Like Evan said before me, it is with a heavy heart that I am saying good bye to "I Remember Dome-Dogs." I will never be able to adequately express what this blog has meant to me in both of its inceptions. I will say that it has been a meaningful and important part of my life and it has been a joy and a challenge to make this place worthy enough for the regular readers to keep coming back. I thank all of you for your support. As Evan said so eloquently, this place as allowed me to grow not only as a baseball fan, but as a writer as well. Something that I'll always cherish.
With that said, I am thrilled to have been offered the opportunity to take our show on the road, but not far away to The Crawfish Boxes. I truly feel that this merger, of sorts, will result in one of the strongest blog communities for any MLB team around. What Evan and I have lacked in game-to-game detail will be made up by being able to spread the load. Further, the Sports Blog Nation will provide us with unparalleled resources to further the depth and quality with which we are able to treat the Astros and MLB in general. I thank Tyler Bleszinski and Thomas Johnson for the opportunity to come on board to such a fantastic Astros community.
I hope that you will come along because we are truly excited about what we will be able to accomplish with our new group. Expect bigger and better things from the former Dome-Dog's boys. We've been assured that we'll be given the freedom and opportunity to ratchet up our stuff to a new level. We won't leave you hanging either, and by that, I mean we're going to continue our Baseball Knowledge 101 series.
Some of you might be asking yourself, why the move? And I hope I've made clear, it's because we feel that it will allow us to be of better service to the "Astros Nation." Our do-it-ourself project has been fun and educational, but it's been stressful too. The move allows us to concentrate more on turning out top-notch analysis and less about how to keep generating readership and having to hassle with Blogger's short-comings.
We urge you to come along with us in the move. It's a great place to go. I will miss this place though. Thank you for supporting us, we hope we've done you proud.
Sunday, August 3, 2008
Adieu
Unexpected News
Dome-Dogs Readers:
This past weekend, Stephen and I were offered the chance to become contributors to the Astros-centered blog The Crawfish Boxes, on the Sports Blog Nation. After quite a bit of thought, we both decided to accept the offer that was extended to us. Before I get into the logistics of what this all means, I want to thank everyone who has ever come to Dome-Dogs, and read what Stephen and I wrote. We have both tried our damndest to write the best possible articles for ya'll to read. It's challenging to be entertaining, informative, and relevant, and I hope that more often than not, we have succeeded in this pursuit, on some level. Because of our blog, we've grown as fans and writers, which has allowed us to reach an even bigger audience on the SBN network of blogs. Now, to the nitty gritty of what the switch-over means. If you all choose to continue following our writing, you'll see nothing at all change about our styles or articles. We will have the same creative freedoms we had here on our own blog. The Crawfish Boxes is a blog started by another very good writer, who has acknowledged that Stephen and my coming on board will improve what is already a great blog. In other words: our "where" has changed, but our "what" will not. We've been assured that this is the case, and if for any reason it does not turn out that way, I will not hesitate to return to writing for I Remember Dome-Dogs. I cannot speak for Stephen, but I am 99.999% sure he will say the same thing in his "Farewell Post". Again, I thank all of you for reading, commenting and having an opinion about my and Stephen's writing. It sounds cliche, but this blog is a huge part of who I am, and vicariously, those of you who read and comment have as well. It's not without some doubt and a twinge of regret that I will begin writing at The Crawfish Boxes, but I am very excited to take advantage of the increased readership that comes with writing for a sports-blog network such as SBN. I look forward to having as many of you as possible follow us over to The Crawfish Boxes, and hope the good baseball dialogue continues, as well.
Friday, August 1, 2008
Astros Take a Step In the Right Direction
Just when we think Ed Wade has no desire whatsoever to shore up his minor league system, he goes and does something remarkable. Supplemental pick Ross Seaton from Houston's Second Baptist High School has signed a record contract for a player chosen 119th in the draft. The $700,000 signing bonus is the highest ever agreed to, and allows the Astros to start Seaton on the path to the majors sooner rather than later.
