Author Archives: Dave

Amazing Stuff I have Read (and would like you to read)

Posted on by
2

Currently I am involved with an assortment of projects.  So my ability to contribute in this forum (or for any other blog I am involved with) is limited.  Although I am not writing much on-line (I am writing quite a bit elsewhere), I am still reading stuff.  And here is some of the stuff I have read recently (in case you are interested…)

Let’s start with something from Jonathan Weiler.  At the Huffington Post, Jonathan writes about people who think Kobe Bryant and Magic Johnson are somehow comparable.  The entire post is well worth reading.  But I want to highlight two particular points.  The first is about Bill James:

In his last Baseball abstract, Bill James, the pioneering baseball statistician and godfather of the Sabermetric revolution had a righteous rant about the fact that Andre Dawson was named the NL MVP in 1987. James opined about Dawson’s selection “there are occasions in your professional life that make you think you’re not making any progress. The election of Andre Dawson as the National League’s MVP is one of mine.” James noted that people criticized him all the time for an over-reliance on statistics at the expense of “intangibles” and the “little things.” James pointed out, however, that Dawson’s selection had nothing to do with intangibles or the little things (particularly since the Cubs finished in last place in 1987) — it had to do with the fact that the “Hawk” hit 49 homers and drove in 137 runs and that MVP voters overwhelmingly voted for players with high RBI totals. In other words, whether they admitted it or not, their votes were based on statistics — and really, one statistic. And James argued, if we’re going to rely on stats to evaluate players, we should understand what it is we’re relying upon. James insisted that if you took all of Dawson’s measurable contributions into account as well as the context in which he was playing — Wrigley Field — you’d know that he wasn’t one of the thirty best players in the National League in 1987.

And then a few paragraphs later Jonathan says the following:

Listen to any coach talk about winning basketball. What will they talk about? Intensity and heart and all that good stuff, of course. And again according to their peers, Magic and Kobe were each off the charts in those terms. What next will coaches say? Good shot selection. Rebounding. Being unselfish and moving the ball. And we have good data for evaluating those things — rebounding, assists-to-turnovers, shooting percentage. And on those fronts, the two players are not comparable.

Again, the entire column is well worth reading.  Especially for people who really think Kobe ranks somewhere near Magic.

Of course, Jonathan’s work is not the only thing I have read lately.

The coverage of Jeremy Lin continues.  Certainly we have spent a fair amount of time discussing Mr. Lin in this forum.  And here are three more stories worth noting:

First, the amazing Ty Willihnganz (more on him in a moment) makes an important observation.  One reason Lin looks so great is that the other options for the Knicks at point guard are just awful.

Alan Reifman –who has a new book called “Hot Hand: The Statistics Behind Sports’ Greatest Streaks” (which I hope to discuss in more detail soon) – has a blog that focuses on the subject of “hot hands”.   And currently he has a short post noting that Lin’s recent ability to hit shots is somewhat unusual.   Of course, the turnovers from Lin… (that’s another story for another day).

And finally on the subject of Lin, David Tufte – my colleague at Southern Utah University (who also has a blog) – has a short post on Lin’s high school coach: What a riot: Jeremy Lin’s high school coach bought the rights to the URL linsanity.com a couple of years ago, because he thought it a good investment for when Lin made it big in the NBA.

Beyond the subject of Jeremy Lin, let me note again the amazing work of Ty Willihnganz at the Courtside Analyst.  This is a website that I think definitely doesn’t get enough attention.  And yet, every few days Ty puts up some fairly amazing analysis.  Here is some of his recent work:

Again, Ty’s work is always interesting.   So if you are looking for something to read, check out the Courtside Analyst.  Of course, don’t stop reading all the wonderful stuff in this forum.

- DJ

Ball Hogs, Long Meetings, and More on Jeremy Lin

Posted on by
2

My latest for Freakonomics – Ball Hogs and Long Meetings – allows me to express my general dislike of meetings (a sentiment — as my colleagues at Southern Utah University know — I express at every meeting I attend).

In addition to expressing my dislike of meetings, my post also illustrates the consequences of failing to measure performance accurately.  My intent was to illustrate that this issue goes beyond sports.

