh?
February 9th, 2008 at 2:13 pmSo you got about a 6% chance of the M’s winning the division. Burning question: Any idea what that would have been pre-Bedard trade?
February 9th, 2008 at 2:15 pmA lot of people forget that this team was extremely lucky when it came to injuries last year.
Felix missed a few starts, Sexson was out towards the end of the year, but other than that, there were so significant injuries that put guys out for stretches of time.
Something tells me they won’t be so lucky this year. Last year’s lucky 88 wins are about the peak, IMO.
February 9th, 2008 at 2:21 pmSo basically, we are one superstar outfielder away from being capable of competing with the A’s/Angels.
Is it worth totally gutting the farm in the hope of luring a new RF/LF, and if so who is available?
Either way, I now have no hope for the season whatsoever. I just wish I would have seen this before spending a £1000 on a trip to NYC for June to watch the M’s/Mets.
February 9th, 2008 at 2:23 pmI have read your blog for a while. It’s a good blog. Thanks for making it an intelligent place to read about baseball.
But I want to respectfully “lodge a complaint” about something I believe you folks here tend to do, whether inadvertently or knowingly…
You use numbers like politicians. I know you will argue that I am wrong here, but hear me out.
Though you have refuted this in the past, your comments and conclusions come from a predisposition to the negative. You are essentially using numbers to prove a negative point of view correct. I have heard you accused of being negative in general and I disagree with that. But at the heart of your philosophy, is the belief that the Mariners front office is lousy and makes lousy decisions. And you go to great lengths (maybe even unconsciously) to prove that belief correct using numbers. And I feel you are missing a huge aspect of the game of baseball in doing so.
Without intending to be, you are masters of spin. And since “numbers don’t lie”, how can your conclusions be refuted? And again, I say this with respect for the writing and your right to have your point of view. (I even own the “Cheater’s Guide.” I am not out to discredit anyone. And I love stats. I am a long-time “strat-o-matic” player, even.)
But, when it gets right down to it, numbers never tell the whole story, sometimes not even a decent percentage of the story. I wish your analysis took into account more human factors. Factors like:
-The addition of a TOR pitcher and its impact on the excitement, intensity, commitment, and performance of players on the team.
-The impact on players of taking the field each day thinking they actually have a chance to win.
-Players benefitting from better coaching.
-Players benefitting from not having a steroid suspect in the clubhouse (e.g.; Guillen)
-How often a player recovers from a bad season and what factors play into that
-The impact of having one manager for the whole year and having a single approach from spring training onward
-The possible impact of a certain group of guys gelling or no gelling together and why that happens
-The real impact of clubhouse leadership
These are just a few examples. These types of factors create the best storylines in sports, like the Giants beating the Patriots. (I am not a Giants fan, btw, but loved that game.) You can’t run numbers on these things. They are harder to quantify. But instead of trying, finding ways to factor these things in, you just call them “intangibles” and move on without them. I would argue that you are doing your readers a disservice by doing that.
My point is, numbers give us the mean expectation. And the mean expectation will never be “Win the world series” and probably seldom has been, even for the teams that wound up winning. So, your numbers will never be satisfied. Championships only occur when things happen that NO numbers predicted. The nature of a championship is that all things must come together at once: skill, talent, luck, chemistry. statistics, individual performance, a city’s excitement, coaches getting through to players, and many more. SO little of that relies on numbers. It relies in special moments and special people performing to the highest level they can. Numbers don’t have Buckner miss that grounder or Gibson hit that home run. And yet those are the very storylines we crave. So, why do you rely on numbers to predict our likelihood of getting the very thing they are so inept at predicting? Because it is the best we can do? I don’t think it is. We must at least TRY to factor in everything else. At least try.
Can we sometimes get a post that argues for why our team might stand a chance? What factors could break right? What numbers show possibilities for success? What might contribute to something happening that is BETTER than the numbers? Because that is the kind of season we are waiting for.
The factors that will ultimately spell a championship for the Ms will not be measured beforehand. Look at 2001. They were expected to take 3rd place at best. When we finally go to the M’s store and buy our Mariners World Series Championship gear, we will be saying how unlikely it was, how nobody could have predicted it. And how it hinged on some crazy risk… like trading for Bedard. Or somebody like Wilkerson coming up huge. Or Jose Lopez unexpectedly reaching his potential when the numbers gave up on him. That is a warm truth for the true sports fan and it hits us in a place where numbers leave us cold.
I know you guys are true fans. And again, I respect you guys and what you do. That is just my $.02. I hope you won’t dismiss my observations. Thanks for listening.
February 9th, 2008 at 2:41 pmSo now our pitching isn’t awful, now our offense and defense is terrible. I am predicting now by the midseason if the Mariners are competeing for the playoffs they will sacrifice even more for a power hitter.
February 9th, 2008 at 2:46 pmThe fact that these projections have the A’s as the favorite in the division instead of the Angels
February 9th, 2008 at 3:00 pmjust shows the fallacy in the whole deal. If these projections have Oakland as the division favorite,
which is in most people’s opinions, flawed, why should we believe these projections will be close to
accurate for how the M’s are going to do this year? What a joke.
I too would like to lodge a complaint…
those graphs are flipping me off
February 9th, 2008 at 3:05 pmCompletely agreed #8. As soon as I read that the A’s are favored to not only top the M’s but the Angels as well, I pretty much disregarded the simulations.
February 9th, 2008 at 3:07 pmBra-fucking-vo, #6.
February 9th, 2008 at 3:11 pmI disagree vehemently that there’s an inherently negative point of view here. I ran projections. There’s the numbers. Unless you think I made them up, how is this negative?
-The addition of a TOR pitcher and its impact on the excitement, intensity, commitment, and performance of players on the team.
-The impact on players of taking the field each day thinking they actually have a chance to win.
This doesn’t matter. Teams that acquire a so-called “TOR” pitcher don’t perform better than you’d expect.
Similarly, teams that are competitive don’t perform better than you’d expect, and teams with no chance don’t perform worse.
-Players benefitting from better coaching.
Generally speaking, this doesn’t have the effect often ascribed to it. Certain coaches do well with some players and don’t help others. There are very few coaches that make any noticeable positive impact across most of their players.
-Players benefitting from not having a steroid suspect in the clubhouse (e.g.; Guillen)
The M’s won 116 games with one of the most-widely-suspected steroid users in the lineup: if Guillen mattered, that certainly should have, but didn’t.
-How often a player recovers from a bad season and what factors play into that
I don’t understand how this affects anything.
-The impact of having one manager for the whole year and having a single approach from spring training onward
The M’s didn’t play substantially better when they had Hargrove for full years versus half years. There’s no reason to think that McLaren’s a significantly better manager than Hargrove.
-The possible impact of a certain group of guys gelling or no gelling together and why that happens
Chemistry, if it exists in this form, doesn’t have a significant effect.
-The real impact of clubhouse leadership
Cross-apply previous argument.
They are harder to quantify. But instead of trying, finding ways to factor these things in, you just call them “intangibles” and move on without them. I would argue that you are doing your readers a disservice by doing that.
