Time Warp Baseball

[canadiancreed]

yikes, what is up with the voters for the GG. They trying to make Brooklyn and Rauch happy?

Rauch beating out Betters? Blech

and Bass?! Only reason eh got any playing time is because he's with Brooklyn! Jones was robbed

[tward13]

And I bet in 1952 the real voters weren't going by OBP either. Roadhouse's power stats and performance under pressure certainly played a part. He had an AWFUL start to the season but was great the last half. The guy just doesn't walk. He doesn't strike out either. He's putting everything into play and now more of them are finding open ground.

[ifspuds]

Wow. Pirates in the top 5 in 6 of the 8 positions. Where did Herm Vardaman (2B, former Gold Glove winner) rank?

[canadiancreed]

Originally Posted by tward13

And I bet in 1952 the real voters weren't going by OBP either. Roadhouse's power stats and performance under pressure certainly played a part. He had an AWFUL start to the season but was great the last half. The guy just doesn't walk. He doesn't strike out either. He's putting everything into play and now more of them are finding open ground.

I wonder how well he did against Cincy, with our vacuum cleaner like defense

[DamnYankees]

Originally Posted by fhomess

I'm curious what SS Victor Estevez had in the way of Win Shares. He won the AL Gold Glove but wasn't on your list.

Estevez had 5.7 DWS. Along with 17.7 OWS, that's a very good total of 23.4.

[m0ng00se]

Originally Posted by fhomess

I'm curious what SS Victor Estevez had in the way of Win Shares. He won the AL Gold Glove but wasn't on your list.

Dang, Castandena will be disappointed. He's been the Gold Glove winner in 4 of the last 5 years. He had a down year on offense and losing the gold glove too... ouch... hopefully that will inspire him to a hot '53. He did set a personal best for walks so at least he can feel good about that.

[canadiancreed]

Originally Posted by m0ng00se

Dang, Castandena will be disappointed. He's been the Gold Glove winner in 4 of the last 5 years. He had a down year on offense and losing the gold glove too... ouch... hopefully that will inspire him to a hot '53. He did set a personal best for walks so at least he can feel good about that.

At least Jones wasnt the only one giped

[m0ng00se]

Originally Posted by canadiancreed

At least Jones wasnt the only one giped

I didn't say he was jipped. Estevez is a heck of a SS.

But thinking about it... adding Stell to my roster meant more outs going to the OF. Castaneda isn't having to carry as much of a defensive load as he has in the past. He might find GGs harder to come by unless Stell retires and is replaced with another ground ball pitcher.

SO IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT CREED.

I kid, I kid.

[Vris]

Wow! 200 pages!

Also interested to see where Ken Chaucer had for WS.

[BPS]

Originally Posted by m0ng00se

But thinking about it... adding Stell to my roster meant more outs going to the OF. Castaneda isn't having to carry as much of a defensive load as he has in the past.

GG (based as they apparently are on range factors) and DWS are made more unlikely for a player if: (1) more K's by the team's pitchers which means fewer balls in play, (2) good fielders elsewhere on defense so more outs (and fewer errors) accounted for by other players than otherwise would been the case, (3) the player is on the "losing end" of issues related to GB percentage and Left/right handed pitchers which determine where a ball is hit, and (4) pure randomness as to where the ball is hit.

[jdw]

> Ray Kress and Hal Andrew were
> named co-MVP's. In a Series where Detroit's
> offense dominated, Kress put on one of the
> best hitting performances EVER. He hit .600
> with 4 HR, 2 doubles, 10 RBI, 7 runs, 7 walks,
> a .727 OBP, a 1.533 SLG and an unimaginable
> 2.261 OPS.
>
> Not to be outdone, Andrew dominated New York
> from the pitching mound. He went 2-0 with a
> 1.15 ERA, including a 4-hit shutout in the
> clinching Game 5.

Matt - great choice to co-MVP. I usually think in real life that co-MVPs tend to be cop-outs, but this isn't close to one. They both really were brilliant and worthy of it. If you look at the game logs, Kress was in the middle of a lot of innings where the Tigers got things started or put them out of reach. Andrew's Game 2 win was massive to pick up a win in the Polo Grounds rather than let the Giants get too much momentum. And Game 5 was big for closing it out as I don't think anyone on the Tigers wanted to go back to the Polo Grounds where the Giants were 4-1 in the last two playoffs, and were 3-1 there to close out the season with almost every game a "must". The Giants don't appear to have a big home advantage over the course of the season, but seem to turn it up a notch in the clutch - 7-2 in their biggest home games over the past two years against some of the best teams in the game is impressive.


John

[tward13]

You get that big old ballpark filled to the rafters, plus kids up on Coogan's Bluff and the joint starts rockin'. With the odd shape of the field those corner OFers have NY fans right on top of them. The pressure gets to those opposing pitchers in the tight situations too. Leave one just a little up and someone will deposit it in the overhang down the line.