Beyond my post at Freakonomics, I also wanted to note the latest from Patrick Minton.  Patrick’s work can be thought of as a companion piece to what Greg Steele posted on Jeremy Lin (and both are well worth reading).

My next post at Freakonomics might be on Jeremy Lin.   At least, if I can find something to say beyond what Greg and Patrick said, my next post might be on Linsanity.

- DJ

How Much Do the Tigers Lose Without Victor Martinez? Lee Panas — of Tiger Tales — Provides the Answer

Posted on by
Reply

Fans of the Detroit Tigers entered the off-season fairly optimistic about the 2012 season.  The Tigers won 95 games in 2011 and took the Central Division by 15 games.  In the playoffs, the Tigers defeated the Yankees (always a good thing) before losing in six to the Texas Rangers in the AL Championship series.  With each of the key players returning in 2012 – and the prospect of a full season from Doug Fister – fans of Detroit (and I am one) were looking forward to another playoff run this year.

But before spring training even began, though, Victor Martinez managed to suffer an injury that will cost him the entire season. In 2011, Martinez posted the following numbers:

  • 0.330 Batting Average (4th in the American League)
  • 0.380 On-Base Percentage (9th in the American League)
  • 0.470 Slugging Average (27th in the American League)
  • 0.850 OPS (16th in the American League)

Given these numbers, we should not be surprised that Jim Leyland described this injury as “a punch in the gut.”

Of course, although these numbers seem important, fans of the Tigers should really be concerned about the bigger picture.  Specifically, how many wins is this injury going to cost the Tigers?  And given the options still available in the free agent market, can the Tigers recover some of those wins?

To answer questions like these, I turned to Lee Panas.  Lee is the author of Beyond Batting Average, a book that does a wonderful job of introducing readers to the basics of Sabermetric analysis.  In addition to writing a great book, Lee also has a blog called Tiger Tales.  Since Lee is both an expert on baseball statistics and a fan of the Tigers, he was of course the obvious person to ask about the Martinez injury.  And thankfully, he posted his analysis – which I am re-posting below — at his blog last night.

How Much do the Tigers Lose with the Martinez Injury? (the answer from Lee Panas)

According to Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs.com, Martinez was worth about 3.0 Wins Above Replacement (WAR) in 2011.  We could simply compare that to the WAR of the various free agent and trade options, but there are a couple of factors which make this question a little more interesting than that.  First, Martinez was used in 26 games as a catcher last year, something that Carlos Pena or Johnny Damon or whoever they might get won’t be doing.

The second factor is situational hitting.  Martinez was extraordinary batting with runners on base last year, something he would not have been likely to repeat in 2012.  So, instead of calculating his 2011 WAR using Batting Runs, it might be more useful  to use RE24.  The RE24 statistic considers a players performance in various situations in determining his value.  For example, Martinez would get more credit for getting a double with runners on first and third than a double with the bases empty.  Inserting RE24 instead of Batting Runs adds about two wins bringing Martinez up to 5.0 WAR in 2011.

Would Martinez have had a WAR of 5.0 again in 2012?  Probably not. He’d likely hit about as well overall (lower batting average, more homers).  However, he might lose a fraction of a win by not catching.  More importantly, we would not expect him to come anywhere close to his 2011 performance in situational hitting.  Even if he we think he would have hit a little better in clutch situations than other at bats in 2012, we would estimate that he would have had a WAR of about 3.0.

So, we have two questions: (1) How much will the Tigers lose going from Martinez in 2011 (5.0 WAR) to Player X in 2012?  (2) How much would they have lost going from Martinez’s expected performance in 2012 (3.0 WAR) to Player X in 2012?

To answer question (1), we can assume that Martinez’s 26 catching games would be picked up by Gerald Laird in 2012 and that his 119 DH games would be taken by Player X. Let’s assume that Laird is a replacement level player this year as he has been the last couple of years.  Now, let’s estimate what various replacements might do in 119 games:

Carlos Pena 2.3
Carlos Lee 1.8
Casey Kotchman 1.4
Derrek Lee 1.3
Alfonso Soriano 1.3
Johnny Damon 1.2

So, if they were to get Pena, the Tigers would lose 5.0 – 2.3 = 2.7 games from 2012.  If they acquired Damon, it would be 3.8 games.  Turning that into round numbers, they’d be losing about three or four games between 2011-2012.  That’s a lot of games, but remember that they probably would have lost a couple of games even if they kept Martinez as he was not likely to keep up his amazing clutch hitting for another year.

