PennyBall Catchers

Who should lead us behind the plate?

I'm making this a quick blog.  Thought about doing outfielders tonight, but I really want to just keep it light and easy.

I went back and forth between Matt Wieters of Baltimore and Kurt Suzuki of Oakland.  Their stats are really really close together. They differ in BA and SLG by only 10 percentage points, and OBP by 16% points.   But as it should be, it came down to defense and it looks as though Mr. Wieters beats out Mr. Suzuki in about every category.

Catcher


Matt Wieters, Oakland Athletics.  $400,000 in 2010

Mr. Wieters is a 6'5 right handed catcher out of Charleston South Carolina.  2010 was his first full season in the bigs since being drafted in the 1st round with the 5th pick overall of the 2007 draft out of Georgia Tech.  Notable Yellow Jacket Draftees include, Mark Texiera, Nomar Garciaparra, and Del Pratt (1916 American League RBI leader).

Matt's offense wasn't that hot but he is a catcher, and that isn't what he is getting paid to do.  He was 4th among catchers in the fielding percentage category, he had the lowest amount of passed balls (2) with a pretty bad pitching staff.  His Caught Stealing Percentage was #2 at .312.   Pretty good year as a catcher I would say.  A big paycheck will be following its way into his bank account if he keeps up these numbers.

PennyBall Infielders

So now the question is who would start for my Penny Penching All-Star Infield?

This time I am going to put a STAT reference guide at the bottom of the blog.  So please don't feel lost when reading all the 2 to 3 letter abbreviations. 

1st Base

Joey Votto, Cincinnati Reds. $525,000 in 2010.

Mr. Votto hails from America's Attic (aka Canada) and was drafted in the 2nd round with pick number 44 way back in 2002.  He played college ball at Richview Collegiate Institute, the powerhouse of baseball from Canada.  Not really, he is the first player to be drafted from that school.

Mr. Votto was any real easy pick for the infield.  He won the NL MVP award for goodness sake.  The Reds got an NL MVP for just $525,000. (The Rays paid $10,250,00 and got Carlos Pena. .196 BA, 158 SO, and .407 SLG).  He was #2 in the league in SLG with .600, #2 in the league in OPS at 1.024, #2 BA at .324,  #6 in Walks, #1 in OBP, #5 in HR, and #6 among First basemen in FPCT (Fielding percentage).  Needless to say he had a ridiculous year.   If I was making an all-star team I would put him at #1 due to his performance last year (If Pujols gets his contract negotiated I will stick him above Votto though, just because he has proven he can do these types of numbers over the long haul)




2nd Base


Martin Prado, Atlanta Braves. $440,000 in 2010.  

This one was a tough one to decide for me.  Gordon Beckham of the White Sox and Blake DeWitt of the Dodgers/Cubs kept popping up.  I know Prado had a much better year but he only played around two thirds of his games at 2nd and the other two were full time second basemen.  In the end I went with Prado just because he had a much better year offensively compared to the other two and I just had to put him on the list.

Prado is a product of Venezuela.  He was taken in the 2001 Amateur draft.  Prado posted a solid .307 BA which put him as the 3rd highest among 2nd basemen.  He was 5th in SLG, 6th in OPS, and 2nd in XB among all 2nd Basemen.  He was 9th in MVP voting and represented Atlanta in the All-Star game as well.   The only negative is that he isn't the best fielder.  That could have come from him moving around positions so much and having to adjust or just the fact that his offense will overshadow his defense.  Either way he had a great year living on such a small budget.


Shortstop

Elvis Andus, Texas Rangers.  $418,420 in 2010.

Mr. Andus hails from the same country as Prado and was also taken in the Amateur draft but in 2005 and not 2001.  He had a magnificent year, and if it wasn't for Votto this would be the no-brain pick for the infield. 2010 was an All-Star year for Elvis and it also had him coming in 2nd for Rookie of the Year voting.