This is a landmark signing for this club, because maybe, just maybe, Drayton McLane finally sees the importance of signing and developing young talent. He spared no expense in getting Seaton to sign, and first round selection Jason Castro was the second top 10 pick to sign on the dotted line with the club that drafted him. Baby steps. But steps nonetheless. Here's an article from Baseball Prospectus written before the June Draft. They list their top 50 prospects, and Mr. Seaton ranks 39th on their list. Impressive that the Astros got him 80 choices after that in the actual draft. He doesn't have a lot of experience, and he really only pitched lights out his senior season, but nonetheless, he has the sort of build, mechanics, and command that project him to be something special.
Error of my ways
Today, I, a beleaguered Astros fan, type with my head bowed, and with a heart full of regret. Yesterday I wrote some very unkind words about the General Manager of the Houston Astros, Edward Wade. As a passionate fan, I wanted the very best for my favorite baseball club, and when I felt the team was headed in the wrong direction, I spoke out. Rashly. Too rashly. Coming into this week I thought, (although some would say you need a brain to think, something that is still in doubt)that given our present place in the standings, perhaps it would be prudent to move a number of our veteran players for a few minor leaguers. Ya know, building blocks, stepping stones to a new generation of Astros baseball. How wrong I was. Red Sox send in a scout to take a look at some of our relievers, possibly even Miguel Tejada?? Rebuffed! And rightfully so- tell them to go jump in the Charles River. We don't need prospects from the team that has built two World Series Champions on the strength of their minor league system. Youkilis. Papelbon. Ellsbury. Lester. Lowrie. Moss. Masterson. Pedroia. Buchholz. Yea, well..I'll see that, and raise you: Pence. Towl..no, wait Hunter Pence. Ummm...Etc. Take a deep breath. Going through the names of players produced by our minor league teams can be both exhausting and exhilerating. Ready to go on? Ok. Sure, we didn't get any young talent, and sure, this club ages by the day- but so do younger teams like the Red Sox. It's true. Everyone ages at the same rate. Don't believe me- here, stuff this prediction in your hookah and then smoke it: At 9:53 AM on Saturday, August 2, 2008 we will all be exactly one day older. I shit you not. Same goes for Major Leaguers. I won't even limit it to the Red Sox and Astros: Ryan Braun, Ian Kinsler, Tim Lincecum- all will be one day older tomorrow. So will Doug Brocail. Ditto Darin Erstad. See where I'm going with this?? The Astros' complete disregard for young players is well founded.
At this point, Ed Wade has turned the baseball universe on its head and spun it like a top. You'd think that would be enough for one man to accomplish in a week's time. But not ol' Eddie. Nosiree. He's scheming. Planning.
What is he planning, you may ask? Maybe somebody should send Ed a text telling him that this isn't like the NBA draft lottery- we don't have a shot at getting the first pick in the draft unless we have the worst record. And unless these personnel moves were made in order for us to los....oh, Ed, you're good, you're good. I seemed to have discovered another plan of Ed's: for us to leapfrog (backwards leapfrog to be exact) the Washington Nationals/Seattle Mariners for the worst record in baseball. Be that as it may, let's take a look at his deadline moves. Therein lies his true plan. A pattern quickly comes into focus:
Alberto Arias claimed off waivers from Colorado
LaTroy Hawkins obtained in exchange for minor league second baseman Matt Cusick
What did Ed do last offseason? Revamped our bullpen. Added a number of guys who can fill multiple roles in our relief corps. Do you see what's devloping here??