For decades, better and brighter minds than I have tried to find any evidence that there are clutch hitters, or pitchers, that there’s a team chemistry effect, and no one’s found it. At some point it’s reasonable to say “if there’s an effect, it’s too small to see, and thus too small to be a significant impact.”
My point is, numbers give us the mean expectation. And the mean expectation will never be “Win the world series” and probably seldom has been, even for the teams that wound up winning.
You’re looking at this backwards, I think. The mean expectation for all teams is “no chance at the World Series” and that’s accurate, but going into a season, you can do a pretty good job handicapping the races and identifying teams that do.
The factors that will ultimately spell a championship for the Ms will not be measured beforehand. Look at 2001. They were expected to take 3rd place at best.
I could write a ton about the failure of prediction models in the 2001 series.
February 9th, 2008 at 3:17 pmThe W and Derubino, do you just prefer to ignore the fact that these projections have a good record of accuracy when you dismiss them because of one projection that you find ludicrous because “most people” think otherwise? To put it another way, when Derek writes a thoughtful and reasoned post and you dismiss it out of hand without even an attempt at a supporting argument, why should anyone care about your opinion?
Manjini, if it were to happen next year, say, you’re right, this is how we’d all react, because our team’s management is bad and we’d have to get lucky. But when the Patriots win, when the Spurs win, when the Red Sox win, their fans know it’s because their team made smart decisions, and they expect to win. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather expect to win than have to be surprised by it.
The won 91 games and took the wild card in 2000.
February 9th, 2008 at 3:21 pmSigh.
February 9th, 2008 at 3:22 pmIf you start from last year’s team and make adjustments, it’s easy to come up with another five, ten, sixteen wins. But starting from scratch, … the picture looks much bleaker.
Why is this?
Just stepping back from the data, it seems that a reasonable person would say …
… no likely regression or reduced performance offensively expected from Beltre, Betancourt, Ichiro, Joh.
… Lopez is young, and should improve (can’t be worse).
… Vidro and Ibanez you would expect some decline,
… but certainly you would also expect Sexson to come up with some kind of rebound.
… Wilkerson is not likely to be as good offensively as Guillen, but should be in the vicinity. His defense is likely as much an improvement as his offense is a decrement.
So, on offense, seven players who are the same or slightly better, two who decline slightly.
Defense should be the same as last year. Sexson is bad; Ibanez is bad — but neither should be getting appreciably worse. The four up the middle, as well as 3rd base, should not be worse than they were. Wilkerson should be better than Guillen.
Pitching should obviously be better. Bedard 50 runs better than Horam/Weaver? Silva 20 runs better? Lose a little for George, but relievers are fungible….
So, just informally, intuitively, it seems that a reasonable analyst or fan would expect that the offense declines a little, the defense stays the same (or even very slightly improves), and the pitching improves.
So, M’s offense goes from 794 to scoring around 780.
M’s defense goes from 813 to allowing around 740.
So, they win 85 games.
Why is that more than one standard deviation away from what the sims show?
This by all accounts, I think, is a better team than last year. Last year, they pythaogreously were a 79-win team, got 9 wins worth of luck and won 88.
This year, I think it seems reasonable to say they are pythaogreously an 85 win team. Extrapolating based on “reasonable adjustments” from last year’s team plus additions/subtractions, they are 6 wins better this coming year.
If luck shines on them — or Manjini’s magic or coaching or leadership comes through — maybe they win 94 and sneak into the playoffs. Or maybe things go bad, and they win 80.
But to expect them to win 77? What’s your analysis DMZ, or anyone, about why the sims seem so discrepant from the “reasonable man”?
This is not a sub-.500 team. It is not a good team, Bavasi is not a good GM, there is frustration galore, but this is not a sub.500 team.
Why would the sims think so?
February 9th, 2008 at 3:25 pmHere’s the thing about the Angels/A’s thing, though — well first, dismissing it out of hand is weird. If you’re not going to be interested in things that don’t look like you think they should look, well, that’s like being the columnist who rejects defensive metrics that don’t show Derek Jeter as the best shortstop in the American League.
Beyond that, though, we’re going to have the same argument as with the M’s. If you want to disagree with the projection system, that’s one thing — but where? I think the Cust projection’s way too optimistic, but otherwise, that’s a pretty good pitching staff. Sure, it’s a lot of new blood, but…
That’s my big question: there are a set of assumptions here that I laid out in running this sim, which are:
- You accept the ZiPS projections as being worth using (and they clearly are, last year they were neck-and-neck with PECOTA)
- You accept that DMB does a good job as a simulator engine (it does)
I’d love to hear arguments about where the ZiPS are wrong.
February 9th, 2008 at 3:26 pmThe only thing I can think of off the top of my head here is that you shouldn’t keep the defense the same as last year.
The talent level might stay the same, but the actual outcome should be regressed heavily towards the mean (but I’m not sure if you already did that or what).
February 9th, 2008 at 3:28 pmI used the ZiPS defensive numbers, with the Betancourt adjustment. That runs Poor-Fair-Average-Very Good-Excellent in the DMB spectrum, and considers a whole set of factors
Johjima -Av
Sexson - Pr
Lopez - Vg
Betancourt - Vg (and again, I did that myself)
Ibanez - Fr
Ichiro! - Av
Wilkerson - Av
Those are all reasonable ratings and especially as a whole (I think Ichiro’s better, but Ibanez is near the bottom in every metric, he should be Poor, for instance).
February 9th, 2008 at 3:32 pm… but certainly you would also expect Sexson to come up with some kind of rebound.
There is no reason to expect this. This is hope on the part of M’s fandom. Nothing in his last 3 years would lead me to expect he’ll make a rebound. He has a skill set that is seriously hampered by aging. I think we can expect more of last year with enough flashes of his former self for the M’s to delude themselves into a whole season of suckyness on Sexson’s behalf. You toss $14,000,000.00 at one person and hope takes on a whole new meaning.
By the by, the Mac is suggesting the suckyness could also be sauciness but I tend to think no amount of flavoring is going to make this go down easier.
February 9th, 2008 at 3:40 pmBut, when it gets right down to it, numbers never tell the whole story, sometimes not even a decent percentage of the story. I wish your analysis took into account more human factors. Factors like:
We humans, equipped with brains that love nothing more than identifying patterns (even when none really exist) find all sorts of patterns in the results random chance produces. Good statistical techniques attempt to identify luck (or, if you prefer Demming, Common Cause Variations) and find ways to factor it out of the measurements. Thus, why K rate, BB rate and GB/FB is considered a better predictor of pitching success than ERA. Thus why offensive production based on a spike in BABIP is discounted. Thus why a HR/FB significantly different than 11% is discounted.
You listed several factors that, instinctively, we think must have an impact on a player’s performance. However, there have been serious attempts to find a cause-effect relationship (which is different than a correlation), and none has really been found. But that doesn’t mesh with our human instinct, so we look for reasons to still believe, and our clever brains are quite good at using selective memory to find those reasons.
