Date: Wed May 14 08:20:41 2008
Sender: AJ Perko
I was surprised to see that discipline has NOTHING to do
with how often a guy strikes out.
When you sort by
walks per plate appearance (DS is clearly the attribute)
strikeouts per plate appearance (Co is the attribute)
but there appears to be no correlation. I had assumed players
with good discipline would also strike out less. (they wouldn't
chase bad pitches)
In fact, of the 21 .300 hitters currently in EPBL only
2 have DS over 6. (none have any speed either) so thats also
less of a factor.
That really goes against the conventional Wade Boggs, Tony Gwynn types who hit
for high average and never struck out.
Date: Wed May 14 09:44:01 2008
Sender: Kendell R Jillson
I don't think it's that counterintuitive. If you have a high ds, you take more
pitches, leading to more 2 strike counts, which ultimately will lead to more
strikeouts than the guy up there hacking right away.
It says more to how good players like Boggs and Ted Williams were at making
contact in addition to having keen batting eyes. (and I wouldn't really call
Gwynn a high discipline guy).
Date: Wed May 14 14:05:57 2008
Sender: AJ Perko
Kendell-
Gwynn
struck out 1 in 21.5 at bats
and had about 2 walks for every 1 strikeout.
In EPBL
the absolute best hitter
strikes out 1 in 10.5 at bats
and has maybe 1.20 walks per strikeout.
I can show you Boggs, or any other good contact hitter- most of them who don't
strikeout will also draw a fair amount of walks. I don't think there will be
any correlation the opposite way.
The fact there is no correlation in DEL doesn't make sense.
It makes me wonder if the SIM simply decides (hit or out) and then assigns the
"type of out"?
Date: Wed May 14 14:48:32 2008
Sender: Loren Smith
In general, do DEL managers lean toward high-strikeout pitchers (Ar)or
high-control (Cn)?
Perhaps we tend to go after a higher ratio of strikeout pitchers?
Date: Wed May 14 15:14:29 2008
Sender: AJ Perko
I'm going to say no, or even. Not to mention, the disparity is just too great.
I think I looked it up once before.- and DEL batters strike out 150% more
then their real life counterparts.
I think there are a lot more
4 and 5 arm, 9 and 10 control pitchers out there
then there are 9 and 10 arm, 4 and 5 control
Date: Wed May 14 15:20:39 2008
Sender: AJ Perko
not to mention-
there are some guys who just rarely ever srikeout. In DEL, even the best
strikes out 10%.
Date: Wed May 14 15:35:40 2008
Sender: AJ Perko
The worst strikeout guy in the modern era was Rob Deer-
he struckout 36.3% of his at bats. Jose Hernadez is 2nd at
30.3%
The best strikeout guy of the modern era is Juan Peirre who strikes out only
5.98% of the time.
In EPBL the worst is 24.8% of his at bats
In EPBL the best is 8.9% of his at bats
-----
So again, EPBL buffers everything toward the median.
*********HOWEVER - One thing we have no measure of is Walk to Strikeout ratio.
As I showed EPBL's best is about 1.25 (5 walks to every 4 strikeouts)
IN REAL LIFE- there are guys who have a 4.00 ratio. (4 walks for every 1
strikeout)
WE SHOULD HAVE GUYS LIKE THIS- and have nothing comparible.
Date: Thu May 15 17:36:10 2008
Sender: James Mathis
Well, if DEL hitters strikeout at a 150% higher rate than their RL
counterparts, it should be no surprise that the K/BB rates are out of whack as
compared to RL. I had not really noticed that, but I don't doubt your
findings.
I think the walk rates in DEL are pretty consistent with RL, FWIW.
Oh, and your contention about low strikeout players in RL being high BB rate
guys rings true for guys like Boggs, but it doesn't follow that all low K guys
are also high BB guys. In fact, Juan Pierre, who doesn't K much, also doesn't
BB much, to use your example.
Date: Thu May 15 19:31:10 2008
Sender: AJ Perko
hmmm....
I guess my point was I was really surprised to not see some correlation between
DS and striking out.
and when I saw none, I realized even our best hitters are around 1 to 1 walks
to strikeouts.
While 2.5, 3 to 1 isn't uncommon for a good major leaguer.
People can read it how they want too....
I think it is part of the reason I know most of the great pitchers in my
leagues year in year out.... but the great hitters I can name very few.
Date: Fri May 16 08:05:13 2008
Sender: Kendell R Jillson
"While 2.5, 3 to 1 isn't uncommon for a good major leaguer."
Not anymore. It's actually quite rare. Of the 11 players with over 100 bb's
in 2007, only 2 had fewer than 100 strikeouts (Bonds and Todd Helton). Add in
the 6 players with 90-99 bb's, only 1 other (Pujols) has less than 100 K's.
And Bonds was the only one with a BB/K ratio >2 (2.44). Pujols was 2nd (1.71),
followed by Helton at 1.57. And only 14 (out of 108) players with more than 50
bb's had ratios greater than 1 (more walks than strikeouts).
I do agree that offensive players are not really recognized. I'm not sure it's
because of their lack of consistency among hitters from year to year, probably
more due to the overall damping of offensive output. Especially compared to
their reallife counterparts. Think of the pre1900-1919's in real-life
baseball. Pitchers like Cy Young, Christy Mathewson, Walter Johnson, even Babe
Ruth as a Red Sox ace pitcher probably come to mind before hitters (except for
maybe Ty Cobb)
Also, there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of differentiation between the best
and the average. (again, the skewing towards the median/mean) I don't have
the desire (or expertise) to compute the stats in this regard, to back up this
claim right now, though.