The first thing I looked at when picking my shortstop was some fielding stats.  He was very solid in this department.  The most solid player that wasn't making the big bucks really.  He was at least 8th among his fellow Shortstops in FPCT, DP, and RF.   To add to a good fielding year he had a great small ball offensive year.  5th among shortstops in OBP, tied for 1st with shortstops for steals which put him tied for 15thn overall in the League with 32.  He is not a slugging hitter and it shows in his low SLG of .301.  He had the 4th highest amount of Ground Balls hit in the league, yet only hit into 6 Double Plays all season.  This was the lowest for a Shortstop with at least 600 plate appearances.  He also got on base with walks coming in at #4 with his BB/PA ratio of .095.  He might have had more steals, or at least been more successful if it hadn't been for a nagging injury during second half of the season and the fact that the Rangers didn't need the risk/reward of him getting caught or not towards the end as well.

Third Base


Mark Reynolds Arizona Diamondbacks.  $833,333 in 2010.

I know what your thinking if you have made it this far into the blog and you kept track of low salaried 3rd baseman last year, "Why didn't this idiot pick Casey Mcghee?".  I know I should have, Casey made less money last year and put up better numbers, but Mr. Reynolds is a stat nerds dream.  Especially a stat nerd that hates the use of the batting average as a significance on how well a player performs.  It is also my blog, and no one read it anyway so I can do what I want.  

Mark is from Pikeville, KY, and he was drafted in the 16th round with the 476th pick overall by Arizona back in 2004.  He had what some people would call an interesting year.  He led the League in K's with 211, and that was down from 223 the year before.  The next highest was David Wright with 161, but David also had 98 more plate appearances than Mark.  He easily had the lowest BA among Shortstops at .198 and second in the league to Carlos Pena at .196. 

So I know what your thinking, "Why in the world did you pick a guy who common sense says had a horrible year"?  Well, turns out is wasn't that horrible.  He got on base every other way you could try to get on base.  He lead all 3rd basemen with 83 Walks, which put him 12th in the league.  He also led 3rd basemen with the ever important Hit by Pitch statistic with 9.  His SLG wasn't bad with .433.  This tells us that when he did actually swing and hit the ball it at least got tattooed.   My most favorite stat that he led 3d basemen with was P/PA (Pitches per Plate Appearance), which was 4.31.  This means he has patience, maybe a little to much patience, but if he can develop the technique of just putting lumber on the ball then his numbers will rise.  This is why I say I think he is a stat nerd dream, he has great potential because he has all the nerdy stats in place, now he just has to please the "common" stat guys. i.e. BA.


Well, do you think I overlooked anyone?  Why do I even ask this, you have probably fallen asleep at this point or just really clicked on the link because you saw it on my facebook and thought "What is he doing instead of actual real work?".

References
BA - Batting Average
SO  - Strike outs, sometimes referred to as K's.
SLG - Slugging percentage.  google it if you do not know it.
OPS  - On base percentage plus Slugging percentage
OBP  - On base percentage
XB   - Number of extra base hits.  A base hit more than a single.
DP - Double plays fielded.
RF  - Range Factor.  You can google it, its just a way to grade fielders.

PennyBall.....not as ballin as that one book.

Intersting thought occured to me today.  Who would make the PennyBall all-star team?

We will define The PennyBall All-Star Team as an all-star team composed of players working for the bare minimum, or at least real close to it.   Players in that ever so low tax-bracket between $400,00 to $700,000 a year.   At first I thought of naming them "The Pirates All-Star Team", but then I realized the Padres are almost just as cheap.  Of course one of those teams churns out a decent product oh, maybe every 18 years or so. 

I am going to have a STAT reference sheet here at the top.  I hate reading through stat research articles and being clueless when they mention certain stats so here I will have my reference guide for this blog entry.

