Which on for Cy Young Topic

JFerg
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Posted by MikeT23 on 2/21/2012 2:16:00 PM (view original):
Posted by JFerg on 2/21/2012 2:11:00 PM (view original):
Posted by MikeT23 on 2/21/2012 2:04:00 PM (view original):
It also occurred to me that this discussion is no longer "Which one for Cy Young?" and more "I understand stats better than you and mine are more important". 

At the end of the day, no one is figuring out FIP, defensive value, park effects, VORP, WAR, SPAGHETTI OR RAVIOLI for either of these guys.   They're looking at this:
G IP W-L SV ERA WHIP OAV K/9 BB/9

IIRC, Ducey wins the first two(maybe three).   The rest favor Sheldon.
I looked at almost all of those.  Well, not the Italian stats.

Bobzilla
I assume you weren't in the league or voting for the CY Award.    If I had to guess, a good world has about 75% participation in Awards voting.  No one is going to spend 20-30 minutes on each award to make sure they know the PItching Runs or RC27 for each candidate.  Just isn't going to happen.
Not in the league.  Do I even get a vote if I'm not in the league?  Are you calling the awards voters lazy or is this just not that improtant.

Bobzilla
2/21/2012 2:22 PM
kcden
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Posted by JFerg on 2/21/2012 2:11:00 PM (view original):
Posted by kcden on 2/21/2012 2:08:00 PM (view original):
Posted by MikeT23 on 2/21/2012 2:04:00 PM (view original):
It also occurred to me that this discussion is no longer "Which one for Cy Young?" and more "I understand stats better than you and mine are more important". 

At the end of the day, no one is figuring out FIP, defensive value, park effects, VORP, WAR, SPAGHETTI OR RAVIOLI for either of these guys.   They're looking at this:
G IP W-L SV ERA WHIP OAV K/9 BB/9

IIRC, Ducey wins the first two(maybe three).   The rest favor Sheldon.
This... we're voting for for the "best pitcher" in the league, not trying to determine who is more likely to help our fantasy team.
Does "best pitcher" not mean "most valuable"?

Bobzilla

Both "best" and "most valuable" are subjective terms, in regards to a sport (like baseball) and the game of HBD.  They could be used as synonyms, but don't necessarily mean the same thing.  I don't look at the Cy Young award as necessarily the "Most Valuable" but more "Most Outstanding"... and ultimately my feeling on who should win is some balance of the value of their contribution and how outstanding their performance was. 
IMO, Sheldon's performance was both more outstanding by a reasonable margin and more valuable (by far less of a margin, if any). 

2/21/2012 2:25 PM
JFerg
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Posted by kcden on 2/21/2012 2:25:00 PM (view original):
Posted by JFerg on 2/21/2012 2:11:00 PM (view original):
Posted by kcden on 2/21/2012 2:08:00 PM (view original):
Posted by MikeT23 on 2/21/2012 2:04:00 PM (view original):
It also occurred to me that this discussion is no longer "Which one for Cy Young?" and more "I understand stats better than you and mine are more important". 

At the end of the day, no one is figuring out FIP, defensive value, park effects, VORP, WAR, SPAGHETTI OR RAVIOLI for either of these guys.   They're looking at this:
G IP W-L SV ERA WHIP OAV K/9 BB/9

IIRC, Ducey wins the first two(maybe three).   The rest favor Sheldon.
This... we're voting for for the "best pitcher" in the league, not trying to determine who is more likely to help our fantasy team.
Does "best pitcher" not mean "most valuable"?

Bobzilla

Both "best" and "most valuable" are subjective terms, in regards to a sport (like baseball) and the game of HBD.  They could be used as synonyms, but don't necessarily mean the same thing.  I don't look at the Cy Young award as necessarily the "Most Valuable" but more "Most Outstanding"... and ultimately my feeling on who should win is some balance of the value of their contribution and how outstanding their performance was. 
IMO, Sheldon's performance was both more outstanding by a reasonable margin and more valuable (by far less of a margin, if any). 

Sheldon's performance was not more valuable if we're talking about run saved relative to average while adjusting for park effects.

