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Evaluating Catchers (October 22, 2003)

Posted 12:56 a.m., October 23, 2003 (#5) - Hatrack Hines
  Tango, where do you get PBP data for 1999 to 2002?

Baseball Info Solutions (February 22, 2004)

Posted 2:15 p.m., February 23, 2004 (#1) - Hatrack Hines
  I know that these guys supply the data for the Bill James handbooks. Anybody know what data these books have? I know there's some information about pitch speed and repetoire. Does it have it for each player?

EconPapers: Steven Levitt (February 24, 2004)

Posted 8:50 p.m., February 29, 2004 (#8) - Hatrack Hines
  I ponied up the $5 for the PDF file. In summary, Levitt acknowledges the "split the action" strategy that conventional wisdom attrbitutes to bookmakers. He claims that the bookies are better handicappers than the gamblers are, and the books use their edge to to set the lines such that most of the money will be on the losing side. He says the bookmakers make twenty to thirty percent more this way.

His study and data looked good to me, but it's certainly possible that I (and he) are mistaken. Do bookmakers themselves ever explain how they set lines? Should we believe them?

EconPapers: Steven Levitt (February 24, 2004)

Posted 12:37 p.m., March 1, 2004 (#13) - Hatrack Hines
  Jim and AED hit the nail on the head. The bookies are as good at forecasting as anyone is likely to be (notice that they're always near the top in Diamond Mind's prediction recaps) and the vig (commission) cuts deeply into any edge bettors could gain by exploiting the "inefficient" lines. You might be able to squeak out an edge, but it won't be much, and it's highly volatile.

More Help Requested (March 4, 2004)

Posted 11:32 p.m., March 22, 2004 (#37) - Hatrack Hines
  Heteroskadistic, in what way does the Jeter/Abreu comparison make sense to you? I'm curious.

Gleeman (and Sheehan) on the Importance of Height in Forecasting (March 12, 2004)

Posted 5:21 p.m., March 12, 2004 (#3) - Hatrack Hines
  I didn't really do anything like a complete study, and I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I messed with height/weight correlations somewhat myself.

Taller players hit for more power. Heavier players hit for more power. Taller and heavier players also tend to play the less demanding defensive positions. Everyone knows this, and the data bears it out.

This accounts for most of the differences in offensive output for positions. Shortstops tend to be short and light, and so they don't hit for much power. When you've got shortstops that are over 6' and in the vicinity of 200 lbs. you have Cal Ripken and Alex Rodriguez.

It may be that there's a bias against tall middle infielders such that they get moved to less demanding positions, but it may also be that height/weight have an inverse correlation to defensive ability. I.e., shorter players are quicker and have better gloves. This makes some intuitive sense. I didn't study this aspect in detail.

The huge exception is catchers. Catchers are about the same size as third basemen but don't have anywhere near the same offensive output.

Park Factors (March 18, 2004)

Posted 4:53 p.m., March 18, 2004 (#3) - Hatrack Hines (homepage)
  Voros did some work on component park factors (see homepage) which would seem to address part of what Tango's pointing out. If you used component park factors instead of run-based park factors, you'd see different kinds of hitters being affected differently. Thing is, looking at Voros' numbers, it looks like there just isn't enough significant difference in component factors to explain variation in scoring between parks. Or am I misreading something?

The Scouting Report, By the Fans, For the Fans - Most Similar Fielders (March 18, 2004)

Posted 4:50 p.m., March 18, 2004 (#3) - Hatrack Hines
  Royce Clayton and Garret Anderson . . . Seperated at birth?

The Scouting Report, By the Fans, For the Fans - Most Similar Fielders (March 18, 2004)

Posted 6:31 p.m., March 18, 2004 (#6) - Hatrack Hines
  Are Garrett and Royce the most similar pair?

As someone who has a bit of a fascination with how height and weight impact performance, it's interesting to me to note that Garrett and Royce are listed at roughly the same weight: 190 for Garr and 183 for Royc, while Garr is 6'3" and Royce is 6'0". In fact, they've got basically the same BMI (weight in lbs. / height in inches) as listed.

As listed, Bobby Abreu and Derek Jeter are pretty close in BMI too.

Probably, Royce is more like 5'10", and Garrett probably weighs more like 210, and there's no way in Tampa Abreu weighs 160, but it's interesting, nonetheless.