BtB Power Rankings, or We're No. 22!
Now with data through the end of the regular season, here the Royals are ranked ahead of the Orioles and 7 NL teams including one that remained in Wild Card contention through late September. And the relative ranking of the Royals and Giants raises a number of questions about the methodology.
4 months ago
2X2L
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royals and giants are the same team
good pitching, no offense
by royalsreview on Oct 12, 2009 1:05 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs
Really?
Relative to the NL, the Giants had one of the best starters in their league, one very good one, and two who were league-average. And the bullpen was outstanding.
How does that compare to the Royals? Other than one otherworldly starter, they had none except a late-season fill-in who was even league-average. No need to discuss the bullpen.
Also, the Giants’ defense seemed superior to me — not a good defense but not a horrible one like the Royals’.
So: really?
by 2X2L on Oct 12, 2009 2:03 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
+1
I think the Mariners seem more like the Giants, performance-wise. Plus (defense+pitching), horrible offense, outperformed pythag by playing a lot better at home (pitcher’s park). As a measure of the summation of true talent on a team as opposed to team performance, I guess it’s moderately believable, with Greinke by himself occupying a huge chunk of the Royals “true talent” pool. But when one player constitutes 35% of the team’s WAR and only plays in 20% of the games, the utility of true talent is obviously not maximized.
by swing and a miss on Oct 12, 2009 4:54 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Yes, really
The stats back it up.
by vivaelpujols on Oct 13, 2009 12:25 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Which stats?
And by stats, I mean ones that don’t rely on an arbitrary, across-the-board generality to represent the differential between leagues.
"The BB's are out. The BB's are being arseholes to me." - Brian Wilson.
by hairball on Oct 13, 2009 3:37 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
The methodology is actually pretty solid.
The Royals and Giants are actually pretty similar in that both have a horrilble O and decent pitching.The big difference is the the adjustment for the AL and NL which is a swing of 0.040 points or 6.5 wins for a season.
Jeff Zimmerman - Protecting the world from RBI's and Wins from my mom's guest house.
by Jeff Zimmerman (TucsonRoyal) on Oct 12, 2009 1:06 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs
Watching either offense,
as I did all season, was excruciatingly painful, I’ll grant you that. But the Giants were superior on defense and, in my opinion, had superior pitching (see my reply to Will above). The system may be “solid”, but many solids are permeable. This is one that slipped through.
by 2X2L on Oct 12, 2009 2:08 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
the giants won 88 games in the national league
with a pythag of 86 wins
so we’re not talking about a great team here
yea, I think they’re better than the royals, and yes, I think they have a better pitching staff than the royals, but when you factor in NL comp., the fact that they play in a good pitcher’s park, etc. I don’t think the gaps are huge
their pitching staff looks pretty comparable to ours
http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/SFG/2009-pitching.shtml
by royalsreview on Oct 12, 2009 2:43 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Yes, I was looking right at that page
when making the comparison of the two staffs I made above — and when I see a staff ERA+ of 120 (which is park adjusted, as you know) the neurons in my brain that represent “comparable to the Royals” simply do not fire.
Could be my perception is clouded by having seen the Giants so often. You know, Moore’s Syndrome.
by 2X2L on Oct 12, 2009 3:56 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
ERA+ is park adjusted
but is it league adjusted? Everyone knows it’s easier to pitch in the NL (unless you’re pitching to the Royals).
by BrRoyal on Oct 13, 2009 12:47 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
It is league adjusted
Otherwise the NL would that every year. As you know, league ERA is a significantly higher in the AL than NL (4.46 v 4.20). That is taken into account in ERA+
by kcbottom9th on Oct 13, 2009 1:04 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Confusion here. It’s normalized to the league, yes, but is not translated according to measured differences between leagues in the same year, which I thought was implicit in BrRoyal’s question. Perhaps I answered the wrong question; BrRoyal will be able to tell us.
by 2X2L on Oct 13, 2009 1:32 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
My question amounted to whether the league adjustment was happening twice.
If ERA+ already accounts for the differences of the two leagues, and the system then later adjusts for the leagues again, that would skew the results.
by BrRoyal on Oct 13, 2009 7:56 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
That's a load of sh!t
Seriously, you act as if the NL is AAAA. It’s not. AL pitchers pitch differently because they face more “hitters” per lineup, and DH-affected coaching strategies, but the raw materials that each league works with are the same stuff.
