Sabermetrics Research

[WrigleyvilleTimes]

As some of you may know I have been conducting a significant amount of research on a variety of saber metrics analysis in an effort to make even a small contribution to the great game of baseball. Is anyone else a statistician, sabermatrician, or genuinely interested in collaborating to achieve this end? This is meant as a new-age baseball purest idea. If you're interested, let me know.

On a somewhat exciting note if you're a saber nerd like me, I was able to prove that power pitchers (those who rely on an above league average fastball velocity) have a peak age range from 20 - 26. After the age 26 season pitcher velocity begins to drop at a rather steep rate until age 29. For each 2.83mph lost in velocity, FIP ERA increases by 1.00. From age 29 to age 35 the decline in the average pitcher velocity decreases at a far slower rate than between age 26 and 29 seasons. The loss in velocity between age 26 - 29 seasons results in an increased FIP greater than 1.25; while the loss in velocity between age 29 - 35 seasons results in an increased FIP of just 0.70. This is the direct result of two occurrences:

• The removal of high velocity dependant pitchers with "fringe" secondary offerings from MLB rosters from age 26 - 29 seasons (i.e. being cut from rosters, not being resigned, etc.)
• The slower rate of lost velocity between age 29 - 35 seasons is the result of pitchers without "elite" velocity who rely more on control and "secondary offerings" filling 3 - 5 spots in starting rotations.

This exercise proves that signing power pitchers, or pitchers with above league average velocity, to long-term contracts after the expiration of initial team-controlled service time is a poor allocation of assets.

Anyone else who does sabermetrics research, please join the conversation and include your work and findings to the thread as well!

 

[Zvbxrpl]

Nah. Sabremetrics aren't my thing. To me they tell you what you want to see, not what's in front of your face. Teams need balance and a lot of luck to win it all.

Not to discredit any of the work or what you put up above, because its relevant in some regards--but also common sense that Power pitchers' fireball declines come age 29-30. Verlander, Lincecum, Pedro, Nolan Ryan, Bob Feller, Bartolo Colon, and Randy Johnson all started to lose it. That's age, wear and tear. Common sense.

Its also easy, with a simple eye test to not that giving Justin Verlander a long term deal was foolish, because A--you pay for past performance and B--you know at age 35-37 he wont be throwing like 25-27. Simple eye test. Not something I need to crunch on a calculator to come to this conclusion with.

Also common sense that the successful, former power pitchers find a new niche and new routine to stay relevant or become irrelevant because their 'go to' pitch no longer can go 97+ MPH with movement on it. Randy Johnson did. Bartolo Colon is still pitching at 40-something today because his fastball, no longer upper 90s, is no longer his style. He's more location than 'blow it past the batter' because he cant.

But you know what? Teams will still shell out big bucks for future Justin Verlanders'. Why? Pitching, great pitching is a premium teams must have. CBSSucks Sportsline came out with a great article how pitching in baseball is now entering a generation of relief pitchers. I think they're right. No, I dont see relief pitchers getting Kershaw like deals--but I think we're going to see higher and higher bucks shelled out for relievers.

No fancy calculator or useless acronyms necessary. :fap:

 

[beckdawg]

As some of you may know I have been conducting a significant amount of research on a variety of saber metrics analysis in an effort to make even a small contribution to the great game of baseball. Is anyone else a statistician, sabermatrician, or genuinely interested in collaborating to achieve this end? This is meant as a new-age baseball purest idea. If you're interested, let me know.

On a somewhat exciting note if you're a saber nerd like me, I was able to prove that power pitchers (those who rely on an above league average fastball velocity) have a peak age range from 20 - 26. After the age 26 season pitcher velocity begins to drop at a rather steep rate until age 29. For each 2.83mph lost in velocity, FIP ERA increases by 1.00. From age 29 to age 35 the decline in the average pitcher velocity decreases at a far slower rate than between age 26 and 29 seasons. The loss in velocity between age 26 - 29 seasons results in an increased FIP greater than 1.25; while the loss in velocity between age 29 - 35 seasons results in an increased FIP of just 0.70. This is the direct result of two occurrences:

• The removal of high velocity dependant pitchers with "fringe" secondary offerings from MLB rosters from age 26 - 29 seasons (i.e. being cut from rosters, not being resigned, etc.)
• The slower rate of lost velocity between age 29 - 35 seasons is the result of pitchers without "elite" velocity who rely more on control and "secondary offerings" filling 3 - 5 spots in starting rotations.

This exercise proves that signing power pitchers, or pitchers with above league average velocity, to long-term contracts after the expiration of initial team-controlled service time is a poor allocation of assets.

Anyone else who does sabermetrics research, please join the conversation and include your work and findings to the thread as well!

I tend to believe velocity is an overrated skill and control is far more important. This is the reason I was mention Hendricks as someone to watch prior to last season and why I'm pretty impressed with Tseng. You don't even need to be into sabermetircs to see why. High velocity pitchers tend to rely on strike outs. At a bare minimum that's 3 pitches per batter. At 27 batters a game minimum that's 81 pitches required. If you figure a 1 whip that's another 27 pitches. Most starters are pulled around 100 pitches. So, any ground ball out you can get can significant lengthy your starts.

