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Sabermetrics: The Art and Science of Quantifying An Athlete's Value Mark Rogers April 2, 2010
Sabermetrics: The Art and Science of Quantifying An Athlete's Value Mark Rogers April 2, 2010
Mark Rogers
April 2, 2010
SABR
• The Society for American Baseball Research
• Founded in 1971 in Cooperstown, New York
• “To foster the research, preservation, and
dissemination of the history and record of baseball”
• This is certainly made easier by being located in town
alongside the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
• 6,700 members
• Mostly statisticians, sports writers, and former players
and officials
A Universe of Statistics
• Baseball fans are particularly fond of using statistics to measure
a player’s ability, for several reasons.
– Low scoring: limits most other quantitative measurements of the only
thing affecting the outcome, the points scored.
– No clock: games can have indeterminate length and scoring chances, so a
“fair number of chances to score” can vary
– Consistency: the game is played under almost the exact same rules (and
using mostly the same strategy) as it was when it premiered in the 19 th
century, unlike other sports.
• The modern “live-ball era” of baseball: 1920—present
• Football: the forward pass altered the way games were played
• Basketball: the modern “shot clock era” accelerates scoring
• Hockey/soccer: hey, until recently, who cared?
• This consistency allows current players to be readily compared
to almost any other player from the past, unlike most other
sports.
The Pioneer
• The first great baseball statistician was Henry
Chadwick (1824—1908).
– An English transplant to Brooklyn, where he followed
cricket, rounders, and their American cousin, baseball
– Wrote summaries of games for New York newspapers, and
included a summary table of the game’s major statistics,
the box score.
– For his contributions to the
legacy of the game, Chadwick
was elected to the Baseball
Hall of Fame in 1938.
The Original Baseball Statistics
• Chadwick’s early box scores focused primarily on
tabulating easily observable aspects of the game.
– Hits/H: any ball hit in fair territory, but not easily retrievable by
the fielders, resulting in a player safely reaching base
– Walks (abbreviated BB, for “reached base on balls”)
– Strikeouts (usually abbreviated K, or occasionally SO)
– At-bats/AB: # of batting chances not resulting in a walk, since
those “ball” pitches are deemed unhittable
– Stolen bases/SB: safe advances made between hit balls
– Runs/R: # of times a player scores/crosses home plate
– Runs batted in/RBI: # of players crossing home plate because of
that player’s at-bats, and not other issues
The Original Baseball Statistics
• Chadwick’s early box scores focused primarily on
tabulating easily observable aspects of the game.
– Errors/E: mental or physical lapses resulting in a player being
safe who should have theoretically been thrown out, or
“running themselves out” by overrunning
– Single/double/triple (1B/2B/3B): the # of bases safely reached
by a player immediately following their hit, not counting any
fielding error
– Home runs/HR: player scores on their own hit, not due to
fielder’s error; counts as 4 bases
– Total extra-base hits/XBH: 2B + 3B + HR
– Total bases/TB: combined # of bases reached by a player on
their own hits, not counting any fielding errors, for an entire
game (1B + 2×2B + 3×3B + 4×HR)
The Original Baseball Statistics
• Errors and other issues “outside the player’s control” are often
used to distinguish batting performances worthy of credit from
those less so.
– A player who reaches base solely due to a fielding error is not credited
with a hit or an official at-bat.
– Hits followed by an error are scored as the type of hit an errorless version
of the play would have resulted in, plus “advanced (or thrown out) on
error.”
– Walks/BB: appearance not counted as an official at-bat
– Hit by pitch/HBP: player awarded first base as a result, but not given
credit for a hit or an at-bat
– Fielder’s choice/FC: player reached base only because a fielder chose to
throw out a runner closer to scoring; thus, the player is not given credit
for a hit
– Double play/DP: batter causes multiple runners to be thrown out;
deemed so terrible as to not warrant RBI credit even if a run scores!
