The Best of MGL, October 2011

Apparently, Major League Baseball had their postseason last month. I was travelling in Treasure Island, Ontario for work and without internet access, so I missed it. A lot of SABR drama flared up while I was gone–too much for me to properly deal with here, unfortunately. The best I can do is publish this compilation of MGL’s best comments from October, 2011, but without any of the snappy backtalk you’ve come to expect from Praiseball Bospectus.

They say that legends are born in October, but only one man can reign over it. MGL easily surpassed 40,000 words (or enough for a short novel) written in comment threads last month. And I’m sure there are even more great MGLian comments not included here that I missed (especially if not posted on The Book Blog). I’d like to add them if you’d be kind enough to post a link in the comments. So, please help me out.

Without further ado, I present the SABR who never sleeps, MGL.

Terrible managing?, October 5, 12:31 AM:

My thoughts are this:

If I could give a manager a piece of paper with the answer to all of these decisions, I would be correct 90%+ of the time and a lot more than the manager would. A lot. I would miss some of the intangibles for sure, but those would pale in comparison to the “numbers” behind my decisions. I would add at least one win a team’s WE, thus I should be paid 5 mil or more…

Worst managing ever?, October 8, 12:17 AM:

#5 and #6, and because you think it, that makes it right? You want to accept that bet also?

I’ll bet you won’t accept that bet. That is because when people who have little expertise on a matter have an opinion on that matter and those opinions are not supported by evidence, they never take those bets. I wonder why?

You see, anything that I posture on this blog, I will always stand by it, because it is almost always based on evidence or my experience, knowledge, or expertise which has been gleaned by evidence. I learned a long time ago that my opinions without a solid base aren’t worth jack…

Worst managing ever?, October 8, 8:00 PM:

Wow, nice folks on BTF. I wonder why I left that site years ago.

What is incredible is how many people there use the result of the plays, the game, and the series to refute my claims.

I wasn’t aware that someone took me up on my bet and then they got to choose their methodology, players, etc.

Before someone takes me up on one of my bets, please do the following:

1. Say, “I accept your wager.”
2. Identify yourself and let us know how you intend to pay up if you lose.
3. Figure out a way to choose a third party to verify or conduct any research that is needed.

If I lose I will gladly pay up and learn something in the process. Someone (who has no idea who I am) on BTF actually said something to the effect, “…because the dickhead never pays up…”

I am doing some research now on the 9th inning thing…

How do great starting pitchers pitch the 4th time through the order?, October 9, 1:24 AM:

So, in the original thread, did I say anything egregious or is the entire post egregious enough to warrant the vitriol on BBTF and even here?

I made the point about Punto, which I think is correct, at least according to my sim, and a 1.5% WE is pretty big. And I have not heard anyone refute that with evidence other than stupid batter/pitcher matchups which we have already discussed (and hopefully put to rest), or the proverbial, “The manager must know something that you don’t know.”

I made the point about the two bunts, which I think are correct, and, again, I have not heard any refutation with evidence. A few people excoriated me for saying that Carp would have been safe anyway, which is debatable (or not) but completely irrelevant to my argument. I simply said that with him running, the bunt win expectancy is going to be very poor compared to the WE from batting. That is because a bunt is always marginal. Throw in a poor/slow runner on the bases such that he is going to get forced a significant percentage of the time, and the bunt is not likely to be correct, even against a very good pitcher. Any arguments there?

I said that bunting with a 2-0 count, when the bunt at the outset of the PA was probably bad, is an egregious error, and I am pretty confident it is, and I have not heard any refutations on that either. Problems with that?

I said that not pinch hitting for Carp in the 8th was bad, but I did not harp on that. I still think the numbers will show that was bad. I admit that probably no manager would have done that – although that does not make it correct. I am strictly speaking of mathematically correct things, and not what would make the manager look good or bad. That is not my job to determine that.

And finally (the 4th or 5th thing I criticized), I said that bringing in Motte was correct. It looks like that may be a tossup, but with Carp not being a top tier starter (according to my projections and others – see ZIPS, Oliver, Pecota, Steamer, etc.) and with Motte being a very good closer, I think that bringing in Motte IS the correct choice, but perhaps marginally so. Again, whether a manager “should” do that is not my business. I am talking strictly numbers.

So why the universal hate, condemnation, criticism, mockery, etc.?

