Author: metbaseball

A Welcome Addition to the Baseball Stat Bookshelf

Posted on by metbaseball

In the 1950s, when Topps became the leading baseball card company, card-collecting gained popularity among kids. The cards were interesting to look at and easy to understand.

Among their main draws were the stats on the card’s back. By quantifying a player’s performance they strengthened our connection to the game.

Henry Louis Aaron’s 1954 Topps card, his rookie card, contained the following column headings: Games, At Bat, Runs, Hits, Doubles, Triples, Home Runs (H.R.), Runs Batted In (R.B.I.), Batting Average (B. Avg.), plus Putouts (P.O.), Assists, Errors, and Fielding Average (F. Avg.) Given that it is his rookie card, the numbers are for his minor league play.

Only two calculations were required, one for batting average, the other for fielding average. Both calculations were easy for kids to do and all the card’s were easy to embed in arguments with friends about who was the better player.

That’s no longer the case.

Here are the statistics on Mike Trout’s 2020 Topps card.

MAJOR LEAGUE BATTING RECORD
LEAGUE LEADER IN ITALICS. TIE*
H 2B 3B HR RBI SB BB SLG OPS AVG WAR

Notice the absence of the three fielding stats and the additions of SB, BB, SLG, OPS, and WAR. Two of those stats are new to this era: OPS and WAR.

If you are unfamiliar with OPS or WAR or want to learn more about them, a good starting point is Anthony Castrovince’s book, A Fan’s Guide to Baseball Analytics. Subtitled “Why WAR, WHIP, wOBA, and Other Advanced Sabermetrics Are Essential to Understanding Modern Baseball.” Castrovince dives deep into its statistical subjects without making readers want to run for a hyperbaric chamber to replace the oxygen that the effort required to progress through the content.

Here is a taste of what Castrovince has to say about OPS, which is the combination of On-Base Percentage (OBP) and Slugging Percentage (SLG):

OPS tells us how well a player gets on base and how well he hits for power. Now, while it has some major flaws in relaying that information (we’ll get into those in just a sec), it’s still a major step forward from batting average and RBIs. (57)

To understand OPS, you need to know about both SLG and OBP. SLG has been available for years, but OBP has yet to show any gray hairs. SLG is a hitter’s total bases divided by at bats, where total bases is the sum of a batter’s hits + doubles + triples (times 2) + home runs (times 3). The OPS calculation is a bit more complex, but it involves just addition and division.

OBP = Hits + Walks + Hit By Pitch / At Bats + Walks + Hit By Pitch + Sac Flies

Source: A Fan’s Guide to Baseball Analytics, p. 43

In a nutshell, OBP reveals how often a batter got on base from a hit, walk, or hit by pitch. Further, for each statistic, Castrovince introduces it by sharing this information:

  • What it is
  • What it is not
  • How it is calculated
  • [Gives an] [e]xample
  • Why it matters
  • Where you can find it

Back to OPS: The highest OPS since 1884, according to stathead.com, for batters appearing in at least 100 games is Barry Bonds’ 1.422. In fact, two of the top three spots belong solely to Bonds. However, because Bond’s substance abuse issues affect the credibility of his numbers, I consider the OPS of the player who tied Bonds for third to be more valid.

In 1920, in his debut season as a Yankee, Babe Ruth’s OPS of 1.379 matched Bonds’ third-best, but the Babe did it in 11 fewer games. Further, Ruth’s career OPS of 1.164 is MLB’s best: Bonds is in fourth place with 1.051 behind both Ted Williams and Lou Gehrig.

The book does not begin, fortunately, with the latest stats. Instead, it starts with discussions of baseball’s old-timers: batting average and RBIs. After pushing both of them off the top of the baseball mountain where both had reigned for years, Castrovince attacks one of America’s most cherished words: “win” in the chapter “WINNING ISN’T EVERYTHING.” I knew that — but not what its subtitle stated: “How the Win Came to Be Baseball’s Most Deceptive Pitching Stat.”

America had brainwashed me into believing that “winning is everything,” starting with my last Little League manager, who pulled me from a game because I had tried to stretch a double into a triple — and failed. As I slid into the bag, the third baseman’s gloved hand was waiting for me, the ball I had socked down the third-base line locked in leather.

Though it was not a game-changing play, it was a life-changing one. The manager, who also coached third base, removed me from the lineup because I had failed to see his efforts to get me to stay at second base. What worsened my embarrassment was that game was the only one in which my father was able to see me play. He and I left before the game ended, which my team won.

