Earl Weaver Was a Loser

[Nat]

Originally Posted by DiamondDave

Tell that to all the losing Atlanta teams

That's the correlation I made with this discussion also. If Weaver was a bad manager, so is Bobby Cox. The skipper can only provide the circumstances with the players he's given, it's ultimately up to the players to come through for him.

[DiamondDave]

Lou.... the team winning the game generally has a better ERA.... so to use that to support better pitching wins the matchup is inane

Face it... GS thumped you on this one

[Grandstander]

LG:
Why don't YOU go through the WS from 1903, 1905-1993,and 1995-2006? You will discover that pitching beats hitting.
Because Bill James and others have already done so and discovered that the idea is incorrect.

[LouGehrig]

Originally Posted by DiamondDave

Lou.... the team winning the game generally has a better ERA.

This is ridiculous. It is illogical. And it is wrong.

You admit that the winning team generally has the better ERA.

WHY does it have the better ERA?

You don't want to know why but I'll tell you anyway.

It has the better ERA because it has better pitching.
It is the winning team.
Therefore, it is the winning team because it has better pitching.

Where was the hitting that wins games when the team with better ERA won?

Keep up the thumping. Your responses are analogous to the 1930 Phillies offense and mine are analogous to the 1906 White Sox pitching staff.

[LouGehrig]

Originally Posted by Grandstander

LG:
Why don't YOU go through the WS from 1903, 1905-1993,and 1995-2006? You will discover that pitching beats hitting.
Because Bill James and others have already done so and discovered that the idea is incorrect.

I think you'd better comprehend Bill James a little more accurately.

Cite some examples in the WS where hitting beat pitching. YOU do it. Think and analzye for yourself. After all, you are the expert.

[Grandstander]

LOuG:
I think you'd better comprehend Bill James a little more accurately.

Yes. Cleary the person who has actually read the results of the research is at a comprehension disadvantage compared to the person who wasn't even aware that such research had been done.

What? What is it? You think that the James study was flawed, even though you have never seen it? You think I'm just making this up? What?

The question was settled more than 20 years ago. That you do not like the answer, that the truth conflicts with what you wish to be the truth...these are not concerns that have anything to do with what is actually true and what is not.

The truth is that a formal, organized, scientific oriented research project discovered that there is no special advantage associated with any form of baseball talent in terms of winning in the post season. Not three great starters, not teams with an emphasis on pitching over hitting....none...zero...zip.

I am stating facts, not my opinion. You are promoting an eccentric prejudice of your own, one not rooted in any sort of organized or scientific study, but rather in perceptions and anecdotes.

Either you grasp that the organized approach is valid while the anecdotal one is not, or you do not grasp it. If you do, then you will be forced to agree with the results of the research. If you do not, then you will waltz through life with a head full of misconceptions and prejudices. Right now you are vigorously defending your misconceptions and prejudices, and my patience with your refusal to learn anything new is exhausted. Believe what you wish.

[DiamondDave]

Originally Posted by LouGehrig

This is ridiculous. It is illogical. And it is wrong.

You admit that the winning team generally has the better ERA.

WHY does it have the better ERA?

You don't want to know why but I'll tell you anyway.

It has the better ERA because it has better pitching.
It is the winning team.
Therefore, it is the winning team because it has better pitching.

Where was the hitting that wins games when the team with better ERA won?

Keep up the thumping. Your responses are analogous to the 1930 Phillies offense and mine are analogous to the 1906 White Sox pitching staff.

How dense

The winning team scores more runs than the losing team... this does not inherently mean the team with better pitching won.... do not forget the other aspects of the game as well... in fact, MANY times, the team with the supposed better pitching LOST the World Series

[WilsonC]

It's not entirely conclusive that there's no correlation between roster construction and postseason success. In a more recent study, Nate Silver found three factors that do have a noticeable correlation with postseason success: a high-K pitching staff, a strong team defense, and a dominant closer.

Baseball Prospectus | Articles | Lies, Damned Lies: Secret Sauce

Based on the results of this particular study, it does seem that run prevention plays a higher role in playoff success than run scoring.

