Guess the BP quote:
by xian on Jun 21, 2006 1:04 AM CDT
15 comments
Here's the game:
- I will post a BP player comment each day.
- You name the player.
- ?????
- Laughter
From 2005:
Wishcasting can lead you in so many directions. I mean, who doesn't have an active fantasy life? So when you hear some analysts saying that [he] will be a good #3 or #4 starter, just keep in mind that he's been a bad fifth starter for two years, and he's no spring chicken. There's nothing exotic that's preventing [him] from succeeding. He just doesn't find the strike zone that often.
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Jose Contreras
I believe it should be:
- ?????
- PROFIT$$$$$
by mlaird on Jun 21, 2006 1:33 AM CDT reply actions
Contreras
How is this news? Baseball Prospectus just doesn't like the Sox. They never have, never will. I'd go so far as to say they have a bias and a rooting interest against the White Sox. And I'll prove it.
First, one of the things you have to notice is that they seem to dislike certain ballplayers as a matter of course. One of those is Scott Podsednik. Now, you might say that BP has a thing against small, speedy guys as part of their philosophy, and you'd be right. However, no such vitriol is aimed at guys like Chone Figgins or Juan Pierre. To the point:
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=4252
They dislike Podsednik even when he's playing as well as he's able--say, .300/.360/.400. Mostly, I get that idea from articles like the one above. I also remember one, which I can't find, talking about how Podsednik is a useful player if he puts up the playing line above. Their goal in this writing is to counteract the idea that he's an extremely valuable player for his base stealing skills. The idea that Scott Podsednik is an all-star is a strawman made up in the minds of the BP authors, last year's all-star game notwithstanding. Either way, the authors at BP should understand that what makes Scott Podsednik valuable isn't his base stealing skills. Those are somewhat valuable, but his real contribution is his on base ability at the top of the order and his exceptionally (suspect) defense.
The other reason that BP seems to have a bit of a bias against the Sox is that their PECOTA projections rarely paint the White Sox in a good light. I'll come to Jim Thome later in this post, but for now check out his PECOTA projections for the season here:
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/pecota/thomeji01.php
Check out his 90th percentile. He's nearly beaten out that WARP value in half the season.
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/dt/thomeji01.shtml
Just so I'm clear, I don't think BP has anything specifically against the White Sox. They have a philosophy that states that...
You should never sign mid-level free agents
You should never trade prospects
Base stealing has limited value
And you should judge players based on what their comparables have done at similar points in their careers.
Some of those things tenets are completely correct, like the insight that can come from looking at the game statistically or the importance of understanding the value of players on the free agent market. I agree with a few reservations that base stealing is overrated, and that smart baserunning can add more runs than stealing bases. I have problems with their prospect evaluations and their insistence that the PECOTA comparables system overrides individual player histories.
Now, what I mean by that last point is that PECOTA is useful for seeing broad trends across seasons. One trend would that PECOTA uncovered is that players who begin to get injured in their mid-thirties don't stop getting injured. For some players that's doubtless true. But balancing that insight with a player's individual history instead of treating it like a law is a better method of predicting their value for the upcoming season. Complete case in a nutshell: Everything about PECOTA says Jim Thome is finished as a ballplayer. It said he's done this year. It'll say he's done next year. It won't say he'll regress, because big lumbering sluggers don't regress. They collapse. But Thome won't collapse since he's been consistent and injury resistant throughout his career, and he's playing as a DH.
That little bit of balance with his player history will go a long way towards making a better prediction. In case you're wondering, it's not just BP that does this. The hardball Times also has applies models like DIPS or xFIP over broadly to the extent that they obscure player histories. You just have to know that some of the things they say reach beyond their data, and have to be taken with a grain of salt.
One of the selling points of the statistical community is that the conclusions reached by these models should be objective. Like all models, though, these also rely on simplifying assumptions that are not entirely right. The only way to alleviate that is to make the models more complex, which is something analysts of all kinds are loathe to do. Simplicity in maths can be tough to come by. So balancing what the models say with an individual player's character is useful.
Oh, off the models and back to the Sox. BP made Kenny Williams their bogeyman for his deviations from their methods and lessons regarding...well, everything. And I'll admit that some of the things that Williams has done have made my jaw drop. Trading Lee for Podsednik comes to mind. BP made the White Sox their personal piñata for the Lee trade, for not resigning Ordonez and instead signing Dye, for signing Pierzynski, for trading Loiaza for Contreras, for sticking with Garland, for trading for Garcia, and for sticking with Crede. They went against the front office and the players as examples of stubborn stupidity and a zealous devotion to a philosophy in spite of overwhelming evidence against it.