Date: Sat May 17 12:19:43 2008
Sender: Bruce Bond
You're also looking at steroid-era MLB numbers. You can't hit homers if you're
not swinging. K's are way up in baseball over the last 20 years, and I'd guess
if anything there are fewer walks.
The sim probably does a decent job of reflecting that very few batters in
today's MLB change their swings with 2 strikes. They just swing the same and
accept that they'll strikeout more often.
I do have a guy in EPBL with 97 walks to 79 K's, but for his long career he's
just under 1.00 for his ratio (726:745), so this year is more the exception
than the rule.
Date: Mon May 19 19:34:37 2008
Sender: AJ Perko
I heard more pitchers used performance enhancers than hitters
Date: Tue May 20 10:49:42 2008
Sender: Bruce Bond
That's probably true, if nothing else for recovery time. But hitters care much
more about homers than not striking out in today's game. There were instances
where a player would sit out the end of the season to avoid breaking the
embarassment of breaking the season strikeout record. Now it's commonplace
that strikeouts are just a part of baseball.
I would guess most of the guys involved in the sim absolutely hate the most
unproductive play in baseball, the strikeout.
Date: Tue May 20 12:50:14 2008
Sender: James Mathis
I don't mind strikeouts, as long as they are part and parcel of a guy who
drives the ball often. I'd rather have a guy strike out, for instance, than
hit into a double play.
Date: Tue May 20 14:09:28 2008
Sender: Kendell R Jillson
Well compared to a first pitch popout, a strike out (at least in reallife) is
slightly more productive, since it takes at least 3 pitches. Of course, if I
remember correctly, I don't think the pitch count actually matters in the sim,
in that pitchers only get tired due to the number of batters faced. but i
could be mistaken.
Date: Tue May 20 15:42:15 2008
Sender: Konrad Ciborowski
According to "Playing Percentages in Baseball" (by Tango, Lichtman and, last
but not least, an Andy Dolphin) statistically an out is worth -0.299 runs (in a
sense that on average it decreases your run expectancy for the current inning
by 0.299) while a strikeout is worth -0.301 runs. To compare - caught stealing
is worth, for instance, -0.467 runs while a successful steal is worth +0.175
runs. A single is worth +0.475 runs.
It follows from that that there is almost no difference between striking out
and putting the ball into play but not making it to the first base. Strikeouts
are only a tad worse.
Date: Tue May 20 16:39:59 2008
Sender: Bruce Bond
At least a popup has a chance for an error. Especially in DEL where errors are
probably 3 times more likely than in RL.
Date: Tue May 20 16:50:35 2008
Sender: Max Dornan
Andy has said this before. Errors in DEL and IRL are different. In DEL, it
doesn't mean the player messed up the play, he just couldn't get to the play
that he should be able to have gotten to.
Date: Tue May 20 19:11:15 2008
Sender: Bruce Bond
That was tongue-in-cheek about the error rate. But even if the actual "error"
rate is the same, at least there's a chance. I'm not aware of any dropped
third strikes in DEL, so there's no chance on a strikeout.
Besides, ask Wade Boggs if he'd rather pop up or strike out and I would bet
good money the answer would be pop up.
Date: Wed May 21 10:07:42 2008
Sender: Aaron Burkey
Don't forget that Power has a small effect on the strikeout rate.
I know that my EPBL L.A team is running an aggressive Ar favored starting
pitching staff set to More aggressiveness, and we're 3rd in strikeouts behind
two teams clearly running a Most setting.
And as for errors, completely random imho. I have essentially the same team as
last season with the exception of my SS, and he isn't too much of a downgrade
defensively. Last season I tied for the 2nd least number of errors defensively.
This season, I'm 24th and have already surpassed the total from last year with
24 games still to play. It is frustrating and I want to fire my fielding coach.
Date: Wed May 21 15:35:09 2008
Sender: James Mathis
If strikeouts weren't correlated to power hitting, I would mind them more.
And I didn't realize Wade Boggs was such a noted sabremetrician.
;<)
Date: Thu May 22 16:51:43 2008
Sender: Mark Z
AJ, of all your rants, this one is really off base.
Two points:
1) Basically your perception of baseball seems to be stuck in the mid-80s.
Ratios of 3:1 and 4:1 don't exist anymore.
Pujols is #1 by a mile this year and he's 2:1. No one else is even 1.5:1. The
best of the rest are in the 1:1-1.2:1 range.
Why do players strike out more now than they did? (Ted Williams also rarely
struck out): more emphasis on home runs, but also more specialized pitchers.
Hitters have to face fresh, new pitchers every few innings now. In the good
old days, they'd see a tired starter on the 3rd or 4th time around, and would
virtually never strike out then.
2) it is very intuitive that Ds and BA are not correlated.
Case in point: Adam Dunn. Looks at a ton of pitches, both balls and strikes.
Has tremendous discipline, walks a lot, but also hits .220 and strikes out a
ton.
Walks are determined by how many pitches a player takes. You can't walk
without taking lots of pitches. This is discipline, taking the bad pitches.
This means you'll walk more, but doesn't have a thing to do with how well
you'll hit the good pitches.
Contact is how well you'll hit the good pitches. Gwynn and Boggs never struck
out NOT because of their Ds, it was because their Co was about a 15. Just
about everything they swung at they put in play. You can't strike out if you
hit everything you swing at, but you CAN strike out if you take lots of
pitches.
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