The Effects of Luck: Lucky Hitters

Posted by Wasserman on Feb 6, 2012 in Featured Story, The Effects of Luck

Photo by Bob Levey/Getty Images

In this series, Tyler Wasserman takes a look at which players were most affected by luck in 2011. In Part 2 of this 4 Part series, he examines which hitters should see significant declines in 2012 due to exceptional luck in 2011. Each player’s stats shown are 2011 (AVG/OBP/SLG/wRC).

Part 1 - Unlucky Hitters

Emilio Bonifacio (.296/.360/.393/85)

As we saw in the first part of this series, the main stat for luck is BABIP, and Bonifacio had the 3rd highest BABIP in all of baseball last year at .372. While he does have a very nice .339 career BABIP, .372 is simply unsustainable. This is especially true given the fact that he’s had a ground ball rate above 50% every season. Look for his BABIP to regress to around his career number, with his batting average and OBP following towards his career marks of .269 and .328 respectively.

Comparing Fielding Awards

Posted by Behr on Nov 3, 2011 in Featured Story

I like to talk. I like to talk a lot. Most of the time, I have things worth saying. Sometimes, it just flies right over people’s heads. Regardless of what I’m saying, how I’m saying it never comes out quite perfect. Doesn’t matter whether I’m talking baseball or chatting with a babe from the SU Volleyball team (which, come on folks, it’s clear there isn’t much of a difference for me at this point), the chances I exactly what I want to say are not high.

However, this is not the case with statistics.

Elite Defenders is one of many projects already underway at FoI that allows statistics to speak for both us and speak up for themselves. I’ve sat down with my buddy Tom Barrile countless times this semester, arguing for hours on end whether or not baseball is the superior sport over football (obviously, as everyone deep-down knows, it is). What we CAN’T ARGUE is the number of television viewers that watch the MLB postseason compared to the NFL playoffs.

Field of Ignorance’s 2011 Elite Defenders

Posted by Behr on Nov 1, 2011 in Featured Story

In September of 2006, PROTRADE.com (a ‘sports stock market’ website) released an article on their picks for the Gold Glove winners that season. In the article, the PROTRADE staff wrote that “traditional fielding statistics don’t measure range, perhaps the most important trait of a solid glove man. Errors tell us how a player does when they get to the ball — but what about when he doesn’t?”

PROTRADE used a system that measured the direction and distance of every hit so as to compare every fielder’s performance with the historical averages at that ballpark. Their statistic was (ironically enough, given the name Moneyball Fielding Runs (or MBF).

Five years later, the baseball community has two stats PROTRADE could not work with: Ultimate Zone Rating and Defensive Runs Saved. According to our friends at FanGraphs.com, UZR puts “a run value to defense, attempting to quantify how many runs a player saved or gave up through their fielding prowess” while DRS “captures a player’s total defensive value … comparable to UZR.”