Rave Reviews for Curve Ball:

“Rating: 4.5 out of 5. Must own!”

—Baseballnotebook.com

“A must read for anyone interested in statistical baseball research.”

—By the Numbers, the SABR newsletter

“Curve Ball is a welcome addition to the growing list of statistics and baseball
books.... [It] illustrates how statistical reasoning can be useful in teasing out the
role of chance from performance in baseball to better assess ability. As a baseball
book with a relatively heavy statistical component, Curve Ball is a worthy succes-
sor to Earnshaw Cook’s Percentage Baseball. Curve Ball represents another
advance in the genre of baseball and statistics books.”
—Journal of the American Statistical Association

“This book delivers a new degree of bliss.”

—Seattle Post Intelligencer

“An interesting way to learn the basic concepts of the often-daunting field of statistics.”
—Science News

“Baseball aficionados are in for a whole new ballgame!”

—Toledo Blade

“[Curve Ball] will be welcomed by fans seeking to better understand the numbers.”
—Publishers Weekly

“... even if the Yankees buy a dozen Jason Giambis and a half dozen Roger Clemenses,
the chance remains that they could still lose the pennant. Albert and Bennett wrote
Curve Ball in an effort to ascertain precisely how great that element of chance is....”
—Mercury, Manhattan, Kansas

“Curve Ball is a fascinating source book for both baseball and statistical applica-
tions thereof. It’s a good read, and good mathematics.”
—Mathematical Association of America Online

“... an interesting read, full of detailed examples that include data from Major
League Baseball games along with many classic stories from the sport. For readers
possessing no knowledge of statistics, this book is a great way of learning how to
view and interpret data from a statistician’s standpoint.”
—Chance
CurveBall
Baseball, Statistics, and the
Role of Chance in the Game

REVISED EDITION

Jim Albert
Jay Bennett

COPERNICUS BOOKS
An Imprint of Springer-Verlag
© 2003, 2001 Springer-Verlag New York, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording,
or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Published in the United States by Copernicus Books,

an imprint of Springer-Verlag New York, Inc.
A member of BertelsmannSpringer Science+Business Media GmbH

Copernicus Books
37 East 7th Street
New York, NY 10003
www.copernicusbooks.com

Book design by Jordan Rosenblum

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Albert, Jim
Curve ball: baseball, statistics, and the role of chance in the
game / Jim Albert, Jay Bennett.—Rev. ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-387-00193-X (soft cover: alk. paper)
1. Baseball—Statistics. I. Bennett, Jay. II. Title.
GV877.A46 2003
796.357′021—dc21 2003043436

Manufactured in the United States of America.

Printed on acid-free paper.

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

ISBN 0-387-00193-X SPIN 10902219

 Contents

xiii Preface to the Paperback Edition

xv Introduction

Chapter 1
1 SIMPLE MODELS FROM TABLETOP BASEBALL GAMES
1 All-Star Baseball (ASB)
8 Model Assumptions of All-Star Baseball
9 The APBA Model: Introducing the Pitcher
15 Strat-O-Matic Baseball: The Independent Model
20 Sports Illustrated Baseball: The Interactive Model
24 Which Model Is Best?

Chapter 2
27 EXPLORING BASEBALL DATA
27 Exploring Hitting Data
28 A Batch of On-Base Percentages
29 Simple Graphs
31 Typical Values—the Mean and the Median
32 Measures of Spread—Quartiles and the Standard Deviation
34 Interesting Values
34 Comparing Groups
35 A Five-Number Summary
35 A Boxplot
35 Boxplots to Compare Groups
37 OBPs of Offensive and Defensive Players
38 Relationships Between Batting Measures
39 Relating OBP and SLG
39 Relating OBP and Isolated Power
41 What about Pitching Data?
42 Strikeouts and Walks
43 Looking at Strikeout Totals
44 Defining a Strikeout Rate
47 Comparing Strikeout Rates of Starters and Relievers
48 Association Between Strikeouts and Walks?
49 Exploring Walk Rates
50 Comparing Walk Rates of Starters and Relievers

Chapter 3
51 INTRODUCING PROBABILITY
51 Beyond Data Analysis
53 Looking for Real Effects
55 Predicting OBPs
57 Probability Models
57 A Coin-Toss Model
59 Observed and True OBPs
62 Learning about Batting Ability
66 Estimating Batting Ability Using a Confidence Interval
68 Comparing Hitters

Chapter 4
71 SITUATIONAL EFFECTS
72 Surveying the Situation
74 Looking for Real Effects
75 Observed and True Batting Averages
78 Batting Averages of the 1998 Regulars
 79 Two Models for Batting Averages
79 A .276 Spinner Model
80 Do All Players Have the Same Ability?
81 A Model Using a Set of Random Spinners
86 Situational Effects
86 Home vs. Away
87 Turf vs. Grass
87 The Count
87 Opposite Arm vs. Same Arm
87 Models for Situational Effects
89 Scenario 1 (No Situational Effect)
90 Scenario 2 (Situational Bias)
91 Scenario 3 (Situational Effect Depends on Ability)
92 Finding Good Models
93 What Do Observed Situational Effects Look Like When There Is No Effect?
95 The Last Five Years’ Data
96 The “No Effect” Situations
98 The “Bias” Situations
101 The “Ability” Situations
106 How Large Are the True Ability Effects?
107 Game Situation Effects
108 A Lot of Noise

Chapter 5
111 STREAKINESS (OR, THE HOT HAND)
112 Thinking about Streakiness
114 Interpreting Baseball Data
116 Moving Averages—Looking at Short Intervals
119 Runs of Good and Bad Games
120 Numbers of Good and Poor Hitting Days
120 What Is Zeile’s True Hitting Ability?
121 Mr. Consistent
122 How Does Mr. Consistent Perform During a Season?
126 Mr. Streaky
129 How Does Mr. Streaky Perform During a Season?
131 Mr. Consistent or Mr. Streaky?
134 Team Play
138 A Consistent Team
140 A Streaky Team
143 Thinking about Streakiness—Again

Chapter 6
145 MEASURING OFFENSIVE PERFORMANCE
146 The Great Quest
148 Runs Scored per Game
153 Batting Average and Runs Scored per Game
156 Slugging Percentage and On-Base Percentage
165 Intuitive Techniques
166 On-Base Plus Slugging (OPS)
166 Total Average (TA)
168 Batter’s Run Average (BRA) and Scoring Index (DX)
171 Runs Created (RC)
173 More Analytic Models

Chapter 7
177 AVERAGE RUNS PER PLAY
177 Finding Weights for Plays
178 Least Squares Linear Regression (LSLR)
184 Adding Caught Stealing to the LSLR Model
187 Adding Sacrifice Flies to the LSLR Model
189 The Lindsey–Palmer Models
189 George Lindsey’s Analysis
200 Palmer Enters the Picture
202 Comparing the LSLR and Lindsey–Palmer Models

Chapter 8
207 THE CURVATURE OF BASEBALL
208 The DLSI Simulation Model
209 The Probability of Scoring Two Runs
211 The Probability of Scoring No Runs
215 A DLSI Example
218 Lessons from the Simulation
224 DLSI and Runs per Play
226 Where Do We Stand?
227 Additive Models
228 Product Models
230 Player Evaluations in the Best Models
233 Player Evaluations on an Average Team
240 Sorting Out Strengths and Weaknesses

Chapter 9
243 MAKING SENSE OF BASEBALL STRATEGY
243 What’s Wrong with Baseball?
244 Lindsey’s Run Potential Table
245 Old vs. New Data
246 A Second Important Table
247 Stealing Second Base
249 To Steal or Not to Steal
251 A Different Criterion
252 Stealing in Other Situations
253 The Sacrifice Bunt
255 Sacrifice Bunts in the 2001 World Series
255 Managers Do and Don’t Like to Sacrifice
257 Should Curt Schilling Sacrifice?
258 How About Craig Counsell?
260 The Intentional Walk
261 Compare the Costs
264 Some Caveats

Chapter 10
267 MEASURING CLUTCH PLAY
269 Clutch Hits
273 Leading Off an Inning vs. Not Leading Off
273 Runners in Scoring Position vs. Bases Empty
273 Runner in Scoring Position vs. Runner on First Base Only
275 Two Outs vs. None/One Out
275 Late Inning Pressure vs. No Late Inning Pressure
275 A Player in a Short Series
277 Situation Evaluation of Run Production
284 A New Criterion for Performance
291 The Calculation of Win Probabilities
296 Player Game Percentage (PGP)
303 World Series Most Valuable Players
307 The 2002 World Series
311 Game 1
313 Game 2
315 Game 3
316 Game 4
318 Game 5
319 Game 6
321 Game 7
322 Looking to the Future

Chapter 11
323 PREDICTION
323 Predicting Game Results
324 Guessing
324 Picking the Home Team
324 A “Team Strengths” Prediction Model
325 Predicting 1999 Game Results
327 How Good Were Our Predictions?
329 Predicting the Number of McGwire and Sosa Home Runs
330 A Simple Prediction Method
330 What’s Wrong with This Prediction?
331 A Spinner Model for Home-Run Hitting
332 How Many At-Bats?
332 What If We Knew Sosa’s True Home-Run Rate?
333 Binomial Probabilities
334 What If We Don’t Know Sosa’s True Home-Run Rate?
336 Revising Our Beliefs about Sosa’s Home-Run Probability
337 One Prediction
340 Many Predictions
343 Predicting Career Statistics
344 Sosa’s Home-Run Probabilities
345 How Long and How Many At-Bats?
347 Making the Predictions
 Chapter 12
349 DID THE BEST TEAM WIN?
350 The Big Question
350 Ability and Performance
352 Describing a Team’s Ability
352 Describing a Team’s Performance
353 Team Performance: 1871 to the Present
355 Explanations for the Winning Percentages
357 A Normal Curve Model
359 Team Performances over Time (Revisited)
361 A Mediocrity Model for Abilities
362 A Normal Model for Abilities
363 Weak, Average, and Strong Teams
364 A Model for Playing a Season
365 Simulating a Season
366 Simulating an American League Season
370 Simulating Many American League Seasons
372 Performances and Abilities of Different Types of Teams
376 Simulating an Entire Season
378 Chance

Chapter 13
381 POST-GAME COMMENTS (A BRIEF AFTERWORD)

Appendix
385 TABLETOP BASEBALL GAMES
386 All-Star Baseball
386 APBA Baseball
388 Strat-O-Matic Baseball
390 Sports Illustrated Baseball

393 Glossary

397 Bibliography

401 Index
Preface to the Paperback Edition

In its formative years, from the 1970s through the 1990s, sabermetrics was pri-
marily an amateur undertaking. Publications were aimed at a relatively small
audience of baseball fans. To be sure, this ever-growing group of aficionados
brought a lot of sophistication to baseball analysis, and were constantly looking
for statistical insights beyond the listings of the top ten batters found in popular
newspapers and magazines. But their influence on the baseball profession was
very limited. A few consultants like Craig Wright developed temporary relation-
ships with various teams, but none were able to stay long enough to create a per-
manent sabermetrician staff position. (See Rob Neyer’s November 11, 2002, arti-
cle on ESPN.com.1) All of this changed, however, in 2002 with the hiring of Bill
James by the Boston Red Sox. With that move, we have seen the admittance of
the foremost proponent of sabermetrics into the top echelon of professional base-
ball management. The art and science of careful statistical analysis, it now
seems, had made it into the big leagues.
Since the publication of the first edition of Curve Ball in 2001, we have been
overwhelmed by the positive responses from readers and critics. We’re pleased
with the reception, of course, but we don’t want to rest on our laurels. Like a
pitcher refining his repertoire, we’ve revised, expanded, and updated the book
for its publication in this paperback edition. Several readers and critics took us

1 http://espn.go.com/mlb/columns/neyer_rob/1456664.html

xiii
xiv P R E FAC E T O T H E PA P E R B AC K E D I T I O N

to task for the lack of an index and a glossary. These have been added. And so has
a chapter that analyzes the conventional wisdom of three standard strategies—
stealing bases, the sacrifice bunt, and the intentional walk—in various game sit-
uations. An appendix about tabletop baseball games (formerly available only
online) has also been added to clarify the material about board game models dis-
cussed in Chapter 1. And a significant number of examples from the original text
have been updated with data through the 2002 season, including its dramatic
World Series, as well as the extraordinary performance of Barry Bonds.
We would like to extend our warm thanks to all of the readers and reviewers
who have been so appreciative of Curve Ball, and especially those who have
taken the time to make valuable suggestions on the book’s improvement.

Jim Albert
Jay Bennett
January 2003

Acknowledgments
Each of us is lucky enough to have a partner who has been supportive and
patient during the long process of researching and writing and producing this
book. To our respectives wives, Anne Albert and Lynn Bennett, we owe thanks
more than we can say.
We would also like to acknowledge David Bernstein, Jim Box, Michael
Doherty, David Grabiner, David Jones, Kenneth Ross, and Bob Wardrop, as well
as two anonymous reviewers, for their insightful comments and suggestions on
our manuscript in the course of its development.
And we thank Paul Farrell and John Kimmel, our editors at Copernicus
Books and Springer-Verlag, respectively, for their faith in our project and their
support throughout its creation. Special thanks to Anna Painter of Copernicus
Books for stepping to the plate as the guiding editor in this update and hitting
in the clutch when unfortunate circumstances placed the project in jeopardy.
Thanks also production editor Mareike Paessler and to designer Jordan Rosen-
blum for their very thoughtful and helpful contributions.

Publisher’s Note
Additional information related to this book—including a list of errata as we find
them—can be found at www.copernicusbooks.com.
Introduction

The public seems to have an insatiable appetite for baseball statistics. Evidence
for this assertion can be found everywhere. Baseball statistics in the form of box
scores, lists of player batting averages, and compilations of pitcher records are
published (and revised daily) in newspapers and on websites. Sportscasters on
television and radio quote them constantly. Callers to talk radio shows (many of
whom probably grudgingly endured math classes in school) cite them selectively
to make a point. Baseball encyclopedias, annuals, and yearbooks provide row
after row of numbers through which baseball fans can wade (much as Kevin
Costner waded through the corn in Field of Dreams), imbibing the game through
statistics. A true fan can disappear into these books for hours on end to emerge
freshened and enlightened. Even a film as emotional and nostalgic as Field of
Dreams featured Costner quoting the statistics of Shoeless Joe Jackson, and had
James Earl Jones presenting an oration on the meaning of baseball while
cradling a baseball encyclopedia in his arms.
The uses of statistics in baseball vary. Major League Baseball, of course, is
first and foremost a form of entertainment. Statistics on the players and teams
are used to supplement the fans’ enjoyment. Sportscasters broadcasting a game
cite the pitcher’s and batter’s statistics to heighten the suspense of the con-
frontation between the two and the possible strategies each might use to gain an
edge. And so it is that almost any situation that arises in the game presents an
opportunity for the color analyst to cite a related statistic:

xv
xvi I N T RO D U C T I O N

1. With an excellent runner on first base, the fan is treated to

statistics on the runner’s percentage of success in stealing second
base, the pitcher’s ability to prevent the runner from attempting
the steal, or the catcher’s success in gunning down runners
attempting to steal. Often the viewer or listener will be treated to
all three.
2. When a closing reliever enters the game in the late innings to
preserve a victory, it is de rigueur for the sportscaster to inform
the listener or viewer of the number of times the pitcher has
succeeded and failed in saving the game. Also often required: data
on how good the team is at holding on to the lead.
3. The appearance of a pinch hitter immediately elicits a brief
history of the new batter’s success against the pitcher, and against
comparable pitchers, and against pitchers in this kind of
situation. . . .
The leisurely pace of a baseball game not only makes such recitations possible,
it makes them desirable to many fans of the game, an aid to increasing drama
and sustaining interest.
And it’s not only fans who have an interest in statistics. Baseball is both a
vocation for professional athletes and a leisure activity for amateurs. But in
either case, it is a highly competitive and highly measurable activity, and it is
only human nature for those who are involved to want to know exactly how well
they are doing. Baseball statistics fulfill this “yardstick” role for players, of
course, but also for a team’s management (owners, managers, and coaches, for
example). They use statistics in making strategy decisions on the field, in plan-
ning player development programs, and in putting together teams. And on the
business side of the professional game, certainly, baseball statistics provide
ammunition in salary negotiations.
Off the field, gamblers have long been interested in baseball, today making
bets to the tune of $30 million dollars annually (Total Baseball, p. 667).
Analyzing the statistics of the game to gain an edge is a necessity in wagering.
While football overtook baseball in the gambling arena (with three times the
amount wagered on baseball in recent years), baseball has provided a gaming
venue that is totally dependent on statistics—no actual play required! In the
early 1980s, a small group of baseball enthusiasts began to gather annually at a
restaurant in Manhattan (La Rotisserie Française) to draft teams for every new
baseball season. While the names of the players and their statistics were all real,
 I N T RO D U C T I O N xvii

the teams and the league itself were a complete illusion, the dream of fans who
wanted to act out the fantasy of being a major-league general manager. The
basic game was (and is) very simple. Each player drafts a team of baseball play-
ers, taking names from the 30 major-league teams. Throughout the year, the
actual statistics for the players are counted for the fantasy teams that drafted
them. At the end of the season, using a variety of scoring algorithms, the team
with the best stats is declared champion. Rotisserie Baseball (or Fantasy League
Baseball) has so expanded in popularity that next to stock market analysis, it
may be the most widespread application of statistics in the United States. The
concept has expanded to Fantasy League Football, Fantasy League Basketball,
even Fantasy League NASCAR Racing (so we are told). To us, at least, this is a
unique idea: statistics spawning an entertainment industry!
Unlike other major sports, in which interest in statistics is confined almost
exclusively to the season in which the games are being played, baseball discus-
sions appear in the media throughout the year. In a sense, the baseball off-sea-
son, with its own schedule of awards and winter meetings leading up to spring
training, has a life of its own. The merits of various awards (Cy Young, MVP, and
Rookie of the Year) and honors (election to the Hall of Fame) are debated annu-
ally in statistical terms. (Bill James wrote an entire book, The Politics of Glory,
on the subject of Hall of Fame election.) Off-season trades are evaluated with
reference to player statistics. Multiyear, multimilllion-dollar contracts are ana-
lyzed in terms of stats. Clearly, it is statistics that provide the fuel for hot-stove
leagues (which have expanded from the neighborhood tavern to talk radio). In
the dead of winter, it might be said, statistics can keep the game alive.
Given our inundation in baseball statistics, given the year-round attention
thousands devote to the topic, one may wonder what in the world we hope to add
in this publication. To put it simply, we wish to contribute a statistician’s per-
spective to this massive collection of data. This statement may give you pause.
You may ask who is collecting all this data except statisticians, and once the
data have been collected, sorted, and totaled—clearly, something that’s already
been accomplished—isn’t the statistician’s job done? Actually, for a statistician,
once the data have been compiled (whether it’s baseball data, medical data, edu-
cation data, whatever), the job has only started. It is the statistician’s aim to
understand the underlying structure in a data set and to elicit the truths hidden
within it. The inspiration and imagination needed to accomplish this requires a
kind of art from the statistician, a reason why the pro forma production of pie
charts, bar charts, and t-tests is often ineffective in statistics, and indicative of
poor statistical analysis.
xviii I N T RO D U C T I O N

At this point, we have to make a difficult and maybe boastful-sounding dis-

tinction in order to express what we mean when we talk about a statistician’s
perspective. It may seem paradoxical, but most sports statisticians are not stat-
isticians. We know that sounds like most chocolate candy is not candy, but bear
with us. We use the term “sports statisticians” to refer to those people who work
for sports teams, sports leagues, and media covering sporting events and whose
main job is to record data from the sporting event, summarize the data in totals
and averages, monitor records, and identify interesting patterns in the data that
might be used by broadcasters or by teams in bargaining with players. Although
somewhat dated now, in 1978, Arthur Friedman, a sports statistician for many
New York teams including the Mets, Rangers, Knicks, and Jets, documented the
basics of the job in The World of Sports Statistics. We guarantee that you won’t
find any references to linear regression or standard deviation in Friedman’s
description of the world he inhabits. Yet these are among the most basic tools
and terms taught in statistics courses in high school and college, and the on-the-
job tools of the professional statistician.
Sports statisticians do an excellent job of addressing the information needs of
their audience: management, athletes, broadcasters, and fans. However, this
audience is unaware of or indifferent to the fact that statistical analysis can be
performed at a higher level—and one that can be very rewarding because it can
lead to new levels of understanding. We are reminded of a story once told by Bud
Goode, a successful consultant for the NFL and a syndicated columnist on sports
statistics. While he had great success in selling his services to the NFL, Goode
found great resistance in persuading baseball management of the value of his
work. Meeting with the Los Angeles Dodgers, he told Walter Alston, their Hall of
Fame manager, that through his statistical analysis he could gain the Dodgers
half a run per game—a sizable increment. Alston described this wondrous prom-
ised result to one of his coaches, Danny Ozark, who responded, “How do you
score half a run?” Now, Ozark was never known as a deep thinker about num-
bers. “Half this game is 90 percent mental,” is only one of a full page of
Ozarkisms from Baseball’s Greatest Quotations. Still, it does give a picture of the
circumscribed horizon of many people toward more sophisticated uses of statis-
tical techniques. To paraphrase another Ozarkism, too often this audience’s lim-
its are limitless when it comes to statistics.
Because of the limited demands of fans, players, and management, sports
statisticians have not found it necessary to employ or even be trained in stan-
dard statistical applications or theories. As Goode discovered, being too sophisti-
cated about the subject can actually be a deterrent. Nonetheless, innovative sta-
 I N T RO D U C T I O N xix

tistical research has been and continues to be done with baseball data. At first,
professional statisticians, interested in sports statistics but left unsatisfied by
the analyses in the national media, began exploring baseball data on their own.
Then, in the 1950s, out of their love for baseball and statistics and for the sheer
fun of it, professionals began to apply their skills to baseball data. Soon their
results were published in conference journals and in professional journals.
Only rarely have these works caught the attention of the media and thereby
the public. In the past, the majority of professional statistics colleagues looked
somewhat askance at these efforts, not unlike parents who chastised their chil-
dren for ignoring their studies to play baseball (in past generations, of course,
before ballplayers were multimillionaires). Recently, however, this attitude has
changed. Along with other scientific pursuits, the statistics profession has found
itself somewhat isolated from the public, to whom its methods appear arcane
and its goals at best a mystery. What better way to reconnect to the public (and
especially the nation’s youth) than through the application of statistics to
sports? In the 1990s, the American Statistical Association created a section on
Statistics in Sports, and the International Statistical Institute (ISI) created a
Sports Statistics Committee.
As described in Jay Bennett’s snapshot review of baseball statistical research
in Statistics in Sport, advanced use of statistics has not been applied exclusively
by professionals. Members of SABR, the Society of American Baseball Research
(the root of the term “sabermetrics”), also recognized deficiencies in the presen-
tation of baseball statistics. By means of its Baseball Research Journal and By
the Numbers newsletter, a dedicated coterie of members have made intriguing
analyses of baseball data. Several of these sabermetricians (Bill James, Pete
Palmer, and Craig Wright, among others) have gone on to build careers out of the
analysis of baseball statistics. The rigor and understanding of statistical theory
displayed by sabermetricians (professional or non-professional) in their publica-
tions can vary wildly, from the level of a talk-radio telephone caller to that of a
professional statistician. (Indeed, many professional statisticians, ourselves
included, are members of SABR.) But the impulse to bring more sophistication
to analysis of the data has certainly done a lot to broaden the appeal of statistics.
What differentiates the work of professional statisticians (and many saber-
metricians) from that of sports statisticians? In short, sports statisticians do not
apply statistical models to data. Their analysis generally consists of summing
numbers, finding averages, making comparisons of these computed numbers,
and perhaps inventing a new formula based on the raw data (Slugging
Percentage being an early example). At the highest level, the work of the sports
xx I N T RO D U C T I O N

statistician would be described by a professional statistician as exploratory data

analysis, looking for patterns in baseball statistics. For professionals, statistical
models are the key. They provide the means of getting to the truth behind the
data. By applying statistical models, professional statisticians can perform con-
firmatory data analysis, calculating the degree of confidence to which a pattern
or statement can be said to be true.
The primary goal of this book is to provide insights that can be gleaned when
statistical models are applied to Major League Baseball data. In our own
research and in the work of others, we have found that this type of investigation
sheds new light on the game, and increases our admiration for those who par-
ticipate in it, and especially those who excel. Our research has also given us an
increased appreciation for the power of advanced statistical techniques, and
thus the secondary objective of the book: to convey this appreciation for statis-
tics to the reader. The book does not just recite numbers, provide lists of players,
and recount a litany of astounding results; it also describes the logic that leads
us to conclusions that have a statistical basis. In this way, we hope that the
reader will gain a better understanding of statistics in general.
Many of you are probably more familiar with statistical models than you real-
ize. One of the more common examples is a simulation model. Tabletop baseball
board games use simple statistical models as their foundations. So, it is only fit-
ting Chapter 1 is in large part a discussion of these games, which have been
familiar to many of us since childhood. Chapter 2 moves on to a brief overview of
some common baseball statistics, but presented from a new perspective. The
chapter will introduce a number of data analysis concepts that will prove to be
useful in the remainder of the book.
In the next set of chapters, we make the crucial distinction between ability
and performance. Chapter 3 introduces the distinctions between these concepts
with respect to getting on base. These basic concepts are then extended to exam-
ine two issues much discussed among baseball fans. Chapter 4 looks at the sig-
nificance of breakdown statistics for different batting situations (e.g., facing a
righty pitcher vs. a lefty, hitting at home vs. away). These numerical darlings of
broadcasters are the bread-and-butter statistics of pre-game and post-game
shows. However, the restricted nature of the categories often leads to small sam-
ple sizes, leading us to ask whether the observed differences are truly significant
or just the product of chance. Another favorite of broadcasters is the batting
streak, which we focus on in the next chapter. Statistics are used to identify who
is hot and who is not in a given game (or week or month or season), and some
players are identified as being generally streaky hitters. They do not hit equally
 I N T RO D U C T I O N xxi

well over a season, instead tending toward hot spells and cold spells. Chapter 5
examines how we might determine whether a player is a streaky hitter, or
whether these streaks are random occurrences.
In the middle chapters, we shift gears a bit. The basic subject remains bat-
ting, but where earlier chapters stuck to traditional measures of hitting like
Batting Average, we now examine some of the alternatives that have been sug-
gested by researchers in recent years. Chapter 6 presents a thorough description
of how we can compare these measures and provides a test for the significance
of their differences. Most of these alternatives were developed from an intuitive
understanding of run production, in which the researcher starts with a “common
sense” explanation for how teams get runs. In Chapter 7, we look at some mod-
els that use the data from baseball history to develop measures of batting per-
formance. Chapter 8 starts with yet another approach, presenting a model based
not on intuition or data, but on a logical construction of the probabilities of scor-
ing runs. This “simulation model” can be used to provide support for two simpler
models, which are then compared in their capacity to measure the batting per-
formance of individual players.
As we move into the late chapters, we start to consider those elements of the
game that contribute to victory. In Chapter 9, we investigate the wisdom of some
of the time-honored strategies—the steal, the sacrifice bunt, and the intentional
walk. In Chapter 10, we look at the concept of clutch hitting—that is, getting a
hit at a critical moment, when the stakes for winning or losing a game are at
their highest. While the existence of the ability to hit in the clutch has been
much debated, a fan knows a clutch hit when he or she sees one. The question is,
can the value of a clutch hit be quantified not just with respect to run produc-
tion, but also as to how it actually contributes to winning the game?
Most of the chapters up to this point address different ways to evaluate what
players or teams have done in the past, and how this past performance relates
to ability. In Chapter 11, we examine how models can be used to make predic-
tions on the seasonal performances of players and teams, as well the future
career achievements of players. Chapter 12 makes a final statement about the
influence of chance on the ultimate goal of every team, winning a World
Championship. We always think of the World Series victor as the best team in
baseball, but you may have a new sense of the role of chance by the end of this
chapter.
It has been said that the primary difference between a successful minor-
league hitter and a successful major-league hitter is the ability to hit the curve
ball. All professional hitters (major or minor league) can hit a fastball when they
xxii I N T RO D U C T I O N

are prepared for it. But in order to advance to the top level, the player must mas-
ter the skill of hitting the curve. The same can be said of baseball statistics. The
average fan gets a great deal of information on statistics from newspapers, mag-
azines, television, radio, and web sites. But to see the truth behind the numbers,
the fan’s ability to analyze data must be raised to a higher level. He or she must
master not just the records and averages printed on the sports page, but some of
the models we describe in Curve Ball, and above all else, as we reiterate in
Chapter 13, the role of chance in the game.
 SIMPLE MODELS from Tabletop Baseball Games

Two boys stared out the window at the rain-swept streets. It looked like a long
afternoon with nothing to do. If this were today, the boys would have hurried to
the nearest available TV or computer to play the latest electronic game, but this
was the 1950s, when Nintendo could only have been another monster intent on
devouring Tokyo. Baseball was still the dominant sport in America, and if you
couldn’t play baseball outdoors, the next best thing was baseball indoors.

All-Star Baseball (ASB)

The closest equivalent to High Heat Baseball back then was the Cadaco board
game All-Star Baseball (ASB). The boys opened the box and started dividing up
the players into the American League and National League teams. The instantly
recognizable players were placed in the starting lineups. Mickey Mantle, Willie
Mays, Duke Snider, and Hank Aaron, all current stars, were snapped up imme-
diately. Then there were the great old-time players their fathers had eulogized—
legends like Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. These guys had to be included as well.
The lineups shaped up beautifully at first, but then choices started to become
difficult. Other old-time players were not so well known. And many of the cur-
rent players were familiar from baseball cards, but they were not titans, not
obvious choices like Willie, Mickey, Hank, and the Duke. The game did not come
with ready-made lineups or even tables of batting averages as current electronic
games do. How were the boys to choose the remaining players?