Though my team, the Fairyland Flyers — sponsored by a small amusement park — won the League’s championship that season, each player rewarded with a plastic trophy and the opportunity to get sick for free on the park’s rides, the most significant lesson I learned is that how you play a game is much less important than winning the game.

You can be a loser even in a game your team wins.

The win stat has lost even more.

Castrovince states, “The win stat died—effectively if not officially—on November 14, 2018.” That was the day that Jacob deGrom, the Mets best pitcher since Tom Seaver, won the National League Cy Young Award though for that season he won only 10 games. Before then, no starter with fewer than 18 wins ever won the award in either league.

Castrovince does a decent job arguing that the win stat does not deserve its long-held reputation, labeling the stat as fatuous. His conclusion: “it is far too unreliable to be taken seriously.”

Was I convinced that it is “far too unreliable”? No. I am convinced that the win stat is not as reliable an indicator of a pitcher’s skill as I was before I read Castrovince’s thoughts about it.

In conclusion, his book’s content increased my knowledge about baseball stats, both old and new. His writing style is readable, his expertise is evident — he writes for MLB.com, and his anecdotes and examples are well chosen.

The book now serves as one of my go-to resources about baseball statistics. Though it does not discuss every stat — one of my favorites, RE24, is not mentioned, it gives enough information about the ones it covers to justify its acquistion.

Updated: June 12, 2020

Cy Young Lives On

Posted on by metbaseball

For more than 60 years, baseball has recognized its mound stars with a plaque that memorializes the achievements of a man whose 22-year career began in 1890.

When he retired at age 45, Denton True “Cy” Young had won 511 games and, until his next-to-last year in 1910, never lost more games in a season than he won.

Young’s greatest achievement may have come on May 5, 1904, when at the age of 37 he pitched the first perfect game in American League history – just the third in the major leagues and the first from the 60-foot-6-inch pitching distance. 

https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/dae2fb8a

Young died in 1955. A year later Major League Baseball awarded the first Cy Young Award, to Don Newcombe, who got 10 of the 16 first-place votes.

Since Newcombe, 117 more pitchers have won the prize.

During those first 11 years, just one pitcher won it more than once. Sandy Koufax won it three times. While others won it three times, only Roger Clemens (7), Randy Johnson (5), Greg Maddox (4), and Steve Carlton (4) won it more than three times.

Koufax was also one of five winners who pitched for the Los Angeles Dodgers, the Dodgers winning the prize five years in a row.

Further, five of the first 11 winners made it to the Hall of Fame: Warren Spahn, Early Wynn, Whitey Ford, Don Drysdale, and Sandy Koufax.

In 1966, Koufax was the last sole winner in a season. After his final receipt of the award, it was given to the best pitcher in each league.

Cy Young won 477 complete games, fully 60 more than Walter Johnson. Only five times did he win a game that he had started but not completed.

https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/dae2fb8a

At first, those winning it were starters who had won at least 20 games. That ended in 1973 when members of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America awarded it to Tom Seaver though he had a 19-10 record.

A year later, the first reliever won the Cy Young. Mike Marshall, pitching for the Los Angeles Dodgers, finished the 1974 season with a 15-12 record. He stood on the mound in 106 games, 30 more than Rollie Fingers, and pitched in 208.1 innings, starter’s numbers. So he averaged just under two innings a game. Despite all those appearances, his ERA was just 2.42.

Though Marshall had 21 saves, he did not lead the lead in that category, coming in second to Terry Forster who had 24 in 59 games. Despite being the runner-up in saves, Marshall was named the The Sporting News’ Fireman of the Year. 

After Marshall, eight other relievers have won the Cy Young, but none since another Dodger, Eric Gagne, received it in 2003.

Among all pitchers, both starters and relievers, only 11 have won the award in back-to-back seasons. Among them is Jacob deGrom, Mets standout, who received it in both 2018 and 2019, winning 21 games. However, unlike Gaylord Perry, those wins were not in one season but two, 10 in 2018 and 11 in 2019. Those two win totals were the lowest ever for a Cy Young Award winner who was a starter.

Cy Young threw a baseball until his right arm could no longer obey his mind’s commands.

“All us Youngs could throw,” he said. “I used to kill squirrels with a stone when I was a kid, and my granddad once killed a turkey buzzard on the fly with a rock.”

https://www.baseball-almanac.com/quotes/quoyung.shtml

He was inducted into baseball’s Hall of Fame in 1937.

On his tombstone, above his name and that of his wife, is a winged baseball.