Someone please explain what I did to deserve that? And I am taking about substance and not tone. If someone wants to criticize me for my tone, so be it. I don’t give a hoot about that. Those are all ad hominem arguments anyway for people who sadly have nothing substantive to contribute…

How do great starting pitchers pitch the 4th time through the order?, October 9, 11:09 AM:

It should be fairly easy to figure out what is happening in the 9th, but I can’t do that now.

McCoy, you can do all the speculation and “thinking” you want, and you might be right about conclusions, but without any numbers, they are meaningless. Sorry. Either one strategy or the other yields a greater win expectancy, or it is close in which case I have no problem yielding to the gut, experience, instinct, etc. But, unfortunately, you can’t figure out the answer without “running the numbers.”

How not to do a study, October 10, 1:24 AM:

Tango, why do you bother? You are infinitely more patient and kind than I am!

Worst managing ever?, October 10, 6:53 PM:

What I find especially outrageous, almost scandalous, is that someone could actually write, as in #72, that I said, “TLR is a terrible manager because he let Carpenter pitch the 9th, ” when the title of the post was hyperbolic, as titles or headlines often are, and that the last example of several gave of Tony’s mistakes was leaving Carp in to pitch the 9th. I suppose a loose characterization of my post is, “TLR is a terrible manager because (insert anything I happened to mention in the post),” but in my opinion that is classic spin, mischaracterization, taking words out of context, etc in order to launch an ad hominem attack and deflect attention from the issues at hand and is otherwise totally uncalled for.

Worst managing ever?, October 11, 9:37 AM:

Yes, I may have been wrong about the difference between an elite starter in the 9th who has been pitching extremely well and a closer. Can we put that to rest and move on?

Regardless of how assured I make myself out to be on various issues, I am sometimes wrong, thankfully. Let’s all have a party, hand out awards to everyone who doubted me, and move on…

Starting Pitcher on a great day v Closer, October 11, 8:07 PM:

Circle, your “English” explanation is useless. Do you really think that manager’s “experience, intuition, and expertise” can figure out the right answer? If you do, then you are dreaming. I mean managers make ridiculous, silly mistakes all the time, believing in erroneous things like the hot hand, and batter/pitcher matchups, and other small sample nonsense. Do you think that they magically become genius savants when it comes time to figure out when to take out their starter and when to bring in a reliever.

I certainly agree that if it is a tossup, you probably want your starter in order to save your reliever for a possible extra inning game or for tomorrow.

But, if your starting pitcher comes to bat late in a close game, and it is not an obvious bunt situation (with no outs), and especially with runners on base or leading off an inning, since the pitching aspect alone is a tossup (presumably), then it is a no-brainer as far as pinch hitting is concerned since there is always a large difference in WE and RE between a pitcher hitting and a pinch hitter hitting in a high leverage situation.

All the nonsense about, “The manager believes that the starter can shut them down, and the other team is not making good contact, and the team is ahead in the game anyway,” is just that – nonsense. All those “English” explanations will not help to facilitate the right answers in any way, shape or form.

Anyway, I have not read Max’s article yet, but I agree that there needs to be a lot more investigation and controlling of all the variables before we declare it a tossup…

Starters and Relievers in the 9th Inning and Score Differential, October 17, 3:48 AM:

I hope that someone links to this study in BBTF.

As I said, I love to be proven wrong, since that gives me an opportunity to learn something. However, after all the bashing I incurred at BBTF, I think it only fair for them to see this new research. Not that I wouldn’t get bashed again. After all, it is BBTF.

As well, I think I learned a lot from this research, even though in the end, I think I was vindicated, which is kind of a silly notion anyway. As I have always said, and Guy put it aptly, my opinions are almost always informed. Sometimes they are specifically supported by evidence and sometimes they are not. They are never, however, out of my a**, as most “lay” opinions on sports are. After all, I am an expert in the field of sports analysis. You would think I was a lay journalist opining on sabermetrics, like Jayson Stark, Buster Olney, or Murray Chass, if you read the comments on BBTF.

I also encourage other people to do similar research. For example, why is it that wOBA is so much higher when the game is close? I’m sure we can speculate, but without looking at the components and perhaps even the pitch f/x data, I don’t think we can be too sure of anything in that regard.