Then a funny thing happened, depending on your point of view. It was the exact thing they said wouldn't happen. White Sox won the World Series.
The boys at BP ate so much crow they had to go to the emergency room to get the primary feathers removed from their tracheas. They weren't just wrong; they didn't just get humbled. They were wrong in the most spectacularly embarrassing fashion possible. They were wrong at predicting the worth of a baseball team, exactly what they proclaimed to be able do to better than everyone else. They were wrong at what they were best at. Not only were the folks at BP blithely, absolutely 180 degrees, 31-flavors of wrong: they were ironically and comically wrong. They were wrong for the very reason they derided Kenny Williams. If they'd spent less time trying to explain to people that Williams' was an idiot for trading prospects for veterans coming off of bad seasons they might have realized that he was stockpiling inexpensive and high upside ballplayers. They were too enamoured with their predictive abilities--and the hubris that they'd found the universal theory of baseball--to apply the same standards to themselves that they applied to others.
So while I like the BP authors--who in large part hail from the University of Chicago, right by where I live. But at this point, any anti-White Sox rhetoric is just covering their own bums. They can't back down now or they'd look like fools. And back down they haven't. Podsednik is still "useful" at best. The White Sox were still lucky. And the White Sox are still lucky this year.
One of the things that Williams has taught White Sox fans, BP, and the statistical community in general is that prospects are overrated. They're valuable, to be sure, but they're also an unpredictable commodity with a high degree of randomness. You never know how good a prospect is until you test them against MLB.
....Wow
Fantastically stated.
I am a very big fan of BP, but they refuse to ever look at anything outside of their satistical models. If the Sox should not have won the World Series last year in their minds nothing will change their views of the team. It was luck. The fact that the Sox are CLEARLY one of, if not the, best teams in baseball again this year doesn't seem to register.
The best views of baseball in my opinion are the ones that can appreciate all the stuff "behind" the game (stats..etc) as well as the stuff that is right in front of your face when you simply watch a game.
by Brent Brookhouse on Jun 21, 2006 7:20 AM CDT up reply actions
Prospectus And The Sox
- BP Has An Anti-Sox Bias: BP is a collection of various authors who each bring their own strengths and biases to the table. Some of them, Jayzelari with his Royals history in particular, just don't like us, which he forthrightly admits. Others, like Kahrl and her U of C heritage, are mild fans. I don't think this translates into a general bias but, rather, produces a range of attitudes that you would expect from any collaborative process.
- BP Doesn't Like Podsednik - I don't quite get your point. Sheehan said exactly what you're saying - that Podsednik is useful for his on-base skills and defense and that his base-stealing is over-rated. That is what you're saying, yes? As to your assertion that BP is attacking a straw-man when they assert that his base-stealing is over-rated or that he isn't an All-Star, I don't know what to say. How can it be a straw man when Podsednik was, in fact, voted onto the All-Star team by the fans? How can it be a straw man when literally every columnist and Sox broadcaster in the city praises Pods for his base-stealing and the "pressure" he puts on opponents, while rarely, if ever, mentioning the very skills that you assert are the key to Pods' value? Maybe we genius few here at SSS have got it all figured out and we all know what BP is saying is correct, but most observers would strongly disagree.
- BP Ate Much Crow Over The Sox - Yes, they did, and I think they were generally gracious about it. They had some excellent end-of-season discussions about the Sox' success and why BP had gotten the predictions so wrong. In my view, those were the best analysis done of why Sox won, focusing on run-prevention (particularly defense) and power, not little ball or character. Then in the 2006 Annual, they had an extensive discussion of "luck" where the very first point they made was that what matters most is winning and that nothing should be taken away from the Sox just because they exceeded the performance that their run-components would suggest.
- BP "Philosophy" - To the extent all the different BP authors can be pigeon-holed into one philosophy, I think it is fairly stated as "objective evidence uber alles." As you summarize their beliefs, you agree with almost all of their tenets. So do I. (I think you are incorrect that they say "you should never sign mid-level free agents." What they constantly harp on is over-paying for guys who have replacement level talent. Who can disagree with that?)