Raw Data vs. Average Data
• Since baseball games are of varying length, the
number of at-bats (and therefore, the number of
“expected” hits, runs, etc.) can vary widely.
– Therefore, measuring only the raw batting data is not the
fairest measure of who is the “best” player.
– Chadwick devised several alternative statistical methods
by calculating averages based on the ratio between the
number of achievements made (in batting, pitching, or
fielding) and the number of opportunities for them.
The Hitting Averages
• Batting average: a measure of the rate of fair hits made in
appropriate batting opportunities:
H
BA=
AB
– Chadwick viewed this as superior to the cricket average, which
compared the number of runs to the number of outs.
– “Situational” batting averages can also be measured, such as the
batter’s average with “runners in scoring position” (RISP), or one
factoring in the # of times they grounded into a double play (GIDP).
• Slugging percentage: a measure of the player’s power, which
counts extra-base hits extra, but for the same number of ABs:
TB 1B+(2 2B)+(3 3B)+(4 HR)
SLG= =
AB AB
The Hitting Comparisons
• In addition to the “portion of a whole” ratios of the BA,
SLG, OBP, etc., ratios can be measured comparing one
type of statistic to another.
– Walk-to-strikeout ratio (BB/K): measures the hitter’s ability to
maximize one and minimize the other
– Ground-ball-to-fly-ball ratio (G/F): ditto
– At-bats per home run (AB/HR): measures the rate of home
runs, by using its easier-to-work-with reciprocal
• Mark McGwire holds the all-time career record, with an AB/HR of 10.61
(having hit a home run in 9.4% of his official at-bats).
• The league average for AB/HR in 2009 was 32.9 (the average players hit
a home run in 3.0% of their at-bats).
The Triple Crown
• Traditionally, the HR and RBI counts, along with the popularly
followed race for the batting-average title, were deemed to be
the “major” hitting categories.
• Players who lead the league in all three are said to have won the
Triple Crown of hitting.
• However, such a feat is difficult because of the wide gap
between a power hitter “swinging for the fences” at the cost of
many strikeouts and someone hitting “for average,” aiming for
numerous hits even if they were “only” singles.
– The most recent Triple Crowns were:
• American League: Carl Yastrzemski (Boston Red Sox), 1967
• National League: Joe “Ducky” Medwick (St. Louis Cardinals), 1937
A Problem with the System
• One problem with the use of the BA as a gauge of a player’s
ability is that it makes no distinction between singles and
“bigger” extra-base hits.
– Thus, a “power hitter” who makes fewer hits, but scores more RBI with
a more powerful selection of hits, would be deemed a worse player.
– Example: Ryan Howard, 2008 (the year he finished 2 nd in MVP voting)
His 48 home runs and 146 RBI led the league (with 331 total bases in
610 official at-bats), but he had 199 strikeouts to go with them, which
helped lower his BA to just .251.
• He got a hit ¼ of the time, but his TB makes it look as if he did so ½ of the time.
TB H BB SB CS
SecA
– CS: AB(presumably, additionally subtracted so as to
# of times caught stealing
highlight the difference between two players who achieve the same number
of stolen bases in a very different number of attempts)
So…What’s “Good”?
• The variety of measurements necessitate some sort of
benchmark for what would rank a player among the league’s
best in each category.
• Typical career averages (modern “live-ball era,” since 1920):
BA OBP SLG OPS
“Average” .267 .330 .420 .750
“Great” .300 .370 .460 .830
“Elite” .325 .400 .500 .900
All-time record .366 .482 .690 1.164
(Ty Cobb) (Ted Williams) (Babe Ruth) (Babe Ruth)
Active leader .334 .427 .628 1.055
(Albert Pujols) (Todd Helton/ (Albert Pujols) (Albert Pujols)
Albert Pujols)
Seeing the Numbers
• In addition to studying the numbers themselves, we can also visualize
them using a scatterplot, searching for a presumed correlation between
the OBP (the ability to get on base using more than just hits) and the SLG
(the ability to get past first base with one’s hits).
