The Irrational Market

[RME JICO]

http://baseballanalysts.com/archives/2006/...rrational_1.php

 

Stat-heads really don't like the Sox:

 

That's because there's only one reasonable reaction to looking over the lines as I write this: people are crazy. The White Sox are 4-1 to win the World Series. Four to one. I know they're the defending champions, but this makes no sense.

 

Consider for a second the odds that they'll even get a playoff berth. If they were a strong team (say 90 wins strong) in a really weak division, they might have a 75% chance of getting to the playoffs. But the line...the line essentially says that not only are they a strong team in a weak division, they're going to breeze through the playoffs.

 

Or, rather, consider that the playoffs are a series of coin flips, for ease of demonstrating how wacky this is.

 

White Sox make the playoffs: 75%

They make the playoffs and win the ALDS: 38%

They win the ALDS and the ALCS: 19%

They win the ALCS and the World Series: 9%

 

You want 10:1 odds or higher then. To get to the point where a 4-1 bet becomes even rational, you have to believe that the White Sox are a 90-win team in a really weak division, and that they're going to be far superior to their competition in every playoff round. And in recent years, we've seen great teams - truly great ones - lose playoff series to teams that were pretty clearly their inferior. This would be a bad bet if we knew, ahead of time, that the White Sox would win 100 games.

 

And that's obviously not the case. Is there that much money behind this? Is being the former champion such a big deal that everyone from Chicago put some money behind a repeat? I wish I could short that bet, but unfortunately, there's no derivatives market for sports betting that I'm aware of. That's probably a good thing.

 

Again, the baffling AL Central. Both the Indians and Twins are better teams than the White Sox, but they're getting much longer odds, the Twins almost irrationally so. I'd chalk this up to a contraction discount, but they're a good team. Even if you figure that the wild card's going to the East, and it's a race between the Indians, White Sox, and Twins, the Twins are by far the lowest valued.

[Jordan4life_2007]

I don't even know how to respond to that article.

[Rowand44]

I think everyone here by now should have learned to just laugh this stuff off.

[Flash Tizzle]

So he doesn't understand odds--what's his solution? How does he judge the most likely to win a World Series--Bill James newest book?

 

Honestly, talk about an entire article devoted to nothing. Felt like I was reading a transcript from a Seinfeld episode. It comes off more of whining then actual constructive criticism.

 

These 'odds' are established by people placing a certain amount of money on a team based on available information. Often, this may be unreliable or heavily biased due to media influence or past success. He realizes this, yet continues babbling. Not every Vegas junkie has a subscription to Baseball Prospectus--and thus could judge whether their projections match a team's Pythagorean theorem.

 

The part where he alleges Minnesota and Cleveland are better ballclubs is hilarious. Cleveland--perhaps, but Minnesota? Can their stellar pitching suddenly create runs? Our f***ing rotation is six pitchers deep, offense and bench improved, and defense only marginally worsened--yet magically we're worse than both? Granted our bullpen is shakey, and the discussions pertaining to career years have been rampant--but even with our flaws we're still a top tier team in the American League. Certaintly better than Minnesota.

Edited March 23, 2006 by Flash Tizzle

[RME JICO]

I just thought it was funny coming from a site called "Baseball Analysts" since there was really no analysis done whatsoever, and they normally have decent articles every now and then.

 

The other thing I found interesting was that the Odds makers have pretty decent predictions:

 

AL East: Yankees

AL Central: White Sox

AL West: Angels

 

NL East: Mets

NL Central: Cardinals

NL West: Dodgers

 

Boston and the Cubs win the wild card.

 

I would say the only question mark would be the Cubs. The other teams are fairly realistic.

 

What I get from the odds is that they feel that the Yanks, Sox, Mets, Cards, and Sawks all have the best chance of winning and making the playoffs. Based off most of the preseason predictions that I read, that would be almost 100% accurate.

[DBAHO]

That guy must be Tony Batista's cousin or something.

[R.J.]

I'll say this:

 

They're right about the odds. Really, ANY team at 4-1, that's giving them a lot of credit. It's a tough bet to make. But their complete disrespect of the Sox beyond that is remarkably stupid.

 

And my biggest complaint, is FOR THE LOVE OF CHRIST, THE TWINS??? THE TWINS??? YOU HAVE TO BE KIDDING ME!