Now, some of those factors might be legitmately difficult, or even impossible, to measure. How do you measure clubhouse chemistry, for instance? Specifically, how do you measure it in time to predict performance? You mention the absence of Guillen as a clubhouse positive, yet last year his fiery presence was touted as a clubhouse positive and an explanation for how they played above expectations. Which is it? You have no way of saying, and it basically boils down to wishful thinking on your part. You hope that it will be a happy clubhouse and that this will contribute to more wins. I hope so too, but I recongize it’s just hope and not planning.
Specifically, you said:
The factors that will ultimately spell a championship for the Ms will not be measured beforehand.
Some factors will be measured and some will not be. The luck that determines who gets injured and who doesn’t, or which gounder bounces into Sexsons glove and which hops past him into RF, or whether the curveball the Bedard or Felix will occasionally hang get smashed over the fence or fouled back into the stands , no, none of that will be measured.
But luck represents random variations around a point. Good measurment, of the kind folks try to do around here, can tell you where that point is likely to be. And smart planning, informed by good measurments, can help you move that point in your favor.
February 9th, 2008 at 3:40 pmAny idea what these defensive ratings actually give you in terms of runs on the year?
February 9th, 2008 at 3:43 pmUpdated with bar graph.
February 9th, 2008 at 3:43 pmUnless DMB is giving Rich Harden perfect health and two spots in the rotation, Oakland’s rotation blows.
February 9th, 2008 at 3:47 pmI’m still having trouble believing in a projection that has Oakland, which is telling its fans “come back when the new park is finished, we’ll have a real team for you” being the favorite to win the division.
I found this:
Jayson Addcox, of Athletics.MLB.com, reports the Oakland Athletics’ projected lineup for the 2008 season is: RF Travis Buck, 1B Daric Barton, 3B Eric Chavez, DH Jack Cust, 2B Mark Ellis, LF Emil Brown, SS Bobby Crosby, CF Chris Denorfia and C Kurt Suzuki.
Chavez is their Richie, the overpaid salary albatross. Crosby has got to be plugged in for two months minimum on the DL, and there’s no more Marco Scutaro to fill in. Cust is one of those players I’d figure has a serious standard deviation for performance; 2007 might be real or people might be taking the time to figure out how to pitch to him. Ellis is a pretty steady player, but he’s a 31 year old second baseman who hit his career high in homers at 30. The rest of the lineup is a lot of conjecture.
49% chance to win the division strikes me as something that would make me look at my model.
February 9th, 2008 at 3:49 pmI actually have that somewhere — I did a whole thing on this.
Fun side note: I ran out a all-defense lineup and it won 93 games. That’s a whole other post though.
February 9th, 2008 at 3:49 pmLuck is the residue of design — Branch Rickey
February 9th, 2008 at 3:51 pmDMZ, I can’t remember, but what were the ZIPs projections for last year in the AL West? If I remember they had Texas’ win-loss exactly.
What I am pondering is that if last year’s pythagorean win-loss was near 79 wins, then by basically replacing Guillen with Wilkerson and Ramirez and Weaver with Silva and Bedard, and we net a loss of one run?
That is the reason why most are completely caught off-guard with these results.
February 9th, 2008 at 3:52 pmyou would expect Sexson to come up with some kind of rebound.
There is no reason to expect this.
Yes, there is a reason. Sexson basically has never slugged below .500 or had an OPS below .800 in over 10 years — until last year. Last year he slugged below .400 and OPS below .700.
Statistically speaking, you should expect him to regress to the mean, which means you would expect he will perform better than he did in 2007.
I don’t think he will be good. I don’t think he will get all the way back to his mean, or that his skills will be as good as they used to be.
I just think that in comparing last year’s M’s to this year’s M’s, it is reasonable to expect that Sexson 2008 will be better than Sexson 2007.
February 9th, 2008 at 3:53 pmI just think that in comparing last year’s M’s to this year’s M’s, it is reasonable to expect that Sexson 2008 will be better than Sexson 2007.
Totally agree
February 9th, 2008 at 3:55 pmGreat post DMZ, great work.
In regards to not factoring the human element and being pessimistic, the whole point of objective analyses are to remove biases and unmeasurable elements, ie luck.
DMZ ran a series of projects with expected performances and came up with some numbers. Did he tweak the numbers to come up with a pessimistic outcome? It doesn’t seem so.
I’d rather the front office act rationally and analyze the team without letting optimism get in the way. How does this team measure really, and what can we do realistically to improve it? Then when the season starts root for them to win.
If anything the current front office seems a bit over-optimistic. I hope the M’s win and reach the playoff. But I’m not going to delude myself with aphorisms, blind faith, and empty wishes.
…
Graham you’ve been arguing that M’s defense was worse than expected last year and that it will regress to a better level. What is your evidence for that? Ibanez’s and Sexon’s defensive metrics being much worse than career or in the previous three years?
February 9th, 2008 at 3:55 pmIn regards to Sexson to rebounding, I think he had a pretty bad BABIP last year, .212 to be precise. So you do expect a rebound, on the other hand his power has shown a consistent trend downwards. http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/printarticle/the-worst-infield-for-the-dough/.
February 9th, 2008 at 3:57 pmNumber 6 — AMEN, BROTHER!
February 9th, 2008 at 3:57 pmThe ZiPS has it as Blanton/Harden/Gaudin/Dinardo/Eveland, and then the injury starts variously to Saarloos/Gonzalez/Meyer/Smith/Braden/whoever.
I should talk about the injury issue more up above, since that clearly affects this.
February 9th, 2008 at 3:59 pmGraham you’ve been arguing that M’s defense was worse than expected last year and that it will regress to a better level. What is your evidence for that? Ibanez’s and Sexon’s defensive metrics being much worse than career or in the previous three years?
Basically, I think they’re pretty poor as a unit, but the result of their play last year was much worse than the sum of their parts, and therefore we should expect some heavy regression. It’s sort of like Jeff Weaver - yeah, he’s not good, but he’s not really 6+ ERA bad either.
February 9th, 2008 at 4:03 pmAs fans, we don’t tend to be reasonable people.
Johjima: a catcher entering his year 32 season, who declined last year. It’s perfectly reasonable to expect that he may be at the start of the downside of his career.
Ichiro: a great hitter, who had a much better season last year than his previous two seasons, and is going to be 34. I wouldn’t bet against Ichiro, personally, but it’s perfectly reasonable to expect regression.
Beltre: Just had the best of his three seasons in Seattle, and is a fair candidate for a bit of regression.
Betancourt: Just had his best season. Again, I wouldn’t bet against him personally, but I’m a fan. Even though Yuni’s young, an objective analyst is going to see him as a candidate for regression.
Even when we’re trying to be objective, we want to see things as positively as we can, within reason. It’s not entirely unreasonable to expect all four of those guys to maintain their level. But it’s likelier that, as a group, they won’t hit as well next year.
February 9th, 2008 at 4:07 pmUpdated to talk about the issue with the A’s not starting out with adequate injury information.
February 9th, 2008 at 4:08 pmOh, sweet, I just figured out how to deliberately injure players.
February 9th, 2008 at 4:10 pmOh, sweet, I just figured out how to deliberately injure players.