[jdw]

> GG (based as they apparently are on range factors)
> and DWS are made more unlikely for a player if:
>
> (1) more K's by the team's pitchers which means
> fewer balls in play,

Yep. And we do have some wide splits in K's. Cards, Tigers, Yanks, Pirates over 700, while the White Sox, Giants, Braves, Reds and Dodgers are all under 550. In the majors you're get bigger spreads these days.


> (2) good fielders elsewhere on defense so more outs
> (and fewer errors) accounted for by other players
> than otherwise would been the case,

Tends to happen.


> (3) the player is on the "losing end" of issues
> related to GB percentage and Left/right handed
> pitchers which determine where a ball is hit,

A big one. Especially in the case of a team like the Reds with three across in strong range at 2B-SS-3B. The Indians has strong 2B-SS combos.

That said, teams in the bigs historically *can* have multiple players do very well in DWS. The Yanks with Gordon & Scooter has both do extremely well in DWS.


> and (4) pure randomness as to where the ball is hit.

Yep. And not always random.

When you watch PBP of the games, you'll see a strange number of balls hit in the direction of ****ty fielders. Rettig last year for the Reds had a high DWS for his LF position. He was far and away the _worst_ defensive player on the team - a 2 range LF. In CF was a 7, in RF was a 5 with a 10 arm, in the IF they went 4-8-8-9 from 1B to 3B, and their catcher is one of the best in the game. Several of the pitchers like Bajofer and McGlathery were good fielders for the position as well.

The Reds IF's get nailed because they don't wildly exceed the "expected" numbers of chances given the number of balls in play. A bit of a Catch-22.

I think anyone who looks at the Reds, their fielders, and some of their pitchers *knows* that their defense *collectively* is rather exceptional on the IF. Their pitchers allowed opponents a .251 BA, which is right at league average... despite only having one starter above a 6 Stuff rating, two others at 6, and two others down at 4 and 3. The 3 ate 292 IP, 36 IP more than anyone else... and gave up just 281 H in 292 IP... a pretty amazing number with that weak of Contact.

Their problem is the "collective" and that so many balls are hit on the ground.


John

[BPS]

Originally Posted by jdw

I think anyone who looks at the Reds, their fielders, and some of their pitchers *knows* that their defense *collectively* is rather exceptional on the IF.

Would some combination of opponents' BA and unearned runs be a good measure of the quality of team defense?

[jdw]

> Would some combination of opponents' BA
> and unearned runs be a good measure of
> the quality of team defense?

WS does allocation a teams Wins Shares (3 for Every game won) to OWS and PWS & DWS. A team with a great offense, but weak in Runs Allowed, will have more WS allocated to OWS - the team won games on their offense more than P&D. And of course the reverse. The P&D component is also split trying to capture how much of the P&D was Pitching and how much was D.

How effectively it nails those allocations between Pitching and Defense isn't something I've spent a lot of time studying. It does do a pretty good job of allocating between Offense and P&D, especially when considering the park factors. Team vs. Team DWS comps... I don't know how well it matches up with what we believe we "know".

One other thing to add:

Players on teams who perform well under their Pythag (like the 1952 A's) take it in the shorts, while players on teams that perform well over their Pythag (like the 1949 Red Sox) get boost. Long explanation for this, but the general concept is "those wins/losses had to come from somewhere", and it gets propotioned around the team at the same ratio that they contributed.

The A's and Reds took it hard this year. -10 is off the charts, and -7 is really big as well. You get more extremes like that in a game like OOTP than in real life.

Looking at the Reds and Dodgers, there's a 15 game Pythag swing. 45 WS swing.


John

[canadiancreed]

yep, the Pyrthag rating shows jsut how much ebtter this team should have been. Sad really.

but as you said in another thread, Ward winning his first GG in his first full season. Very nice. Beaten out by a "rookie" from the negro leagues, but still damn nice.

[tward13]

Don't know what I'll do without a 30 year old rookie next season.

[fhomess]

One defensive measure I like to look at is defensive efficiency, which is basically batting average on balls in play. It looks at the number of outs and hits recorded by a pitcher, removes K's and HR's, and then sees how many outs the defense turned that into. Good defensive teams turn a higher percentage of balls in play into outs than bad ones.

[Ankhiel]

Originally Posted by canadiancreed

yikes, what is up with the voters for the GG. They trying to make Brooklyn and Rauch happy?

Rauch beating out Betters? Blech

and Bass?! Only reason eh got any playing time is because he's with Brooklyn! Jones was robbed

GG has nothing to do with offense, so Bass deserved it

[canadiancreed]

Originally Posted by Ankhiel

GG has nothing to do with offense, so Bass deserved it

and 14 other teams will probably be quite happy with your outlook

Not me though, Jones deserves the GG. He's teh mroe complete player instead of a sub IF that only gets enough apperances because the team is THAT much is need for soemoen that can play, even if its' only defense

oh wait, I jsut described Jones until the middle of last year. Crap