In 2020, the game will change — so must we

Posted on by metbaseball

The world is facing a foe whose challenges make hasty responses very risky.

While the president favors haste as he seeks to sow “division and confusion” — his way of dealing with complexity and uncertainty, Major League Baseball is taking a more deliberate approach.

Player by Lucky Creative/Shutterstock.com

MLB released a 67-page report stating what needs to be done to protect players and support personnel when the sport resumes. Among the issues covered in the report are how often to test, what to do when someone tests positive, and how to lessen chances of both players and other team personnel both contracting and spreading the virus.

Among the proposed restrictions according to The Athletic article are “No spitting, using smokeless tobacco and sunflower seeds in restricted areas. Any physical interactions such as high-fives, fist bumps and hugs must be avoided at club facilities.”

The game of baseball will be different.

And as MLB is offering its resumption plan, the Miami Marlins have reopened their facilities for player use.

A bigger problem is that even if MLB fully implements what is in its report that will not stop the virus’ spread. Further, as Andy McCullough and Marc Carig stated in an article in The Athletic,

the protocols may not be enough to blunt an almost inevitable outcome, the price for transporting thousands of people around the country to play games while a highly communicable virus still lurks throughout the nation: People in baseball will still get sick.

https://theathletic.com/1827299/2020/05/21/infections-are-going-to-happen-experts-talk-risks-reality-of-mlbs-protocols/

And that possibility is on players’ minds.

If players expect to receive a full season’s salary for a partial season of play, there might not even be baseball this year.

Further, for how long can games be played in empty ballparks before the fans watching TV games start losing interest? In a New York Times essay, Jeré Longman writes about the importance of fan-filled seats in stadiums:

For those watching on television, spectators are necessary surrogates. They provide jersey-wearing pageantry, face-painted tribalism and adrenaline for the players. Their responses of jubilation and anguish verify our passionate responses. Their voices become our soundtrack, collectively rising in anticipation, thunderously exhaling in joy or disapproval.

Without those spectators, those on-site enthusiasts, even televised games may lose some of the magnetism they have had.

But then, they might not.

Those empty stadium games could still be well worth watching.

Jason Stark wrote, “If there is, in fact, an 82-game baseball season, stuff will happen. Stats will happen. Winning (and losing) will happen. History will happen.”

It is unlikely a hitter will break the home run record or that a pitcher will strike out 300 batters, but a batter could hit .400 and a pitcher could break the record for the most consecutive strikeouts in a nine-inning game, the current record 10 by Tom Seaver on April 22, 1970, a game in which Seaver struck out 19 batters, one shy of the Major League record.

Let’s give baseball a chance to still keep us on the edge of our seats even if those seats are in our homes.

Dragon and Tiger Medical Qigong

Posted on by metbaseball

About a week ago, I participated in a free Zoom workshop offered by Energy Arts, a Colorado-based company that offers instruction in meditation, qigong, tai chi, and bagua, all with a Taoist focus.

The workshop was on Dragon and Tiger Medical Qigong, a form of qigong that has been shown to be of value to people with medical problems; however, its benefits are not limited to that group.

Qigong, also spelled chi kung, is pronounced chee-gung. It means “energy workout.”

Dragon and Tiger Medical Qigong contains only seven movements. They are done slowly, mindfully, and precisely. In this video, Paul Cavel, a senior Energy Arts instructor, demonstrates the form.

Don’t be deceived by the slowness of the movements. In the workshop, Craig Barnes did three sets of the form, doing each movement 20 times. If you do not think that is a good workout, you either have never done it or are not doing it correctly.

In his webpage titled “What is Qigong?” Bruce Frantzis, the founder of Energy Arts, defines it as

a form of gentle exercise composed of movements that are repeated a number of times, often stretching the body, increasing fluid movement (blood, synovial and lymph) and building awareness of how the body moves through space.

One thing that differentiates qigong from both exercises people in the Western world do is that it is not just an external (physical) exercise.

Frantzis writes,

When you practice and learn a qigong exercise movement there are both external movements and internal movements. These internal movements, or flows, in China are called neigong, or ‘internal power’. These internal neigong movements make qigong a superior health and wellness practice.

Need more evidence that qigong works?

According to Frantzis, “qigong has been proven in China by its beneficial impact on the health of millions of people over thousands of years.” No Western exercise can match that claim.

For more information about Dragon and Tiger Medical Qigong, view this video narrated by Frantzis. Besides a demonstration, it offers background information on Dragon and Tiger.