They should have named it willie O' Bloomquist Average

I finally published another highly anticipated article on quantifying the "Little Things" at Driveline...

Features my usual Mechian efficiency in getting to the point, but if you want to understand this spreadsheet I've linked here, you should at least take a look at it... That's right, Jose Guillen really did do something. That's what he's getting 3/36 for -- not getting on base, or playing defense, or being able to hit right-handed pitching, but doing the "Little Things."

Royal #2 is shocking, but maybe not so much when you think about what this stat means.

I actually did the Royals calculations a while before I started writing for Driveline, and it turned into this... which ended up a lot longer and more inconclusive than I had hoped, but maybe it will go somewhere. I hope that if you find it interesting, you'll discuss the conceptual side of things over there, although I'm willing to learn here, too.

If nothing else, it prominently features a classic example from the late 70s-early 80s Royals dynasty.

And just for the record:

+0.43
-0.03
+0.06

Figure it out.

about 3 years ago Matt Klaassen 6 comments 2 recs |

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We really need to get Jack Cust

to teach the rest of the Royals on how to do the little things right, such as it is better to strike out than to ground into a double play. With all the A’s at the top of the list, maybe Billy Beane has found the next market inefficiency.

by Gopherballs on Jan 19, 2009 12:27 PM EST reply actions 1 recs

Interesting that most of the players that score well are actually good hitters.

And not the scrappy Gload, Bloomquist types, supposedly sacrificing themselves for the betterment of the team. Amos Otis would be the God of this.

by hunter s. royal on Jan 20, 2009 1:14 AM EST reply actions

I think what it measures has more to do with how players perform in higher leverage situations. And players in the middle of the lineup are going to be in more high leverage situations. That’s why Guillen, while not a good hitter in 2008, ranked #1: he was batting cleanup most of the season.

The immoderate moderator

by Scott McKinney on Jan 20, 2009 1:41 AM EST up reply actions

sort of

remember that leverage is “flattened out” in WPA/LI, although if it wasn’t the situations would generally have higher leverage, anyway

I finally got my copy of The Book last night, and reading the chapter on batting order (for something that matters so little, I can’t stop being obsessed with it), it does seem that empirically, #4 and #5 would have those “situations” (players on base) most often.

See my comment on the thread. Cust, Guillen, Bay…

Bringing you more-or-less replacement level analysis and commentary since sometime in 2008.

by Matt Klaassen on Jan 20, 2009 12:53 PM EST up reply actions

hmm

just thinking off the top of my head. middle of the order would mean more opportunities, but that could be for better or worse… i.e. your expected ‘little things’ is still zero. The variance likely picks up though. You would want to normalize it in a perfect world, but I think that would be very complicated.

Interesting though. It would be neat to do this over some measure of time and see if its repeatable by players.

by ZeppelinDZ on Jan 20, 2009 4:47 PM EST up reply actions