happy holliday

by lboros on Nov 8, 2007 9:24 AM EST in News Comment 59 comments

quick programming note: i've asked azruavatar if he'd like to write a weekly front-page post at VEB, and he's agreed to give it a shot. you all know him from the comments and as erik's co-host over at Future Redbirds; he'll be writing on fridays, starting tomorrow.

here's the SB Nation voting for the national league MVP award:

National League	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th	8th	9th	10th	Points
Matt Holliday	12	4	1	2	1	-	-	1	-	-	235
Prince Fielder	-	4	9	2	1	2	1	2	-	-	148
Jimmy Rollins	4	2	3	2	2	1	-	1	2	1	137
David Wright	1	2	1	3	5	1	2	4	-	1	117
Chipper Jones	-	2	2	2	2	2	4	2	1	1	95
Hanley Ramirez	2	-	-	3	2	1	2	2	5	-	90
Chase Utley	-	2	-	2	3	1	4	3	4	-	88
Albert Pujols	-	1	1	3	2	4	-	2	1	2	80
Ryan Howard	1	2	1	1	-	1	3	-	2	2	70
Jake Peavy	1	2	2	-	1	2	-	-	1	2	68
Miguel Cabrera	-	-	-	-	-	3	2	2	1	4	35
Brandon Webb	-	-	-	1	-	-	2	-	-	1	16
Aramis Ramirez	-	-	-	-	1	-	1	-	1	1	13
Eric Byrnes	-	-	-	-	-	2	-	1	-	-	13
Derrek Lee	-	-	1	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	8
Ryan Braun	-	-	-	-	-	1	-	-	1	1	8
Brad Penny	-	-	-	-	1	-	-	-	-	1	6
Jose Reyes	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	1	-	-	3
John Smoltz	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	1	-	2
Troy Tulowitzki	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	1	1
Adam Dunn	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	1	1
Roy Oswalt	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	1
Carlos Lee	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	1	1
Todd Helton	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	1	1
Barry Bonds	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	1	1

i voted for holliday, and i'll get to that in a second --- but first i want to talk about pujols, who was 4th on my ballot. you could make a very good case that he deserved the award this year. he not only was among the 3 or 4 most impactful hitters in the league, he also was one of the most impactful fielders --- despite playing first base. the two best fielding metrics (UZR had the dewan system) credited pujols' glove with preventing between 20 and 25 runs; as i mentioned the other day, he had the best score in baseball per dewan's plus/minus system. he was without question among the top 5 hitters in the league (5th in VORP, 2d in eqr, 3d in WPA, 4th in ops, 2d in ops+,), and nobody else in that elite offensive class was nearly as impactful w/ the glove as el alberto. like tulowitzki, he was dominant in both halves of the inning; one could vote for him unapologetically and back it up with a solid case. as i sit here typing this out, i kinda wish i had.

before i leave the subject: despite his fine year, albert slipped a bit on the all-time leaderboards for players of his age. compare his standing at the end of last year (ie, through age 26) to his standing this year:

	thru age 26	thru age 27
SLG	3	5
OPS	4	6
2B	2	2
HR	4	5
RBI	8	9

i've been meaning to calculate albert's odds of breaking the all-time record for doubles (using bill james' favorite toy) and for breaking the 800-hr barrier; don't have time this a.m., but i'll try to get to it in a future post. or, if anybody is curious about this and has time to run the numbers today, post the tally in the comments.

so here's how i voted for the n.l. mvp:

holliday
wright
utley
pujols
chipper
cabrera
ramirez
fielder
howard
rollins

working up from the bottom: i wanted to recognize rollins' unusual and impressive 20/20/20 feat in some way; that's a remarkable season for a player at any position, much less a shortstop. he led the league in runs and ranked 2d in hits. but despite all that, he was no better than the 2d-best hitter at his position in the nl and the 3d-best hitter on his own team; despite the great counting stats, his rate states just weren't elite-caliber. i don't really think he was the 10th-best player in the league last year, but he still had a remarkable year and i wanted him on my ballot.

the four players directly above him --- howard fielder ramirez and cabrera --- all were among the best of the best with the stick but had a negative impact afield. indeed, ramirez led the league in one of the most important sabermetric categories (VORP) but was so terrible with the glove that i briefly considered leaving him off my ballot altogether. chipper jones was at least as good as pujols with the bat but not nearly as good w/ the glove. utley was a gold-glove caliber 2b with a 1st-baseman's stick; i probably should have had pujols ahead of him (especially because utley missed a month with an injury), but he belongs in the conversation.

