The Baseball Analysts: Talking Baseball Stats

Talking Baseball Stats

By Rich Lederer

I was a guest of Brendan Wiese and Nick Barrale of The Benchwarmers on KFNS 590 The Fan. I also appeared on their St. Louis late night sports talk show in June and July.

We discussed counting stats with an emphasis on the pros and cons of RBI. I mentioned the importance of context, opportunities, and outs.

We should be counting the number of outs. There aren't very many people out there who know who's leading the league in outs or who's leading the league in the fewest outs created. We always count things — hits, doubles, triples, home runs — but we really should be counting how often a player makes an out because a team only has 27 outs; that's the currency of baseball and giving up an out is very costly to a team. I wish we all paid more attention not only to the positive side of counting stats but the negative side as well.

I was also asked about whether players such as Derek Jeter are "clutch" (which is one of my least favorite subjects) and OPS as it relates to positions. The final ten minutes were focused on pitching stats, including strikeouts, walks, and home runs (and groundball rates). Due to the location of the radio station as well as Dave Allen's insightful piece on Friday, we examined Joel Pineiro in depth and the difference between pitching to contact and missing bats.

I like guys who strike batters out because then you don't need any defensive players behind you. But, that said, a pitcher like Joel Pineiro can succeed if he throws strikes, which he throws strikes better than anybody else in baseball this year — he's walking fewer batters than anyone else — and if he also keeps the ball on the ground. He's keeping the ball on the ground about as well as anybody else in baseball this year. Both his walk and groundball rates are career bests right now and that's why he's doing so well this year. But his margin of error is really pretty small. If Pineiro doesn't have his pinpoint control and he gets that ball up a little bit, he's going to be more apt to give up home runs, which he hasn't been giving up at all this year. I believe he's only given up three home runs all season, which is just incredible. But, in years past, for example, he has walked more batters and given up more home runs. So, if he is a little bit off, he's going to get hit because he doesn't throw pitches that miss bats.

While Wiese enjoys and appreciates advanced metrics, his sidekick is a non-believer. After we exchanged thank yous at the end of the segment, Barrale concluded with the following diatribe.

I still say you get a better idea how a guy plays and how a team plays by just watching them. You don't need all these statistical numbers. The only reason why they have them is because people can't see the games and so they try to come up with their own conclusions by just adding and subtracting and dividing and multiplying numbers.

Whatever.

The audio file can be accessed through The Daily Rewind this weekend or by clicking on the play button directly below.

Check it out.

Comments

Nice interview Rich. You did a good job explaining some sort of tricky concepts over the radio, which I think would be tough.

Posted by: Dave Allen at August 9, 2009 9:07 AM

Thanks, Dave.

Posted by: Rich Lederer at August 9, 2009 5:33 PM

What a Luddite!

I have to think that this guy didn't pass - or barely passed, given how bad our school system can be - math and thus knocks anything that involves math.

Because math and statistics have transformed business and society. From the Scientific movement in business led by Taylor (then Gilbreath) in the early 1900's and brought more to the fore by Deming and Juran after WW II, math and statistics has helped businesses become more and more efficient producers, it basically helped transform Japan from a disdained manufacturer during the 60's to one of the leaders in quality in the 80's, 90's and to now.

And it would be folly to say that numbers are the be-all and end-all - seeing and evaluating the players are still a crucial element of baseball - but the problem before the Bill James era was that nobody (or almost nobody) was doing any type of analysis of baseball statistics that could greatly influence management decisions and greatly improve decision making performance.

For someone today to say that "you don't need all these statistical numbers" would be the height of ignorance, sticking their heads into the sand to avoid what is plainly and obviously something that contributes greatly to baseball. People like that today hold very little relevance today, that is such antiquated thinking that any baseball fan with any good sense would stop listening to such a believer.

Posted by: obsessivegiantscompulsive at August 10, 2009 12:18 AM

Yeah, I think you came off great, Rich, even if Barrale was not converted. HIs rant is basically the typical "stats geeks are too busy doing math in their basements to ever watch a real game" argument. What's especially annoying is that of all the great numbers guys out there, you'd think you would be one of the hardest to use this argument against. You come from old-school baseball lineage, you regularly do scouting reports (of actual real live players! Not just their "statistical numbers"!), etc. If Barrale still doesn't get it that someone can value both advanced metrics and traditional scouting, he never will.

Anyway, I should get back to adding, subtracting, and multiplying some numbers (contrary to Barrale's statement, I rarely use division).

Posted by: Jake at August 10, 2009 8:47 AM

Man, I was gonna crack wise about "statistical numbers," but it seems I've been beaten to it. Great point on counting who has made the fewest outs; the faster people realize that the only limited commodity in baseball is outs, the sooner we'll see the end of sac bunts and the like.

And the sooner Dusty Baker'll be out of a job.

Posted by: Andy at August 10, 2009 9:25 AM

Enjoyed reading your interview. Unfortunately many baseball stats are flawed, the main culprit being "slugging average". As it has been ingrained in all of us baseball fans we accept Ruth's SA as being about .690, the best career SA ever. Actually, it is .504, and not the best. SA has to be satisfied by average bases per at-bat, average hits per at-bat, and average bases per hit simultaneously. recognizing also that there are 4 bases possible in an at-bat. Thus Ruth's SA times his BA x (4 x AB) will reflect the number of bases he negotiated from his hits, his slugging average and his at-bats. So, if you mmultipy Ruth's real SA of .50408980159 x his BA of .34206453149 x 33,596 bases possible from his at-bats --- it will equate to 5792.99999951 or the 5,793 bases negotiated from 8,399 at-bats, a batting average of .342 and a slugging average of ,504 --- not .690.

Thus, the traditional formula for SA, being flawed, flaws other formulae, notably that for such stats as OPs, and isolated power.

Posted by: tuck at August 17, 2009 11:49 PM