WHIP - Walks+Hits per Inning Pitched
K        - Strikeouts
ERA    - Earned Run Average (Average Runs given up over 9 innings)
K/9     - Strikeouts per 9 innings pitched
DIPS   - ERA independent of defensive factors.
BIPA   - Ball in play average.  Average balls put in play over the season.  A ball put in play is defined as a ball hit into the field of play. 
BAA    - Batting Average Allowed
SLG     - Slugging Average Against

Today I will start with our Penny Penching Pitchers.  I don't really have a limit of pitchers set, I just tried to snag a few and 4 is what I wound up with in no particular order, except the first one, the starter.


Mat Latos, San Diego Padres.  $407,800 in 2010.

Mr. Latos is a 6'6" Right handed fireball throwing fantasy players dream from Alexandria, VA.  He was drafted back in 2006 with the 333rd pick in the 11th round.  2010 was his first full year in the Majors and oh what a year it was. 

He made our starter for the ridiculous stats he put over his first full season.  You will notice he actually has the lowest Wins, at 14,  in our group of pitchers but with these kind of stats I would feel confident putting him on the mound to start our imaginary all-star game.   He put up a 2.92 ERA which put him at #13 overall.  He was also #2 at lowest Hits allowed with at least 30 games and #17 in walks allowed with just 50.  This puts that ever important WHIP statistic at 1.08 which was 8th lowest in the league.  He was also 8th in K/9 with 9.21.   The nerdiest of the stats for Mat I will use is his DIPS which came in 5th in the league.  This means that even with or without a great defense he put up great stats.  Needless to say he put up great numbers and if he keeps it up that huge contract will not be far behind.



Trevor Cahill, Oakland Athletics $410,000 in 2010.

Mr. Cahill is a 22 year old 6'4" Right hander from Oceanside, CA.  He was drafted back in 2006 with the 66th pick in the 2nd round out of Vista HS. 2010 was his second year in the Majors and on a side note he wound up 9th in voting for the Cy Young award. 

The first thing that pops out are his 18 wins.  That means the A's paid $22,777.77 per win, which is very very low to shell out.  Needless to say he fits right into to the notoriously tight-waded A's organization.   The first thing that stood out stat-wise was his BIPA.  He was numero uno in lowest BIPA.  If hitters aren't putting the ball in play then the only other way they can get on is by walks and hit by pitch.  Well he was 17th lowest in walks and therefor that put his WHIP at a solid 1.11 which was 11th lowest in the league.   He was also #8 in BAA at .220, which makes sense if they didn't get hits off of him and another stat that was pretty interesting was that he was #3 in DPB (Double Plays Batted).  This leads us to a few negatives I guess. The first is that his DIP% was pretty high, which tells us that he had a solid defense behind him.  Of course this is good for his stats and the biggest negative was his average innings pitched was 5.9.  This means on average he didn't even get to clock in a quality start, which says you must pitch at least 6 innings and give up less than 4 runs.  There is mucho grande debate over what a true quality start is and I'm not going to touch that.  I'm just going off the definition I found online.  We all know if its online it must be true.  The few stories I read online were saying that they expect next year to not be as fabulous for Mr. Cahill as this year, and to that I say, understandable.  He had a great year in a young career.  He has time to develop and with young pitchers good and bad years happen.  For him I hope the next is even better. 

Clay Bucholz, Boston Red Sox.  $443,000 in 2010.

Mr. Bucholz is a 6'3" Right hander from Nederland, TX.  He was drafted with the 42nd pick of the 1st round out of Angelina College in Lufkin,TX.  He has seen action in the majors before this year, but 2010 was his first full year in the big leagues.  He also finished 6th in the Cy Young award voting and represented the Red Sox in the actual All-Star game.

Again the big reason he made this list is because of his wins.  With 17 wins and only getting paid $443K that is $26058.82 per win.  That is great and all, but he really put up some great stats in some departments.  The one stat the really stand out is his ERA at 2.33.  Thats #3 in the bigs.  He also has a pretty WHIP at just 1.20.  Another one that stands out was that he was number #1 in fewest hits allowed this season at 142.  That averaged out to just 5.07 hits per game.  He had middle of the road stats on walks per 9 at 3.5 and also K/9 of 6.2.  But his SGA came in 3rd lowest at .312.  This means he wasn't giving up the big hits.  He was putting people on base, but they just weren't getting around to home plate.