Peer into the looking glass, people
It's been fairly obvious to some that Ed's been trying to be cutting edge this entire time. His recent trades prove that. He understands that it is both more cost effective and talent effective to have four starters and have his relief pitchers start the fifth game in the rotation. Call us prophetic, call us soothsayers, call us visionaries. Now Ed has wisened up. I was dumb for not seeing the writing on the wall, when I lambasted him. I'm sorry, Mr. Wade. Truly. Sorry.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Fear and Loathing in Houston
Evan here: Well the clock is ticking on Ed Wade making a trade to improve the Astros. With every movement of the minute hand, the fate of the Houston Astros for seasons to come becomes more and more apparent. There will be no moves to better this team down the line. There are 23 minutes left. Don't hold your breath. Put down the rabbit's foot. After winning 4 out of 6 games against divisional opponents, our chips are on the table- and we're goin' all in. Don't mistake this bravado for baseball intelligence. No, no- the Houston Astros of 2008 are not "stupid like a fox". They're most likely just, well, stupid. I hate to say it, because you won't find a bigger Astros fan than me. Or any of us, for that matter. We've all thought the same thing today- why can't Drayton see this team for what it is?? (20 minutes)How can he miss the forest for the trees? My answer is this: sometimes, those closest to the situation can't see the problem around them, no matter how evident. If you go to a friend's house, and all their family does is fight- you can leave thinking, "well, if Person A did this and if Person B did that and if Person C didn't do that the family could be a lot more cohesive." (19 minutes) We can scream until our lungs burst with frustration, but this is just how the current team braintrust is going to operate. To some extent I give them credit- they all want to win. Their avenues for arriving at the ultimate destination need to be seriously reconsidered, but their hearts are in the right place. Their minds however, need to be reconfigured. (17 minutes)
Let me preface this by saying that I defended Ed Wade's off-season moves until I was blue in the face this off-season. My logic was that should we try and fail this year, at least we had acquired/possessed a ton of tradeable pieces to re-stock and re-build at the trade deadline (which is fast approaching). Evan's and I's conviction in the fact that something like this would happen is what led us to picking up the blog again for this season. What follows is four three months worth of frustration and attempting to find a silver-lining in the cluster-f@*k of a season this has been only to continually just be shat on by our management.
The Astros acquired LaTroy Hawkins last night. It's a low risk move if you don't analyze it because Hawkins will be almost free to the Astros (we can pretend that this is not because the Yankees are just that pleased to get rid of him). However, to acquire Hawkins, we gave up Matthew Cusick who in 573 career AB at A ball has this triple slash: .293/.383/.455. Those numbers look good for a 10th rounder. Granted it's A ball, but at this point possessing someone who has upside in our farm system is like striking oil. LaTroy Hawkins was so bad as a Yankees reliever they released him. Outside of Mariano and Joba, try to name a Yankees reliever who isn't awful...that's HOW bad LaTroy Hawkins was this year so far. His control is terrible 5.1 K/9 to 3.8 BB/9, which you would expect from a 35 year old relief pitcher who's just never been that good.
Ok, enough of my baseball statistics nerdery. What does Ed Wade have to say about this deal?
On Hawkins' terrible year so far:
His overall numbers don't look all that great right now, but our reports on him over the last month or so, he's gone back and thrown more of his four-seam fastball and his velocity has been good.
Alright Ed. What you're saying is you know he's bad, but now that he's throwing the ball harder, the fact that he can't locate his pitches to not walk people will be ameliorated. Phew.
On giving up a projectible young prospect:
We like Matt. He's swinging the bat very well at Lexington, and he's had a good season down there. I had a chance to see him play a handful of games early in the season. We consider him a prospect, and obviously, the Yankees consider him a prospect also. But if you have a chance to add an experienced guy like Hawkins, and the price of doing business is a lower level bat, then it makes sense to go ahead and do something.
So we have this kid in our farm system who is doing some really outstanding things, but you had a chance to take a guy who is way past his prime (if there was one) in your bull pen. Which, by the way, is already full of decent but not great guys. Good call. It's not like this team isn't chock full of veterans who are declining rapidly in some aspect of the game or other. What the franchise has too much of is is talented young prospects to replace these guys -- hopefully sooner rather than later.
Well then Ed, how do you feel what you've done to help a team who have a negative 56 run differential while being 9.5 games back in the Wild Card race behind a scant six teams (I could have also just written: Have no hope of doing anything meaningful this year)?
We sort of went into this period of time looking to bolster our starting rotation, and get some more depth in the back end of the bullpen, and we think with Randy Wolf and LaTroy Hawkins, we've done those things.
