Progressing Toward Better Stats Thread

[Floyd Gondolli]

I'm willing to help update here back through 1904 is Randy (Sultan) is gone. Send me a PM if so.

Thanks everyone.

[Floyd Gondolli]

I can do any single year, or multiple years you like, of any player (we have splits for). Just let me know.

Can we update this given that splits go back through 1904 now on Retrosheet and Baseball Ref?

[brett]

Gibson's home parks were slightly higher than average run setting. I think the park factor averages out to about 102 which makes his home park about 104%. Suggests that he pitched worse at home anyway and certainly did not have a typical home advantage.

There are some possibilities:

1) He could have gone deeper into games at home. He actually did, with 7.42 innings per game at home and 7.30 on the road, though pitchers tend to get more IP at home anyway, but the point is, he was pitching in the 9th inning at home more than on the road.

2) He could have been of a neurotype that tended to thrive on adranaline and needed the extra stress to get up optimally for games. There are a percentage of athletes that tend to do so.

3) Park peculiarities? We might expect to see one or more stats that are abnormally skewed between home and road.

The home to road difference mostly comes down to 2 stats. 1) His Babip at home was about 4% above his overall. 1) He had a few more unearned runs on the road on a percentage basis, so the home road difference comes together by about 2% when looking at total runs allowed. A lot of the BABIP difference seem to show up in doubles.

[Bothrops Atrox]

Not sure if it helps at all, but this is road ERA % above or below raw ERA back to 1908- https://www.baseball-reference.com/tiny/rawlx

Do we have any idea why Gibson was hurt by his park more than any great pitcher in recorded history? Obviously with any kind of park adjustment he looks even more tremendous than he does now.

These results are matching well with my results. No idea what is going on with Gibson. We cannot underestimate how much might just be randomness.

[layson27]

We need how much individual pitcher were impacted by their specific parks...beyond the cookie cutter park effects BBPro uses. Using just league road ERA is only one step.

I am just trying to see what is the range of impact can truly be. Are specialized park effects really to explain almost all of some HOFers +200-300 runs saved above average? Beyond what BBRef has already accounted for? Or even 100?

On the other hand, Ryan was a league average road pitcher for his career. Ruffing and Wynn too. Bob Feller, Warren Spahn, and Robin Roberts, 3 guys who are top 20 pitchers to most, were pretty much Jamie Moyer on the road for their careers.

Also notable, is that the extreme ends for guys losing value through rrERA+ is over twice as big as guys gaining value. Tons of guys are losing 100+ runs, but VERY few are gaining 100+ runs. Not sure what it all means.

Not sure if it helps at all, but this is road ERA % above or below raw ERA back to 1908- https://www.baseball-reference.com/tiny/rawlx

Do we have any idea why Gibson was hurt by his park more than any great pitcher in recorded history? Obviously with any kind of park adjustment he looks even more tremendous than he does now.

[Bothrops Atrox]

Not up to par on these adjustment discussions but If you want some type of road ERA adjustment you can always use league averages. I am assuming the problem is in trying to find league road ERA season averages??? Or am I off base? If so then never mind...

We need how much individual pitcher were impacted by their specific parks...beyond the cookie cutter park effects BBPro uses. Using just league road ERA is only one step.

I am just trying to see what is the range of impact can truly be. Are specialized park effects really to explain almost all of some HOFers +200-300 runs saved above average? Beyond what BBRef has already accounted for? Or even 100?

On the other hand, Ryan was a league average road pitcher for his career. Ruffing and Wynn too. Bob Feller, Warren Spahn, and Robin Roberts, 3 guys who are top 20 pitchers to most, were pretty much Jamie Moyer on the road for their careers.

Also notable, is that the extreme ends for guys losing value through rrERA+ is over twice as big as guys gaining value. Tons of guys are losing 100+ runs, but VERY few are gaining 100+ runs. Not sure what it all means.

[Bothrops Atrox]

Maybe you need to scrap that analysis, I was comparing the WAA in the file where Seaver is credited with 62.178...B-R shows as 66.6 today.
Or better yet, can we have a refreshed DNRA++ spreadsheet?

That would be great if you can. Though even with 62.2 compared to 67, we should still see Seaver high up the list.

Would it be possible to maybe do the 50 top and 50 bottom?

[Jar of Flies]

How is Seaver not on this list when he gets a 5-6 ERA+ boost alone from park-specific adjustments?

Maybe you need to scrap that analysis, I was comparing the WAA in the file where Seaver is credited with 62.178...B-R shows as 62.8 today for pitching.
Or better yet, can we have a refreshed DNRA++ spreadsheet?

