Category Archives: Baseball Stories

The NBA’s Latest Revenue Sharing Plan Wouldn’t Have Prevented Carmelo Anthony from Playing in New York

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Across the past few months I have written a number of different stories for the Freakonomics.blog.  And over the weekend, I officially became a contributor to the Freakonomics blog (along with such great people as Ian Ayers, Daniel Hamermesh, Justin Wolfers, etc…).

This morning, my first post as a an official contributor went up— Revenue-Sharing Isn’t Needed to Make NBA Small-Market Teams Competitive.  This post examines the NBA’s new revenue sharing plan and argues that this plan will NOT

  • promote competitive balance
  • prevent “star” players – like LeBron James or Chris Paul – from leaving small market teams.

In fact, as I argue, the NBA already had a mechanism in place to prevent LeBron and CP3 from departing small markets (and obviously that mechanism failed).

When fans think about the James and Paul stories, they often turn to the tale of Carmelo Anthony (at least, for the purpose of this post, that is the turn we are taking).

About a year ago, Carmelo Anthony was traded by the Denver Nuggets (a small market team) to the New York Knicks (a large market team).  At the time, most observers believed the Knicks had taken advantage of the Nuggets.  After all, Carmelo Anthony is an NBA star.  Or at least, that was the conventional wisdom.

Now that almost a year has passed, people (other than people in the Wages of Wins Network – who have always questioned Melo’s “star” status) have begun to question Melo’s star power.

For an example, let’s start with Ethan Sherwood Strauss from Hoopspeak.com:

Carmelo Anthony is a starting forward in the All Star game, despite playing for a team that leavens empty promises with broken dreams. Despite how his old team got dramatically better after trading him. Despite how he’s shooting near 40%. And despite those despites, Charles Barkley was shushed on Inside the NBA for naming Josh Smith as a possible alternative to Melo, the mainstay. Apostasy!

 

There has been a bit of revisionist history regarding the Anthony trade, by the way. It is now known as the Great Denver Talent Haul. Way back in 2011, this was not the case. The Knicks had killed the Nuggets by procuring this deal. Denver had sadly been forced to swap “50 cents on the dollar,” thus dooming Colorado’s Pepsi Center to be the NBA’s haunted, vacant, blood-sloshed Stanley Hotel. All role players, no playoffs, makes George Karl a…

 

Well we know it worked out in the exact opposite manner. Now the Knicks look haunted, the Nuggets look liberated, and Mike D’Antoni’s seat is hot enough to curdle a diamond. And yet, there is a hesitancy to radically reassess our valuation system. The new story is about how the sum of Denver’s parts exceeded a single star’s worth. And while there is certainly merit to this trope, why aren’t more people asking whether Carmelo Anthony is even a star? Is it possible that Denver’s as much cured of Melo as they are well-compensated for his absence?

Sherwood Strauss argues there are better forwards than Melo, noting both Josh Smithand Andre Iguodala specifically.  If we focus just on the small forwards (Smith is more of a power forward), we can see that Melo in 2011-12 isn’t nearly as productive as several other players at the small forward position in the Eastern Conference (numbers from NBA Geek as of Friday night’s games):

These are just the top 5 at this position in the Eastern Conference.  If you keep going down the list of small forwards eventually you see:

An average player posts a WP48 of 0.100.  So Melo has actually been below average this season.  Of course, NBA fans may find this very hard to believe. After all, Anthony ranks in the top 10 in scoring.  How can a top 10 scorer be below average?

As Sherwood Strauss notes, Anthony does take a large number of shots.  But he has trouble getting those shots to go in consistently this season.  Consequently, his shooting efficiency is quite low, and therefore, his overall production of wins isn’t very high.

The debate around Anthony actually gets at another debate in the statistical community.  A few days ago, Mike Kurylo made the following observations in the New York Times:

...statistical analysts vary in how they evaluate the game, and are not in agreement on a multitude of issues. Perhaps the most divisive issue is the value of shot creation.

 

…Some statisticians such as ESPN’s John Hollinger think highly of this skill, and the stat he created Player Efficiency Rating (P.E.R.) has the penalty for a missed shot lower than the reward for a made shot. Players that shoot a lot, even at a low efficiency, tend to have a high P.E.R. On the other end of the spectrum is economist turned N.B.A. analyst David Berri, who heavily penalizes a missed shot in his statistical method Wins Produced (W.P.). Players who make shots at a high percentage, even at a low volume, tend to have a high W.P.
Because of a large number of variables in an N.B.A. game, it is difficult proving where across the spectrum the value of shot creation lies. But the Carmelo Anthony trade, or perhaps the result of it, might shed some light on the subject.

 

If you’re reading this, you probably already know that the Knicks traded a handful of assets (most relevant, Danilo Gallinari and Timofey Mozgov) last season for Anthony and some other players. You’re also likely aware of the intense media pressure in favor of the Knicks trading for Anthony at the time. Last February, ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith wrote “the Knicks must go get Carmelo Anthony as soon as possible,” and “Danilo Gallinari is good, with promise, but hardly worth holding on to if it means not getting Anthony’s services.”