1
2 CHAPTER 1

Although they weren’t conscious of it, what they did next was an intuitive
form of data analysis. At the heart of All-Star Baseball were the disks repre-
senting the batting abilities of individual players. A rough replica of an ASB
disk, in this case for the incomparable Babe Ruth, is shown in Figure 1-1. When
the ASB version of the Babe came to bat, his disk was placed under a spinner.
With a flick of the finger, the mighty batter swung, with the result determined
by where the pointer came to rest (after reference to a chart on the giant score-
board dominating the field). Most results are clearly understood from the legend
in Figure 1-1; note, however, that GB and FB are ground-ball and fly-ball outs,
respectively.
The pie slices on the disk were in effect a visual representation of Ruth’s abil-
ity. Because they were experienced ASB players, the boys could quickly see why
the Babe was everything their fathers had claimed. The slice labeled 1 may not
look large, but compared to any other player’s 1 slice, it was enormous. Are
triples (slice 5) really that rare, or was Ruth just slow? (Of course they are rare.)
And look at those two expansive 9 slices for walks. Pitchers were fearful of
Ruth . . . with good cause.
Ruth was a player apart from all the others, and a natural choice for the
starting lineup. Choosing other players was not so easy. What about a starting
first baseman for the National League? Two candidates, Gil Hodges and Bill
Terry, looked promising. Hodges was well known to the boys, an All-Star for the

BABE RUT H

3 1
10
9

2 1 HR 8 FB
5
10 2 GB 9 BB

8 3 FB 10 K

4 FB 11 2B
4
5 3B 12 GB
13
6 GB 13 1B
7
7 1B 14 FB
12
6
11 9
14

FIGURE 1-1 Replica ASB disk for Babe Ruth.

 S I M P L E M O D E L S F RO M TA B L E T O P B A S E B A L L GA M E S 3

powerful Brooklyn Dodgers. Terry was not familiar, having retired at the con-
clusion of the 1936 season, after 14 years with the New York Giants. To settle the
question, the boys instinctively made a direct visual comparison of pie slices. Of
course the first comparison was for the slice numbered 1, the one and only slice
for home runs. Figure 1-2 presents a doughnut plot of the Hodges and Terry
disks aligned for this comparison. (A doughnut plot places one pie chart inside
another for ease of comparison.) Hodges has the definite HR edge (slice 1), but a
closer look shows that, apart from power, Terry does have some real strengths.
His slices for singles, doubles, and triples clearly dominate those of Hodges.
Terry’s walk slices are not as large as those of Hodges, but his strikeout areas
are very small. (He averaged only about 30 strikeouts per season.) More or less
intuitively, the boys saw that their choice came down to whether they needed a
batter to get on base (Terry) or one to drive in runs (Hodges).
In this brief description of All-Star Baseball, we encountered two basic sta-
tistical concepts:
• Visual presentation is a powerful tool for identifying patterns and
making hypotheses. To the boys, the ASB disks were extremely
useful visual presentations, ideal for quickly assessing players
and making lineup choices. In particular, ASB disks introduced
the boys to pie charts, a graphic representation commonly used in
statistics.

inner GI L HODGE S
outer BI L L T E RRY

3 1 10

9 2 5

10 3 1
10 1 HR 8 FB
9
2 8 2 GB 9 BB
4 10
3 FB 10 K
5
8 4 FB 11 2B
4
5 3B 12 GB
13 13
7 6 GB 13 1B
7
7 1B 14 FB
6 12
11 9
6 14 12

11 9
14

FIGURE 1-2 Comparison of replica ASB disks for Gil Hodges and Bill Terry.
4 CHAPTER 1

• Data often must be converted into a more useful form before

meaningful conclusions can be derived from it. Apart from batting
averages, baseball cards of the 1950s presented only event totals
(for example, the number of home runs in a season or a career).
Total numbers of home runs are important, but how many
opportunities (plate appearances) were necessary to achieve those
totals? For the purposes of the game, this baseball card data had
been converted into a form more useful for modeling what
actually happened on the field. The use of ASB disks (in the form
of pie charts) emphasized the importance of examining player
performance in terms of proportions of opportunity rather than
mere count totals.1
Perhaps the most powerful concept presented by All-Star Baseball was its
presentation of a relatively simple but effective statistical model of outcomes.
Again, many of the aspects of this model were picked up by the boys intuitively.
They understood that the spinner was a randomizing device. The outcome of a
plate appearance was a random event affected only by the proportion of disk
space occupied by each possible result. And this was the rationale for their com-
parison of slices on the disks: the larger the slice, the greater the chance of
obtaining that result. (Of course, this did not stop the boys from doing all they
could to consciously influence the outcome: incomplete spins and soft flicks from
carefully chosen starting places prompted numerous protests and calls for “offi-
cial” rulings.)
The disks presented in Figure 1-2 were created from the career statistics for
Terry and Hodges as shown in Table 1-1. The first column for each player indi-
cates the number of at-bats (AB), hits (H), doubles (2B), triples (3B), home runs
(HR), walks (BB), and strikeouts (K) given for each player in the book Total
Baseball. The number of singles (1B) can be determined by subtracting the num-
bers of doubles, triples, and home runs from the number of hits. The sum of at-
bats and walks is used as the number of plate appearances (PA), ignoring rela-
tively rare events such as sacrifice flies. The second column for each player
presents the percentage of plate appearances in which the event occurs. The
third column for each player translates each percentage into degrees of arc. The
entire disk has 360 degrees. Thus, the arc spanned by each type of play is 360

1 ASB disks were also more complete in their information. Walks were often not presented at all
in baseball cards in the 1950s, while ASB disks provided a graphical representation of the
ability to obtain walks (and thereby a more complete picture of the ability to get on base).
 S I M P L E M O D E L S F RO M TA B L E T O P B A S E B A L L GA M E S 5

times the appropriate percentage. For example, a player who obtained 25 home
runs in 500 plate appearances was able to hit a home run in 25/500 or 5 percent
of his plate appearances. To represent this performance on an ASB disk, the HR
slice (slice 1) would span 5 percent of 360 degrees, or 18 degrees.
The only characteristic of the disks which is not determined is the split of
outs. Strikeouts are determined directly from the data as shown in Table 1-1, but
there are no data on ground-ball and fly-ball outs. Past disks appear to assume
that 60 percent of outs from batted balls are fly-ball outs (FB) while the remain-
ing 40 percent are ground-ball outs (GB). This assumption was used in the con-
struction of the replica disks in Figure 1-2 and could be used for any player from
data in a standard baseball encyclopedia or on the reverse of a baseball card.
To use a technical statistical term, All-Star Baseball models the result of each
plate appearance as an outcome from a multinomial distribution. A multinomial
distribution has a finite set of possible outcomes, each with a fixed probability of
occurrence. Each occurrence is a random result from this set, dependent only on
the probabilities. In ASB, the set of all possible occurrences are enumerated on
the playing field. Based on the individual disks, each batter has his own multi-
nomial distribution defined by his unique set of probabilities. Table 1-2 presents
the multinomial distribution represented by Bill Terry’s disk. For each outcome,

B I L L T E R RY GIL HODGES

Play Number Percent Degrees Number Percent Degrees

AB 6428 • • 7030 • •

H 2193 • • 1921 • •

1B 1554 22.3% 80 1208 15.2% 55

2B 373 5.4% 19 295 3.7% 13

3B 112 1.6% 6 48 0.6% 2

HR 154 2.2% 8 370 4.6% 17

BB 537 7.7% 28 943 11.8% 43

K 449 6.4% 23 1137 14.3% 51

FB 2272 32.6% 117 2383 29.9% 108

GB 1514 21.7% 78 1589 19.9% 72

PA 6965 100.0% 360 7973 100.0% 360

TABLE 1-1 Converting Baseball Data into All-Star Baseball Disks

6 CHAPTER 1

DISK M U LT I N O M I A L BINOMIAL

Result Number Degrees Individual Total Probability Result

1B 7 40.2 .1116

1B 13 40.2 .1116 .223

2B 11 19.3 .0536 .054

3B 5 5.8 .0161 .016

HR 1 8.0 .0221 .022

BB 9 13.9 .0385

BB 9 13.9 .0385 .077 .392 On-Base

K 10 11.6 .0322

K 10 11.6 .0322 .064

GB 2 26.1 .0725

GB 6 26.1 .0725

GB 12 26.1 .0725 .217

FB 3 29.4 .0815

FB 4 29.4 .0815

FB 8 29.4 .0815

FB 14 29.4 .0815 .326 .608 Out

360 1 1 1 PA

TABLE 1-2 Conversion of Bill Terry’s Replica ASB Disk into Multinomial and Binomial
Probabilities

the table presents the arc (in degrees) spanned by the outcome on the disk. Some
occurrences have more than one slice on the disk (undoubtedly to discourage
creative spinning), so the probability is the sum of the arcs for each slice. The
arcs are then converted to probabilities by dividing the arc degree values by 360
(the number of degrees in a full circle). The basis for this conversion is that when
the spinner is struck, every direction or point on the disk’s circumference has an
equal chance of being the result—the point at which the spinner comes to rest.
We can collapse the list of ASB results in Table 1-2 into two important cate-
gories, each consisting of several play results:
1. On-Base: the single, double, triple, home-run, and base-on-balls
results.
2. Out: the fly-out, ground-out, and strikeout results.
 S I M P L E M O D E L S F RO M TA B L E T O P B A S E B A L L GA M E S 7

BI L L T E RRY

14 7

8
1 HR 8 FB
13
2 GB 9 BB
4
3 FB 10 K
11 4 FB 11 2B

3 5 3B 12 GB
5
1 6 GB 13 1B
9
7 1B 14 FB
12
9
10
6 10
2

FIGURE 1-3 Realignment of Bill Terry replica ASB disk into On-Base (light) and Out
(heavy) mega-slices.

If we just consider all of the results split between just these two categories, we
have reduced our multinomial distribution (a distribution over many categories)
into a binomial distribution (a distribution over exactly two categories). The
probability of occurrence for each of these two events is just the sum of the prob-
abilities for each of the results contained within the individual event categories.
For example, the probability of getting on base in a plate appearance is simply
the sum of the individual probabilities for the single, double, triple, home-run,
and base-on-balls results. Table 1-2 presents the final numerical results of this
categorical distillation for Bill Terry in ASB.
We can see this intuitively by examining a player disk. In ASB, the batter gets
on base whenever the spinner stops in a single, double, triple, home-run, or base-
on-balls slice. We could reposition all of these slices so that they are next to each
other. We would then have one segment of the disk with On-Base results and one
with Out results. The block of On-Base slices contains an arc that is the sum of
the arcs for each of the single, double, triple, home-run, or base-on-balls slices.
Thus, on any single spin, the probability of obtaining an On-Base result is the
sum of the probabilities of the individual results which compose the block.
Figure 1-3 demonstrates how Bill Terry’s disk in Figure 1-2 can be re-arranged
to create the On-Base and Out mega-slices.
8 CHAPTER 1

Model Assumptions of All-Star Baseball

ASB is a very simple model of baseball. It is accessible as a game for children of
elementary school age because it simulates only the hitting ability of different
players. Let us list some of the assumptions made by the model:
• Defensive fielding ability has no effect on the outcome of a plate
appearance.
• A hitter’s ability never changes.

• The ball park has no effect on the game.

• Weather conditions have no effect on the game.

• All players have the same ability to steal and run the bases.

• All hitters have the same ability to bunt and execute the hit and run.

• The pitcher has no effect on the outcome of a plate appearance.

This last assumption had a very curious effect on managerial strategy in the
game. Versions of ASB in the 1950s included batting disks for pitchers. Because
the ability of the pitcher to get batters out was not modeled in the game, man-
agers chose pitchers purely on their ability to hit. (Don Newcombe of the
Brooklyn Dodgers, a lifetime .271 hitter, was a particular favorite of ours. If Babe
Ruth had been listed as a pitcher as well as an outfielder, there would be no
question who would pitch the entire game without relief.) Of course, since the
game came only with the best players from the past and present (1950s present,
that is), the manager could also opt for the strategy of replacing the pitcher in
every plate appearance. Why let the pitcher bat when you had second-tier stars
like Jackie Jensen or Minnie Minoso just sitting on the bench? Actually, if one
thought of the board game as an actual All-Star Game, this last strategy was the
ultimate in realism.
The inclusion of pitchers in All-Star Baseball took a bizarre turn with the
coming of the designated hitter rule. Pitcher disks were still part of the package,
but were blank except for a photograph. As a critic of the DH rule and its elimi-
nation of that wonderful rarity, a clutch hit by the pitcher, at least one of us felt
cheated by this turn of events in ASB. The pitcher’s spot was always taken by a
DH. Replacing information (the pitcher’s hitting ability) with a colorful graphic
photograph was an unfortunate sign of the times, foreshadowing the arrival of
computer sports games, which hide their models behind eye-catching graphics.
All-Star Baseball was developed in 1941 by Ethan Allen, a former player. It
lasted for decades, but now is out of print, having finally succumbed to the prob-
 S I M P L E M O D E L S F RO M TA B L E T O P B A S E B A L L GA M E S 9

lem of not being realistic enough for adults and not exciting enough for today’s
generation of children.

The APBA Model: Introducing the Pitcher

The most obvious deficiency of All-Star Baseball as a model was the absence of
any effect from pitching on outcomes at the plate. Successors to ASB provided a
wide variety of innovations to baseball simulation, but generally they can be dis-
tinguished by the various ways in which they integrated pitching into their mod-
els. In looking at some of these other games, we will focus on this aspect of their
models.
APBA Baseball, released in 1951 and still going strong, was the first tabletop
game to take the effect of pitching into account. Each player (including pitchers)
has a card simulating his batting record. Results are generated by tossing two
six-sided dice. Each card has 36 equally probable results as determined by the
toss of the dice. Basically, the system is the same as ASB, but with ASB disks
replaced by cards and the spinner replaced by two dice.2
However, APBA Baseball introduced a level of complexity not found in ASB.
Where ASB had a single table of reference to determine the play outcome, APBA
Baseball has eight charts, one for each of the eight possible on-base situations:
• Nobody on.

• Man on first.

• Men on first and second.

• Men on first and third.

• Man on second.

• Men on second and third.

• Man on third.

• Bases loaded.

Within each chart, the outcome could be altered depending on the defensive
ability of the team in the field and the ability of the pitcher. The abilities of
pitchers are represented by different grades: A&B (best), A&C, A, B, C, or D.
(APBA later upgraded its system in a “Master Game” version; it follows a simi-
lar scheme, but with expanded pitcher grades. The analysis described here

2 More information on APBA Baseball, and on the other tabletop baseball games discussed in
this chapter, can be found in the Appendix to this book.
10 CHAPTER 1

refers to the earlier version of the game.) Depending on the base situation, the
pitcher grade can change certain outcomes of a single into an out. Additional rat-
ings were given to pitchers for their propensity to strike out or walk batters. The
W (walk) rating could be particularly devastating; with runners on first and sec-
ond, it changed a double play into a base-on-balls. We will focus only on the
pitcher grades here.
Table 1-3 provides examples of pitchers with their APBA grades and key sta-
tistics for the season rated. At the top of the list is Joe Wood, who in 1912 had one
of the greatest pitching seasons in baseball history. In recognition of this, APBA
awarded him A&B—its highest possible pitcher rating. That year, Wood led his
Boston Red Sox to a dramatic eight-game World Series victory, with one game
ending in a tie when it was called because of darkness after 11 innings, and a
Boston victory in the final game in extra innings with Wood appearing in relief !
(Wood deserves more attention than he gets these days: after a brief but spec-
tacular pitching career, his smoking fastball deserted him, and in 1915 he con-
verted to an outfielder. He had always been a good-hitting pitcher; he had a .290
batting average to supplement his pitching in the golden year of 1912. He was
an outfielder for the 1920 World Champion Cleveland Indians, and at the end of
his career, from 1932 to 1942, was a baseball coach at Yale University.)
Jay Hannah “Dizzy” Dean’s 1934 season was almost a match for Wood’s amaz-
ing 1912, so APBA gave Dean its second highest grade. Like Wood, he also led his
team, the St. Louis Cardinals, to a world championship, winning the final (sev-
enth) game—an 11–0 shutout of the Detroit Tigers. In a continuing parallel,
Dean also had a career of comet-like brilliance and brevity. Unfortunately, he did
not have Wood’s hitting ability as a fallback, but he did have a down-home folksy
way of expressing himself that led to a long career as a broadcaster. “I never keep
a scorecard or the batting averages. I hate statics. What I got to know I keep in
my haid.” (Voices of Baseball, p. 182).
Jim Palmer, like Dean, has continued his association with baseball through
broadcasting. His Cy Young season for the Baltimore Orioles, in 1973, brought
him an A grade from APBA. The season was so outstanding for Palmer that he
also placed second (to Reggie Jackson) in the balloting for Most Valuable Player
in the American League.
We couldn’t write a book about baseball without including one of our boyhood
heroes, Robin Roberts. In 1950, Roberts had his first of six consecutive 20-win
seasons. He pitched (and won) a complete game in extra innings against the
Brooklyn Dodgers to capture the pennant for the Phillies that year. He started
 S I M P L E M O D E L S F RO M TA B L E T O P B A S E B A L L GA M E S 11

Grade Pitcher Season ERA Wins Losses

A&B Joe Wood 1912 1.91 34 5

A&C Dizzy Dean 1934 2.65 30 7

A Jim Palmer 1973 2.40 22 9

B Robin Roberts 1950 3.02 20 11

C Allie Reynolds 1950 3.73 16 12

D John Odom 1973 4.50 5 12

TABLE 1-3 Examples of Pitcher Grades in APBA Baseball

only one game in the World Series, losing 2–1 in extra innings when he gave up
a home run to Joe DiMaggio. Roberts’s season was awarded a B grade by APBA.
The pitcher who bested Roberts in that 2–1 World Series game was Allie
Reynolds, who never had a losing record from 1947 through 1954 with the New
York Yankees. However, because he was closer to an average pitcher in 1950
than in other years, APBA rated him a Grade C pitcher.
Finally, John “Blue Moon” Odom was the weakest starting pitcher on a great
pitching staff for the 1973 World Champion Oakland A’s. Odom had several fine
seasons, but 1973 signaled the end of his career. Odom was given a D rating for
his pitching performance that year.
Table 1-3 and these brief vignettes give some feel for the pitching grades in
APBA Baseball. A&B and A&C are the highest grades, reserved only for the
greatest seasonal pitching performances in baseball history. Grade A pitchers
are definite Cy Young Award candidates and often winners. Grade B pitchers
had very good seasons, perhaps the number-2 pitcher on a very good staff or the
ace on a weaker staff. Grade C pitchers are competent average starters. Grade D
pitchers are the weakest performers.
Table 1-4 summarizes the conversion of results from the pitcher grades. The
only numbers affected by the pitcher’s grade on play charts in APBA Baseball
are results #7, #8, #9, and #10. Each cell of Table 1-4 presents the conversion of
these four results in sequence (#7, #8, #9, #10) for each pitcher grade in each
base situation. S represents a single while O represents an out. For example, for
a Grade B pitcher with a runner on second base, #7 and #9 result in a single
while #8 and #10 result in an out. This table is somewhat of a simplification; the
out results with runners on third base often result in sacrifice flies, for example.
The overall effect on batting is not easy to estimate because it changes for dif-
ferent base situations.
12 CHAPTER 1

Pitcher First & First & Second &

Grade Empty First Second Third Second Third Third Full

A&B SOOS OOSS SOOO OOOS SOOO OOOO OOOO SOOS

A&C SOOS OOOS SOOO OSOS SOOO SOOO OSOO SOOS

A SOOS OOSS SOOO OSOS SOOO SOOO OSOO SOOS

B SOSS SOSS SOSO SOSS SOSO OSSS SOOS SOSS

C SSOS SSOS SSOS SSOS SSOS SOSS SSOO SSOS

D SSSS SSSS SSSS SSSS SSSS SSSS SSSS SSSS

TABLE 1-4 Effects of Pitcher Grade on Play Results in APBA Baseball

We expect that pitchers with better ratings would produce more outs than
those with lower ratings. Referring again to Table 1-4, a quick sum of Os across
the rows produces 23 for A&B, 21 for A&C, 20 for A, 11 for B, 9 for C, and 0 for D.
This provides some support for the ordering of pitcher abilities found in the
table. Another test is for internal consistency within each column. An examina-
tion of the columns of the table indicates that generally they are consistent:
given any cell, the number of out results is equal to or greater than the number
of out results in the cell below it. The one exception is noted by the two cells in
boldface. With a runner on first base, an A&C pitcher is better than an A&B
pitcher. Since we expect a better pitcher to produce better results in every base
situation, this is a troubling inconsistency (corrected later in the “Master Game”
version).
To get a better feel for the effects of pitcher grades, we have to consider the
frequency of results #7 through #10 on player cards. APBA Baseball was intro-
duced with cards replicating the 1950 season, the year of the first Philadelphia
Phillies pennant in 35 years. In honor of this affectionately remembered team,
we have chosen three of these Whiz Kids to examine the pitcher effects. Table
1-5 shows the frequency of these results for Del Ennis (a slugging left fielder not
so different from Greg Luzinski), Andy Seminick (a tough catcher, a 1950s ver-
sion of Darren Daulton), and Willie Jones (predecessor to Dick Allen, Mike
Schmidt, Scott Rolen, and David Bell at third base). We have included their nick-
names from their APBA cards, a charming feature not found in other games.
For each player, we can calculate the effect of pitching grades within each
base situation. We will use pitching grade D as our standard and calculate the
amount subtracted from each player’s Pr(On Base).3 Here are two examples of
this calculation for Del Ennis:
 S I M P L E M O D E L S F RO M TA B L E T O P B A S E B A L L GA M E S 13

Player #7 #8 #9 #10

Del “Skinny” Ennis 2 4 2 0

Willie “Puddin’ Head” Jones 2 2 2 1

Andy Seminick 2 3 2 0

TABLE 1-5 Frequency of Play Results Affected by Pitcher Grade in APBA Baseball for
Three Members of the 1950 Phillies (the Whiz Kids)

• Del Ennis is batting against an A&B pitcher with runners on first

and third bases. According to Table 1-4, results #7 through #10 all
produce outs. Of the 36 results on Ennis’s card, 8 produce results
#7 through #10 (see Table 1-5 above). So, Ennis has 8/36 = .222
less chance of getting on base against an A&B pitcher than he
does against a D pitcher. That is,
Pr(On Base vs. A&B) = Pr(On Base vs. D) – .222
when runners are on first and third. Note that this is the
maximum possible effect, since the A&B pitcher has changed
every single that could possibly be affected into an out.
• Del Ennis is batting against a B pitcher with runners on second
and third bases. According to Table 1-4, results #8 and #9 produce
outs. Of the 36 results on Ennis’s card, 6 produce results #8 and
#9 (see Table 1-5 above). So, Ennis has 6/36 = .167 less chance of
getting on base versus a B pitcher as compared to a D pitcher.
That is,
Pr(On Base vs. B) = Pr(On Base vs. D) – .167
when runners are on second and third.
Table 1-6 shows the effect of each pitcher grade on Skinny’s Pr(On Base) in
each base situation. Each cell shows the result of a calculation like the ones just
described. That is, the value in each cell is the difference in Pr(On Base) between
the relevant pitching grade and a Grade D pitcher. In general, we see that a
Grade C pitcher reduces Pr(On Base) about .06, a Grade B pitcher reduces the

3 This notation will be used throughout the book. Pr(Event) is the probability that Event takes
place. For example, here it refers to the probability of getting on base.
14 CHAPTER 1

Pitcher First and First and Second and

Grade Empty First Second Third Second Third Third Full

A&B .167 .167 .167 .222 .167 .222 .222 .167

A&C .167 .222 .167 .111 .167 .167 .111 .167

A .167 .167 .167 .111 .167 .167 .111 .167

B .111 .111 .111 .111 .111 .056 .167 .111

C .056 .056 .056 .056 .056 .111 .056 .056

D .000 .000 .000 .000 .000 .000 .000 .000

TABLE 1-6 Reduction in Del Ennis’s Pr(On Base) in Different Base Situations When
Opposed by a Pitcher with Grade D or Better

probability about .11, and a Grade A pitcher reduces it about .16. A Grade A&C
pitcher shows very little improvement over an A pitcher, but a Grade A&B
pitcher demonstrates a great improvement in most base situations with a run-
ner on third base.
The boldface entries in the runner-on-first (“First”) column provides a numer-
ical value for the inconsistency described earlier and highlighted in the shaded
cells in Table 1-4. However, the use of actual values for the frequencies of the #7
through #10 results has unearthed several other inconsistencies, also identified
by boldface entries in Table 1-6. With runners on first and third, Ennis has a bet-
ter chance of getting on base versus a Grade B pitcher than against a Grade C
pitcher. However, if we move that runner on first to second base, the ability of the
Grade B pitcher improves enormously, to such a degree that he is a greater
adversary than a Grade A pitcher or even a Grade A&C pitcher.
Unlike the “Runner on First” inconsistency, which holds for all batters with a
#9 result, the last two inconsistencies are dependent on the distribution of fre-
quencies of results #7 through #10. If we use the distribution for Willie Jones,
these last two inconsistencies disappear. And then it reappears with Andy
Seminick. However, for both of these players, the maximum effect is reduced
from .22 to .19 = 7/36.
In many ways, this model is very similar to ASB’s, in that it is only hitting
that is modeled in great detail. Pitching (and through a similar mechanism,
fielding) influences only selected results. The frequency of extra-base hits was
not affected by pitcher grades. Pitchers were given a separate indicator if they
gave up more walks than average; this rating turned certain out results into
walks.
 S I M P L E M O D E L S F RO M TA B L E T O P B A S E B A L L GA M E S 15

It should be noted that while the implementation of a pitcher effect was a

major development in APBA Baseball, the use of two dice in place of a spinner
was not necessarily an improvement. Dice and a spinner are equivalent ran-
domizing devices from a theoretical viewpoint (that is, apart from trying to influ-
ence the spin or using loaded dice). But they are very different in at least one
important respect. The spinner is an analog randomizing device which can
assume any value (direction) on a continuum between 0 and 360 degrees. Dice
restrict randomization to a finite set of results with a minimum probability that
can be represented. This presents certain problems.
Consider a batter with 7 triples in 500 plate appearances. The proportion of
triples is 7/500 or .014. In ASB, we can easily replicate this performance on the
disk by assigning a pie slice with an arc of 5 degrees (1.4 percent of 360 degrees).
In APBA Baseball, on the other hand, the minimum we could assign to a triple
would be one of the 36 paired results on a batting card, or 1/36 = .028. This is
almost twice the probability we wish to be represented! Since the minimum
assignment we can make is 1 of the 36 results, we are stuck with an imprecise
simulation of the batter’s ability.
This shortcoming in the APBA model may not seem terribly important until
one realizes that the probability of any event in any situation is restricted to
multiples of this minimum amount, or quantum, of 0.28. That is, in any situation
for any batter an event’s probability can only be one of the following values: .028
(1 out of 36 results), .056 (2 out of 36 results), .084 (3 out of 36 results), and so
forth. It is true that on many APBA cards certain dice rolls produce a #0 result,
which requires a second roll of the dice with the results taken from a second col-
umn on the card. While we don’t get into analyzing these cards in this book, we
do admit that they allow for a finer gradation of probabilities, especially for rel-
atively rare events. And we do acknowledge that APBA’s use of dice rather than
a spinner does avoid certain problems—like spins that end up on the line
between slices. Nonetheless, the point here is that though they may have certain
advantages over a spinner, dice are inherently less precise in representing per-
formance.