Bobzilla
2/21/2012 2:27 PM
kcden
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Bobzilla... the awards aren't viewed as all that important (nor is the HOF, althought I don't really get that mentality, given that the whole thing is just fake and a game, anwyay).  Some people are passionate about it, some care a little, some are completely apathetic.
Talent is never evenly distributed... if everyone ran their teams perfectly, I suppose a league-average pitcher would be more difficult to acquire... but then league average would be better (probably) because no one would be running some of the crap players that sometimes get play-time due to whatever circumstances ("playing for the future", blatant tanking, not understanding player ratings and their effects, etc.)
2/21/2012 2:29 PM
MikeT23
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No one is going to stress themselve to find out FIP for a pitcher.   Some may dig a little deeper but I don't think anyone is going to calculate stats that WifS doesn't supply.   There is no WAR, VORP, FIP or SPAGHETTI stat in HBD for easy access.
2/21/2012 2:32 PM
kcden
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Sheldon's performance was not more valuable if we're talking about run saved relative to average while adjusting for park effects.
 
Wanted to get back to the park effects... I think their effect on how good a player's season was get over-stated within HBD all of the time.  If I think a player had a great year (or worse than they should have) and he's up for an award, I always look at his Home/Road splits... in most cases, I find that the player that had the best overall stats had better road stats than the guy I am comparing him to, and that is the case (on a WHIP/ERA/OAV basis) with Sheldon as well.
2/21/2012 2:33 PM
JFerg
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Posted by kcden on 2/21/2012 2:29:00 PM (view original):
Bobzilla... the awards aren't viewed as all that important (nor is the HOF, althought I don't really get that mentality, given that the whole thing is just fake and a game, anwyay).  Some people are passionate about it, some care a little, some are completely apathetic.
Talent is never evenly distributed... if everyone ran their teams perfectly, I suppose a league-average pitcher would be more difficult to acquire... but then league average would be better (probably) because no one would be running some of the crap players that sometimes get play-time due to whatever circumstances ("playing for the future", blatant tanking, not understanding player ratings and their effects, etc.)
I'm not talking about evenly distributed among the teams by the way.  I'm talking about the league as a whole.  In a normal distribution, you get a bell curve, where most people are average.  That's not how talent is in MLB.  I want to know if that is here too.  There should be more good players than great players.  More average players than good players.  More below average players than average players.  And more bad players than below average players.  If you already understood this and thought I was talking down to you, I apologize.  Your post didn't make it particularly clear.  If the talent level is similar to MLB, than Ducey is clearly more valuable than Sheldon.  That point cannot be argued.  Once you bring in replacement level, and admit that average players aren't easy to find, Ducey will come out ahead when looking at runs saved above replacement.  However, if talent follows a normal distribution, where there are more average players than either above or below average players, it is much closer, with only the park effects separating the two.  So nobody should ever say Sheldon was more valuable, when we're talking about how many runs/wins they create for their team when all we have is ERA and IP to work with.  It is entirely possible that if you look at WPA, he could come out ahead, but I don't think this league has that.  I'm not criticizing the voters here either, because guess what, real Cy Young award voters took pretty much at the same thing.  They look at ERA, and after that, wins and losses.  

Bobzilla
2/21/2012 2:40 PM
JFerg
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Sample size fluff
2/21/2012 2:42 PM
JFerg
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Posted by kcden on 2/21/2012 2:33:00 PM (view original):
Sheldon's performance was not more valuable if we're talking about run saved relative to average while adjusting for park effects.
 
Wanted to get back to the park effects... I think their effect on how good a player's season was get over-stated within HBD all of the time.  If I think a player had a great year (or worse than they should have) and he's up for an award, I always look at his Home/Road splits... in most cases, I find that the player that had the best overall stats had better road stats than the guy I am comparing him to, and that is the case (on a WHIP/ERA/OAV basis) with Sheldon as well.
I don't think the home/road splits matter too much.  Here's the bottom line.  Sheldon was better than Ducey on a rate basis with respect to ERA.  He wasn't if you look at FIP.  But I'm giving him full credit for the difference.  The difference is in inning pitched, which everybody already knows.  Combining them together, they're equal when compared to average.  Ducey moves ahead if you add in replacement.  The parks favor Ducey.  When I look at park effects, it isn't to see how they affect a player, but just change the runs-to-win ratio.  Basically, Sheldon needs to save more runs to create one win than Ducey does.  This isn't huge, it might be something like half a run more or even smaller.  This in turn might lead to a difference of like .3 wins.  It's small, but it does count.  