that gets us to wright and holliday. on a purely sabermetric basis, wright should get the nod. he had the league's 2d-best VORP, comfortably ahead of his nearest trailers (holliday chipper and albert), and led the league in equivalent runs despite playing in a pitcher's park; he also was well above average with the glove at an important defensive position. holliday was very good with the glove as well but played a less impactful position, and he trailed wright in the key sabr categories. so why'd i vote for him? i'll admit to being swayed by proximity; i got to watch him play a lot. more than that, i was swayed by the rockies' incredible charge to the wild card, in which holliday played an indispensable role. during the rockies' season-ending 14-1 run, he batted .442 / .532 / .846, with 5 homers, 16 runs, and 17 rbi. in those 15 games, he only made 29 outs --- not quite 2 a game. every time you turned around, he was starting a rally or finishing one off. and it all built up to the perfect climax: holliday's clutch, game-tying triple in the 13th inning off a hall-of-fame closer, after which he (was ruled to have) scored the clinching run. colorado almost literally played two consecutive weeks' worth of elimination games, and holliday (todd helton, too) were too stubborn to let the team lose.

to the sabermetric purist, these considerations aren't worth squat; a run is a run, they say, and if holliday had been as good as wright throughout the course of 162 games then the rockies wouldn't have needed last-minute heroics (and, let's be honest, luck) to get into the postseason. it was also pointed out to me by another SB Nation blogger that wright had an incredible finishing run of his own: .439 / .484 / .561 over his last 13 games. it wasn't wright's fault that the mets' pitching collapsed, this guy argued (accurately); if they'd even gotten just one or two so-so pitching performances, maybe we'd be talking about how david wright's clutch late-september hitting helped the mets stave off an epic choke.

my response to this guy was: the award's not about what might have happened; it's about what did happen. the strength of sabermetrics is their predictive value --- they have vastly improved our understanding of how performance tends to change as players age, and they've equipped us to strip away ephemeral factors (luck, ballpark, etc.) that can distort a player's short-term stats and make him appear to have more (or less) ability than he really does. they help us look into the future; but the mvp award is about the past. it's about the games that have already been played. the sabermetric numbers convince me that david wright has more ability than matt holliday and will probably have a better career in the years to come; but they don't convince me that he was a more impactful player than holliday in 2007. it may be true that holliday just had luckier circumstances than wright, making his exploits stand out a little bit more; perhaps if holliday and wright had switched teams, wright would have powered the rockies into the playoffs just as holliday did. but it's not a "what-if" award.

interestingly enough, the one sabermetric stat where holliday trumps wright is a non-predictive stat, win probability added (WPA). matt was 2d in the national league, largely because of all his big hits in those last 15 games; wright wasn't in the top 10. a lot of sabr types don't like WPA because there's no year-to-year consistency in it. but it does tell you one thing: who got the hits that made the most difference between winning and losing. in 2007, that guy was matt holliday. on a day-to-day basis, he was good enough to merit consideration as a finalist for the MVP award; his heroics in the last 2 weeks put him over the top, imho.

one other noteworthy item: did you notice that barry bonds only got 1 point in this polling? all he did was lead the league in equivalent average, finish in the top 10 in VORP, and break the all-time HR record. yet i didn't want him on my ballot, and neither did almost anybody else; obviously non-sabermetric factors do count for something.

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larry, you're getting lazy

that's half of your work load in the offseason handed off to other folk. that's despicable.

can't believe holliday won by that much, i expected him to win, but not by that margin. AP is too far down in my opinion also.

and who the hell gave barry bonds a vote?

by stlcardinalsfang on Nov 8, 2007 9:35 AM EST reply actions 0 recs

despicable?

sarcasm? because blogging, nearly everyday the quality level that lboros is pretty freakin' hard. try it before you criticize. and if you don't mind me sticking up for my man AZ, he does a heckuva job and is more the capable of delivering content at a high level. he isn't gonna miss a beat.

give me a flippin break.

Future Redbirds

by erik on Nov 8, 2007 11:54 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

I detected sarcasm

I hope I'm right.

And Erik - you, azru, and of course, Larry all go above and beyond what I would ever fathom being able to produce as far as quality content. Many thanks.

by silent_bob on Nov 8, 2007 11:59 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

extreme sarcasm

because i can't get enough of the stuff larry, yourself, azruavatar, houstoncardinal, the red baron, and valtan put out. it's second to none.

sorry for the misunderstading, you guys do GREAT work.

by stlcardinalsfang on Nov 8, 2007 2:51 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

color my face red

i'm sorry about that. i've kinda had some rough stuff happening lately personally, so i've been a little snappish. apologies.

