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November 16, 2005
The Bill James Handbook 2006
I finally got around to ordering the latest installment of the excellent Bill James Handbook series last week and the book fairy was kind enough to deliver it to my door this afternoon. If you have it within your budget to buy two baseball annuals every year, definitely pick up Bill James’ along with Baseball Prospectus 2006. Money well spent, as these two volumes contain hours of geeky baseball enjoyment. The Handbook itself is largely a collection of unique statistical content, though it also boasts several original articles from James himself. The first mini-article is entitled “Team Efficiency Summary”, which James explains thusly:
Basically, James calculates the expected runs scored/runs allowed for each team based on run components like hits, walks, homeruns, etc., and then uses his own Pythagorean method to calculate the expected wins according to this expected run differential. As anyone who followed the Mets statistically this season would know, the Mets severely underperformed their Pythagorean won-loss. Based on their actual run differential, the Mets were expected to win 89 games; they actually won 83. It comes as no surprise that they drastically underperformed according to their expected run differential. In this case, James’ calculations expected the Mets to win 90 games, and their overall Team Efficiency was next to last in the National League. We move on from Team Efficiency to something James calls the “Career Register”, which includes complete career statistics for all current Major Leaguers. Players with less than three years of big league experience also have their entire Minor League career statistics included, which is a great resource. This section is the book’s largest, consuming 256 of the volume’s 427 pages. Next up is a compendium of 2005 Fielding Statistics. Each position is divided into two sections: “Regulars” and “The Rest”, a mechanism that handily divides the everyday starters from the subs/spot-starters. All of your standard, non-technical fielding stats are included here, with the only semi-advanced metric being range factor. Here’s how the following Mets performed in range factor relative to the league: Miguel Cairo ranked 15th out of 19 at secondbase. (Range factors were not included for catchers and firstbasemen). There is also a special fielding section for catchers which, among other things, includes caught-stealing percentage (CS%) minus pitcher caught stealing (i.e. pickoffs). This gives a truer sense of the catcher’s contribution to throwing out basestealers, and in some cases can make a dramatic difference. For instance, ESPN.com lists Milwaukee’s Damian Miller as having thrown out 32% of basestealers (24/76). However, James points out that nine of those basestealers were thrown out by the pitcher, making Miller’s true CS% 22% (15/67). A significant difference to say the least. The next section is one of my favorites, as James charts baserunning numbers for every player in the league. There are really two components to these figures: the first is the percentage of times a player scores when he reaches base. Jose Reyes scored 38% of the time when he reached base, which was in the top 5 in all of baseball. Unfortunately he only reached base around 30% of the time. This gives you an idea of the value Reyes would have if he could reach base at a more respectable clip. The second component of the baserunning section illustrates each player’s ability to take the extra base. That is, going first-to-third or second-to-home on a single or going first-to-home on a double. Carlos Beltran was one of the best in the league at this, taking the extra base 32 out of 47 opportunities, and was thrown out just once in the process. Moving forward a bit, James includes something he calls “The Manager’s Record”, which is basically a career register of all active managers and includes the following: * Number of different lineups Pretty interesting stuff that you really won’t find anywhere else. There aren’t a lot of good resources for managerial tendencies so this section is really a must-have. James’ Ballpark Factors are terrific. Each park is broken down into many different categories, and James includes park indices for 2005 as well as a composite of 2003-2005. Most useful are the park factor splits, which include AVG and HR indices for lefties and righties in each park. With this information we can tell that even though Shea Stadium has an overall HR park factor of 90 (10% less than average), the splits reveal that Shea decreased homeruns by 6% for lefties and 14% for righties in 2005. The splits are even more pronounced if you consider the larger sample of 2003-2005: the same 6% decrease for lefties but a gaudy 22% decrease for righties. It makes all of those homeruns Mike Piazza hit all the more impressive. The “2005 Leaderboard” is basically a top-10 list of almost every batting and pitching category you can think of, separated by league. Some things you might not know: * Aaron Heilman led the National League in Relievers Opposing Slugging Percentage at .249. Billy Wagner was second at .265 Does anyone else want to endorse an 8th-9th combo of Heilman and Wagner in 2006? * Tom Glavine led the NL in Highest % Changeups at 36.1%. Victor Zambrano was second at 26.6%. James includes career Win Shares marks for all active players, as well as Hitter and Pitcher Projections for 2006, though he admittedly wasn’t involved in the pitcher projections. This fact is revealed in a funny Q&A:
He also has projected career totals for active players, though it looks like it only includes players with at least a few years of experience. Barry Bonds is projected to hit 900 homeruns; Albert Pujols 830; Alex Rodriguez 813. Great stuff all-around, and definitely a must-have in your baseball library. Pick it up at Amazon.com. Eric Simon has far too much time on his hands. He sleeps upside-down, keeps people as pets, and can be found on the internets at Amazin' Avenue or bothered directly at eric@metsgeek.com. 27 Responses to “The Bill James Handbook 2006”Leave a ReplyYou must be logged in to post a comment. |
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Heilman - Wagner does sound useful if not ideal. Do they need help showing mrs wagner around town?