Strat-O-Matic Baseball: The Independent Model

The development of Strat-O-Matic (SOM) Baseball in 1962 provided a new vari-
ation on the pitcher’s effect. Like APBA Baseball, this game uses dice as a ran-
domizing device, and each everyday player has a separate card that simulates
his hitting ability. In an inversion of APBA Baseball, however, each pitcher has
16 CHAPTER 1

a card which simulates pitching ability. (A separate numerical rating is given for
each pitcher’s hitting ability.) SOM Baseball was the first game to give pitching
this level of modeling detail.
The mechanism for the game is simple. To initiate a play, three six-sided dice
(one white and two red) are rolled. The white die is used to determine the card
column for the result. Batters’ cards have columns numbered 1, 2, and 3, while
pitchers’ cards have columns 4, 5, and 6. The two red dice are summed, and the
value is used to find the resulting play within the relevant column. On occasion,
an extra randomizing device, a so-called “split deck” of cards numbered 1
through 20, is needed when multiple play results are listed for a dice roll. This is
similar to the extra column on APBA cards. (Apparently it is used to increase the
precision of the simulation.)
The important element on which to focus is the even split of results between
the batter and the pitcher. Upon closer inspection of pitcher cards, one finds that
the split is actually 50–50 between the batter and the defense (pitching and
fielding). On each pitcher’s card, 28 percent of the resulting plays require an
extra randomization (using the ever-present split deck), which references the
ability of a specified fielder to make a great play or avoid making an error.
We can summarize the ability of a batter versus a pitcher on the defensive
team as follows:
50% Batter Ability + 50% Team Defensive Ability
In the SOM model, Team Defensive Ability is 28 percent fielding and 72 percent
pitching. So the ability of a batter versus a pitcher on the defensive team is actu-
ally:
50% Batter Ability + 50% × (72% Pitcher Ability + 28% Team Fielding Ability)
or
50% Batter Ability + 36% Pitcher Ability + 14% Team Fielding Ability.
An old saying goes that pitching is 75 percent of winning in Major League
Baseball, but it’s less than half that in Strat-O-Matic Baseball.
Let’s examine some of the players we investigated in APBA Baseball.
Checking out a Del Ennis card for the 1950 season we find that 41.7 percent of
the results put Del on base. Allie Reynolds, a Grade C pitcher in APBA Baseball,
faced Ennis in the 1950 World Series. In Strat-O-Matic Baseball, Reynolds
would put a batter on base in 40.1 percent of the results he controls. Apart from
the Fielding Ability of the 1950 Yankees, Ennis has about as much chance of get-
ting on base from his own batting ability as from Reynolds’s pitching ability. On
 S I M P L E M O D E L S F RO M TA B L E T O P B A S E B A L L GA M E S 17

the other hand, Vic Raschi, a Grade B pitcher in APBA Baseball, has only a 33.7
percent chance of putting the batter on base in the results he controls. In this
case, Ennis is much better off if the white die places the result on his batting
card. The difference in pitching ability between Raschi and Reynolds can be
summarized as follows:
40.1% – 33.7% = 6.4%
That is, of the results controlled by pitchers, Raschi puts batters on base 6.4 per-
cent less than Reynolds.
However, to get the true effect, we must also account for the frequency that
the Pitcher Ability is used (36 percent of the time). So, the overall effect of using
Raschi instead of Reynolds is 36 percent of 6.4 percent, which equals 2.3 percent.
In terms of probability, Raschi subtracts .023 from the probability of getting on
base when compared to Reynolds. Note that this is less than half the effect mod-
eled between these two pitchers in APBA Baseball when facing Del Ennis.
This discussion has focused only on pitching. However, for the sake of com-
pleteness, we will make a brief foray into fielding, mainly because the SOM
model allows us to do this with little added complexity. Fielders are given rat-
ings not unlike pitching grades in APBA Baseball. The ratings range from 1 (the
best) to 4 (the worst). As noted earlier, 28 percent of the results on the pitcher’s
card require a new random result based on the rating of a particular fielder. For
example, one such result on a pitcher’s card references the Fielding Ability of the
left fielder. Another random number (derived from the split deck) is looked up on
a fielding chart under the column for the Fielding Ability of the left fielder. A left
fielder with a 1 rating cannot give a batter a hit while a left fielder with a 4 rat-
ing gives the batter a hit 30 percent of the time.
To get a feel for the range of differences in fielding, we will look at a team with
the best possible rating (1) at each position versus the worst possible fielding
team, with a rating of 4 at each position. With a 1 rating at each position, field-
ers would give up no extra hits to batters; in terms of the batting formula above,
Fielding Ability is .000. On the other hand (and it makes us cringe to think about
it), if the fielding team had a 4 rating at each position, on average the Fielding
Ability of the team would be .324. That is, when the Fielding Ability of the worst
fielding team is referenced, the batter gets a hit about 32 percent of the time.
Since fielding is referenced in 14 percent of the plate appearances, the maximum
effect from fielding is 14 percent of .323, or .045.
The interesting feature of SOM Baseball’s hitting model is that it is purely
additive. To find the probability of a batter getting on base, we need only add the
18 CHAPTER 1

abilities of the batter, pitcher, and fielders. Consider Del Ennis in 1950. His
Batter Ability is .417. Since this is used half the time, the batter contribution to
the probability of getting on base is .417/2 = .208. If he is facing Allie Reynolds
supported by the best possible fielding team, then his probability of getting on
base is just the sum of their contributions:
.208 + .144 + .000 = .352
Replacing Reynolds with Raschi decreases the probability:
.208 + .121 + .000 = .329
If we replace the best fielding team with the worst possible fielding team, both
probabilities increase. For Reynolds:
.208 + .144 + .045 = .397
and for Raschi:
.208 + .121 + .045 = .374
(Note that for simplicity we are ignoring that the fielding rating for the team is
influenced by the fielding ratings for Raschi and Reynolds themselves, a minor
effect.)
Figure 1-4 plots a batter’s probability of getting on base as his ability
increases. The dashed line presents this probability for All-Star Baseball; this is
a 45-degree diagonal, or a line with slope 1, since the x and y values are always
equal: the probability of the batter getting on base is identical to the batter’s
ability in getting on base as described on the ASB disk. However, in Strat-O-

0.5

0.4

0.3

0.2
PR(ON-BASE)

0.1 All-Star Baseball

Reynolds

0 Raschi

0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5

BATTER ABILITY

FIGURE 1-4 Plots of pitcher effects in Strat-O-Matic Baseball and All-Star Baseball.
 S I M P L E M O D E L S F RO M TA B L E T O P B A S E B A L L GA M E S 19

Matic Baseball, the pitcher and fielders, as well as the batter, influence this
probability. For this plot, we have assumed the best fielding team, which adds 0
to the probability. Two lines are shown, one for Allie Reynolds and one for Vic
Raschi, in SOM Baseball. We see that both lines have identical slopes, .5, which
is the result of the SOM batter influence described earlier. The difference in
their lines resides in their intercepts, or starting point: the point at which the
line crosses the y axis. This difference is .023, as described earlier. In fact, if we
plotted a line for any pitcher in SOM Baseball, it would have the same slope (.5)
but a different intercept. Thus, the relative skills of pitchers are represented by
shifting the line up or down.
The SOM model, in terms of consistency, is an improvement over the APBA
model. The pitcher with better ability will tend to be better in all situations. The
additivity described above guarantees this feature. On the other hand, some-
thing is lost as well: the interaction between pitcher and batter is not taken into
account. In APBA Baseball, the effect of the pitcher depended on how his char-
acteristics (defined by the pitching grade) interacted with those of the batter
(defined by his batting card). The two features worked together to produce a
result. In Strat-O-Matic Baseball, these characteristics do not interact; they are
completely independent. The batter has his ability, and the pitcher has his; a cer-
tain percentage of the time one is used and the other is ignored. The two are not
fused to produce a result.
At times this additivity can produce strange effects, particularly with respect
to the frequency of triples and home runs. In SOM Baseball, Robin Roberts’s
1950 pitching ability is expected to add about 9 home runs and 4 triples for every
1,000 batters faced. This addition is the same whether Roberts faces Joe
DiMaggio, Stan Musial, Whitey Ford, Ozzie Smith, Mark McGwire, or Randy
Johnson. All batters have an equal chance at obtaining these home runs and
triples. However, more so than other events, home runs are mostly dependent on
the power of the batter, while triples are mostly dependent on his base-running
speed.4 Other tabletop games have taken the basic Strat-O-Matic model and
added their own wrinkles to it. Pursue the Pennant adopted the SOM model and
added more detailed results plus other effects. In Ball Park Baseball, the batter
can have exceptions that overrule the result on a pitcher’s card and vice versa.

4 Advanced versions of Strat-O-Matic Baseball make gross adjustments for the HR problem by
designating some hitters as capable of obtaining HRs on the pitcher’s card while others do not.
Essentially, this introduces an interaction effect into the basic SOM model.
20 CHAPTER 1

Sports Illustrated Baseball: The Interactive Model

Sports Illustrated (SI) Baseball was developed in 1972 by David S. Neft, co-
author of The Sports Encyclopedia: Baseball. This tabletop game used a two-tier
or hierarchical approach to produce an interactive model for hitting in place of
SOM’s independent model. In SI Baseball, the manager of the team in the field
rolls a set of three dice to obtain a result on the pitcher’s chart. The result could
be a strikeout, a walk, a single, or “Batter Swings.” This last result, the most
common occurrence, allows the player managing the team at bat to roll the dice
to obtain a play on the batter’s chart.
Each plate appearance is a two-step process. There is a hierarchy of prece-
dence in the structure of the plate appearance. The pitcher controls the outcome
of the plate appearance until his ability is used to finalize the result or relin-
quish control to the batter. Basically, the batter must get past the pitcher before
he is able to use his batting capabilities. Given the nature of baseball, in which
the pitcher does control the game process, this model has some intuitive appeal.5
Let’s see how this model looks from a probability perspective. The probability
of the batter getting on base in the first step under the pitcher’s control is calcu-
lated as follows:
Pr(On Base in Step 1) = Pr(On Base on Pitcher Chart)
Similarly, we can calculate the probability of the batter getting on base in the
second step using his own batting capability:
Pr(On Base in Step 2) = Pr(On Base on Hitter Chart)
However, in order to obtain the overall probability of a batter getting on base we
must combine the probabilities from the two steps. The first step (attempting to
get on base via the pitcher’s chart) is always used, but the second step (attempt-
ing to get on base via the hitter’s chart) is only used when the “Batter Swings”
result is obtained on the pitcher’s chart. Thus, the probability of a batter getting
on base is:
Pr(On Base on Pitcher Chart) +
Pr(Batter Swings on Pitcher Chart) × Pr(On Base on Hitter Chart)

5 Interestingly, Kevin Hastings independently developed a modification of the Strat-O-Matic

model with interactive effects. A close examination of the model presented in his Winter 1999
Chance paper shows it to be basically equivalent to the one used in Sports Illustrated Baseball.
 S I M P L E M O D E L S F RO M TA B L E T O P B A S E B A L L GA M E S 21

Pr(On-Base on Pr(Batter Swings

Pitcher Pitcher Chart) on Pitcher Chart) Pr(On-Base)

Robin Roberts 0.033 0.767 .033 + .767 × Pr(On-Base on Hitter Chart)

Bobby Shantz 0.057 0.905 .057 + .905 × Pr(On-Base on Hitter Chart)

Vida Blue 0.071 0.638 .071 + .638 × Pr(On-Base on Hitter Chart)

TABLE 1-7 Examples of SI Baseball Pitcher Effects

The multiplication of probabilities from the Pitcher Chart and from the Hitter
Chart produce an interaction between batter and pitcher. This is different from
the Strat-O-Matic hitting model, which only adds the effects from the pitcher
and hitter.
Table 1-7 shows the pitcher effects for three pitchers from SI Baseball. The
first column presents the probability that the pitcher puts the batter on base
automatically, without any reference to the batter’s skills. The second column
presents the probability that the “Batter Swings,” requiring a reference to the
batter’s hitting skills. The third column presents (as a formula) the way these
two values are combined by the SI Baseball model to calculate the probability of
a batter getting on base given knowledge of his hitting skills. Figure 1-5 pres-
ents a plot of this formula for each pitcher. Note that the pitcher effects are all
straight lines, but with different slopes and starting points (intercepts).
One of the pitchers is our old friend Robin Roberts. The effect shown here is
taken from his career record as it was captured in SI Baseball’s set of All-Time
All-Star Teams for the sixteen original franchises. Roberts made the squad for
the Philadelphia Phillies. As the teams were selected in 1972, the Phillies are
missing many of the franchise’s finest players from the team’s golden era in the
late 70’s and early 80’s. (There’s no Mike Schmidt or Steve Carlton.) However,
it’s safe to say that Roberts, a Hall of Famer, would still make the squad if it were
picked today. Roberts was well-known for his control. This aspect of his pitching
skill is reflected in the low value for automatic walks and the low intercept of his
line.
Bobby Shantz is not well known today, but in 1952, he and Roberts may have
produced the greatest starting pitcher tandem from the same city. Roberts went
28–7 for the Phillies while Shantz went 24–7 for the Philadelphia Athletics.
Both would undoubtedly have won the Cy Young Award, but the award’s cre-
ation was still four years in the future (and wasn’t given in both leagues sepa-
rately for another 11 years). While Roberts finished second to Hank Sauer, a
22 CHAPTER 1

0.6

0.5

0.4

0.3

0.2
PR (ON-BASE)

0.1 Blue

Roberts

0 Shantz

0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5

PR (ON BASE ON HITTER CHART)

FIGURE 1-5 Plot of pitcher effects in SI Baseball from Table 1-7.

Cubs slugger, in the National League MVP balloting, Shantz did win the
American League award, beating out another old friend, Allie Reynolds. While
Shantz never had another year like 1952, he remained in baseball for 12 more
years, primarily as a relief pitcher. He was also noted as a fielder, winning eight
consecutive Gold Gloves. (He probably would have won more, but the award was
not created until 1957, his ninth year in the major leagues.) Overall, Shantz’s
record was good enough to place him on the list of SI Baseball’s All-Time All-Star
Athletics in 1972. Like Roberts, the effect shown here represents his career
record.
Shantz and Roberts provide an interesting comparison. Unlike Roberts, for
Shantz the overall probability of the batter getting on base is greater than the
probability of his getting on base from the hitter’s chart in almost all reasonable
cases. In Figure 1-5, we see that Roberts’s performance completely dominates
Shantz’s performance; every batter has less chance of getting on base opposing
Roberts than opposing Shantz. Indeed, the better the hitter, the bigger the dif-
ference between the effects of Roberts and Shantz. We can see this by the ever-
widening gap between their lines in Figure 1-5, as hitter skill (represented by
the probability of getting on base from the hitter chart) increases. One can inter-
pret this as saying that good pitching becomes more important as the skill of the
batter faced increases. Or, good hitters feed off of poorer pitching. This is what
we mean when we say that the pitcher and batter interact.
 S I M P L E M O D E L S F RO M TA B L E T O P B A S E B A L L GA M E S 23

0.5

0.4

0.3

0.2
PR (ON-BASE)

0.1

Blue

0 Roberts

0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5

PR(ON-BASE ON HITTER CHART)

FIGURE 1-6 The effects of fielding in SI Baseball.

The third pitcher, Vida Blue, shares some similarities with Shantz. Both had
their best years with the Athletics. Blue had a more significant career, with more
wins and major contributions to several World Championship teams, but like
Shantz he is best remembered for that one great season. In 1971, Blue went
24–8. He became the first Athletic to win the Cy Young Award and the first
Athletic (since Shantz) to win the MVP Award. The pitcher effect in the figure
represents his performance in 1971. From the plot we see that Blue had the least
control of the three. Against weaker hitters (e.g. pitchers) with probabilities of
getting on base between .1 and .2, he is better than Shantz but worse than
Roberts. However, against better hitters with on-base probabilities greater than
.3, his ability to get batters out exceeds his control problem and makes him a
more difficult adversary than Roberts.
Table 1-7 and Figure 1-5 were created without consideration of the fielding
team’s abilities. SI Baseball integrates fielding into the pitcher’s chart. Basically,
teams with better fielders decrease the Pr(Batter Swings on Pitch Chart). This
decrease ranges from .010 to .088. Even with the best fielding team behind him
and the worst behind Roberts, Roberts still dominates Shantz’s performance. We
can see this simply by subtracting .088 from Shantz’s Pr(Batter Swings on
Pitcher Chart) = .905 – .088 = .817, which is still greater than .767, Roberts’s
basic value for this probability. The issue is not so clear between Roberts and
Blue. Figure 1-6 shows the range of fielding effects on Pr(On Base) for Roberts
and Blue. The solid lines identify the pitcher effects for the worst fielding team
24 CHAPTER 1

(high line) and the best fielding team (low line) for Roberts. The dashed lines
perform the same function for Blue. We see that, for better hitters, the fielding
team behind these pitchers can make a difference as to which is better overall.

Which Model Is Best?

It is difficult to say which system is best. We both have owned, played, and still
enjoy all of these tabletop games. Much of the model design depended on their
being played for entertainment, and not exclusively, as here, on how they stand
up to analysis. Additional complexity may add to the realism of the model but
detract from its playability. In some ways, this is in the true spirit of the con-
struction of statistical models, where added complexity is not included unless it
produces a significant improvement in its picture of reality. Unlike their com-
puter counterparts, the models used in tabletop games are exposed to the player.
Instead of locking the model inside compiled code, with no one able to review
how results are generated, the developers and publishers of these games have
left themselves bravely open to criticism.
We have reviewed these systems at the most basic level, the probability of
getting on base. Each game also goes into varying detail on the types of events
affected by the pitcher. Strat-O-Matic Baseball pitcher cards vary the distribu-
tion of types of hits depending on the pitcher’s record; thus, pitchers who give up
a lot of home runs (like Robin Roberts) are represented by cards with a greater
probability of home runs. SI Baseball does not do this. For the most part, pitch-
ers with the same “Batter Swings” probability have the same effect on all hitters,
proportionately decreasing the probability of each type of hit.
Many of these games have evolved over the years. They have integrated new
effects such as righty/lefty batting effects, ballpark effects, and performance in
critical situations (clutch effects). Strat-O-Matic Baseball has moved from a
basic version to an advanced version to a super advanced version. APBA
Baseball has created a “Master Game.” For simplicity of exposition, all analysis
here has used the most basic version of each game.
This is not a real impediment to our discussion, however, because the central
point has not been the details, but the general nature of the models, the distinc-
tion between models with no pitcher effect (All-Star Baseball), models with addi-
tive pitcher effects (Strat-O-Matic Baseball), and models with interactive
pitcher effects (APBA Baseball and SI Baseball). None of these systems is per-
fect, but then what model is? Models attempt to capture reality to an extent lim-
ited by the needs of their users and the data available to support their validity.
 S I M P L E M O D E L S F RO M TA B L E T O P B A S E B A L L GA M E S 25

Each model has its strengths and weaknesses. All-Star Baseball has the least
sophisticated model, but its simplicity allows it to be played quickly and to intro-
duce younger children to baseball rules, history, and even some important sta-
tistical concepts (fractions and pie charts). At the other end of the scale, Strat-O-
Matic Baseball puts the greatest effort into capturing the details of the
distribution of plays for batters and pitchers. However, doing this with a game
system which attempts to derive results from one roll of three dice produces a
model which at times can overestimate the probability of rare events (home runs
and triples by weaker batters). APBA Baseball and SI Baseball occupy the mid-
dle ground. They sacrifice much of the detail in pitcher effects included in SOM
Baseball, but have a more interesting interactive model between the pitcher and
batter. SI Baseball provides more detail than APBA but at a cost in terms of
playability; it almost always requires two dice rolls and chart references to
obtain a play result.
We will complete the chapter on a note of harmony. Instead of focusing on dif-
ferences, let’s examine similarities. All of these games model baseball as series
of events randomly generated from player characteristics. The games do not
model any sort of momentum effect. A pitcher that gets rocked for a home run
has the same chance of getting the next batter out; his ability is unaffected by
the previous unsettling event. Player abilities are fixed; they have good days and
bad days only as a result of the random variability in the twirl of the spinner or
the roll of the dice.
Another common feature of these games is the absolutely precise information
that tabletop game managers have about each player. As we have shown, proper
analysis of player cards and disks allows each tabletop manager to know exactly
each player’s ability to perform. In fact, this may be the least realistic aspect of
these games as models, because real managers are limited to observations and
measurements of player performance that are the product of ability and chance.
In subsequent chapters, we will discuss some of the implications of chance and
random variability and how we can explore measurements of baseball perform-
ance through the fog of chance and identify true ability and significant effects in
the play of the game.
 Baseball Data

APTE
CH R

Baseball data consist of a large number of counts and averages that are suppos-
edly helpful in evaluating players and describing the game. The baseball fan is
bombarded, inundated, overwhelmed with statistics. It may be that it is difficult
for the fan to understand the relevance of a particular baseball statistic for the
simple reason that there are so many of them competing for his or her attention.
Is it slugging percentage that’s really important, or on-base percentage?
One job of the professional statistician is to organize and summarize data
effectively. But what does “effectively” mean? First, we want to present the data
with graphs or charts that make it easy to see general patterns in the numbers.
Once we understand the basic patterns in data, we look for unusual data values
(say a Mark McGwire slugging percentage or a Greg Maddux earned-run aver-
age) that appear to deviate from the general patterns. Taken together, all these
methods of organizing and summarizing data are called data analysis.

Exploring Hitting Data

In this chapter, we introduce some basic tools of data analysis by exploring some
hitting data, starting at the very beginning. A team wins a baseball game by
scoring more runs than its opponent. How does a team score runs? Essentially it
is a two-step process. First, batters get on base by getting hits or walks, by ben-
efiting from opponents’ errors, or by being hit by a pitched ball. Second, these
runners are advanced to home by subsequent hits, walks, errors, and hit batters.

27
28 CHAPTER 2

The best way of advancing runners is by means of a particular type of hit—a

home run—which scores all of the players on base and the batter. Since it is
important both to get on base and to advance runners, a typical team’s lineup
will consist of several types of hitters. The first and second hitter in a team’s
lineup are supposedly good at getting on base, and the batters in the middle of
the lineup are typically powerful hitters who are good at advancing runners.

A Batch of On-Base Percentages

The standard measure for judging how good a batter is in getting on base is the
On-Base Percentage, abbreviated OBP. Basically the OBP is the fraction of plate
appearances where the batter gets on base. The Major League Baseball web site
tells one how to compute OBP: divide the total number of Hits (H) plus Bases on
Balls (BB) plus Hit by Pitch (HP) by the total number of At-Bats (AB) plus Bases
on Balls (BB) plus Hit by Pitch (HP) plus Sacrifice Flies (SF). Using mathemat-
ical notation and the above abbreviations, the formula for OBP is:

H + BB + HP
OBP =
AB + BB + HP + SF

Let’s illustrate computing OBP for the 1999 Roberto Alomar. Table 2-1 displays
Alomar’s season statistics. We compute his on-base percentage in the following
equation, which tells us that Alomar gets on base roughly 42 percent of the time:
182 + 99 + 7
OBP = = .422
563 + 99 + 7 + 13

Now, is .422 a high OBP value? Is it one of the best values among American
League players? How does it compare to “typical” hitters in the American
League? We suspect that Alomar’s value is high, since by reputation he is known
as one of the best hitters in baseball. Common sense tells us he probably is very
effective in getting on base. The question is, how can we use data to confirm (or
not confirm) what common sense tells us?

AB H BB SH SF HP

Roberto Alomar 563 182 99 12 13 7

TABLE 2-1 1999 Season Batting Statistics for Roberto Alomar

 E X P L O R I NG B A S E B A L L DATA 29

The Major League Baseball website lists the OBP values for all 395 American
League players who hit during the 1999 season. Looking over the list, we see
many players who had small numbers of at-bats during the season. We don’t
want to compare Alomar with everyone—it would be inappropriate, for example,
to compare him with a part-time player (say, a fielding specialist) who had only
a few at-bats. It does seem reasonable, though, to compare his OBP value with
those of AL players who played regularly during the 1999 season. We arbitrarily
decide that a player is a “regular” if he had at least 400 plate appearances dur-
ing the season. (Here the number of plate appearances is AB plus BB plus HP
plus SF.) Using this definition of “regular,” Table 2-2 shows the OBPs for the 108
regular American League players in 1999. This table of OBPs is hard to decipher.
To better view these values, we will introduce a few simple graphical methods
that statisticians find useful.

Simple Graphs
One basic method for organizing and displaying a small amount of data is a
stemplot. This graph might appear odd at first glance, but it is a quick and effec-
tive way of organizing data.
Consider Alomar’s OBP value, .422. Ignore the decimal point and break the
value into two parts, which we call a stem and a leaf—in Alomar’s case, the stem

0.330 0.353 0.379 0.427 0.267 0.352 0.358 0.356 0.325

0.422 0.335 0.360 0.310 0.351 0.353 0.343 0.372 0.414

0.336 0.369 0.304 0.339 0.307 0.312 0.353 0.329 0.426

0.404 0.280 0.366 0.418 0.309 0.311 0.391 0.355 0.315

0.365 0.333 0.377 0.422 0.280 0.405 0.349 0.305 0.33

0.387 0.361 0.328 0.331 0.338 0.341 0.420 0.328 0.358

0.330 0.346 0.373 0.378 0.414 0.361 0.339 0.366 0.39

0.331 0.335 0.354 0.324 0.438 0.447 0.362 0.393 0.397

0.400 0.307 0.346 0.384 0.340 0.405 0.341 0.344 0.343

0.337 0.365 0.287 0.405 0.413 0.363 0.442 0.371 0.435

0.334 0.302 0.308 0.358 0.315 0.327 0.363 0.347 0.315

0.307 0.358 0.336 0.384 0.393 0.357 0.357 0.387 0.354

TABLE 2-2 1999 On-Base Percentages for Regular American League Players
30 CHAPTER 2

STEM LEAF is 42 and the leaf is 2. (See Figure 2-1.) To draw a stemplot we first
42 2
list all of the possible stems as a column and a vertical line to the
right of the column, as shown in Figure 2-2. Then we record the
OBP values by writing down only the leaf value on the right of the
vertical line. For example, suppose we want to record the OBP val-
ues given in Table 2-3, where the stem and leaf for each are shown.
26
We record .330 (or 33 | 0) by writing a 0 on the 33 stem line,
27
.353 (or 35 | 3) is recorded by writing a 3 next to the 35 stem line,
28

29 and .379 (37 | 9) is recorded by writing 9 on the 37 stem line.

30 Remember that each single digit on the right corresponds to one
31 OBP value. So this stemplot:
32

33 28 007
34
corresponds to three players with the following OBP values: .280,
35

36 .280, .287.
37 The stemplot in Figure 2-3 shows us the OBP values for all 108
38 American League regular players. It may be easier to see the pat-
39
tern of OBPs by rotating the stemplot display 90 degrees so that
40
the small OBPs are on the left. (See Figure 2-4.) This display tells
41
us a lot about the pattern of OBPs for all American League regu-
42

43 lars.
44 The first thing we notice in Figure 2-4 is the general shape of
the group of OBPs. Most of the OBP values are in the .300–.390
range, and a relatively small number of hitters had OBP values
smaller than .300 or higher than .400. So it is pretty common to
have an OBP is the middle .300s and we should
be somewhat impressed to see an OBP larger
OBP STEM LEAF than .400 (like Alomar’s) or depressed to see an
OBP in the .200s.
0.330 33 0
In Figure 2-5, we draw a smooth curve over
0.353 35 3
the OBP values. This smooth mound-shaped
0.379 37 9
curve is called a normal curve—it’s a popular
curve in statistics for representing a group of
measurements. When they are recorded for

FIGURE 2-1 Breaking an OBP into a stem and a leaf.

FIGURE 2-2 List of all possible stem values from the data in Table 2-2.
TABLE 2-3 Some OBP Values with Corresponding Stem and Leaf Values
 E X P L O R I NG B A S E B A L L DATA 31

large numbers of players, many baseball statistics—such

26 7

27 as batting average, slugging percentage, or earned-run

28 007
average—will result in a normal curve.
29

30 2457789 A related useful display of data is a histogram. To con-

31 012555

32 457889
struct this picture of data, we group the OBPs into inter-
33 000113455667899 vals of equal width, count the number of OBPs in each
34 011346679

35 123334456778888
interval, and then make a bar graph where the height of
36 01123355669 the bar corresponds to the count in that interval. Suppose
37 123789

38 4477 in this case that we decide to group the OBPs in the inter-
39 01337
vals .260–.269, .270–.279, .280–.289, and so on. Then we
40 04555

41 2448 get a picture of the OBPs shown in Figure 2-6.

42 02267
Note that this histogram gives us the same picture of
43 58

44 27 the OBP data as we saw from the stemplot, since we are

grouping the data in the same way. The histogram is per-
haps a “prettier” display than
the stemplot in Figure 2-3, but
000113455667899

123334456778888

actually the stemplot is more

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actual OBP values.

7

Typical Values—the Mean

26
27

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29

30

31

32

33

34

35

36

37

38

39

40

41

42

43

44

ON-BASE PERCENTAGE
and the Median
After we graph a group of base-
ball statistics as we’ve done
above, we look for a central or
typical value among all of the
000113455667899

123334456778888

data. There are two popular

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value using averages: one aver-

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7

age is called the mean, the other

26

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35

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37

38

39

40

41

42

43

44

is the median.
The mean (or arithmetic aver-
ON-BASE PERCENTAGE age) is what you get when you
add up all of the OBPs and

FIGURE 2-3 Stemplot of OBPs for 1999 American League regular players.
FIGURE 2-4 A stemplot that has been rotated 90 degrees.
FIGURE 2-5 Stemplot of OBP values with a smooth curve drawn on top.
32 CHAPTER 2

15

10

5
COUNT

0.25 0.30 0.35 0.40 0.45

ON-BASE PERCENTAGE

FIGURE 2-6 Histogram of OBPs for 1999 American League regular players.

divide by the number of data values. In the case of the data from Table 2-2, the
computation of the mean would look like this:

.330 + .353 + . . . + .354

Mean OBP = = .356
108

The median is the middle value when all of the OBPs are arranged from
smallest to largest—this number divides the data into a lower half and an upper
half. The median of the data listed in Table 2-2 is .354.
Thus, the mean and median are both about .350, which tells us that a typical
AL regular player will get on base about 35 percent of the time. Since the median
is .354, we can say that half of the OBPs are smaller than .354, and half are
larger.

Measures of Spread—Quartiles and the Standard Deviation

After we find a typical (mean and median) OBP for the data in Table 2-2, we
want to say something about the spread of the OBPs. One simple way of describ-
ing the spread of a set of measurements uses the lower and upper quartiles. The
quartiles divide the data into two extreme quarters—one-quarter of the data is
smaller than the lower quartile, and another quarter of the data is greater than
the upper quartile. Here the lower quartile of OBPs is .331, the upper quartile of
OBPs is .382
So one-quarter of all the AL regulars have OBP values smaller than .331, and
one-quarter have OBPs greater than .382. This means that half of all the
American League OBPs are between .331 and .382. In Figure 2-7, we’ve redrawn
 E X P L O R I NG B A S E B A L L DATA 33

25% of OBPs 50% of OBPs 25% of OBPs

000113455667899

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7
26
27

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29

30

31

32

33

34

35

36

37

38

39

40

41

42

43

44
Lower quartile .331 .382 Upper quartile

ON-BASE PERCENTAGE

FIGURE 2-7 Quartiles divide the OBPs into a lower quarter, a middle half, and an upper
quarter.

our stemplot, showing the approximate location of the quartiles, and illustrating
how the lower and upper quartiles divide the group of OBPs.
Another measure of spread of a group of measurements is the standard devi-
ation. This number gives the typical difference between an OBP value and its
mean.1 For our set of OBP numbers, the standard deviation is .039.
The standard deviation is useful for describing a set of measurements when
the data has a normal or mound shape. When the data looks like this:

we expect about 68 percent of the data to fall within a distance of one standard
deviation from the mean, and we expect about 95 percent of the data to fall
within two standard deviations of the mean.
To illustrate this rule, recall that the OBP numbers for the AL regulars had
an approximate normal shape. Also we computed the mean to be .356 and the
standard deviation is .039. So we expect about
68% of the OBP numbers to fall between (.356 – .039) and (.356 + .039)
and
95% of the OBP numbers to fall between [.356 – 2(.039)] and [.356 + 2(.039)]

1 To compute the standard deviation, we first find the difference of each data value from the
mean, and then square each difference. Then the standard deviation is calculated by computing
the sum of squared differences, dividing the sum by {the number of observations minus 1}, and
then taking the square root of the result.
34 CHAPTER 2

000113455667899

123334456778888
B. Hunter

01123355669
J. Encarnacion

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M. Caruso

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C. Guzman M. Ramirez
7
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32

33

34

35

36

37

38

39

40

41

42

43

44
ON-BASE PERCENTAGE

FIGURE 2-8 Stemplot of OBPs with some interesting values identified.

We compute these two intervals to be (.317, .395) and (.278, .434). Checking the
data, we see that 71 out of 108 (66 percent) of the OBPs fall between .317 and
.395, and 103 out of 108 (95 percent) of the OBPs fall between .278 and .434.

Interesting Values
We observe the general shape of the OBPs, looking for a typical OBP and con-
sidering the spread of the values, and then look for interesting OBP values that
stand apart from the large cluster of OBPs in the middle. Obviously, we’re inter-
ested in the largest OBPs—in 1999, Edgar Martinez had a .447 on-base per-
centage, followed closely by Manny Ramirez at .442. But we’re also interested in
unusually small values. In the redrawn stemplot of Figure 2-8, we see four small
OBPs are separated from the remainder of the data. We might wonder why
Guzman is an AL regular when he is only getting on base about 26 percent of the
time. Perhaps these players with low OBPs are regulars on the basis of their
defensive ability rather than their hitting ability.

Comparing Groups
Suppose we are interested in comparing two batches of OBPs. To do this, we first
describe a way of summarizing a single batch of data using a few key numbers,
and then describe a graph of these summary numbers, called a boxplot, which is
useful in comparing groups of data.
 E X P L O R I NG B A S E B A L L DATA 35

LOWER UPPER
QUARTILE QUARTILE

LOW MEDIAN HIGH

0.25 0.30 0.35 0.40 0.45 0.50

ON-BASE PERCENTAGE

FIGURE 2-9 Boxplot of OBPs for 1999 American League regular players.