Future Redbirds

by erik on Nov 8, 2007 2:54 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Perfect Example

Of why the posts should be read and the comments should not be. The humor police out in full force. For Christmas ask for a sense of humor.

by saladdin69 on Nov 8, 2007 6:31 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Perfect Example

Why where you reading the posts then. Bustin' on a guy after apologizes?

by gonzostl on Nov 9, 2007 8:01 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

lol, fang

anyway I already had a favtoy spreadsheet (built last year, so if the formula changed since then someone may need to correct it) ;) Pujols odds of reaching 800 went down significantly between '06 and '07. FWIW he would have had to have hit 45 HR (295 total) in 2007 to keep the odds at 18.5% (and he'll have to hit 54 next year to get the odds back up to 18.5%).

I'm also not sure if the 2B formula is the same, but if it is, here is the result:

Pujols06 Pujols07 Pujols2B Age 26 27 27 3 seasons ago: 46 41 38 2 seasons ago: 41 49 33 last season: 49 32 38 total HR # 250 282 298 milestone 800 800 792

seasons left 8.4 7.8 7.8 HR remaining 550 518 494 Proj HR/Yr 44.8 42.2 36.3 Proj HR: 377 330 283.4 Milestone odds: 18.47% 13.49% 7.37%

On a side note, has anyone figured out a way to just cut and paste from excel to vb? It takes forever to format out the tabs.

by SleepyCA on Nov 8, 2007 12:47 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Excel

I've had some luck saving as space-delimited text and wrapping it in code tags (<code> and </code>), but it's still a pain.

by john vb on Nov 8, 2007 4:21 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

larry, are all SB Nation Posters Sabermetricians?

I hadn't assumed this to be the case and certainly some of the votes we saw for ROY indicated otherwise (as does this).

Is there elsewhere a consensus all sabermetrician vote for awards?

Lastly, it does look curious that Oswalt has a vote in the total column, without one 1-10.

Watching the Playoffs as Reigning Champs is not a bad thing.

by Birds on the Bat on Nov 8, 2007 10:06 AM EST reply actions 0 recs

Saber Votes

Hmm, Would saber people even vote? Wouldn't they just come up with a metric that would weight certain stats and voila you get your winner? Seriously though the Fielding Bible Awards are similar for GG type voting. I would be interested in seeing some other awards as well.

by StLHugo on Nov 8, 2007 10:14 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Yes, they would need to vote on what stat to use

For example, if we decided that it would be purely some ratio of VORP and WPA, would we weight them equally?

Maybe we could just rebuild larry's table to demonstrate some simple combinations. I realize that we are talking about the holly grail, unified field theory, and all that. But why not.

Maybe we need somebody like Gates to fund the development of the universal stat and give noble type prize money to winner. A $1M prize for the sabermetricians best player award would instantly raise the interest and credibility above these other awards that so distorted by the emotions of the select voters.

Watching the Playoffs as Reigning Champs is not a bad thing.

by Birds on the Bat on Nov 8, 2007 11:10 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Wide Open Race

I think this was such a wide-open race in the NL that its going to be very interesting to see who wins. I had a mental dialogue with myself over who should win the thing, and basically I figured it came down to Prince Fielder, Jimmy Rollins, Chase Utley, Matt Holliday, David Wright, and Eric Byrnes (only b/c he was the best hitter on the team that won the most games, so he at least deserves to go on the list).

My gut feeling is that the voters will give it to Rollins. Jayson Stark (I think) wrote an article basically officially puting ESPN's vote behind Rollins, and they usually seem to be a pretty good barometer. Rollins had a great year, but I just don't think a leadoff hitter who doesn't even post a .350 OBP should be in the discussion. I think the award should probably go to Holliday. On the negative side, his home/away splits were pretty dramatic, w/ a nearly 200 point difference in OPS. On the other hand, the guy was a beast in August and September, slugging a whopping .796. His worst month was May, and he still hit 7 homers and had a .940 OPS, so its not like he stunk it up while the Rocks floundered, then got good all of a sudden. I don't think he had as good an offensive season as Fielder Known As Prince, nor as good an overall season as Chase Utley (who was my guy if he had played a whole season), but in a wide open race like this I think he had the biggest impact on his team's success, so he's my winner.

by redbirdnation8206 on Nov 8, 2007 10:19 AM EST reply actions 0 recs

.796 in September

Not Aug and Sep...my bad.

by redbirdnation8206 on Nov 8, 2007 10:20 AM EST reply actions 0 recs

WPA wrt MVP

I've always thought of Win Probability Added as a great tool to judge the performance of a given player. Unlike most "stat geeks", I am more interested in what happened than in what is going to happen. And really more of what mattered than what happened.