I would also like to see how pitching with runners on base comes into play. The starters obviously always started the 9th, but the reliever data I looked at was anytime during the inning. It could be when they started the 9th or when they came in in the middle of the inning, often with runners on base.

As well, although I didn’t adjust for platoon issues, the relievers definitely faced more same-handed batters, especially when the pitching team was losing, suggesting that they were brought in specifically to face same-handed batters at some point in the inning. This needs to be looked at too.

So I don’t think that the story is over, although I think we found a very significant factor that was affecting the data in the prior research…

Starters and Relievers in the 9th Inning and Score Differential, October 17, 11:56 AM:

DavidS, because of the small samples in each category for the starters, it is almost inevitable that there will NOT be a smooth transition and pattern, which is one reason why I broke it down into only 2 categories at the end.

#5, is the Don Malcomb of Big Bad Baseball? My, you’ve come a long way down. Do you enjoy attacking me for little reason? Is it professional jealousy?

As always, if you don’t have anything substantive, intelligent, or otherwise valuable to say in my house, I’d prefer you stay out…

Starters and Relievers in the 9th Inning and Score Differential, October 17, 1:00 PM:

5 out of 9 continuing to mock me while adding nothing to the discussion.

And one with this:

“I don’t need to see any research to show me that good starting pitchers who have pitched strongly and efficiently through the first eight innings should be kept in to try and complete the game. I suspect that almost every serious baseball fan in America knows this instinctively.”

What a pathetic excuse for a serious blog…

Manager mistakes in the 2011 WS: Game 1, October 19, 8:23 PM:

And if anyone makes any reference to the outcome or result of a certain strategy in terms of evaluating or even mentioning it (as a mistake), you are going to be banned for life!

You have no idea how many people in BBTF, said something like, “You are an idiot for suggesting that Carpenter should not have bat in the 8th or pitch in the 9th,” because he got a hit and retired the side in the 9th. Of course calling me an idiot on BBTF is nothing new…

Manager mistakes in the 2011 WS: Game 1, October 19, 9:27 PM:

I was curious about Jay batting second. Andrus batted second all season long. Surely not a good choice but a least it was not an example of a manager “doing something different” for a bad reason, which happens all the time, because they , I guess to show that they actually have a difficult job (in terms of lineups and in-game managing), which they don’t, in my opinion. I think I can train a 12 year old to manager a baseball game. Oh, wait, I forgot about the “double switch” in the NL. Too tricky for a 12 year old…

Manager mistakes in the 2011 WS: Game 1, October 19, 9:45 PM:

Some of you guys are going to be surprised at actually how many mistakes a manager can make in a game or series, especially in the post-season when managers think they have to do “something.” I have been mentally noting these mistakes for 25 years. Maybe that is why I am so ornery…

Manager mistakes in the 2011 WS: Game 1, October 20, 12:12 AM:

“Carpenter wasn’t pitching that great to fear him for the 7th.”

I guess you have not read all the work I did in the other thread! You still think that you can tell whether a pitcher is “pitching well” enough to continue. Managers can’t do that. You should be a manager!

Right, hitters occasionally do that to fool the umpire, but in this case there was no way that was acting.

“Pujols has been IBB’d 4 times in the playoffs. All 4 times the inning has ended with Matt Holliday and no runs scored.

Regardless of the good/bad decision aspect to it, it will likely continue until Holliday makes them pay.”

That is true. That is one reason that managers make so many bad decision…

A player after my own heart!, October 20, 8:53 PM:

Circle, you can use things like that as tie-breakers. Other than that, I’m tired of responding, with all due respect.

Repeat after me:

“Opinions without evidence…

Opinions without evidence….

Opinions without evidence….”

Please spare us.

I don’t care how much knowledge and experience you have.

Here is an MGL’ism along the lines of the Zen-master:

“Experience is often the enemy of the truth…”

A player after my own heart!, October 20, 9:00 PM:

Circle, you’re everything that a manager is, which is not necessarily a bad thing. SOME of your insight, knowledge, and experience is valuable on this blog.

However, a big part of sabermetrics, at least a vestige of it, is to show all the things that managers (and most people in general) believe that are simply not true. Rather than keep digging your heels in, learn something. You must be on this site for a reason other than to keep telling us that conventional wisdom is right and we are wrong. Or, more along the lines of your tone, “Yeah, you guys might be right, but…”

Your “buts” HAVE TO HAVE EVIDENCE for anyone to take them seriously. If you don’t have the expertise to do the research, then cite research from someone who does. If not, and I mean this teasingly, “Shuddupp!”