A Five-Number Summary
To summarize the batch of OBPs, we can use five numbers—the median, the
lower and upper quartiles, and the low and high numbers. For obvious reasons,
we call these values a five-number summary.
Low = .267, Lower Quartile = .330, Median = .354,
Upper Quartile = .383, High = .447

A Boxplot
A boxplot is a graph of a five-number summary. To construct a boxplot, we draw
a box, where the locations of the sides of the box correspond to the quartiles, and
put a line in the middle corresponding to the median. We then draw lines out
from the box to the low and high values. The boxplot of the OBPs in Figure 2-9
shows that a majority of the values fall in the mid 300s, with a range of about
.250 to about .450.

Boxplots to Compare Groups

Boxplots are typically used to compare different groups of data. To illustrate,
suppose we’re interested in comparing the OBPs for the American League regu-
lar players against the OBPs for the National League regulars. There were 105
National League players who had at least 400 plate appearances (NL pitchers
36 CHAPTER 2

Lower Upper
Low Quartile Median Quartile High

0.292 0.336 0.362 0.383 0.458

TABLE 2-4 Five-Number Summary of the OBPs of the NL Regulars

American League

National League

0.25 0.30 0.35 0.40 0.45 0.50

ON-BASE PERCENTAGE

FIGURE 2-10 Parallel boxplots of OBPs for 1999 regular players from the American and
National Leagues.

do bat, but are naturally excluded from this list because they don’t play in
enough games). Table 2-4 gives the five-number summary of the 105 regular NL
players’ OBPs.
In Figure 2-10, boxplots of the American League and National League OBPs
are drawn on the same scale. The distributions of OBPs for the two leagues look
remarkably similar—the AL and NL boxes have approximately the same center
and spread. Looking carefully at the two boxplots, we see that the NL OBPs are
a little higher, on average, than the AL OBPs. Looking at the medians, we see
that the NL median OBP was .362, compared to a median OBP of .354 for the
AL. So it appears that the NL players were generally a little more successful
than the AL players in getting on base in 1999.
 E X P L O R I NG B A S E B A L L DATA 37

Lower Upper
Low Quartile Median Quartile High

Offensive positions 0.280 0.340 0.358 0.386 0.447

Defensive positions 0.267 0.328 0.340 0.369 0.438

TABLE 2-5 Five-Number Summaries of the OBPs for the 1999 AL players in Offensive
and Defensive Fielding Positions

D.Jeter
Defensive Positions
B.Williams

Offensive Positions

0.25 0.30 0.35 0.40 0.45

ON-BASE PERCENTAGE

FIGURE 2-11 Parallel boxplots of the OBPs of the 1999 AL players in offensive and defen-
sive fielding positions.

OBPs of Offensive and Defensive Players

Remember our earlier comment about the few low American League OBP values
in our dataset? We speculated that these players were in the regular lineup due
to their fielding rather than hitting ability.
Let’s check this out with our AL data. Of the 108 regular players, 60 played in
the less-important fielding positions (1B, 3B, LF, RF), and 48 played in the more
important fielding positions (C, 2B, SS, CF). (Below we will call these the “offen-
sive” and “defensive” positions, respectively.) Table 2-5 gives the five-number
summary for the OBPs for each of the two groups of players, and Figure 2-11
shows parallel boxplots of the OBPs for the two groups.
38 CHAPTER 2

Several interesting observations can be made from Table 2-5 and Figure 2-11.
First, the offensive-position players tended to have OBPs 10 to 20 points higher
than the defensive-position players. Specifically, the median of the offensive
position players’ OBP (.358) was 18 points higher than the median of the defen-
sive position players’ (.340). This substantiates the belief that many players are
in the lineup for their fielding ability, not their hitting. There are, however,
exceptions to this pattern. Note that there are two bullets (•) to the right of the
boxplot for defensive players. Using a standard rule for determining remarkable
values,2 these OBPs were determined to be unusually high. Most fans would
consider Jeter and Williams extraordinary—both play at defensive positions and
are very effective hitters.

Relationships Between Batting Measures

We have spent a lot of time talking about a single measure of hitting perform-
ance—that is, a player’s ability to get on base. But there is a second dimension

0.70

0.65

0.60

0.55

R. Alomar
0.50

0.45
SLUGGING PERCENTAGE

0.40

0.35

0.30

0.25

0.25 0.30 0.35 0.40 0.45

ON-BASE PERCENTAGE

FIGURE 2-12 Scatterplot of OBP and SLG for 1999 American League regulars.

2 To determine these unusual values, one first computes a STEP which is equal to 1.5 times the
distance between the upper and lower quartiles. Then one computes a LOWER FENCE which
is equal to the lower quartile minus a STEP, and a UPPER FENCE which is equal to the upper
quartile plus a STEP. Any data items that are smaller than the LOWER FENCE or are greater
than the UPPER FENCE are called outliers which may deserve special attention.
 E X P L O R I NG B A S E B A L L DATA 39

to hitting, namely a batter’s ability to advance runners already on base. The clas-
sical measure of a hitter’s advancement ability is the slugging percentage, which
is computed by dividing the total number of bases of all base hits by the number
of at-bats. If 1B, 2B, 3B, and HR stand respectively for the number of singles,
doubles, triples, and home runs of a hitter, then the slugging percentage, abbre-
viated SLG, is computed as follows:

(1 × 1B)+ (2 × 2B)+ (3 × 3B)+ (4 × HR)

SLG =
AB

Relating OBP and SLG

How is a player’s on-base percentage related to his slugging percentage? A basic
graph to explore the association between two variables is a scatterplot. For each
player, we have two measures—his OBP and his SLG. For example, in 1999
Roberto Alomar had an OBP of .422 and an SLG of .530.
In Figure 2-12, we plot the ordered pair (.422, .533), which is represented by
a solid square. If we plot the ordered pair (OBP, SLG) for the 107 other regular
AL players, we get the remaining points in the graph.
Looking at Figure 2-12, we see a general increasing pattern—the points drift
up as one moves from the left-hand side of the graph to the right-hand side. The
general conclusion from looking at this graph is that players who have high on-
base percentages tend to have high slugging percentages, and players who don’t
get on base frequently also have low slugging percentages. This conclusion
makes sense, since base hits have a positive effect on both a batter’s OBP and his
SLG.

Relating OBP and Isolated Power

Since a batter’s OBP and SLG seem pretty highly correlated, it would seem
desirable to develop an alternative measure of a hitter’s ability to advance run-
ners that is not confounded or confused with his ability to get on base. There is
a measure, called isolated power (IP), that is designed to do exactly that. One
computes IP by subtracting a batter’s batting average (AVG) from his slugging
percentage (SLG).
2B+ (2 × 3B)+ (3 × HR)
IP = SLG – AVG =
AB
40 CHAPTER 2

0.35
M.Ramirez

0.30 R.Palmeiro

R.Sexson
0.25

R.Alomar
0.20 J.Encarnacion

0.15
K.Lofton

0.10 T.Fernandez
ISOLATED POWER

B.Hunter O.Vizquel

0.05
M.Caruso
C.Guzman

0.25 0.30 0.35 0.40 0.45

ON-BASE PERCENTAGE

FIGURE 2-13 Scatterplot of OBP and IP for 1999 American League regulars.

Figure 2-13 shows a scatterplot of the isolated power values against the on-
base percentages for the American League regulars. Note that we see the same
type of pattern in this graph as we saw in our first scatterplot, indicating that
players who have high OBP values tend also to have high IP values (and players
who have low OBP values also have low IP values). But the relationship between
OBP and IP appears weaker than the relationship between OBP and SLG, indi-
cating that we have partially succeeded in developing two hitting statistics that
aren’t strongly linked. In other words, IP appears to measure a player’s ability to
get extra bases and advance runners that is distinct from his ability to get on base.
This scatterplot of OBP and IP is useful in describing different types of base-
ball hitters. The players in the lower right part of the graph, such as Kenny
Lofton, Tony Fernandez, and Omar Vizquel, are hitters who are successful in
getting on base, but have relatively little power to get extra base hits. In con-
trast, the hitters in the upper left section of the plot, such as Richie Sexson and
Juan Encarnacion, have good power (indicated by high IP values), but relatively
poor ability to get on base. Obviously the most valuable hitters are the ones who
have high values of both OBP and IP. Manny Ramirez, the most extreme point
in the upper-right section of the plot, had great values of both OBP and IP in
1999, and finished tied for third in the AL MVP voting.
 E X P L O R I NG B A S E B A L L DATA 41

Statistic Description Statistic Description

P pitching arm HR home runs allowed

GP games pitched TB total bases allowed

GS games started ER earned runs

W wins ERA earned run average

L losses IP innings pitched

SV saves SO strikeouts

CG complete games BB base on balls

S shutouts BK balks

R runs HP batters hit by pitch

H hits

TABLE 2-6 1999 Statistics for Major League Pitchers

What about Pitching Data?

We’ve learned some basic techniques for graphing and summarizing hitting
data. The same techniques can be used to analyze any batch of baseball data,
including the statistics used to evaluate pitchers. The Major League Baseball
website provides a number of statistics for pitchers; Table 2-6 describes these
pitching statistics.
We learn quite a bit about a pitcher by exploring these statistics. The games
pitched (GP), games started (GS), and innings pitched (IP) tell us how active the
pitcher was during the season. The wins (W), losses (L), and saves (SV), are
direct measures of the success and failure of a pitcher, since the objective of a
team is to win games. Indirect measures of success are statistics such as runs
(R), hits (H), and home runs allowed (HR), since the hits, runs, and home runs
allowed by a pitcher are positively correlated with an opponent’s success.
Pitchers are usually compared using their win/loss records and their earned run
averages (ERAs). An ERA is the average number of runs allowed by a pitcher
(not counting runs due to miscues by his teammates) for a nine-inning game. An
interesting question is whether an ERA is the best way to evaluate pitching per-
formance. (A general discussion on rating players is covered in Chapter 6.)
42 CHAPTER 2

Strikeouts and Walks

Here we’ll explore two basic pitching statistics, the number of strikeouts and the
number of walks (bases-on-balls) for the 1999 National League pitchers.
Strikeouts and walks are interesting events in baseball. When a pitcher gets a
strikeout, one gets the impression he is dominant, dictating from the mound.
However, a strikeout produces only a single out, and it is not clear that a pitcher
who throws a lot of strikeouts will be effective in not allowing runs and ulti-
mately winning games. When asked to name the ultimate strikeout pitcher, a lot
of people would think of Nolan Ryan, but his lifetime record of wins was only
about 53 percent. (Of course, one could argue that that this was due at least in
part to the poor teams on which he played.) Similarly, when a pitcher walks a
batter, one thinks that he has lost his control and given up an easy on-base. So
it doesn’t seem desirable to walk many batters, but it is not entirely clear what
impact a walk has on the opposing team scoring runs. In the remainder of this
chapter, we’ll explore strikeout and walk statistics to address the following:
• What is a typical strikeout rate (or walk rate) among pitchers?
That is, how many strikeouts (or walks) does a pitcher typically
get for nine innings?
• Are there unusually good or unusually poor pitchers relative to
striking out hitters? Likewise, are there pitchers with unusually
good control who don’t walk many batters?

90

80

70

60

50

40

30

20
COUNT

10

0
0 100 200 300 400

NUMBER OF STRIKEOUTS

FIGURE 2-14 Histogram of number of strikeouts of 1999 National League pitchers.

 E X P L O R I NG B A S E B A L L DATA 43

• Do starting pitchers strike out more hitters than relief pitchers? How
do starting and relief pitchers differ with respect to walking hitters?

Looking at Strikeout Totals

The MLB website gives 1999 pitching statistics for 300 NL pitchers. Figure 2-14
displays a histogram of the season strikeout totals for these 300 pitchers. This
histogram has a distinctive shape:

which we call right-skewed. Most of the strikeout totals fall close to zero, and
there are relatively few large strikeout totals. This histogram shape is very
common when our statistic is a count of something. If we graph the counts of hit-
ters’ home runs, the counts of walks given up by pitchers, the counts of errors
made by third basemen, or the counts of games won by pitchers, we will find that
the shape of the data will be right-skewed. Most of the data will be clustered at
small values, and there will be a few large numbers.
Why does the histogram in Figure 2-14 have this right-skewed shape? Of the
300 pitchers in this list, many have pitched few innings and have recorded only
a small number of strikeouts. Figure 2-15 shows a histogram of the total innings
pitched. We see three humps in the histogram—there are many pitchers in this

80

70

60

50

40

30

20
COUNT

10

0
0 50 100 150 200 250 300

NUMBER OF INNINGS PITCHED

FIGURE 2-15 Histogram of number of innings pitched by 1999 National League pitchers.
______________________________________________________________________
Albert/Bennett
44 CHAPTER 2

50

40

30

20

10
COUNT

0 100 200 300 400

NUMBER OF STRIKEOUTS

Histogram of number of strikeouts of 1999 National League pitchers with at

FIGURE 2-16______________________________________________________________________
Albert/Bennett
least 50 innings pitched (180 pitchers).
CURVE BALL

group who pitched from 0–20 innings, there is another large clump of pitchers
(primarily relievers) who pitched from 50–70 innings, and a clump of pitchers
(starters) who pitch around 200 innings. So there are many part-time pitchers
with few innings pitched, and the statistics for these part-timers are clouding
the picture of the strikeout data. It seems better to look only at pitchers who
have appeared in a minimum number of innings—and we’ll arbitrarily set this
minimum at 50.
If we remove the pitchers with fewer than 50 innings pitched, we’re left with
180 pitchers. A histogram of the season strikeout totals for these NL pitchers is
shown in Figure 2-16. We see a better picture of the strikeout totals—the shape
of the data is still right-skewed, with a large number of pitchers having from
40–100 strikeouts, and a few pitchers with a large number of strikeouts. But the
data from pitchers who appeared in only a very few innings—perhaps because
they were injured, or sent back down to the minors—no longer has a significant
effect on the graph.

Defining a Strikeout Rate

The strikeout king in baseball is traditionally viewed as the pitcher with the
greatest number of strikeouts. That this is so should come as no surprise, but it
should also be pretty obvious that having the greatest number of strikeouts in a
season is not the best measure of a pitcher’s ability to strike out hitters. All you
 E X P L O R I NG B A S E B A L L DATA 45

45

40

35

30

25

20

15

10
COUNT

0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0

STRIKEOUT RATE

FIGURE 2-17 Histogram of strikeout rates (strikeouts per inning pitched, or SOR) of 1999
______________________________________________________________________
Albert/Bennett
National League pitchers with at least 50 innings pitched (180 pitchers).
CURVE BALL

have to do is think of those who pitch in relief, for example. In the group of pitch-
ers who have pitched at least 50 innings, a pitcher who has taken the mound in
more innings is more likely to strike out more hitters. It seems better, then, to
take the average number of strikeouts per inning, which is the basis for a sta-
tistic called the strikeout-rate (SOR):

number of strikeouts SO
SOR = =
innings pitched IP

Figure 2-17 shows a histogram of the SOR values for our 180 NL pitchers.
The shape of this histogram, which is normal, or bell-shaped, is typical for a
derived baseball statistic—this is, a statistic that is derived as a ratio of basic
counts. We saw this same data shape in our exploration of OBPs. We would
expect to see a similar normal shape for other derived statistics—such as ERA,
BVG, or SLG—computed for players who have appeared in a reasonable number
of innings.
Here we see that a typical strikeout rate for a 1999 NL pitcher is about .7 per
inning, or about 9 × .7 = 6.3 strikeouts for every 9 innings pitched. We next look
for unusual strikeout rates, statistics that seem markedly different from the
average. In Figure 2-17, we notice 15 pitchers with strikeout rates exceeding 1,
and three pitchers exceeding a rate of 1.5. This is interesting, and deserves a
closer look. In Figure 2-18, we show these strikeout rates as a stemplot, identi-
fying the pitchers with the highest values.
46 CHAPTER 2

2 7

3 77

4 00124455578899

5 000012233333478899

6 0000000111222344444455556677778888899999

7 000011111222333344455666677788888899999

8 00000111133334555556677888899

9 0000111222345566667799

10 02678

11 47

12 3

13 024 M.Williams, U.Ubrina, R.Johnson

14 4 J.Rocker

15 2 M.Mantei

16 47 A. Benetez, B.Wagner

FIGURE 2-18 Stemplot of strikeout ratios of 1999 NL pitchers, including names of pitch-
ers with unusually large values.

STARTERS RELIEVERS

2 7

7 3 7
988755544210 4 09
9887433333210 5 00029
99999888777655544444221100000 6 00123456788
99988766544333221110000 7 1123456677888899
998755433100 8 00011133555667888
975433110 9 00012225666679

10 02678

11 47
12 3
R. Johnson 4 13 02 M. Williams, U. Ubrina

14 4 J. Rocker

15 2 M. Mantei

16 47 A. Benetez, B. Wagner

FIGURE 2-19 Back-to-back stemplots of strikeout rates of 1999 NL starters and relievers.
 E X P L O R I NG B A S E B A L L DATA 47

1.6

1.4

1.2

1.0

0.8
STRIKEOUT RATIO

0.6

0.4

Starters Relievers

FIGURE 2-20 Parallel boxplots of strikeout rates of 1999 NL starters and relievers.

Comparing Strikeout Rates of Starters and Relievers

Of the seven pitchers with the highest strikeout rates, we note that only one
(Randy Johnson) is a starter. That raises the question—do relievers typically
strike out more batters than starters? To answer this question, we divide the 180
NL pitchers into two groups, defining a “starter” as a pitcher who has started at
least ten games in the 1999 season.
A useful graph for comparing the strikeout rates of starters and relievers is
the back-to-back stemplot, shown in Figure 2-19. We put the stems in the middle;
the leaves for the starters go to the left, the leaves for the relievers to the right.
As before, we identify only those pitchers with high strikeout rates.
Another way to compare these two groups of strikeout rates is by use of box-
plots (see Figure 2-20).
We see some interesting things from the displays of stemplots and boxplots.
1. Generally, the NL relievers seem to strike out more batters per
inning than the NL starters. The median strikeout rate of the
starters was .68, compared to a rate of .85 for the relievers. In
nine innings, a typical reliever will strike out 1 more batter (7.3)
than a typical starter (6.1).
2. The spread in strikeout rates among the relievers is greater than
the spread in rates for the starters. The lower and upper quartiles
48 CHAPTER 2

0.9

0.8

0.7

0.6

0.5

0.4

0.3
WALK RATE

0.2

0.1

0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0

STRIKEOUT RATE

FIGURE 2-21 Scatterplot of strikeout and walk rates of 1999 NL pitchers.

for the relievers is .70 and .96, compared to quartiles of .59 and
.79 for the starters.
3. The boxplot display identifies several pitchers with unusually low
or high strikeout rates. By breaking the pitchers into the two
groups, only one pitcher seems to have a strikeout rate that
clearly stands out from the rest. With apologies to Curt Schilling,
there was no starting pitcher in the NL in 1999 who had a
strikeout rate even close to Randy Johnson’s.

Association Between Strikeouts and Walks?

As we move our discussion from strikeouts to walks, it is reasonable to ask if
there is any relationship between the two statistics. Nolan Ryan is widely (and
correctly) known as a pitcher who struck out many batters but also gave up a lot
of walks. (Looking at his career statistics, we notice that Ryan had 5714 strike-
outs and 2795 walks in 5386 innings; his strikeout rate was 1.07 and his walk
rate was .52, both of which appear to be large.) Are these large strikeout and
walk rates typical of a fastball pitcher? If so, one might expect a positive associ-
 E X P L O R I NG B A S E B A L L DATA 49

1 667789

2 112222344

2 55667788999

3 0111111222222233344444

3 55555556667777777788899999

4 000000111111122222233333333333444

4 55666667777788899999

5 00111111111222222234

5 556667777777789

6 002333

6 666778

7 12

7 558

8 1

FIGURE 2-22 Stemplot of walk rates of 1999 NL pitchers.

ation between walks and strikeouts. To check this out, we first compute the walk
rate for each AL pitcher, as shown in the following equation, and then construct
a scatterplot of SR against WR, as shown in Figure 2-21.

number of walks BB
WR = =
innings pitched IP

There does not seem to be much of a pattern in the graph. There is a slight drift
of the point cloud from lower left to upper right, but at best, there is a weak pos-
itive association between strikeout and walk rates.

Exploring Walk Rates

How often do pitchers walk batters? Figure 2-22 shows a stemplot of the walk
rates for the NL pitchers with at least 50 innings pitched. (We’ve ignored the
decimal point in presenting this stemplot.)
We see basically the same data shape as we saw earlier for strikeouts. The
shape of the walk rates is slightly right-skewed—the median value is .42, with
lower and upper quartiles of .35 and .51. So half of all the pitchers walk between
.35 and .51 batters per inning, which translates to between 3 and 4.5 walks per
game. There is a sizeable range in the data from .16 (Shane Reynolds) to .81
(Steve Avery).
50 CHAPTER 2

STARTERS RELIEVERS

S. Woodard, J. Lima, G. Maddux, S. Reynolds 9766 1 78

443211 2 222
9998876655 2 7
4444433322221111 3 011222
98887776665555555 3 777779999
43333333322211100000 4 0111122233344
977665 4 56667778889999
1111 5 0011111222222234
777776655 5 677789

30 6 0233
86 6 6677
7 12
J. Sanchez, J. Bere 85 7 5 W. Gomes
S. Avery 1 8

FIGURE 2-23 Back-to-back stemplots of walk rates of 1999 NL starters and relievers.

Comparing Walk Rates of Starters and Relievers

We conclude this chapter by addressing the question: Do starting pitchers and
relievers have different tendencies to walk batters? As before, we divide the
pitchers into starters (at least 10 starts in 1999) and relievers. Back-to-back
stemplots are shown in Figure 2-23.
Several interesting features are noticeable. Relievers appear to walk more
hitters than starters. The median number of walks per inning for relievers is .48,
compared to a median of .38 for starters. (Over nine innings, the relievers gen-
erally walk about an additional batter per inning.) Although starters generally
exhibit more control, there are three notable exceptions—J. Sanchez, J. Bere,
and S. Avery—who appear to have unusually little control. Being Phillies fans,
we’re a bit distressed that Wayne Gomes, their closer in 1999, had the worst
walk rate among all the NL relievers, but we don’t altogether lose hope: Mitch
Williams (even though he gave up the Joe Carter home run in the 1993 World
Series) had a good relief pitching year for the 1993 Phillies despite walking a lot
of batters.
 Probability

CHAPTER 3

In Chapters 1 and 2, we discussed some methods for exploring baseball statis-

tics. In Chapter 1, we focused on the relatively simple statistical models used in
some popular tabletop games. In Chapter 2, we looked at graphical and descrip-
tive methods that, while simple, are the fundamental tools and models used by
all statisticians. In particular, Chapter 2 used the example of on-base percentage
(OBP) data to describe and analyze the performance of AL hitters. With this
basic knowledge, we know what’s being said, statistically speaking, when some-
one declares, “Roberto Alomar had a .422 on-base percentage in 1999.” We know
that the value .422 is large relative to the entire distribution of OBPs. (See the
stemplot of 1999 AL OBPs in Figure 2-3 of Chapter 2.)
Now that we have explored the OBP data and made a few graphs and charts,
are we done? Are professional statisticians primarily interested in numbers and
patterns of data as they are revealed in summaries and graphs? Aren’t statisti-
cians, after all, just glorified number-crunchers or graph makers? Obviously, we
don’t think so. What the serious statistician is really interested in are the con-
clusions or inferences that one can draw from the data.

Beyond Data Analysis

Let’s contrast the intent of this baseball book with practically any other baseball
statistics book that is published each spring. Essentially baseball statistics
books fall in two categories. One type, which we will call the “numbers book,” just

51
52 CHAPTER 3

presents tables and tables of baseball data. This book is designed for the fan who
wants to know all of the statistics from his or her favorite player. The goal of this
type of book is just to tabulate numbers—to put numbers in tables—in a form
that’s convenient for the fan to retrieve and review.
A second type of baseball statistics book—we’ll call it the “analysis book”—
tries to go one step further. It will ask an interesting baseball question, then
present relevant data to answer it: “Who was the better lead-off hitter in 1999:
Chuck Knoblauch or Kenny Lofton?”
Since a lead-off hitter is supposed to get on base, the analysis book would
focus on OBPs, obviously the relevant data set. Knoblauch’s and Lofton’s num-
bers are highlighted in Table 3-1, which shows a small segment of a straightfor-
ward alphabetical list of regular AL players with their 1999 OBP results.
The book notes that Lofton was more successful in getting on base than
Knoblauch, as his OBP value was 12 points higher. Since the book doesn’t say
anything else, the reader is left to draw the conclusion that Lofton is better than
Knoblauch at getting on base. But does Lofton really have more ability to get on
base than Knoblauch?
This question is different from the one posed by the analysis book, which
focused on performance, or results, for 1999. We know that Lofton had a better
year—we are not disputing the calculation of his 1999 OBP value. But did
Lofton really have a greater ability to get on base than Knoblauch in 1999?
When we say ability, we are referring to the characteristics of a hitter, such as

1999
Player OBP

D. Jeter 0.438

C. Johnson 0.340

D. Justice 0.413

C. Knoblauch 0.393

M. Lawton 0.353

D. Lewis 0.311

K. Lofton 0.405

T. Martinez 0.341

D. Martinez 0.461

E. Martinez 0.447

F. McGriff 0.405

TABLE 3-1 1999 OBPs for a Selection of AL Players

 I N T RO D U C I NG P RO B A B I L I T Y 53

his batting stroke, his eye for watching pitches carefully, and his patience, all of
which would contribute to his ability to reach base.
There are two possible explanations (at least) for the difference between
Knoblauch’s .393 and Lofton’s .405 . Maybe Lofton really is better at getting on
base than Knoblauch, and the 12-point difference is just a reflection of this fact.
But maybe the two players have the same abilities to get on base, or perhaps
Knoblauch has a superior ability, but by luck or chance Lofton got a better OBP
value in 1999. Which explanation is right? The professional statistician’s job is
to help distinguish differences due to real effects from differences that can be
explained by chance.

Looking for Real Effects

In the course of writing this book, we had the opportunity to pose the
Knoblauch-Lofton question to a nine-year-old baseball fan, showing him the
OBP data in Table 3-2. We pointed out that although Lofton had a higher OBP
in 1999, the difference could be due to luck—maybe Lofton was more lucky than
Knoblauch this season. But the boy, looking at the table, said that Lofton must
be better—especially since he also had a higher OBP in 1998.
He had a point, and a good point. If one player has a better on-base ability
than a second player, then one would expect the first player to get generally a

0.45

0.40

0.35

0.30
1999 OBP

0.25

0.25 0.30 0.35 0.40 0.45

1998 OBP

FIGURE 3-1 Scatterplot of 1998 and 1999 OBPs for AL regular players.
54 CHAPTER 3

higher OBP value across seasons. The question is: how dependable is a high OBP
in one year as a predictor for a high OBP in the next?
Let’s explore the relationship between a player’s OBP in 1998 and his OBP in
1999. Table 3-2 shows the OBPs for the players who had at least 400 plate
appearances in 1999 and had at least 400 appearances in the previous year;
Figure 3-1 shows a scatterplot of the same data.

1999 1998
Player OBP OBP

R. Alomar 0.422 0.347 D. Fletcher 0.339 0.328 P. O’Neill 0.353 0.372

G. Anderson 0.336 0.325 N. Garciaparra 0.418 0.362 J. Offerman 0.391 0.403

B. Anderson 0.404 0.356 J. Giambi 0.422 0.384 M. Ordonez 0.349 0.326

B. Ausmus 0.365 0.356 J. Gonzalez 0.378 0.366 R. Palmeiro 0.420 0.379

D. Bell 0.331 0.364 T. Goodwin 0.324 0.378 D. Palmer 0.339 0.333

A. Belle 0.400 0.399 S. Green 0.384 0.334 J. Posada 0.341 0.350

M. Bordick 0.334 0.328 R. Greer 0.405 0.386 M. Ramirez 0.442 0.377

S. Brosius 0.307 0.371 B. Grieve 0.358 0.386 J. Randa 0.363 0.323

M. Cairo 0.335 0.307 K. Griffey 0.384 0.365 A. Rodriguez 0.357 0.360

J. Canseco 0.369 0.318 B. Higginson 0.351 0.355 I. Rodriguez 0.356 0.358

M. Caruso 0.280 0.331 B. Hunter 0.280 0.298 T. Salmon 0.372 0.410

T. Clark 0.361 0.358 B. Huskey 0.338 0.300 D. Segui 0.355 0.359

R. Clayton 0.346 0.319 D. Jeter 0.438 0.384 M. Stairs 0.366 0.370

R. Coomer 0.307 0.295 C. Johnson 0.340 0.289 M. Stanley 0.393 0.364

M. Cordova 0.365 0.314 D. Justice 0.413 0.363 S. Stewart 0.371 0.377

D. Cruz 0.302 0.284 C. Knoblauch 0.393 0.361 B. Surhoff 0.347 0.332

J. Cruz 0.358 0.354 M. Lawton 0.353 0.387 M. Tejada 0.325 0.298

J. Damon 0.379 0.339 D. Lewis 0.311 0.352 F. Thomas 0.414 0.381

R. Davis 0.304 0.305 K. Lofton 0.405 0.371 J. Thome 0.426 0.413

C. Delgado 0.377 0.385 T. Martinez 0.341 0.355 J. Valentin 0.315 0.34

R. Durham 0.373 0.363 E. Martinez 0.447 0.429 M. Vaughn 0.358 0.402

D. Easley 0.346 0.332 F. McGriff 0.405 0.371 O. Vizquel 0.397 0.358

D. Erstad 0.308 0.353 M. McLemore 0.363 0.369 T. Walker 0.343 0.372

T. Fernandez 0.427 0.387 B. McRae 0.327 0.360 B. Williams 0.435 0.422

J. Flaherty 0.310 0.261 T. O’Leary 0.343 0.314 T. Zeile 0.354 0.350

TABLE 3-2 Two-Year On-Base Percentages for 1999 AL Regular Players

 I N T RO D U C I NG P RO B A B I L I T Y 55

1999 OBP 1998 OBP

M. Bordick 0.334 0.328

S. Brosius 0.307 0.371

TABLE 3-3 1998 and 1999 OBPs for Mike Bordick and Scott Brosius

Looking at the scatterplot in Figure 3-1, we see a positive relationship. This

means that players who got high OBP values in 1998 tended also to get high
OBP values in 1999. (A positive relationship also means that players who got
low OBP values in 1998 tended to get low OBP values in 1999.) The scatterplot
and the data from Table 3-2 provide evidence of year-to-year OBP consistency.
This implies that underlying the OBPs observed in each year for a player resides
a consistent OBP ability. If players all had the same ability to get on base, and
differences between season OBPs between players were only due to luck, then
there wouldn’t be any pattern in the scatterplot in Figure 3-2.
That said, though we do see a relationship in the scatterplot between 1998
and 1999 numbers, it is not a strong relationship. In fact, you can find pairs of play-
ers, such as Mike Bordick and Scott Brosius (see Table 3-3) where one player
(Brosius) had a higher OBP in 1998 and the other player (Bordick) had a higher
OBP in 1999.

