Eminor3rd

QUOTE (GreenSox @ Jul 17, 2013 -> 10:01 PM) I certainly think issues such as lazy defense, bad base running and poor managing has contributed to half of our misery this year. I don't know the extent to which WAR measures those factors. The team isn't very good, but the starting pitching is good, the front of the bullpen was too prior to Crain's injury. Certainly not a horrendous team as it has played, although a below average team. It mostly doesn't -- team WAR is just the sum or individual player WAR. So anything that happens that has to do with how the players interact with one another or how different streaks or sequences of events occur will NOT be reflected. These are the factors that make reality reality and so it cannot be predicted entirely by a mathematical formula.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jul 17, 2013 -> 09:10 PM) But these aren't projections, this is actual WAR accumulated this season. Cleveland is 14 games ahead of the White Sox, yet their total WAR is identical.To suggest they are even in performance but that much better based on managing or luck doesn't make sense. Just like all stats, basic and most advanced, it is flawed. Perhaps very flawed. I take it to mean not all exactly equal WAR players are exactly equal. Some must be far better than others. I don't think you understood the beginning part of Jake's post. The reason it is off is because there is nothing like a normal distribution of events in real life. Also, it is a fallacy to assume that because someone will regress, they will regress completely to the original projection or true talent -- just that they will regress TOWARD it. Past events, whether likely or not, are in the bank, so to speak, there's no law that says it all has to even out. That's the gambler's fallacy. It's like if a coin flip is 50/50 and you flip 5 heads in a row, its not more likely that the next 5 will be tails -- it's 50/50 every time. Again, take a look at those articles. Especially the second one.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jul 17, 2013 -> 07:14 PM) So the Sox team WAR is the same as Cleveland's. the Angels team WAR is ome of the best in baseball. There is reason to doubt WAR as a useful, accurate tool. I like to use it, but ii really is not consistent with the standings, and I know nothing is going to be perfect, but it is significantly off in many cases. Again -- it comes down to using a stat to answer the question it was meant to answer. All linear weights-based metrics, including WAR, are designed to make a descriptive, context-neutral evaluation of performance so as to be able to compare such performances across different situations (players, leagues, eras, strategies, etc.) It is essentially using math to find an ultimate common denominator. What WAR does is tell you how many wins would be created by a performance in an entirely average chain of events. This never actually occurs, but it's useful because now we can make comparisons. Projections seek to do the same thing -- describe the average outcome. What those standings say is this: "Here is what actually happened and here is what the player's performances should have produced on average . It essentially is what happened versus what the teams "earned." Then, they take it one step further and say "if the players continue to play as they have, their results should regress toward what their performance 'earns,' and they should end up closer to this " If you think these projections are claiming to be a crystal ball, you are mistaken, and you should read these articles (one of them involving the White Sox even!) by old Dave Cameron: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/of-projecti...nd-predictions/ http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-differe...nd-projections/ Anyone who has watched or played sports knows that the winner is often not the most deserving or most talented -- that is, I believe, at the very core of what makes sports interesting -- and these types of standings strive to give us a deeper look at team performance by not just showing us the winners, but also showing us who has "played the best." It's interesting information for fans like all of us, who tend to spend a ton of time picking apart every aspect of our team and its plight.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 17, 2013 -> 06:28 PM) And why is that? Because that is the way that these stats were biased. Change the importance of a piece of the puzzle, and their values could change drastically. "Biased" is the wrong word though. Run values that are attached to both offensive and defensive metrics are based on large sample correlations of historical data. No one is arbitrarily "deciding" what things are worth -- they are studying how events impact the game and weighting them mathematically.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jul 17, 2013 -> 05:48 PM) Yeah, I appreciate what you always bring to the table. Although I'm not sure wrc+/woba can provide the entire context...there has to be some value to the fact that baseball games are decided by who scores the most runs and Adam Dunn is capable of producing them extremely well in short bursts. There is a context that can be provided in simpler ways than just isn't with some of these more advanced metrics (at least not to my knowledge). Yeah, sequencing is an interesting matter. To my knowledge, most attempts at judging the value of consistency vs. streakiness have been inconclusive, though I do specifically remember someone creating a stat called BACON (Batting Consistency) that was supposed to measure who had their hits distributed most evenly. If I recall correctly, Ichiro was the champion there. Ahh, yes: http://www.plunkeveryone.com/?p=95