You say, “If it were me, I would pitch him at home. The splits are so large they must mean something.”

Evidence? No!

Your gonna respond positively, as you always do, and I appreciate that, but save it. Then 10 minutes later, you’re going to say, “Yeah, but…”

How about, “I think the world is flat and that we, as human beings, were spawned by aliens who landed here a long time ago. And we never landed on the moon and 9/11 was a conspiracy by the U.S. government?”

These are opinions same as yours. Evidence? Nah. Don’t pay them any mind and I won’t pay yours. Deal?

Manager moves in the 2011 WS: Game 2, October 20, 10:14 PM:

Tango, #6, I never thought it was that difficult to plot a pitch by eye, despite what some of the pitch f/x guys say. Especially if you watch a lot of games and you mentally adjust for the slightly offset camera angle (some broadcasts are more centered than others)…

Manager moves in the 2011 WS: Game 2, October 20, 10:34 PM:

I thought Moreland was traded to the Cardinals before the game started?

I didn’t really watch Pujols on that fly ball, but of course he should be running it out in the freaking WS! He is one of those guys that almost never runs out balls that are likely to be outs. I don’t care how good he is or how much money he makes. If I am the manager, he either runs them out or doesn’t play. If nothing else, it is a poor model for the younger guys.

So why was Napoli batting so low early in the season? He was an excellent hitter going into the season…

Manager moves in the 2011 WS: Game 2, October 20, 10:48 PM:

It is a freaking hit and a base advance on the throw. If there is an error it is on the RF’er for a bad throw

Manager moves in the 2011 WS: Game 2, October 20, 11:02 PM:

Westbrook is a terrible starter, but as a reliever, maybe he is 1 run better. Only TLR knows that. As you said, Phil, you gotta choose the guy who has the most K, you don’t mind walks. You want a guy who misses bats.

You bring in a high K/BB guy, and if Young walks, you bring in Westbrook, the sinker-baller.

Ah, I should have been a manager or pitching coach!

Remember I said, There would probably be a mistake before the game ends. There were maybe 5 mistakes.

Circle, that throw was terrible. Probably 15 feet off line. I don’t even think that Pujols touched the ball…

Manager moves in the 2011 WS: Game 2, October 20, 11:18 PM:

The media is so stupid and predictable…

Manager mistakes in the 2011 WS: Game 1, October 20, 11:22 PM:

Not thin air. Nothing I say is out of thin air. You can disagree of course. But everything I say is based on 25 years of sabermetric research, mine and others’.

I have Feldman projected as a 4.32 starter (average starter is around 4.08), which is actually not that bad. I take back what I said about him being “terrible”, although I do think he is worse than that as a starter based on what I have seen of him (but I don’t intend anyone to take that seriously) and ZIPS, Oliver, Steamer, and Pecota have him as around a 4.62 which is very poor. So the concensus is probably that he is a mediocre starter at best.

As a reliever, we usually just subtract around 1 run per 9, although I subtract .82 (from the research I have done). And my projection is based on his starts and relief appearances, with each one adjusted.

So that is my “thin air…”

Manager moves in the 2011 WS: Game 2, October 21, 12:27 AM:

Thanks! With that attitude, you would never be allowed on BTTF (Bash The “The Book” Fan”.

BTW, swapping Napoli with Young is more advantageous than swapping Andrus with Beltre. The former generates an extra 7 runs per season, while the latter only adds .5 run per season. So maybe having Andrus at #2 is not all that bad.

If we just switch Andrus with Napoli though (G-d forbid we bat a slow power hitter in the 2 hole), and kill 2 birds with one small stone, we get 12 extra runs a game or 1.6 wins a year…

Manager moves in the 2011 WS: Game 2, October 21, 12:06 PM:

I’m confused. We (saberists) get criticized all the time for not taking into consideration (including in our models/formulas) things like, “Hammy is hurt and may not be able to turn or catch up to Motte’s fastball.”

Yet, LaRussa, arguably one of the best at seeing and utilizing things like that, takes Motte out.