The Wright-Jacobs story: An exercise in futility…
2005
.309/.374/.555 David Wright projection
.306/.388/.523 David Wright actual
2006
.303/.350/.552 Mike Jacobs projection
.???/.???/.??? Mike Jacobs actual
If that happend with Wright, If Jacobs can come close to his numbers, it looks like we did pretty well for ourselves in the 1b department
Do you guys think Jacobs could be anything like Chipper Jones? On the telecasts last season they always said Jacobs had Chippers swing.
I think many of us would take .280/.350/.520 with 20 HR’s in a heartbeat. He doesn’t need to be Delgado, he just has to avoid being Mientkiewicz. Not hard to do.
He could name his kid Turner.
Jose Reyes played a great SS, and i don’t give a sh!t what that book says….
I dunno if I’d call Jose’s D “great”, but I agree that “range factor” is nearly useless. Give an infielder a groundball pitching staff, his range factor goes way up.
What does Bill James say about Petco’s effect on LH homers? That -6% at Shea won’t look so bad to Giles…
Turner Jacobs… Maybe “The Ted” would be better…
Playing behind Kaz Isshi and Tom Glavine sure as hell didn’t help….
I agree with Erik. When you consider Jeter won a gold glove, it’s not hard to fathom Reyes winning one at some point.
so wright really has that good range
Great summary, Eric. I purposely haven’t bought the book yet, but I’ve laid plenty of hints that it would make a nice gift for a certain holiday coming up next month. Seriously, it’s worth the money for the park factors alone.
I’m not surprised about Reyes performing as he did in terms of range factor. His numbers at second base last year were, quite simply, horrible, no matter what system you used to measure it. He earned 4.4 Fielding Win Shares which probably isn’t dead last among regulars, but, considering the number of defensive innings he logged this year, it ain’t good. I’m very interested to see what defensive statistics that use PBP data say.
I’m not either, but one thing is worth putting out there: I had a very strong impression that Reyes was getting to a LOT more ground balls in the last two months of the season than he had been earlier. For the first 3-4 months, there were a lot of balls that got through that, when they were hit, I thought he’d come up with. That stopped happening in August and September. Maybe I had just adjusted my expectations downward, but I think he improved in the way a lot of young SS’s do as they learn the hitters’ tendencies, get more familiar with their own pitchers, and get better at situational positioning. Remember (amazingly), 2005 was Reyes’s first full year in the majors. He’s got the tools; I think he’ll be more than find defensively with additional experience.
I wish you were right. Unfortunately, no defensive metric I have ever seen has ranked Reyes as anything better than average defensively. Oftentimes it well below average.
2005 NL Shortstops
——————
Fielding Percentage: .974 (10th of 14 in the NL)
Range Factor: 4.28 (9th of 14)
Zone Rating: .821 (12th of 14) *
Fielding Win Shares: 4.4 (12th of 14; Furcal 8.1)
Zone Rating is a measure of the percentage of plays made on balls hit in a defined fielding zone. It is based on actual play-by-play data. Groundball/flyball pitching tendencies have no impact on this.
I’m still waiting to see UZR (if possible) or Pinto’s Probabalistic Model of Range, though I suspect they won’t think too highly of Reyes, either. I think he is getting better and he definitely has the ability to be a great defensive shortstop, he just isn’t quite there yet.
Here we go again:
Defensively-I personally endorsed the CCTGCFAGG, or the Campaign to Get Cliff Floyd A Gold Glove. He made all the routine catches, and he made some SPECTACULAR grabs. I remember at least 6 or 7 times he robbed a home run, and he also made some great plays cutting balls off and getting them in quickly…Also top 3 in assists, if I remember correctly. Better than 8th.
And I think they switched Reyes and Wright. Reyes was much more solid and consistent, and while Wright made what I think were the top 2 plays of the year, his defense was sporadic and at times nonexistent.
And Miguel Cairo should have been 19 out of 19. Too many times did Met secondbasemen not have enough range to cut off the ball up the middle.