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jul 17, 2013 -> 04:15 PM) Which they obviously did not...but we can, god forbid, look at how many RBI and home runs each one has! I have nothing against advanced stats, in fact, I am entirely in favor of them. Sometimes I think we are a bit quick to throw out some of the older stats in favor of the new shiny ones. The fact that Dunn has been as consistent as he has in his career goes to the fact that he is going to hit 40ish home runs and knock in 90-100 ish runs regardless of how much control he has over how many people get on base or don't get on base each year. Relative to other middle of the order hitters, those are fairly favorable numbers. In fact, so much so, that not many of those hitters are going to be available on the market. Obviously Dunn comes with some warts and everyone knows what those are - we don't need wrc+ to tell us that. I applaud the use of wrc+ to determine just how much those warts affect his value, but it doesn't mean I have to live by them. When the stakes are this high and the games become fewer and fewer, there is something to the fact that Adam Dunn has hit 430 home runs in his career and I can put him at the plate or I can put Jacoby Ellsbury at the plate. In my opinion, there is a value to that that cannot be precisely quantified, but it can be quantified by the fact that this is the type of hitter Adam Dunn is, because he has been incredibly consistent in doing so over his career, and I don't need to overcomplicate it by trying to put a precise value upon him which factors in 94 different things. Yes, all this is true. I don't think the old numbers should be thrown out, so to speak, they just need to be used to answer the questions they are suited to answer (OPS needs to be thrown out though, in my opinion, because it doesn't answer the one thing it's supposed to answer). The whole reason I brought this up is because we seem to be coming back to "Adam Dunn sucks he hits .200!" vs. "Yeah but he hits 40 homers so it's worth it!" which is a very valid and important debate -- is the power worth the low average? And there's a family of stats designed to help us answer that very question that I don't think people are using. Batting average answers some questions perfectly, I just don't think it answers THIS question perfectly. Fortunately, wRC+/wOBA does.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jul 17, 2013 -> 03:56 PM) And so Ellsbury's offense has been worth 1/3 of a win more than Dunn's offense so far this season? Correct. Or, more precisely, the things that Ellsbury has done on offense would typically result in one third more win. The critical difference in this number and actual wins is the presence of context. So obviously it's possible that most of Ellsbury's hits came in crucial situations (bases loaded, bottom of the 9th, etc.) and resulted in many more wins, or vice versa for Adam Dunn, but in order to control for game situation and let us compare players on an even field, each event is given a run value based on what it produces on average. For example, a HR can obviously be worth anywhere between one run and four runs, but this year, it's been worth 2.081 runs on average, so both players get credit for 2.081 runs for every homerun they hit. So when I say Ells has contributed 10.5 runs above average, those runs are assuming all of his contributions produced average results.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jul 17, 2013 -> 03:13 PM) This number just doesn't mean anything to me. I don't know what "league average run production" is off the top of my head and I don't know how it scales. Ok, another way of looking at it is wRAA, which is essentially wRC without the scaling. It's measured in runs Dunn = 7.1 Ells = 10.5 So the sum of Dunn's offensive contributions would create, on average, roughly 7 more runs than a league average player. Ellsbury is a touch over 10. To put THAT in context, historically, teams tend to get one win for every 10 runs they score ABOVE the amount of runs they give up. So, ignoring defense in this case, Ellsbury's contributions are worth about one additional win COMPARED to average. Does that make sense?