Ah, yesterday, he was a genius and hero, today, he is a goat…

Taking Out Jason Motte, October 21, 8:06 PM:

Wow. Without actually applying some NUMBERS to each of those options, it is impossible to know which one is correct (yields the highest WP for the Cards). Each of us can have an “opinion” on which one is correct, but without NUMBERS, I am afraid that opinion isn’t worth much.

I’ve been doing these kinds of analyses for 25 years and I have no idea which one is correct. I suspect that D might be, but you/I would have to figure out how much the bad “D” in the field costs in WP as well as removing another player (decent chance for a tie game and extra innings). It is really complicated to figure all this out, but it can be done (approximated at least, so we have SOME idea as to which option might have been correct).

I am completely agnostic as far as walking the bases loaded. Normally you never do that with 0 outs (other than perhaps in the bottom of the 9th in a tie game), but here, I don’t know. I don’t think (no, I KNOW) that Dave or anyone else knows without “running the numbers.”

I’m also not sure why Dave is obsessed with the Cards trying to make Hamilton hit the ball on the ground. I have no idea whether that would be better or worse than a fly ball. Lots of fly balls don’t score the runner at third (short ones of course) and lots and lots of fly balls don’t move the runner to third. Same thing with ground balls. Some are base hits, some move both runner, etc. I don’t remember if the IF was playing in or not (probably not), but even if it were, I’m STILL not sure whether a fly ball or ground ball would be better. IOW, I’m not sure whether I want a GB or FB pitcher to pitch, everything else being equal.

Also, I am very uncomfortable when an analyst gets to choose which sample he wants to present to support his point or his opinion. This year only? Last 2 years? 3 years? Career? Lately, as in last half season? You should not be allowed to do that, for obvious reasons (cherry picking your evidence makes your arguments intellectually dishonest, or misleading at best).

For example, Dave said this:

“While Hamilton’s strikeout rate against LHPs jumps to 22.1%, Rhodes K% against LHBs this year was just 16.1%. His career numbers are much better, but he’s not the same pitcher he was a few years ago, and Hamilton had hit an outfield fly against him the night before.”

Yes, he is not the same pitchers, but if this year his K% was higher than his career numbers, Dave would obviously be quoting his career numbers (heck, I would to if I had the choice!). The analysts should NOT have the choice. He should always be quoting a projection which is some kind of weighted career average!

And for the last part of that last sentence, about Hammy hitting a fly ball the night before, David should get immediately thrown into the MGL jail. I can’t believe he even said that in that context. Shame on you Dave!

“…but then you’re essentially inviting Ron Washington to execute a squeeze play. ”

I think there is about a zero chance of Hamilton squeezing just because Motte is playing third. That should not even be in the analysis unless you want to use it as a tie breaker in a dead heat.

Finally, Davis didn’t even mention one of the most important part of the puzzle, and one that made LaRussa’s decision likely awful. Lynn is a terrible pitcher! I don’t care how he has done lately (has it been good). I an other projections experts have him as near replacement level! If you know that he is going to bring in Lynn, as opposed to say, Dotel, then it is a no-brainer not taking out Motte (or putting him in the field).

So while David definitely brought up most of the relevant facts in order to determine which option was best, I don’t think that any of us is any closer to the answer….

Managing the 2011 World Series: Game 3, October 22, 9:49 PM:

McCarver:

“Tailing by 2 instead of 1, he has to hold him (Napoli) at third.”

Seriously, does this guy have any analytical skills?

In the 4th inning, it makes almost NO difference whether they are down 1 or 2 in terms of sending the runner.

And that was not such a great throw from Holliday, if only because he did not back up on the catch and then come in. With Napoli running, that should not have been a close play!

2011 WS discussion: Game 4, October 23, 10:19 PM:

Have you ever known anyone in “real” life who does a lot of unconventional things, even when some of them are incorrect, just because they think they are smarter than everyone else and in order to prove that, they have to do things differently? I do.

That is LaRussa in a nutshell. I’ve said this for many years. When I worked for the Cards and I met him for the first time, he basically laughed me out of the room (he has no use for sabermetrics or sabermetricians – none at all)…

Small sample sizitis, October 24, 3:03 PM:

People still don’t get it. If you have little or no predictive value in the population, as we found in the book, than, no matter what you THINK you know, and no matter what SEEMS to make sense, the sample size barely batters.

We can talk about this until we are blue in the face, and we can explain it in detail in The Book, but we still get this:

Oh yeah, I understand, but:

“The match-up numbers became large enough to tell something.”