"The BB's are out. The BB's are being arseholes to me." - Brian Wilson.
by hairball on Oct 13, 2009 3:42 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Sorry for the cussing
"The BB's are out. The BB's are being arseholes to me." - Brian Wilson.
by hairball on Oct 13, 2009 3:42 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Okay, but the system without the DH is inherently easier to pitch to
Again, unless you’re pitching to the Royals. I’m not saying the NL pitchers are less talented than AL pitchers (by default or otherwise). I’m saying that the system inflates non-adjusted stats of the NL pitchers.
by BrRoyal on Oct 13, 2009 7:58 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
We infer that the AL is better than the NL
for the same reason that we infer that a 90 win team is better than a 70 win team
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by devil_fingers on Oct 13, 2009 8:00 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
What do you have to read hyperbole into what's being said.
The NL being more favorable to pitchers does not imply the league is awful. It’s just not quite as good as the AL right now.
Your argument about both leagues having access to the same raw materials is true. But one of the major reasons the AL is better right now is that they have a higher average payroll. More money is buying better players.
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by Sky Kalkman on Oct 14, 2009 9:47 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
The key is "in my opinion"
I don’t see how anyone can except criticisms off a system based off of recorded data in lieu of your opinion.
by vivaelpujols on Oct 13, 2009 12:26 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
The system takes “recorded data” as input and then performs operations on that data based on the best available assumptions in order to produce its results.
Assuming that such a system is immune to error is a sure way to prevent it from improving.
by 2X2L on Oct 13, 2009 5:55 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
There's also luck beyind Pythag.
BtB’s rankings estimate the Giants scored 50 runs too many based on underlying skills and allowed 40 too few. A lot of that is related to clutch hitting and pitching. While those things certainly count in the standings, they don’t represent additional talent, which is what these rankings try to measure.
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by Sky Kalkman on Oct 12, 2009 3:04 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Yeah, I can read the table and the legend, and I understand what the rankings are trying to measure.
Probably within 5 to 10 years the reason the method missed the mark here will become clear. But I’m optimistic by nature, so maybe it’ll be 20.
by 2X2L on Oct 12, 2009 4:15 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Clutch pitching is good pitching
The Giants pitchers performed very well, by many metrics. Somehow, the enormity of that accomplishment was lost in these calculations, but it wasn’t lost in their ACTUAL league standing, as they finished 8th best in the majors.
"The BB's are out. The BB's are being arseholes to me." - Brian Wilson.
by hairball on Oct 13, 2009 3:45 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Repeatability
In general, we’re trying to focus on repeatable stats. We’re not directly trying to measure true talent levels (if we were, we’d be using projection), but we are trying to focus on statistics that tend to be predictive in nature.
Clutch/Luck/Timing statistics do matter within the contexts of historical games. But, generally speaking, their ability to predict future such events are extremely low. So, we’re not including them in our calculations.
It sounds like you’d be happy with power rankings based purely—or even mostly—on team wins. If so, that’s great, there are plenty out there like that. Ours is a bit different, and that’s why I think it’s both interesting and relevant.
-j
by JinAZ on Oct 13, 2009 9:50 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Right, it's entirely the league adjustment
cW% (component winning percentage) is the most comparable measure to true team winning percentage. It’s quite simply the pythagorean record based on estimated runs scored & allowed, rather than actual runs scored and allowed.
cW% for the Giants is 0.470. cW% for the Royals is 0.414. So, if you just look at the team or individual numbers, the Giants clearly look like a much better team. The thing is, though, the Royals faced a higher level of competition playing in the AL. So when you adjust for league quality, an adjustment that is based on several convergent lines of data, you end up ballparking that the Royals are roughly an equivalent team to the Giants (there is absolutely no meaningful difference between a TQI of 0.445 and 0.441.)
The Nationals would look awesome if they were playing AAA teams all the time. The NL isn’t as far below the AL as that, but it’s very clearly inferior. Most people acknowledge that qualitatively, but then get upset when we start quantitatively accounting for the league disparity.
-j
by JinAZ on Oct 12, 2009 4:59 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
So when there’s a significant difference between a measurement and the prevailing perception, it’s possible to:
1) Look for reason why the prevailing perception is skewed / biased / clouded / whatever.