Is WPA the Holy Grail of stats? Far from it. It makes no account for defense and most of the hidden baserunning contributions (taking an extra base, etc.) are awarded to the hitter who benefitted from it. But I do appreciate its emphasis on clutch performance and its aversion to garbage-time stat-padding.

BTW, looking at the NL ROY discussion, Tulowitzki was nearly as impactful a hitter, per WPA, as Braun. Troy had a 2.87 WPA in 682 PA, Ryan had a 2.10 WPA in 492 PA; a difference of less than 2% given the same number of plate appearances. And that's not even taking account of their defense & baserunning.

That said, the Cubs do deserve my pity, but never my support.

by Solanus on Nov 8, 2007 11:13 AM EST reply actions 0 recs

I don't think

WPA tells you a very good job of what happened for hitters. If you could recreate the leverages after the fact, then maybe. In game evaluation, it's great, but WPA can't look into the future and tell you how important the run actually was.

You're probably better off using a season's worth of lwts or whatever. Kinda hard for that to lie.

by plh903 on Nov 9, 2007 8:17 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Importance of a single run

Here is a hypothetical situation:

6th inning, 1 out, Cards up 5-2; PH So Taguchi grounds out to the second baseman, scoring Juan Encarnacion from 3rd base
9th inning, StL leading 6-3; Izzy, playing with fire per his (perceived) SOP, loads the bases and gives up a 2-run pinch single to Orlando Palmeiro before closing out the game

If you want to claim that the insurance run So drove in was the most important in the game, then no, WPA does not do a good job of applying proper credit. But if you look at that RBI when it happened, it had little meaning.

Another hypothetical: what is a more impressive pitching feat?

Cards score 9 runs in the top of the first, Wainwright pitches an efficient CG shutout, StL wins 9-0
Wainwright pitches an efficient CG shutout, Cards score 9 runs in the top of the ninth to turn a 0-0 pitching duel into a laugher, StL wins 9-0

Obviously the pitching duel is more impressive. With a 9-run lead, Adam can go out there and just throw strikes; if he gives up a run, it's no big deal. In the duel, there is a lot more pressure and he has to match the zeros the other guy is putting up.

An 8-run rally in the bottom of the ninth has to start with the first run and the other runs don't score without the first one. If you want to claim that the first run is just as important as the game-winner, that the RBI that changed a 9-2 deficit to a 9-3 deficit sparked the comback, then I don't know what to do. But if you look at the situation (6th best reliever in the game, just trying to collect the last three outs, giving up one or two runs isn't going to lose the game), it is a lot less impressive of a feat to drive in a run there than it is if it's with their best reliever now in the game and the tying & go-ahead runs in scoring position. And that is what WPA is trying to measure.

That said, the Cubs do deserve my pity, but never my support.

by Solanus on Nov 10, 2007 7:23 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

WPA doesn't

know what players are in the game. It assumes that Johan Santana is Jason Marquis and Albert Pujols is Cesar Izturis.

Maybe that's not what you are saying, but I'm not really sure what you are saying anyway.

What it does give you is a win expectancy snapshot based on historical averages. Without the first run in the first inning, the player would never have the opportunity to hit that solo shot in the tenth to win it. No opportunity for his huge clutchgasm.

A team wins a game 4-1 thanks to two two-run homers by the left fielder. Now, he accrues about .3 WPA for his herculean effort that day.

You know what would have made him much better? If he had skipped the second tater and just belted the second one (it was a garbage time shot in the ninth inning originally). He would've gained twice the WPA if he had just grounded out in his first at-bat. He cost himself a chance at more than a full WPA win, as that second shot is valued at .65 or whatever.

But wait, then a player hits a walk-off 2-run single in the bottom of the ninth, giving him massive amounts of WPA. Maybe our hero the left fielder shouldn't have been so selfish after all.

In a 5-4 game, all of the team's five runs meant something, and the argument can be made that all of the other team's four runs meant nothing at all. So's mini-rally doesn't mean anything until the team actually comes back and wins the game. WPA assumes always and forever that they will win the game 1% of the time or whatever, and credits accordingly.

If you are trying to do a post-analysis where you assign credit for "wins" between players, then it needs to only come in wins. Or in other words, since WPA can't see the future, it does a good job at taking a snapshot of "clutch", but it does not meaningfully describe win contributions.

