Progressing Toward Better Stats Thread

[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.

[layson27]

The original pitching adjustment results from Sultan in the original spreadsheet make more intuitive sense than the ones Brett introduced by dividing road ERA by the 103 factor, etc. According to that method, Roberts, Spahn, and Feller lose OVER HALF of their career total runs above average. So do guys like Hudson, Hershiser, and Finley. According to this method, Ryan, Ruffing, and Wynn are BELOW average career pitchers.

Some of these guy gave up far fewer balls-in-play and Hrs than normal pitchers. None of this is making much sense. You're talking about guys losing 200-250 runs due to only park factors beyond what BBref is already considering.

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...

[Bothrops Atrox]

The original pitching adjustment results from Sultan in the original spreadsheet make more intuitive sense than the ones Brett introduced by dividing road ERA by the 103 factor, etc. According to that method, Roberts, Spahn, and Feller lose OVER HALF of their career total runs above average. So do guys like Hudson, Hershiser, and Finley. According to this method, Ryan, Ruffing, and Wynn are almost BELOW average career pitchers.

Some of these guy gave up far fewer balls-in-play and Hrs than normal pitchers. None of this is making much sense. You're talking about guys losing 200-250 runs due to only park factors beyond what BBref is already considering.

[SHOELESSJOE3]

Sultan has not posted for 6 weeks. Hope he is okay.

A bit long this time but Randy has in the past stayed away for weeks at a time.

[Bothrops Atrox]

I wanted to come back to this "brainchild". The idea is to rate a player's batting relative to what he would have produced if he had walked in every plate appearance. So let's say a player produced 2000 career batting runs (above zero) and he would have produced 3500 if he had walked every time, his relative value would be .571.

Also, Sultan1895 would it be possible to start a thread just on pitchers where we have a data table on the first page. There are some things about adjusting pitching WAR that I would like to iron out.

Sultan has not posted for 6 weeks. Hope he is okay.

[brett]

The thing is that players rates don't necessarily stay the same if they walk less. And for gosh sakes a walk is worth more than just about any average non-walk at bat for anyone. Linear weights says that a walk is worth .35 runs.

If you slugged .850 and batted .400 you are only creating about .23 runs per at bat.

Ruth produced about 2500 net runs in about 10,000 plate appearances, but if someone walked every time they would produce about 3500. Now THAT might be something interesting but we would need to know the linear weights value for a walk for each year. How close a player came to being worth more than he would have been if they had just walked him every time. Using those numbers, Ruth for his career comes out being worth about .714 (ironic) of the value that someone would have if they walked every time in random situations.

Let's see how close Ruth comes in his top rate seasons.

In 1920 I have Ruth worth about 177 total runs, and a 100% walk rate to be worth about 216 for a rate of about .819
In 1923 I have Ruth at about 192 and a 100% walk rate worth about 244 for a rate of .787

I have always thought that a few players like Ruth, and also Williams and Hornsby and Bonds when their OB% starts to get real close to or above .500 they were really changing the entire approach to pitching to them, but we do see that no one QUITE reached the level where they outperformed 100% walk rate.

I wanted to come back to this "brainchild". The idea is to rate a player's batting relative to what he would have produced if he had walked in every plate appearance. So let's say a player produced 2000 career batting runs (above zero) and he would have produced 3500 if he had walked every time, his relative value would be .571.

Also, Sultan1895 would it be possible to start a thread just on pitchers where we have a data table on the first page. There are some things about adjusting pitching WAR that I would like to iron out.

[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 62.8 today for pitching.
Or better yet, can we have a refreshed DNRA++ spreadsheet?

Help me understand what is even happening here.

According to the original park-adjusted ERA+ vs. RAW ERA+ from Sultan, Clemens ERA+ jumped up 2 points. According to DNRA++, Clemens saw a massive 11.6 win drop.
I know Brett included opponent adjustments in his DNRA++ post, but is this suggesting that the opponent-faced factor is SIGNIFICANTLY more impactful than the park component?

[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

[Sultan_1895-1948]

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...

By using league OPS+ numbers we are essentially removing the DH from the AL to keep things relatively even. The pinch hitter factor I never really considered. Sure it is a "lesser" player perhaps but you can also have a one PA platoon advantage guaranteed.