Book review - "Prophet of the Sandlots"

Are you getting tired of hearing about statistics being used more and more by front offices in baseball?  Sick of Moneyball?  Well I have a book for you - Prophet of the Sandlots by Mark Winegardner.   The author accompanies the affable scout - Tony Lucadello on scouting trips throughout the mid-west.   Tony was one of the best.  The only tools he used to evaluate players were his two eyes. 

"Prophet" was an interesting read.  Many of Tony's techniques are described in the book.  Tony is a loveable character who you can probably relate to an old uncle or grandfather.   I found it hilarious when Tony was scouting at a college or high school he had to take some time to look under the bleachers for loose change.  He ate the same meals every day and stayed in cheap hotels where he knew the workers.

Tony's Fedora

Tony never quite made it as a ball player, but he had an eye for talent.  Tony could recognize aspects of a player that statistics could not.  He could tell if a good player would fade or an average player could be a star.  He could see holes in a batters swing or verify if a pitchers motion would get him injured.  The book explains his take on the different varieties of scouts as  well as his "Lucadello System" for player development. 

Tony started his scouting career in 1942 with the Chicago Cubs where he discovered (among others) Fergie Jenkins.  Tony left the Cubbies and worked for the Phillies until 1989.  With the the Phillies his big prize was Mike Schmidt.  

If you can get your hands on this book, please do so.  You may be able to find it in your local library system or used from Amazon.com.  In case  you decide to read it, I won't tell you any more about the book or its ending.

Thanks for reading
-Tom

Stats - "Bogus" Stats - Batting

"What Jefferson was saying was, 'Hey! You know, we left this England place 'cause it was bogus; so if we don't get some cool rules ourselves - pronto - we'll just be bogus too!' Get it?"

 -Jeff Spicoli, Fast Times At Ridgemont High

Everyone likes the batting average stat.  You hear it all around - "What's his average?" people will ask.  It's sort of a measuring stick for a player.  Rod Carew hit .388 in 1977 - awesome!  Mario Mendoza had a .215 lifetime batting average - yikes. 

Batting average is just that - its how often a player gets a hit.  I would venture to say it's the single most popular offensive stat.  But sometimes you want more info when comparing players.  More info?  What kind of info?  Let's look at a non-baseball situation.  So  you're daughter is heading out for the evening.  "Who are you going out with"  you ask.  You're little darling replies with "just a friend".  Oh, just a friend huh?  "Sure go ahead" ... WHOA!! wait just a minute there Ma and Pa.  Who is she going out with??!!  Is it Lindsey Lohan or Mother Teresa?  Now that's lack of info huh?  As for batting average sometimes we need more meat in there.  For instance what kind of hits were they?  Were all of the hits singles or were there a good amount of doubles, triples and homers?  As we all know doubles, triples and homers are more valuable than just singles.  Also, what about walks? Drawing a walk is a proven skill that some players can perform better than others.   The batting average stat does not take into account walks.  We'll look at two stats - Slugging Percentage (SLG) and On Base Percentage (OBP).

When looking at SLG you need to know what this stat really means.  SLG represents, on average, how many bases a batter advances per at bat.  It may help to look at the formula:

SLG = 1B + (2*2B) + (3*3B) + (4*HR) / AB

SLG solves the "type of hit" problem and puts a weight on doubles, triples and HR's.  That weight being how many bases are advanced.  In 2011 the MLB average for SLG was .411.  The best was Jose Bautista at .608 and the worst was Jason Barlett at .307.

OBP is in essence batting average with walks and hit batsmen thrown in.  As discussed above, walks are important.  You can think of OBP as how often a batter gets on base.  In recent years getting on base has been recognized as an important skill.  In 2011 the MLB average for OBP was .339.  The leader in OBP was Miguel Cabrera with .448.  The lowest was Vernon Wells at .248.

Which of these two stats is a better?  It's been said that OBP is.  Teams with higher OBP generally produce more runs. 

There is another stat called OPS (On Base Plus Slugging).  That is simply adding OBP and SLG.  Frankly, I don't like it.   I'm not a big fan of combining as many stats as we can to create one big stat. Here's why.  Below are two players from the 2011 season

	OPS	SLG	OBP
Andrew McCutchen	.820	.456	.364
Nelson Cruz	.821	.509	.312

According to OPS they are the same player.  But a look at SLG and OBP show they are not quite the same.  McCutchen gets on base more than Cruz, yet Cruz appears to have more power.  This is not to say 'Cutch is better than Nellie, or vice-versa, but I just want to show you need to look more into stats.

One last thing regarding batting average, SLG and OBP.  Below are three graphs based on team stats.  Please excuse my shaky Excel skills.  The charts below all have runs (in blue) plotted in a line.  Either AVG, OBP or SLG scattered (in red) are individually represented on each graph.  As  you can see OBP and SLG are more tightly knit to the runs line than batting average is, thus telling us OBP and SLG are more related to producing runs than batting average is (in some years OBP is actually closer to the runs line).

fig 1 - Batting Average / Runs

fig 2 - OBP / Runs

fig 3 - SLG / Runs

In some upcoming entries about offensive stats I'll talk about some of the more advance stats like wOBA (Weighted On Base Percentage), ISO (Isolated power) and RC (Runs Created).  Hope you found this interesting.

Thanks for reading,
-Tom

Kenesaw Mountain Landis

"Don't go to those owners if you get into trouble, come to me. I'm your friend. They're no good." 

-Kenesaw Landis

Have you ever watched an action or superhero movie in which the hero makes a last minute rescue just in a nick of time?  Always seems to happen right?  That was the case with Kenesaw Mountain Landis.  He wasn't an action move hero or even a brave leader of a nation.  He was the very first commissioner of Major League Baseball.

There were times in baseballs' history where baseball needed "saving".  There was the 1994 players strike which left a bitter taste in a lot of fans mouths.  And recently there was (and in some sense still is) the steroid era.  But the event which Landis came to the rescue was the 1919 Black Sox scandal.

In a nutshell the Black Sox scandal was centered around the 1919 World Series.  A number of players for the Chicago White Sox fixed the games to allow the Cincinnati Reds to prevail.  There is much more to this story and we'll cover it in a future post.

Now, on to Kenesaw.  Regarding his name - Kenesaw Mountain.  Kenesaw Mountain was the site of a Civil War battle in which his father was injured and he gave his son that name.  As a boy, Kenesaw was a big baseball fan.  Landis dropped out of high school in 1885 (seemed to be the thing to do back then).   But, in 1891 he earned a Law degree from the University of Cincinnati.  In 1905 Landis was appointed as a U.S. District Judge by Teddy Roosevelt.

In 1914 a rival league known as the Federal League brought an anti-trust suit  against the MLB.  Judge Landis was asked to preside over the case.  Landis somehow manged to delay the case just long enough until the Federal League folded.   In 1919, following the Black Sox scandal, baseball needed to be saved and the owners knew exactly who the right man for the job was. The owners appointed Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis as the first commissioner of the MLB.

One of the first things Judge Landis did was ban eight White Sox players from baseball.  Throughout his tenure he imposed numerous suspensions and fines. The superstars of the league were not exempt.  He once hit up Babe Ruth with a suspension for barnstorming.  Some other improvements and implementations Landis was know for were: developing the minor league system, support of breaking the color barrier and making the All-Star game an official yearly event. 

In 1944 with his health failing, Landis died as the commissioner.  He was known as the man who restored integrity to baseball following the black sox scandal and ran a tight ship during his tenure.   To this day the MVP award has his name on it.

Thanks for reading

-Tom