Predicting OBPs
While we’re on the subject of comparing OBPs for two different years, let’s pose
another question. Suppose that you know a player’s OBP in 1998. What is the
best prediction of his OBP the next year?
This question can be answered by revisiting our scatterplot of the 1998 and
1999 OBP values in Figure 3-1. When we see a relationship in a scatterplot, it is
helpful to summarize this relationship by means of a straight line that passes
through the points. The equation of this straight line gives a simple formula that
relates a player’s 1999 OBP value with his 1998 value. In statistics, there is a
basic recipe (called least squares) which finds the equation of the line which is
the “best fit” through the points of a scatterplot. In this case, the best line has the
following formula:
OBP1999 = .0946 + .761 OBP1998
This line is drawn on the scatterplot in Figure 3-2. This best line can be used to
predict a player’s 1999 OBP if you know his 1998 OBP, and these predictions are
a bit surprising. Let’s illustrate.
56 CHAPTER 3

0.45

0.40

0.35

0.30
1999 OBP

0.25

0.25 0.30 0.35 0.40 0.45

1998 OBP

FIGURE 3-2 Scatterplot of 1998 and 1999 OBPs for AL regular players with a “best line”
drawn on top.

Kenny Lofton had a .371 OBP in 1998, when the average OBP value (among
AL regulars) was .350, so Lofton was 21 points better than average in 1998. It
would be reasonable to predict that Lofton would also be 21 points better than
average in 1999. However, the prediction using the best line formula is:
OBP1999 = .0946 + .761 OBP1998
and, in Lofton’s case, the best line prediction is:
OBP1999 = .0946 + .761 (.371) = .377
which is only 15 points better than the 1999 average value of .362.
Likewise, if you use the best-line formula to predict any other player’s 1999
OBP, you’ll discover that the 1999 prediction is closer to the 1999 average than
the 1998 OBP is to the 1998 average. What is going on?
This illustrates a general result, called “regression to the mean,” which
applies to any baseball statistic that is measured for two years in a row.
(Actually it applies to many situations besides baseball.) In this setting, it
means that a hitter’s OBP tends to be closer to the average in the second year
than it does for the first year. The phenomenon is also called the “sophomore
slump,” and certainly there is no shortage of media attention for a ballplayer
who has a relatively mediocre second season after a spectacular rookie season.
 I N T RO D U C I NG P RO B A B I L I T Y 57

But this relatively weak second year illustrates this regression to the mean
effect—ballplayers who have extremely higher-than-average seasons one year
tend to have less extreme seasons the next.

Probability Models
By comparing the OBPs of AL regulars for two consecutive years, we now believe
that players indeed have different abilities to get on base. But how can we
describe a player’s ability to get on base? Fans use expressions like, “He’s good at
getting on base,” or “He has good bat control,” to describe a player’s hitting abil-
ity. Can we use numbers instead of words to explain a hitter’s ability?
Statisticians use numbers assigned to chance outcomes, probabilities, to draw
conclusions from data. We know that many things in life are uncertain. We don’t
know in advance the outcome of a coin toss, the value of the Dow Jones
Industrial Average at the end of next month, the winner of the 2010 World
Series, or for that matter the year in which the Phillies will win their next World
Series. But the statistician recognizes that, although many aspects of life are
uncertain, there exist general patterns amid this uncertainty, and probability is
a method for describing those general patterns.
To understand a hitter’s ability to get on base, the statistician constructs a
probability model, or a model for short. A model is a description of a random
process that could possibly generate the baseball data. (We have already
described several models in Chapter 1 that underlie tabletop baseball games.)
Let’s look at a simple example. In 1999, Roberto Alomar had 682 plate appear-
ances and got on base 288 times, for an OBP of 288/682 = .422. To investigate
how a model works, we will think of a simple random experiment that could
have produced Alomar’s data. Before we do that, though, we’ll take a quick side
trip to look at a model we’re all familiar with, to get a sense of the variability in
“chance” outcomes.

A Coin-Toss Model
Consider the simple experiment of tossing a coin. We are thinking of the usual
two-sided coin, where the chance of throwing heads is the same as the chance of
throwing tails. In coin-tossing, the chance of tossing heads is .5—we know this
since we believe that it’s equally likely to land heads or tails. The number .5 rep-
resents the true proportion of heads—this is the fraction of heads that we expect
to get if we toss the coin repeatedly. We can think of .5 as an attribute of the coin,
which comes from our belief that the coin is fair. To put it another way, we can
58 CHAPTER 3

say that the coin’s ability to land heads is .5. Our coin-tossing model simulates a
perfect 50-50 split between heads and tails.
What happens, though, when we turn from the model, which is a mathemat-
ical formulation, and actually start tossing a coin? Let’s contrast the proportion
of heads described by the model with the proportion of heads observed in an
actual series of tosses. Suppose we toss this fair coin 10 times and we observe 7
heads and 3 tails. The observed proportion of heads is equal to:

7
= .7, or 70%
10

Since we got 70 percent heads, does that mean that the coin is not fair? No.
Or does it mean that our model is invalid? No, again. The coin is fair, and the
model is valid, but we were lucky (or unlucky) to get 7 heads in this particular
set of actual tosses. In fact, it is entirely reasonable to get 7 heads out of 10
tosses. What we have to do in this situation is distinguish between the observed
proportion in our data, which is 70 percent, and the so-called true proportion,
which remains 50 percent if the coin is fair.
Is it possible for the observed proportion of heads in 10 tosses to be equal to
the true proportion of 50 percent? Yes, certainly, one could get 5 heads in 10
tosses. But this won’t typically be the case when you have 10 tosses. In fact, it is
more likely in 10 tosses that the observed proportion will be different from the
true proportion.
Let’s consider an illustration of this idea. On a computer, we simulated the
experiment of tossing a fair coin 10 times. Repeating the experiment 100 times,
and keeping track of the number of observed heads in each of these 100 cycles,
we arrived at the outcomes summarized in Table 3-4. In Table 3-5, we used the
same data to record the distribution of outcomes according to whether a 10-toss
series resulted in 1 heads, 2 heads, 3 heads, and so on, along with a calculation
of the probability for each of these outcomes.
We see from Table 3-5 that we observed a 5-heads outcome in 30 of 100, or 30
percent, of the experiments. So the chance that we would observe exactly 50 per-
cent heads in our 10 tosses is only about .3. Saying this a different way, the
chance that the observed proportion is different from the true proportion is .7. So
while our coin-toss model is valid, there is considerable variation in the results
of our 10 tosses of our coin.
There is one situation where the observed proportion will be very close to the
true proportion. Suppose that we were able to toss the coin a very large number
of times—say, a million. In such a case, the observed proportion of heads will be
 I N T RO D U C I NG P RO B A B I L I T Y 59

6 4 6 3 5 5 7 6 5 7

5 7 5 4 5 6 5 4 6 5

3 4 3 7 4 6 8 5 3 5

6 5 4 4 5 7 2 5 5 4

6 4 5 4 5 8 3 4 1 5

6 4 5 5 4 3 5 4 6 3

4 5 6 7 6 6 3 7 3 5

7 3 4 6 4 5 6 6 7 5

4 2 5 5 4 3 5 5 5 6

4 2 6 7 7 5 8 4 4 4

TABLE 3-4 Number of Heads in 10 Tosses for 100 Experiments

Number of heads 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Count 1 3 11 23 30 18 11 3

Proportion 0.01 0.03 0.11 0.23 0.3 0.18 0.11 0.03

TABLE 3-5 Probabilities for Number of Heads in 10 Tosses of a Fair Coin

very close to the true proportion of 50 percent. In fact, we can state a general
rule: as we toss the coin more and more times, the observed proportion will gen-
erally get closer and closer to 50 percent.

Observed and True OBPs

Let’s turn our discussion from coins back to baseball, and look again at the bat-
ting behavior of Roberto Alomar in 1999. Recall that Alomar came to bat 682
times and got on base 288 times:

288
= .422
682

This number is his observed OBP based on 682 opportunities to bat.

Now Alomar possesses a certain ability to get on base. This ability is based on
his ability to see pitched balls, his hitting stroke, and his speed to run to first
base. We can signify Alomar’s ability to get on base this season by a number p,
which we will call his true on-base percentage, or true OBP.
60 CHAPTER 3

Like the coin-toss probability of 50 percent, this number represents Alomar’s

chance of getting on base in a single at-bat. Is the true OBP equal to .422 (his
observed average in 1999)? Probably not, for the same reason that the propor-
tion of heads in 10 tosses is unlikely to be equal to the coin’s true probability.
When we toss a coin, we know the true proportion is one half. Why? Well, we
know something about the composition of the coin (it has two sides, heads and
tails), and we’ve likely had some experience tossing coins, so we believe the coin
to be fair. Is it possible to know Alomar’s true OBP or his ability to get on base?
Not really. We will learn about Alomar’s ability to get on base from observing his
hitting performance for many seasons. But we don’t know his true probability of
getting on base for the 1999 season. If Alomar had millions instead of hundreds
of plate appearances during 1999, we could come up with a very close approxi-
mation of p, his true OBP, but of course this will not happen, so p, at least for
now, will remain a mystery. We can guess that his true OBP is in the .422 ball-
park (pardon the pun), but it could conceivably be .380 or .440. We don’t know
and never will know the exact value of p.
Let’s illustrate the difference between Alomar’s hitting ability and his season
performance by means of a simple simulation. Suppose Alomar is a true .380
OBP player—the chance that he gets on base in a plate appearance is 38 per-
cent. We will simulate Alomar’s hitting results for a season of 682 plate appear-
ances. Here is how the simulation might work: Imagine a spinner, pictured in
Figure 3-3, where the pointer of the spinner can land anywhere on the circle. If
the spinner is spun and the pointer falls in the On-Base region (the emphasized
area), we record an on-base event; otherwise, we record that he didn’t get on
base. (The size of the On-Base region, in this case, is 38 percent of the total area.)
If we spin the spinner 682 times, we simulate a whole season of hitting, and the
total number of pointers that fall in the On-Base region will be Alomar’s number
of times on base for the season.

On-Base

Don’t Get On-Base

FIGURE 3-3 Spinner for simulating hitting for Roberto Alomar.

 I N T RO D U C I NG P RO B A B I L I T Y 61

276 260 268 283 262 256 263 254 237 241

249 251 255 248 269 229 253 249 265 260

260 259 269 288 267 273 266 277 249 279

263 263 267 264 263 268 271 246 254 242

248 270 258 230 263 258 243 272 274 280

251 265 278 264 259 255 262 246 260 266

279 242 245 257 258 260 280 262 248 289

264 273 264 249 253 247 263 253 276 263

248 241 271 249 251 243 251 247 260 262

257 244 251 274 246 264 244 237 280 256

TABLE 3-6 Number of Times on Base for 100 Seasons Assuming Roberto Alomar Is a
True .380-OBP Player

.405 .381 .393 .415 .384 .375 .386 .372 .348 .353

.365 .368 .374 .364 .394 .336 .371 .365 .389 .381

.381 .370 .394 .422 .391 .400 .390 .406 .365 .409

.386 .386 .391 .387 .386 .393 .397 .361 .372 .355

.364 .396 .378 .337 .386 .378 .356 .399 .402 .411

.368 .389 .408 .387 .380 .374 .384 .361 .381 .390

.409 .355 .359 .377 .378 .381 .411 .384 .364 .424

.387 .400 .387 .365 .371 .362 .386 .371 .405 .386

.364 .353 .397 .365 .368 .356 .368 .362 .381 .384

.377 .358 .368 .402 .361 .387 .358 .348 .411 .375

TABLE 3-7 OBP for 100 Seasons Assuming Roberto Alomar Is a True .380-OBP Player

Actually we didn’t actually use a spinner. A computer is a more convenient

tool for performing this kind of simulation, particularly if you want to run the
simulation a large number of times. We did the simulation 100 times, obtaining
the number of times on base for each of 100 seasons! Assuming a true OBP of
.380, Table 3-6 shows the number of times on base that we observed. In Table
3-7, we change these on-base numbers to OBPs by dividing each by the number
of plate appearances (682). Figure 3-4 displays these 100 season OBPs using a
stemplot.
Remember that we are assuming that Alomar is truly a .380 on-base player.
Also, we’re assuming that he remains a true .380 on-base player for all of these
62 CHAPTER 3

33 57

34 77

35 334466779

36 0002233335555588888

37 1112233556688899

38 111111444455555557777788

39 001133445778

40 0011446799

41 0005

42 23

FIGURE 3-4 Stemplot of 100 simulated OBPs of a true .380 hitter.

100 seasons. But we see from the stemplot that there is a lot of variation in his
season batting performances. In one unlucky season, he had only a .335 OBP. At
the other extreme, in one season he was very fortunate and had a .423 OBP.
These simulated results demonstrate just how different a player’s seasonal OBP
can be from his true OBP (that is, his true probability, p). Also, it is important to
note the size of the variation: there is an 88-point differential between Alomar’s
best (.423) and worst (.335) seasons.

Learning about Batting Ability

In the previous section we assumed that we knew Alomar’s ability to get on base,
measured as the probability p, and we found plausible values for the 100 season
OBPs. As mentioned earlier, we of course don’t know Alomar’s real on-base prob-
ability. But can we get any closer to knowing p, given that we do know his 1999
seasonal OBP was .422?
We will use a simple hypothetical example to illustrate how we can learn
about a player’s hitting ability. Suppose a particular veteran skipper—we’ll call
him Casey—has been managing for thirty years. Based on his experience, Casey
classifies hitters into five distinct ability categories. The “weak” hitters get on
base only about 20 percent of the time, the “average” hitters get on base 30 per-
cent of the time, the “above-average” hitters have an on-base rate of 40 percent,
the “excellent” hitters 50 percent, and the “superstars” 60 percent. All of these
numbers represent true OBPs; if Casey rates a hitter at 30 percent, that hitter
will get on base 30 percent of the time if he is given a very large number of
chances at bat. (Note that we’re assuming a very broad range of abilities—a
player with p = .200 is pretty terrible and a player with p = .600 is better than
the best on-base men in the history of the game.)
 I N T RO D U C I NG P RO B A B I L I T Y 63

Now suppose Casey is asked to manage a new team, and he is unfamiliar

with the hitting abilities of the players in his dugout. Moreover, he is told by the
owner (who knows a lot about the abilities of the players on his team) that they
are equally divided between the five hitting-ability categories described above.
That is, one-fifth of the players are truly weak hitters, another fifth are average,
one-fifth are above-average, one-fifth are excellent, and one-fifth are superstars.
There are here, of course, a lot of unlikely assumptions. First, it is not believable
that an experienced manager like Casey would not immediately get to know his
players; he is, after all, an experienced baseball man. And it is even more sur-
prising that the owner knows anything about his players. And perhaps most
unlikely, talent is rarely if ever evenly divided between the five ability levels;
there are typically more average hitters than superstars. Nonetheless, these
fairly ridiculous assumptions simplify our example considerably, and will help
illustrate an important point.
Since the manager has no idea which players are good or poor in hitting, he
plans to insert them randomly into the batting lineup. Casey’s philosophy is sim-
ple. “I have no idea who the good hitting players are, so there is no harm in play-
ing them randomly. But I will learn which players are good after watching them
perform in a week’s worth of baseball games.” Here is the big question. Can the
manager really learn much about a hitter’s ability to get on base if he observes
the player in 20 plate appearances, which more or less would be the total
appearances for a player in a week? Specifically, suppose a particular hitter,
whom we’ll call Mickey, gets on base 8 times in 20 PAs for a .400 observed OBP.
What has the manager learned about Mickey’s true OBP?
We perform a simple simulation to illustrate the process of selecting a player
at random from the dugout and having the player bat for 20 PAs. (This is not real
baseball, but it is a reasonable representation for what is happening in this
example.) We start with a bowl containing five spinners, one with an OBP area
of .200, another with a OBP area of .300, and so on. (These spinners correspond
to the abilities of the players in the dugout.) We choose one spinner at random
from the bowl and then spin it 20 times, which corresponds to the 20 plate
appearances of the hitter. We then record the spinner we chose (the value of the
OBP area p) and the number of spins in the On-Base region of the spinner, which
corresponds to the number of times on base for the hitter.
We repeat this process (randomly choosing a spinner and spinning it 20
times) for a large number of simulations—1000 of them, to be exact. Since we are
interested in what we learn from 8 on base in 20 PAs, we focus on only the sim-
ulations where the spinner landed at On-Base 8 times for an observed OBP of
64 CHAPTER 3

.400. We recorded the true OBPs (the ps) for these players, so we can ask the
question: “What were the abilities of the players corresponding to these 8/20
spinner results?” Table 3-8 gives the results.
In our simulation, we observed the result “8 on base in 20 PAs” 97 times. Of
these 97 occurrences, the hitter was a truly weak hitter (that is, with a .200 abil-
ity) 5 times, for a probability of 5/97 = .052. Since this is a small probability, we’re
pretty sure that this batter isn’t a weak hitter.
Looking further at the table, we see that it is most likely that Mickey has a
true OBP of .500, and it is almost as likely that he is a .400-OBP man—these two
abilities have respective probabilities of .371 and .299. It is typical practice to
group a few likely abilities that collectively have a large probability. Looking at
the table, we see that these abilities:

p = .300, p = .400, and p = .500

have a total probability of:

.175 + .299 + .371 = .845

So, based on observing 8 out of 20 PAs, we are pretty confident that Mickey has
a true ability between .300 and .500. We call the interval [.3, .5] a 84.5 percent
confidence interval for the unknown ability p.
What has Casey learned about the hitting ability of Mickey based on 20 plate
appearances? Actually, very little. To say that a hitter’s true OBP is between .300
and .500 doesn’t say very much, since we observed from Chapter 1 that practi-
cally all of the OBPs of regular major league players fall between .300 and .500.
To emphasize how little is learned from 20 plate appearances, let’s modify our
example to include a more narrowly defined set of ability categories. Suppose
that the OBP abilities of the players in the dugout are in the range .300, .310,
.320, . . ., .600, and again the manager has no clue which players are good or poor,
and the dugout contains an equal number of players of each ability level. As
before, Casey selects players at random to be in the lineup, and one particular

Total

Ability (p) 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6

Name Weak Below-average Above-average Excellent Superstar

Number of Players 5 17 29 36 10 97

Proportion of Players 0.052 0.175 0.299 0.371 0.103 1

TABLE 3-8 Abilities of Players Who Had 8 out of 20 On-Base in the Simulation
Experiment
 I N T RO D U C I NG P RO B A B I L I T Y 65

player gets on base 8 times out of 20 PAs. We want to find the probability that
this hitter has a .300 ability, a .310 ability, and so on.
Figure 3-5 displays a line graph of the probabilities that the hitter has each
of the possible OBP abilities. We see that the chance that the batter has a .300
ability is about .03, or 3 percent. In fact, each of the abilities between .300 and
.500 has probabilities between 3 and 5 percent. So we can’t make fine distinc-
tions in ability—say, between a hitter with p = .400 and another hitter with p =
.410—on the basis of an observed OBP of .400 for 20 PAs.
At this point, you may be thinking, “Okay, you’ve convinced me that you don’t
learn much from 20 PAs, but you must know about a player’s ability on the basis
of his season statistics. That’s a lot more plate appearances.”
To address this question, we repeat the above exercise using more data. Again
we have a dugout full of hitters with abilities in the group [.300, .310, . . ., .600],
and the manager has no clue which hitters have which abilities. A certain player
(like Alomar) then plays an entire season and gets an OBP of .430 based on 682
PAs. We did a simulation like the one described above; Table 3-9 shows the prob-
abilities of hitter ability given an OBP of .430 in 682 plate appearances.
Looking at the table results, we see that it is most likely that a hitter with an
observed OBP of .430 actually is a true .430 OBP hitter. But other ability values

0.05

0.04

0.03

0.02

0.01
PROBABILITY

0.25 0.30 0.35 0.40 0.45 0.50 0.55 0.60

TRUE ABILITY (P )

FIGURE 3-5 Probabilities of true OBPs if a batter gets on base 8 times in 20 PAs.
66 CHAPTER 3

Total

Ability (p) 0.380 0.390 0.400 0.410 0.420 0.430

Number of Players 2 11 22 33 64 65

Proportion of Players 0.006 0.034 0.068 0.102 0.198 0.201

Ability (p) 0.440 0.450 0.460 0.470 0.480 0.490

Number of Players 47 44 22 8 3 2 323

Proportion of Players 0.146 0.136 0.068 0.025 0.009 0.006 1

TABLE 3-9 Abilities of Players Who Have a .430 OBP in 682 PAs

close to .430 are also very possible. If we group the most likely ability values, we
see the following values:
.390, .400, .410, .420, .430, .440, .450, .450, .460
have total probability of:
.034 + .068 + .102 + .198 + .201 + .146 + .136 + .068 = .953
So this player’s true OBP value is very likely to be in the [.390, .460] range.

Estimating Batting Ability Using a Confidence Interval

A basic task of professional statisticians is to provide bounds on how well an esti-
mate (such as a season OBP) correctly identifies a parameter (in this case p, the
probability of getting on base). A common approach to this inference problem is
to calculate a confidence interval for the probability p, which we illustrated in
the previous section. Using a standard formula taught in all introductory statis-
tics classes, a 95 percent confidence interval for a probability has the following
form:
Estimate ± a margin of error

where

estimate × (1 – estimate)
Margin of error = 1.96 ×
sample size
To illustrate, suppose we are interested in learning about Alomar’s true abil-
ity to get on base, which is measured by the on-base probability p. Our guess at
Alomar’s on-base probability is the observed season OBP value .422, which is
based on a sample size of 682 plate appearances. So the margin of error is equal to
 I N T RO D U C I NG P RO B A B I L I T Y 67

.422 × (1 – .422)
Margin of error = 1.96 × = .037
682

So a 95-percent confidence interval for Alomar’s true ability to get on base p is

.422 ± .037
or
[.385, .459]
This means that there is an excellent chance (a 95-percent chance to be precise)
that Alomar’s on-base probability p is between .385 and .459. (This interval is
essentially the same interval that we computed in the previous section using a
different rationale.)
This confidence interval gives an idea of how well we know the true ability of
getting on base. After 682 plate appearances, we’re pretty sure that Alomar’s on-
base probability is not .350 or .500 or any other value not in the confidence inter-
val. However, values of p such as .390, .420, or .450 are all plausible, since they
do fall within the interval.
Suppose it is May 1, 1999, and Alomar has only played one month in the sea-
son. He currently has an observed OBP of .422 based on 150 plate appearances.
What have we learned about his on-base percentage p? Using the same formula,
but with a sample size of 150 plate appearances instead of 682, the 95-percent
confidence interval is as follows:
[.341, .499]
Since our confidence interval is pretty wide (about 150 points), we are pretty
unsure about Alomar’s true OBP based on one month of hitting data. Maybe he
is average at getting on base and his true OBP probability is a mediocre p = .341,
or maybe he is great in getting on base with a high OBP probability of p = .499.
Both values of Alomar’s true OBP are reasonable given only 150 plate appear-
ances.
Of course, as plate appearances accumulate over time, we learn more about
Alomar’s true on-base probability. Figure 3-6 shows how an OBP confidence
interval moves closer to the true on-base probability p as the number of plate
appearances increases. The vertical lines in the figure mark different 95-percent
confidence intervals around the observed OBP = .422 estimate for different
number of PAs. This confidence interval rapidly narrows to (.35, .5) as the num-
ber of PAs increases to 100. After this point, the lengths of the confidence inter-
vals decrease slowly. Even after 350 PAs (about half a baseball season for a
68 CHAPTER 3

0.65

0.60

0.55

0.50

0.45

0.40
95% CONFIDENCE INTERVAL

0.35

0.30

0.25

0.20

0 500 1000 1500 2000

PLATE APPEARANCES

FIGURE 3-6 Graph of 95-percent confidence intervals for an on-base probability p as the
number of plate appearances changes from 20 to 2000.

player starting in every game), the confidence interval has only narrowed to
[.369, .471]. The final half-year provides little additional information; we saw
that after Alomar’s 682 PAs, the confidence interval has only narrowed to [.385,
.459]. Even after a full season, we are not very sure of a player’s true ability to
get on base. Needless to say, this lack of precision in the observed OBP as an esti-
mator of the probability of getting on base is never discussed by sportscasters or
sportswriters.

Comparing Hitters
What does this mean? Basically, that seasonal on-base percentages are highly
variable. A player with a .400 OBP for a season has a reasonable chance of hav-
ing greater batting ability than a player who had an OBP of .410 in the same
season. It is a fact that the .410 player had a better OBP than the .400 OBP
player over the course of that particular season, but the .400 batter may still be
the better batter—that is, have the higher probability of getting on base.
Let’s consider a batter who at some point in the middle of a season has a .400
OBP. There is no doubt that up to this point the batter has done well. But from
 I N T RO D U C I NG P RO B A B I L I T Y 69

the discussion we just had about the confidence interval for a true on-base per-
centage, we might question just how good this player really is. Is the .400 OBP a
true reflection of his ability, or is it just the result of good fortune? Clearly, again
from the earlier discussion, a lot depends on the number of plate appearances
represented by the .400 OBP. In particular, we might ask whether the batter is
truly better than other players with lower season OBPs. Let us consider three
other batters with the same number of plate appearances as the .400 batter.
Consider two batters—Joe has an observed OBP of .400 and Mike has an
observed OBP of .375 at a particular time during the season. Baseball people
will say that Joe is the better hitter simply because he is currently performing
better in getting on base. But what is the chance that Joe actually has a larger
true OBP, or larger ability to get on base than Mike? Figure 3-7 (bottom curve)
displays the probability that Joe (who is currently hitting .400) is truly better
than Mike (who is hitting .375) for a wide range of plate appearances. If both hit-
ters have only 100 plate appearances, then the probability that Joe is better is
only about 65 percent, and if the players each have 600 PAs, then the probabil-
ity Joe is better is still only 80 percent. We see that we are not confident that Joe
(who hits for .400) is better than Mike (who hits for .375) based on one season of
hitting data.

1.0 Versus .325 OBP

Versus .350 OBP

0.9

Versus .375 OBP

0.8
PR(.400 OBP PLAYER BETTER)

0.7

0.6

0.5
100 200 300 400 500 600 700

PLATE APPEARANCES

FIGURE 3-7 Graph of the probability that a player with an observed OBP .400 has a better
ability than players with observed OBPs of .325, .350, and .375 as the num-
ber of plate appearances increases from 50 to 700.
70 CHAPTER 3

Figure 3-7 also compares our batter who hits .400 (Joe) with batters who have
hit for .325 and .350 OBPs. The middle curve is a graph of the probability that
Joe actually is superior to a guy who bats .350 based on different numbers of
PAs, and the top curve displays the probability that Joe is superior to a hitter
who bats .325. As expected, it is more likely that Joe has greater ability as the
opponent’s observed OBP decreases. Let’s say that we are confident that Joe is
better than the other batter if the probability he is better is 95 percent or higher.
(This value is indicated by a dashed line in the figure.) Looking at Figure 3-7, we
see that it takes 550–600 plate appearances (a full season of PAs) to say that the
hitter who bats .400 is better than the hitter who bats .350. It takes fewer PAs
to distinguish hitters who bat .400 and .325. From Figure 3-7, we see that we are
confident the hitter who bats .400 is better than a hitter who bats .325 after 250
PAs, or roughly half a season.
As a baseball season progresses, we will be comparing the quality of hitters
by means of statistics like the OBP. Halfway through the season, we are pretty
confident that two hitters that have season OBP values 75 points apart (like
.400 and .325) have different abilities to get on base, and that these relative abil-
ities are reflected in their numbers. After an entire season, we can make finer
distinctions between hitters, and we can say (with 95 percent confidence) that a
hitter who has a 50-point observed OBP advantage (like .400 and .350) is the
better hitter. It is hard, however, to make reliable distinctions when the margin
of difference is less than 50 points, and we’re not confident that a difference of 25
points between two hitters (like .400 and .375) is meaningful at all.
As you can see, statisticians aren’t just people who make inferences. We rec-
ognize that the statistics that we observe over a season are only measures of the
players’ performance, and we use probability models to help learn about the
players’ abilities. Suppose some hot rookie, lets call him Max Marvelous, bats
.350 next year. A typical baseball fan may conclude that Max is a great hitter. A
statistician would come to a different conclusion: Max may be a great hitter
based on this great hitting season, but we won’t be convinced that Max has great
batting ability until he maintains this great hitting performance for a number of
seasons.
It’s April 4, 1999, and we’re watching the ESPN broadcast of the opening game
of the season, between the Padres and the Rockies. As each player comes to bat,
the announcers give the viewers some insight on how the players perform in dif-
ferent situations. In this particular broadcast, we learn the following:
• Tony Gwynn is a very tough hitter with runners in scoring position.

• Vinny Castilla hits 100 points better at home than on the road.

• Todd Helton had a slow start in the previous (1998) season.

• Wally Joyner is pretty valuable to his team, since the Padres

generally don’t win when he is not in the lineup.
All of these statements rely on situational statistics—that is, they tell us, “in
this situation . . . ,” or, “under these circumstances . . . ,” this or that tends to be
true. In the last few years, we’ve found these kinds of statistics everywhere—in
newspapers, on talk radio, from the broadcast booth during the game. Another
example: a day after the ESPN broadcast, one of us, reading the newspaper (The
Findlay Courier, April 5, 1999), encountered the following headline: “Indians
Hope to Improve Their Situational Hitting.” Reading the article, it seems that
the Indians didn’t perform well in 1998 in moving a runner along with a bunt, or
getting a runner home from third with a hit. To improve on this, the team has
done more in spring training to promote situational hitting, although leadoff hit-
ter Kenny Lofton comments that failure to move a runner is sometimes just bad
luck: “The one thing the stat don’t show is how many times you hit the ball hard

71
72 CHAPTER 4

in those situations and having nothing to show for it. Maybe the ball was caught.
Maybe the ball went foul. I know I had that kind of luck a lot last year.” The arti-
cle then says that Lofton hit a respectable .289 with runners in scoring position
in 1998, but with runners on third and fewer than two outs, he hit .222 (4 for 18).
Is Lofton just making excuses for himself, or does he have a point?