[Grandstander]

Originally Posted by WilsonC

It's not entirely conclusive that there's no correlation between roster construction and postseason success. In a more recent study, Nate Silver found three factors that do have a noticeable correlation with postseason success: a high-K pitching staff, a strong team defense, and a dominant closer.

Baseball Prospectus | Articles | Lies, Damned Lies: Secret Sauce

Based on the results of this particular study, it does seem that run prevention plays a higher role in playoff success than run scoring.

Have you read the entire article or just the portion which is available for free? I'd like to learn what this author's definitions and methodolgies were, but not so badly as to have to pay for it.

[WilsonC]

I have read the article, though the intricacies of the methodologies are not detailed here, but apparently in Baseball Between the Numbers, which I have not yet read. However, I'll gladly go over some of the concepts behind this, as presented in the article.

1. Strikeout rates tend to be one of the most consistent measures of pitcher performance. While it is not uncommon for a team to overachieve in terms of ERA over the course of a season, K rates tend to be very close to the true skill level of the staff.

2. As documented in Mind Game (I haven't read it, so don't know the specifics), power pitchers do tend to have an advantage over power hitters, beyond what would be expected statistically. Since we're dealing with only good teams, these matchups tend to happen more often in the postseason, the advantage of power pitching becomes more pronounced, whereas it tends to balance out against a wider range of opponents.

3. Strong defense reduces the expected BABIP and increases double plays, which when combined with a high K rate, reduces the likelihood of extended rallies, thereby reducing the likelihood of big innings.

4. Closers tend to pitch a higher percentage of the team's innings during the postseason, and due to the fact that we're dealing with high-quality teams, there are more close games leading to higher leverage situations.

As I mentioned, I haven't read the full methodologies behind these, but Silver does have a very good reputation, and has access to much more suitable analysis technology than James had for extensive number crunching, so it's perfectly feasable to think he might have picked up on something James might have missed.

[Grandstander]

Wilson....thank you for taking the time to explain. Point # 2 makes intuitive sense. If power hitters are indeed more prone to perform poorly against power pitchers, then a power oriented offense would be at a greater disadvantage. Should we take this to mean that power pitchers lose this advantage when facing an offense not built around power hitting? In other words, is the proper principle to extract: A) Power pitchers give their teams an advantage in the post season....or is it limited to B) Power pitchers give their teams in advantage in the post season if they are facing power oriented offensive teams?

3. Strong defense reduces the expected BABIP and increases double plays, which when combined with a high K rate, reduces the likelihood of extended rallies, thereby reducing the likelihood of big innings.

Makes sense, but what distinguishes this ability in the post season which enhances its utility? Sounds like the mark of a good team, but why would they be any better in the post season than in the regular season? The defense doesn't get any stronger in the post season, does it?

And that caveat...."when combined with a high k rate"...does this mean that the extra utility only arises if the defense has power pitchers going for them?

4. Closers tend to pitch a higher percentage of the team's innings during the postseason, and due to the fact that we're dealing with high-quality teams, there are more close games leading to higher leverage situations.
A subtext of this conclusion would be the debate over the true utility of the closer/save stat.


We might also question if this isn't something of a self fulfilling prophecy. In that closers are used to protect late inning leads, and we know that most teams win games when they have a late inning lead, then the overwhelming majority of your candidates for study will be coming from the winning teams and you aren't learning anything more than what you already knew; most teams win when they have a lead in the late innings.

[WilsonC]

For the most part, I look at this study less of a means of distinguishing things that cause a team to perform differently in the postseason, but rather as a study of the win probability dynamics when a random sampling of two fairly evenly matched high quality teams meet versus the win probability dynamics of a random sampling of teams of all quality levels. I don't think any of this has to do with a special postseason ability, but rather that it is possible that there are teams that have traits better suited to facing higher competition levels, versus beating up on an average of all teams.

If power hitters are indeed more prone to perform poorly against power pitchers, then a power oriented offense would be at a greater disadvantage. Should we take this to mean that power pitchers lose this advantage when facing an offense not built around power hitting? In other words, is the proper principle to extract: A) Power pitchers give their teams an advantage in the post season....or is it limited to B) Power pitchers give their teams in advantage in the post season if they are facing power oriented offensive teams?.

