by Keith Law
RBIs (Runs Batted In), 31–41
official scorers, 32–33
slugging percentage compared with, 123
Relievers, 20, 21, 22, 27
determining value, 193–95
ERA, 144–46
in Hall of Fame, 219–20
save rule, 43–55
World Series (2016), 208
Replacement. See WAR
Revolutions per minute (RPM), 246
Reyes, Jose, 61, 63
Reynolds, Harold, 61, 64
Ricciardi, J. P., 271
Rice, Jim, 214, 228–29
Richard, J. R., 220
Richards, Garrett, 251
Rickey, Branch, 31, 33, 109, 243–44
Ripken, Cal, Jr., 118, 169–70
Rivera, Mariano, 52, 152, 221, 223–25, 224
Rizzo, Anthony, 161
Roberts, Ryan, 272
Robinson, Brooks, 72n, 118, 172–73
Robinson, Frank, 124
Robinson, Jackie, 31
Rodriguez, Alex, 15, 118, 119
Rodriguez, Francisco, 224
Rose, Pete, 118, 118
RPM framing, 180
Ruane, Tom, 87
Ruffing, Red, 226
Run average. See also ERA
RA9 (run average, or runs allowed per 9 innings), 195–96
Run estimation values, 115n
Run expectancy, 68–69
Run expectancy table, 63–64, 64
bunts, 98, 98–99
expected runs, 129, 129
intentional walks, 92, 92–93
Running speed, 57–58, 65, 69, 239
Run prevention, 26–27, 140, 147, 194, 199
Runs Above Average, 196, 200
Runs Batted In. See RBIs
Runs Created (RC), 38, 136
Rusch, Glendon, 153
Ruth, Babe, 21, 60, 85, 125, 220, 224n
Ryan, Nolan, 125
Sabermetrics, 6, 44–45, 110–11, 261–62
On-Base Percentage (OPB), 109–20
Win Probability Added (WPA), 157–62
Saberseminar, 180
Sacrifice bunt, 97–102
Sagan, Carl, 85–86
St. Louis Cardinals, 28, 31, 39, 41, 60, 71, 92n, 160, 161, 177, 198–200, 243–44, 262–63, 270
Sale, Chris, 197, 237
Sandberg, Ryne, 209, 211, 213
San Diego Padres, 20, 35, 48, 115, 136, 179, 217–18, 222, 263
San Francisco Giants, 28, 33–34, 124, 174, 193, 208, 214, 237
Santana, Johan, 25
Save rule, 43–55
history of, 45–47
Sax, Steve, 61
Scherzer, Max, 197
Schmidt, Mike, 121–22
Schoenfield, Dave, 44
Schwartz, Cory, 245
Scorers. See Official scorers
Scoring position, 68
Scouting, 231–44
Statcast data and, 256–57
“Scouts versus stats,” 17, 231–44
Seager, Corey, 169
Seattle Mariners, 175, 233, 237–38
Seaver, Tom, 222, 227
Segura, Jean, 136, 136, 190, 190–91
“Selection bias,” 250
Sequencing, 147, 191–92
Sheehan, Joe, 111
Showalter, Buck, 43–44, 51
Signal processing, 249
Silver, Nate, 65–66
Similarity Score, 119–20
Simmons, Andrelton, 73, 192
Simon, David, 44
Skaggs, Tyler, 234
Slugging percentage, 13, 14, 121–24, 126–27
Small ball, 4, 60, 98
Smith, Lee, 224, 224
Smith, Ozzie, 40–41, 114, 172–74, 174
fielding percentage, 71–72, 81–82
RBIs, 40, 40–41
stolen bases, 40
Smoltz, John, 145–46, 220, 228, 228
#smrtbaseball, 4, 97–98
Snitker, Brian, 48
Spahn, Warren, 28
Speed, 57–58, 65, 69, 239
Spin rate, 243, 251, 254–55, 264
SQL (Structured Query Language), 243, 249, 250–51
Starters
determining value, 191–94, 196
pitcher wins, 19–30
save rule, 43–55
Statcast, 6, 168n, 198, 231, 236–37, 242–43, 245–59, 267, 273
GMs and, 261–64, 268–69
scouting and, 256–57
Stats Inc., 165
“Stats versus scouts,” 17, 231–44
Steroids, 61, 119
Stewart, Dave, 23, 23, 210
Stewart, Potter, 241
Stolen bases, 57–69
cost of losing a baserunner, 61–62
expected value, 63–66