 

WHERE are the Twins a stronger team? (Closer, Ace, CF, and farm system). It's a good pitching staff, but COME ON! And their offense, on paper, it doesn't even look like they're trying to seriously compete. Hey, they'll be a good team because they play good baseball and have good pitching, but BETTER THAN THE WHITE SOX? HOW??? Ridiculous.

[RME JICO]

I'll say this:

 

They're right about the odds. Really, ANY team at 4-1, that's giving them a lot of credit. It's a tough bet to make. But their complete disrespect of the Sox beyond that is remarkably stupid.

 

And my biggest complaint, is FOR THE LOVE OF CHRIST, THE TWINS??? THE TWINS??? YOU HAVE TO BE KIDDING ME!

 

WHERE are the Twins a stronger team? (Closer, Ace, CF, and farm system). It's a good pitching staff, but COME ON! And their offense, on paper, it doesn't even look like they're trying to seriously compete. Hey, they'll be a good team because they play good baseball and have good pitching, but BETTER THAN THE WHITE SOX? HOW??? Ridiculous.

Yeah, the Twins comment seems like it came from where Soriano didn't want to play.

 

On the odds though, the Yankees got 3.4 to 1. Now that is ridiculous, even more than the Sox 4-1. By looking at the odds they break it down with the normal East Coast bias:

 

Yanks > Sox > LAA

Sawks > Indians > OAK

TOR > Twins > TEX

 

Another great quote:

But take the Tigers. They should be around .500 team in a division where 85 wins might win the division.

Edited March 23, 2006 by RME JICO

[SSH2005]

Another great quote:

But take the Tigers. They should be around .500 team in a division where 85 wins might win the division.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

How many years in a row are people going to keep making this dumb prediction? How many years in a row do you need to get burned? Jesus.

[southsider2k5]

Those who do not learn from their history are doomed to repeat it.

 

Statheads might still be not understanding the White Sox, but you can bet the rest of MLB isn't going to underestimate them... This is going to be a rough year, and we will see what these boys are REALLY made of. The bullseye is firmly on our backs, not the Yankees, not the Red Sox, not the Indians or the Twins. They have no pressure on them. We have the pressure to repeat. Bascially this guy had the hypothesis all wrong, but got lots of the final answer correct. Yes the Sox should be way worse than 4:1 to repeat, but not because those teams are "better".

[Soxbadger]

If his b**** is that no team should have better than 10-1 odds statistically because no team has better odds than those he listed, the article has merit.

 

But if the b**** is only towards the Sox, and some how the Yankees at 3.4-1 makes sense, the article loses all merit.

 

I wish I could short that bet, but unfortunately, there's no derivatives market for sports betting that I'm aware of. That's probably a good thing.

 

Its called betting on every other team or "betting the field" where you chose to bet on the longshots, and of course the odds are better when you have 31 teams with a chance to win instead of 1.

 

I feel dumber for reading this article, and I question why he thinks he knows more than the Vegas sports books.

[ZoomSlowik]

Considering I've seen the Yankees at better than 4:1 for the past 5 years (and IIRC as low as 5:2), I don't really see the issue.

[jackie hayes]

He's wrong about the Twins vs Sox (relative odds), but obviously the level of the odds is out of whack with reality. If all the odds were fair bets, that would mean there is a 180% chance that someone wins the WS this year. So the house is overstating teams' chances of winning by almost double, on average. That's how they make money, but also makes it ridiculous to think of these as fair odds/fair bets.

[chitownsportsfan]

Alas, "statheads" write poorly researched articles as well. Most statheads have the White Sox winning the central or coming in 2nd to the Indians. Most statheads think Minnesota's club is pretty mediocre.

 

I wouldn't get your undies in a bunch over this article, although I'm sure some of you salivate at any "stathead" dissing the Sox. He's clearly cut from half the cloth of the BP guys--all the arrogance and none of the smarts. Anytime a "stathead" writes an argument and their aren't any stats, well that's just laziness.

[Balta1701]

The thing that still bothers me about any "Statistical" prediction method is that I still don't think the statistics are yet up to the task.

 

In terms of offensive production, I think the numbers are pretty close to able to give an idea of what you expect a person to do with some margin of error (which can sometimes be quantified.)

 

However, with both pitching and defense, I dont' think the numbers are anywhere close to being able to easily catalog what a person will be able to do. Especially on defense, there just arent' good proxies that cover every single detail of what a guy can do, and what sticking him into your defense will do to affect a pitcher. Do you guys really think JG wins 18 games last year without Uribe and Crede on the left side of the field? I don't think the Statistics yet have any way to work out things like that, and iwthout that part, i just can't believe any of their complete statistical predictions.