You have to decide if you care about what happened, what is happening, or what will happen. WPA is only perfect for one of these things.

Since a player's WPA numbers are highly determined by luck or fortuitous circumstance, I don't think it is meaningful for MVP conversations either. I understand the argument of we're "rewarding what happened" and Larry and others have made it eloquently. However, in my mind, you are just rewarding luck. Post hoc context-neutral sounds great. Reward him for what was up to him, so to speak.

by plh903 on Nov 11, 2007 2:40 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

that should be

"skipped the first" obviously

by plh903 on Nov 11, 2007 2:41 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Not a perfect stat

I am not saying that WPA is some sort of perfect stat. It has its limitations, just like every other metric out there.

Are you trying to say that there is a stat that does roughly the same thing, but accounts for who is pitching, who is batting, what kind of streaks people are in, the teams in question, their positions in the pennant chase, & the influence of their lucky alternate jersey? (JK about that last one) To do that kind of analysis, you would need a dizzying array of completely arbitrary variables that leaves everything up to the opinion of the statistician.

Using your example, in a 5-4 game, all of the runs do mean something, their individual values dependent on how they were scored. If they trade leads back and forth, the runs mean more. If one teams rushes out to a 5-0 lead in the top of the first and the other team doesn't score until the bottom of the ninth, then everything in between is going to be valued less.

Another example of yours, the 4-1 game, posits that the one player would have been better off, per WPA, just hitting the lone 2-run HR to win the game 2-1. It's not just about the runs. It's about all of the failed opportunities by his teammates up to that point meaning that much more. It's about all of the good work by the pitching staff being more important. It's about the entire team getting the win (+.500 WPA) and how it is spread around.

And what is the deal with assigning credit for "wins" only when it is part of a win? So, if some guy hits three go-ahead or game-tying homers in a single game, but the pitching staff can't hold a lead and loses, he doesn't get any credit for that? A starter pitches his ass off, gives up one run over 8 innings, but his team gets shut out - nope, too bad.

WPA is simply a measure of how much a given player affects the goings on in a game. It applies credit and blame for everything that happens, based on the game situation. It doesn't assign bonus points for David Ortiz hitting a GW homer off Mariano Rivera (vs Scott Hatteberg off of Derrick Turnbow) & it doesn't deduct value from every play in a Pirates-Nationals game in late September (vs a Cubs-Cardinals game in a pennant chase). That would be like giving Pujols credit for 1.5 homers if he hits it off Roy Oswalt or 0.6 homers off of Matt Belisle.

WPA isn't trying to give more credit or less credit to a given win based on who it is against, what pitcher, what circumstances, etc. It treats every win the same. It doesn't leave itself open to subjective interpretation. "Oh, this win should have meant more in the standings because we beat Brandon Webb when he was on his scoreless inning streak." "No, it was just another win. Means the same as the game they won against Zach Duke & the Pirates back in April." If someone wants WPA or any other stat to give extra importance to a "special win", they need to come up with one themselves, because I don't think there is one out there.

That said, the Cubs do deserve my pity, but never my support.

by Solanus on Nov 11, 2007 9:23 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

I'm simply commenting on a

point of yours that garbage time players are worse, or whatever. The real win expectancy is greater for Johan Santana's team if he's on the hill.

Because it only takes a snapshot based on historical averages, it's not about dividing up that .500 WPA between players. I'm sure you've look at WPA graphs for games and know that this isn't the case.

And yes, there are stats that take into account quality of opposition, and I care about as much about streaks and where a team is in the pennant race as I do lucky jerseys.

What I am saying is that we have very good measures of offensive runs contributed, and that WPA is not designed to aggregate for hitters.

Go to The Book Blog and ask tangotiger I guess, I don't really know how else to explain it.

by plh903 on Nov 12, 2007 12:00 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

I guess I could say

instead that I suppose it could be interesting to someone to add it up for a hitter, but it breaks down once you start to compare hitters with it.

by plh903 on Nov 12, 2007 12:09 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Larry, I'm glad to see

you recognize the limitations of sabermetrics in an MVP analysis and thus allow Jimmy Rollins to sneak into 10th place on your ballot. In my view, however, he belongs at the top of your list and not at the bottom. I live in the Philadelphia area and saw firsthand the impact he had on the Phillies. He announced that they were the team to beat in the east and then became the sparkplug(I know that isn't proper sabermetric talk) that drove them to the top. He was consistently effective for the entire season, his combination of power and speed was virtually unprecedented for a shortstop, and his defense was superb. He was a consistent igniter from the leadoff spot. Holliday would also be a deserving choice, but I still would have to vote for Rollins. Pujols was robbed of the award in 2006 by another Phillie, but something was lacking this season, whatever his numbers may suggest.

by MikeG on Nov 8, 2007 11:58 AM EST reply actions 0 recs

Rollins made just 18 of 21 ballots

and appears to have the widest dispersion of all candidates. Maybe he ends up in a pretty fair ranks at the end of the exercise, but it just shows again why voting among "experts" when the criteria itself is debated generates disappointment in the results from so many.

