The Baseball Graphs Blog
Thursday, November 06, 2003
Clutch Hits - Baseball Primer (November 5, 2003)
In case we have some people come by who haven’t seen it, here is a link to a great discussion of fielding stats, and fielding Win Shares, at Baseball Primer.
http://www.baseballprimer.com/clutch/archives/00009425.shtml#109posts
Bonds held back by own pitchers!
Sorry about the tabloid headline. I guess I’m getting giddy with this whole blogging thing. Originally, I had a very academic-sounding title for this research article, but the results so surprised me that I thought a different type of headline would be in order.
One of the most frequent criticisms I hear about Win Shares is that there are no “loss shares.” Now, I have a feeling that everybody means something a little different when they mention loss shares, and I’m not quite ready to go there. But if we talk about the simpler concept of negative Win Shares, well I can do that. In fact, it turns out that the concept of negative Win Shares has an impact on Barry Bonds’ total Win Shares.
Click for more...Historical Gold Glove/Win Share Comparison
I ran a quick comparison of the Gold Glove winners with the defensive win share leaders. Since 1961, 237 of the 689 Gold Glove winners were the leaders their position in defensive win shares.
(Why 1961? Before then, individual Gold Gloves were given to each of the three outfield positions, LF, CF, and RF. Starting in 1961, the outfield Gold Gloves were given to any three outfielders, regardless of position.)
Click for more...Wednesday, November 05, 2003
NL Gold Gloves
The Win Shares system was less successful in picking the NL Gold Glove team, agreeing on only 3 of the 8 non-pitcher winners. The main problem was the voters’ choice of four Cardinals (the fourth-worst defensive team in the NL, according to win shares) and no Dodgers (the best defensive team in the NL, worthy of 3 individual win shares).
Click for more...Tuesday, November 04, 2003
AL Gold Gloves
The AL Gold Glove team was announced today. The win shares system predicted 4 (or 5, or 6) of the 8 non-pitcher winners.
The AL Gold Glove team was announced today. The win shares system predicted 4 (or 5, or 6) of the 8 non-pitcher winners.
Click for more...Sunday, November 02, 2003
Win Share Age by Team
I did something that Bill James also did in Win Shares: I computed the average Win Share age of each team by multiplying each player’s age by his Win Shares, adding them up per team, then dividing by total team Win Shares. Results are attached.
Click for more...Saturday, November 01, 2003
Dodger Thoughts
Over at Dodger Thoughts, Jon has created a neat review of the future of the Dodgers, using Win Shares. It’s at:
Dodger Thoughts: Share Cropping
Friday, October 31, 2003
Pythagorean Win Shares
What if the Win Shares system was based on Pythagorean Wins, instead of Actual Wins? That is, the total number of wins available to all players equaled the sum of their individual contributions, regardless of which team they were on? Well, here ya go:
Click for more...Tuesday, October 28, 2003
Applying Park Factors
After calculating the marginal runs for each team, the Win Shares methodology calls for a park adjustment to marginal runs. This makes sense. It’s a lot easier to score runs in Coors Park than Dodger Stadium, and Win Shares takes this into account. However, the manner in which park factors are applied to marginal runs differs from typical park factor calculations, and it undermines the validity of the relationship between marginal runs and Win Shares.
Click for more...Monday, October 27, 2003
An Analytic Framework for Win Shares
Over the winter, I hope to play “what if” scenarios with Pete’s 2003 Win Share spreadsheets. In particular, I think it will be fun to tweak the Win Shares system to see if we can improve the output, or at least test the sensitivity of several variables. I plan to explore questions we might have, such as: What if we added loss shares? What if we changed the allocation between pitching and fielding? Etc.?
First, though, we need to develop some standards for Win Shares validity. We need a framework to guide our approach. And I have an idea.
Click for more...