A Math Question Re: Baseball

Let's say a certain pitching staff is allowing 5.22 walks per game (I'm including the assigned starter for this, not all the starters), and the team they are facing draws 4 walks per game.


Furthermore, assume that the league average is 3.5 walks per game (this isn't actually the number, I'm just throwing it out there). How does one go about determining what number of walks are most probable for this matchup? Do you just go:


5.22/3.75= x/4.00 ? Or is there something else one has to do?


Thanks,

Guy

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That is the way I would figure it out.

In a word, nope...


Understand that means and even medians are poor predictors in sports, especially for a cause/effect stat such as walks. The reasoning is simple in that there are tendencies here that are caused by something more than player X walks about 5 guys a game. Why does he walk that many players? Chances are he has a lot of control problems if he is above league averages by a lot. Now he faces a team that is above average in drawing walks, a sign of a patient team that will wait him out. Here comes the tricky part, the part that makes baseball hard to predict. Pitcher X has a choice, he can pitch as he has and give up a TON of walks to this patient team because its his style. Or he could give up almost no walks because he gives in and most likely gets hit. Further if he gets hit, he might get pulled quickly. On the other hand, he might suceed because now its the opponent that is changing its game and not being patient. These types of issues come up all the time in baseball and to do well at it you need to see beyond the obvious. What happens here is you make a guess and assign a probability to it and bet according to how the line plays out. I generally also would take current form of the pitcher and the lineup he is facing into consideration to guess at what the likely way the game plays out is.