Its still incredible to me that there is no purely sabermetric award. Then at least all of these "heart tug" awards might not be so bothersome.

Watching the Playoffs as Reigning Champs is not a bad thing.

by Birds on the Bat on Nov 8, 2007 1:03 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

sabermetricians never agree on anything

Almost any kind of award would require at least some kind of arbitrary weighting of statistics, since you have to compare fielders and pitchers and position players and DH's and there is no consensus on how to properly weigh most of these categories.

Pip at Fungoes has an interesting series on this topic, though he just uses weighted WSAB and WPA.

by SleepyCA on Nov 8, 2007 1:13 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Bill James on the radio yesterday said

"Half the stuff people use me for is stuff I don't agree with or don't believe in."

You can make numbers say whatever you want them to say.

"Well, you wait for a strike. Then you knock the shit out of it. - Musial to Flood on how to hit a curveball

by Hardcore Legend on Nov 8, 2007 1:25 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

I work by a favorite expression

Figures don't lie, but Liars figure.

Bad statistics maybe easily be debunked, but perceptions established are not easily rectified.

Sure statisticians can argue, but I don't know that any of the sabermetricians of Baseball have ever proposed that one given stat, even one of their own invention, would be the best way to award who is the overall most valuable player.

But if some individual wanted to fund an award based upon some weighted combination of VORP, WPA, RC, etc., I think it would be pretty damn interesting. One single stat that could rank players throughout the season by position, by team, by league, etc.
And maybe there would be a race down to the last game of the season that hinges on a single play to decide the winner.

Then we can argue the merits of the stat all year long, and not wait to the end of the season to say that the voters screwed up because they ignored the stats. Instead, the voters might have to explain themselves, or even be influenced by the stats before they vote.

Watching the Playoffs as Reigning Champs is not a bad thing.

by Birds on the Bat on Nov 8, 2007 1:44 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Matt Garza

this is my first post so excuse the threadjack.

mlbtraderumors reports that the Twins are interested in shopping Matt Garzo for a young, impact bat. names floating around include bj upton, delmon young and carlos gomez. does anyone think that chris duncan and change could get the deal done for the cardinals? it seems that garza, at 24, would be the kind of pitcher that the cardinals could justify trading significant farm talent for. i would love to see the cards make a strong move like this early in the offseason instead of picking up spare parts late in the game.

it could be worse, we could be on fire

by hardhittinmarkwhitten on Nov 8, 2007 1:32 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

Chris will not work

The Twins seem to be hard set on getting a true OF since Hunter is not likely to return. Now Duncan is a guy I would see the Twins having interest in if they want a DH.

They really need a fast guy to patrol the OF and Upton and Young fit the role.

I think Duncan just is not a great fit fo the Twins. Like you said it would take another piece of two if the Cards want to get involved.

by ICbirdfan on Nov 8, 2007 2:01 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

there are now two diaries up

the first implicates Rollen to the twins for no one in particular, the second is Garza shopping.

I made a potentially ridiculous leap that they might have both been part of the same conversation. It's hot stove time.

Watching the Playoffs as Reigning Champs is not a bad thing.

by Birds on the Bat on Nov 8, 2007 2:11 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Rolen for Garza?

ESPN.com/Buster Olney says there are talks of Rolen to Minnesota. I wish I could provide a link but I'm not an ESPN Insider.

by Jtip20 on Nov 8, 2007 2:50 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Not Much Inside!

Rolen to Twins?
Nov 8 - The Twins and Cardinals are discussing a deal that would send third baseman Scott Rolen to Minnesota, ESPN The Magazine's Buster Olney reports. Rolen has three years and $36 million remaining on his contract.

by HalfMagic on Nov 8, 2007 7:01 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Rumor Killed

According to the Star Tribune, there's nothing to the Rolen-to-Twins rumor: http://www.startribune.com/blogs/christensen/?p=414

by Secret Weapon on Nov 8, 2007 10:32 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

well,

"Superfreak" Reyes only racked up 3 points. That makes me happy.

