Brewers betrayed by Baseball Prospectus
by roguejim on Feb 12, 2008 7:47 AM CST
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PrintOh, the ignominy:
In Baseball Prospectus' National League Central spring training preview Monday, Joe Sheehan gave the Brewers a B-plus for offseason moves and wrote: "this is the most entertaining Brewers team in a quarter-century.However like some other early Central projections, Baseball Prospectus still likes the Cubs to win the division and suggests that the Brewers have too many right-handed hitters despite the fact that the club "could be a 90-win team if it wins more of the bullpen bets than it loses."
Apparently, we're too right-handed. Plus we need to platoon Bill Hall at third. Fools!
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Can't really call it stabbing in the back
RWBB: When did you begin to follow baseball?
Joe: My earliest baseball memories are of a nighttime Mets game when I was four or five and of playing Wiffle ball on the sidewalk around that time. The first specific memories I have are of the Bucky Dent game, when I was seven.
RWBB: You must not be a Red Sox fan or you would have given ol' Bucky a certain middle name.
Joe: I'm a huge Yankees fan, have been since I was a little kid. My birthday present for a number of years was tickets to a doubleheader, back when they scheduled them. When I got older, I'd go to 20-25 games a summer. To me, no place in baseball will ever be like Yankee Stadium.
There you go, he's a Yankees fan. That would explain... nothing.
by hyattff2003 on Feb 12, 2008 8:12 AM CST reply actions
I wouldn't call it betrayed
I was feeling dramatic. :)
baseball prospectus
the column is unresearched. it's just mainstream style sports journalism speculation.
Sheehan writes:
It will be harder [for the cubs] to hold off the Brewers this season
the cubs will have a harder time holding off the brewers this season? because 'they held off' the brewers last year? did no one at BP tune into the NL central race until the last two weeks? what happened was the brewers failed to hold off the cubs.
he also writes:
Winter grade: A-. [The Cubs] only move of note--signing Fukudome--was a terrific one, giving them the OBP boost they sorely needed, and solidifying a position, right field, that was a problem in 2007.
he has fukudome projected for a .390/.440 line. (i already gave my opinion on that projection).
Well, RF for the cubs last year posted a .375/.419 line in 611 at bats. give those at bats to fukudome's projection and you get 105 simple runs created (up from 96), a 9 run improvement.
And for that 9 run improvement, which could very likely be offset just by the aging everywhere else on the diamond, he gives the cubs the best 'winter' grade in the division. One of the problems with relying on the veterans is you have to make off-season improvements just to offset the aging. The brewers have the opposite problem, without doing anything, they are better this year.
For the cubs, Soto and Pie will prove to be better additions than Fukudome will. And not messing up the younsters shots at positions on the diamond is impressive for hendry, i'd give him a B just for not trading those two away.
But Sheehan goes on to write that the brewers should be improved in the bullpen, might be 4 wins better on defense because of cameron, and might post 90 wins?
:)
And they are not the team to beat? i think sheehan just covered all the bases in a throwaway collection of words cause it was time for some free material.
The article isn't bad
Here is his 'wiki'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Sheehan
The thing that struck me besides his life on the coasts, is that his career started by posting on a usenet group. Heck, it sounds as if BP is kind of a thing that grew out of guys hanging around on usenet. That's probably not entirely fair.
He is a stat guy though, but at least he is a stat guy who observes players. Some stat guys seem as if observing will poison their mathematical truths. He wrote an article calling for a few guys including Rickie Weeks to break out this year. Look at the way his brethren are ready to throw him overboard:
http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/site/comments/yappin_joe_sheehan/
I know who 'mgl' is but I forget and Tony the tangoing tiger (sarcasm) is a successful entrepeneur selling stats and stats talk. I'm sure it'll break Joe's heart if he won't be exchanging emails with him. Pathetically he touts his crude Marcel the monkey tool which is fine as a starting point for conversation, but not much more. He talks about it as if it is akin to DNA testing and that the very idea of players not matching their marcel or PECOTA is foolishness.
GAK
Sheesh
The Marcel system (as I understand it from tangotiger's description) is just a weighted average of each player's numbers from the previous three major league seasons. He even admits it's the most basic projection system you can use and that it won't be perfect. I think the reason he does still use it is because it hasn't been shown to be much less reliable (if any) than the other projections out there. I don't visit there much, though, so I could be wrong on that.
my impression is different
Even though you refer to Marcel as basic, they talk about it like its much more and if it matches reliability with other projection systems, that isn't a positive for the others.