• The red lines represent the league average for each statistic.
– Upper-left:
+ power, − average
– Lower-right:
− power, + average
– Lower-left:
weaker in both
– Upper-right:
stronger in both
Seeing the Numbers
• We can also plot the best-fit trend line for this scatterplot (shown here in
light blue), showing the expected link between hitting for average (OBP)
and hitting for power (SLG) that certain players exceed and others trail.
– Anyone above this line is hitting for more power than their OBP would have suggested.
– Anyone below this line is hitting for less power than their OBP would have suggested (or
possibly getting on base more often than their SLG would have suggested).
• Once again, there is
a clear sign of which
current player
excels at both of
these critical areas.
– Albert Pujols,
St. Louis Cardinals
Pitching Statistics
• Much as the batting average (BA) represents the number
of “official” at-bats for a hitter, and PA the actual number
of “plate appearances,” the pitcher’s performance can be
measured by how many batters were faced.
– The equivalent of the PA is the # of “batters faced” (BF).
– The equivalent of the BA is the “opponents’ batting average”
(OBA), which similarly subtracts any plate appearance not
counted as an at-bat for the hitter:
• Fielding percentage: PO + A PO + A
FP = =
–
TC PO + A + E
Typically 98.5% (0.985) or better for most players, or slightly lower for difficult
defensive positions (third base and shortstop)
• Range factor: RF = (PO + A) ÷ IP × 9
– A proportional extrapolation of a full game, the fielding equivalent of the ERA;
used to gauge the amount
The Prophet
• As general manager of the St. Louis Cardinals and the Brooklyn
Dodgers, Branch Rickey profoundly altered baseball, from the
integration he pioneered with Jackie Robinson to the “farm
system” he invented to find untested players and train them for
major-league success in the minor leagues.
– With both teams struggling when
he arrived, he worked to maximize
player value by signing them for
the lowest cost and training them
to their fullest potential.
– From Ken Burns’ film Baseball:
“Nobody knew how to put a
dollar sign on the muscle better
than Branch Rickey.”
The Prophet
• Rickey was asked by LIFE magazine if there was a “formula” for
baseball success. Skeptical at first, he worked for six months to
come up with what he thought might hold the key.
Season Opener:
New York Yankees at Boston Red Sox
Sunday, April 4, 6:00 p.m., ESPN2
Opening Day:
St. Louis Cardinals at Cincinnati Reds
Monday, April 5, 11:10 a.m., ESPN
Bibliography
• Jim Albert and Jay Bennett, Curve Ball: Baseball, Statistics, and
the Role of Chance in the Game.
• Baseball: A Film by Ken Burns.
• Baseball Reference: www.baseball-reference.com/players/
• ESPN statistics page: espn.go.com/mlb/statistics
• David Grabiner, The Sabermetric Manifesto. (
www.baseball1.com/bb-data/grabiner/manifesto.html)
• Bill James’ new website: www.billjamesonline.net/
• Dan Lewis, “Lies, Damn Lies, and RBIs.” National Review,
March 31, 2001. (available online at old.nationalreview.com/
weekend/play-ball/pb-lewis033101.shtml)
• Michael Lewis, Moneyball: The Art of Winning a Unfair Game.
Bibliography
• MLB Official Rules:
mlb.mlb.com/mlb/official_info/official_rules/foreword.jsp
• Branch Rickey, “Goodby to Some Old Baseball Ideas.” LIFE
Magazine, August 2, 1954. (available online at
www.baseballthinkfactory.org/btf/pages/essays/rickey/goodby_to
_old_idea.htm or “scanned” at Google Books)
• SABR: www.sabr.org/
• Alan Schwarz, The Numbers Game: Baseball’s Obsession with
Statistics.
• THE print almanac: John Thorn & Pete Palmer, Total Baseball.
• Tom M. Tiger, Mitchel Lichtman, & Andrew Dolphin, The Book:
Playing the Percentages in Baseball. (insidethebook.com)