history of, 58–60
Story, Trevor, 116
Streakiness, 102–5
Strikeout rate, 48, 192
Strikeouts, 80, 96, 125–26
Sutter, Bruce, 220–21, 221, 224–25
Swartz, Matt, 50–51
Sweeney, Ryan, 239
Swing mechanics, 236–37
Syndergaard, Noah, 74, 176
Tampa Bay Rays, 49, 179, 193
Tango, Tom, 152
The Book, 87, 90–91, 94, 95
Taylor, Billy, 53, 53
Taylor, Michael, 136, 136
Team stats vs. individual stats, 36–37
Tejada, Miguel, 77–78
Tejada, Ruben, 74
Tekulve, Kent, 221
Texas Rangers, 43
Thomas, Frank, 126, 236
Thompson, Hunter S., 57–58
Thorn, John, The Hidden Game of Baseball, 158–59, 165, 188, 189–91, 195
Tiant, Luis, 198
Tight rotation, 254–55
Times caught stealing, 32, 60, 62–63, 64, 66–68, 67, 187
Title creep, 202–3
Tommy John surgery, 145, 237, 255
Toronto Blue Jays, 2, 35, 43, 53, 53n, 105, 143, 179, 218, 240, 248–49, 271–72
Torres, Salomon, 192
Total Average, 134
TotalZone, 72, 77, 172, 173–74
Traber, Jim, 142
TrackMan, 247–48, 251–52, 265, 267, 273
Traditional statistics, 5–6
batting average, 9–17
fielding percentage, 71–83
On-Base Percentage (OBP), 109–20
pitcher wins, 19–30
RBIs (Runs Batted In), 31–41
save rule, 43–55
stolen bases, 57–69
Trammell, Alan, 209–10, 214, 215, 219
Triple-slash line, 82n, 110–11, 138
Trouble with the Curve (film), 231–32
Trout, Mike, 41, 126, 274
BABIP, 150
Barrels, 253
Batting Runs, 190
four-tool talent, 238
WAR, 201–2
wOBA, 135, 135
wRC+, 137
True talent level, 166–67n
Trumbo, Mark, 253
Turkenkopf, Dan, 177, 178, 179
Tversky, Amos, 104
Ueberroth, Peter, 113
Ultimate Base Running (UBR), 190
Unearned runs, 141–43
“Unnatural bounce,” 76–77
Updike, John, 116
US Cellular Park, 197
Utley, Chase, 74, 211
UZR (Ultimate Zone Rating), 81, 166–72, 181, 257
of Whitaker, 210–11
UZR Primer, 171
Valentin, Jose, 77–78
Vallone, Robert, 104
Value Over Replacement Level (VORP), 134
Vance, Dazzy, 216
Vazquez, Javier, 199–200
Vizquel, Omar, 172, 173–74, 174
fielding percentage, 71–72, 82
Outs, 118, 118–19
VORP (Value Over Replacement Level), 134
VORPr, 134
Votto, Joey, 135, 135, 190
Wagner, Billy, 224, 2
24
Wagner, Honus, 105
Wainwright, Adam, 199–200
Wakefield, Tim, 142–43
Walk-off home run, 86
Walk-off out, 96–97
Walk rate, 192, 240, 242
Walks and lineup protection, 90–93
WAR (Wins Above Replacement), 24, 132, 183–203, 209
of Brown, 216, 216–17, 218, 220
of Clemens, 225–26
as construct, 183–85, 202–3
fielders, 200–202
hitters, 186–91
of Mussina, 226–28
pitchers, 191–200
of Rivera, 224, 224
of Whitaker, 211, 211–12
Ward, John Montgomery, 58
Washington Nationals, 34, 127, 137, 161, 274
Washington Post, 134
Watkins, Danny, 267
Wearable technology, 265–66
Weaver, Earl, 131
Webb, Brandon, 81, 222–23, 265
Weighted On-Base Average (wOBA), 134–36, 138
Weighted Runs Created (wRC+), 136–38
Welch, Bob, 22–24, 23
Wetteland, John, 52, 223
Whatever Happened to the Hall of Fame? (James), 228
Whitaker, Lou, 209–15, 211, 212
White, Frank, 80
“Whiteyball,” 39
Whitlock, Jason, 44
Wilhelm, Hoyt, 220, 221
Williams, Mike, 49–50
Williams, Ted, 116–17
Wills, Maury, 60
Wilson, Hack, 39, 126
Wilson, Willie, 80
