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SABR 101 - Relative and Absolute Scales (June 6, 2003)

Posted 1:45 a.m., June 9, 2003 (#5) - Greg Tamer(e-mail)
  "The fatal error in the method of measuring players as better or worse than .500 is that it forces one into the assumption that value consists in being better than average."

I'm confused...need help...how is this assumption forced?

SABR 101 - Relative and Absolute Scales (June 6, 2003)

Posted 9:35 a.m., June 9, 2003 (#7) - Greg Tamer(e-mail)
  Was being a bit sarcastic in my last post. My thought is that how can Bill James believe he's forced into his assumption, and then on top of that, change it to "forces one", so that the reader will follow him down the error of his ways? But then looking at the statement again, "forces one into the assumption," I almost read it as that the writer of this statement feels the assumption is an incorrect one, and that is the fatal error, the forcing of the assumption. Maybe.

BTW, I understand the "key" point. Just nitpicking here and trying to determine if Bill James really has the opinion on this topic that Patriot and you maintain he has.

Advances in Sabermetrics (August 18, 2003)

Posted 1:44 a.m., August 19, 2003 (#1) - Greg Tamer(e-mail)
  I suppose we'll find out in a couple of months how well PECOTA did for this season. One season probably isn't enough to warrant a verdict on it, but I'm looking forward to seeing some results and how well it does versus other prediction models.

Also, since you're obviously not the self-accolade kind of guy, I'd say your research deserves mention. Off the top of my head - LI, your SABR 101, 201, 301 series, etc. I'm not sure how recent this stuff is, but you seem to be spitting out quality material on a weekly basis...more than everyone else combined.

Making (some) sense of RBI (August 20, 2003)

Posted 10:23 p.m., August 20, 2003 (#3) - Greg Tamer(e-mail)
  (b) how lucky/clutch he might have been

What does this include? Quality of pitcher? Quality of defense? Park effects? Place within lineup?

Now with the last one, I think it's trivial, but I mention this only because if I was hitting in front of Bonds, my sole purpose would be to not make an out. I wouldn't concern myself with trying to drive in runs. Or should I? I don't know.

Road Warriors (September 4, 2003)

Posted 4:26 p.m., September 4, 2003 (#3) - Greg Tamer(e-mail)
  I don't think you can use a team's season road record to predict how they will perform in the playoffs against a few particular teams. There are too many other variables that need to be considered, that, in my opinion, are more important than how the team did overall on the road. These variables include current starting pitchers, current relief pitchers, current hitters, the weather (or lack thereof), how the other team is doing with injuries and streaks, their pitching and hitting, matchups, and how that team did in the particular stadium in which they will play, and not overall throughout the league.

Results of the Forecast Experiment (October 2, 2003)

Posted 10:02 a.m., October 3, 2003 (#2) - Greg Tamer(e-mail)
  Conclusion? Trust the numbers you see (which is enough for hitters), and fill-in the information missing (which is the case with pitchers, be it health or mechanics). Any extra nuance that you find just doesn't have the impact you'd hope. None of the 3 groups dominated the others. This was about as close to a draw as you'd expect.

But what if we did this again next year and the results are different? In other words, how conclusive is this?

ALCS Game 7 - MGL on Pedro and Little (November 5, 2003)

Posted 5:45 p.m., November 8, 2003 (#36) - Greg Tamer(e-mail)
  Ok, 15 minutes have elapsed now, so I'm nice and calm.

I would have really enjoyed reading your post if you had *not* waited 15 minutes!

So, you have a pitcher that gives up a ton of HR (2.5 x the league average), a pitcher that gives up a ton of walks (2.5 x the league averaage), a pitcher that can't strike anyone out (the league is 2.5 x higher), and yet.... and yet... somehow, these truly inept pitchers managed to get a .302 hits per ball in park.

Very interesting. However, isn't this somewhat biased precisely because this group you've selected give up a ton of HR and a ton of walks? I suppose this is somewhat offset by the inability to strike hitters out, but the really good hitters facing these inept pitchers are most likely either walking or crushing the ball out of the park. Thus, perhaps a poorer quality of hitters and their results against inept pitchers are being used to calculate the hits per ball in park average for this group of pitchers. For an average pitcher with regards to HR/rate, BB/rate, and K/rate, perhaps the better hitters are walking less and crushing the ball less, thus pushing the average pitcher's hits per ball in park average up towards the inept pitcher's average. Does this make any sense? Am I completely off base here? I'm not trying to argue against you, but just curious if the extreme HR and BB rates affect the hits per ball in park average. Please don't go Cartman on me -- although I do make good pies.

