Calling All Stat Geeks

Interestingly enough, I've been reading a few baseball blogs lately. It started with this blog dedicated to all things Royals, by Sam Mellinger of the Kansas City Star. As far as quick-hit information on my team goes, it's great. One thing I have really enjoyed about this blog are the links he provides to other baseball stories or blog posts around the country. I'm finding I'd much rather read his blog than go to the actual news stories on the Kansas City Star's website.

Mellinger's blog then led me to this blog. It's another Royals blog, but trust me -- if you enjoy baseball, you will get addicted to its posts. RSS feeds are great and all, but honestly, how many times day is it healthy to check to see if there's a new post on a guy's blog?

My point in sharing these great baseball blogs with you is not to get you hooked on other blogs that are better (and not to mention, much more consistent), but to share a tiny revelation I had while reading other baseball blogs.

If you'll remember, my purpose in starting my blog was both to help good-intentioned friends understand why the game of baseball is so great, and to stir up unto remembrance those who already have a testimony of its greatness. I often did this by explaining odd or interesting details about the game. Well, it's been a while since I've been asked for any explanation, but today I found something that I had never seen or heard of: PETCO PECOTA.

Here's the context of the conversation. Rany was breaking down the Royals' opening day roster and discussing some of the late moves made by Dayton Moore, the Royals' GM (side note: Moore is a genius, and it won't be long before you hear his name mentioned with Theo Epstein's or Brian Cashman's as the premier General Manager in baseball). One such move was trading away a talented hitter. "Hitter" is used here, rather than player, because it was generally determined that there was no position for him. The subject of this player's development, or lack thereof, is a controversial one for Royals loons¹ (1. I'm not there yet, 2. Yes, I just invented that term), as evidenced by the heated comments thread. It was here, amidst this wonderful exchange of ideas that this odd little name kept popping up. I'd seen it before, but had skipped over it, just like the good old days of skipping over the technical jargon in the stacks of Sociological journals I had to read in college. Finally, I could skip no longer and had to find out who this PECOTA guy was and why his opinion seemed to matter so much.

Bill Pecota was born February 16, 1960 in Redwood City, CA. He was drafted by the Kansas City Royals in 1981, and eventually played nine seasons in the Majors Leagues, the first six with the team that drafted him. His lifetime batting average was .249, basically one hit in every four at bats. He was an infielder who played mostly shortstop, then second base, then some third base, he even pitched a few innings in a pinch.

PECOTA, however, does not refer to Bill, but to Player Empirical Comparison and Optimization Test Algorithm. Of course, it's creator, Nate Silver, does submit that the acronym does originate with the third-baseman's surname. Apparently, making names into complex acronyms to describe even more complex statistical breakdowns is a common practice, as PANKOVITS is the measurement developed and used by the Houston Astros, named in honor of former utility player Jim Pankovits. In case you were wondering, and I know you were, PANKOVITS stands for Player Analysis with Neutral Knowledge of Offensively Vital Information Tracking Statistics. Sure, it's a stretch, but c'mon.

The actual formulas used to come up with PECOTA have never been released, but the principles involved have been discussed. Basically, to determine a player's performance in the upcoming season, they look at what he has done so far, either in the major, the minors, or both, and assign that player to past, comparable players. The four things used to determine "comparables" are below.

1. Production metrics – such as batting average, isolated power, and unintentional walk rate for hitters, or strikeout rate and groundball rate for pitchers.

2. Usage metrics – including career length and plate appearances or innings pitched.

3. Phenotypic attributes – including handedness, height, weight, career length (for major leaguers), and minor league level (for prospects).

4. Fielding Position (for hitters) or starting/relief role (for pitchers)

...In most cases, the database is large enough to provide a meaningfully large set of appropriate comparables. When it isn't, the program is designed to 'cheat' by expanding its tolerance for dissimilar players until a reasonable sample size is reached.