Finally, a solution to our LF problem.
February 9th, 2008 at 4:12 pmAs disappointing as Chavez has been, he remains (when healthy) an average hitter (disguised by his low batting average and pitcher’s ballpark) and a terrific fielder at a tough position, and three years younger than Sexson. As albatrosses go, he is still a lot closer to Beltre (that is, a contributor of value) than to Sexson (a lead weight).
February 9th, 2008 at 4:13 pmoh, the times we could have used this power.
February 9th, 2008 at 4:20 pmSounds like there are a lot of McLarens out there guaranteeing that Sexson will be the comeback player of the year or at least return to an average level of productivity for 1B.
February 9th, 2008 at 4:21 pmTheHardballTimes recently had an article that showed that Sexson’s secondary average has declined steadily the last two years. Both were the lowest in his career. I think that clearly speaks to his losing power. As a one-tool player, he has nothing left to give.
You’re dreaming!
Why the hostility Scraps? I merely gave my thoughts on the matter. I think Derek and Dave write fantastic posts all the time and read them daily. I just didn’t happen to agree with today’s simulation and I don’t have 900 stats to back it up or my own simulations to run. Now I guess you can accuse me of relying too much on my own human knowledge and decades of baseball obsession, but I am going to use every ounce of my experience to say that the A’s do not have a 49% chance of winning the division. Having just read the update regarding injuries not being factored into the simulation, I feel like my earlier claim is somewhat justified. Rich Harden is a talented pitcher, but I’ve pitched in the bigs about as much as he has lately, ya know? I suppose to say I dismissed the post entirely is kind of fair, though it doesn’t seem that unwarranted to say that if I disagree grossly with a major projection that I should question the validity of the others. However, since the injury factor has been explained, I would say that the individual Mariners projections probably have more validity than I thought earlier in the day. The Mariners do have a good advantage of not having serious pre-existing injury concerns going into the year, which also would make the simulations more accurate for them specifically. I assume the A’s were simulated with Harden and the Angels with Escobar (out to start the year), so those teams may be skewed positively while the Mariners don’t get skewed either positively or negatively. Is that an accurate statement as far as the simulations go?
February 9th, 2008 at 4:30 pmAh, shoot, it resets injuries every season. I’d have to manually beat up their team before the start of every year, and I don’t know how I’d automate that.
February 9th, 2008 at 4:32 pmI ran the Mariners in my simulator too with ZIPS projections. It just runs through 162 games for any selected team (Mariners this time) so you don’t see how the other teams did over 162.
With Adam Jones on the team:
75.9 - 86.1
standard dev 6.82
With Bedard
74.7 - 87.3
standard dev 4.58
I’d be interested in knowing how DMB incorporates their defense into their program and how subjective it is.
vr, Xei
February 9th, 2008 at 4:33 pmSounds like there are a lot of McLarens out there guaranteeing that Sexson will be the comeback player of the year or at least return to an average level of productivity for 1B….You’re dreaming!
Sexson will not be comeback player of the year.
He will not reach the level of productivity of an average first baseman.
He will just be better this year than last.
He’ll go from horrible to merely bad.
So if the M’s insist on running him out there, their offense from the first base position this year will be better than their offense was from the first base position last year.
No one is dreaming crazy dreams about Sexson.
Just trying to figure out how a sim series thinks this 2008 offense will be well over 10% worse than 2007’s, when on the face of things, it only looks to be just ever-so-slightly worse.
February 9th, 2008 at 4:33 pmYup, both Escobar and Harden start the year in their respective rotations, and will until someone offers a reasonable solution to limiting their playing time.
February 9th, 2008 at 4:35 pmI have to say, I have been surprised at how the national press seems to have just written off the A’s out-of-hand.
speaking of surprising outcomes, “The Washington Redskins hired Jim Zorn as their coach Saturday night, The Associated Press has learned.”
February 9th, 2008 at 4:35 pmdid you add Foulke back into the equation for the A’s?
February 9th, 2008 at 4:36 pmNope — he’s not available to put in.
February 9th, 2008 at 4:38 pmCorrection from 41.
February 9th, 2008 at 4:39 pmI meant Isolated Power, not Secondary.
Conclusion is the same. You’re going to have to find your offensive improvement elsewhere.
I’ll run this with PECOTA when I get back on my ultra-awesome computer.
February 9th, 2008 at 4:44 pm#45. Well, actually McLaren did guarantee that Sexson would win the COY award.
February 9th, 2008 at 4:44 pmWhich tells us all we need to know about how perceptive the management is. And how interested they are in solving obvious problems. Of course, now we have Cairo for when Sexson needs a day off.
Reason I am wondering about the sims and how much stock to place in them is because it is important in thinking about what the M’s do. It is a bit of central question that has permeated all the trade talk and all the analysis of Bavasi and roster construction.
If this is “truly” an 85 win team, then just one move — getting a great defensive LF who is a 2-win player offensively, and then bumping Ibanez to DH — very plausibly makes the M’s a 91 - 93 win team, and even the greatest USSM-pessimists can legitimately go to the park thinking the M’s have a real chance to make the playoffs.
If this is “truly” a 77-win team, then there is no “one move” that can make the playoffs plausible.
Has Bavasi bumbled his way into being one move away?
Or are the sims right and there is no reasonable scenario aside from magic that gets this team north of 90 wins?
February 9th, 2008 at 4:45 pmAh, shoot, it resets injuries every season. I’d have to manually beat up their team before the start of every year, and I don’t know how I’d automate that.
Jeff Gilooly may be available.
February 9th, 2008 at 4:49 pmI think Sexson is just as likely to be finished as he is to bounce back even a little bit. The one-two punch of terrible defense and terrible offense at first base might just add up to the worst season by any player in the history of the game. I dunno.
But I do know that if his average is up by five points it’ll be a “comeback” in the eyes of a lot of people around here. Not mine.
February 9th, 2008 at 4:52 pmI can believe a sub-.500 season is more likely than not. However, I have to cling to some hope (>>6%) of a division title, so I’ll blissfully ignore the specific result.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go put some money on the A’s…
February 9th, 2008 at 4:52 pm“Jayson Addcox, of Athletics.MLB.com, reports the Oakland Athletics’ projected lineup for the 2008 season is: RF Travis Buck, 1B Daric Barton, 3B Eric Chavez, DH Jack Cust, 2B Mark Ellis, LF Emil Brown, SS Bobby Crosby, CF Chris Denorfia and C Kurt Suzuki.”
On the surface, I don’t see how that’s so much worse than the Mariners.
A’s are better offensively in RF, 1B, 2B, SS and DH. M’s are better in CF, C, 3B and LF. When you add in defense, where I expect the A’s to be MUCH better, I wouldn’t be suprised if that’s a more productive 9 than the M’s. The A’s weakness is injury prone-ness, esp. Crosby, Harden and Chavez.
The M’s edge over the A’s is almost wholely Felix, Bedard and Putz.
February 9th, 2008 at 4:58 pmA’s are better offensively in RF, 1B, 2B, SS and DH.