Phil Hughes, New York Yankees.  $447,000 in 2010.

Mr. Hughes (coincidentally my 9th grade math teacher) is a 6'5" Right hander from Mission Viejo,CA.  He was drafted back in 2004 in the first round with the 23rd pick overall out of Foothill HS in Santa Anna CA.  He is the most seasoned of our penny penching pitching squad.  He was a set up man with the Yankees before turning into a starting pitcher this past year.  He represented the Yankees in the 2010 All-Star game. 

Again just like the last two pitchers the amount of wins is real nice to get out of such a low salary.  Phil had 18 Wins which put him at $24,833.33 per win for the Yankees payroll department.  I know he is a great pitcher with great stuff, but I really think what got him to that level is the fact he is playing for a stacked Yankees line up. Of the top 25 Pitchers in the Win column he is one of two with an ERA greater than 4.00.  This tells me he had some potent offense in the line up to make up for some games that should have gone to the other team.  Notably 3 games that he gave up over 5 earned runs and still made out with the W.  Now if he had a 15 Win season he still might have made this list due to his WHIP at 1.25, but what really hurt him was the amount of Walks he had.  Of interesting note, he did not have one hit batter the entire season, which of course had him tied for first.



Honarable Mention. (Mainly because I'm tired and want to go to sleep)
Mike Pelfrey, New York Mets. $500,000 in 2010
15 Wins in 2010 for the half a mil is pretty good.  He had a pretty low On Base Percentage and he only gave up 12 Home runs all year.  Had a solid ERA of 3.66 as well.  Didn't make the cut because the other players either had more wins or better stats.  Still a great year for Mr. Pelfrey.


Jaimy Garcia, St. Louis Cardinals.  $400,000 in 2010

Lowest win total out of the bunch at 13, but he was 3rd in voting for Rookie of the Year honors.   Biggest stat was his extremely low 2.70 ERA.  Man I hope he keeps this up for my Cardinals.  He was 4th in fewest hits allowed and had a really low SLG.  His walks were not so hot, which hopefully his command will develop over time, but that low SLG tells me he isn't going to give up many big hits.  I feel the biggest negative is that the Cardinals only got an average of 5.82 innings out of him per game.  Hopefully this is because of his youth.  Good luck to him next year. 


I will say this was the most time I have spent on research for one of these blogs so far.  Tell me what you think in the comment section, maybe I left someone out, I'm sure I did. 

Blog for Paul

So my good friend Paul mentioned "I think the biggest key to a win is pitching to contact. Maddox and Smoltz are two easy examples. Ground balls kept in the infield win games for pitchers. Do they track that stat? Don't rip me ...for my examples please, it's late." and to this I ask, Does pitching to contact win games?


Now before we get started Paul brought up two hall of fame pitchers.  I would like to think of these guys as two outliers.  My brain's first thought is if we pitch to contact then the hitter has a better chance of getting on base, which leads to a better chance of him getting to home.  Here is what we must decide before we did in to this thought.  

What stat declares a pitcher to be a good pitcher?  I am going to use ERA (Earned Run Average).  Its such a basic stat, and that is why I love it.  A low ERA means less players cross the plate which gives your team a better chance of winning.


What stat/stats would tell us he is a contact pitcher?  This is where it got interesting.  Of course if he had a large BAA (batting average against) it would mean he would be a high contact hitter, but what if those hits where outs as in the scenario we are describing.  So I thought if the pitcher had a low ERA plus a low K rate (strikeout for the extremely baseball stat illiterate) and a pretty low or even kind of low BAA then it must mean he was a contact pitcher.  I am not defining low or high yet, this is just me thinking, sort of like those dream sequences in late 80's/early 90's sitcoms.  