Bobzilla
2/21/2012 2:51 PM
MikeT23
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HBD isn't a bell curve in talent distribution.   At least not at the BL level.   In part because some owners are simply better than others.  In part because some owners are indifferent to winning in a specific season.   But "average" would still probably be the vast majority if you just tried to group them in 15/20/30/20/15(in terms of talent) to create a bell curve.   More likely, it would be 10/20/30/30/10 in real talent.    Great/good/average/below average/bad.
2/21/2012 2:54 PM
oriolemagic
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Does anybody know how players are generated?  I am curios now, maybe it came up in a dev chat or something.
2/21/2012 2:57 PM
jvford
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Posted by JFerg on 2/21/2012 2:40:00 PM (view original):
Posted by kcden on 2/21/2012 2:29:00 PM (view original):
Bobzilla... the awards aren't viewed as all that important (nor is the HOF, althought I don't really get that mentality, given that the whole thing is just fake and a game, anwyay).  Some people are passionate about it, some care a little, some are completely apathetic.
Talent is never evenly distributed... if everyone ran their teams perfectly, I suppose a league-average pitcher would be more difficult to acquire... but then league average would be better (probably) because no one would be running some of the crap players that sometimes get play-time due to whatever circumstances ("playing for the future", blatant tanking, not understanding player ratings and their effects, etc.)
I'm not talking about evenly distributed among the teams by the way.  I'm talking about the league as a whole.  In a normal distribution, you get a bell curve, where most people are average.  That's not how talent is in MLB.  I want to know if that is here too.  There should be more good players than great players.  More average players than good players.  More below average players than average players.  And more bad players than below average players.  If you already understood this and thought I was talking down to you, I apologize.  Your post didn't make it particularly clear.  If the talent level is similar to MLB, than Ducey is clearly more valuable than Sheldon.  That point cannot be argued.  Once you bring in replacement level, and admit that average players aren't easy to find, Ducey will come out ahead when looking at runs saved above replacement.  However, if talent follows a normal distribution, where there are more average players than either above or below average players, it is much closer, with only the park effects separating the two.  So nobody should ever say Sheldon was more valuable, when we're talking about how many runs/wins they create for their team when all we have is ERA and IP to work with.  It is entirely possible that if you look at WPA, he could come out ahead, but I don't think this league has that.  I'm not criticizing the voters here either, because guess what, real Cy Young award voters took pretty much at the same thing.  They look at ERA, and after that, wins and losses.  

Bobzilla
In HBD, talent is distributed the same as MLB......bell curve throughout, but only the far right of the curve gets to ML. 

What you're missing, is that unlike MLB, there is measurable capacity.  Each pitcher has a stamina and durability rating that (combined with other ratings) dictates how many innings a season they can pitch.  It is very rare that a staff is anywhere near capacity.
2/21/2012 2:59 PM
MikeT23
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Randomly.   As you're in more than one world, you've probably noticed "pitching" or "hitting" worlds.   Quite possibly you've even noticed a shortage of legit SS or C who can hit.    If not, you're in three similar worlds or haven't been paying attention.
2/21/2012 3:00 PM
JFerg
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Posted by MikeT23 on 2/21/2012 2:54:00 PM (view original):
HBD isn't a bell curve in talent distribution.   At least not at the BL level.   In part because some owners are simply better than others.  In part because some owners are indifferent to winning in a specific season.   But "average" would still probably be the vast majority if you just tried to group them in 15/20/30/20/15(in terms of talent) to create a bell curve.   More likely, it would be 10/20/30/30/10 in real talent.    Great/good/average/below average/bad.
If this is true, than you don't need to look at replacement level.  Basically, the only thing separating the two pitchers would be the park effects.  Which might make the difference between the two pitchers like 5 runs.  Which for me is to close to call.  If you like ERA vote for Sheldon.  If you like FIP, vote for Ducey.  Or flip a coin.

Bobzilla
2/21/2012 3:02 PM
MikeT23
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I think it's true.  The top and/or bottom teams are holding players back(the top because they have no where to play them and the bottom because they're waiting for that "big" year when all their best can play together).    Average will always move because it's average.   But, if more of the top talent wasn't playing in AAA, you could see a bell curve. 

As far as voting for the CY, people can see ERA/OAV/WHIP/BB9/K9 and a few others.   No one can see FIP because it's not a stat that's available.  Some of us would ignore it anyway because baseball isn't just walks, strikeouts and homers. 
2/21/2012 3:06 PM
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