- PECOTA Makes Mistakes - Is this your real gripe? PECOTA is a system. No one that I've ever seen claims it is the source of True Knowledge. It's a starting point. Can you look at a particular player and see something that will allow you make an intelligent alteration to that projection (like Contreras before this year)? Of course. Hell, read the book and you'll see many comments where the author takes issue with the PECOTA projection on the very same page. No system of prediction is perfect. BP has a system that is objective and testable and, generally, I'll put it against any other group of predictions you care to name. Will they get players wrong? Sure. So will Ron Shandler, Kenny Williams or you and me. I am not aware of any group of predictions that is consistently better, although there may well be one. Do you know of any that is superior?
- PECOTA Is Wrong About Thome - I don't think I understand your point here because it seems to me that you are mis-reading the Thome forecast. The 75th percentile projection was .284/.412/.559 in 415 PAs. Currently, the Peoria Pounder is hitting .276/.411/.601 in 228 PAs. How much accuracy do you want? More to the point, how does this projection say that Thome is finished as a ball-player? And how does PECOTA say that aging sluggers invariably collapse? If I recall correctly, what PECOTA generally says is that aging sluggers slowly decline as their batting average, speed and defense sink but that they keep their power and plate control to the end (see Thomas, Frank). It is catchers, middle-infielders and speed guys who seem to collapse quickly although, of course, your mileage may vary. The question with Big Jim for this season has always been about health. As I recall, after the Rowand-Thome trade, everyone on this site voiced concern about Thome's health and whether he would be able to play a full season. Larry wrote an excellent post about the specific back malady that Thome has and assured us that, if he worked hard on his rehab and stretching, it would not be chronic. Most of us crossed our fingers and hoped for the best. The PECOTA projection is essentially a numerical depiction of that same attitude. Now, you may be correct that, if a person knew the specifics of Thome's injury, had Larry's expertise and knew details of Thome's Winter conditioning program, he could look at PECOTA and see that the PA projection was low. In essence, that is what Kenny Williams did and mad props to him for doing so. But I don't see that as an indictment of PECOTA.
- BP Hates Kenny Williams - You go too far here. BP has written both very strong criticism and praise of Williams. Williams did make many bad decisions (Koch, Ritchie, Wells, Alomar, Everett). He was excoriated for them by knowledgeable Sox fans as well as BP while he was being praised for them in the local press. And BP was exactly correct when they said in 2005 that Williams' strength was picking up low-cost value (Uribe, Loiza, Politte, Jenks, etc) while he had botched the high-profile moves (again Koch, Ritchie, Wells, Alomar, Everett). I think you are simply incorrect when you say BP lashed him for the 2005 specific moves. Maybe my memory is failing, but I don't recall anyone at BP saying we should resign Magglio, especially at those numbers. It was the Tigers they killed on that one. Similarly, no one reacted strongly to the Dye and AJ signings. If I recall correctly, they were seen as solid but uninspiring ways to addressing obvious scars in the Sox lineup. Yes, they were down on Contreras (wasn't everyone?) but nobody was beating the drum that Loiza was some great pitcher who was worth so much more. It was seen as a trade of over-priced scrubs, not a big mistake by Williams. You may be right about Garcia, I don't recall. I know that I was upset because I though Kenny paid too much. I certainly didn't expect Olivo and Reed to turn into pumpkins (I even harbored hopes that Morse was going to be good player). The 2005 Crede comment was not that they Sox shouldn't stick with him in 2006 but that it should be his last chance to have a guaranteed job and that if he didn't put it together, the Sox should replace him. Isn't that what we all said? But, rather then refusing to back down in order to cover their butts, I think the BP guys have been honestly self-critical and forthright about what they got wrong. Furthermore, no one has given Williams more praise for his willingness to break up the feel-good championship team to make 2006 squad better. To my way of thinking, Williams has grown significantly in his years at the helm, as he has gained experience and judgment to go with his balls. That is to his credit and I think BP has fairly described both his mistakes and his growth.
- Tone - Maybe all these specifics are sort of besides the point if what you are reacting most to is the tone of BP's coverage. It plainly strikes you as arrogant and anti-Sox. I don't see it that way but perception of intangibles like that is in the eye of the beholder so I can't say you're wrong. FWIW, I've had some minimal direct contact in correspondence and in person with the BP folk and they strike me as a varied lot. Sheehan and Kahrl have always been pleasant and easy to admit error. Silver (he who created PECOTA), seems more prickly and closer to your view of the unyielding stat guy.
can you explain something for me
what does the 75th percentile mean?
ok
And like other stat misusers you left out the parts that were clearly wrong. That 75% projection also said he'd hit 25 HR and drive in 67.