 

Smith’s remarks represent those who put a high demand on shot creation. By this standard, Anthony’s value was perceived to be much greater than that of Gallinari due to the former’s ability to take more shots. Comparing the players’ stats at the same stage in their careers, Anthony is able to take nearly 38 percent more shots than Gallinari. On the other hand, Gallinari’s true shooting percentage, a measure of a player’s overall scoring efficiency, is 45 points higher (59.0 percent to 54.5 percent) than Anthony’s. Hence those who put a low premium on scoring volume and higher value on efficiency saw Anthony as overrated.

Nearly a year later, the result of this trade seems to be that higher efficiency is more valuable than higher volume when it comes to scoring. The Denver Nuggets have a robust 14-6 record, while the New York Knicks have a mediocre record of 7-13. Not that the fortunes of these teams are based on the efforts of a single player, but they embody the opposite sides of the volume/efficiency argument.

 

The Denver Nuggets are a team that lacks a high-volume scorer. If we limit our scope to players with 100 or more minutes on the season, no Nugget player averages more 16.5 field goal attempts per 36 minutes. New York has two players who fit this criteria, Anthony and Amar’e Stoudemire. Of the Denver starters, the highest field goal attempts per 36 minutes is Ty Lawson’s 13.1. Meanwhile, the Knicks have four starters averaging more than that number.

While New York has more players who are able to create shots, Denver has more players who are efficient with their shooting. The Knicks have eight players with a true shooting percentage lower than 55.0 percent, while the Nuggets only have three.

 

Despite lacking a player who can create shots for himself at a high level, the Nuggets have the N.B.A.’s best offense, ranked by offensive efficiency. Meanwhile, the Knicks, with multiple high-volume shooters, find themselves with the league’s 24th-best offense. It appears that the ability to score efficiently is more important than the ability to create shots.

 

…So does this all mean? For basketball analysts it means the high-volume scorer who lacks the ability to sink shots at a mediocre rate is likely overrated by all but a percentage of statisticians. For the Knicks’ current roster, it means that the team has to work on improving the quality and lowering the frequency of shots among their low-efficiency scorers. For the Knicks’ front office it means that perhaps they should abandon their current method of evaluating players and consult with a statistician before their next franchise-altering trade.

Kurylo’s column highlights the essential argument Wins Produced makes:  Players create value when they get their shots to go in the basket.  Just taking shots – shots that are often just “taken” from their teammates – is not a skill teams should reward.

With respect to Carmelo Anthony, the large-market New York Knicks clearly made this mistake.  And the small-market Denver Nuggets have benefitted from this decision.

What does all this have to do with revenue-sharing (the topic that started this discussion)?  Well, the revenue sharing plan – as noted at Freakonomics – would not have prevented Carmelo Anthony from forcing a trade from Denver to New York.  Of course – as I have noted in the past (and as Andres Alvarez did earlier today) – the Knicks could now only wish there was some mechanism to prevent these kind of decisions.  As it is, it looks like the Knicks are married to Melo.  And that probably means, the Knicks are not going to be part of a championship parade in the near future (unless they go watch the Giants parade).

- DJ

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

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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

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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

Is Dallas better than last year?

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Thanks to the shortened free agency period inflicted by the lockout we are being overwhelmed by NBA news. Many franchises are in a mad dash to make their teams worse (we’ll post on that, don’t worry!) but a surprise story is that the defending champions may have in fact secretly improved themselves in several ways.

Here’s a brief rundown of the Mavericks offseason thus far (2011 Numbers can be found here):

Last season Tyson Chandler was very good. The New York Knicks clearly noticed and offered him a contract worth roughly $15 million a year. The Los Angeles Clippers did not get the memo that Caron Butler has been steadily declining and offered him a contract worth roughly $8 million a year. The Los Angeles Lakers managed to fleece Lamar Odom into a terrible contract. He will make roughly $8.5 million over his next two seasons. Additionally only this season is guaranteed.

Losing Chandler definitely hurts. Losing Butler is not a problem at all, especially with Shawn Marion to pick up the minutes. However these two players had an open market value of over $20 million a season. The Mavericks have managed to replace their lost production for 1/3 the cost. What’s more, losing Lamar will definitely hurt the Lakers, who are a competitor with the Mavericks. There are definite concerns the Mavericks will have to address. They still need a center. Additionally their core of great players (Jason Kidd, Shawn Marion, Dirk Nowitzki and Lamar Odom) are all over 32 this season. It’s doubtful such a team can continue to play top basketball for many years. That said, this off-season the Mavericks are doing well. One or two other good moves and the Mavericks may very well see the Heat in the finals again.

-Dre

Freaky Thoughts on Baseball

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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