From my understanding, it's more a case of:
1. Power pitchers tend to give an advantage against power hitters
2. Good hitting teams tend to have good power hitters
3. Playoff teams tend to hit well
There's nothing about the fact that the team's in the playoffs that creates this advantage, but rather a tendency for playoff teams to have at least some power hitters as an integral part of their offense, and power pitchers being able to capitalize on this. The other factor is that we're less likely to see a 'Cinderella season turning into a pumpkin' with power pitchers, as K rates are a reliable peripheral, and guys who put a lot of balls in play over the course of a season can be more easilly stung by a little bad luck facing a team that hits well.

Makes sense, but what distinguishes this ability in the post season which enhances its utility? Sounds like the mark of a good team, but why would they be any better in the post season than in the regular season? The defense doesn't get any stronger in the post season, does it?

It's largely the mark of a good team (or rather a team that's good at run prevention), agreed. It's not that the defense gets stronger in the postseason, it's that when facing more evenly matched teams, it's more difficult to come back from a deficit. If you think of how offense works, it's non-linear by nature, but rather follows a clustering effect. That is, teams score runs in bunches by stringing a series of hits and walks and extra base hits together. A good offense will be better at stringing together runs, obviously, but even a good hitting team will tend to have trouble reliably putting up crooked numbers against a good team.

And that caveat...."when combined with a high k rate"...does this mean that the extra utility only arises if the defense has power pitchers going for them?

No, it just compounds it. In fact, the three elements all tend to compound if a team has all three. The important factor is killing rallies, which a good defense excels at. One thing to keep in mind is that the higher the run-scoring expectations, the higher the degree of variance, and the more likely a team is to come from behind.

4. Closers tend to pitch a higher percentage of the team's innings during the postseason, and due to the fact that we're dealing with high-quality teams, there are more close games leading to higher leverage situations.
A subtext of this conclusion would be the debate over the true utility of the closer/save stat.

Careful now - there's debate over the utility of the save stat and whether or not bullpens are managed in an optimal manner to give the best relief pitchers the highest leverage situations, and there's debate over whether 'closers' have any intrinsic skill over other relief pitchers making them more suitable to the role. There's not so much debate on whether or not having an ace in the bullpen to pitch in critical situations is valuable to the team, and that would be true whether he's used in the optimal manner or not. The nature of a contest between evenly matched teams leads to more close contests, leading to more situations that bringing in the closer in a save situation has a higher leverage. That doesn't get into whether managers manage their bullpen differently in the postseason (which the study claims they do - on average they make less use of middle relief and use both starters and closers more agressively)

We might also question if this isn't something of a self fulfilling prophecy. In that closers are used to protect late inning leads, and we know that most teams win games when they have a late inning lead, then the overwhelming majority of your candidates for study will be coming from the winning teams and you aren't learning anything more than what you already knew; most teams win when they have a lead in the late innings

A valid point, and the article didn't cover whether there's a difference in usage patterns between successful and unsuccessful postseason teams. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the difference is because of that. It would make sense, though, that:
1. There are more close games in the postseason, as teams are relatively evenly matched, leading to more situations where a relief ace is prefered
2. There are more days off in the postseason schedule, leading to a higher percentage of games where the closer is rested
3. There is a higher sense of urgency in the postseason, leading to more of a sprint-style than an endurance-style of pitcher usage

As a dominant closer's per-inning numbers tend to exceed that of an ace starter, if teams are better able to take advantage of the per-inning performance of their relief ace, it makes intuitive sense that a team that is more able to take advantage of this during the postseason than the regular season gains a greater-than-expected advantage for employing the closer's skills. The closer's usage patterns are really the only element touched in the whole article that seems to have a relevance of postseason play in general, as opposed play against strong teams.

Also note how the closer's value compounds itself with the ability to protect against the big inning. In reducing the likelihood of big innings, it increases the likelihood of a close game, and increases the likelihood that the game will come down to a battle of the bullpens.