So I decided to look at last years pitchers in the MLB and see who meets this description.   First I started with the top 50 pitchers with the lowest ERA because that is how I am defining a pitcher being good or bad.  (Yes you could use some nerdier stat I know, but again I like ERA because its easy)  I sorted those 50 players based on K's per inning.  One pitcher stood out from the rest last year.  He was the only pitcher with an ERA under 3.0 with a K per inning under .60 and thats R.A. Dickey for the Mets.  There were others that I would stick in the same category, mainly Trevor Cahill in Oakland, Tim Hudson with Atlanta and Clay Buchholz with Boston.  But the difference between those players and Dickey was that Dickey had the highest Hits per Inning rate out of the bunch. What saved him was his BBIP (Base on ball per inning pitch).  Out of the top 50 ERA pitchers he ranked number 9 in this category and on top of that he is the only one out of that group even in the top 28 in BBIP.   So he is extremely accurate and because of this it is compensating for his high contact rate. The crappy part is that it did not convert to Wins and Losses which is  probably why he isn't considered and elite pitcher.  He had 11 wins and 9 losses on the season.  He also didn't play as many games as the other top pitchers (27 compared to the low to mid 30's for the other players) which is why his stats may be skewed a little.  With less games it means that a few good games can skew your average down on most of these stats I mentioned.  


I'm definitely going to keep an eye on this guy and see what happens throughout the rest of his career.  He has been in up and down with the bigs since 2001 but last year was easily the best year he has had so far.  So much so the Mets gave him a pretty heafty contract.  For them I hope last year was a fluke but for Mr. Dickey I hope it was the start to many great seasons to come. 

Back to the Basics

How does a baseball team beat another baseball team?

Put more runs up of course.   So now the big question is if I wanted to predict if Team A was going to beat Team B what would I look for in their past games to see which team would put up more runs.   There are many, many, many statistics and or logical thoughts to use.  Trying to find which stat, or stats to use can be quite troublesome.  They seem to all make sense to use, and actually many just make "common" sense.  Well lets say Team A has put up above average runs for the season, and maybe they are in the top 5 in runs scored, this would mean that we would definitely choose Team A, right?  Well there are so many other factors to factor in.  What if Team A is putting out their 5th pitcher in the rotation who has struggled in every start so far this season, and  Team B is putting their ace pitcher on the mound with an ERA around 2.0.   Now we have painted a whole new picture of our ball game.  What if we find out that starting pitching doesn't really even matter in a game, and that actually Team A has nothing to worry about because their offense will nullify any pitchers past performances.

Of course we can go on and on and many statistically inclined sports fans have.  What I am more interested in is just breaking it down to the basics.  Picking out a few stats that actually matter and running with them.  This might sound nonacademic of me, but honestly I don't care.  If I wanted to prove my intelligence I wouldn't be trying to pick baseball games.   I might unknowingly throw in some wrong stats and leave out some pertinent stats, but I am not going to let the thought of this bother me while I make my picks.  I want my equation to be like George W. Bush, confident and decisive.   When you add 30 factors into an equation you end up more like John Kerry, less confident results and outcomes that like to ride the fence and not really tell us anything.

I'm getting closer every time I open up my laptop, and my brain, to picking the factors I will start with.  After reading more into other peoples equation building process when it comes to sports I am realizing it is going to take some years of experience under my belt before I feel confident in my product.  My main goal this first season is going to be to soak it all in.  Yes, I might fail and not put as many wins as losses, but in failing I will learn more than I ever would succeeding.

Interesting thought today

So I will be putting my money were my mouth is once baseball season starts.  Well, really once each team has played 20 games because this is how long I let the season run before I started building my regression formula.  It will not be much because lets be honest, I am a math instructor at a two year college.
Not only did I think of putting real money down but also donating whatever is left over at the end of the year to a charity.  I will probably be making $5 bets on these games or less, it really depends on how much capitol I start with so its not as though these charities be getting much even if my formula turns out successful, but it really sounds like an interesting way of doing it.  I do not exactly know which charity right now.  I was either going to go with make a wish, or habitat for humanity.  I am a fan of donating and being able to actually see outcomes.  I am not saying that donating to larger charities like Susan G Komen are bad, it is just that when you donate to charities like that you usually do not get to see the research being done, or direct effect from the donations.  I have partnered with make-a-wish before and I actually got the chance to meet the little boy who's wish we had the pleasure to make happen.  That was a neat experience.  Yes, this has nothing to do with statistics, and yes, I didn't even touch my formula today.  Sometimes one needs to think bigger than ones self, and today I had that thought.