To answer question (2) from above, we just need to replace Martinez with player X for 145 games. These are the new estimates:

Pena 2.6
C. Lee 2.1
Kotchman 1.7
D. Lee 1.5
Soriano 1.5
Damon 1.4

Based on the above numbers, The Tigers would lose 3.0 – 2.6 = 0.4 games by replacing Martinez with Pena and 1.6 games by replacing Martinez with Damon. In round numbers, that’s one or two games.

In conclusion, they may drop as many as four games from 2012 to 2011 with the injury to Martinez, but they were probably going to lose a couple of wins anyway due to his clutch hitting normalizing.  In the end, they probably lose two games max in 2012 with the loss of Martinez.

Of course, none of this takes into account the possible benefits of intangibles such as leadership and Martinez’s effect on other batters.  However, I suspect those factors are overstated and there’s no way to measure them anyway.

There’s no doubt that losing Martinez hurts the Tigers chances in 2012.  Just based on the numbers though, the loss should not be a devastating blow to a team that won the AL Central by 15 games last year.  They should still be the favorites to take the division.

 

How to Choose a Market in Sports

Posted on by
Reply

A few weeks ago, Arturo and Devin – in two separate posts – wrote about which markets deserve and don’t deserve an NBA franchise.   These posts considered a few objective factors about a market in ascertaining where the NBA should locate its teams.

Today at Freakonomics, I took a very different approach.  Currently in North American sports leagues, the existing owners in each league determine whether or not the league should enter a new market.  In contrast, European sports leagues – like the English Premier League – rely upon market forces to make this decision.

Although individuals – like Arturo, Devin, and the owners – can consider a variety of factors in making this decision, I do not think (echoing the arguments of Friedrich Hayek) that an individual – or a committee – can do this job as well as a market.  For example, I think it is entirely possible that a smaller market could support a team if the people in this market are especially interested in NBA basketball.  In contrast, a team in a larger market might struggle to find success if the people in the market are not generally enthusiastic and/or the ownership of the team does a poor job of selling the team.  The latter appears to be the case in New Orleans, where ticket sales seemed to improve when the NBA assumed ownership of the team.  In other words, one of the problems in New Orleans might have been incompetent owners (a problem we also see historically with the LA Clippers).

Beyond invoking Hayek (not one of my favorite economists of all-time, but someone who certainly understood the problems of central planning), my post also links how teams are allocated to the history of labor disputes in North American sports.  And although I have little hope that what I suggest will ever be adopted, hopefully it does give people something to think about.

Let me close by thanking Matthew Phillips.  Matthew is an editor at Freakonomics, and he is the person who makes my recent posts in that forum look (and read) so good.  Today, unfortunately, is Matthew’s last day at Freakonomics and I would just like to thank him in this forum for all his help.

- DJ

Freaky Thoughts on Baseball

Posted on by
Reply

My latest for the Freakonomics blog — Labor Peace in Baseball May Not Last Forever — looks at the recent labor agreement in baseball.  Yes, baseball (I hope to get to basketball later in the week). 

I should add two more notes on the post.   First, predictions about events that take place five years from now are great.   The odds that anyone will remember I said this (including me) is fairly low. 

Beyond that point, I should emphasize that contrary to the claims of owners in professional sports, competitive balance in professional sports isn’t really about institutions like revenue sharing, luxury taxes, and salary caps.  Of course, the empirical evidence on this subject doesn’t stop owners from bringing up competitive balance whenever owners would like more money.

One last note …for those who want a prediction that we can check out very soon, I actually told Ron Dicker of Huffington Post that I expect that NBA’s television ratings this Christmas to be higher than the ratings for NBA games last Christmas.  I guess that means I better spend my Christmas just watching all the NBA games.

- DJ