Some Thoughts for the New Year
This past week, while a lot of us were on hiatus, there was a good bit of discussion going on in the blogosphere about the role stats played in baseball. This eventually led to “The Mike Silva Chronicles” posts over at insidethebook.com, in which Mike Silva asked 10 questions and Tangotiger answered them. They’re without a doubt worth reading.
One of these posts in particular had to do with “Stats Saturation” in which Mike Silva asked:
Do you believe the advanced metric community is saturating the market with stats, to the point where progress that was initially made with the evolution of traditional stats is now minimal at best. Wouldn’t it be wiser to allow some of the current metrics to gain acceptance before you “advance the current advanced metrics” (corny phrase so to speak).
FanGraphs has been around for almost 5 years and this is a question which is frequently on my mind.
For the most part, FanGraphs does not create new statistics. It’s more of an aggregation of what I consider the best publicly available sabermetric work on the internet from the minds of people like Tom Tango, Mitchel Lichtman, Dan Szymborski, Dave Studeman, Sean Smith, with contributions from many others including our own staff.
There are certainly a lot of stats available on FanGraphs. By my count there are well over 100 different metrics available for batters and pitchers, which are generally broken into logical sections which make them a bit easier to handle. Some of these stats have caught on more in the mainstream, while others I’m sure will continue to only be used among the sabermetric crowd.
With so many stats, I can certainly understand the question of why things might be getting overkill with additional stats. The truth of the matter is that there really are different categories of stats and even those who are not particularly interested in sabermetrics are very much interested in scouting statistics.
Four of the stat sections on FanGraphs are devoted entirely to scouting statistics. These include the Pitch Types, Plate Discipline, and Batted Ball sections. The data in these sections is based literally off what Baseball Info Solutions scouts see. There are no fancy calculations and everything is fairly intuitive. Was the ball in the strike zone or out of the strike zone? How fast was the pitch and what type of pitch was it? Is there room for some disagreement on these? Of course. There’s always going to be some disagreement between scouts, but you really can’t blame the formulas.
Which brings us to the stats which are based on formulas. Many of the metrics on FanGraphs are rooted in “linear weights”. wOBA, wRC, wRAA, wRC+, FIP, and the Batting component of our Value section are all entirely linear weight based. These all use linear weights to measure different things, or in some instances the same thing expressed in a different way. But at their heart they’re all measuring bucketed stats in runs.
Now neither scouting stats nor linear weight based stats are, in my mind, particularly controversial. There are, however, controversies on how linear weights are adjusted, such as by park or by league. And then when scouting stats and linear weights are combined, it seems to be a particularly hot button issue. UZR, for instance, relies on both scouting data (where the ball landed, how hard it was hit, its trajectory) and turns that data into linear weights depending on how the ball was classified, and then adjustments are also applied.
UZR and the Pitch Type values are really statistical scouting. They’re all about putting a value on what you see.
So getting back to Mike Silva’s question of if it’s better to wait for acceptance before introducing new stats, I’ll say it depends. The standard linear weight based stats on FanGraphs aren’t going anywhere. I really don’t think it’s worth introducing an entirely new named set of statistics for what might be a very small increase in accuracy. The current ones may from time to time be tweaked slightly, but they’ll remain under the same familiar names and will represent the same things.
Though when it comes to stats that really do bring a new point of view, whether it be with new scouting data, or drastically different models, then I’ll say they’re welcome at FanGraphs. The other type of stat that I’m not opposed to adding is one that makes an existing model more accessible, which I felt was the case with wRC+.
With all that said, I’d just like to throw out a quick reminder for the new year about thinking. Please take the time to understand the stat you’re using before you use it in an argument and before you criticize it. It’s best when the stats available on this site are used in thoughtful, open-minded discussions that enhance your knowledge and, most importantly, your enjoyment of the game of baseball.