Win expectancy, 2016 Cincinnati Reds, 160, 160–61
Winfield, Dave, 118, 210, 214
Win Probability Added (WPA), 48–49, 86, 157–62
Wins Above Replacement. See WAR
WOBA (weighted On-Base Average), 134–36, 138
Womack, Tony, 100
Wood, Kerry, 28
Woolner, Keith, 134
World Series
1919, 85
1932, 85
1980, 80
1985, 71
1991, 218
2001, 100, 169
2004, 53
2014, 208
2016, 55, 207–8
WPA. See Win Probability Added
WRC+ (weighted Runs Created), 136–38
Yankee Stadium, 85, 116–17, 253–54
Yastrzemski, Carl, 118
Young, Gerald, 61
Yount, Robin, 118
Zaidi, Farhan, 179
Zone Rating, 165. See also UZR
Zwiebel, Jeffrey, 104
About the Author
Keith Law is a senior baseball writer for ESPN Insider and an analyst for ESPN’s Baseball Tonight, focusing on all types of baseball analysis. Prior to joining ESPN, Law spent four and a half years working as a Special Assistant to the General Manager for the Toronto Blue Jays, handling all statistical analysis, and was previously a writer for Baseball Prospectus. He graduated from Harvard College and has an MBA from the Tepper School at Carnegie Mellon University. Law lives in Delaware with his wife and daughter. Smart Baseball is his first book.
Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.
Credits
Cover design by Joe Montgomery
Cover photograph © Mike Powell / Getty Images
Copyright
SMART BASEBALL. Copyright © 2017 by Meadow Party LLC. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
FIRST EDITION
ISBN 978-0-06-249022-3
EPub Edition April 2017 ISBN 9780062490254
Version 05052017
About the Publisher
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.
Level 13, 201 Elizabeth Street
Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia
www.harpercollins.com.au
Canada
HarperCollins Canada
2 Bloor Street East - 20th Floor
Toronto, ON M4W 1A8, Canada
www.harpercollins.ca
New Zealand
HarperCollins Publishers New Zealand
Unit D1, 63 Apollo Drive
Rosedale 0632
Auckland, New Zealand
www.harpercollins.co.nz
United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF, UK
www.harpercollins.co.uk
United States
HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
195 Broadway
New York, NY 10007
www.harpercollins.com
* Lewis Grizzard, If I Ever Get Back to Georgia, I’m Gonna Nail My Feet to the Ground (New York: Ballantine Books, 1990), p. 362.
* Full disclosure: I was consulting to Toronto’s general manager at the time of this trade, and joined the front office full-time a few weeks later.
* Not actually my cousin.
* Here’s the math:
a * EV (success)—(1—a) * EV (failure) = 0
a * (1.08—0.84)—(1—a) * (0.84—0.26) = 0
a * 0.24—(1—a) * 0.58 = 0
a * 0.24 = (1—a) * 0.58
a / (1—a) = 0.58/0.24 = 2.417
a = 2.417—2.417 * a
a = 2.417/3.417 = 0.707 ~= 71%.
* Brooks Robinson leads with +293 runs at third base; Andruw Jones is second with +243 runs in the outfield, primarily in center field.
* The “triple-slash line” for batters of batting average, on-base percentage, and slugging percentage, which provides a far more complete picture of a hitter’s performance than batting average alone ever could, but more on that later.
