Total career value rate statistics combined with duration

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Total career value rate statistics combined with duration

#1 Post by Underground »

With the announcement of a contract extension being reached between Mike Matheny and the Saint Louis Cardinals, a blurb about him having reached a record or milestone amongst managers during their first five years of tenure was shared over the radio. He has 461 wins over 5 years.

Total wins is a decent indicator regarding the combination of win percentage and longevity of a career. It has distinct limitations in meaningful comparisons between managers with different tenures. I would prefer to see a list sorted by win% including an indication of total games managed. Ranking such things, becomes difficult and less meaningful, somewhat requiring grouping managers with similar career durations. The old "with 500 games managed" type of system would typically be used. A general mathematical quandary I would most likely not be able to resolve simply during my lifetime. Some type of graph or matrix rather than ranked list of ordinal values would be required.

Same problem exists for players participating in only part of a season with a limited sample size of statistics. The same concepts apply regarding career hits, home runs, pitching wins, or strikeouts.

I find the WAR statistic helpful, especially in my OOTP universes. A WAR rate (similar to batting average) would be even more helpful at times. WAR does provide an accumulated contribution value, not requiring the multiplication of rate versus duration mentioned above. However, in comparing current players, a rate would be more helpful. But that would require grouping for comparison again, such as career versus current season or play time within the current season.

For something like WAR, determining a meaningful rate would necessarily require total number of outs during which a player was on the field, batters faced, and plate appearances. Unfortunately, those sums would render comparison between position player, DH, starting pitcher, and relievers less meaningful. Then there would be questions regarding whether AB verses PA or IP verses BF would be more meaningful indicators of total contribution rate.

I have been slowly working on a long term project to come up with overall statistics for pitching and batting which would be more helpful and meaningful to me. OPS and ERA or WHIP can be helpful rates. However, singles are accounted for twice in OPS. Many factors, such as inherited runners, or runners on base without an opportunity to prevent scoring, or the offensive contributions of a pitcher's own team, leave much lacking in ERA or win%, even when ignoring the BABIP aspect. There are a bunch of isolated stats such as WHIP and K/9 which are helpful, but not as helpful in an overall comprehensive perspective. There is a greater deficiency in readily available statistics which are meaningful in terms of pitching performance.

The statistics I have been working on would be calculated slightly different for pitchers and batters. After all, a wild pitch perhaps should be accounted in the statistics of a pitcher but not the batter. Maybe true regarding a batter hit by pitch (intentional or accidental being nearly impossible to distinguish, then intentional because the batter was a jerk or his teammates were a jerk). However, a relative comparison in the rates and rate times total number of opportunities, would still be quite meaningful in comparing pitchers to batters. Similar to OPS versus OPS allowed. And would be somewhat meaningful comparing starters to relievers.

In my scheme, fielding would remain segregated as a somewhat isolated indicator of overall total player value for several reasons. Relative high leverage status between fielding positions being one. Fielding contribution could be added to offensive contribution quickly when desired. Yet ignored to compare offensive/defensive value of pitchers versus batters, for example. Pulling out fielding information is nearly impossible from a WAR statistic alone, without totally reconstructing the statistical value.

I would attempt to come up with a single ordinal comparative value, wherein managers with 344 games managed would have a slightly increased value over managers with 343 games managed. It seems statistical mathematical analysis among all historical managers would need to be involved, rather than a flat slope type of increment. Not sure yet whether such a thing would be reasonable or feasible, but certainly will consume some of my time, effort, and thought.

After I have finalized my comparative statistic, I do not plan on sharing it within the OOTP community or the general public. It would be closely held to my vest for competitive advantage with OOTP Baseball. That might be overkill, since most people would mostly ignore such a statistic, not willing to go through the trouble of calculating something so obscure which is not readily available in-game or at a glance in a report.

Basically, what I am ultimately seeking is a relative value that would be helpful and meaningful in trade decisions. I have been evolving such things for many years now. Unfortunately, I continually abandon my best approach to date, deciding to go back to the drawing board, because it has missed an important aspect.
Evan Seary
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Re: Total career value rate statistics combined with duratio

#2 Post by Leones »

It would be very interesting to know, once you have your formulas worked out, if they proved useful when applied to PEBA. Looking forward to hearing more about your efforts.
Patrick Hildreth
- La leña roja tarde pero llega

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