Sorry, that’s the TCTGCFAGG
Eric -
Great synopsis - not to trouble you too much, but I found the the catcher CS% adjustments particularly interesting. Any chance you could provide those stats and any other interesting data for Ramon Castro, Ramon Hernandez, and Bengi Molina. Maybe we could all see the big defensive upgrades that Hernandez and Molina provide (it sure isn’t obvious in their offensive stats). Thanks…
Ah yes, a great stocking stuffer for all.
Maybe we should give one away to the winner of the MetsGeek Free Agent Prediction Contest.
Can someone explain to me how ballpark factors are determined? I mean its quite obvious some ballparks are better offensively and some pitching but wouldnt these factors depend greater on the team that plays 81 games there? If the red sox and the astros played in the same ballpark, wouldnt it yield different results since one is offensively superior?
Ramon Castro
Including pitcher CS: 11/35 (31%)
Excluding pitcher CS: 9/33 (27%)
Ramon Hernandez
Including pitcher CS: 18/70 (26%)
Excluding pitcher CS: 18/70 (26%) ; no pitcher CS while he was catching
Bengie Molina
Including pitcher CS: 20/64 (31%)
Excluding pitcher CS: 18/62 (29%)
Yadier Molina
Including pitcher CS: 25/39 (64%)
Excluding pitcher CS: 17/31 (55%)
Ivan Rodriguez
Including pitcher CS: 35/68 (51%)
Excluding pitcher CS: 27/60 (45%)
Mike Piazza
Including pitcher CS: 13/95 (14%)
Excluding pitcher CS: 10/92 (11%)
A thorough method exists for making “park factor” results meaningful. I’m not sure who uses it, and who uses which lazy approximation, but the method is thus:
Compare the stats of every player with a plate appearance in Park A with all those players’ plate appearances NOT in Park A. Each player gets a differential (+ or - some %) describing how Park A effected his performance. All these individual differentials are then weighted according to number of plate appearances in Park A, and then you do the math to give you an overall Park Adjustment to whichever stats you care about.
This method does not cover pull hitters vs. opposite field hitters, only lefty hitters vs righty hitters. Thus, we can’t definitively make statements like “the left field seats are X amount harder to reach than the right field seats” (although we can still hazard a decent guess).
I have noticed that in many parks, Park Factor varies significantly from year to year, even when the fences are not moved. Over the last decade, I think Shea has ranged from 4th toughest hitters’ park in baseball to 14th.
Thanks.
Thats kinda interesting shea ranked 14th one year. I always thought of shea as a pitchers ballpark. 14th in that particular year suggests its right in the middle of the pack.
I guess if they have a great variance tho, they cant be too dependable.
Personally, I just take the yearly variance to mean that weather matters a lot. How many different homestands does each team have each year? What are the odds that some awful wind is going to be blowing during a few of them?
Plus, a park’s place on a ranking list is partially dependent on what’s going on in other parks… I bet Shea’s spot on the “toughest for hitters” list has gone up since MinuteMaid replaced the Astrodome. :)
Overall, I feel comfortable calling Shea “a pitchers’ park, but not an extreme one”.
Eric-
Thanks for the catcher stats. Personally, I don’t know why ANY catcher throwing stat DOES include pitcher caught-stealings… that’s always annoyed me.
I also think that, for baserunners, a caught stealing by the pitcher should NOT count as a “caught stealing” but rather as a “picked off”. I mean, that’s what it is — does it matter whether the runner got tagged going back to 1st or going into 2nd? Either way, he’s out because the pitcher fooled him. (And, if the stats were kept that way, it’d also eliminate the “catcher’s throwing %” issue.)
I think we all agree that Reyes has the tools to be one of the top defensive SSs in the game, but last year he made a whopping 18 errors (better than KazMat but not many others!). Although I seem to recall he made several bonehead young player type errors. The kind that are reflective of a lack of focus or trying to make a play when one isn’t available, etc. I think we will see steady improvement over the next couple of years and he will be in the single digit error total before too long.
David Wright is just the MAN. Not only is he the team’s best hitter at the ripe old age of 22, he is the best defensive player as well! It’s about time this organization turned out a position player like him.
[...] Last month I reviewed the first baseball annual to hit e-shelves, The Bill James Handbook 2006. Today I am going to take a look at the Hardball Times Baseball Annual 2006. The Hardball Times annual is assembled by the same team of prodigious writers that bring us The Hardball Times (THT) website on a daily basis. Last year’s baseball annual was self-published, though this time around they went the professional route with Acta Sports, publisher of many outstanding baseball books. [...]