Quickest to 20 wins?? Topic

silentpadna
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I would love to see a MLB manipulate its staff in unorthodox ways, but they don't have ready ST/DUR numbers that calculate through a simulator the way HBD does.  I would bet that some SABR-literate geek out there could take some estimate and tweak them so that a Felix Hernandez or Justin Verlander could pitch their 240 or so innings in the most leveraged times.  I'm betting it would make a huge difference in wins for a team that had the guts to try something like that.

The illustration that started this thread does help to show what a meaningless stat the W is.

The HBD simulator allows us the luxury of expermenting without affecting our imaginary players' states of mind.  Can't expect that in real life, but I would love to see the general move away from specific roles in an attempt to maximize your team's chances of winning.
5/3/2012 9:38 AM
tecwrg
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Many statistics, such as wins, saves, RBI's, etc. are more a byproduct of opportunity than they are a true reflection of a player's value or performance.
5/3/2012 9:45 AM
MikeT23
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Didn't Piniella threaten to start his short RP in Tampa because his starters sucked so bad?   I don't think he followed thru but his "plan" was to get a couple of innings out of a RP, bring in a SP to pitch 3rd-7th/8th and let a RP pitch the 8th/9th.

IIRC, he didn't do it because he was ripped by everyone associated with baseball in some way.    It's almost the football equivalent of going for it on 4th down.  Some coaches(like Belichick against the Colts) can do it and fail because "He was giving them their best chance to win" while others(like Mike Smith in the playoffs last season) can do it and fail only to get ripped with a "WTF was he doing?  Punt it and give the D a chance!!!"

If you're going to go against "conventional wisdom", you either have to succeed or be above reproach based on past success.
5/3/2012 9:48 AM
burnsy483
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For some reason by comp isnt letting me "quote" right now.  But to tec's point, Alfredo Aceves is a great example of this (except for this year).  When you're the long man on a team that can rake, and you're the guy brought into games where your team is trailing 6-3 in the 5th, you can only win, and never lose.  Which is why his record going into this year was 24-3.

5/3/2012 10:02 AM
rangerup
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The Oakland A's tried something like this on a small scale a few years back.  They used three pitchers, each slated to go 3 innings. Rinse and repeat.  It so happens that none of those pitchers were particularly great, so the experiment ended with nothing really getting done.
5/3/2012 10:56 AM
canadadry
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I like the fact your club is on pace for over 126 wins!  Keep it up though and your pitcher is gonna command one hell of price tag in a couple seasons...
5/3/2012 12:10 PM
silentpadna
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I do some of this stuff in HBD at times.  In one world, I had two high DUR relievers that were also great pitchers and had above average stamina.  I pitched them as Tandem B's for the past two seasons with 4 starters rotating through the 3A and 4A slots.  They each got 150-190 innings pitching mostly every other day.  One of them won 18 games the first season doing that.  Though my team led the league in saves this past season, no one had more than 13.  Bottom line for me, as those who play in worlds with me know, is that I don't care one bit about who gets what statistic.  I don't care who gets the win, who gets a save, how many HR or RBI my hitters get, or even whether they make the all-star team.  Since some of them play all over the diamond, they don't get in the running.

Hardball Dynasty – Fantasy Baseball Sim Games - Player Profile: Felipe Cairo.  He was the league MVP this past season, but couldn't make the all-star team.  he played multiple positions depending on rest patterns.

I care about how the guys change the scoreboard, either by generating runs, or run prevention....especially in leveraged situations.  For the poster who started this thread, I would hope you are using your pitcher to win games for your team, not necessarily to win games for the pitcher.
5/3/2012 12:18 PM
MikeT23
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Didn't you complain because one of your players wasn't a MVP candidate?
5/3/2012 12:25 PM
bigal888
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Posted by tecwrg on 5/3/2012 9:45:00 AM (view original):
Many statistics, such as wins, saves, RBI's, etc. are more a byproduct of opportunity than they are a true reflection of a player's value or performance.
In a way, if a guy always converts for the positive in these "opportunity situations" he shows his value by the accumulation of these fairly old school stats.  But to your point, the thing I love/hate about HBD is that we value players based on ratings and not stats.  We don't have to guess as to if he is good based on AAA stats.