* Definitions pose a big problem with the myths I discuss in this section; when you’ve got a falsehood you’re trying to defend against the assault of facts and/or data, one popular trick is to move the goalposts, changing the definition to try to revitalize your dead belief after it’s been proven false. Clutch hitters and lineup protection often fall into the line of thinking of the “god of the gaps” belief found in philosophy, where the existence of one or more deities is presumed to fill in the cracks not presently answered by science.
* There was one intentional walk of a hitter with no one on base in 2015. On July 11, the Cardinals walked Andrew McCutchen intentionally in the bottom of the eleventh inning with two outs and nobody on. If that sounds weird—putting the winning run on base is a bad idea just about any time you might even think about it—there’s a good reason: The hitter on deck was pitcher Deolis Guerra, who was swapped into that spot in an earlier double switch. He grounded out. As of this writing, that remains Guerra’s only major-league plate appearance.
* Mathy stuff: Using the run estimation values from Pete Palmer, who created the sabermetric stat Batting Runs by calculating an estimated run-production value for each offensive event, Gwynn’s offense alone, ignoring defense and baserunning, was worth about 6 runs more than Dawson’s:
Batting Runs = .47H + .38D + .55T + .93HR + .33(W + HB) –.28 Outs
Gwynn’s BR = .47 * 218 H + .38 * 36 D + .55 * 13 T + .93 * 7 HR + .33 (82 W + 3 HB) –.28 * 375 outs = 54
Dawson’s BR = .47 * 178 H + .38 * 24 D + .55 * 2 T + .93 * 49 HR + .33 (32 W + 7 HB) –.28 * 445 outs = 29
So despite Dawson’s enormous advantage in home runs, Gwynn was actually the more valuable hitter by 25 runs because he did more of everything else and did it while making fewer outs.
* A player earns 14 points for a first-place vote, 9 for a second
-place vote, 8 for third, and so on down to 1 point for a tenth-place vote.
* The specific formula is (1*singles + 2*doubles + 3*triples + 4*home runs)/at bats, which is equal to (hits + doubles + 2*triples + 3*home runs)/at bats. Total bases is the shorthand for the numerator in the first equation.
* Using the Batting Runs stat, which adds up the values of all offensive events into a single total, adjusted for park and year.
* The coefficients change to reflect the changing run environments of the game. When run-scoring is down, runs are scarce, meaning the value of a run is higher, so the value of anything that leads to a run is higher. When run-scoring is up, as it was from 1993 till around 2010, runs are plentiful, so the value of a run is lower. Those 50-homer seasons that became commonplace were less valuable than 40-homer seasons in previous eras. You do not need to know the coefficients to use or even understand wOBA, or similar weighted stats; pay no attention to the statistician behind the curtain and everything will be fine.
* The highest unearned-run total for any single game in Baseball-Reference’s Play Index, which goes back to 1913, is 13, allowed by Lefty O’Doul on July 7, 1923, when he allowed 16 runs total in 3 innings in a game his team eventually lost 27–3.
* Home runs are typically excluded because they are not balls in play, but hit out of play, so they can’t be defended. This isn’t an easy or obvious choice, because if you’re trying to look at how much quality contact a pitcher gave up when he allowed any contact at all, home runs probably should count. (It also excludes inside-the-park home runs, which absolutely are fielded, but fortunately they’re not that common and we can just sort of hand-wave them away because they’re rare and bothersome.)
* See John Thorn and Pete Palmer, The Hidden Game of Baseball (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015), p. 272.
* When I talk about a player’s underlying ability, also sometimes called a “true talent level,” I mean the thing that team analysts would love to isolate in the player—what he’s really capable of doing in a perfectly neutral, randomness-free environment. If I could tell you Joey Bagodonuts’ true talent level as a hitter was .300/.400/.500, you’d know what he was worth in dollars or players, and you could plan your roster more effectively around him. You’d expect variation around that line, because we live in a universe filled with randomness, but you would at least know the baseline, and you could make more accurate projections with that as your starting point.