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Jul 17, 2013 -> 02:45 PM) OK, one formula I just looked up included reaching on error in the formula, but excluded intentional walks. I'm not getting that. I'm not aware of any formula that includes reaching on error. For what it's worth, I usually reference FanGraphs because they use Tango's formulas: wOBA = (0.691×uBB + 0.722×HBP + 0.884×1B + 1.257×2B + 1.593×3B + 2.058×HR) / (AB + BB – IBB + SF + HBP) Also, here are all of the historical component run values by year: http://www.fangraphs.com/guts.aspx?type=cn

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jul 17, 2013 -> 02:56 PM) How big of a difference is 3 points in wRC+? Is that a small difference or a big difference? It seems very small. 3% of league average.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Jul 17, 2013 -> 02:37 PM) All stats are flawed by OPS is extremely flawed. I use it because it's simple, widely reported, and gives a base guideline. I also take into consideration the differences in value between two similar OPS's, Taking just what guys do at the plate into consideration here - Adam Dunn has a .791 OPS, Jacoby Ellsbury .790. Logic says that Dunn should have created more runs in general - a microscopic measure, but more nonetheless - yet Ellsbury has been signficantly more valuable simply with a bat in his hands because Ellsbury has been on base about 40 more times than Dunn (don't have the exact number but it's good enough). Right, Ellsbury is sitting on 113 wRC+ versus Dunn's 110, and the difference is in the run values of the types of events involved. If you jsut look at OPS, you'd have to argue about whether or not you think Dunn's power is more valuable than Ellsbury's on base ability, and you'd never agree because it would be subjective. But linear weights stats just tell you straight out, based on which of them produce, on average, more runs.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Jul 17, 2013 -> 02:33 PM) What is the universe from which the weights are created? All of MLB history? The last 10 years? The last year? There's still some subjectivity there in deciding that part of it, but I agree that wOBA is better than most. Typically the stats are adjusted every season. If I remember correctly from THE BOOK, the formula was created using historical data, but the probability weights can be altered to fit any sample size.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jul 17, 2013 -> 02:30 PM) How many players have a bad avg. bad obp bad OPS but are good with the advanced and vice versa? I would say the answer is very few, and it would be those who add extraordinary amounts of value on defense and on the basepaths QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jul 17, 2013 -> 02:30 PM) What should it matter if Adam Dunn was worth 1.8 wins in 2012 or 1.4? What matters is his next AB. You're totally right, but these numbers we're talking about don't attempt to do that just like BA and OPS don't attempt to do that. It's totally fair to want to be able to use a stat to predict the future, but that doesn't have anything to do with wOBA being a more precise and accurate measure of value than OPS, because those are all descriptive statistics.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Jul 17, 2013 -> 02:29 PM) Well that's odd, because there's a team out there that's a game back from a playoff spot and 4.5 back from the division lead that has splits of .197/.261/.382/.643 from their DH slot this year, and I know OPS is only for cave men but there's enough of a reference point here and that it says "they suck even if they played against a 12 man defense so I am going to post the OPS because suck it!" Of course, I am talking about the Orioles. Indeed. The Orioles are an example of a team that could get a ton of value from Adam Dunn if the Sox picked up some of that salary. The Rays could, too, but you;d have to assume that you;d need to pick up nearly all of the salary, and anyway they might still get nervous because of the whole Pat Burrell thing, lol.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 17, 2013 -> 02:21 PM) I don't buy that today's advanced stats have settled anything. I'd bet money in five or ten years, there will be another generation of new stats to replace the current crop and fix all of the biases and bugs in the one's today. At the end of the day, all of the numbers are going to have some level of bias built in, if for no other reason, than what does the person who created them feel is important. In baseball, there is no one right answer for that question. All of these numbers tell a story. But that's the very nature of knowledge! In ten years, we may discover something about quantum physics that makes Newton's laws obsolete, but that doesn't change the fact that Newton's laws are currently the best and most useful set of axioms with which to explain and predict physical reality. Numbers aren't biased themselves, but use of them certainly can be. You're right that they all tell a different story and have different uses. What I'm trying to say is this: 1. wOBA/wRC+ are precisely the correct numbers to answer the questions about net offensive value that people are asking about Adam Dunn. 2. OPS attempts to do the same thing, but is way worse at it. Like there isn't a situation where OPS would be a better measure of anything than wOBA/wRC+. I think batting average, for example, is a more useful stat because at least there isn;t a clearly better analog that tells you the exact same thing as batting average.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jul 17, 2013 -> 02:18 PM) So if you look at his advanced numbers, and his outdated OPS numbers, even with all his strikeouts, and all his home runs, Adam Dunn in each circumstance comes out at about an average to slightly better than average DH. Teams don't pay those guys $15 million a year if they have a choice, let alone give you something of value for the opportunity. Agreed. Adam Dunn probably only has value to someone if the Sox pick up substantial money. A team with a really bad 1B or DH would, for example, probably be willing to pay an Adam Dunn $7m or so.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Jul 17, 2013 -> 02:11 PM) I don't like picnics, I want to have pool party Sounds like someone needs to start a poll thread!