It would be really interesting and I think fun for some guys to play HBD with absolutely no ratings and base all decisions on performance.  It would make the game super difficult, but at the same time show everyone how much a crapshoot real life is.
5/3/2012 1:03 PM
tecwrg
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Posted by bigal888 on 5/3/2012 1:03:00 PM (view original):
Posted by tecwrg on 5/3/2012 9:45:00 AM (view original):
Many statistics, such as wins, saves, RBI's, etc. are more a byproduct of opportunity than they are a true reflection of a player's value or performance.
In a way, if a guy always converts for the positive in these "opportunity situations" he shows his value by the accumulation of these fairly old school stats.  But to your point, the thing I love/hate about HBD is that we value players based on ratings and not stats.  We don't have to guess as to if he is good based on AAA stats.

It would be really interesting and I think fun for some guys to play HBD with absolutely no ratings and base all decisions on performance.  It would make the game super difficult, but at the same time show everyone how much a crapshoot real life is.
Accumulation (or failure to accumulate) of stats that are opportunity based is still a poor way to judge the performance of a player.

Case in point, another statistical anomoly: I have a player on one of my AAA rosters.  A power hitter, 29 home runs and a .488 SLG in 489 plate appearances.  He's only got 49 RBI's.

How do you judge him?  By his 29 HR's and .488 SLG (he's decent), or by his 49 RBI's in 489 PA's (a power hitter who doesn't drive in runs)?
5/3/2012 1:21 PM
bigal888
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Posted by tecwrg on 5/3/2012 1:21:00 PM (view original):
Posted by bigal888 on 5/3/2012 1:03:00 PM (view original):
Posted by tecwrg on 5/3/2012 9:45:00 AM (view original):
Many statistics, such as wins, saves, RBI's, etc. are more a byproduct of opportunity than they are a true reflection of a player's value or performance.
In a way, if a guy always converts for the positive in these "opportunity situations" he shows his value by the accumulation of these fairly old school stats.  But to your point, the thing I love/hate about HBD is that we value players based on ratings and not stats.  We don't have to guess as to if he is good based on AAA stats.

It would be really interesting and I think fun for some guys to play HBD with absolutely no ratings and base all decisions on performance.  It would make the game super difficult, but at the same time show everyone how much a crapshoot real life is.
Accumulation (or failure to accumulate) of stats that are opportunity based is still a poor way to judge the performance of a player.

Case in point, another statistical anomoly: I have a player on one of my AAA rosters.  A power hitter, 29 home runs and a .488 SLG in 489 plate appearances.  He's only got 49 RBI's.

How do you judge him?  By his 29 HR's and .488 SLG (he's decent), or by his 49 RBI's in 489 PA's (a power hitter who doesn't drive in runs)?
I'm not saying it's a good way by any means, I just think it is an indicator that someone is doing a good job of converting.  Someone that has 40 wins in a season is doing a great job of converting in the situations he is in and it's pretty clear he is performing well (because only someone who is performing well will be able to do that), but that doesn't mean someone with 5 wins in a season is terrible. As you have pointed out, it just may be that they aren't presented with the same opportunities.  You would have to look at everything else to make a judgement.
5/3/2012 1:47 PM
tecwrg
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I would say you start with the "everything else" and ignore the opportunity/situational stuff.

Going back to the pitcher in question that this thread is about.  Through 60.2 IP, he was a .123 OAV, 0.73 WHIP and a 0.74 ERA.  Those are much better indicators of his performance rather than the fact that he has a 20-0 record.  That W/L record is more a by-product of how he is being used than anything else.  If he was pitching the 7th/8th innings instead of the 5th/6th innings, he wouldn't be getting all those wins.  They would be distributed across other pitchers on the staff.  He might only be 2-0 or 3-0 instead of 20-0, though he would be just as effective and valuable.
5/3/2012 1:57 PM
bigal888
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true, and I don't think anyone would disagree.  But the point being made is that you can look at someone that is 20-0 and say "wow, he's good" without having to dive too far into the rest of his stats, unless something really funky is going on.  Same thing if you saw a guy with 200 rbi.

Everything you're talking about is related to comparing two different players and how to determine which one is better, and that's a completely different discussion.
5/3/2012 2:47 PM
new
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No one would pitch Verlander in relief because if he got hurt the manager would be fired and labeled an idiot.  The only way it would be viewed as successful is if the team won the WS and the pitcher had a long healthy career.  What manager would want to take that chance?  Not to mention the pitcher would likely have a problem with it when his agent and wife realized RP's make substantially less than SP's.  
5/3/2012 2:52 PM
MikeT23
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It will be interesting to see how things shake out in Texas in a few years.   Ryan has changed the way they do things wrt to starting pitchers.   Those guys are expected to pitch deep into games.  He's doing it throughout the organization.  The last person to really do that was Billy Martin in Oakland in 80-81.   All his SP blew up pretty early in their careers.  That may have been why all the pitch count "rules" started. 

5/3/2012 3:18 PM
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