Navigation: Jump to content areas:


Pro Quality. Fan Perspective.
Login-facebook
Around SBN: Win or Lose, Boston Celtics' New Big 3 Era A Success

Some Unlucky Bounces

Looking at a hitter's line drive rate and BABIP has been the generally accepted quick way to see if someone has been getting lucky or not on hits. There's a couple problems with it though. One is that sample size issues can be a problem. Also, hitters are individually different beasts and so applying a one size fits all rule is going to overgeneralize. Lastly, even ignoring those, those two pieces of information cannot tell you what kinds of hits are (or not) falling in. 

This is where wOBAr can pitch in. wOBAr takes a hitter's batted ball types and uses his own past success rates on each type to generate an expected wOBA line. There's some more stuff in this thread which I link to with a note saying that I've since exempted home runs from the regression. I took at the Mariners' park-adjusted wOBA's and their corresponding wOBAr's and using the difference (Diff) between the two, calculated the amount of runs that difference would entail.

PlayerDiffRuns
Griffey 15.9 0.9
Bradley 3.6 0.2
Wilson -27.5 -1.8
Suzuki 14.2 1.3
Figgins 10.1 0.9
Kotchman 61.9 4.8
Gutierrez -51.4 -4.6
Lopez -7.4 -0.7
Johnson 27.9 1.1
Byrnes 23.1 0.7
Moore 26.7 1.0
Langerhans 174.4 0.2
Sweeney 62.0 1.7
Tuiasosopo 17.4 0.3

Negative in the runs column means that the players has been "lucky" and that regressing his wOBA to his wOBAr would subtract away that many runs from the team. The total difference in runs scored? Six. That doesn't sound like a lot but over just 24 games that's a whopping 0.25 runs per game, which is quite huge. And given how close our games are, those missing runs are potentially even more impactful. 

True, the offense isn't stellar, but it's also been a tad snake bit so try not to freak yourself out too much.

Comment 23 comments  |  3 recs  | 

Do you like this story?

Comments

Display:

Apologies if this has been asked and answered elsewhere,

but would you mind passing along the recipe for converting the wOBA*-wOBAr difference into runs?

by Josh Garoon on May 2, 2010 8:37 PM PDT reply actions  

Thanks.

Wasn’t sure if 1.15 was still the number to use.

The sig seems to function as a Rorschach of sorts…

by Josh Garoon on May 2, 2010 8:52 PM PDT up reply actions  

It's not really my business as to whether or not you agree with it

I just think it’s funny that a second rate economist with no grasp of common sense calls out a statistic that he doesn’t understand

by Graham MacAree on May 2, 2010 8:55 PM PDT up reply actions  

Whether it's your business or not aside, I don't agree with it.

But I also don’t know Matt Swartz, so I can’t comment on his rating as an economist or his grasp of common sense…

by Josh Garoon on May 2, 2010 9:10 PM PDT up reply actions  

My pleasure

Sorry for the tangent.

Anyway, I checked Matthew’s numbers to make sure; he’s definitely using 1.15

by Graham MacAree on May 2, 2010 9:22 PM PDT up reply actions  

I checked, too, and probably should've done so first ~ but I was being lazy.

A final question that might be more appropriate to ask Matthew: if I wanted to blatantly rip this analysis off for a similar post at Baseball Time in Arlington, would that be copacetic? (I’d give Matthew and this post a hat-tip, naturally.)

by Josh Garoon on May 2, 2010 9:28 PM PDT up reply actions  

I see you.

And approve.

If Brad Pitt is playing Beane who do you want playing you?
JD: Eddie Guardado.

by GhettoBear04 on May 2, 2010 9:32 PM PDT up reply actions  

This team was pretty snakebit during the 3rd game of the Rangers series.

Rob Johnson lines out to CF with the bases-loaded and 2-outs. That ball probably falls in the a bases-clearing double for a normal CF (or Torii Hunter). Kotchman lines into a DP when it was two on and no one out (Figgins doubled off at 2nd). Gutz lines out to RF in extras.

Glad to see some moves being made after today’s game but things just didn’t go our way during the game itself.

by ThundaPC on May 2, 2010 8:41 PM PDT reply actions  

So I ran the numbers for each team in the AL, including a recalculation of the Ms.

The difference is now 9.6 runs (individual numbers below).

Any thoughts on the magnitude of the change over one game?

Bradley: 0.5
Byrnes: 0.9
Figgins: 0.5
Griffey: 0.8
Gutierrez: -4.5
Johnson: 2.1
Kotchman: 5.9
Langerhans: 0.2
Lopez: 0.0
Moore: 1.0
Suzuki: 2.8
Sweeney: 1.7
Tuiaosopo: 0.3
Wilson: -2.6

by Josh Garoon on May 3, 2010 6:30 PM PDT reply actions  

Comments For This Post Are Closed


User Tools

By reading a game thread of your own volition you agree to accept all liability for any and all damage done to your delicate sensibilities.

FanPosts

Community blog posts and discussion.

Recent FanPosts

Small
Starlin Castro's fit with Seattle
Kawasaki80_small
Lists! So many lists!
M_s_hat_copy_small
OT -- May 22nd In Memoriam
Ichiro_small
Why do managers and media members hate walks?
Wbc_029_small
Friday Morning Music Thread
Small
Dustin Ackley BP swing vs game swing
Beastquakerwallpaper_small
More on the Struggles of Smoak
Randy2_for_sbn_small
Albert Pujols 2012: Three Retrospectives
Small
On Batting Orders
Niehaus_small
More on Dustin Ackley and the strikezone

+ New FanPost All FanPosts >

Yahoo_full_count

Sexy People

Wbc_029_small Jeff Sullivan

Small Matthew

Claw_small JY