Tango, I don’t like that you undersell the lack of predictive value we found with batter/pitcher matchups. I mean, you even went so far as to try and increase the size of the samples by using “pitcher families” (OK, not quite the same thing as facing one particular pitcher), and STILL we found nothing.

Can we please put this to rest? No number of PA gives us any more than de minimus value (at most – it still might be NOTHING – given that we found nothing). Use it as a tie breaker if you want – I don’t care. But please don’t use it otherwise as a decision maker no matter how many PA it is based upon (obviously you can’t have hundreds of PA and even then, there is ZERO evidence that that would have predictive value).

Guys: If 50 or 100 PA have any practical predictive value, then we would find it in 20 or 30 PA. We didn’t. We found nothing. Nothing. N-O-T-H-I-N-G.

So, please, pretty please, stop telling us about Earl Weaver and your grandmother who are so smart that they wait for 20 or 30 PA. We looked at lots of guys who had 20 or 30 PA and found zilch. Nada.

We tell you (in The Book) how much to regress clutch (a lot) given a certain sample size. We tell you how much to regress pitcher BABIP. We tell you how much to regress windup/stretch splits. We tell you how much to regress RHB platoon splits. All of these are a lot even with a fairly large sample size.

We didn’t tell you how much to regress batter/pitcher matchups. Do you know why? Because we found NO predictive value, i.e., no “skill”, i.e., all the various unusual results you see are likely due to random fluctuation, at ANY sample size.

And again, for the 10 thousandth time, you cannot use the argument, “You found nothing at 30 PA, but at 50 PA, there IS something.” If you find nothing at 30 PA, as long as your sample of players is reasonably large, then there is nothing or almost nothing at 50 PA or 100 PA.

Do we know all of this for a fact – i.e. with 100% certainty? No! We know virtually nothing for a fact when they are based on inferences derived from sample data, which almost all sabermetric tenets are…

Small sample sizitis, October 24, 4:42 PM:

One of these days I am going to write a Primer for MLB managers – seriously.

Chapter X: “Mr. Larussa (as a metaphor for most managers), throw those index cards away!”

2011 WS discussion: Game 5, October 24, 11:16 PM:

Tony is closing the barn door. Where’s the horse? The horse?????

Managing the 2011 World Series: Game 3, October 26, 3:20 AM:

Bill, I appreciate the input. I also happened to have played high stakes poker for many years – quite successfully as you might imagine. So I kind of know what I am talking about when it comes to poker! ;-)

I don’t usually make reference to things I am not grounded in…

Meaning in hot and cold zones?, October 26, 1:51 PM:

I have not RTFA yet, but I love the idea of estimating true talent from observed data for anything, especially pitch type and location data.

I have thought about this for a long time. It is especially important for advanced scouting and I think that many teams ignore this fact. For example, if two batters are observed to have exactly the same hot and cold patterns, and they are quite far from league average, but one has 400 PA and the other has 4,000, you would pitch each one quite differently (the one with 400, you would pitch him much closer to that of the league average player). I’m not sure teams do that. Same for defending a batter based on spray charts. Those spray charts have to be regressed!

Now, I’ll RTFA!

Batter-pitcher matchups, October 27, 1:28 PM:

I have not read the article yet, but it sounds like truly great work.

So basically what we have already said a million times before: “Use it as a tie-breaker and nothing else.”

Yes, I would like to see how much to regress the batter-pitcher results toward the expected results (for a given number of PA of course) or how much to regress the expected results toward the batter-pitcher sample.

Colin one thing: I assume (again, I have not RTFA yet) you did not control for GB/FB platoon. If you do that, I suspect that the entire predictive value might disappear. Can you perhaps tell us in the extreme cases on both ends what the average GB /FB ratio is for the pitchers and batters?

World Series 2011 Game Thread: Final Game, October 28, 10:00 PM:

That was one of the worst IBB’s you will ever see. Of course I’ve said that many times.

Do you think that Ron Washington even knows that when you IBB the bases loaded, that if the next guy walks, it’s a run?

I don’t care how good a people person he is, the guy is a stone cold moron!

World Series 2011 Game Thread: Final Game, October 28, 10:01 PM:

I wish that I were part of the mainstream media so that I could tell it like it really is…

That seems like a fitting comment to go out on. I hope you enjoyed this edition of The Best of MGL.