Also, as with any statistical study, these are only tendencies. These are not necessarily traits that will create an advantage against all other types of good teams, but rather traits that create an advantage against a typical postseason-caliber team. It could very well be that these traits are less of an advantage against some types of teams, or that other traits have advantages against certain teams - the article didn't get into that. It's more that over a large sampling of all postseason teams (I'm not sure how far back the sampling goes) these three team traits create a greater-than-chance correlation to the success teams have had in the postseason. What that probably comes down to is that a team optimally suited in these areas could give itself a 1 in 7 chance of winning the World Series, as opposed to 1 in 8 - or something like that.

[Grandstander]

Wilson....again, my thanks for your thoughtful reply.

It would seem then that the thesis is that a post season advantage arises because the distribution of player use is different from the regular season. More innings are being given to the better pitchers, starters and closers, thus generating an advantage for the team which has the superior collection of those types of players. Because the patterns of use of position players is less likely to be enhanced in any manner, teams whose strength is their everyday lineup, do not gain an extra advantage in the post season.

I would not argue against that on the basis of common sense, for it is a reasonable proposition. I am left curious as to the size of the advantage. Do you recall what the study determined? I would imagie that the conditions described for gaining a post season advantage apply to a limited number of teams which have reached the post season, and that it of course has been the case where despite these advantages, the team with them has lost.

So, what are we talking about here in terms of overcoming the the odds we would extract based on regular season winning records?

[LouGehrig]

Originally Posted by WilsonC

It's not entirely conclusive that there's no correlation between roster construction and postseason success. In a more recent study, Nate Silver found three factors that do have a noticeable correlation with postseason success: a high-K pitching staff, a strong team defense, and a dominant closer.

Baseball Prospectus | Articles | Lies, Damned Lies: Secret Sauce

Based on the results of this particular study, it does seem that run prevention plays a higher role in playoff success than run scoring.

Thanks.

[WilsonC]

I recall reading in another article on the same site that no postseason team has much better than about a 1 in 7 chance, which suggests that the advantage it gives a team can't be astronomical or anything (assuming the author of the other article is on the same page as Silver and accounted for this - which he may or may not have). It doesn't give the magnitude of the advantage here, other than some anecdotal examples.

The two teams that rated most favorably in these categories in the 2005 playoffs were the White Sox and the Astros, who met in the World Series. The formula also predicts the success of some surprise World Series winners like the 1990 Reds and 1979 Pirates. Conversely, of the ten post-season teams since 1972 that rated worst in the "secret sauce" rankings, none advanced beyond their LCS.

Clearly, we can't tell anything from the anecdotal successes here - I'm sure I could find a few anecdotal examples to support a theory that HBP totals are a predictor of postseason success if I dug deep enough. The failings seem a little more telling, as it would be unlikely just by chance for teams to go 0 for 10 on the bottom of these lists - though again, not all information is present, as these could be weaker teams all around diluting the results. Intuitively it makes sense to look at these areas from the opposite end of the spectrum - whether teams that are strong in spite of failings in these area are at a distinct disadvantage compared to teams with weaknesses in other areas.

It makes sense that this could be the case, intuitively. A contact pitching team is more likely to be punished against a decent hitting team that can compound the damage when they put the ball in play. Defensive mistakes are more likely to be compounded and lead to more runs against a team that can hit. The lack of a dominant relief ace can be much more damaging in the close contests that are more prevalent with evenly matched teams, especially if the teams can hit.

Conversely, a better hitting team would be less likely to face the contact pitching and weaker defenses that allow them to string together more runs in bunches, and would be less likely to face bullpens against whom they have a reasonable shot of recovering from a defecit.

Note that a key assumption here is that postseason teams are better teams, meaning that a team is likely to face potent offenses and capable pitching staffs over the course of the playoffs. This isn't always the case, and I'd be curious to see whether these advantages would hold true in situations where you have unusually unbalanced playoff teams, for example if two strong pitching/ordinary hitting teams face off, does the advantage of high K rates hold true, or would the lack of a strong offense favor a more control-oriented staff? Or if two offensive juggernaughts with average pitching meet, are these factors still noteworthy? Those types of match ups are in the minority, so the data from them would likely be washed out amidst a sea of statistical noise and variation, but would be an interesting continuation of the study.