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Great post, especially for us noobs still wading through the mounting heap of acronyms in the baseball world. I think the reason I’m drawn to places like this is that stat development and projection models seem like real bright spots in the midst of an otherwise phony era. I don’t think it’s coincidence that steroids and SABR are blowing up around the same time… Though I don’t have any numbers to back it up, I think fans will always be looking for authenticity in the game.
Interesting observation, MLT. I suppose sabermetric analysis restores some of the historical continuity that may have been lost for some as a result of the Steroid Era. That’s not to say advanced metrics can account for ped-enhanced performance or determine who’s using and who isn’t (at least not yet!) but they provide more of a historical (warning: cliche to be used ahead) “level playing field” when it comes to side-by-side analysis of a players’ value.
While of the idea of “baseball as a living narrative” has emanated from nostalgia and memory for some, advanced stats allow everyone to view that narrative as based in logic and objectivity instead. I think the decision, whether conscious or not, to embrace sabermetric analysis depends on what is more valuable to you: nostalgia (which can be nebulous) or historical objectivity. I just want to have both…
Dave,
Happy New Year and thanks for all you do! I love this site and appreciated that post. The acronym soup can be confusing, but it’s good for us to learn what they mean and how they work.
Thanks so much to you and Tango and everyone else for all the stats, and to all of the writers, you and Tango included of course, who give us something to chew on every day.
Julianna…
Very well put. I think you and MLT may have a good point.
I like what you wrote…
“While of the idea of “baseball as a living narrative” has emanated from nostalgia and memory for some, advanced stats allow everyone to view that narrative as based in logic and objectivity instead. I think the decision, whether conscious or not, to embrace sabermetric analysis depends on what is more valuable to you: nostalgia (which can be nebulous) or historical objectivity. I just want to have both…”
I know for me, James’ work and now this, it gives me a much better sense of historical comparison. Are all ballplayers now just worse than Ted Williams because they don’t hit 400? No, certainly not. For one thing, hitting for a high average isn’t the best thing you can do, and for another, context, context, context. For me, having a way to put Ted Williams and Joe Mauer or Albert Pujols in a story that lets them be wonderful players and makes sense of what they do..
That’s why I’m here. In addition to enjoying the on field game, that sense of history is why I love baseball and the power of SABR type work to enhance that is a real and unexpected joy. (A year ago I’m not sure I knew what “SABR” meant. Thanks, Rob Neyer…)
“For me, having a way to put Ted Williams and Joe Mauer or Albert Pujols in a story that lets them be wonderful players and makes sense of what they do..” Excuse me…
… Is another reason to love this game. One of the biggest, at least for me.
Silva’s played the Chass card perfectly.
Insuffrable douche in his writing, but magically becomes way less combative when addressed one on one.
Good for him, got himself tons of hits on his website and a whole lot of attention. Bad attention > No attention. And of course, we all a pretty easy bunch to get going.
But if Silva asked me if the scene is getting too saturated, I would say this:
For now, I agree. A nice, slow phase in until metrics become a 2nd language, as much as AVG, RBI, ERA, etc, is needed. Shouldn’t mean that for those actively seeking better measurements (geek fans and front office types, occasional reporter), that you should just stop. wRC+ has definitely been demanded, because wOBA, as useful as linear weights are, sucked at comparing players of different eras. wRC+ addresses it. Now we can check and see that Mickey Mantle was even better than we thought, we can stop penalizing Padres and loving on Rockies, etc.
Essentially, just because they’re being formulated, doesn’t mean that Tom Tango plans on driving to Bristol, CT and putting a gun to the ESPN Production Director’s head and threatening to shoot if BBTN doesn’t begin in depth xBABIP analysis on players, and that Brian Kenny should be put into the booth on Sunday Night Baseball…
…actually I think I might support that 2nd part.
Companies will come up with complex metrics that measure how changes affect their goal, whether it is producing more product, product with fewer rejects, or simply profit.