And hey, everybody outside of fans like my girlfriend who will watch a game and enjoy it (and that's a recent development), is a stats guy (or gal). But stats in bball are like stats in everything else including politics, they're bits of data. They're great at learning and improving observations and often provide telling insights. But they can also be used to prove anything and are misused frequently.
breakouts
it's a witch doctor business model.
like you say theJay, unless you've got reasoning behind it, predicting something like a breakout season is dumb.
it's essentially the same criticism i made above about his look at the NL central. just a bunch of guesses. it's like pop sabermetrics. that's fine for a sports illustrated column, but it makes baseball prospectus the boy bands of the advanced baseball metrics crowd.
all style and no substance.
mostly, sheehan simply gets off on the wrong foot:
What do true breakout players look like? Well, a little like this...
now the comment thread moves to something more interesting and ends with a philosophical question, can you project a breakout season without a projection system?
Tony the Tangoing Tiger
Ol Pete, you are so far offbase with me, I don't even know where to begin, or if it's even worth it. Do you want the record set straight?
Jacob has gotten the right vibe on this issue.
OK, here's the setup
talk about the wrong foot
Breakout candidates have been predicted without the requirement for the existence of a set of mathemetical formulas since they started using coaches I would think. Every team has multiple personel who do it. I wonder if the "advanced" crowd believes that such a thing exists.
12 step program
Examples
Whose?
the article
Crusade?
I've read plenty of material including THT and a better word than conclusions would be estimations. In their own discussions they go on quite a bit about their failings.
The formulas, if available, are often quite complex. The complex ones, if they were calculating rocket science, would be reviewed and evaluated. The number of people involved in bball, including fans, who know all the notation involved in representing them is tiny. The number willing to review them for accuracy and reasoning in a thorough fashion is probably often zero, and more often low single digits. The jargon used in the discussion is also obscure and understood by few.
But you're referring to the entrepeneurs rather than the followers who populate forums and use them like weapons to defend whoever and whatever or draw conclusions that aren't supported.
Really you're being far too sensitive.
I agree with you
Just remember this, these math guys rarely get to use their knowledge on anything fun. Baseball, at least from what I can think of, is really the only sport where this type of math is this useful.
i love baseball
However, i don't mind those who've chosen not to explore the game's inner workings enjoying the game on their own terms. i have no problem with that, i'm pretty certain that when you get down to it, nobody has a problem with that.
Just remember this, the people who've chosen not to explore the game's inner workings really have not put themselves in a position to criticize the methods of those who have.
What are you arguing?
Read it again, then please tell me what I am criticizing?
I don't think
i'm not arguing with you.
where did anyone say you are criticizing anyone?
I don't think you are criticizing anyone, it's clear that this:
these math guys rarely get to use their knowledge on anything fun.
is a joke. i was simply, like you, expressing an opinion. what's the problem with my statement?
Here's what's funny
Ill leave it at that.
oh.
or was that not a joke either?
i don't know if the fact that you think math cannot be applied to anything that is fun is sad or funny. I'd just offer the advice that something that includes math is not automatically not fun. Imagine if you had to feed 30 unicorns but you only had 10 rainbows, math could help!
Baloney
Minus my three-rainbow cut, that is, for setting the whole thing up.
All I know is this
Every class I had had Math teachers in it as well. It was always hardest for them to come up with authentic activities that would be interesting and relate to the real world.
So, Yes. I am saying, along with 85% of the citizens in the U.S., Math is boring.
you can't get to 85% without math.
i respect teachers the most out of all professions. cheers to you and thank you.
my first thought
Seriously?
LOL!!!
We did that
Yeah
I have to agree . . a little
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NL Central Standings
| W | L | PCT | GB | STRK | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Chicago
|
0 | 0 | .000 | 0 | Lost 0 |
|
Cincinnati
|
0 | 0 | .000 | 0 | Lost 0 |
|
Houston
|
0 | 0 | .000 | 0 | Lost 0 |
|
Milwaukee
|
0 | 0 | .000 | 0 | Lost 0 |
|
Pittsburgh
|
0 | 0 | .000 | 0 | Lost 0 |
|
St. Louis
|
0 | 0 | .000 | 0 | Lost 0 |
(updated 2.15.2012 at 1:03 PM CST)
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