[Bothrops Atrox]

For the DNRA++ info, if I understand correctly, the WAA is strictly pitching only?
Please confirm if my assumption is good

If so, the biggest gaps between Baseball Reference raw and DNRA++ for WAA is:

B-R WAA, DNRA++, Gap, Hurler:
Guys gaining 2 or more WAA
33.7 40.1 6.4 Walsh
31.9 37.2 5.3 Feller
26.5 30.9 4.4 Faber
92.7 97.1 4.4 WJohnson
39.0 43.3 4.3 Spahn
19.2 23.5 4.3 Rixey
13.2 17.4 4.2 CMays
29.4 33.5 4.1 MBrown
18.3 22.3 4.0 Gomez
37.0 40.9 3.9 Hubbell
24.2 27.7 3.5 Cicotte
27.4 30.9 3.5 Ford
16.1 19.5 3.4 Hoyt
25.8 28.8 3.0 Lyons
26.8 29.8 3.0 Drysdale
7.3_ 10.2 2.9 Pennock
33.8 36.6 2.8 Coveleski
8.1_ 10.7 2.6 Zachary
10.3 12.6 2.3 Root
28.2 30.4 2.2 Marichal
4.9_ 6.9_ 2.0 Sherdel
14.0 16.0 2.0 Wynn
12.4 14.4 2.0 Uhle

Guys losing 2 or more WAA:
91.5 79.9 (11.6Clemens
65.6 55.9 (9.7) Rjohnson
69.0 60.0 (9.0) Nichols
49.6 43.0 (6.6) Blyleven
61.9 55.5 (6.4) Maddux
59.8 53.8 (6.0) PMartinez
33.2 27.3 (5.9) Tiant
51.9 46.0 (5.9) Schilling
45.7 39.9 (5.8) Keefe
99.5 93.8 (5.7) Young
48.3 43.1 (5.2) Niekro
7.4_ 2.6_ (4.8) Morris
46.4 41.7 (4.7) Mussina
17.6 13.0 (4.6) Tanana
4.3_ 0.0_ (4.3) Kaat
38.4 34.3 (4.1) KBrown
10.3 6.2_ (4.1) Moyer
36.4 32.9 (3.5) Glavine
33.9 30.4 (3.5) Cone
30.7 27.4 (3.3) Oswalt
12.3 9.2_ (3.1) DMartinez
23.3 20.3 (3.0) Hershiser
22.4 19.5 (2.9) Gooden
5.4_ 2.9_ (2.5) Drabek
40.4 38.0 (2.4) Jenkins
31.7 29.7 (2.0) Radbourn
70.1 68.1 (2.0) Grove

How is Seaver not on this list when he gets a 5-6 ERA+ boost alone from park-specific adjustments?

[layson27]

FYI retrosheet has Home/Road splits back to 1905, so we finally can get the full career road numbers of Cobb & Speaker.

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/C/Jcobbt1010.htm

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/S/Jspeat1010.htm

[Floyd Gondolli]

You can try. Since OPS+ is about 6% lower with pitchers you could multiply the NL rates by 1.06, but DH's are something like 16% above average, spread through the lineup that would also be another 2% there. So 1.08. That's a first impression. In fact it raises an issue that even though pitchers are removed in finding OPS+, AL hitters are still compared to a lineup with a DH added.

In addition to the DH numbers being part of OPS+ in the NL vs AL, we should also factor in the effect of pinch hitters (they’re truly awful) when comparing players OPS+ between the two leagues. This is especially meaningful for 1973-1996 players, before interleague play, one would think...

[Jar of Flies]

missin a few but main post in red are your guys

Excellent, can you update the Excel sheet also to show the WAR+ impact, thank you

[brett]

wOBA is not superfluous to wRC+! wRC+ is calculated from wOBA. wRC+ is weighted runs created relative to average, and wOBA is used to determine weighted runs. Yes, wRC+ is an easier stat to use; you can tell at a glance how good a hitter a player is. But wOBA is a rawer value. If wRC+ is like OPS+, wOBA is like OPS.

But do you NEED wOBA to calculate wRC+? Can two players with different wRC+ have the same wOBA or vice versa?

[Sultan_1895-1948]

Any luck with updating some of the folks requested:
David Ortiz
Lance Berkman
Reggie Smith
Jeff Kent
Will Clark
Cesar Cedeno
David Concepcion
Phil Rizzuto
Harry Hooper
Joe Sewell
Toby Harrah
Kiki Cuyler
Heinie Groh
Zack Wheat

Thanks : )

missin a few but main post in red are your guys

[Stolensingle]

Actually wRC+ is a better version OPS+. It will have a similar scale, so like 100 is average and 200+ is Ruth territory If you took wRC+ and did your rrOPS+ adjustments you would actually get a better estimate of players' relative batting value and you could adjust WAR directly. wOBA is complicated, and I will have to go back and read the details but it tries to create a scale similar to all time on-base percentage levels, so like .330 might be average, and .400 would be MVP level. It is superfluous to wRC+, but really just an attempt to make it look like a traditional percentage.

wOBA is not superfluous to wRC+! wRC+ is calculated from wOBA. wRC+ is weighted runs created relative to average, and wOBA is used to determine weighted runs. Yes, wRC+ is an easier stat to use; you can tell at a glance how good a hitter a player is. But wOBA is a rawer value. If wRC+ is like OPS+, wOBA is like OPS.