In baseball the object at a low level is producing runs or preventing opponent runs, which general metrics are lined up with. But the higher level object is winning games, so we get things like leverage (from the simple GWRBI to WPA), and the highest level is championships, which is difficult to measure (if I add my CF with league-average fielding and 105 OPS+ and 25/32 SB being paid at $30M/3 yr to an average playoff team with a 60 percentile payroll in an average market, does that increase their chance of winning the WS?).
Football embraces the QB rating even though the writers often say it is beyond their comprehension because there aren’t a lot of other advanced stats around and it does a good job of identifying who is performing better. If Elias had produced OPS+ or WARP in 1980 it would have just been part of the baseball card regardless of whether it had a better correlation to run production than RC, etc.
I imagine the football front offices have their secret formulas for QB rating that change the values of TD passes vs interceptions or say what down a pick was thrown (e.g. getting picked off on 1st down rather than throwing it away is different than trying to force a throw on 3rd down when you would punt after an incompletion) that would have a football stat alphabet soup faceoff, with people trying to correlate their QB ratings to wins.
FWIW, pro-football-reference.com includes a measure called Adjusted Net Yards per attempt, and also a scaled version relative to the league average (ANY/A+)
Some examples:
Aaron Rodgers: 120
Peyton Manning: 121
Tom Brady: 119
Philip Rivers: 130
Drew Brees: 130
Jay Cutler: 90
JaMarcus Russell: 62
Joe Namath (career): 105 (104 AY/A+, as the ANY/A+ mark only covers 1968 on).
Excellent post, Appelman. You have a talent for simply explaining the potentially complex.
I think one of Silva most troubling complaints (on his original post — or maybe in the comments section) was the accusation that the Sabermetric community has become a group-think community. Granted, when Tango Tiger, Sky Kalkman, Dave Cameron, or someone of that sort speaks, I tend to listen with childish (maybe undue) enthusiasm; but I also see elements of dissent, competition, and disagreement among various sabermetricians — for instance the row JC Bradburry created through his aging methodology rather than the delta method (if that doesn’t sound like a Doomsday Device or a plot from “Superfriends”, then what will?).
However, how can a community disprove or (better yet: avoid) Group Think? I believe that’s a question worth examining…
Simple: by continuing to think objectively.
You (may be) making the mistake of confusing group think with consensus.
In country A, everyone is told what green is. The population sees the fangraphs logo and everyone agrees that it is green. While they may have been told it’s green, they used their own critical thinking ability to determine it for themselves.
In country B, the population is led to believe the color green is actually red. They see the logo and decide it is red. Rather than learn for themselves what colors are, they’ve accepted what someone of a higher influence tells them without challenging it.
Baseball’s already a groupthink bonanza to begin with. Remember how much it blew your mind when you first realized that AVG/HR/RBI was not the best way to judge a hitter? Simply put, we were told that a .300 hitter was automatically better than a .250 hitter, and that RBI is a measure of run production, and never questioned it because hey, sounds right to us.
THAT is groupthink.
I don’t know why Tango dedicated so much time and space to this “debate”, but Silva did not come across very well. Appears that he spent little time looking into anything prior to his diatribe, and while he did participate in the discussion, I did not think he had a particularly open attitude to our side. In a way, Silva reminded me of JC Bradbury.
There are many people who challenge sabermetric “groupthink” from inside the community from time to time, and while obviously there are many within the community who follow the leader, there are so many independent thinkers on these blogs that someone will eventually challenge any faulty assumptions held by the group before long.
Side note: I dislike the word “groupthink”, it seems like it carries some sort of ironic self-referential quality in additon to sounding dated- while 1984 was an incredible work and still holds a ton of weight today, the syntax from its dystopian future has not exactly weathered the passage of time, just the themes which seem to sadly become more relevant with each passing year.
Speaking of stats which make an existing model more accessible, such as wRC+, is there a FIP+ available yet?
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