On with the youth movement!

by aet15 on Nov 8, 2007 2:47 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

Cy Young Award...

lb:

This quote really resonates with me:

"...the award's not about what might have happened; it's about what did happen. the strength of sabermetrics is their predictive value... ...they help us look into the future; but the mvp award is about the past."

If you applied this line of reasoning to pitching, you could possibly conclude that wins are more important than most saberticians will admit.

The St. Louis Cardinals- 11 time World Champions!

by Zubin on Nov 8, 2007 4:03 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

Well, but...

WHIP, VORP, win shares, etc. are about what did happen.

by sdrone on Nov 8, 2007 4:20 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

I was wondering if someone would pick that out

i was imagining larry's fingers second guessing him as he keyed in that line.

I know I had not been looking at these various stats as a means to lay odds on the future, and didn't think they were created for Vegas.

Watching the Playoffs as Reigning Champs is not a bad thing.

by Birds on the Bat on Nov 8, 2007 5:15 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Z, i disagree w/ the premise

pitcher wins don't measure the same thing that WPA does. WPA measures what the pitcher did while he was in the game; wins don't. they measure what the team did. hence the correlation betw pitcher wins and pitcher WPA is very spotty. just to toss out a few examples ---

matt cain (7 wins, 16 losses) had a significantly better WPA than carlos zambrano (18 wins, 13 losses). oliver perez was 15-10 but had a WPA barely above 0; jamie moyer had a 14-12 record but a negative WPA.

erik bedard had the 2d-best WPA figure among AL pitchers, but he wasn't in the top 10 in wins (poor hitting and poor relief support cost him several wins). tampa bay's james shields (12-8) was virtually tied in WPA with josh beckett (20-7) and considerably better than chien-ming wang (19-7) and justin verlander (18-6).

if you apply my quote to pitching, the conclusion would be not that pitcher wins are important but that pitcher WPA is important. pitcher wins are still very heavily dependent upon 2 factors --- run support and bullpen support --- that are 100 percent beyond the pitcher's control.

by lboros on Nov 8, 2007 8:12 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Well technically, pitchers

have some responsibility for run support.-- At least national league pitchers do.

I wasn't reallt trying to compare wins to WPA. My point is that wins do roughly measure what a pitcher did with the resources (runs) provided to him. In that way wins measure what a guy did do. I agree that they are a crappy measure, but I think they should hold more weight than most sabr guys assign to them.

The St. Louis Cardinals- 11 time World Champions!

by Zubin on Nov 8, 2007 8:46 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Further evidence

Basing W-L records on WPA game values (>+.100 = W, <-.100 = L, in between = no decision), Matt Cain's 7-16 mark with the Giants gets changed to 16-9 (with 7 no decisions), probably the biggest shift in the majors last year. Other guys in similar situations: Bedard (18-7), Shields (17-5), Chris Young (14-8), Gil Meche (14-10), Ian Snell (16-9), Mark Buehrle (14-10), Jeremy Guthrie (12-5).

Just because Zambrano wasn't as worthy as Cain doesn't mean he was chopped liver. His WPA record was 18-12, which means that he crashed & burned when he lost, but he kept his team in the game more times than not. Another pitcher similar to Big Z - Adam Wainwright (18-10, despite a not terribly impressive 1.27 WPA).

Other guys you listed in your comment: Perez (12-12), Moyer (13-13), Beckett (16-6), Wang (15-6), & Verlander (16-7)

Other pitchers of note: Tim Wakefield (13-13; 17-game winner), Paul Byrd (10-12; 15-game winner), Jake Peavy (23-4), Dan Haren (14-7; 13-0 w/10 no decisions in first 24 starts), & Carlos Silva (15-9; doesn't look so mediocre now)

That said, the Cubs do deserve my pity, but never my support.

by Solanus on Nov 9, 2007 11:58 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Not sure if worth a diary

Anyhow 11 players that are free agents are in the Mitchell report. I assume Bonds and Guillen are on it

by zolak16 on Nov 8, 2007 6:24 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

Well It could be diary worthy

I am kind of tired of all these trade diaries. Especially since there have been a lot of Scott Rolen and Miguel Cabrera related diaries.

There are just too darn many diaries about crazy trades.

by ICbirdfan on Nov 8, 2007 6:36 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

I was thinking about

writing a diary on this earlier in the week, but, per usual, got lazy and took a nap.