The A’s play Bobby Crosby at shortstop.
February 9th, 2008 at 5:02 pmYea, maybe with expectations so low, if you put money on the A’s now to win the world series, you could walk out a millionaire in october.
One Giants fan called into the Adam Carolla show, saying how he bet 20 dollars on the Giants winning the super bowl before the playoffs even started, and walked out with 15 grand after the super bowl. Crazy, huh?
February 9th, 2008 at 5:02 pmA’s are better offensively in RF, 1B, 2B, SS and DH.
The A’s play Bobby Crosby at shortstop.
Yuni is well over .100 OPS better than Crosby.
February 9th, 2008 at 5:09 pmAh, shoot, it resets injuries every season. I’d have to manually beat up their team before the start of every year, and I don’t know how I’d automate that.
Set Gillooly=1 in the config file?
February 9th, 2008 at 5:10 pm“The A’s play Bobby Crosby at shortstop.”
Just checked the #’s. Wow Crosby’s worse than I remembered. Here’s the stats from Zips projections. M’s are better at SS, CF, LF, & C. On average, A’s are at 5.2 RC/27, M’s at 4.8. The caveat, A’s are much more injury prone. But the A’s defense is much better.
RC27 RC
February 9th, 2008 at 5:13 pm1b Sexson,Richie 4.8 59.1
Barton,Daric 5.9 83.7
2b Lopez,Jose 3.8 60.3
Ellis,Mark 4.9 67.9
3b Beltre,Adrian 5.0 85.5
Chavez,Eric 5.5 76.7
ss Betancourt 4.4 65.9
Crosby,Bobby 3.7 38.5
c Johjima,Kenji 4.4 57.3
Suzuki,Kurt 4.2 49.5
rf Wilkerson,Brad 4.5 52.2
Buck,Travis 6.0 55.5
cf Suzuki,Ichiro 5.9 104.6
Denorfia,Chris 5.5 65.8
lf Ibanez,Raul 5.7 87.9
Brown,Emil 4.3 44.7
dh Vidro,Jose 5.0 65.1
Cust,Jack 6.8 83.6
Ah shoot. Mat beat me to the punch line.
February 9th, 2008 at 5:14 pmVegas odds of each AL West team winning the AL Pennant (uodates 2/5/08):
February 9th, 2008 at 5:20 pmLos Angeles Angels 4/1
Seattle Mariners 14/1
Oakland Athletics 40/1
Texas Rangers 50/1
We won 88 games last year, Pythagerus be damned. We did that because we won the close games because we had a strong bullpen that could hold games. We lost blowouts because, no matter what, we had to send a 4 and 5 pitcher out there to get shellacked. Sometimes, our offense would keep up, and our bullpen would come through in the end, and we’d squeak by. Other times, we’d roll over and lose by 10.
Additionally, we got murdered by our chief competition in the division, those Angels. If we can close that gap even slightly, then all bets are off.
Also, I’m thoroughly curious as to what the Diamondbacks end up doing. That’s a team in ‘07 that defied the Pythagorean Theory worse than us, and who not only won a tight division, but also a playoff series. Similarly, they even had a big-time pitching aquisition over the offseason. Now, I get the fact their defense is better, and that their core is primarily young guns, but when you go ahead and give all of said young guns a slight bump up in productivity, you’re defying the M’s.
And what I mean by that is, our second basemen and first baseman have to bounce back from their underwhelming performances of last year. Our shortstop will likely (hopefully?) become more patient at the plate. Our GM will realize Vidro as a DH is possibly the most idiotic thing anyone could have ever thought up, ever, or Reed/Jimerson mercifully relieve Ibanez of his fielding duties and regulate him to DH. Our bullpen, as good as it is, will be better because it won’t be overused and torn to shreds by exhaustion near the end of the season. These are all, of course, wishful thinkings, but by no means a stretch.
I wasn’t really a fan of the trade. But, I think this overuse of computer-generated analysis finally went too far when it predicted the A’s will have the best chance to win the division. I think the Angels are a damn good team. But I also think that we are by no means buried before the season begins. While I harbor plently of homerism, I really can’t see 95 wins as a ridiculous over-the-top stretch.
The fact we won 88 games with that late season plunge, that broken down bullpen, that awful starting rotation, and those everyday players mired in Burrell-esque seasonlong slumps tells me 88 is more than plausible with a huge rotation upgrade, a stand-pat bullpen (the loss of Sherrill is more than made up for by the fact we don’t have Weaver and HoRo…starting, at least), a stand-pat defense, assuming Wilkerson is only a marginal upgrade from Guillen (which he isn’t, Guillen is legendarily awful), and a slightly upgraded offense, assuming Wilkerson is a marginal downgrade from Guillen, Lopez will play around his potential, and Sexson will play hard since he’s playing for a contract. To me, that’s all more than fair.
Maybe I just want to hope. Maybe I love this team so much, I’m blinded by obvious truths. But maybe, just maybe, I’m on to something. One can only hope, right?
February 9th, 2008 at 6:18 pmOveruse of computer-generated analysis.
Sigh.
February 9th, 2008 at 6:51 pmI wonder if there is a super computer somewhere powerful enough to find a way to make HoRam project not to suck.
February 9th, 2008 at 7:01 pmYou, sir, go too far when your computer-generated, statistical, mathematics mumbo-jumbo puts forth a result that is not only offensive to the senses, but immoral and perverse as well.
On a rational note… I’ve really appreciated all the work you’ve put into this.
February 9th, 2008 at 7:03 pm67 - That would be in Star Trek’s evil twin world. HoRam would be our ace. And would have a goatee.
February 9th, 2008 at 7:03 pm“Overuse of computer-generated analysis.”
Also know as “overuse of the same things that the Red Sox and similar foward-thinking FOs have used to be build successful teams.”
February 9th, 2008 at 7:12 pmI can’t help but laugh my ass off about those results. I can’t say there’s something wrong with the way it was done or even that the results aren’t accurate, but I’d put my money on:
1. The A’s not winning the division
2. The over of 77 wins for the M’s
3. The over even if you pushed it to 80…
This is the only statistical analysis I’ve seen on win projection that has the M’s significantly under 85 wins. It seems to me if I choose to agree with this I also choose to disregard all the others. Not willing to do that.
February 9th, 2008 at 7:41 pmLet’s face it…you can run a computer program a million times but it’s still never going to accurately predict a team’s season. It’s sports…anything can happen. Take that same program, run an NFL season with last year’s lineups and see how many times the Giants win the Super Bowl…
February 9th, 2008 at 7:43 pmAnyways, someone up the ladder here made a comment about the M’s selling the farm for a power hitter sometime this season…I agree. I totally see them doing that..or worse, signing Barry Bonds
Griffey anyone?
See here.
I take it you’re the second guy.
February 9th, 2008 at 7:47 pmWhat other “statistical analysis” have you seen that puts them over or at 85 wins?
February 9th, 2008 at 7:52 pmClearly, Vegas disagrees vehemently with the, uh, “computer generated analysis”.
When in doubt, follow the money trail. Or, in this case, follow that of which actually has something riding on being correct.