Golf - player of the year (November 10, 2003)

Posted 6:51 p.m., November 10, 2003 (#2) - Greg Tamer(e-mail)
  I think you also need to adjust for strength of competition in each event. Singh or Woods might have accumulated an unfair amount of top ten finished against inferior competition.

ABB# (November 24, 2003)

Posted 12:09 a.m., December 1, 2003 (#44) - Greg Tamer(e-mail)
  Plug a perfect batter (1.000 OBA and 4.000 SLG) into GPA and you get 1.45, not 1.000. So I don't see how you could apply "statistical probability distribution techniques" to GPA.

Well, not for GPA, but you could for 1.8*OBA+SLG by first dividing all values by the highest possible attainable value, 5.8 (and not 4). Then, the maximum is now one and the minimum is zero. I'd rather see/use this than GPA.

Linear Weights by Batting Order (January 2, 2004)

Posted 1:19 p.m., January 2, 2004 (#1) - Greg Tamer(e-mail)
  I'm looking forward to the book, TangoTiger. Let me know if ever need help with the menial tasks. I'll be like a knight in Warcraft II...(deep, deep voice) "Ready to serve, my Lord."

All this great baseball analysis...not enough time.

How Valuable Is Base Running and Who Are the Best and the Worst? (February 10, 2004)

Posted 4:39 p.m., February 10, 2004 (#1) - Greg Tamer(e-mail)
  Which runners, if any, were regressed out of the top ten? I understand the need to filter those with limited PT, but what about those with two or three full seasons of PT who are somewhat hurt by the regression?

I'm surprised to see Larkin at #2 after the regression due to his limited PT these past four years. He must be, like, really, really good. As a Reds fan, I'm going to assume he was even more superb in his prime.

Also, you have A-Rod at #9 with 2.6 runs, but Beltran at #10 with 2.8 runs.

Looking forward to the new and improved Superlwts.

How Valuable Is Base Running and Who Are the Best and the Worst? (February 10, 2004)

Posted 11:34 p.m., February 10, 2004 (#7) - Greg Tamer(e-mail)
  Thanks, MGL. One more question:

regression=500/(500+PA)

Why 500? If this is explained elsewhere in another thread or on another site, a link would be great. I understand the concept of regression, but I can't, off the top of my head, figure out how it is determined how much regression is needed. Thanks again.

How Valuable Is Base Running and Who Are the Best and the Worst? (February 10, 2004)

Posted 11:36 p.m., February 10, 2004 (#8) - Greg Tamer(e-mail)
  MGL -- nevermind on the regression question -- I finally remembered Tango had a Studies thread on it.

Baseball: Pythagorean Method (February 11, 2004)

Posted 10:57 a.m., February 11, 2004 (#7) - Greg Tamer(e-mail)
  Sweet -- a linear fit equation I can roughly do in my head to estimate a team's winning percentage using RS and RA. Will have to use n/2 = 0.90, though, but that's not too terrible.

Is there any model, regardless of complexity but only using RS and RA, that can reduce the rmse to under four games? Well, perhaps lgRS and lgRA can be included as well.

Ben -- will your report remain indefinitely on your website? Perhaps this can be submitted to Primer's Visitor's Dugout and posted as an article for safe-keeping.

Blog Entry of the Week (February 20, 2004)

Posted 3:43 p.m., February 20, 2004 (#5) - Greg Tamer(e-mail)
  How about Albert Pujols? I've heard rumors that Gleeman is actually 33 and still lives with his mother -- not that there's anything wrong with that.

Seriously -- Gleeman is there every weekday morning with above-average gleeman-length writing....so I'm going with Cal Ripken Jr as his MLB equivalent.

FANTASY CENTRAL (February 21, 2004)

Posted 12:11 p.m., February 23, 2004 (#17) - Greg Tamer(e-mail)
  Joe -- unfortunately, Yahoo! doesn't offer categories such as Quality Starts, Relief Points, and all those other fancy categories your league has. Nor the option to create one's own categories. But other than that, Yahoo! does offer an excellent fantasy baseball service.

FANTASY CENTRAL (February 21, 2004)

Posted 12:49 a.m., February 24, 2004 (#20) - Greg Tamer(e-mail)
  just dump the current stats into Excel and calculate standard deviations

How are you calculating standard deviations across players when they have varying amounts of PA or IP?