The Hardball Times Commenters Exist!

SABR love arguing and they love the internet. So arguing on the internet comes naturally. You can find stupid arguments all over the comments of The Book, Baseball Prospectus, BBTF, and a bunch of crappy SB Nation blogs. But you couldn’t, until yesterday, on The Hardball Times. Before then, all you’d see were the occasional person calling out Tuck for being an idiot.

It took an astonishingly-bad article, but look for yourself–a genuine SABR fight. Here’s the play-by-play.

• 10:29 a.m. – Bob Lee starts off by noting how stupid Paul Francis Sullivan is (13 words)
• 14 minutes later – Brad Johnson comments (144 words)
• 2 minutes later – Mark comments (39 words)
• 4 minutes later – Mark comments again (83 words)
• 2 minutes later – ecp comments (13 words)
• 8 minutes later – Brad Johnson comments (119 words)
• 3 minutes later – Mark comments (83)
• 5 minutes later – Brad Johnson accuses Mark of being schizophrenic (12 words)
• 3 minutes later – Mark reveals there is another Mark (31 words)
• 45 minutes later – the second Mark makes himself known and promotes his theory that there are two Pirates organizations; how ironic (82 words)
• 34 minutes later – Paul E comments (52 words)
• 6 minutes later – Brad Johnson comments (112 words)
• 8 minutes later – Mark comments (142 words)
• 8 minutes later – Brad Johnson comments (143 words)
• 16 minutes later – Mark finally responds (170 words)
• 8 minutes later – Brad Johnson comments (152 words)
• 7 minutes later – Mark breaks out the caps lock, twice (109 words)
• 9 minutes later – Brad Johnson is cowed by Mark’s caps lock (88 words)
• 4 minutes later – Mark gloats (122 words)
• 9 minutes later – Brad Johnson continues writing for some reason (129 words)
• 5 minutes later – the second Mark chimes in; he’s very sneaky (149 words)
• 2 minutes later – original Mark breaks out the caps lock again to seal the victory (140 words)
• 14 minutes later – confused because Brad Johnson hasn’t commented in over 20 minutes, Mark uses more caps lock (77 words)
• 19 minutes later – Brad Johnson returns to defend his honor (98 words)
• 9 minutes later – Mark repeats himself (124 words)
• 10 minutes later – Brad Johnson repeats himself (126 words)
• 1 minutes later – Mark openly mocks Brad Johnson (15 words)
• 5 minutes later – Mark comes back for more, including caps lock (90 words)
• 1 minute later – Paul Francis Sullivan wants something noted for the record, which I suppose would be this blog; so noted (11 words)
• 3 minutes later – Brad Johnson accuses Mark of being contrary (129 words)
• 19 minutes later – Mark continues to troll, compare Pedro Alvarez to his dog (51 words)

Since then, Brad Johnson hasn’t shown his face. He must be ashamed. Mark, for his part, has been proudly trumpeting his victory and taking on any new comers, to the tune of 9 posts and 1,741 words in the last 24 hours.

MGL Channels Travis Bickle

“Do your research; find the actual memo next time.”

You talking to me? What exactly did I get wrong? Not that it matters in the least. Who the hell are you?

And that’s why he gets to be in the header. MGL hasn’t written a more devastating put-down since this gem (one of the best paragraphs on the internet, in my opinion):

Spike, chill! I don’t get a “pass” because I am MGL. My projections are annually in the same league as the best on the planet. That is why I get a “pass.” And because I am considered one of the pre-eminent sabermetricians in the world. You? I didn’t catch your name?

AndrewN, you’ve been MGL’d.

This Week in SABR War

The Tangettes are revolting. Over on The Inside The Book The Book — Playing the Percentages in Baseball Blog (which reminds me of the Official Stephen A. Smith My Blog), you can witness the uprising in comment form against the God-King Tangotiger.

For those too squeamish for uncensored carnage, Tango said something about Stephen Strasburg and how he (that being Tango) is always right. And then we get to the comments. Here are highlight selections, in chronological order.

Mike Fast:

I don’t know what lesson, if any, I’d take from such a small sample, but it certainly would not be the lesson you [Tangotiger] are proposing.