February 9th, 2008 at 7:53 pmgwanggung….
February 9th, 2008 at 7:54 pmOnly if he’s the better looking one….
*grin*
The money lines last year were way, way off on any number of teams that were more accurately predicted by DMB and other similar simulations. The lines reflect current consensus, not reality.
February 9th, 2008 at 7:55 pmVegas lines have a lot more to do with how the casinos think people will bet than anything else.
February 9th, 2008 at 8:01 pmVegas lines are ALL about convincing suckers to do some sucky financial planning.
February 9th, 2008 at 8:24 pm#72 — The simulations are for the regular season, not playoffs. If you ran an NFL simulation for the regular season prior to the actual 2007 season, I would guess that the Giants making the playoffs would not have been uncommon scenario. What is shocking about DMZ’s simulations is the rarity of a a really good season from this group of M’s. Now if that rarity occurs, than anything can happen.
February 9th, 2008 at 8:26 pmVegas lines are created with full knowledge of everything that is known in the sabermetric community. The casinos employ statisticians who are the match of anyone you can find in a front office or data collecting agency. They also employ gut reaction line setters whose job it is to pow wow about what lines should be in a wisdom of the (small) crowd approach, basically using conventional wisdom and intangibles to set the lines. They basically employ the famous beer and tacos approach. The lines are then set in such a way that they do not raise too many eyebrows- but they generally lean toward drawing in those on the side of conventional wisdom. Where the inefficiency occurs is once the public begins placing bets- the line will move against conventional wisdom (whatever it may be) to diversify the casino’s risk. They have the benefit of knowing both what is most likely to happen and what the public thinks will happen. If there is a small percentage of the public that is smart enough to exploit the inefficiency between the two they do not mind, as long as they remain a very small minority. A better educated betting public will force them to rely more on stats and less on conventional wisdom when setting lines and greatly diminish this inefficiency (and their potential for profit). This is one reason why casinos are so willing to work with ESPN and other media outlets. The more they can help in propagating the flawed concepts of intangibles and gut instincts, the more ignorance there will be in the betting public, and the more profit potential they have per game.
February 9th, 2008 at 8:30 pmDMZ,
Well, I am not in the business of winning arguments, but I will attempt to clarify why I made the observations I made. I actually think your post in reply supported many of my points. So, allow me to respond.
By the way… I am not a regular poster, so I am not sure the best way to quote your comments back to you, but I will try to do it right.
YOU: I disagree vehemently that there’s an inherently negative point of view here. I ran projections. There’s the numbers. Unless you think I made them up, how is this negative?
I argue that you USE numbers to justify your negative point of view. And then hide behind the “absolute” quality of numbers to make disputing them seem naive. And you use the fact that you have some status in the baseball writing world and the fact that it is your blog to dismiss suggestions to the contrary. You will take this as an attack, but if you consider it for a moment, you might realize it has some truth.
I suggested some factors that might be considered outside of numbers and I found your responses to be condescending and dismissive. Is this a good way to promote dialogue? I was not making a judgement one way or the other on these factors, just saying that I thought they should be part of the discussion as having an impact on the game, measurable or not. You assume the negative stance on just about all of them. Here are some of them with my comments:
ME: -The addition of a TOR pitcher and its impact on the excitement, intensity, commitment, and performance of players on the team.
YOU: -Teams that acquire a so-called “TOR” pitcher don’t perform better than you’d expect.
Similarly, teams that are competitive don’t perform better than you’d expect, and teams with no chance don’t perform worse.
This is just double-speak. What does this mean? “Better than you’d expect” based on what? “Teams with no chance don’t perform worse?” That’s a triple-negative and just avoids making a point.
ME: -Players benefitting from better coaching.
YOU: Generally speaking, this doesn’t have the effect often ascribed to it. Certain coaches do well with some players and don’t help others. There are very few coaches that make any noticeable positive impact across most of their players.
Just because you say that, doesn’t make it true. This is exactly my point. Because you take the negative stance on so many things (LIKE: coaches not making a noticeable impact) you assume that I presented it from the perspective of thinking coaches DO make an impact. You tip you hand here. You make these claims as if you were an “expert” but don’t back them up. You mistake is that you think that since nobody has ever been able to QUANTIFY it, it must mean that it doesn’t HAVE AN IMPACT. Nobody knows how to quantify love between two people, but you can’t argue that it has a HUGE impact on how they behave.
ME: -Players benefitting from not having a steroid suspect in the clubhouse (e.g.; Guillen)
YOU; The M’s won 116 games with one of the most-widely-suspected steroid users in the lineup: if Guillen mattered, that certainly should have, but didn’t.
Again, you assume that I am wearing rose-colored glasses hoping that having Guillen gone will help the clubhouse and that somehow mentioning Boonie proves my point mute. But you missed my point: In the absence of your ability to QUANTIFY the impact, you pretend it has marginal or no impact. That’s wrong. It just can’t be MEASURED and since you folks are in the business of measuring, you want to dismiss all things unmeasurable. I think Guillen WAS a good presence and I will miss him. Some say his absence will be a good thing. I just pose the question and you assume that I am the patsy fan who hopes for the best and you are here to set me straight… but with nothing to back it up.
ME: -How often a player recovers from a bad season and what factors play into that
YOU: I don’t understand how this affects anything.
Thanks for saying that you don’t understand something. What are the factors that contribute to a player going from a poor year to a comeback performance? And how often does it happen? If you don’t see how this effects anything, you have forgotten that Sexson and Lopez (among others) play for the 2008 Mariners.
ME:-The impact of having one manager for the whole year and having a single approach from spring training onward
YOU: The M’s didn’t play substantially better when they had Hargrove for full years versus half years. There’s no reason to think that McLaren’s a significantly better manager than Hargrove.
This is a good point on your part. I hope you can concede a good point, too.
ME: -The possible impact of a certain group of guys gelling or not gelling together and why that happens
YOU: Chemistry, if it exists in this form, doesn’t have a significant effect.
Perfect example. You can’t quantify it, so you dismiss it as having “no significant effect.” I beg to differ. I have played on and coached MANY teams and would argue that chemistry has a VERY significant impact. It should be less at the major league level because they are pros, yes… but it is still a huge factor. We think we can win, we have pitchers we believe in, we get along with each other and pick each other up… and now we play like we feel that way. It is a huge factor. Or maybe I should just say, it MIGHT be a factor. But you don’t really know, so why pretend you know is ISN’T? You CAN’T know, but you dismiss it like you do.
ME: -The real impact of clubhouse leadership
YOU: Cross-apply previous argument.
But the previous argument didn’t work for me.
ME: My point is, numbers give us the mean expectation. And the mean expectation will never be “Win the world series” and probably seldom has been, even for the teams that wound up winning.
YOU: You’re looking at this backwards, I think. The mean expectation for all teams is “no chance at the World Series” and that’s accurate, but going into a season, you can do a pretty good job handicapping the races and identifying teams that do.