Busiest off day I've had in a while

Just got done grading College Algebra tests for 3 hours.  Never again will I put so many questions on a test.  I didn't get to touch any stats today, or even day dream about the possibilities of my predictions. I hit the ground running, which made me think of how spring training started in MLB.  Man am I ever ready to start this season.

The beautiful day called for the kids and I to take a trip to the local park.   We horsed around for a while and then I noticed the high school baseball team was starting to practice in their field attached to the park.  There is nothing so pure than high school sports, well, at least I like to think that anyway.  I'm going to try and hit up some high school games this year to see how the kids do during the game.  I know at my age I would just sit and watch the game in its entirety, but I do not think my kids inherited that gene.   Oh well, I feel the more I expose them to it the higher possibility they will fall in love like I did, as long as I don't push it to hard.  Nothings worse than that dad coach whose kid hates whatever sport he is coaching.

Well, enough rambling, happy valentines day.

Saint Valentine, patron saint of chocolate, flowers, candy, and Zales...GTM

Well had a eureka moment of sorts last night.  Got all of my games into excel with all of their factors and finally got to play with them in my stat software.  So it turns out I had to do some transforming of the independent variables.  Pretty weird, don't know if it will work once I start picking games and on top of that I also have a few factors that I thought really wouldn't mean much actually turn out to be significant.   As of now the way my formula is set up it will show me what games should have a larger difference in Runs scored, but it will not tell me which team should win or lose.  I have to back track it and look at each teams stats to see which one is the weaker or stronger team.  This seems like a lot of work, and I think I can just make an algorithm to work it out, but I don't want to deal with it until it gets so annoying doing it by hand that I want to put forth more work.   Now I've just got to dig up some games from years past to work it out on to see how well the equation works.


I hope everyone has an awesome Valentines day.  I will be buying mlb.tv online for my vday gift and with this gift I will be assured to not have a girlfriend till October.  Think of how much that one $120 payment will save me in the long run.  I believe Ayn Rand put it best "Wealth is the product of man's ability to think".  By having 24 access to a full season of games I believe I will be able to think 10 times more clear than having just one woman....or two.

Nothing Statistical about this one

The SEC has made a change in rules to their tournament at the end of the year that there now a 20 second clock between pitches and a 90 second clock between innings.  First off, I do not understand the entirety of the rule, I just know that overall pitchers and batters have less time between pitches and innings.  I think if the pitcher takes to long he gets assessed a ball, and if the hitter isn't in the box by a certain time he gets a strike.

I consider myself a traditionalist when it comes to baseball.  I have never liked the American League because of the designated hitter and I feel college baseball is done a disservice by using aluminum bats.   That said, I really dislike this rule.  When I think of watching a game on t.v. or in person I love to see the battle within the battle.  One of those is the mental battle between hitter and pitcher.  This will change that.  Now it adds a whole new angle of time into the equation that I honestly dislike.  

The greatest part about baseball is there is no time, it is one of the few things that separates it from most sports.  If one wants a fast paced game then switch the channel, I feel a true baseball fan wouldn't care how long it took.  There is this nice, almost southerly, ebb and flow to baseball that one cannot get from watching basketball or football. Especially today in this fast paced world where we can gain any information instantaneously on our cell phones it is nice to be given this moment of suspense that the pitcher holds in his hand.

I envision a time clock behind home plate ticking away between each strike or ball and out or the hitter getting on base.  This is ridiculous.  This is not what baseball was about.   A perfect example why I do not like this is going from NCAA basketball to NBA basketball.   College basketball has a longer shot clock, 35 seconds, and therefor each play has more time to develop and there is more of a dance that occurs with the players on the offense.  NBA is more one and done when it comes to each possession with its 24 second clock.   Yes, you get higher scoring games, due to a longer game and shorter clock, but you also take away a huge part of the game.   