[WHarris1]

The Sox just have to do what they did last year...

 

Sox--->

Edited March 23, 2006 by WHarris1

[chitownsportsfan]

However, with both pitching and defense, I dont' think the numbers are anywhere close to being able to easily catalog what a person will be able to do.

 

Yea, but I'd rather have a half guess than a guess.

[CWSGuy406]

However, with both pitching and defense, I dont' think the numbers are anywhere close to being able to easily catalog what a person will be able to do.  Especially on defense, there just arent' good proxies that cover every single detail of what a guy can do, and what sticking him into your defense will do to affect a pitcher.  Do you guys really think JG wins 18 games last year without Uribe and Crede on the left side of the field?  I don't think the Statistics yet have any way to work out things like that, and iwthout that part, i just can't believe any of their complete statistical predictions.

 

This is something I've come to agree with.

 

Take, Jon Garland, for example. His PECOTA card has 50th percentile at a 4.66 ERA. Now, I understand regression to the mean, but this ERA would be .24 points above his career ERA. I've read over and over that PECOTA is a pretty pessimistic system, which makes it a little more understandable, but it still leaves me shaking my head.

[jackie hayes]

Pretty easy thing to test, anyway. Just check the autocorrelation of the prediction error -- at least, for teams that don't have much turnover.

 

How did this turn into another stats debate? The article had no stats analysis at all.

[CWSGuy406]

http://baseballanalysts.com/archives/2006/...ea.php#comments

 

snip

 

To suggest that the White Sox weren't a great team is ignoring the facts. We can form our own opinions going into a season or quote Pythagorean records but the bottom line in measuring how successful--or unsuccessful--a team is (or was) is based on actual wins, place in the standings, and performance in the playoffs. Period. It is simply a mistake to do otherwise. If we want to use Pythagoras for predicting future performance, fine, go for it. But the bottom line isn't about having the biggest run differentials; it is about winning games.

 

/snip

[YASNY]

http://baseballanalysts.com/archives/2006/...ea.php#comments

 

snip

/snip

 

That's the one thing so many 'experts' seem to forget.

[whitesoxfan101]

The statheads will never like us. We pitch great, play great defense, and win 1 and 2 run games. To statheads, 1 and 2 run wins are a matter of luck so to them our triangular pythagorean square root theorum record was really 71-91 last year since close wins don't count.

 

Statheads think they are infallible, when in reality they are pretty damn clueless and closed minded to the fact teams can be tough mentally and win close games because that is how they are built. Maybe if we make it back to back these people will shut the f*** up, but even then I doubt it.

[Gene Honda Civic]

Statheads think they are infallible, when in reality they are pretty damn clueless and closed minded to the fact teams can be tough mentally and win close games because that is how they are built.  Maybe if we make it back to back these people will shut the f*** up, but even then I doubt it.

Also...

 

I heard they don't believe in the Easter Bunny. And they like France. And hate FREEDOM.

 

You're either with us, or against us!

 

I, for one, am prepared to fight.

[Jordan4life_2007]

http://baseballanalysts.com/archives/2006/...ea.php#comments

 

snip

/snip

 

Why can't it be this simple?

[Flash Tizzle]

Why can't it be this simple?

Just read through the comments posted after the article. They grudgingly accept our championship, yet continually note our "luck." I admit there were numerous lucky breaks with we were fortunate to exploit--I'd be foolish not to--but winning 99 regular season games should have given some consideration to our talent.

 

I've said this before, and I'll say it again--anyone feeling confused by the Sox success can label our championship "lucky," but I guarantee Beane wishes he ballclub were this "lucky." Rather be the worst team within the last 15 years to win a World Series title than the best not to.

 

The arrogance which is often evident through the writings of sabermetric fans is why we'll never be given credit. I don't dislike the advent of advanced statistics in baseball. I don't feel threatened, as Hawk or other oldtimers might. It just so happens these people are incredibly absorbed in their methods and would rather dish out plates of "luck" than reflect upon reasons why they're wrong when such events occur. Although I suppose influencing Baseball Prospectus to reassess defense can be chalked up as a small success.

 

Honestly, aside from the personal satisfaction and pride of winning another World Series, I'd like to win another to prove everyone wrong. Our players have all the motivation they could possibly need with a subcription to Baseball Prospectus. Maybe if we repeat, BP will create a new category named after the White Sox which can accurately predict luck.

Edited March 25, 2006 by Flash Tizzle