I have seen little success handicapping teams other than plain common sense. I don’t need sims to tell me that the Red Sox will be better than the Orioles in the East. But that common sense also tells me to still watch the games. But some amount of my knowing that is because of the character of the teams, the towns, the players, the owners, and the groups expectation to win or lose.
ME: -The factors that will ultimately spell a championship for the Ms will not be measured beforehand. Look at 2001. They were expected to take 3rd place at best.
YOU: I could write a ton about the failure of prediction models in the 2001 series.
Bingo. This is precisely at the heart of my argument. Numbers will always fail to predict the moments we most hope for. And that is not something you want your readers thinking about. The 2001 season was the high-point for Ms fans, the closest we have gotten. And the numbers failed to tell that story ahead of time. Of course you can explain it after the fact. The time the Ms did something very close to what we all hoped for, all you can do is explain AFTERWARDS why the numbers failed to pick it up. Doesn’t this leave you a little suspicious that maybe their failure to accurately predict outcomes is due to the fact that unmeasurable factors DO play a major role?
I look forward to your further thoughts.
February 9th, 2008 at 8:31 pmYesterday I ran 100 seasons with the exact same software, projections, and parameters that USSMariner did today. My results were quite similar, save the M’s average win total was 80, with 5 seasons topping 90 instead of just 3. Though the A’s didn’t fare as well as they did in USSMariner sims, everything else was eerily close.
If someone wishes to discount any validity of DMB software or ZiPS, thats fine. Yet USSMariner is only quoting the results DMB spewed out. The facts of their data is this: only 8 times out of 200 did the M’s reach/top 90 wins. And that is WITH ‘2 Aces….TWO…..ACES!!!!111!!!one!!11obi-1!!!!!’
February 9th, 2008 at 8:34 pm“Maybe I just want to hope. Maybe I love this team so much, I’m blinded by obvious truths. But maybe, just maybe, I’m on to something. One can only hope, right?”
I’d rather ‘hope with reason’ than ‘hope without it’.
February 9th, 2008 at 8:44 pmI don’t understand all the surprise at the results that DMZ posted. As has been pointed out earlier, the M’s weren’t really an 88 win team last year, but rather a 79 win team masquerading as an 88 win team. The differences between last year’s team and this include:
- Vidro had an unsustainably high BABIP last year that will undoubtedly lower his offense appreciably.
- Ibanez had long stretches last year when he looked like he was done, and others when he looked more like he did three or four years ago. This year, he’s older, and the long stretches of poor play are likely to be longer
- Ichiro is a year older and probably won’t hit as well
- Johjima is a year older and probably won’t hit as well
- Betancourt had a better year with the bet than anyone might have expected in 2007. It would be easy to believe that 2008 is a little worse
- Beltre is a year older, but still not very old. Will we see another 2007 from him or will it be more like 2005 or 2006?
- Wilkerson probably won’t hit as well as Guillen
- Indeed, the only hitters on the team who might reasonably be expected NOT to be poorer than in 2007 are Lopez and Sexson, and I wouldn’t necessarily bet a lot on improvement from either one.
- Putz can be expected to have a few more blown saves. Some of those will translate into losses.
Yes, we have Bedard, but he’ll be out there less than 20% of the time, whereas all of the above will be happening 100% of the time. 79 wins + much worse offense + Bedard = 75 wins is real, real easy to believe.
That said, I hope the M’s win 105 games in 2008!
February 9th, 2008 at 8:50 pmHow did the Diamondbacks do in the sims?
I only ask because they are widely considered the favorite to win their division after winning the NL West and a playoff series last year. And they did that with a Pythagerean mark of 79-83.
February 9th, 2008 at 9:00 pmThe is a great reason to be optimistic! The worse the M’s play, the sooner Bavasi gets fired…
February 9th, 2008 at 9:15 pm#82 AMEN AGAIN, BRO!
February 9th, 2008 at 9:18 pmI like “don’t tase me, bro!” better.
February 9th, 2008 at 9:21 pmSo I’ll try and do this quickly.
I reject the argument that I’ve got some negative point of view and use numbers to justify it. You don’t know me. I wonder how I’m supposed to take the accusation that I “use numbers like a politician” and use them to justify a skewed world view besides as an attack? That’s a pretty heated charge to make, that I’m twisting the truth to meet some agenda I have. I don’t know what agenda that would be, or how I would benefit. I don’t know why I’ve spent so much time over so long doing this if I’m not a fan.
I don’t understand why you saw those responses as dismissive and condescending, but that’s your right to take them as you will. They were certainly curt, but there’s no derision there.
To the points:
On “exceeding expectations” — teams that add a star pitcher don’t win more games than you’d expect given the sum of their talent, and similarly, don’t lose less. They win as many games as they are good. Now, you’re going to argue that in a second, but that’s how the definition’s set.
Also, accusing someone of “double-speak” is not particularly conductive to a reasonable conversation.
On “better coaching”. You’re accusing me here of taking a negative stance by asserting that:
Generally speaking, this doesn’t have the effect often ascribed to it. Certain coaches do well with some players and don’t help others. There are very few coaches that make any noticeable positive impact across most of their players.
Which isn’t a negative stance at all, for one — it’s a belief based on my knowledge of the studies done on this.
You tip you hand here. You make these claims as if you were an “expert” but don’t back them up. You mistake is that you think that since nobody has ever been able to QUANTIFY it, it must mean that it doesn’t HAVE AN IMPACT.
That’s not what I said at all, for one: my point there was that generally speaking, it’s not as dramatic as people often think it is, because usually, coaches do well helping some but not others.
Further, I’m no expert, but there’ve been a bunch of studies done on this — as I said, by better minds than me — and even someone like Leo Mazzone, who you can certainly call a success — and they haven’t found anything there.
My point here, as in all things, is that if there’s an effect, it’s so small that there’s been no way to find it, and if it’s that small, it’s not significant.
So to steroids.
The argument here is that the team will do better because they don’t have a steroid suspect. My response was
The M’s won 116 games with one of the most-widely-suspected steroid users in the lineup: if Guillen mattered, that certainly should have, but didn’t.
Again, you assume that I am wearing rose-colored glasses hoping that having Guillen gone will help the clubhouse and that somehow mentioning Boonie proves my point mute. But you missed my point: In the absence of your ability to QUANTIFY the impact, you pretend it has marginal or no impact. That’s wrong. It just can’t be MEASURED and since you folks are in the business of measuring, you want to dismiss all things unmeasurable.
I don’t… In a sense, yes — I’m much more interested in things we know and can talk about than, say, angels on the head of a pin, or the smaller fluctuations of wave forms. If we can say that having a good bench is worth two or three games in the standings but having a suspected steroid user might be bad or good, but we don’t know how much, or whether it’ll happen, I’d rather talk about the bench. And so it is here.
I also would suggest don’t know me very well if you think I dismiss all things unmeasurable. I’m not making assumptions about you, and would appreciate a similar courtesy.
I think Guillen WAS a good presence and I will miss him. Some say his absence will be a good thing. I just pose the question and you assume that I am the patsy fan who hopes for the best and you are here to set me straight… but with nothing to back it up.
I made no such assumption, and am baffled why you think that.