Ken:

I don’t see how you can beat your chest on this topic, if anything I would expect you [Tangotiger] to post a “my bad”

Mike Fast:

Could your [Tangotiger’s] rule of thumb still be right, despite Strasburg’s performance? I suppose it could be. But to try to use his performance as proof that you were right is involving some major arm-twisting and severe avoidance of sound sabermetric principles.

Tangotiger:

This is how it works guys. That’s why the Tom Seaver Rule is needed.

David Gassko (with an instant 2010 SABR Comment of the Year candidate):

Tom,

No, no, no, no, and once more, no. You CANNOT say that Strasburg was lucky, because we are not having this argument ex-post. The question of how Strasburg would do came up before he had ever thrown a major league pitch—therefore, there is NO reason to “correct” bias in his numbers. That would be like regressing to the mean twice. If a pitcher posts a 2.00 ERA in a season, maybe his likeliest true talent projection is 3.00. If a pitcher posts a 3.00 ERA, maybe his likeliest true talent is 3.75. But if a pitcher posts a 2.00 ERA, it does not follow that his likeliest true talent is 3.75. Which is what you are currently trying to argue. Strasburg was a pre-selected subject. Therefore, there is no reason to expect bias in his numbers. What happened happened. Oliver was right. You were wrong. End of story.

Tangotiger:

End of story.

You can say all the rest, but don’t say that.

Nick Steiner:

I agree with many of the points you [Tangotiger] make, but this is incredibly disingenuous.

Tangotiger:

And I’m saying that we observed 75% keeps the conversation open. Telling me “end of story” is the same thing as telling me to shut up. I’m talking, and I’ll keep talking, thanks.

Jeremy Greenhouse:

Tango, this doesn’t feel right. I think that you should take a few steps back from this argument and start running some numbers. Brian’s projection of Strasburg is something he should take pride in, and it seems like you’re summarily dismissing his work without evidence of your own.

And Tangotiger gets the last word (for now):

I was fair then in that thread, and I was fair in this thread.

Twitter WAR (Wordplay!)

First, Will F**king Carroll noticed something strange about WAR:

Then R.J. Anderson noticed something strange about WARP:

Finally, Patrick Sullivan settles the issue:

Stick to Being an Academic, Thomas

The suggestion box thread on BP Unfiltered is a gift from the SABR gods. The best exchange by far, begins with sabermetric legend Tangotiger defending the right of another commenter to say that Matt Swartz sucks, rehashing the old The Book Blog obsession of content over tone. Some other dude seconds the opinion and adds that comment rating stinks.

So here comes Captain Non Sequitur, former Baseball Prospectus writer, Joe Sheehan. He writes, “That, more or less, is why forums are basically a non-starter. All cost, no revenue.” Tango, obviously annoyed by this customer-unfriendly attitude, responds, “Fangraphs has forums, and they don’t charge their readers. Primer has forums, and they don’t charge their readers. You’ve got to have a better reason for not having a forum considering that you are already charging readers.”

Before we get to Sheehan’s reply, put yourself in his shoes. How would you address what Tango said? You could point out that BP doesn’t have the staff or overhead to moderate forums. Or that the available forum software isn’t up to snuff and the company doesn’t have the money or time to build something better. Or you could just be polite and say that you’re looking into it.

Sheehan, logically, chose none of these:

How about this?

I’ve done sports content as a business for 15 years. By any standard I’m one of a small number of people to do it successfully outside the mainstream, I’ve played most of the roles one can play and holy god I’m sick of listening to you act as if you’ve had 1% of the success the people you criticize have had. How about you grant that I might know what I’m talking about, given that sports content has been my career, without me having to make a business case to someone with no standing to ask for one?

Fangraphs, as far as I can tell, is financed by a rich grandpa. Primer/BTF/Newsstand/Brand of the Day isn’t a business in any real sense of the word, it’s r.s.b ported to the Web and stripped of its spark. That you would make these comparisons shows just how little you understand of Prospectus, how little you’ve ever understood.

Stick to being an academic, Thomas. Stick to your sycophant-laden fora and your above-it-all mien. Stop jumping in here and cheap-shotting a business that you’ve never comprehended on your best day.

But how do you really feel, Joe?

Today we learned that Joe Sheehan is a “sports content” expert and he hates Tom Tango. And I just learned that fora is the plural of forum. So now you know!

Matt Swartz Engaged in Twitter War with Unwashed Masses