Anyway, I think there will be a rush for a lot of free agents to sign as quickly as possible, for fear their name may be in the report. If this does happen, I believe a lot of guys will be signing for below what they'd get normally (hopefully stabilizing the market). Of course, guys who wait out and aren't on the list may reap the rewards.

"Whitey said that '86 was so bad 'the highlight of the season was a foul ball'"

by Alxfritz on Nov 8, 2007 6:55 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Oh and to close the post



/crackpot theory

"Whitey said that '86 was so bad 'the highlight of the season was a foul ball'"

by Alxfritz on Nov 8, 2007 7:02 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Conversely,

I wonder if MLB teams will be more hesitant to sign Free Agents for the same reason. Or will there be clauses written into contracts in case those players' names appear in the report? (I can't really see the players union going for this sort of thing, but it's fun to come up with crackpot theories, as A-Fritz suggests.)

I can't think of a good offseason signature.

by effin fisk on Nov 8, 2007 7:14 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Speaking of 'not worth a diary..."

How about the girl sueing the Cards for an off-color text message that appeared on one of those screens:

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=3100957

I remember going to the Spfd Cardinals/Memphis Redbirds exhibition that opened new Busch. The pay-for-text-on-the-screen function was already working, although they clearly hadn't worked out all the bugs in the vulgarity filter yet.

Good times.

I can't think of a good offseason signature.

by effin fisk on Nov 8, 2007 7:11 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Hmmm

I was at the game and don't remember vulgarity, but maybe I just wasn't paying attention.

by saladdays on Nov 8, 2007 10:08 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

MV3?

Anyone notice 3 young Phillies on this list? Throw in Hamels and Myers and some nice parts like Rowand, Victorino, and Burrell, and you'd think this team would be set for a while.

by Hungry Jack on Nov 8, 2007 7:39 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

More not diary worthy news

The Tampa Bay Devil Rays aren't the Devil Rays anymore.

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20071107&content_id=2295403&vkey=news_tb&fext=.j sp&c_id=tb&partnered=rss_tb

"A great catch is like watching girls go by; the last one you see is always the prettiest." - Bob Gibson

by stl tyler on Nov 8, 2007 10:23 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

I just can't wait for them to change their colors

to orange and yellow... Then they can be the Sun Rays, sponsored by the Florida Tourism office, of course.

The St. Louis Cardinals- 11 time World Champions!

by Zubin on Nov 8, 2007 11:55 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

I like the new logo and unis

It's a nice clean look with good colors.

However, changing the team name to remove "Devil" seems a bit forced and overly "PC" to me. Were there numerous protests outside Tropicana Field last year by members of the Southern Baptist Convention or something?

Oh, well.

There are 10 types of people in the world. Those who understand binary, and those who don't.

by Mr Clean on Nov 9, 2007 3:19 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

No Devil

I'd been hearing rumblings that ownership feared it was actually turning away (presumably Catholic) hispanic fans.

by liam on Nov 9, 2007 5:58 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

if you need three paragraphs to explain your vote

you probably made the wrong choice

www.royalsreview.com

by royalsreview on Nov 8, 2007 10:34 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

carlos lee ftw!

yay, just 3 words.

did I make the right choice?

by SleepyCA on Nov 9, 2007 12:55 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Yeah, either that

or maybe he actually thought about his decision, and simply gave voice to the complexities of said decision. Sorry it wasn't in text message form.

"Players like Pujols don't come along once in a lifetime. They never come along." -Buzz Bissinger

by PujolsFor President on Nov 9, 2007 5:02 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

+1

lboros: I voted for __, and here's my carefully considered rationale...[edit carefully considered rationale]

others: O RLY?!? UR VOTE SUXX0RZ!!!11!

There are 10 types of people in the world. Those who understand binary, and those who don't.

by Mr Clean on Nov 9, 2007 3:19 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

larry just curious, but...

what happened to the sbnation cy young awards? i know you didnt do a regular post on wednesday, but i thought you may do a diary or something

did i just miss it?

Pujols is the greatest Cardinal in my lifetime.

by bigcardsfan5 on Nov 9, 2007 2:31 AM EST reply actions 0 recs

pujols and the doubles record...

As best I can tell, Albert has a 5.1% chance of surpassing the current record holder (Tris Speaker) and breaking the all-time record for doubles (792). It's weird -- AP's doubles have tailed off a bit over the last three years. His first 4 years in the bigs he averaged 47 two-baggers per season; his last 3 years, just 36. What's odd is that, with the possible exception of '06, those doubles aren't turning into homers -- just singles.

Brian Gunn

by briangunn on Nov 9, 2007 2:53 AM EST reply actions 0 recs