Statistical Analysis= Pattern Recognition

Most who have problem with the statistics side is because the word is hard to say and is very close to the word "sadistics".

Why would anyone want to ignore the stats. As you know, everyone in baseball pays attention to numbers, they just pick the ones the want to and the ones they don't understand they dismiss them.

I'm not a natural fan of european football.
However while watching the recent world cup, in a city obsessed, I noticed that the "beautiful game" seems to lack any basic moneyball analysis.

Specifically, I noticed virtually no positive benefit of long kicks, by goalkeepers, across midfield to an outnumbered teammate. VERY rarely did this tactic reap anything other than an immediate turnover.

I'd love to know if anyone has ever tracked the efficiency of that common move, and compared it against a controlled passing game that spreads the field before the attack.

I think not.

And yes, this will be the only time I ever mention that particular topic.

HaverDad:

Good to hear from you again. Long time no see posts. Welcome back.

To simply add a bit of a personal post-script to the whole Moneyball issue and your topic starter, in a fairly recent book {The Mind of Bill James} the author touches on the most recent revision of the original run's created formula by the Red Sox Special Assistant by adding to the hits + walks + hit by pitch x total bases divided by at bats, etc. stolen bases and caught stealing on opposite sides of the equation.

For your input I ofer the following questions. Does that mean that the highest paid players of the future will be speedy guys with a good eye for the strike zone that can hit for power but might bat .270 and under for their career? If so, is the batting average as a stat destined, for all real world intents and purposes, to rest "on the ash heap of [baseball] history" only to be dragged out right before and after sportswriters send in their ballots for the position players nominated for the Baseball Hall of Fame in order to justify their continued failure to vote for the Moneyball players with great Moneyball numbers?

And, though nothing fit for a truly rational public discussion can really resolve why the Royals are the way they are without using four letter words like dumb, dumb as dirt, dumb as $#*+, dumb as #&]], does this help explain why the A's are stealing more and bunting more this year [or at least it appears that way to me]? Or, alternatively, has Billy Bean simply lost control of the situation in Oakland?

Europe has football? Played with a sphere? They kick it to a teamate at midfield and not to the opposition? How weird is that!!!!!!!!!

Come home soon, HaverDad. You really need to see some live baseball. Living off stats and ESPN is no way to go through life. I am worried about you.

Just something to keep your mind occupied on a hopefully boring day/evening in France.

TW344

Title of this Site:

High School Baseball web

Statistics are nearly meaningless at the HS level-- no official scorers-- scorers who dont know the game--shall we go on

At the MLB level it is an entirely different story as you are dealing with business entities and my good friends at the Elias Bureau got onto it early and are not "THE" people when it comes to stats even if many of them are meaningless.

TW344

Sunday morning observations:
(In no particular order):

What going on now is analagous to when the the west coast offense spread like a virus. Multiple derivatives abound. Bill Walsh applied it best, other teams didn't do so well.

Maybe it's the Bay Area Factor (BAF). <s>

The A's have done it well, with limited reources, but the root of their original success went virtually undefined before Moneyball was published. Now no-one can afford to ignore the basic principles, and we will continue to see various flavors from this recipe (formula). Also remember there are two issues involved. Moneyball is more than using statistical analysis to redefine/recalibrate player value$. To win with these principles teams must effectively synchronize talent aquisition and in-game tactics.

James successfuly challenged conventional wisdom in an industry not known for innovation, but now he's in an unenviable position. It reminds me of a musician who spends a lifetime working out a set of 10-12 great songs, and once that first recording goes platinum, the record company turns and says, "do that again-in six months."

I saw the A's twice last week, and they can't run that much when Frank T. clogs the bases, but their recent inability to hit with runners in scoring position naturally makes them more small ball inclined. They will be more dangerous with Bradley and Chavez back.

Finally, regarding agressive base stealing, James has always undervalued the potential scoring impact of advancing runners without sacrifice. Specific to 2006, I've noticed more catcher-specific running attacks, against underperforming catchers.... Bengie Molina, for example. Toronto (J.P. Ricciardi) has however, generally applied a successful set of Jamesian-inpired strategies. The Jays' willingness to dump Shea Hillenbrand shows a real committment to their program.

Detroit? Dmitri Young?

YES: I do have a sat dish on the roof that gets lots of games, unfortunately 75% of the live games come on after midnight.

HaverDad:

Excellent stuff as usual. Being an optimistic fan of the great game, I believe we are in the infancy of the Moneyball movement. No one has yet come up with a close approximation of the defensive value of players at each position but great minds [not found at ELIAS] are working on it. Certainly, astute organizations at every level learned and are still learning both from the Red Sox and Blue Jays successes and the brief Dodgers fling [Paul DePotesta] with Moneyball that was allowed to fail due to ownership's short term myopia. The Rangers appear headed in the Moneyball direction but time will tell if they are willing to stick it out. Other teams seem inclined to hire a "sabermatician" for their staff but don't seem to be listening to them or at least don't appear to act in accordance with Moneyball principles on any consistent basis.

Speed will become more important and increase in value as Moneyball teams look at the increasingly dismal caught stealing statistics and, as you say, the sucess of "more catcher-specific running attacks aginst [consistently] underperforming catchers" the most notable, of course, being Mike Piazza. This inevitable trend should lead to an increase in value of the excellent defensive non-hitting back-up catcher who plays, not based on whom the pitcher is but, based on whom the opposition is.