QUOTE (hammerhead johnson @ Jul 17, 2013 -> 02:01 PM) You know that Eminor is gonna blow a gasket if you keep quoting these primitive OBP and SLG numbers, correct? Haha I'm not going to blow a gasket, I'm just frustrated because there's so much disagreement on Dunn's production because he's so good at some things and so bad at others. The arguments are really good and important ones, except that someone already came up with a way to settle them and I want people to know that they are available so we can all agree and have a picnic together in the parking lot at USCF

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jul 17, 2013 -> 01:59 PM) What was his wRC+ last year? http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playe...;position=1B/OF 115, average DH was 113.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Jul 17, 2013 -> 01:45 PM) Yes, and the difference between OPS and the more advanced saber-stats is that while OPS does not tell the whole story, it's still a rate stat easy to compute and understand, along the same vein as AVG. I'm still a little bit leery of using stuff like WAR and RC, because once you start making adjustments for things like park factor and such, you are introducing some margin of error. Then wOBA is just for you! No league or park adjustment, just straight linear weights calculated from run environment.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jul 17, 2013 -> 01:35 PM) But at least for now, we're mentally calibrated on OPS. I know what a .900 OPS hitter is doing, I know what an .800 OPS hitter is doing, I know what a .700 hitter is doing, I know what a .600 OPS hitter was doing. When I quote those numbers, everyone knows roughly what that hitter is doing without me defining the standard. If you post RC+, great, but you have to calibrate me in the same post, I'm just not set on it yet. Fair criticism! For wRC+, league average is always set to 100, and each point represents a 1% deviation. So, Adam Dunn's wRC+ is currently 110, meaning he is hitting 10% better than league average. Shockingly, 2013 DH's are averaging a just 107 wRC+ so far. This number is park-adjusted. wOBA works more like slash stats. It is scaled to be roughly equal to OBP, so if you're trying to judge a good or bad wOBA, ask yourself how you'd judge it if it was OBP. Adam Dunn's wOBA this year is .339, which you can compare directly to other players without the context of league average or park adjustment or whatever.

OPS drives me nuts more than AVG. Because if you quote OPS you're "trying" to be "more advanced" while using a stat that the sabermetric community abandoned as obsolete like 10 years ago. I've said it many times before, and I'll say it again: wOBA and wRC+ weigh everything a player does at the plate with precise values that correspond directly to the amount of runs each adds or subtracts in today's run environment. They are the perfect numbers for settling this debate over whether or not Adam Dunn is good because homers or bad because strikeouts. Use these numbers that tell you mathematically which of them has a larger affect on his value! When John Thorn invented OPS like 500 years ago he immediately pointed out that it was flawed because it doesn't properly weigh the difference between avoiding outs and moving runners. wOBA and wRC+ do! And wRC+ is even park and league-adjusted.

QUOTE (mike65 @ Jul 17, 2013 -> 10:22 AM) As a Cardinal fan, I hope you are correct. I would love for the Cardinals to get Ramirez but I don't even get the sense that it is being discussed. I have seen some rumors about Asdrubal Cabrera but none connecting Ramirez and the Cardinals. As to your second point, any trade this time of year will be somewhat costly. If the Cardinals and White Sox do ever trade, the cost will be partially determined by how much of the Ramirez salary the Cardinals are willing to assume. The Asdrubal Cabrera thing is confusing to me because the Indians are totally in contention right now. But yeah, I hear people talking about it too.

He threw two scoreless innings. Everyone else threw one scoreless inning each. It's not like some huge snub or anything -- two really nice plays by Miguel Cabrera of all people as well saved a couple hits.

He's got the "playoff hero" thing going for him though