I know my little blog that no one reads will not change anything, but I just feel like I needed to get this off of my chest.  If you want a shorter game then start watching a different game.  Baseball was not meant to be played between time, it was meant to have its own time.

Taking an off day.

Didn't work on my stats today.  Just like working out you need off days, and I have a good feeling once the season starts I will not have many.   A friend at work gave me his roku.  I am so pumped because now I can watch mlb.tv on my actual tv this season.  Yes, I still have an old tv that weighs 200lbs and has no HD inputs.  But it was free and it is really really hard to beat free.  So now I just have to scrounge up the $120 for the year subscription.  Sounds like a perfect Valentines gift to myself.   Well, because no one is reading this I do not have to apologize for rambling. haha.

Snowday.....no, not that type of snow Mr. Strawberry

So I found my Applied Linear Statistical Models book in my closet today.  I had looked everywhere for this book because I need to reference it on some of the harder Regression.  It was honestly like Christmas day for a nerd when I opened my closet door.  I also found some other old stat books that might help me get super nerdy, but like my description says under the title I want my formula as easy as possible with the best outcomes as possible.

Me and the kiddos did manage to get some sledding in and we also managed to make the worlds best hot cocoa.  I finally got to throw in some data into my stat program to run some basic regression with around 40 games variables.  So far its looking good, a few factors had significance and my r-square isn't to shabby for just starting out.  A lot better than my last try at this.   I really won't know until I get the formula made up and test it on some games that were not from last season.

Guess that's it for today,  I finally get to go back to work tomorrow because the snow is melting away.   I will finally get some long needed grading done.  Pretty sad when you're looking forward to grading.  
 

Outlier? Thats impossible, i think she is compulisve.

Snow day, kids and myself are out of school.  If you have ever been in a small snowed in condo with a 4 and 6 year old then you know how I'm feeling right now.  Well, actually the kids are finally in bed, so I'm feeling a lot better at the moment.   So I got a little more done today.  It is taking me a while because out of the 2430 regular season games last year I've chosen 100 at random to see what to dig deeper into with factor wise and it is causing grueling copy and paste marathons on the laptop.  Plus I'm using a laptop with no mouse.  You would think with as fast as technology evolves for the better than the sensor pad would be better than it was 10 years ago, but it isn't.   Well, I'm done whining for now.

Moneyball and MJG

So I put some more time into collecting data today.  I'm sure I could probably pay to get some of this stuff but I am a poor lonesome teacher that would rather collect it and enjoy some White Stripes in the background as I copy and paste in excel for an hour.   My main factors so far have been spread of past games and runs and such, but as I'm putting some of these games in it looks as though starting pitching is a bigger factor than I expected.  I will prob put that in after i have what I'm doing now done.  I guess it makes sense that starting pitching would make a difference, but what I've noticed is that sometimes what is common sense isn't actually the correct sense.  Especially when it comes to betting trends which I hope is where all of this will lead to.   Well back to excel repetition. 

My name is Robert and I love sports statistics

I have developed this blog to just jot down notes and such while I develop a formula for predicting outcomes for the upcoming baseball season.  My goal is to get a formula that will pick certain games 60% of the time.  I know this will be tough, but I think it is a good goal to have in mind.  I started collecting data last week and am trying to finagle some factors to throw into my regression equation.   This is a good starting point, and in turn my main goal is to keep the formula as straight forward as possible.  There is nothing worse than these intricate formulas that work no better than a basic formula with just one or two variables.  Well, you can enjoy the journey if you wish.  Up till the season start I will be using the blog to go over tweaks and what not, and maybe some outcomes with past data, but we won't hit the grindstone till the season starts in April.   This is when I plan to give picks as they come given the formula is confident enough to choose them and see how it works out.