2) Look for factors that have skewed the measurement.
Good to do both, really.
What this ranking tells me is that if the 2009 Royals played the 2009 Giants about 100,000 times, the Royals would win a little more than half — somewhere around 52,000. I don’t believe that’s what would happen, and I don’t think anybody else who watched the two teams regularly would believe it either.
by 2X2L on Oct 12, 2009 5:10 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
And I don't believe anyone who watched them regularly could tell me more about the teams than objective analysis.
Not that Justin’s objective analysis is perfect, but why should I ditch it in favor of your personal analysis?
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by Sky Kalkman on Oct 12, 2009 5:30 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
You shouldn’t. You should stay with the objective analysis and help Justin figure out what’s wrong with it.
by 2X2L on Oct 12, 2009 5:40 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
I understand the intuitiveness of your objection
but I think we need a better reason then “it just seems to be the case.” there are good reasons for adjusting for league differences.
Benji Molina as cleanup hitter (even if it’s silly even in team context) makes a really good point on its own. That’s the sort of division and league the Giants play in. Moreoever, these shouldn’t be taken as “true talent” rankings any more that a players seasonal wOBA is his “true talent.” They reflect how well the teams performance reflects.
Sorry this is so unclear, I’m getting a bit sick.
I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at Driveline Mechanics.
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by devil_fingers on Oct 12, 2009 8:44 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
all this is to say
that Justin’s power rankings are the best ones out there, objective or subjective.
I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at Driveline Mechanics.
Can't get enough of me? Check out my Twitter feed.
by devil_fingers on Oct 12, 2009 8:45 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Perhaps
but to realize any desire to make them better, skepticism will be useful. This particular result is a howler. I posit that a better system awaits development.
And hey, no pointing at Bengie Molina, for two reasons:
1) Justin says you can’t see the truth by looking at individual players. You can see it only through the lens of component winning percentage. So knock it off.
2) As ridiculous as making Molina a fixture in the cleanup slot has been for the Giants, we’re looking at their ranking relative to the Royals’, and the Royals’ cleanup situation this year was even worse. I’m not going to see evidence of the Royals’ superiority there.
by 2X2L on Oct 13, 2009 10:12 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
What is the flaw in the methodology
Other than that it produces a result you don’t agree with? Which, with all due respect is no basis to just dismiss the whole thing. What specific thing of the very clearly explained methodology is wrong, and how is it?
by kcbottom9th on Oct 13, 2009 11:49 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Who’s dismissing the whole thing? If I were dismissing the whole thing, I wouldn’t even bother talking about it. There are possible respectful responses other than complete acceptance — at least in any intellectually honest discussion.
See my comment below of yesterday 6:33pm for a suggestion of what might be wrong. But honestly I don’t know whether the particular result I believe to be erroneous — we’re talking about the relative ranking of the Giants and Royals, in case you forgot — is the result of one operation in the chain of operations performed in the analysis or is the result of accumulated distortion.
I don’t think it’s possible to isolate the problem or problems until a pattern of distortion emerges over a period of seasons. We’ll see, won’t we?
by 2X2L on Oct 13, 2009 1:03 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
I think the notion that the league disparity may not be totally generalizable is a fine notion
You’re not the first to argue this.
I haven’t seen any indication that this is true, but I may try to put together a study to assess whether this matters. The basic idea would be to lump teams within each league into “good”, “average”, “poor” categories based on some measure in inTRAleague games (wins? pythag?). Then, we’ll look and see how each of those groups do in inTERleague games.
We’re assuming that all of the groups perform in a fairly similar fashion—all the NL teams lose a certain amount of winning , while all the AL teams gain a certain amount of W. You would predict that this will not be the case, and that instead there will be significant differences in how each group performs in interleague.
I have a bunch of other things to do before I get to that, but I think it’s worth checking and I will try to do such a study this offseason. I think it’s a study that will encounter a lot of problems with noise, but it’s worth a go.
-j
by JinAZ on Oct 13, 2009 9:59 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
I said you can't look at their numbers
If you have an estimate of Molina’s value accounts for league differences, that’s fair game.
Another point on the Giants’ rotation: Lincecum’s a badass, no question. But Cain? FIP = 3.89 vs. his 2.89 ERA. Not a bad pitcher by any means—he’d start in any rotation in baseball—but he’s not an ace.