On top of that Thome only had a 25% chance to achieve those numbers based on their formulas.
Lets take a look at that 5 year forecast. Oh, he's not expected to last past next year.
I was going to say this shows bias. But after thinking about it its the opposite. Had they introduced bias in this projection it would have been more accurate.
I'm quite torn on this one, Landfill.
That being said, I think that many of them fall into the same traps that many of their (our?) pedigree fall into. They confuse a strong grasp of critical analysis skills with an immunity from one's own perspective biases and observation errors.
The main point I disagree with you on is Williams. They were absolutely BRUTAL on Williams up through the first couple months of last year.
That was flat-out BAD analysis. They didn't do their homework, didn't see what Williams was doing, and the little data they did inspect, they chose to twist it in a way that would make any of the mainstream sports hack journalists proud.
It was dumb, dumb, dumb, and as an above poster mentioned, the "other people often mock were also wrong about this" is not a worthwhile defense.
To reveal the above player quote, that was BP's analysis of Uribe. What is more interesting is the 2003 anaylsis of Uribe:
2003
Too thick-headed to be a star? Uribe hasn't taken the time to learn English and it's hindering his progress. He's supporting a huge extended family on his minimum salary, and on the trip to Shea last year he'd bought tickets for dozens of friends and family members, and then spent the series trying to prove he could hit 600-foot homers. He wound up hitting 3-for-20 with no extra-base bits. He's fast enough to steal a lot more bases than this. Hurdle stuck by him at first, but started to lose patience by season's end. They're done screwing around with him. They forced him to train all winter and had him report to Denver in January to work on "the mental and physical aspects of the game" with the new coaching staff. Not that anyone noticed, but he doubled his walk rate last year. Espy can work with that. Now that Rey Sanchez and Orlando Cabrera have their historic seasons behind them, Uribe's the best fielding shortstop in the National League.
***
This is what was so maddening about BP. They had the data--(I didn't check Cabrera who had a 39 FRAA, which is better than Uribe's best year)--this was a guy who had what appears to be the second best year for a SS in MLB history, and Williams picked him up for Aaron Miles.
I know it wasn't "front page news", but isn't that information they should be including in their analysis. Furthermore, shouldn't they consider that in terms of the possibilities for future projection of the team's successful.
Coming in to 2005, the Sox were getting a full year of Rowand in center, Uribe at SS, Pods in LF, and Dye in RF. They also were not losing any offense compared to the team the previous year that had its top two players out for most of the year, and had a pitching staff that relied on defense strongly for its performance.
How could they have missed the improvement and continued to mock Williams and predict a 71-91 year?
They completely misjudged Williams. Maybe they need a logical GM evalation tool or something, but they certainly need to assess their current evaluation strategies.
We agree...
I think that BP habitually reaches beyond their evidence in an attempt to promote statistical methods as the best--and only--means to evaluate baseball. Frankly, stats models are the best way to look at the game. But if your evidence is that good you don't need to over reach. Just put it out there. The reason that BP authors like Perry and Sheehan go after Podsednik is to counterweight what they perceive to be fawning love in the mainstream media. But to declare Podsednik is a fourth outfielder is to go too far in the opposite direction, and to be just as wrong as those who think he's an all-star.
Whether BP was gracious about being knocked down 10 pegs in 2005 is irrelevant. It wouldn't have happened if they'd just followed their own data and hadn't overreached. I love the "unyielding stat view," so long as its identified as such. But that method isn't what got BP in hot water. Human error was what caused their 2005 predictions to collapse. If they want to look more competent on the job than the three stooges once again, all they have to do is get back to the data. Leave the crusades, stick to the data.
BP needed a foil, and so set up the White Sox--and Kenny Williams especially--as the opposition to their philosophy. In doing so they abandoned objectively looking at the data, patterns, and cycles that good statistical observers use to evaluate teams.