Surveying the Situation

In this chapter, we try to understand what we learn from situational statistics,
and what we don’t. We will focus on one basic measure, a player’s batting aver-
age, and explore what can be learned by breaking it down into situational sub-
sets: What was his average with men in scoring position, or on the road, or before
the All-Star break? We’ll take our data from the book Player Profiles, published
by STATS, Inc., which contains one of the most extensive collections of situa-
tional statistics.
To start, we’ll narrow down our discussion to one player, Scott Rolen, a third
baseman for the Philadelphia Phillies. The 1998 season was Rolen’s sophomore
year in the majors, in which he attempted to show that his Rookie-of-the-Year
performance in 1997 was not a fluke. See Table 4-1 for his stats.
First, we look at Scott’s overall hitting. In 1998, he got 174 hits out of 601 at-
bats, for a batting average of 174/601 = .290. We’ll see later that this is a pretty
good average—it’s better than the batting average of a typical MLB regular
player in 1998.
The table then breaks down these batting stats by a number of different sit-
uations. The vs. Right and vs. Left rows of the table show how Scott performed
against right- and left-handed pitchers. Generally, it is believed that one hits
better against pitchers of the opposite arm: Since Scott is a right-handed batter,
one expects him to hit better against left-handed pitchers. Looking again at
Table 4-1, we’re a little surprised—Scott hit .292 against right-handers and .280
against left-handers.
Next, the table breaks down Scott’s hitting by the type of pitcher faced. Some
are classified as ground-ball pitchers, since their pitching tends to induce a lot of
ground balls; others are characterized as fly-ball pitchers. We see that Scott did
somewhat better against the fly-ball pitchers (.293) than the ground-ball (.276).
The next three situations break down the hitting data by the location of the
ball park (home and away), the time of the game (day and night), and the play-
ing surface (grass and turf, meaning artificial turf). Generally, ballplayers are
thought to play better in their home ball parks than in opponents’. There are a
 S I T UAT I O NA L E F F E C T S 73

1998 SEASON

AVG AB H AVG AB H

Season .290 601 174 First Pitch .400 80 32

Ahead in Count .348 135 47

vs. Left .280 132 37
Behind in Count .205 249 51
vs. Right .292 469 137
Two Strikes .225 298 67

Groundball .276 170 47

Batting #3 .289 568 164
Flyball .293 116 34
Batting #4 .313 32 10

Home .322 286 92 Other 0 1 0

Away .260 315 82

March/April .271 96 26
Day .297 172 51
May .345 113 39
Night .287 429 123
June .295 105 31

Grass .254 232 59 July .273 99 27

Turf .312 369 115 August .245 106 26

Sept/Oct .305 82 25
Pre-All Star .303 333 101

Post-All Star .272 268 73 vs. AL .311 61 19

vs. NL .287 540 155

Scoring Posn .294 170 50

Close & Late .279 111 31

None on/out .287 115 33

TABLE 4-1 Scott Rolen’s Situational Statistics in 1998

number of reasons for this—players are more familiar with the characteristics of
their own park, they are better rested since they aren’t traveling, and they are
being cheered by their fans. We see that Scott hit much better at home (.322)
than at away games (.260), which is what we would expect. There doesn’t appear
to be much of a time-of-day effect—Scott hit just a little better during day games
(.297) than during night games (.287). Also, he hit .312 on games played on arti-
ficial turf, compared with .254 on grass.
After noting that Scott hit better at home, the better average on turf should
not surprise us. Scott’s home park is Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia, which
has artificial turf. So if we combine the situations “surface” and “home/away,” we
see that there really are only three situations—home, away on turf fields, and
away on grass fields. One can figure out from the table that Scott hit .322 (92 for
74 CHAPTER 4

286) on home-turf, .254 (59 for 232) on away-grass, and .277 (23 for 83) on away-
turf. Generally, in analyzing situational data, one has to watch for situations or
categories that are highly related or overlap. It is hard to tell if Scott really is a
better hitter on turf since he played most of his turf games at home, in
Philadelphia.
Returning to Table 4-1, the hitting data is also divided by different periods of
the season. Scott hit .303 during the first half (before the All-Star Game) and
only .272 during the second half. The month-by-month breakdown shows he had
an especially hot May, batting .345, and a cool August, batting only .245.
The last grouping on the left-hand side of the table breaks down the hitting
data by game situation. The heading “Scoring Position” indicates the player
comes to bat with a runner at either second or third base. “Close and Late”
occurs when the game is in the seventh inning or later and the batting team is
leading by one run, is tied, or has the potential tying run on base, at bat, or on
deck. “None On/Out” means that the player comes to bat with no runners on base
and no outs. The “Scoring Position” and “Close and Late” situations represent
times in the game where it is especially important for the player to get a base
hit. In contrast, there is less pressure on a player when there are no outs and no
runners on base. Here Scott hit for about the same average in all three situations—
there is little evidence that he hits better or worse in pressure-packed situations.
The first grouping on the right-hand side of the table tells us how well Scott
hit on different pitch counts. We see from the table that in plate appearances
where Scott hit on the “First Pitch,” he hit .400. In plate appearances where he
was “Ahead in the Count” (where the number of balls exceeds the number of
strikes), he hit for an average of .348. For “Behind in the Count” situations (pitch
counts of 0–1, 0–2, 1–2, 2–2), he hit .205, and he hit for an average of .225 when
there were 2 strikes in the count.
Last, the table tells us how Scott hit when he was batting number 3 and num-
ber 4 in the Phillies lineup. He played most of his games batting third, so this
breakdown is not very interesting. Likewise, Scott’s hitting performance against
National League and American League teams is not that informative, since he
played almost all of his games against NL teams.

Looking for Real Effects

It’s pretty obvious that Player Profiles is great reading. A Phillies fan who espe-
cially likes Scott Rolen will have fun analyzing his breakdown statistics.
Although Scott appears on the surface to be a .290 hitter, it seems his batting
 S I T UAT I O NA L E F F E C T S 75

average during the season varied greatly, depending on particular circumstances.

In the following situations, he appears to be an excellent (over-.300) hitter:
• in games played at home

• in games played on artificial turf (but we noted that this might be

the same as home)
• in May

He appears to be especially hot when he swings on the first pitch (.400) and
when he is ahead in the count (.348).
When we look at Player Profiles, we’ll find a wealth of intriguing numbers.
But do all of these numbers—these high and low situational batting averages—
mean anything? In other words, do the observed differences between the aver-
ages in distinct situations correspond to “real” effects? Was Scott Rolen really a
better hitter during home games? During the next season, should the Phillies
manager bench Scott for games played on grass because of his sub-par 1998 bat-
ting average on that surface? Should we be surprised when Scott hits for a .400
average on the first pitch?
The preface of the Player Profiles book states:
Not all .300 hitters are created equal. Last year, one hit .446 in April,
and one hit under .190 that month. One hit over .400 after the All-
Star Break and one hit under .220 for the final two months of the
season. . . . When you think about it, calling a player “a .300 hitter”
really doesn’t say very much.

In the rest of this chapter, we’ll use probability models to see if there really
are differences between .300 hitters. Remember Kenny Lofton’s comment about
his bad luck hitting with runners in scoring position? We will try to explain how
much of the variation in the situational data is due to good or bad luck.
Specifically, we’ll explain what we mean by “real” or “true” situational effects,
and see what we learn about them from the situational data for all of the regu-
lar players in the 1998 season.

Observed and True Batting Averages

Recall our discussion about a true proportion and an observed proportion in
Chapter 3: if we toss a fair coin in the air, we know that the chance of tossing
heads is .5—this number represents the true proportion of heads. But if we toss
the coin 20 times, we may get 8 heads for an observed proportion 8/20, or .4. As
we stated, in any situation involving chance, it is likely that an observed pro-
portion will be different from the true proportion.
76 CHAPTER 4

In a similar fashion, we can define the concepts of observed and true batting
averages. In 1998, Scott Rolen came to bat 601 times and got 174 hits, so we com-
pute his batting average as follows:
174/601 = .290
This is his observed batting average, based on 601 opportunities to get a hit.
We measure Scott’s ability to hit this season by a number p, which we call his
true batting average. Like the coin probability of 50 percent, this number repre-
sents Scott’s chance of getting a base hit in a single at-bat. It is very unlikely
that his true batting average is equal to his 1998 observed batting average of .290.
Although Scott’s true average p is unknown, we learn something about his
true average by his performance during the 1998 season. Since he hit .290 for his
601 at-bats, we would guess that his true average p is close to .290. Actually,
using the formula presented in Chapter 3, we can construct a 95 percent confi-
dence interval for the true average. It turns out to be [.254, .326]. So we are
pretty confident that Scott’s hitting ability p is between .254 and .326.
Let’s illustrate the difference between Scott’s hitting ability and his season
performance by means of a simple simulation. (A similar simulation experiment
was performed for Roberto Alomar’s on-base percentage in Chapter 3.) Suppose
Scott is really a .300 hitter, and the chance p that he gets a hit in an at-bat is 30
percent. Imagine a spinner, as illustrated in Figure 4-1, where the pointer can
land anywhere on the circle. (Since we’re assuming his hit probability is .3, the
Hit region is 30 percent of the total area.) We simulate Scott’s hitting results for
a season by spinning the spinner 601 times. The total number of pointers that
fall in the Hit region will be his number of hits for the season.
On the computer, we did this simulation 100 times, obtaining the number of
hits for each of the 100 seasons (assuming that his true batting average is .300).
Table 4-2 shows the number of hits that we observed. These hit numbers are con-
verted to batting averages by dividing each by the number of at-bats (601).
These 100-season batting averages are displayed using a stemplot in Figure 4-2.
We are assuming that Scott is truly a .300 hitter and remains a .300 hitter for
100 seasons. But the stemplot illustrates that this good hitter has a variety of
good, mediocre, and bad seasons. In two unlucky seasons, he hit only .260. At the
other extreme, in one season he was very fortunate and hit .346. These simu-
lated results again demonstrate that a player’s true batting average can be dif-
ferent from his season batting average. Also, the differences are substantial: we
see an 86-point differential between Scott’s best (.346) and worst (.260) seasons
in these simulated seasons.
 S I T UAT I O NA L E F F E C T S 77

Hit

Out

FIGURE 4-1 Spinner for simulating hitting for Scott Rolen.

179 172 177 198 178 176 194 184 172 180

177 166 180 190 184 181 165 185 168 170

192 183 185 190 169 191 169 189 188 179

203 187 203 185 171 190 177 185 175 191

183 190 181 175 171 176 173 177 162 156

172 156 183 181 176 170 171 173 165 182

190 176 189 192 177 176 197 195 174 173

174 169 208 160 180 172 176 187 178 167

174 196 171 184 190 182 168 188 173 191

168 189 187 172 206 174 198 201 177 182

TABLE 4-2 Number of Hits in 601 At-Bats for 100 Seasons Assuming Scott Rolen Is
a .300 Hitter

26 006

27 05568

28 000111335555666668888

29 0000113333335555556688

30 0001113334446668888

31 1113344466666688899

32 346899

33 488

34 36

FIGURE 4-2 Stemplot of 100-season batting averages for a true .300 hitter.
78 CHAPTER 4

Batting Averages of the 1998 Regulars

We focused on one hitter and noticed that there can be a significant difference
between one’s ability—that is, his true batting average—and his season batting
performance. But what if we look at the batting averages of all the players in
1998? Can we use this bigger collection of data to make some conclusion about
the true batting averages of all of these players?
In 1998, there were 246 players (in both leagues) who had at least 300 at-
bats—we’ll call these the “regular players,” since 300 is about half the number of
at-bats of a player who plays every game. In Figure 4-3, we’ve constructed a
stemplot of the observed 1998 batting averages for these 246 players.
What do we see from this stemplot? The batting averages are approximately
bell-shaped, and most of the averages are clustered in the .250–.299 range. The
median batting average, that is, the value which divides the data set into a lower
half and an upper half, is .276. The weakest hitter was John Flaherty, who had a
.207 average. Two hitters stand out at the high end—John Olerud at .353 and
Larry Walker at .363.

20 789

21 4788

22 11245

23 1222334566777789

24 01233455567889999

25 0011122223334455555667788999

26 0012234445556666667778888889

27 000111111222223334555556677788888888999999

28 000112222223344444555678899

29 0000111223444455555666889

30 000223445567788999

31 000112445556789

32 0111124457778

33 068

34

35 3

36 3

FIGURE 4-3 Stemplot of batting averages of 1998 regular players.

 S I T UAT I O NA L E F F E C T S 79

Two Models for Batting Averages

From this graph of the observed batting averages, what can we say about the
true batting averages of these regular ballplayers? Remember we don’t actually
know the true hitting probabilities of these 246 players. All we know is their bat-
ting performance in the 1998 season. We will suggest two models for the true hit-
ting probabilities for these players and see how well data that is simulated from
these models mimic the actual 1998 batting averages.

A .276 Spinner Model

One simple model for hitting is based on the use of a random spinner (shown in
Figure 4-4) similar to what was used for Scott Rolen. It consists of two regions
(indicated by the heavy and light sections of the circle) that we’ll call, respec-
tively, “Hit” and “Out.” The area of the Hit region corresponds to the true hitting
probability of the player. Suppose that the player is average in ability—we’ll call
him “Joe Average.” If Joe is a typical regular batter, it is reasonable (using 1998
hitting statistics) to let him have a .276 chance of getting a hit—this corresponds
to a Hit area of .276. We call this model “a .276 spinner.”
If Joe has 500 at-bats during the season, we can simulate a season of hitting
for this average player by spinning our .276 spinner 500 times. We performed
this simulation once, and the spinner landed 152 times on the Hits region, which
corresponds to 152 hits during the season. Joe’s batting average for this simu-
lated season is then, 152/500 = .304. Note that the observed batting average for
Joe is different from his true hitting probability. As we saw in the case of Scott

Hit
.276

Out
.724

FIGURE 4-4 Spinner for an average (.276) hitter.

80 CHAPTER 4

Rolen, that will typically be the case. On a computer we had Joe play 10 simu-
lated seasons—Table 4-3 gives the number of hits and batting average for each.
We see that there is a lot of variation in Joe Average’s season performance. In
season 6, he was “hot” and batted .310. In contrast, he “slumped” in season 9 and
batted only .236. Remember, Joe is always an average-ability hitter. Just by
chance variation, he is having good and poor batting seasons. (In contrast, a
sportswriter who observes Joe’s .236 season would probably offer numerous
explanations for his poor year.)

Do All Players Have the Same Ability?

The variability of the season batting averages for this average player raises an
interesting question. Is it possible that all players have the same ability as Joe
Average, and that the differences observed in player averages for the 1998 sea-
son are therefore just the result of random variability? This seems like a silly
question—we think players have different hitting abilities—but it might be
helpful to check this scenario.
Remember that a hitter of average ability is represented by a spinner with a
Hit area equal to .276—a so-called .276 spinner. If all 246 players in the major
leagues are all average hitters (that is, a set of Joe Average clones), then we have
a set of 246 spinners, each spinner having a Hit area of .276.
To simulate a season of hitting for all 246 players, we just spin these 246
spinners many times, recording the number of Hits and Outs. After this simu-
lated season is completed, we compute the season batting averages for all play-
ers, graph the simulated averages, and compare the results with the graph of the
actual 1998 season batting averages.
Figure 4-5 shows what happened when we did this simulation for one base-
ball season. The actual 1998 batting averages are displayed in the left boxplot,
and the simulated batting averages are displayed in the right boxplot.

S I M U L AT I O N

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

HITS 152 121 131 147 126 155 126 128 118 144

ABS 500 500 500 500 500 500 500 500 500 500

AVG 0.304 0.242 0.262 0.294 0.252 0.310 0.252 0.256 0.236 0.288

TABLE 4-3 Simulated Data from 10 Seasons of Hitting by Joe Average

 S I T UAT I O NA L E F F E C T S 81

.350

.300
BATTING AVERAGES

.250

.200

Actual Simulated

FIGURE 4-5 Boxplots of actual 1998 batting averages and simulated seasonal averages
from one random spinner model.

What do we see? Both groups of batting averages are centered about the
median value .276. But the actual 1998 batting averages are more spread out
than the simulated averages. In the simulated season, only a couple of players
hit less than .240 or more than .320. In contrast, there were a number of players
in the actual 1998 season who had averages lower than .240 or higher than .320.
This suggests that the “equal ability” model doesn’t provide a good fit to the
data.
When we repeated this simulation of baseball seasons many times, the result
was the same. The actual 1998 season batting averages always had greater
spread than the season batting averages simulated from the “Joe Average
clones” model. What do we conclude? A .276 spinner model does not work for
baseball hitting data, which means that hitters do have different abilities. A
more complicated model is needed to represent baseball hitting data. As we said
before, this is a pretty obvious conclusion—it would seem ludicrous to say that
players all have the same hitting ability—but it illustrates the basic method
we’ll use to check the suitability of other models.

A Model Using a Set of Random Spinners

From our investigation of the .276 spinner, we concluded that players have dif-
ferent hitting abilities. The next question is, how can we represent these differ-
ent abilities? When we take physical measurements of the general population
82 CHAPTER 4

and collect data about different characteristics—such as height, arm span, foot
size, and so forth—we find that most of the measurements cluster in the middle
and attenuate (or “thin out”) at the high and low extremes. We call this data dis-
tribution “normal,” and when we put it into a graph, we get the familiar bell-
shaped curve. This normal curve is also found in data describing the abilities of
people. For example, if you give 100 people a standardized test on some subject
matter such as math, the test scores will be approximately bell-shaped.
This bell-shaped curve is also useful for describing the hitting abilities of ball
players. Suppose that the true hitting proportions of regular Major League ball
players are described by a normal curve. We’ll let the center of the curve be .276,
which is the typical season batting average for 1998. Next we have to decide on
the spread of this curve. We know that ball players have different abilities, and
the spread of this curve will tell us how different the abilities can be. We choose
a spread for the curve so that the season batting averages that are simulated
resemble the actual batting averages for the 1998 season. How we figure out this
spread is a bit complicated. But it turns out that if we let the normal curve have
a standard deviation of .021, the season batting averages are a pretty good
match to the actual 1998 data.

20

16

12

0.15 0.20 0.25 .276 0.30 0.35 0.40

p

FIGURE 4-6 Normal model for true hitting probabilities.

 S I T UAT I O NA L E F F E C T S 83

The technical name for this model is a random-effects model, or a random-

ability model. To better understand this model, let’s describe in some detail how
one could simulate hitting of all the regular players in a baseball season.
• The first thing we do is to choose the different abilities of the 246
players who are playing the 1998 season. We choose these abilities
randomly based on the normal curve in Figure 4-6. We did this on
a computer and got the true baseball averages shown in Table 4-4.
• To see where these true batting averages come from, we’ve
graphed these 246 averages in Figure 4-7 and placed the normal-
ability curve on top. (This figure uses a dotplot, where each
batting average is represented by a dot on a number line.) We see
that most of the true averages are in the 250–300 range, which is
what we predict from the normal curve.

278 259 290 281 281 270 273 249 241 271 284 270

226 297 301 261 282 265 248 299 261 276 276 241

310 223 252 254 281 250 269 256 251 255 268 280

244 276 277 283 286 303 264 281 276 264 321 271

246 313 283 253 289 303 257 279 273 252 301 276

287 261 262 283 278 315 270 322 308 235 241 264

272 276 294 261 261 272 276 282 298 289 239 291

293 289 304 283 262 273 225 286 278 264 262 253

275 284 269 266 275 272 256 303 285 303 266 253

293 277 260 274 234 299 255 262 304 257 267 265

310 278 253 252 312 317 310 250 272 272 282 264

255 267 299 326 281 270 291 266 315 299 250 262

304 284 284 240 281 290 263 255 272 254 274 282

305 280 265 293 281 290 265 294 282 289 254 274

308 285 236 286 303 289 305 304 257 228 314 284

276 267 244 281 247 258 272 292 284 248 307 277

315 251 260 260 274 255 256 226 258 281 272 272

274 280 265 261 287 267 281 256 273 292 257 279

271 274 268 232 273 305 290 268 262 281 268 265

277 302 288 255 296 225 271 277 267 272 244 298

259 284 264 308 279 271

TABLE 4-4 Simulated True Batting Averages for 246 Players

84 CHAPTER 4

20

15

10

0.20 0.25 0.30 0.35

p

FIGURE 4-7 Dotplot of the true batting averages with a normal curve placed on top.

.278 .259 .290

.226 .297 .301

.310 .223 .252

FIGURE 4-8 Spinner models for nine hitters from the random-ability model.
 S I T UAT I O NA L E F F E C T S 85

0.36

0.34

0.32

0.30

0.28

0.26
BATTING AVERAGE

0.24

0.22

0.20

Actual Simulated

FIGURE 4-9 Boxplots of actual 1998 batting averages and simulated seasonal averages
from the many spinners model.

• Based on the 246 true batting averages we have simulated, we

construct 246 computerized spinners. Each spinner corresponds to
a particular player, and the Hit area for his spinner will be equal
to the true batting average for that particular player. So if Scott
Rolen is assigned a .308 true average, his spinner would have a
relatively large Hit area, and Albert Belle, with a .251 true
average, would have a spinner with a smaller Hit area, and so on.
The nine spinners shown in Figure 4-8 correspond to the boldface
averages in the upper-left corner of Table 4-4.
• We then spin all of these spinners for a full season of hitting,
where each player has the same number of at-bats as he actually
had in the 1998 season.
We did this simulation for a single baseball season and computed the season
batting averages for all 246 players. How did these simulated batting averages
compare with the actual 1998 averages? Figure 4-9 compares the two sets of
averages by means of two boxplots. Looking at the boxplots, we see that they
seem to mimic the actual 1998 averages pretty well. For the actual 1998 data,
there is one extreme average at the high end, and the simulated data has one
unusually low average. In any event, this simulation confirms that the “many
random spinners” model does a pretty good job of predicting the distribution of
seasonal batting averages.
86 CHAPTER 4

Situational Effects
What have we learned from looking at the 1998 batting averages?
• Batters appear to possess different hitting abilities.
• We can describe these different abilities by means of a group of
true hitting averages. The group of true batting averages forms a
bell-shaped curve centered on the typical value .276.
Now we’re ready for a discussion of situational effects. How do players’ bat-
ting averages change across different situations? Specifically, using the data
from Player Profiles, we will compare players’ batting averages in the following
situations:
• during home games and away games
• against pitchers of the opposite arm and the same arm
• against ground-ball pitchers and fly-ball pitchers
• during day games and night games
• on games played on grass and on turf
• on games played before and after the All-Star Game
• when the team is in scoring position, when no one is on base and
there are no outs
• when the pitcher is ahead in the count and when there are 2 strikes
First, let’s discuss what is commonly believed about the importance of several
of these situations.

Home vs. Away

It’s well known that all ball parks are not created equal. They differ in the dis-
tances from home plate to the fences, the size and shape of foul territory, the cli-
mate, and countless other particulars. And it is believed, by players and coaches
and fans, that these differences have a significant impact on hitting. We hear
that batters who regularly play in a park that is supposedly “friendly” benefit
from that park. And it is widely accepted that players hit better at their home
ball park than they do on the road. It’s more comfortable to play in one’s own
park, goes the thinking: the players get to stay in their homes and drive them-
selves to work, while the away team which has to travel on planes and buses and
stay in motels. And the home team, of course, is cheered on by local fans.1 For all
of these reasons, one expects players to have higher batting averages at home
compared to away.

1 Contrary to myth, even in our home town of Philadelphia.

 S I T UAT I O NA L E F F E C T S 87

Turf vs. Grass

It is well known that balls hit on artificial turf will behave differently from those
hit on natural grass. It is believed that artificial turf will increase the number of
doubles and triples, since line drives into the outfield will move fast and more
likely evade the outfielders. Also, balls hit in the infield on artificial turf, we’re
told, will more likely reach the outfield. For these reasons, it is believed that
“turf,” as the artificial surface is called, has a positive impact on players’ batting
averages.

The Count
When a pitcher faces a batter, there are 12 possible pitch counts (0–0, 0–1, 0–2,
1–0, 1–1, 1–2, 2–0, 2–1, 2–2, 3–0, 3–1, 3–2). To an experienced fan, each count
conveys a feeling about the batter’s chances of getting a hit. For example, if the
hitter is facing an 0–2 count, it is generally believed that the pitcher has a strong
advantage and the hitter has a small chance of getting a hit. (Actually, the hit-
ter is likely to strike out after an 0–2 count.) In contrast, a batter with a 3–0
count can be very relaxed and confident and has a high probability of walking or
getting a hit. Thus it would seem that a player’s ability to get a hit would vary
greatly depending on the pitch count.

Opposite Arm vs. Same Arm

One of the fundamental managerial strategies is to have a hitter bat against a
pitcher of the opposite arm. This strategy is based on the belief that it is easier
to hit a pitch that’s coming toward you than a pitch moving away from you. As
Casey Stengel once said:
There’s not much to it. You put a right-hand hitter against a left-hand
pitcher and a left-hand hitter against a right-hand pitcher, and on
cloudy days you use a fastball pitcher.

According to this logic, one expects a player to have a better batting average
against pitchers of the opposite arm.

Models for Situational Effects

To understand which of the above situational effects are “real,” we’ll use the
same basic strategy that was used in analyzing the set of batting averages. We
will propose a few basic models for situational effects, then we will fit these basic
88 CHAPTER 4

models to the 1998 batting-average data. Based on this fitting, we’ll see which
models seem to predict the pattern of effects we see in the 1998 data.
To describe these models, let’s use a hypothetical situation that is not repre-
sented in Player Profiles. Suppose we break down the hitting data by the size of
the crowd—below average (whatever “average” is for that particular stadium),
and above average. We want to know if the size of the crowd has any effect on the
players’ batting averages. For ease of description, we will refer to these two sce-
narios as “small crowds” and “big crowds.”
Suppose one of our favorite players, Tony Gwynn, has 80 hits in 250 at-bats
on small-crowd days and 100 hits in 250 at-bats on big-crowd days. Given this
information, we observe the situational batting averages in Table 4-5. Looking at
the table, we might be tempted to say, “Wow!” Tony hit 80 points higher when the
attendance is high–apparently, he really loves to play in front of big crowds!
But wait a minute. We are learning that there is a lot of variation in batting
data for a single season. Maybe Tony doesn’t care if he’s hitting in front of a big
or small crowd, and there actually isn’t any real situational effect due to atten-
dance. The attendance effect of 80 points that we see in the hypothetical season
above might be due to chance variation. Tony may actually have the same true
batting average on small- and big-crowd days, but by luck he just happened to do
much better this year on big-crowd days. What we’re trying to do here is to
decide how much of the variation in situational hitting data is due to real effects
and how much of the variation is due to luck or chance variation.
For each player, let’s define two true batting averages. The first average pB is
the true batting average of the player when he plays in front of big crowds, and
the second average pS is the true average in front of small crowds. We’ll call the
true situational effect the difference between the two batting averages:
True effect = pB – pS
We want to learn about the sizes of the true effects for all of the hitters in 1998.
In the description of the models to follow, it will be convenient to write the two
batting averages as

AT T E N D A N C E
Small Crowd Big Crowd Difference

Batting Average 80/250 = .320 100/250 = .400 .400 – .320 = .080

TABLE 4-5 Hypothetical Situational Hitting Data for Tony Gwynn

 S I T UAT I O NA L E F F E C T S 89

True batting average for small crowds: pS

True batting average for big crowds: pB = pS + EFF
Here we’re using the abbreviation EFF to stand for the True Situational Effect.
To put this another way, EFF measures how much better a player hits when
there is a good crowd in the stands.
When we talk about situational effects, there are three possible scenarios.
We’ll describe these models using our hypothetical above-average/below-average
attendance situation.

Scenario 1 (No Situational Effect)

One possibility is that there is no true effect due to attendance. A major-league
ball player has been playing in front of crowds his whole life, and maybe he is
oblivious to the size of the crowd. If this is a reasonable statement, then there is
no reason to expect the batters to hit for a different average on small-crowd and
big-crowd days.
If there is no situational effect due to attendance, what would true batting
averages look like? We would see a distribution like the one shown in Figure 4-10,
which shows the same normal curve we saw in Figure 4-6.

20

15

10
DIFFERENCE IN AVG

0.15 0.20 0.25 0.30 0.35 0.40

FIGURE 4-10 Normal curve for batting averages when there is no situational effect due to
attendance.
90 CHAPTER 4

Scenario 2 (Situational Bias)

Let’s consider a different scenario. Suppose hitters actually like big crowds, and
when they see a big crowd, they get excited and try harder. And since they try
harder, they are generally more successful in hitting. If this is true, then a
player’s true batting average on big-crowd days will be higher than the player’s
true batting average on small-crowd days. Also, we assume here that the big
crowd has the same effect on all of the players. So if this effect is, say, 40 points—
that is, the average is 40 points higher for big crowds than for small crowds—
then every player will have this same effect. The statistical term for this type of
behavior is a bias.
Table 4-6 and Figure 4-11 illustrate what we mean by a bias. Suppose that
the hitting abilities of the players on small crowd days follow a normal curve
with mean .256 and standard deviation .021. In Table 4-6, we show the true bat-
ting averages for 50 representative hitters on poor-attendance days. In the top
graph of Figure 4-11, we display these true averages using a dotplot.
Next, suppose that there is a bias of 40 points. That means that every player
bats for a 40-point higher average when there is a big crowd, in which case:
EFF = .040

PLAYER TRUE AVG

A .258 N .262 AA .261 NN .257

B .239 O .245 BB .230 OO .263

C .270 P .228 CC .249 PP .266

D .206 Q .279 DD .236 QQ .283

E .277 R .241 EE .231 RR .244

F .261 S .256 FF .235 SS .261

G .261 T .256 GG .248 TT .256

H .281 U .251 HH .260 UU .244

I .250 V .264 II .254 VV .301

J .253 W .250 JJ .278 WW .251

K .229 X .221 KK .251 XX .226

L .221 Y .234 LL .224 YY .293

M .241 MM .256

TABLE 4-6 Fifty Representative True Batting Averages for Games with Small Crowds
 S I T UAT I O NA L E F F E C T S 91

To get the true batting averages for our 50 hitters on big-crowd days, we sim-
ply add 40 points to each small-crowd batting average in Table 4-6. The result-
ing averages are shown in Table 4-7.
The bottom graph of Figure 4-11 displays the true “big crowd” averages.
Comparing the two dotplots, we see the effect of the situational bias. All of the
dots in the top graph have been shifted to the right by 40 points to get the dots
in the bottom graph. This emphasizes the fact that a situational bias means that
all players have the same batting-average improvement due to a good park
attendance.