You've added more depth that is for sure. You've also added a pitcher who's numbers are park inflated, and a reliever who is losing his ability to pitch effectively. In the process you've given up a pitcher who many thought would be the next Dan Wheeler and a A ball guy who was playing very, very well. This would possibly be excusable if the following things weren't true:
1. Our Starting Rotation would actually be improved by Randy Wolf.
2. Our Bull Pen would actually be improved by LaTroy Hawkins.
3. 1 and 2 would only be legitimate if the following weren't true:
A. This team weren't in the bottom of the league for .OBP and had prospects for increasing its run scored.
B. This team weren't buried in the basement of the NL Central by 13.5 games and the Wild Card by 9.5 games and six other teams.
4. If 3(A) and 4(B) are true, the logical plan would be to unload the movable and valuable talent on this team for as many talent prospects as possible, in an effort to make this Matt Cusick kid look like a schmuck in our farm system.
At this point, I feel inclined almost to root against the Astros, so that Ed Wade might get splashed with a painful and shocking dose of reality. So that we might have a front office rebuilding process and then further down the line a team rebuilding process -- once the front office is qualified (read: not lobotomized) to take on such an endeavor.
I just checked MLBTradeRumors to see if Ed Wade has just been playing the fool and suddenly sent an email to every GM listing his terms for Wandy, Miggy, Wiggy, the Bench Crew, Valverde, Brocail, and Geary in what would be forever considered one the saaviest moves ever to drive up demand elasticity for our guys...there was no such news. Damnit.
Baseball Knowledge 101: DIPS > ERA
While the final hours before the trade deadline slip away and the Astros continue to put their head in the sand (believing that acquiring Randy Wolf and LaTroy Hawkins makes us a play off contending team), instead of restocking the farm by selling everything they can, you can sit back and dig into the how's and why's of DIPS. You'll also learn why Tim Purpura is just a total idiot.
When we last checked in on pitching, we ran you through the how’s and why’s of ERA’s deficiencies. Evan had the harder of our two tasks in breaking down ERA vs. explaining DIPS. It’s easy to explain how DIPS works and why it is that their measures most accurately capture the true skill level of a pitcher’s performance through it’s methodology, but it’s incredibly difficult to explain why ERA is a faulty statistic in general, because there so many variables that are captured by ERA that are irrelevant (scorer bias) and luck dependent (LD%, HR/FB%, etc.). Today, I will try and bring you deeper into what I consider sabermetrics most valuable contribution to baseball: defense independent metrics (defense independent pitching, luck independent pitching, and fielding independent pitching). For reasons hopefully to explicated clearly below, these metrics all do a far better job of capturing the true skill and performance of a pitcher than ERA, W-L, single rate stats (K/9, BB/9, WHIP, etc.), or even the aforementioned Support-Neutral family of statistics. While rate stats (except for WHIP) accurately gage a singular skill of a pitcher, they don’t tell us about his entire skill set. ERA and W-L, as previously discussed, are poor, to down right awful, at gauging a pitcher’s skill level. Even the Support-Neutral family of statistics is still hampered by many of the same things that ERA is, because while it gives a better feel for how a single pitching performance by a pitcher helped his team stay in a game to win it, it can’t tell us whether that pitching performance was strong or weak based on the pitcher’s ability or a the variety of randomly varying factors that impact a pitching performance.
As alluded to by Evan, the vein of pitching-analysis we’re venturing down today was inspired by the BABIP/ERA phenomenon, first observed by Voros McCracken. In his original article on DIPS, Voros surmised that, “there is little if any difference among major-league pitchers in their ability to prevent hits on balls hit in the field of play." This bold statement has since been heavily amended, but can be restated as something akin to: Major-league pitchers have little control over their ability to prevent line-drives which heavily affects their BABIP, where as they show a significant ability to control GB, IF, and FB, they however show little ability to control the outcome of any batted-ball. I know that just took out 3/4 of the kinds of balls in play and then reassigned them to the pitcher’s responsibility category. Which given our treatment of BABIP last time seems either counter-intuitive or like we were lying. Hopefully I’ll be able to clear it up.