There's also the argument of strain on an arm. People always talk about the mental aspect of Maddux but what made him great was the guy never went on the DL(almost anyways). I also tend to believe that high velocity pitchers can be too reliant on stuff. This can be especially true of prospects. At some point the hitters are good enough to hit their stuff and they have to be able to pitch with control.

Now that's not to say that having high velocity is a bad thing. I just think people view it as the most important thing. I'm just saying I'd prefer a guy like Hendricks who doesn't have dominating stuff but can locate to someone who has dominating stuff and has control problems. Obviously there's guys like Kershaw who have both and that's the best case.

 

[JP Hochbaum]

As some of you may know I have been conducting a significant amount of research on a variety of saber metrics analysis in an effort to make even a small contribution to the great game of baseball. Is anyone else a statistician, sabermatrician, or genuinely interested in collaborating to achieve this end? This is meant as a new-age baseball purest idea. If you're interested, let me know.

On a somewhat exciting note if you're a saber nerd like me, I was able to prove that power pitchers (those who rely on an above league average fastball velocity) have a peak age range from 20 - 26. After the age 26 season pitcher velocity begins to drop at a rather steep rate until age 29. For each 2.83mph lost in velocity, FIP ERA increases by 1.00. From age 29 to age 35 the decline in the average pitcher velocity decreases at a far slower rate than between age 26 and 29 seasons. The loss in velocity between age 26 - 29 seasons results in an increased FIP greater than 1.25; while the loss in velocity between age 29 - 35 seasons results in an increased FIP of just 0.70. This is the direct result of two occurrences:

• The removal of high velocity dependant pitchers with "fringe" secondary offerings from MLB rosters from age 26 - 29 seasons (i.e. being cut from rosters, not being resigned, etc.)
• The slower rate of lost velocity between age 29 - 35 seasons is the result of pitchers without "elite" velocity who rely more on control and "secondary offerings" filling 3 - 5 spots in starting rotations.

This exercise proves that signing power pitchers, or pitchers with above league average velocity, to long-term contracts after the expiration of initial team-controlled service time is a poor allocation of assets.

Anyone else who does sabermetrics research, please join the conversation and include your work and findings to the thread as well!

I am actually working with HAdoop and writing programs that can eventually produce correlation coefficients for each at bat instance. We should definitely talk.

I just started this blog last week:

https://sportsstatsandscience.wordpress.com/

Since I am in school and working full time as well my time is limited until Mid_May, but after that I plan on cranking out corellation coefficients related to runs and RBI's for each batting instance.

 

[JP Hochbaum]

I also have access, through a former baseball team employee, to any statistic you can think of.

Lefty/Righty; Home/Road; Day/Night... stats by lineup order; daily breakdowns. Haven't done anything to get it into a downloadable format but I am sure there is a way to do so.

 

[knoxville7]

Nah. Sabremetrics aren't my thing. To me they tell you what you want to see, not what's in front of your face. Teams need balance and a lot of luck to win it all.

Not to discredit any of the work or what you put up above, because its relevant in some regards--but also common sense that Power pitchers' fireball declines come age 29-30. Verlander, Lincecum, Pedro, Nolan Ryan, Bob Feller, Bartolo Colon, and Randy Johnson all started to lose it. That's age, wear and tear. Common sense.

Its also easy, with a simple eye test to not that giving Justin Verlander a long term deal was foolish, because A--you pay for past performance and B--you know at age 35-37 he wont be throwing like 25-27. Simple eye test. Not something I need to crunch on a calculator to come to this conclusion with.

Also common sense that the successful, former power pitchers find a new niche and new routine to stay relevant or become irrelevant because their 'go to' pitch no longer can go 97+ MPH with movement on it. Randy Johnson did. Bartolo Colon is still pitching at 40-something today because his fastball, no longer upper 90s, is no longer his style. He's more location than 'blow it past the batter' because he cant.

But you know what? Teams will still shell out big bucks for future Justin Verlanders'. Why? Pitching, great pitching is a premium teams must have. CBSSucks Sportsline came out with a great article how pitching in baseball is now entering a generation of relief pitchers. I think they're right. No, I dont see relief pitchers getting Kershaw like deals--but I think we're going to see higher and higher bucks shelled out for relievers.

No fancy calculator or useless acronyms necessary. :fap:

well lets be real here for a second....colon kept his career going thru HGH/PED's. otherwise I agree with the rest of your post

 

[WrigleyvilleTimes]

JP,

Do me a favor and send me a private message/email on here. We should most definitely talk. Just so you have an example of the type of work I do, here is a link to the Power Pitcher analysis I conducted to identify the peak performance age range.

We stay solely focused on the Cubs, however one of our primary objectives is to add some sort of value (no matter how significant) to the game of baseball as a whole. We are actually about to submit a couple of pieces to the SABR organization for publication as well.