-j
by JinAZ on Oct 13, 2009 12:24 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Sure. If only the Royals had raised a Cain to buddy up with their badass, it wouldn’t have been so miserable a season.
by 2X2L on Oct 13, 2009 1:09 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
The Royals had a Matt Cain: Brian Bannister
2 K/BB for Banny, 2.3 K/BB for Cain. .9 HR/9 for each. 3.90 FIP for Cain, 4.15 for Banny, easily within the DH lineup adjustment. Why was Banny’s ERA so much worse than Cain’s? .268 BABIP for Cain vs. .303 for Banny. DH for Banny. 110 run difference in the fielding skills of the teams (resulting in that BABIP difference.)
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by Sky Kalkman on Oct 14, 2009 9:53 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Estimate of their value accounting for league differences?
by 2X2L on Oct 14, 2009 10:30 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
We're talking...
~0.3 runs per game difference between the AL and NL run environments, which is driven primarily by the DH. Plus ~0.1 runs per game difference due to league quality (see vivaelpujols’ post here).
So, you’d expect that if Banny moved to the NL, he’d see his FIP (and thus, over a large enough sample, his ERA) decrease somewhere around 0.4 runs per game. The opposite would be expected to happen with Cain.
There’s error on everything here, so I’m pretty comfortable saying that Bannister and Cain showed roughly equal performance this year. Cain has a better track record, though, and better stuff, so I’d gladly take Cain over Bannister if I was to choose one for my team. :)
-j
by JinAZ on Oct 14, 2009 12:47 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
This is hilarious
You say that “it just seems to be the case” is not a worthy objection, and then one sentence later, you say that Benji Molina as the cleanup hitter “makes a really good point on its own”. That is you using the same flawed logic.
"The BB's are out. The BB's are being arseholes to me." - Brian Wilson.
by hairball on Oct 13, 2009 3:49 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Ah, I recognize the makings of a cult
What you said represents blind faith.
My opinion is best of all opinions, objective or subjective. See how silly that sounds?
"The BB's are out. The BB's are being arseholes to me." - Brian Wilson.
by hairball on Oct 13, 2009 3:52 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
No, you don’t need a better reason to examine the particulars of the method than that it provides results that match poorly with common perception.
I’ll make a prediction (this is the first year that these rankings have been produced, yes?): over the next several seasons, Justin will find that the system overvalues bad teams in the superior league, distorting their ranking relative to mediocre teams in the inferior league (and believe me, I have no notion that the Giants were actually “good”). Perhaps the effect will prove to be especially great when the bad teams in the inferior league have a very modest amount talent above replacement level in the areas in which the league overall is especially strong relative to the other league.
I don’t see how a distortion like this is avoidable, as the system applies the same league translation as if talent were evenly distributed across leagues and across the components (offensive runs, pitching runs, defensive runs) — and frankly that’s a bad assumption. Talent is clumpy.
Hope you’re feeling better soon. Fluids, rest, fever suppressants, and isolation — that’s the RR sickness regimen for the Hot Stove League this year.
by 2X2L on Oct 12, 2009 9:33 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
It also seems to assume that the AL draws on a superior talent pool
Which is a deeply flawed assumption. Put another way, what makes the AL so superior? It’s not the players, it’s not the drinking water, it’s not the ballparks. It’s the changes in the game due to a difference in how it’s played, and because of that, the AL teams cannot be simply generalized as “superior”.
When an acknowledgment is made that the DH rule affects a number of things that have yet to be quantified, then maybe a little more humility will emerge in these quarters about this type of methodology.
"The BB's are out. The BB's are being arseholes to me." - Brian Wilson.
by hairball on Oct 13, 2009 3:56 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
the big markets in the AL makes the talent pool superior
Fire Everyone
by billybeingbilly on Oct 13, 2009 4:01 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
League disparities
As best we can tell, the problem is mostly money. AL teams have more money, and thus they keep their good talent and acquire more net talent than the NL via free agency.
The DH rule is not the issue. Two reasons:
1. Part of the evidence for the league disparities are interleague records. From 1997-2004, the AL and NL were evenly matched. 2005-2009, the AL has dominated. Nothing changed about the DH rule over that time. Vivaelpujols posted this link below, but here it is again:
http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2009/7/19/936780/graph-of-the-day-interleague
2. AL teams have to pay an extra position player. Therefore, their dollars have to be spread around more players than in the NL. In the NL, that extra money could be spent to improve the talent at other positions. So yes, while the AL teams will have an advantage in the games played under AL rules (they have that extra hitter), NL teams should have an advantage in games played under NL rules because they can channel that extra money towards better players. Equal numbers of games are played under AL & NL rules.