Speed along with quickness will also, in my opinion, evolve into a valued attribute for up the middle defensive position players as teams discover that the lack of range resulting in fewer chances, more wild pitches that are really passed balls, etc. is more of a negative than the number of errors committed at the position.

But, as we know and you so eloquently stated, none of this will be worthwhile unless organizations at all levels learn to "most effectively synchronize talent acquisition and in game tactics" and that may not occur unless and until the managers and coaches hired by these organizations adopt a different philosophy then that under which they learned the game.

TW344

TRhit:

Initially I thought about ignoring you and that maybe you would just go away. Then I began to think, what is your motive here? Are you against a forum that is devoted to statistics? If so, and your motive is to eliminate this forum or, to minimize and degrade its content [which is what it appears to me] offering nothing positive, I felt that I had to respond.

The title of the Site is High School Baseball web, that is true. The Hitting forum is full of video clips MLB hitters because it is assumed that High School players can learn from that. College baseball is discussed on many other forums since it is assumed that at least some of the High School Players would like to play at the next level. I would argue that a discussion of what statistics certain MLB organizations [presently few in number] find important that others don't would offer hope to the many high school players that are not the "blue chip prospects" with whom many on this site are preoccupied. They might see their own talents, not prized highly by the present coach, being sought after by others both at the college and Major League level.

You boldly state as a fact that "Statistics are nearly meaningless at the HS level" and give as your backup for this statement the following: "no official scorers" and "scorers who dont{sp} know the game".

Regarding your "no official scorers" point, as you are no doubt aware the "official scorer" at a MLB game is usually a local newspaper reporter who is prone to score close calls in favor of the home team [or he would not have the job long]. This is what is and has been compiled by The Elias Bureau for years and used for everything from arbitration hearings to trade negotiations to who starts a game. At the minor league level I assume it is the same or something worse. From what I see of college games, the "official scorer" is usually one of the coaches for the home team. At the High School level, it is again usually one of the coaches. No real point to be made here; just some clarification.

Regarding your "scorers who dont[sp] know the game" point, WHAT ON EARTH DO YOU THINK IS AND WILL CONTINUE TO BE A MAJOR FOCAL POINT OF THIS FORUM? Even in these infant stages, it is already being used to answer questions by honest high school score keepers as to how something should be scored and to provide a helpful site to those coaches that keep the scorebook for their team and want to score every play correctly. Hopefully, that will continue and in the long run scorebooks all across America will become more consistent, more honest and more useful for statistical analysis. This forum is not a cure all but it is certainly a good start.

Finally, if it is your true opinion that "many of them [statistics] are meaningless" and all "statistics are nearly meaningless at the HS level" why bother coming on here and posting anything? What can we learn from you and what can you learn from us? Why not spend your valuable time and posts on those forums where you sometimes are motivated to offer something constructive?

TW344

TW

Stop being so **** sensitive---all I am saying is that stats mean nothing until you get to the pro level or even the college level and there are so many stats out there now that it is ridiculous-- we can formula/stat ourselves to death


You guys can all sit there and get giddy with your stat formulas but I would rather spend time working on "baseball things" like cut offs and signals etc


And I have BS in Math-- I would would rather use it in a more positive area--I am not knocking what you want, the forum is great, but it has to be realistic---we have gone over the edge with the stats, IMO

Stats can also be "relatively" useful, meaning for example...the hs coach can use them to fine tune batting order decisions, defensive changes, pitching decisions etc, for HIS team, based (partially) on what HIS stats tell him.
These amature stats may not be accurate in terms of whats really a hit and whats not, but as a way of comparing players, they are useful when properly evaluated. They will certainly tell you who puts the ball in play and who doesn't.

They can also be a valuble teaching tool, as in pointing out to a player that when he starts with and 0-2 count, he is batting .086, but when he gets to 2 and 2, his average improves to .325.

TRHit,

Would you ignore a player going 0-15 with 15 Ks but a beautiful swing? Would that not be looking at stats?

HS baseball stats do mean a whole lot -- to the one who knows how to both interpret and use them.

Scoring is easy, if my son gets on it's a base hit, if he pitches and someone else gets on its an E.

This forum is going to overtake defense pretty soon. May overtake others. I believe in working a lot on a field, but I also believe a coach and even player should look at the numbers.

HaverDad and TW344, great posts and very informative. TW344, I too, have noticed a "decline" in quality catchers and expect also a trend back toward "excellent defensive non-hitting" catchers...but it will take time, MLB has invested alot of $ into several switch-hitting catchers who need alot of "development".
TR, To say stats mean nothing is ridiculous. You state that this is a HSBBW (college?) yet surely you must acknowledge coaches everywhere (HS/college) use them to justify who they put on the field. I know several college coaches who ONLY use the top nine stat players-disregarding talent, tools (that beautiful swing)...(well said Baseballpapa) Stats mean something, but they must be utilized using a "big picture" mentality.

TR:

One of the reasons I was in favor of this forum being formed was to allow the discussion of WHY all statistics in high school are meaningless. People on this site throw that expression around - and I have yet to see a real justification for why all statistics at this level are meaningless.

So go ahead - I'll let you go first...

Oh, and by the way, I can call your BS in math and raise you a masters. - and while I will probably agree with you that stats in HS are meaningless, I may not ....

How could statistics possibly be meaningless? (Note my user name). And since we're throwing around math related degrees, BS in Math and Comp Sci, and extensive graduate work in statistics.