My point, as always, is that we argue if Guillen was good for the team last year, or bad, or if it’s good for him to leave, or bad, and really, if there’s no way to resolve this or even talk about it reasonably, I don’t see why it’s as important as the team’s defense, for instance.
On comeback players:
What are the factors that contribute to a player going from a poor year to a comeback performance? And how often does it happen? If you don’t see how this effects anything, you have forgotten that Sexson and Lopez (among others) play for the 2008 Mariners.
Ah. There’s a lot to that, and I think injury and wear plays into down years a lot more than is often acknowledged, but to a larger sense, I absolutely think work ethic is a huge factor in coming back from injuries and growth, and I’ve talked about this at length in our discussions about prospect paths.
On chemistry: again, I think we’re just going to have to part ways here and agree to disagree. My point is this: I don’t know whether or not chemistry, as we’re discussing it here, exists. What I know is that chemistry is frequently attributed to winning teams after the fact, and there are happy, hard-working teams that stink and teams that hate each other and do well. No one can say what causes good chemistry, or bad-good chemistry, and people who think they’ve solved the problem and bring in chemistry players very often see the opposite of what they expected (see the M’s, for instance, in the recent dark years).
Moreover - and we’ve talked about this here before - the minor leagues weed out the worst team players pretty quickly. You have to be really talented to make your way up the ladder to have people who hate you offer contracts, and even then, many of the players you hear about who are jerks in one sense have other qualities that make up for it.
So there’s a selection process that goes on. It’s not that this might not have a huge effect at the lower levels, even — but by the time you get to the majors, just like players who can’t hit in pressure situations have failed to make it, so have players who might dramatically harm their team’s performance.
And further, if everyone who has studied this and tried to find an effect fails, at some point I’m willing to acknowledge that if it’s out there, it’s not that big an effect that we can see it.
So the expectations v 2001 argument:
Numbers will always fail to predict the moments we most hope for. And that is not something you want your readers thinking about.
I don’t? And again, I’m not sure how long you’ve been around, or what you’ve read, but this makes me suspect you might not have seen us in our more exuberant and irrational moments. I don’t know if that’s the case, but please be assured that I see something new every time I watch a game, and that’s why I love it.
The 2001 season was the high-point for Ms fans, the closest we have gotten. And the numbers failed to tell that story ahead of time. Of course you can explain it after the fact. The time the Ms did something very close to what we all hoped for, all you can do is explain AFTERWARDS why the numbers failed to pick it up. Doesn’t this leave you a little suspicious that maybe their failure to accurately predict outcomes is due to the fact that unmeasurable factors DO play a major role?
I don’t think there’s a response here I can give that’s not going to inflame you further, so let me say this instead: I wasn’t nearly as smart about this stuff in 2001 as I was now, and there wasn’t nearly as much freely available research. We didn’t know about DIPS in 2001, for instance, just to pick one. The good stuff that off-season was, if I recall, a really good study showing that protection in a lineup wasn’t a significant help to the protectee (the Grabiner work).
Today I can do sims using data from an outstanding, freely available projection system in a well-known, excellent simulation engine. I couldn’t do that in 2001. Maybe we’d have seen something interesting.
I know at the time, I thought Boone was a bad move, Bell would suck, I hated that Al Martin was in left (for the backup-wife-beating in particular) and I wasn’t too hot on some of the other guys in the lineup.
I was making a lot of guesses based on not particularly great data or analysis. I can’t find anything where I said “they’re going to win 50 games” but I remember I wasn’t very excited.
I do remember that I loved watching Ichiro play from the first few games and started preaching the gospel almost immediately. Which is a whole other thing, the vast joy I take watching Ichiro play — and not because he puts up particularly gaudy numbers.
February 9th, 2008 at 9:21 pmManjini - if people seem short in responding to your comments, it’s because different versions of those same comments been responded to again and again and again over the years. You’re trying to be polite, which is appreciated, but, man, you’re just not saying anything new.
“You guys spin the stats in order to further your negative agenda.” That’s just BS. DMZ ran some projections that indicated a 6% chance of the M’s making the playoffs. I take it you would like to focus on the 6% and ignore the 94%? That’s called wishing. My cup is 6% full! And a blog by M’s fans about how M’s fans wish the season would go wouldn’t be very interesting. This site is, at its core, about analysis. If there were some analysis that indicated a positive result, don’t you think we’d be talking about it? Seriously.
“There are intangible and unquantifiable aspects to baseball that might cause the M’s to be better.” No shxt. In fact, there’s about a 6% chance those will come into play next year to the extent necessary to get the M’s to the playoffs. To point out that anything could happen doesn’t add to the discussion. We all know that. Yes, the M’s might “gel” and Sexson might have resurgence and Bedard and Felix might be the best 2 pitchers in baseball, and the modified coaching staff might coax more from Lopez, etc. etc. We know these are possibilities. But we’re not talking about possibility, we’re talking about probability. This was already posted once, but maybe you missed it: http://lookoutlanding.com/story/2008/2/9/164534/1904.
Seems to me that what you’d like out of the authors is:
The M’s might do well this year! Yay!
I don’t think USSM would be the smash hit it is today if that’s all the authors posted.
February 9th, 2008 at 9:35 pmPersonally, I can’t bring myself to care much anymore whether people think this site is too negative, or think we should all expect the 2008 Mariners to win 120 games because of team chemistry, or whatever.
This site is a wealth of information, and if people would rather just ceaselessly complain about the tone of the posts here rather than take advantage of that information, I just can’t really bring myself to care about what they have to say.
February 9th, 2008 at 9:39 pmDMZ, CCW, et al…
I certainly did not mean to come off as angry or make any personal attacks. I sincerely did not wish either. It is so hard to write tone, as many have said.
I respect that many may not agree with my comments and maybe it HAS all been said before. I have certainly seen posts in the past that tried to say things along the same lines.
But, look… I am not a fairy tale fan. I don’t want a blog that suggests the Ms will “just be awesome and away we go.” But at times this blog has seemed (to me) to be almost the opposite… a blog that suggests the Ms will “always suck and away we go.” And that to me is one-sided. Whether it be based on analysis or opinion, it is not the whole picture. Because when something happens that differs from that, you say they “outperformed the numbers” and that means they really weren’t as good as they were. But they WERE.
I do still reject the responses to my comments about the unmeasurable factors having a big impact. I am hearing a lot of what sounds to me like, “If it can’t be measured, it’s impact must be small… or we could measure it.” And I just disagree, so that’s OK. I think someone can be depressed on Mondays and not know why or what about… and they might actually hit a baseball 23% worse on Mondays as a result. But you can’t measure it, so you seem to say that this means it doesn’t have that 23% impact. I say it still has the impact, but that we will attribute it to something more tangible and that might steer our calculations off in the wrong direction. Do you see my point? I really don’t mean to be argumentative or goading here… I just really think this is the central problem with the kinds of measurements that we use to quantify the game.
One final point. I don’t think I ever used the word “agenda.” That is very different than saying you seem to have a negative “take” or “slant” justified by numbers. I do not think you have any agenda, nor do see how it would benefit you t