Baseball Prosectus

[sublime]

I recieve the basic (free) newsletter and for the most part enjoy what i read. on the wholei dont enjoy much of what is written in the free press (espn/cnn etc) as it just seems like the basic, tell the masses what they want to hear nonsense. is the premium subscription worth the $40 a year? any good/bad reviews (jack you around?) most importantly, nate can you get me a discount if i sign up? /images/graemlins/laugh.gif

[miajag81]

Is this like the thing Biff had in Back to the Future II?

[TeeJayORTj]

[ QUOTE ]
I recieve the basic (free) newsletter and for the most part enjoy what i read. on the wholei dont enjoy much of what is written in the free press (espn/cnn etc) as it just seems like the basic, tell the masses what they want to hear nonsense. is the premium subscription worth the $40 a year? any good/bad reviews (jack you around?) most importantly, nate can you get me a discount if i sign up? /images/graemlins/laugh.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

How about a group rate??? /images/graemlins/smirk.gif

[Voltron87]

no review, but all the baseball readers on the board should thank pshreck for sending me an new avatar. i had mussina up as a temporary thing but got too lazy to change it...

[nolanfan34]

I think it's worth $40 per year, just for Will Carroll's injury info alone. Nate's stuff is OK too. /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[Pocket Trips]

thank god you changed it... was very confused last nite when i thought dead was making posts that didn't make me want to strangle him with his own intestines

[liquidboss]

[ QUOTE ]
Is this like the thing Biff had in Back to the Future II?

[/ QUOTE ]

That was a Sports Almanac, good try though.

[Jack of Arcades]

sublime,

I don't subscribe to it, but I use their stats a ton. I've read plenty of mixed reviews about their premium content, which is why I don't subscribe. I've never actually read a ton of their stuff except for Nate's.

[DougOzzzz]

For what it's worth, I'm very happy with my subscription.

[RacersEdge]

Speaking of BP stuff - whatever happened to the McCracken theory on balls in play? I thought a year or so ago, someone was going to present data to contradict QM's theory, but I never heard what became of it - and I haven't followed baseball as much this year.

[ltb]

totally worth it

[Jack of Arcades]

[ QUOTE ]
Speaking of BP stuff - whatever happened to the McCracken theory on balls in play? I thought a year or so ago, someone was going to present data to contradict QM's theory, but I never heard what became of it - and I haven't followed baseball as much this year.

[/ QUOTE ]

(nit: It's not Quinton McCracken, that's a baseball player. It's Voros McCracken, a Boston employee).
(nit #2: DIPS was revealed on Baseball Primer, what is now Baseball Think Factory, not Baseball Prospectus).

You're thinking of Tom Tippett, who did an article that poked a lot of holes through the theory. The only problem was Voros himself beat him to the punch. Here's how DIPS currently stands:

1) A certain subset of pitchers at the major league level, that is, those who get the starts year in to year out, do not have a much separation in the ability to control hits on balls in play. There is a separation in ability - but it is not large, and it takes a very long time to show up, as defense and variance controls much of one season's worth of data.

2) Controlling BABIP is a *skill* If you and I were to go up there and somehow get it over the plate, we'd get crushed. I think the most important aspect of a pitcher here is their movement. This is beccause junkballers like Wakefield or Whitey Ford sort of escape the laws here. Charlie Hough shattered them, and he was a knuckler.

3) We have some selection bias because, since we're choosing only the pitchers that have pitched 100 IP consecutively (no studies have been done in a lower threshold), we're really only looking at pitchers that exhibit the BABIP skill. Plenty of pitchers that come up do not have it and get hit around, then get sent back down to the minors.

4) Lefties and righties show different BABIP splits. So do flyballers and groundballers. Flyballers give up less hits, but more XBH; groundballers give up more hits, mostly singles. Knuckleballers are, once again, exempt from this.

5) No studies have been done on relievers, who may exhibit some special skill.

[RacersEdge]

Thanks for the McCracken correction. I don't think Quinton did much work in this area. /images/graemlins/wink.gif

But it still sounds like BABIP being uncontrolled by a pitcher is still holding up. Calling it a skill seems to contradict that fact. If pitchers come up to the majors and get smacked around, it's mainly due to 1) not striking out batters much and 2) giving up too many HRs - which all still supports VM's theory. But given a batter puts a ball in play - whether it's off RJ or a minor league scrub - the batter's chances of reaching base are the same. (I think it's even more equla when XBH is controlled for.)

Note: still a very unintuitive concept - as a Braves fan watching Maddux and Glavine "produce" all those weak grounders, I was very skeptical of this whole thing.

[Jack of Arcades]

No, it's a controllable skill that many pitchers control better than others. It's just that it doesn't show up as much.

BABIP is *definitely* not a universal skill. This is easily shown by running BABIP numbers of minor leaguers, they widely vary. Learning this skill is the furst step of becoming a major leagiue pitcher, IMO.