Once the comparables are determined, you can then look at how the comparables did. For example, if the player you are "PECOTING" will be 28 this season, you would look to see how his comparables did when they were 28, and come up with a statistical distribution. It makes sense to me. Especially this explanation of the results of the analysis by Nate Silver:

"What separates Pecota from the gaggle [good word, and possible future competition for Google] of projection systems that outsiders have developed over many decades is how it recognizes, even flaunts, the uncertainty of predicting a player's skills. Rather than generate one line of expected statistics, Pecota presents seven – some optimistic, some pessimistic – each with its own confidence level. The system greatly resembles the forecasting of hurricane paths: players can go in many directions, so preparing for just one is foolish."

PECOTA was released as a tool for Fantasy Baseball addicts looking for more accurate predictions for the upcoming season. As I said before, I don't do Fantasy Baseball anymore, so although I find it fascinating, I don't have much practical use for it. But, at least now I won't have to just skip over the guy's name every time I read one of those other blogs (which you should only read after reading The Perfect Game).

¹If fan is short for fanatic, loon is short for lunatic, which, in my estimation, is the next step to the funny farm.

Revisiting the Knuckleball

I found this video over at ESPN.com of one of their writers in full catcher's gear (a.k.a., the tools of ignorance) attempting just to catch R.A. Dickey's knuckleball. Dickey gives some great insight about some of the minute details involved with throwing the pitch, such as the way he trims his fingernails. And Jim Caple's question towards the end is classic. If you missed my earlier post on knuckleballs, along with the "how to" video, click here.

Contradicting Views of the World

The Oakland Athletics and the Boston Red Sox are probably asleep right now, still trying to get over their jet-lag. They just participated in the season's first official games, and they traveled all the way to the Japan to do so.

On a side note: Am I alone in thinking it is ridiculous to have three different "Opening Days?" First, the Opening Series in Japan. Then there's the traditional Opening Day, which will be this Monday, March 31. There's also the special Sunday-before-Opening-Day Opening Night on ESPN that they added a few years ago. Can we please just pick one Opening, and hold everyone to it? It was a glorious thing to think that every team in Major League Baseball was playing it's first game of the season on the same afternoon. Everyone started fresh, 0-0. Now, at least for the A's and Sox, they both have one win, one loss, and a little charter flight hangover.

Multiple openings aside, I'm growing tired of every major sport's attempt to globalize their game. Major League Baseball in Tokyo, the National Football League in Amsterdam, the National Basketball Association in Beijing. Do we have to globalize everything? They already have McDonald's, and Coca-Cola, isn't that enough? Oh well. Call me an ethnocentric jingoist if you want. It's one thing to play an exhibition, where the game doesn't actually count. But it just doesn't seem fair to make these players travel that far to play in a meaningful game. To tell you the truth, I'm not really sure why this bugs me. It just doesn't sit right.

And now for the contradiction. Oh ye hypocrite.

The venues, dates, and match-ups were recently announced for the 2009 World Baseball Classic. The inaugural World Baseball Classic (WBC) was tremendous. Japan came out on top, but it was a great ride. I loved it, and I'm already excited about the second WBC. For me, it's the international competition of the FIFA World Cup coupled with the greatest game of all, baseball. How could it go wrong? The WBC is a great concept that will only gain more and more notoriety as the years go by.

Anyway, the season has "officially" began, so to speak, with the A's and the defending World Champion Red Sox. Speaking of "World" Championships, how long before we see either the title changed to something like "National Champions," or the MLB champs taking their crown on the road (and then to the skies) to face the champs from Japan, Korea, Cuba, or the Dominican Republic to try to gain the title of World Champs?

Enough with the Previews: American League

I've had enough of the previews. I definitely won't be doing that again. What about my American League predictions? Angels in the West, Red Sox in the East (although the "Rays" are having an abnormally good Spring Training -- too bad it doesn't count), and the Tigers in the Central division. There seems to be a strong correlation to spending here. Hmm...

For the last place teams, who cares? Oakland, Baltimore, and Minnesota, if you do. That's right. The Royals won't be staying in the cellar this season. I think they might be able to finish as high as third in the division. But, we'll see. That's why you play all 162 games. Sometimes (more often, than not) teams don't perform as expected. On paper, this team or that team may appear to be the clear favorites. Luckily, they don't play on paper. They play on grass and dirt and sometimes that cool turf made of a bunch of frayed pieces of plastic on a bed of ground rubber tires. I for one am extremely anxious for the season to begin.