Scenario 3 (Situational Effect Depends on Ability)

The third scenario is the most complicated description of what may be going on.
Maybe there really is a boosting effect due to the size of the crowd, but the size
of the effect depends on the player. For example, suppose that there are two play-
ers, Joe Cool and Harry Hyper, who react differently to big crowds. Joe is good in
not letting outside influences affect his hitting. His true batting average when
there are big crowds is approximately equal to his average when there is no one
in the stands. Harry, in contrast, feeds on whatever energy level is present in the
ball park. If attendance is low and no one is cheering, he is complacent, and his
batting average suffers. On the other hand, if the ball park is filled to capacity

10

Small Crowd Days

10
Big Crowd Days

5
COUNT

0.20 0.25 0.30 0.35

AVG

FIGURE 4-11 Dotplots of 50 typical “small crowd” and “big crowd” true batting averages
when there is a situational bias of 40 points due to attendance.
92 CHAPTER 4

PLAYER TRUE AVG

A .258+.040 N .262+.040 AA .261+.040 NN .257+.040

B .239+.040 O .245+.040 BB .230+.040 OO .263+.040

C .270+.040 P .228+.040 CC .249+.040 PP .266+.040

D .206+.040 Q .279+.040 DD .236+.040 QQ .283+.040

E .277+.040 R .241+.040 EE .231+.040 RR .244+.040

F .261+.040 S .256+.040 FF .235+.040 SS .261+.040

G .261+.040 T .256+.040 GG .248+.040 TT .256+.040

H .281+.040 U .251+.040 HH .260+.040 UU .244+.040

I .250+.040 V .264+.040 II .254+.040 VV .301+.040

J .253+.040 W .250+.040 JJ .278+.040 WW .251+.040

K .229+.040 X .221+.040 KK .251+.040 XX .226+.040

L .221+.040 Y .234+.040 LL .224+.040 YY .293+.040

M .241+.040 MM .256+.040

TABLE 4-7 Fifty Representative True Batting Averages for Games with Above-Average
Attendance

and the crowd is cheering, Harry gets pumped and hits for a high batting aver-
age. Harry would have a large situational effect due to the park attendance.
In this scenario, we are saying that players actually possess different abilities
to use the situation. Harry is more successful than Joe in using the crowd to his
advantage. If Harry and Joe are both second baseman, then the manager might
prefer to use Joe on small-crowd days and Harry on high-attendance days.

Finding Good Models

We’ve described three possible scenarios for a given situation effect. We’ll nick-
name these scenarios as “no effect,” “bias,” and “ability effects.”
• No effect. There is no true situational effect. Any differences that
we observe in the season situational batting averages are solely
due to chance variation.
• Bias. There is a true situational effect, but it is the same for all
players.
• Ability effects. Players have different true situational effects.

How do statisticians find the best model for the 1998 hitting data? Actually,
we don’t want to bore you with a long explanation of the method of finding the
model. What’s more important here is an understanding what we mean by
 S I T UAT I O NA L E F F E C T S 93

“best.” We know that baseball hitting is a complicated process, and no model,

including the ones described above, will perfectly describe what is going on with
respect to situational effects. But what we do in statistics is try to find a single
simple model that seems to explain pretty well the hitting data that we observe
in Player Profiles. There are two important aspects of the model. First, we want
the model to be simple so that it is understandable. Second, the model should be
good in the sense that it makes reasonable predictions about current and future
baseball data. The “many random spinners” model for batting averages is an
example of a good statistical model. It is easy to understand, and it predicts, rea-
sonably well, the pattern of season hitting data that we observe.

What Do Observed Situational Effects Look Like

When There Is No Effect?
Before we look at the situational data of the 1998 hitters, it will be helpful to
consider a scenario where there is no situational effect. We will simulate situa-
tional data for a season, and by looking at the observed situational batting aver-
ages, we’ll understand the great variability that is inherent in this type of data.
Let’s recall the “random spinners” model for hitting data. Here each of the
246 hitters has an associated random spinner, where the Hit region in the spin-
ner corresponds to the true batting average. We spin these spinners for an entire
season of hitting, and in this way simulate the season batting averages for the
group of players.
We introduce a new situation where we know there is no effect. Let’s suppose
that, when we do this simulation, half of the time we spin the spinner in the dark
and the other half of the time we spin in the daylight. So, for example, consider
Roberto Alomar, who has 588 at-bats in the 1998 season. For 294 of the at-bats,
we’ll spin Alomar’s spinner in the dark, and for the remaining 294 at-bats we’ll
use the spinner in the daylight. After we use the spinner for all 588 at-bats, we
will record the number of hits that Alomar gets in the dark and in the light. We
will compute Alomar’s batting average in each situation, and then we can com-
pute the observed situational effect:
Observed situational effect = AVGdark – AVGlight
When we did one simulation, Alomar got 87 hits in 294 AB in the dark for a
batting average of 87/294 = .296. In the light, he had 71 hits in 294 AB for an
average of .242. Alomar’s observed situational effect in this case is:
Observed situational effect = .296 – .242 = 0.54
94 CHAPTER 4

So Alomar hit for 54 more points in the dark in this simulation season. To
many people, this would represent a significant effect—Alomar must like the
dark! But of course this is not the case, since it was the spinning, and not real
hitting, that took place with the lights out.
To investigate further, we repeated this simulation for all 246 players (using
their 1998 at-bat totals) and computed situational effects for all players. In
Figure 4-12, we graphed the 246 effects using a stemplot.
In this silly example, does there exist a true situational effect? If the same
spinner is used in the dark and in the light, do you think the chance of getting
the pointer to land in the Hit region will change depending on the light in the
room? Of course not. If you spin the spinner the same way each time, the chance
of getting a Hit will remain the same regardless of the light. We know in this
case that there is no true situational effect.
Now look at the stemplot in Figure 4-12. Even though there is no dark-light
effect, some of the players have large dark-light effects for this simulated sea-
son. One player batted .358 in the dark and .241 in the light for a whopping
effect of .358 – .241 = .117. On the other side, there was one player who batted
.262 in the dark and .372 in the light—110 points greater in the light. The situ-
ational effects are bell or normal shaped, centered about the average value of 0,
which is what we would expect. But the spread of these effects is large, and prac-
tically all of the observed effects fall between –100 and +100 points. This simu-
lation demonstrates that, even when there is nothing going on, the observed sit-
uational effects can look deceptively interesting.

–1 10
–0 99998888
–0 766666666
–0 55555555544444444444444
–0 333333333333333322222222222222222222
–0 11111111111110000000000000000
0 0000000000000000000000000000111111111111111111111111
0 222222222222222222222222222223333333333333333333333
0 4444444444444555555555
0 666777
0 8889
1 0111

FIGURE 4-12 Stemplot of seasonal situational effects when there is not a true effect.
 S I T UAT I O NA L E F F E C T S 95

The Last Five Years’ Data

Although we are focusing on interpreting the 1998 situational data, Player
Profiles also gives the same situational hitting data for the previous five-year
period, from 1994 through 1998. This five-year data is very useful for under-
standing the significance of observed situational effects. Looking at the book, we
see that Butch Huskey in 1998 hit for an average of .299 against left-handed
pitchers and only .230 against right-handers—here we observe a situational
effect of 69 points (.299 – .230 = .069). Does this mean that Huskey (who is a
right-handed hitter) is a much better hitter against lefties? Maybe or maybe not.
It’s possible that Huskey has the same hitting ability against lefties and right-
ies, but by chance he just happened to do better against lefties in 1998. One way
of checking if this 69-point differential is real is to look at his performance over
the last five years. If he exhibits the same effect in the previous years, one would
have more confidence that the situational effect really exists. The data in Table
4-8, taken from Player Profiles, helps us take just such a look at Huskey’s five-
year history.
We observe a left-right average difference of .301 – .254 = .047, which is
pretty large. So we might conclude that Huskey is a much better batter against
lefties But, wait: the last five years’ data includes the year 1998. So one reason
that Huskey has a large five-year effect is that he experienced a large effect in
1998. It would be better to remove the 1998 data from the last five years, creat-
ing data for the four-year period 1994–1997, as shown in Table 4-9.
We see that in the last four years, Huskey had a .301 – .263 = .038 average
difference. This is reasonably large, so we believe that Huskey does hit for higher
average against lefties. But the 1998 difference of .069 seems to be larger than
his true advantage. We will use the last four years data to give support to our
conclusions about the true situational effects.

LAST FIVE YEARS (1994–1998)

AB H AVG

Left 389 117 0.301

Right 955 245 0.254

TABLE 4-8 Butch Huskey’s Batting Data for the Five-Year Period 1994–1998
96 CHAPTER 4

FIRST FOUR YEARS (1994–1997)

AB H AVG

Left 272 82 0.301

Right 703 185 0.263

TABLE 4-9 Butch Huskey’s Batting Data for the First Four-Year Period 1994–1997

–1 9 –1 6

–1 –1

–1 –1 3

–1 –1 00000

–1 00 –0 888

–0 98888 –0 777777666666666

–0 7777666666 –0 55555544444444444444

–0 5555555555555554444444444 –0 3333333333333333333332222222222222222222222

–0 3333333333333332222222222222 –0 111111111111111111111110000000000000000000000

–0 1111111111111111000000000000000000000000000 0 0000000000000000000111111111111111111111

0 000000000000000000011111111111111111111111111 0 22222222222222222222222333333333333

0 222222222222222333333333333333333 0 44444444555555555

0 44444444444444455555555555 0 666666667777

0 666666666677777 0 889999

0 88888888 1 0

1 0001 1 23

FIGURE 4-13 Stemplot of observed 1998 differences

AVG(pre-All-Star Game) – AVG(post-All-Star Game).
FIGURE 4-14 Stemplot of observed 1998 differences AVG(day games) – AVG(night games).

The “No Effect” Situations

Recall the simulation in which we spun our spinners half the time in the dark
and half the time in the light. In that situation, even when we knew that there
was no situational effect, the observed situational effects fell between –100 and
+100 batting average points. Interestingly, we see this same pattern of season
effects for all of the following situations:
• pre-All-Star Game vs. post-All-Star Game
• day games vs. night games
• grass vs. turf

In Figures 4-13, 4-14, and 4-15, we have used stemplots to graph the observed
1998 situational effects for pre/post, day/night and grass/turf for all 246 players.
We see in this actual data basically the same pattern of effects that we saw in
our light/day simulated data. For each of these three situations, the player effects
are bell-shaped around 0 and spread out between –100 and +100 points.
 S I T UAT I O NA L E F F E C T S 97

To emphasize this point, Figure 4-16 displays parallel boxplots of the 1998
effects for the pre/post All-Star game, day/night, grass/turf situations together
with the hypothetical dark/light values from our situation. Note the similarity of
these four datasets, in terms of both the average value and the spread.
So we conclude that their is no general effect for these three situations.
Players don’t generally hit any better or worse in the last half of the season than
the first half of the season. There is no general hitting advantage or disadvan-
tage in playing a night game compared to a day game. And there is no general
hitting effect with regard to the type of field (grass or turf).
One way to demonstrate the lack of a general effect for these situational vari-
ables is to compare the 1998 observational effect with the last-four-years
(1994–1997) effect for all of the players. For example, consider the pre-All-
Star/post-All-Star effect. Table 4-10 shows the pre-All-Star and post-All-Star
batting averages for four of the players.
We see from Table 4-10 that Edgardo
–0 99998888

–0 7777766666666 Alfonzo hit 21 points better in the second

–0 5555555555555555444444444

–0 333333333333332222222222222222222
half of the season in 1998, but hit only 2
–0 1111111111111111100000000000000000 points better in the second half in the previ-
0 00000000000000000000000001111111111111111

0 222222222222222333333333333
ous four years. Jermaine Allensworth hit 86
0 4444444444444455555555555555555 points better in the first half in 1998, but
0 66666667777777777

0 888888999
hit 1 point worse in the first half in
1 0001111
1994–1997.
1

1 4

0.15

0.10

0.05

0
DIFFERENCE IN AVG

–0.05

–0.10

–0.15

–0.20

Dark/Light Pre/Post Day/Night Grass/Turf

All-Star Game

FIGURE 4-15 Stemplot of observed 1998 differences AVG(grass) – AVG(turf).

FIGURE 4-16 Boxplots of pre/post-All-Star game, day/night, and grass/turf 1998 situational
effects. For comparison, a boxplot of the simulated dark/light effects is shown.
98 CHAPTER 4

1998 1994–1997

PLAYER PRE POST PRE–POST PRE POST PRE–POST

Edgardo Alfonzo 0.267 0.288 –0.021 0.287 0.289 –0.002

Jermaine Allensworth 0.300 0.214 0.086 0.257 0.258 –0.001

Roberto Alomar 0.291 0.271 0.020 0.323 0.307 0.016

Sandy Alomar 0.261 0.196 0.065 0.315 0.271 0.044

TABLE 4-10 Batting Averages for Four Players Before and After the All-Star Game

Suppose that for each player we record the pre/post effect in 1998 and the
pre/post effect in 1994–1997, and then graph these values in a scatterplot, as
shown in Figure 4-17. We don’t see any increasing or decreasing pattern in the
graph, which means that there is little relationship between the players’
pre/post situational effect in 1998 and the corresponding effects in the four pre-
vious years.
Since there is no general effect for these three situations, does this mean that
there is no real situational effect for any of the individual players? No. It is pos-
sible that some players do take advantage of some situations. For example, it is
possible that some batters have a stroke that is especially well-suited for artifi-
cial turf, and so they hit for a higher true average on turf than on grass.
However, our analysis seems to indicate that this turf/grass effect, if it exists at
all, applies only to a relatively small group of players. If many players had a
turf/grass effect, then we would see it in the observed situational effects. But the
data we see is very consistent with a model where there is no turf/grass situa-
tional effect for any of the players.

The “Bias” Situations

For three other situations, namely home vs. away, ground-ball vs. fly-ball, and
same-handed vs. opposite-handed, there is evidence of a general situational
effect. Generally, one can say that:
• Hitters bat 12 points better at home games compared with away
games.
• Hitters bat 12 points better against ground-ball pitchers than fly-
ball pitchers.
• Hitters bat 15 points better against pitchers of the opposite arm
than pitchers of the same arm.
 S I T UAT I O NA L E F F E C T S 99

0.10

0.05

–0.05
94–97 EFFECT

–0.10

–0.20 –0.15 –0.10 –0.05 0 0.05 0.10

98 EFFECT

FIGURE 4-17 Scatterplot of 1998 situational effects and the previous four-year period situ-
ational effects for the pre/post All-Star Game situation.

Let’s try to understand what this general effect means. It is well known that
it is easier to hit in some ball parks (Coors Fields, in Denver, is an example) and
relatively difficult to hit in others (Dodger Stadium comes to mind). So one
would expect that players that hit in easy-to-hit or hard-to-hit ball parks might
have different true home vs. away effects from other players who play in “aver-
age” ball parks. However, the ball-park effect is somewhat diluted, since players
don’t play all of their games in their home ball park, and all players have oppor-
tunities to hit in easy-to-hit or hard-to-hit ball parks.
What this general effect is telling us is that a home field appears to have the
same impact on all of the players who regularly play in that ball park. Likewise,
facing a ground-ball pitcher (instead of a fly-ball pitcher) has the same positive
effect on all hitters, and facing a pitcher of the opposite arm has the same bene-
ficial effect (15 points) on all hitters. Again, it should be emphasized that some
players might really take advantage of the situation relative to other players.
For example, one player might really take advantage of his home ball park and
have a true home vs. away effect. But our analysis says that there are not too
many players with unusually large or small situational effects, and the 1998
data is consistent with a model which says that the situation has the same
impact on all players.
100 CHAPTER 4

–0 98
The stemplots of the observed sit-
–0 77777766666666
uational effects for home/away, oppo-
–0 55555444444444

–0 3333333333333322222222222222222222 site/same, and ground-ball/fly-ball are

–0 11111111111111111110000000000000
shown in Figures 4-18, 4-19, and 4-20. The
0 0000000000000000000000111111111111111111111111

0 22222222222222222222222233333333333333333333333 home/away and opposite-handed/same-

0 444444444444444445555555555555
6666666677777777
handed stemplots resemble the day/night,
0

0 889 pre/post, and grass/turf graphs that were

1 0000001
1
shown earlier. The only difference is that
1 4 the average home/away effect is about 12
points and the average opposite-hand-
–0 9 ed/same-handed effect is about 15 points.
–0 6666
The ground-ball/fly-ball effects are more
–0 555544444

–0 333333333322222222222222222 spread out—they range between –140 and

–0 111111111111111111111100000000000
+250 points. There is a simple reason for
0 00000000000000000111111111111111111

0 222222222222222233333333333333333 this wider spread—the number of at-bats

0 44444444444444445555555555555

0 666666666666777777
for these categories is small (not every
0 888899999 pitcher is classified as a ground-ball or fly-
1 00011

1 2
ball type) and so there is more variation
1 4
in the batting averages for these cate-
1 7
gories.
Figure 4-21 shows boxplots of the 1998
–1 4

–1 3222
effects for these three situations and con-
–1 00 trasts these effects with the simulated
–0 999888888

–0 7777666666666
effects from our artificial dark/light
–0 5555555555544444444444444444
example. Note that the average values of
–0 33333333333332222222222

–0 111111111111100000000000 the home/away and opposite/same effects

0 000000000000000111111111111111111
are a little larger than the dark/light
0 22222222222222233333333333333333333333

0 4444444445555555 effects, but the spreads of these three

0 666666666677777777777

0 888888888888999999999
datasets are similar.
1 000011 Since these three situations are biases,
1 233
1 55
they affect all hitters the same way, and
1 there is no reason that a player who has a
1 8

2
large situational effect one season will
2
also have a high situational effect the next
2 5

FIGURE 4-18 Stemplot of observed 1998 differences AVG(Home – Away Games).

FIGURE 4-19 Stemplot of observed 1998 differences AVG(opposite – same-handed).
FIGURE 4-20 Stemplot of observed 1998 differences AVG(ground-ball – fly-ball pitcher).
 S I T UAT I O NA L E F F E C T S 101

0.25

0.20

0.15

0.10

0.05
DIFFERENCE IN BATTING

–0.05

–0.10

–0.15

Dark/Light Home/Away Opp/Same G.Ball/F.Ball

FIGURE 4-21 Boxplots of home/away, same-handed/opposite-handed, and ground-ball

pitcher/fly-ball pitcher 1998 situational effects. For comparison, a boxplot of
the simulated dark/light effects is also shown.

season. To see this, let’s compare the same-handed/opposite-handed situational

effects for the 1998 season and the 1994–1997 seasons. Suppose that, for each
player, we record the same-handed/opposite-handed effect in 1998, and the same-
handed/opposite-handed effect in the period 1994–1997, and then plot this data
on a scatterplot, as shown in Figure 4-22. We don’t see any positive or negative
drift in the scatter of points, which tells us that there appears to be no relation-
ship between one’s ability to hit opposite-handed pitchers (relative to same-hand-
ed pitchers) in 1998 and the corresponding opposite-handed hitting ability the
previous four years.

The “Ability” Situations

Up to this point, we have shown that situational effects are essentially bias
effects. All of the above situations, such as home/away and same-handed/oppo-
site-handed appear to affect all players the same way. So for these situations,
there appear to be few “situational stars”—players who take particular advan-
tage of a given situation.
There are, however, two situations—the pitch count and the runners-on-base
situation—that we haven’t yet talked about, and as it turns out, these are prob-
ably the most interesting. For these situations, players appear to possess differ-
ent true situational effects. Among the eight types of situational effects we are
studying, it makes some sense only with these two to talk about unusually small
102 CHAPTER 4

0.10

0.05

–0.05
94–97 EFFECT

–0.10

–0.10 –0.05 0 0.05 0.10 0.15 0.20

98 EFFECT

FIGURE 4-22 Scatterplot of 1998 situational effects and the previous four-year period situ-
ational effects for the same-handed/opposite-handed situation.

and unusually large individual player effects. When it comes to the pitch count
and runners-on-base situations, it appears that individual ability varies signifi-
cantly from player to player.
How did we decide that the pitch count situation, say, was different from the
earlier six? We did try to fit a model which said that pitch count was a bias situ-
ation. That is, we tried to fit a model which said that each batter loses the same
amount of hitting effectiveness when the pitch count is two strikes. But the
model didn’t fit very well in the sense that it did not predict the actual pitch
count situational data that we see in Player Profiles. Instead, the observed pitch
count situational effects we see in the book are more spread out than what one
would expect if pitch count were really a bias effect. The same thing happened
when we tried to fit a bias model to the scoring-position/none-on-out data. The
actual data we see in the book have more variation than we would expect to see
if this situation affected each hitter the same way.
Let’s analyze the pitch count data first. Figure 4-23 shows a stemplot of the
observed situational effects.
The center of these effects is at about 158 points. So players generally hit 158
points lower when the count is at two strikes (pitch counts 0–2, 1–2, 2–2, 3–2)
instead of being ahead in the count. This is a very large effect. If you are watch-
 S I T UAT I O NA L E F F E C T S 103

ing a game and a pitcher gets two strikes on the batter, then it’s pretty likely the
batter will be heading back to the dugout in very short order.
What is even more interesting about this data than the size of the general
effect is its range. Looking at the stemplot, some batters actually had a pitch
count effect near zero—they hit for about the same average when they were
ahead in the count or when they had two strikes. In contrast, two hitters had a
pitch count of over 300 points! These hitters either were extremely good when
they were ahead in the count or they were terrible when the pitch count got to
two strikes.
Since the situational effects depend on ability, some players are better than
others in handling different pitch counts. To find good and poor players in this
situation, let’s compare this data with the previous four years’ data. For each
player, we find the 1998 situational effect (AVG when ahead in count – AVG
when two-strikes), and also find the same situational effect for the years
1994–1997. A scatterplot of the 1998 effects and the previous four-year period
effects is shown in Figure 4-24.
What is notable about this graph is that there is a positive drift to the scatter
of points. This means that there is a relationship between a player’s 1998 effect

0 00111

0 233

0 4445555

0 666666667777777777

0 888888888899999999

1 00000000000000011111111

1 222222222222223333333333333

1 444444444455555555555555

1 666666666666666666677777777

1 888888999999999999

2 0000000000000000000111111111111111111111

2 2222233333333

2 444455555

2 6677

2 8888999

3 0

3 33

FIGURE 4-23 Stemplot of observed 1998 differences

AVG(ahead in the count) – AVG(behind in the count).
104 CHAPTER 4

0.30

0.25

0.20

0.15

0.10

0.05

0
94–97 EFFECT

–0.05

–0.10

0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4

98 EFFECT

FIGURE 4-24 Scatterplot of 1998 situational effects and the previous four-year situational
effects for the ahead-in-count/two-strikes situation.

and his 1994–1997 effect. Hitters who have high 1998 effects also tended to have
high effects in the previous four-year period; similarly, low-effect hitters in 1998
tended to be low in the previous period. This confirms that the pitch-count effect
is an ability-based effect, and not the result of chance. The relationship between
the 1998 effect and the 1994–1997 effect isn’t very strong—there is still a lot of
scatter in the graph. But we didn’t see this positive relationship for any other of
the six situations that we previously analyzed.
Since the pattern of pitch count effects corresponds to real effects, it makes
sense to pick out the players who are unusually high or low for both 1998 and
the 1994–1997 periods. These players correspond to points which are in the
upper right or lower left of the scatterplot. We’ve labeled some of the extreme
points in the scatterplot in Figure 4-25.
There is a strong connection between a player’s pitch-count situation effect
and his likelihood of striking out. To see this, Table 4-11 lists six players in the
lower left part of the plot who have small ahead-in-the-count/two-strike effects,
and, at the other extreme, in Table 4-12, eleven players who have large pitch-
count effects. The table gives the number of at-bats, number of strikeouts, and the
strikeout rate for the players in the last five years. Players who have small pitch
 S I T UAT I O NA L E F F E C T S 105

0.30
1 1 Shane Andrews
2 Russ Davis
0.25 2 34
3 Tony Clark
5
7 6 4 Reggie Sanders
0.20
8 5 Jim Thome
10 9
6 Kevin Young
0.15
11 7 Carl Everett
12
8 Ray Lankford
0.10 13
14 9 Jeff Blauser
15 10 Fred McGriff
0.05 16 11 Cecil Fielder
12 Wilton Guerrero
17
0 13 Chris Stynes
94–97 EFFECT

14 Keith Lockhart
–0.05 15 Lance Johnson
16 Tony Gwynn
–0.10 17 Delvi Cruz
–0.10 0 0.10 0.20 0.30 0.40

98 EFFECT

FIGURE 4-25 Situational effects for the ahead-in-the-count/two-strike situation with scat-
terplot of 1998 situational effects and unusual players from the previous four-
year period identified.

At-Bats Strikeouts Percent

Shane Andrews 1151 344 30

Russ Davis 1201 314 26

Tony Clark 1659 429 26

Reggie Sanders 1964 552 28

At-Bats Strikeouts Percent
Jim Thome 2214 625 28

Wilton Guerrero 761 117 15 Kevin Young 1360 335 25

Chris Stynes 672 57 8 Carl Everett 1442 339 24

Keith Lockhart 1263 125 10 Ray Lankford 2442 632 26

Lance Johnson 2415 147 6 Fred McGriff 2697 521 19

Tony Gwynn 2458 97 4 Jeff Blauser 1956 419 21

Delvi Cruz 890 110 12 Cecil Fielder 2287 563 25

TABLE 4-11 Players with Low Ahead-in-the-Count/Two-Strike Effects

TABLE 4-12 Players with High Ahead-in-the-Count/Two-Strike Effects
106 CHAPTER 4

count effects are relatively unlikely to strike out—their strikeout rates are in the
4–15 percent range. In contrast, the players who have high effects generally
strike out about twice as often—these rates fall between 19 and 30 percent.
Players in the two groups represent very different types of hitters. Tony Gwynn
is representative of the first group—a hitter who has tremendous bat control and
a short stroke. Jim Thome represents the second group of hitters—he has a long
batting stroke that is well suited for power but at the cost of striking out a lot. So
differences between these pitch-count effects are meaningful. They correspond to
different batting styles, and the different abilities of players to control the bat.

How Large Are the True Ability Effects?

Another thing that we learn from the scatterplot of 1998 effects and 1994–1997
effects is that the true pitch-count effects are likely smaller than what we think
based on the 1998 data. First, consider a player like Tony Gwynn. If we’re inter-
ested in his true pitch-count effect, do you think it is better to use the 1998 data,
or the data in the four-year period 1994–1997? Actually, it’s better to use the
four-year data, since it is based on a lot more at-bats. (Tony had 1997 at-bats in
the 1994–1997 period compared to 461 at-bats in 1998.) In other words, Tony’s
pitch count effect in 1994–1997 is likely closer to his true effect than the effect
that we observe in 1998.
We can learn about the relationship between the 1994–1997 effects and the
1998 effects by fitting a ”best” line to the scatterplot that was graphed below. The
equation of this best line is given by the following:
Previous Four-Year Effect = .1 + .3(Effect in 1998)
This equation tells you how to predict a player’s previous four-year effect if
you know his 1998 effect. Since the four-year effect is the best estimate of a
player’s true effect, this prediction is informative about the true effect.
Let’s illustrate how this works. Suppose a player in 1998 bats 300 points bet-
ter when he is ahead in the count as opposed to 2 strikes behind. That is, his bat-
ting average when he is ahead in the count is .3 larger. Using this equation, we
predict that his four-year batting average advantage is:
.1 + .3 (.300) = .190
So his true advantage is actually more like 190 points. Suppose, on the other
side, that a player in 1998 actually bats the same whether he is ahead in the
count or two strikes behind. That is, his 1998 observed effect is 0. Using the
equation, we predict his four-year batting average effect is:
 S I T UAT I O NA L E F F E C T S 107

.1 + .3 (0) = .100
Although this person’s pitch-count effect is below average, it is more likely to be
100 points than 0 points.
The moral of this discussion is that you shouldn’t be deceived by large situa-
tional effects. Even when players appear to have different situational effects
(such as in the pitch-count situation), the true effects are generally much
smaller than the effects that we observe in a single season.

Game Situation Effects

Finally, let’s talk about the last effect, which compares a player’s batting average
with runners in scoring position vs. his batting average when the bases are
empty and there are no outs. We’ll call these the “clutch” effects, since they indi-
cate how the players perform in a clutch, a stressful situation. First, let’s look at
the stemplot of the observed clutch effects for the 1998 season. (See Figure 4-26.)
The average effect is approximately 0. That is, about half of the players hit for
a higher average when runners were in scoring position, and the other half hit
better in the none-on/out situation. But we note a great spread in these effects—
from –170 points to +220 points.
There is one simple explanation for this large range of effects. The players
take only about half of their bats in one of these two situations. So these
observed scoring position vs. none on/out effects
–1 7 are based on a relatively small number of at-bats.
–1 555444

–1 322
For this reason alone, there will naturally be
–1 1111000
more spread in these effects.
–0 99998888

–0 777777776666666 But this one explanation is not sufficient to

–0 5555555555554444444444444444
account for all the variation we see in the stem-
–0 33333333333332222222222222222

–0 111111111111100000000000 plot. As it turns out, the variation is due to more

0 000000000000000000001111111111111

0 22222222222222233333333333333333
than chance, and there is some evidence that
0 4444444444455555555555 players do possess different true clutch effects.
0 66666666666677777

0 88899
We can check this by looking at the scatterplot in
1 000011 Figure 4-27, which plots the 1998 effects against
1 223333

1 5
the 1994–1997 effects.
1 66
The points in this plot tend to drift slightly
1

2 upward (as you move from left to right), which

2 2

FIGURE 4-26 Stemplot of observed 1998 differences

AVG(Scoring Position) – AVG(None on/none out).
108 CHAPTER 4

0.15

0.10

0.05

–0.05

–0.10
94–97 EFFECT

–0.15

–0.20

–0.2 –0.1 0 0.1 0.2

98 EFFECT

FIGURE 4-27 Scatterplot of 1998 situational effects and the previous four-year period situ-
ational effects for the scoring position/none on-out situation.

indicates that generally players with small clutch effects in 1998 tended to have
small effects in the previous four-year period, and players who performed in the
clutch in 1998 tended to perform in the clutch in 1994–1997. The value of the
correlation between the 1998 and 1994–1997 effects is +.172, and is +.125 with
the one unusual point in the lower left section of the plot removed. The relation-
ship in this clutch-effect situation is weaker than the relationship that we saw
earlier for the pitch-count situation.
Although there is evidence that players differ in their ability to perform in
the clutch, the evidence is relatively weak, so we are reluctant to single out espe-
cially good and poor clutch hitters. Let’s say at this point that a player might
possess an ability to hit especially well or poorly in the clutch, but we don’t quite
have enough data to say who that player may be.