When originally proposed by Voros the first time, he labeled the following pitching categories defense independent:
BB K HBP IBB HR
Those are all categories which are truly defense independent statistics as only the pitcher can cause/allow them to occur. The first incarnation of DIPS worked by finding the rate at which these statistics occurred for a pitcher and then subtracting out how many batters faced would have walked, struck out, been hit, intentionally walked, or homered from the total number of batters faced. From there he broke down singles, doubles, triples, and outs for each pitcher and set the rate at which these occurred to the league average BABIP. He did this because, prior to further investigation by many different analysts, it seemed like BABIP truly was out of the pitcher’s control entirely. What he had left was the number of BB, K, HBP, HR, IBB, 1B, 2B, 3B, and outs for a pitcher that would have occurred all things equal. With that he assigned each event a run value (what they were, I’m not sure, but I imagine it was the standard BaseRuns) to then calculate the number of Runs Allowed by a pitcher with the new numbers. This would result in a DIPS ERA, which could really be thought of as a DIPS RAA (runs allowed average). The measurement is still somewhat valuable as a quick way to see whether an extreme ERA is valid or not and is now cited as FIP (fielding independent pitching).
Understandably this was controversial, because conventional baseball wisdom assumed pitchers could control hits allowed. In order to prove/disprove Voros’ assertion, the last seven years has seen a tremendous amount of research go into DIPS. The results have yielded a more nuanced understanding of the batter/pitcher match-up and the subsequent dividing line between pitching and defense.
As up to date as I have seen it, here is how DIPS is calculated to reflect the more nuanced truth that has come to light since Voros’ original proposition of BABIP as pure chance.
A pitcher is assigned a league average LD%, reflecting that statistically LD’s are uncontrollable according to year to year correlations (Source). This luck-less amount of line-drives are then subtracted from the pitchers’ number of batted-balls. Next, the rate at which a pitcher surrendered Ground balls, Infield-flies (IF), Outfield-flies (OF), and bunts. Then, to correct for the role that defense plays in each of the kinds of batted balls, league average results are applied to them. So if 30 of GB% fall singles and the pitcher in question, after the adjustments, was given 100 GB’s, then he’d be credited for 30 singles. The resulting 70 would have the same thing done for 2B, 3B, HR, outs, double plays, and reached on error (ROE). The same for his adjusted number of LD, IF, OF, and bunts. With the pitcher’s new line of corrected K’s, BB’s, IBB’s, HBP, 1B, 2B, 3B, HR, ROE, and outs, a defense independent Runs Allowed is then calculated by assigning a run value to each event via BaseRuns. This methodology is DIPS 3.0.
The question that remains (if you’re still even reading) is why is it valid to count LD% as luck, but GB% and IF% and OF% as pitching skill? To this end, I will stick with Mitchel Litchman’s study of the year to year correlation of differnt types of balls in play to bolster DIPS 3.0’s methodology. Litchman studied pitchers, over a 10 year period (1993-2002), who changed teams to study their batted-ball data. Why those who changed teams? In Litchman’s words it is so “we have essentially removed the home park and defensive influences from the correlations.” His study involved over 100 pitchers who had a minimum of 300 balls in play in the consecutive seasons -- a large sample size to say the least. He than ran the year to year correlation on the different kinds of batted balls. His results indicated that pitchers show absolutely no control over LD’s, but exhibited a good degree of consistency (i.e. control) in IF, OF, and GB (each factor was listed from least amount of control to strongest.
So hopefully that clears up why it is that when we calculate a DIPS, the LD% is automatically league average, and then the pitchers own individual rate of surrendering IF, OF, and GB is left alone. However there is one issue that probably is still lingering in your mind. If GB, IF, and OF are under the control of a pitcher then why does DIPS 3.0 then assign league average rates of results to each batted-ball type (i.e. Why say if a GB goes for a single a league average 57% of the time and a pitcher surrendered 100 GB, therefore 57 defense independent GB singles, instead of however many singles he actually surrendered on GB?)? Again, we have to look back to Litchman who determined through the same study I’ve already discussed, that while pitchers show the ability to control what kinds of batted balls they allow, they show almost no control over the rate at which those balls in play go for outs. If pitchers cannot control the rate at which their batted balls go for outs, then they cannot reasonably be expected to control the outcome of the balls in play that do not go for outs. Thus, DIPS 3.0 corrects that.