The problem is that the NL teams just don’t spend as much as AL teams. As a result, they don’t invest more in their roster with the money they save from not having a DH.
-j
by JinAZ on Oct 13, 2009 10:10 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
The Royals may have had decent pitching, although their team ERA+ was below 100
The Giants had exceptional pitching, with a team ERA of 120, which means their average pitcher was basically bordering on star quality.
I know not everyone likes ERA+, but in this case, I think the difference is obvious enough. You could certainly use other stats to make the same point.
"The BB's are out. The BB's are being arseholes to me." - Brian Wilson.
by hairball on Oct 13, 2009 3:39 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
FWIW
BP’s rankings have the Giants at 11th and the Royals at 27th
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=9644
by royalsreview on Oct 12, 2009 4:49 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs
What are Fox Sports or ESPN's rankings?
I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at Driveline Mechanics.
Can't get enough of me? Check out my Twitter feed.
by devil_fingers on Oct 12, 2009 4:55 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Do BP's rankings make any effort to adjust for league differences?
by JinAZ on Oct 12, 2009 5:00 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Or fielding (not that that would help your rankings here.)
And are you talking 3rd Order here, royalsreview, or their power rankings? Because their power rankings are dumb — simply an average of actual, 1st (Pythag), 2nd (component), and 3rd order (SoS) wins. Only thing I’d both with are 3rd order, which are decent, but don’t use a strong enough league adjustment (I don’t think), much on the defensive side, or fielding-independent stats (I don’t think.)
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by Sky Kalkman on Oct 12, 2009 5:33 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
So let me get this straight
You’re saying that if you flipped the DH rule to the NL and took it away from the AL, and left everything else the same, the AL would still be magically superior? Because if not, then you are comparing apples to oranges, and if so, then you have to explain to me the magic, considering both leagues draw on the same talent pool.
"The BB's are out. The BB's are being arseholes to me." - Brian Wilson.
by hairball on Oct 13, 2009 3:58 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
So because the Yankees have more money than everyone else
The Royals are better than the Giants?
"The BB's are out. The BB's are being arseholes to me." - Brian Wilson.
by hairball on Oct 13, 2009 4:26 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Whoa
You were talking about league disparity overall, not two specific teams. And in totality, yes, money makes a difference.
by kcbottom9th on Oct 13, 2009 4:40 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Just a quick question
What is it that people have a problem with in the rankings?
Offense
KC: .318 wOBA, 667 runs
SF: .308 wOBA, 610 runs
Pitching:
KC: 4.20 tERA, 719 runs allowed
SF: 4.00 tERA, 693 runs allowed
Defense
KC: -74 runs
SF: +40 runs
When you combine all three, you get a 793 estimated runs allowed vs. 667 estimated runs scored for KC, and 653 estimated runs allowed vs. 610 runs scored for San Fran. That gives you a PythagenPat w% of .419 for KC and .470 for SF. That’s a difference of about 8 wins a season without adjusting for league; you don’t think it’s possible that the difference in league quality is 8 wins a season? That doesn’t seem so unreasonable to me:
http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2009/7/19/936780/graph-of-the-day-interleague
by vivaelpujols on Oct 13, 2009 12:48 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs
Dude, look up from the map a second.
I know, on the map it looks like you can go from that street into the back of the shopping mall. But see, there is a wall there. You have to go around.
by 2X2L on Oct 13, 2009 6:20 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Never mind
I’ll just catch a ride with Luis and them. If you get there before the movie starts, we’ll meet you in the lobby.
by 2X2L on Oct 13, 2009 1:14 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
I don't have much of a problem with that
It’s when you make the big AL/NL generalization adjustment that I go ballistic.
"The BB's are out. The BB's are being arseholes to me." - Brian Wilson.
by hairball on Oct 13, 2009 3:59 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
It's not that big
It’s actually understated compared to how the AL has played against the NL over the past 5 season in interleague play.
by vivaelpujols on Oct 13, 2009 5:51 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
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