On a side note, did anyone see Joey Gathright's leap in the Spring Training game the other day? Wow. I read about it first, then found the video. This guy's athletic ability is sick. If you search for his name in YouTube you'll find old videos of him jumping over cars. Anyway, just thought I'd share that with you.

Season Preview: For What It's Worth: Part III

I have been really busy lately, but the other reason that I haven't written for some time is because I got tired of previewing these teams. Expert analysts do it every year, and they get it wrong more often than not, so who do I think I am to be able to accurately predict who will win a division pennant in 2008? I'm nobody really. Just a guy with a blog about baseball. So from now on I thought maybe I would just put teams in a hat and draw winners. That's would be just about as accurate, right? Well, if you know me, you know I'm a little more creative than that.

To determine my prediction for the National League East Division, I broke out the old Triple Play game for the Xbox (Triple Play 2002). I simulated 20 seasons, and averaged out the standings. This game is so old, that the Washington Nationals were the Montreal Expos at the time. None of the information in the game has any bearing on how teams might do in 2008, but I figured, "why not?"

National League East Division

On Top of Their Game: The New York Mets edged out the Atlanta Braves in my out-dated video game experiment. This may actually prove to be much more accurate for 2008 than it was for 2002. I looked up the final standings for '02 and found that the Braves ran away with the division, 19 games or more ahead of all comers. In second that year were the Expos (who finished dead-last in the video game simulations). And who finished at the bottom in real-life? The Mets, six games under .500. So, maybe video game simulations are not the best way to determine pennant winners. But, six years later, Triple Play 2002 might have it right. Although the powerful infield of Philadelphia will give them plenty of competition, I would have chosen the Mets in this division, even without the electronic assistance.

Tough Luck: As I said before, the Montreal Expos finished last in the video game, and by an astounding margin. In the actual 2002 season, however, they were second in the division, and the only team within spitting distance of the Braves (at 19 games back, you'd better have a world record holding watermelon seed spitter on your team). But, since the Expos are no longer around (and my Expos hat is now hardly ever recognized), we'll have to insert the Washington Nationals as the lowliest of teams in the NL East. Truthfully, without doing any research on the subject, I would have to disagree and choose the Florida Marlins after trading away their two all stars to Detroit. I have learned, however, never to argue with technology, so in this case, the Nationals go down the tube.

Future ESPN Headline: "Santana Sweeps Cy Young Voting." Take who has been the most dominant pitcher in the offensive-heavy American League and put him up against lineups with 8 hitters and one pitcher, and you get a guaranteed Cy Young award. If you consider that pitcher an automatic out, as he usually is, Johan Santana would only need to get 24 outs from guys who can actually hit. Of course, with two outs in the 9th inning of a possible perfect game, I doubt any manager is going to send the relief pitcher out to the plate to hit for himself, but you get the point. Santana, if healthy, should have a monster year. And New York expects nothing less in return for the monster contract he signed this off-season. Then again, he could sputter along just like Pedro Martinez has since he signed with the Mets. Who knows? Maybe the Twins got rid of Johan just in time. Either way, sink or float, Johann Santana will be the story of the year in the NL East, and if all goes according to plan, the Mets coast into the World Series.

While You're Waiting...

While you're waiting for the next division preview from this half-baked blog (and I know you are), read this. It's an article from ESPN.com that I came across today and loved. I can't get enough of stories like this where people end up doing what they love every day and get paid to do it. I've been super busy with work and jet-setting to Salt Lake City and back, so I haven't had a chance to get any new material of my own. That doesn't mean, however, that I'm not more excited every day for the coming season. And, just for some visual stimulation, here's a painting by Kadir Nelson from his new picture book, "We Are the Ship." We went to the exhibition of these painting at the Negro League Baseball Museum here in Kansas City this past weekend, and I was both impressed and inspired.