Alright, we’ve come a long way. What we’ve covered so far, is that from the initial assertion that BABIP is completely a factor of luck (that the only pitcher/batter outcomes a pitcher determines is BB, K, IBB, and HBP), further research revealed that pitchers can control the kinds of balls in play they allow, just not there outcomes. I wouldn’t doubt that you’re wondering: “What the hell does that even mean, aren’t you saying the same thing which just some qualifiers?” Ok, probably not thinking that, but I did. While the outcome of batted balls are out of a pitcher’s hands, except for line-drives they can control the type of ball put in play. Since certain kinds of batted balls go for differing levels of hits/outs more often than others, pitcher’s can -- in a sense -- control their destinies. All they can do however is increase or decrease the probability that ball in play goes for an out, because (as I noted earlier) Litchman’s work indicates that increasing or decreasing outs on balls in play is not a skill pitcher’s possess. Instead, it is one that the defense backing him possess. Thus, DIPS corrects the outcomes of batted-ball types to league average, in order to neutralize the role that defense plays in a pitcher’s skill domain.
What DIPS leaves a GM, Manager, Scout, Fantasy Baseball Player, or Fan with is a metric that captures the actual skill level of the pitcher. It has been adjusted to remove luck and the abilities of others from obscuring the work of a pitcher. How can we be sure of this? Because, DIPS 3.0 has a correlation of .8 with the next year’s ERA, where as ERA has a year-to-year correlation of .374 with itself. A word of caution to DIPS in any shape or form is that they are not an explanatory stat unless you dig deeper into to why there is a differential between ERA and DIPS. Although it is a predictive stat, it is only truly useful at predicting pitchers ERA given the proper context for their DIPS-ERA differential. Things like injuries, command problems, or poor pitch sequencing can all serve to artificially skew the DIPS-ERA differential while not being the result of chance. On the whole though, looking at pitcher’s with positive DIPS-ERA differentials portends to poor future performance. One $120 million oversight by an organization refusing to employ sabermetric analysis in player evaluation is the infamous Barry Zito. In his contract year, Zito posted a 3.83 ERA, but it was deflated largely due to a ridiculous 78.5% LOB%, which was reflect in his 4.65 DIPS. Brian Sabean could and should have easily been able to observe that Zito’s continued success depended on strong defense, as both his IF% had fell of the table as well as a steadily decling K/9, and that such a pitcher, no matter his past performance levels, does not warrant a $120 million contract.
Now before Astros fans start ridiculing the Giants, let’s not forget December 2006, when Jason Jennings came to town. Purpura traded for Jennings off the strength of his 2006 3.78 which for Coors Field is probably like saying Roger Clemens had a 1.87 ERA in 2005. However it, like Zito’s ERA, was deflated due to a totally unsustanable HR rate, which is represented in his 2006 DIPS of 4.61. Would anybody else like to have Willy T, Jason Hirsch or Taylor Bucholtz still in light of this? (DIPS 3.0 Source, you have to go to the bottom and open the spread sheet). **Side Note, you could do the exact same thing with Woody Williams, 2006 ERA: 3.65, 2006: DIPS: 5.03...eeesssshhh** It works the other way too, the quickest example I could find was Freddy Garcia from 2004-2005. 2004 saw him post a dismal 4.64 ERA, whereas DIPS 3.0 had him at a 3.54. In 2005, Garcia posted 3.54 ERA. Not too shabby DIPS 3.0.
Ok, that was exhaustive for me and I’m sure for you. We’ll save LIPS for next time and jam it in with pitch/fx, which actually makes a good deal of sense to do. Addendum number two the syllabus should read: “DIPS > ERA” and “The Next Frontier: LIPS and pitch/fx.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Tingling
Me neither. Of all the ho-hum, predictable moves Ed Wade could've made, this one takes the cake. Sphere: Related Content