Like I said, all models are built on a series of simplifying assumptions. These assumptions aren't equally true for all players, and so neither are the models that rest on them. BP selectively understands this. There's always going to be a human element in weighing and balancing the projections of individual players, the histories of teams, prospects, defensive stats and "success cycles," and that's where BP went really wrong. I think the quote that typifies this was in relation to the 2004-2005 off season. I've tried to look it up, and can't find it. But if anyone could find the link, it would be priceless. BP essentially said that Kenny Williams ran the 2004-2005 off-season like he was shunning statistics. "Statistics," they said "failed Kenny Williams in 2004, and so it looks like he's abandoned them in 2005." Turns out that he wasn't abandoning them, he just had a better/different understanding/interpretation/grasp of them than did BP.
by Stealfirstbase on Jun 21, 2006 11:05 PM CDT up reply actions
Exactly
by generico12 on Jun 22, 2006 9:33 AM CDT up reply actions
Isn't it great?
Then that "funny thing" happened...and his excuse for looking like such a fool? "Well nobody predicted them to do anything, so it's not like I'm alone." Of course, I then had to remind him that I, in fact, had predicted the Sox to win the Central and make a run in the playoffs.
Those were the days (these are the days?).
by defensive indifference on Jun 21, 2006 10:58 AM CDT up reply actions
Wow!
I would agree with pretty much everything you posted. As you said, the funny thing is that they did repeat the same error that they were deriding others for committing--a failure to learn and push one's thinking beyond where it is. They went to a new level and they rested on their laurels, mocking others and then missing what those others had to teach.
Here's another player card:
The White Sox have a frustrating tendency to make good decisions in inverse proportion to the amount of money at stake. They can be counted on to bungle any move that would make front-page news; but they did well to pick up [this guy] from the [English-only Sports Franchise], a player who can pick it at either middle infield position and had more upside than organizational filler [that other guy]. Uribe's power is almost invariably described as 'surprising' since he's not a big guy and doesn't have a particularly hefty swing. PECOTA is more concerned about his batting average, which is liable to decline given his lack of selectivity at the plate.
* * *
The further irony is that Williams' success has been driven by the huge allotment of that very same quality that BP praised Billy Beane for and then failed to practice themselves. He always seems to find some new angle to view players that allows him to see a net positive potential where others cannot.
I'm sure he'll make other truly questionable decisions in his tenure as a White Sox, but in the meantime, I must say we are truly blessed to be able to witness Kenny Williams' General Managerial career.
As a follow-up to above, "What player has the greatest defensive year in the history of baseball, and it's not really very close?" (I might be wrong, but I checked a ton of player cards...)
BP's Book
Basically, and maybe I'll write a 5,000 or so word essay on this sometime, I feel like they overstate the degree of accuracy of pretty much everything they do. I've got a decent enough background in statistics (four college courses) to know enough to question some of their methods and assertions. Too often, it seems, they engage in a lot of ecological fallacy when predicting player or team performance.
I was just wondering if anyone with a better understanding of statistics (in general, not just baseball-related) has noticed anything like this before? I'd like to get a forum or something going about it, if anyone is interested.
by generico12 on Jun 21, 2006 10:12 AM CDT reply actions
Anyone ever go to johnnymostilsrazor?
"Then there's figure 1, on page 510, the most pompous example of oversimplification imaginable. This figure presents a computer-science-like decision tree for a stolen base attempt, showing the three outcomes of the decision: no attempt, successful steal, and base stolen. Fine. Then Table 7 shows the breakeven percentage to 1/10th percent. My problem with this is the outcome tree for "attempt steal" is indistinguishable in the data from "try hit and run" (or "try run and hit"), and the number of outcomes is not three, it's dozens. The overwhelming majority of the time, an attempted steal involves a pitch delivered to a batter who may or may not swing. They ignore "catcher throws ball into center field", or "pitcher balks", or "batter fouls off pitch", or "batter lines into double play". A stolen base or a caught stealing, as data, is the precipitate in the bottom of the flask. The decision to run (or not) may be made by the manager, and is several events away from the actual recorded data column. These factors are difficult to divine, happen far more often than the percents place in the numbers would indicate, but ignoring them poisons the subsequent analysis fatally. Drawing the conclusion (as Keith Woolner does) that Tad Iguchi was the least opportune base stealer in MLB last year is like Sherlock Holmes solving cases from his monographs on tobacco ash -- fanciful, fun, and utter fiction. Printing three-digit breakeven numbers from this oversimplified decision tree leads to analysis paralysis and, rather than contributing to the knowledge base, just fuels the skepticism so elegantly detailed in the Huckabay essay's Woodwardian interview section. Drawing conclusions about player abilities from this noise is hubris worthy of Greek tragedy."
http://johnnymostilsrazor.blogspot.com/2006/04/everyday-they-write-book.html
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