A Lot of Noise
When we open up Player Profiles and look at the batting averages broken down
by different situations, we see a lot of fascinating high and low numbers. One
player hits for a much higher average at home games, another player has a low
average the first half of the season, a third player possesses a very poor average
 S I T UAT I O NA L E F F E C T S 109

when he’s behind in the count, and so on. These are intriguing discrepancies.
They must be trying to tell us something.
Or maybe not. What we learned is that most of what we see in Player Profiles
is, statistically speaking, mainly “noise,” or random variation. That is, it’s simi-
lar to what you get when you toss a coin. And when the situational batting aver-
age data you look at covers only a single year, it’s very noisy. Only taken over a
longer time span, such as the last five years, does it really start to tell us much.
Our basic model for batting averages is that players do indeed possess differ-
ent true batting averages, and these true batting averages are bell-shaped about
the typical value .276. That’s where the normal curve peaks. When we think of
the effect of a given situation, say home vs. away, our model suggests two bell-
shaped curves for batting averages—one for the averages for games played at
home, a second for games played away. Using this model, we placed situations
into three categories.
First are the no-effect situations, the ones where no general pattern exists.
Players seem to bat much the same before the All-Star Game as after. And they
bat the same during day and night games. And the same on grass and turf fields.
If you find a player that bats 80 points better during day games, we can proba-
bly find another who bats 80 points better at night.
Second are the bias situations, the ones where a general effect exists, but
there is little evidence that individual players take advantage or disadvantage
of a given situation. So, for example, we can say hitters generally bat 12 points
better at home, and that appears true for most players. And managers are right
to send up that right-handed pinch hitter against the lefty reliever. But beyond
a few obvious and time-honored rules of thumb (including as well the higher bat-
ting average against ground-ball pitchers), there is not much to tell.
Finally, the pitch-count and clutch situational data are ability situations,
since players seem to handle these situations differently. For example some
players seem to bat the same no matter if the pitch count is 3–0 or 0–2, and other
players bat much worse when the count goes to two strikes. There is some evi-
dence that different players perform differently under pressure situations,
although the 1998 data are not sufficient to identify players who are truly great
hitters with runners in scoring position.
After all is said and done, Kenny Lofton does have a point: When he talks
about the role of luck in hitting, his observations are pretty accurate. Over five
years you will see trends and tendencies, but in a given situation or even in a
complete single season, chance is what seems to rule.
 STREAKINESS (or, The Hot Hand)

One fascinating aspect of baseball is the widely-held belief, among fans as well
as the media, that players can be “streaky.” It’s often said of a particular player
that in the last few games, or weeks, or even months, he’s had a “hot” or “cold”
hand. And it seems entire teams can go on a streak, as we found when we did an
Internet search for the words “streaky” and “hot hand”:
“Rays Streaky in Spring”
—Florida Sports Network, March 24, 1998

This article describes the Devil Rays’ tendency to play a little streaky—citing
two losing streaks of six and four games in their 1998 spring exhibition season.
The writer cautions the fan not to read too much into these losing results, and
the manager is quoted as saying that at this point in the season, he is more con-
cerned about individual performances than team results.
“Braves Have No Trouble Beating Streaky Pirates”
—Observer-Reporter (Washington, Pa.), May 19, 1999

In this article, the hitting heroics of a “slumping” Chipper Jones are described—
he went on a 9 for 50 (.180) slide before this game. The article also noted that the
Braves’ Bret Boone reached base by a hit or a walk in 20 straight games. The ref-
erence to the “streaky Pirates” in the title refers, of course, to the fact that they
have been playing unusually well in the games before the present one.
“Streaky Cal Softball Team Gets Two Splits”
—The Daily Californian (Berkeley, Cal.), May 4, 1998

111
112 CHAPTER 5

The writer of this piece seems to be saying that there were two completely dif-
ferent Cal softball teams on the field in two doubleheaders one weekend. In the
two victories, Cal’s hitters were described as “phenomenal,” and in the two
losses, Cal was unable to get any solid contact with the bat. The Cal catcher
describes their hitting as contagious: “If someone gets a big hit, the rest of us go
out thinking, ‘If she can hit it out, so can I.’ It’s such a mental game.” The writer
also says that the Bears have been plagued by inconsistencies at the plate all
year long.
In an ESPN.com profile of Todd Zeile, the Texas Ranger third baseman is
described as a streaky hitter. He typically starts slowly and does his best
hitting late in the season, says the analyst for the website.
Finally, In Mike Zaidlin’s “Thinking Baseball” column on the World Wide Web
(www.thinkingbaseball.com), the author criticizes Don Zimmer’s strategy of
playing hitters who appear to have a “hot hand.” Zaidlin thinks that Yankees
management puts too much faith in the notion of a “hot hand,” because it is
based on too small a number of at-bats.

Thinking about Streakiness

What are these writers talking about when they say a team is on a hot or cold
streak, or a player has a hot or a cold hand? One thing they obviously mean is
that the team or player is going through an unusually long stretch of good (win-
ning) or bad (losing) behavior. If a hitter like Chipper Jones bats only 9 for 50, we
say that he has a cold hand because he normally hits for a much higher average,
and 50 at-bats appears to be a long time for him to go with only 9 hits. And if a
team like the Devil Rays has several long runs of uninterrupted losses, as well
as long runs of uninterrupted wins, we say the team is streaky, since it seems to
be winning or losing “clusters” of games.
Most of the articles above seemed to be talking about the streaky and hot-
hand performances that were observed during a season. But there is a second,
deeper meaning of streakiness: sometimes the word is used to describe the
nature or ability of a player or team. A player such as Todd Zeile may be called
streaky since people believe that his true batting ability is streaky. On some
days, says this theory, Zeile feels very comfortable with the bat, and he has a
high chance of getting lots of hits. Then, on other days, Zeile’s batting stroke
seems to be out of sync, and he has a much smaller chance of getting a hit.
Similarly, we might say that a team is on a hot streak when we believe that as a
group the players are performing to the best of their ability and the team has a
 STREAKINESS (OR, THE HOT HAND) 113

high probability of winning. (We could also describe this situation by saying that
the team is “in a groove” or even “on a tear.”) At other times, the team may have
problems, such as injuries or dissension in the clubhouse, that we believe have
an adverse effect on performance, and so the team has a small probability of win-
ning. (Then the team is “slumping” or has “gone cold.”)
Fans and sportswriters frequently confuse or don’t distinguish between the
performance and ability interpretations of streakiness. When a team goes
through good spells and bad spells, clusters of winning and clusters of losing,
we are observing streaky behavior. It is natural in such situations for the fan
or sportswriter to provide some rationale for the observed streakiness: the per-
formance is explained by something in the nature of the team. For example, one
might say that a team’s tendency to go on cold streaks is due to the inexperi-
ence of the players, the inconsistency of the starting pitchers, the tactics of the
manager, and so on. But, as we will shortly see, it’s possible that the team is not
really streaky by nature, but due to chance or luck, they appear to be perform-
ing streakily.
One goal of this chapter is to clearly distinguish between a player or team’s
true streaky or hot hand ability and the streaky or hot hand performance that
we observe during a baseball season. We first will discuss some common mis-
takes that people make in interpreting baseball averages. Then we will focus on
the first-half batting performance of Todd Zeile in the 1999 season. Looking at
his hitting record, we will notice several interesting patterns that indicate that
Zeile may be a streaky hitter. Next, we will propose several models for Zeile’s hit-
ting ability. One model, which we will call Mr. Consistent, says that Zeile is the

Batter Pos AB R H RBI AVG

Knoblauch 2B 3 0 1 0 0.333

Jeter SS 3 2 3 1 1

O'Neill RF 3 0 0 0 0

Williams CF 4 0 1 1 0.25

Martinez 1B 4 0 0 0 0

Davis DH 2 1 1 1 0.5

Ledee LF 4 0 0 0 0

Brosius 3B 3 0 0 0 0

Giradi C 3 0 0 0 0

TABLE 5-1 Box Score of the New York Yankees in Their First Game of the 1999 Season
114 CHAPTER 5

ultimate consistent hitter—he comes to every at-bat with the same chance of
getting a hit. Then we’ll work with a very different model, called Mr. Streaky. In
this model, Zeile is either hot or cold during a single at-bat where the chance of
getting a hit when he is hot is a large number and the chance of hitting when he
is cold is small. In addition, in the Mr. Streaky model, if Zeile is hot on a partic-
ular at-bat, he is very likely to remain hot in the next at-bat.
Once we have described ways of measuring streaky performance and models
for Zeile’s true hitting behavior, we show how we can learn about Zeile’s hitting
behavior (the model) on the basis of his hitting data (the statistics). We extend
our basic method to the win/loss records of the 30 major league teams in 1998.
Some of these teams performed very streakily in 1998, and we will see which teams
actually seem to possess true streakiness based on their season performances.

Interpreting Baseball Data

Before we talk in more detail about streakiness, it will be helpful to describe
some basic difficulties that people have in interpreting baseball statistics. We
focus on interpreting a batting average, although the difficulties we describe will
apply to interpreting any baseball statistic.
Let’s suppose that your favorite player is Tino Martinez of the Yankees. The
Yankees opened the 1999 season at Oakland, and, to learn about how your
favorite player performed in his first game, you look at the published box score,
shown in Table 5-1.
We see that Tino went 0 for 4 in the game, so his current 1999 batting aver-
age (based on this single game) is 0/4 = .000. Now the typical fan is interested in
drawing some conclusion about Tino’s batting ability on the basis of this .000
average. Can the fan conclude that Tino’s in a slump? That is, can the fan con-
clude that Tino is a slow starter and his swing is a little rusty?
Here the fan is interested in making a statement about Tino’s batting ability
from this game’s hitting statistics. We can measure Tino’s batting ability in
terms of a probability p. This number is the chance that Tino gets a base hit on
a single at-bat. The fan is interested in saying something about Tino’s hitting
probability based on his 0-for-4 game performance. Of course we don’t know
Tino’s hitting probability, but we can make an educated guess at this probability
based on his hitting record in his previous nine years in the major leagues (see
Table 5-2).
We see that Tino’s seasonal batting averages generally increased over time,
hit a peak in 1997, and dipped slightly in 1998. If we make the assumption that
 STREAKINESS (OR, THE HOT HAND) 115

Year AB H AVG

1990 68 15 .221

1991 112 23 .205

1992 460 118 .257

1993 408 108 .265

1994 329 86 .261

1995 519 152 .293

1996 595 174 .292

1997 594 176 .296

1998 531 149 .281

TABLE 5-2 Hitting Statistics for Tino Martinez in the First Nine Years of His Major
League Career

Tino is a little bit past his prime as the 1999 season begins, it is reasonable to
assume that his hitting probability in the opener against Oakland is p = .280.
If one thinks of Tino as a true .280 hitter, many baseball fans will have trou-
ble predicting how Tino will hit during the season. To start off, how many hits
will Tino get in a game where he has four at-bats? Well, many Tino fans will
think that their man will go 1 for 4 in this game, since .280 is close to .250 = 1/4.
Moreover, these fans will be unpleasantly surprised if Tino goes hitless (as in the
game described above), or pleasantly surprised if he goes 2 for 4.
Actually, although it is most likely that Tino will go 1 for 4 in this game, the
probability that he gets exactly one hit is only 42 percent. So actually, it is more
likely (58 percent) that Tino will not get one hit. Moreover, there is a sizeable
probability (27 percent) that Tino will go hitless. So the above game result (0 for
4) is entirely consistent with Tino being a .280 hitter, and there is no reason to
think that he is in a slump.
Now, maybe you are not surprised by the above comments. After all, you can’t
learn much about a player’s true batting average on the basis of one game. But
suppose you watch Tino’s hitting for the first seven games of the season, as
shown in Table 5-3. For these seven games, Tino was 4 for 25, for a .160 average.
Now, for most fans, Tino appears to be a slump. Intuition tells us he is clearly not
a .280 batter for this first week in the season.
But this intuition is wrong. There is a reasonable chance that a true .280 hit-
ter will have a slump like this one. If a true .280 hitter comes to bat 25 times, as
Tino did in his first seven games, the chance that he will get 4 or fewer hits is 13
116 CHAPTER 5

Date Apr 5 Apr 6 Apr 7 Apr 9 Apr 10 Apr 11 Apr 13

H/AB 0/4 1/5 1/4 1/1 0/3 0/4 1/4

TABLE 5-3 Batting Data for Tino Martinez for the First Seven Games of the 1999 Season

percent. Now 13 percent is not a high probability, but if you watch seven .280 hit-
ters bat for one week, there is a high probability that you’ll see one of them get
4 or fewer hits. So we shouldn’t be too surprised by Tino’s 4-for-25 stretch. He
may really be a .280 hitter but, by chance variability, he was unlucky during this
first week of the season.
The moral here is that one has to be very cautious in interpreting baseball
averages from a small number of at-bats. It is common for fans to believe in the
so-called law of small numbers. This law says that one will observe what one
expects, even over a small sample size. So if a player like Tony Gwynn is a .333
hitter, you think that he will get 1 out of 3 hits in every game. The law of small
numbers isn’t true. Even if Gwynn is a true .333 hitter, it is very likely you will
observe him hit for significantly lower and higher averages if your observations
are based on a small number of games.

Moving Averages—Looking at Short Intervals

It’s clear from the preceding discussion of Tino Martinez’s batting average that
one needs to be careful about drawing conclusions from very limited sets of data.
The problem is, when you are talking about streaks, you are often talking about
relatively brief bursts of activity (or clusters of inactivity)—an eight-game hit-
ting streak by a .220 hitter, or a five-game stretch where a .300 hitter can’t get
on base. To get a sense of how we might deal with the statistics of streakiness,
we’ll take a look at Todd Zeile’s hitting statistics for the first half of the 1999 sea-
son. (We are looking at only the first half of his season because that’s when this
book was written.) Table 5-4 gives the game date and the number of hits and at-
bats for each of the first 80 games that Todd played. Two particular streaks—one
hot and one cold— are in boldface.
For the 80 games shown, Todd had 84 hits in 301 at-bats, for a batting aver-
age of 84/301 = .279. Now, if we look at this table carefully, we’ll see short time
periods where Todd was unusually hot and cold. For the eight-game period from
April 15 through April 23, Todd had a tough hitting stretch where he only got 2
hits in 29 at-bats:
 STREAKINESS (OR, THE HOT HAND) 117

Date Hits/AB

Apr 5 1/4 Apr 29 1/4 May 22 1/4 Jun 14 1/3

Apr 6 2/3 Apr 30 1/4 May 23 0/3 Jun 16 1/2

Apr 7 3/4 May 1 1/4 May 24 2/5 Jun 17 1/3

Apr 9 1/4 May 2 0/2 May 25 2/4 Jun 18 0/3

Apr 10 0/2 May 3 0/4 May 26 2/4 Jun 19 1/4

Apr 11 2/4 May 5 1/4 May 28 1/4 Jun 20 0/4

Apr 12 2/4 May 6 2/4 May 29 3/4 Jun 21 1/4

Apr 13 0/4 May 7 0/4 May 30 0/2 Jun 22 1/4

Apr 14 1/3 May 8 0/4 May 31 1/4 Jun 23 0/4

Apr 15 0/4 May 9 3/4 Jun 1 1/3 Jun 24 1/4

Apr 16 0/2 May 10 0/4 Jun 2 0/4 Jun 25 1/6

Apr 17 0/3 May 11 1/4 Jun 4 0/4 Jun 26 2/4

Apr 18 1/5 May 13 2/5 Jun 5 0/4 Jun 27 3/4

Apr 20 0/3 May 14 0/4 Jun 6 0/4 Jun 28 1/3

Apr 21 1/4 May 15 2/4 Jun 7 3/3 Jun 29 3/5

Apr 22 0/4 May 16 1/3 Jun 8 1/5 Jun 30 4/4

Apr 23 0/4 May 17 0/3 Jun 9 0/3 Jul 2 1/4

Apr 25 2/5 May 18 1/3 Jun 11 0/4 Jul 3 2/5

Apr 27 1/3 May 19 1/4 Jun 12 2/5 Jul 4 1/3

Apr 28 2/4 May 21 1/3 Jun 13 1/4 Jul 5 2/3

TABLE 5-4 Todd Zeile’s Batting Statistics for the First Half of the 1999 Season

2
= .069
29
In contrast, look at the period from June 27 through July 5, when Todd was
on fire, getting 17 hits in 31 at-bats:

17
= .548
31

So, although one could reasonably call Zeile a .279 hitter, he hit for much smaller
(.069) and much larger (.548) averages over short time periods.
A moving average plot, shown in Figure 5-1, is an effective way of displaying
these short-term batting averages. This graph plots the short-term batting aver-
age of Zeile over all groups of eight adjacent games. (In the language of statis-
tics, this is called a moving average with a width of 8.) In games 1 through 8,
118 CHAPTER 5

0.6

.548

0.5

0.4

0.3
.279

0.2
BATTING AVERAGE

0.1
.069

0 20 40 60 80

GAME

FIGURE 5-1 Moving average plot of Zeile’s hitting data using a width of eight games.

Zeile got 11 hits in 29 at-bats for a .379 average. In Figure 5-1, this average
(.379) is plotted against the mean game number (4.5 is the mean of 1, 2, . . . , 8).
Moving one game ahead, we look next at the group of eight games numbered 2
through 9. There, Zeile had 11 hits in 28 at-bats, and the batting average (.393)
is plotted against the mean game number (5.5). We continue in this way, step-
ping ahead one game at a time, until we get to the final group of eight games,
numbered 73 though 80.
In Figure 5-1, we use dots to call out the two particularly interesting eight-
game stretches noted earlier. Also, we show Zeile’s season batting average (.279)
as a dashed horizontal line.
This graph is a good way of displaying Zeile’s pattern of hitting for the first
half of the 1999 season. We see that, after an initial hot streak, Todd had a slump
in the first part of the season, then a good hitting stretch from games 40–50, two
minor slumps from games 50–70, finishing with a hot streak at the end of the
period. Generally, it seems remarkable how much spread there is in these eight-
game batting averages. But to get a better sense, we can measure how much
streakiness we see in this plot by calculating the difference between the largest
and smallest moving average:
 STREAKINESS (OR, THE HOT HAND) 119

Largest 8-game average – smallest 8-game average

Here this difference is .548 – .069 = .479, which appears large. Zeile hit 479
points better on his best 8 games than his worst 8 games.

Runs of Good and Bad Games

Another way to describe Zeile’s hitting behavior is to look for interesting pat-
terns of good and bad games across time. Remember, Zeile’s batting average for
all 80 games is .279. We will say that Zeile’s batting for a particular game is good
is if his average on that day exceeds .279; otherwise we’ll say he had a bad hit-
ting game. So, if Todd bats 2 for 4 (.500) for a game, we’ll call it a good game and
denote it by a “+”; and if he hits 1 for 4 (.250), we’ll call it bad and denote it by a
“0”. In Figure 5-2, we have classified the 80 games.
One interesting pattern in the sequence of good and bad days is a run, a
streak of consecutive bad games (like “00000”) or good games (“++++”). The first
part of the Zeile game-hitting sequence is “0++00++”. Looking at Figure 5-3, we
see that Todd started with a run of one bad game, a run of two good games, a run
of two bad games, and a run of two good games. Two interesting runs are under-
lined in the figure. In each case, Zeile had eight consecutive bad hitting games.
It’s also interesting that Zeile followed his second eight-day hitting slump by hit-
ting well in eight out of nine games.
So one interesting pattern is a long run of good or bad hitting games. These
long runs indicate that Zeile might be a streaky hitter. Another thing that we
can compute is the total number of runs of good and bad games. Let’s suppose
that Zeile is really a streaky hitter. Then we would expect him to follow good hit-
ting days with good days and likewise bad hitting days with bad days. (“When

April May June July

DATE 111111111222222223 1111111112222222233 1111111122222222223

5679012345678012357890 123567890134567891234568901 12456789123467890123456789 02345

HIT 0++00++0+00000000+++00 0000+00+00+0++0+0+00+++0+00 +0000+000+0+++00000000++++ +0+++

FIGURE 5-2 Classification of Zeile’s games into good (+) and bad (0) hitting games.

0++00++0+00000000+++000000+00+00+0++0+0+00+++0+00+0000+000+0+++00000000+++++0+++

FIGURE 5-3 Identification of two long runs in Zeile’s hitting sequence.

120 CHAPTER 5

0++00++0+00000000+++000000+00+00+0++0+0+00+++0+00+0000+000+0+++00000000+++++0+++

12 3 4 567 8 9 11 11 111 11122 2 222 22 22 333 3 3 33

01 23 456 78901 2 345 67 89 012 3 4 56

FIGURE 5-4 Counting the number of runs in Zeile’s hitting sequence.

Number of Game Hits 0 1 2 3 4

Count 26 32 15 6 1

TABLE 5-5 Count of the Number of Games in Which Zeile Had 0, 1, 2, 3, and 4 Hits

you’re hot, you’re hot, and when you’re cold, you’re cold.”) In this case, there will
generally be many runs of long length and few runs of short length, and the total
number of runs in the sequence will be small.
We’ve counted the number of runs in the Zeile sequence in Figure 5-4 by
labeling the beginning of each run with a number. We see that there are 36 runs
in this hitting sequence. Is 36 a small number of runs? Actually, at this point of
the discussion, we don’t know, but we’ll come back to this question later.

Numbers of Good and Poor Hitting Days

We can also look at Zeile’s hitting data by counting his hits per game, then cate-
gorizing each of the 80 games according to hit count. Table 5-5 shows the num-
ber of 0-hit games, the number of 1-hit games, etc. We see that Todd had seven
games in which he had either 3 or 4 hits, and 26 games (out of 80) in which he
was hitless. If these numbers seem high to the average fan, they provide evi-
dence that Zeile was a streaky hitter.

What Is Zeile’s True Hitting Ability?

So in our look at Zeile’s hitting data for the 80 games, we saw some interesting
features. Todd had some unusually small and large batting averages over short
time intervals, he had several long runs of bad hitting days, and he had some
games in which he hit especially well. At this point, the question is: Should we
be surprised by these observations? Do these data suggest that Zeile was really
a streaky hitter during the first half of 1999?
We will try to answer this question by proposing some simple models for
Zeile’s true batting ability and see what we learn about these simple models on
 STREAKINESS (OR, THE HOT HAND) 121

the basis of Zeile’s hitting record in 1999. For simplicity, we assume only two dis-
tinct models, although the basic method can be used to distinguish between a
large number of models. We will describe this statistical method in three parts.
First, we’ll assume that Zeile is really a consistent player who comes to every
at-bat with the same chance of getting a hit. Also, we will assume that his chance
of hitting on a given at-bat is not influenced by what he did on previous at-bats.
This type of player is the ultimate “Mr. Cool.” If Zeile is this type of player, we’ll
look at the kind of batting record he will achieve in an 80-game schedule.
Next, we’ll assume that Zeile really is a streaky hitter. We carefully define
what we mean by streaky. We’ll assume that the chance that he gets a hit may
change on different at-bats. We will say that, in a particular game, Zeile is either
“hot” with a large chance of getting a hit, or “cold” with a much smaller chance of
hitting. Moreover, if Zeile is hot in a given game, he is more likely to remain hot
(than become cold) for the next game. Likewise, cold at-bats are more likely to be
followed by cold at-bats. If Zeile is this type of streaky hitter, we will see how he
would perform in an 80-game season.
Finally, we will talk about how we learn about Zeile’s true hitting ability (con-
sistent or streaky) based on the patterns we saw above. Suppose, for example,
that we observe two long runs of bad hitting games. Based on these data, what
is the chance that Zeile is a consistent hitter and what is the chance that he is a
streaky hitter?

Mr. Consistent
Most people believe that Todd Zeile is a streaky hitter. But what if Zeile were not
streaky? In fact, suppose that Zeile was the ultimate non-streaky, or consistent,
hitter? What would that mean?

Hit
0.28%

Out
0.72%

FIGURE 5-5 Spinner for a consistent hitter.

122 CHAPTER 5

We use the basic spinner model to represent Zeile’s success (or failure) in a
single at-bat. (Here we are just considering official at-bats, ignoring events such
as walks and sacrifices.) We visualize a spinner with two regions designated
“Hit” and “Out. “ (See Figure 5-5.) The Hit region corresponds to the chance that
Zeile will get a hit on the single at-bat.
Suppose that the same spinner is used for every at-bat during the season.
This means that Zeile has the same chance of getting a hit over all 80 games.
This assumption probably seems far-fetched. You might think that the chance of
getting a hit will depend on a number of factors, including the pitcher, the ball
park, the game situation, and so on. You may be right. But let’s pretend for now
that the hitting probability doesn’t depend on these factors. We think of Zeile as
a hitting machine who actually has the same chance of getting a hit every time
he comes to bat. We’ll call this hitting probability p.
Another important assumption made here is the independence of hitting
results of different at-bats. Suppose that the spinner is spun and Zeile gets a hit
on his first at-bat. This successful result will have no bearing on what happens on
the next at-bat. One aspect of our spinner is that it has no memory—it doesn’t
remember how many times a Hit or Out was spun in the past. So the chance of
getting a hit on a particular at-bat will be the same number p no matter if Zeile
has done well or poorly in his previous at-bats. This property of independence is
actually the opposite of streakiness, and instead represents the hitting charac-
teristics of a player that we’ll call “Mr. Consistent.” This player is the ultimate
“cool customer,” who has the same chance of getting a hit under all possible cir-
cumstances.

How Does Mr. Consistent Perform During a Season?

Suppose that Zeile really was a consistent hitter. What would his hitting data for
the 80 games look like? We can answer this question by simulating from the
spinner model. We assume that Zeile’s chance of getting a hit on every single
plate appearance is p = .280 (close to his .279 average for the 80 games in 1999).
Then we simulate the results of all 80 games using the actual at-bat numbers of
Zeile for the first half of the 1999 season. (We actually do this simulation on the
computer, but it is equivalent to using our random spinner many times.)
Figure 5-6 displays moving average plots for Zeile’s data and hitting data for
eight other simulated players using our Mr. Consistent model. Of course, the
center plot in the figure should look familiar—it’s Zeile’s moving average plot
that we saw earlier. How do the consistent hitter graphs compare with the graph
 STREAKINESS (OR, THE HOT HAND) 123

of Zeile? Actually, what stands out is the large spread (up and down pattern) of
the moving averages of the consistent hitters. An extreme situation is the hitting
of the consistent hitter at the lower right. Remember, this guy is a true consis-
tent hitter; he gets a hit with probability .280 on every single at-bat.
Nonetheless, he appears very streaky during this 80-game stretch. He is very
hot in the first part of the season, gets cold in the middle, then is somewhat hot,
and seems to fade near the end of the half-season. The player really is consis-
tent—our use of the spinner model guarantees that—but his hitting perform-
ance during these 80 games is very streaky. The hitting patterns of the other
seven players aren’t quite so volatile as the one in the lower right, but all of the
hitters show some streaky behavior. In other words, consistent hitters can
appear very streaky in their hitting performances.
We can describe the streakiness that we see in these graphs using the same
statistics we used to describe Zeile’s data. These statistics include:

0.6
Consistent 1 2 3

0.4

0.2

0.6
4 Zeile 5

0.4

0.2

0.6
6 7 8

0.4
AVERAGE

0.2

0 20 40 60 80 20 40 60 80 20 40 60 80

GAME

FIGURE 5-6 Moving average plot of hitting by Zeile and eight simulated consistent hitters
with a hitting probability of p = .280. In all graphs, moving averages are
computed using adjacent groups of eight games.
124 CHAPTER 5

• The difference between the largest and smallest moving averages,

using groups of eight games. (We will call this statistic MAX – MIN.)
• The number of long streaks (either good or bad), where “long
streak” is defined as eight or more consecutive games.
• The number of runs in the sequence of good and bad games.

• The number of hitless games.

• The number of games with three or more hits.

Table 5-6 gives the values of these five statistics for each of the simulated sea-
sons. To see if Zeile is different from a truly consistent hitter, we see if his sta-
tistics appear different from the statistics of the others. To make this compari-
son easier, we have computed the mean (arithmetic average) of each type of
statistic for the consistent hitters
Let’s illustrate this comparison using the statistic “Maximum moving aver-
age – Minimum moving average” shown in the first column of the table. Recall
that Zeile had a maximum moving average (using eight-game groups) of .548
and a minimum moving average of .069 for a difference as follows:
MAX – MIN = .548 – .069 = .479
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Zeile 0.479 2 36 26 7

Consistent 1 0.362 1 42 23 7

Consistent 2 0.361 1 41 26 7

Consistent 3 0.316 0 41 21 5

Consistent 4 0.317 0 43 21 4

Consistent 5 0.333 0 42 28 4

Consistent 6 0.295 0 34 20 6

Consistent 7 0.297 1 38 26 3

Consistent 8 0.333 1 42 25 5

Mean 0.327 0.5 40.4 23.8 5.1

p -value 0.010 0.06 0.26 0.34 0.23

TABLE 5-6 Statistical Values for Todd Zeile and Eight Simulated Consistent Hitters
 STREAKINESS (OR, THE HOT HAND) 125

Should the value .479 surprise us? Well, in order to make a judgment on that we
have to look at the MAX – MIN values for our eight simulated consistent hitters:
.362, .361, .316, .317, .333, .295, .297, .333
The simulated players’ MAX – MIN values range between .295 and .362, with a
mean value of .327. Zeile’s value, .479, is larger than all of them. So it appears
that Zeile’s difference between his best and worst moving average is larger than
one would anticipate if Zeile really was a consistent hitter. Thus, there is some
evidence that Zeile is not a consistent hitter, although we really can’t say at this
point that he is streaky.
In a similar fashion, we can look at the other four statistics to see if Zeile’s
value is similar to the values for the consistent hitters.
• Zeile had two long streaks (of eight games or more). This statistic
appears unusually large, since none of the simulated consistent
hitters had more than one long streak.
• We observed 36 runs in Zeile’s sequence — is the number 36
unusually small for a consistent hitter? We would say yes since
only one out of the eight consistent hitters had 36 or fewer runs.
• We thought Zeile’s 26 hitless games statistic was large, but three
of the eight simulated players had 26 or more hitless games. So
the large number of hitless games doesn’t appear unusual for a
consistent hitter.
• Finally, we thought Zeile’s seven games of 3+ hits were large, but
two of the eight simulated hitters had seven or more games with
3+ hits. As with hitless games, this statistic does not definitively
set Zeile apart as a streaky player.
We can’t draw very strong conclusions from Table 5-6 since we only did the
simulation eight times. We would do better if we simulated hitting data from the
consistent model a large number of times, and then made a call on whether
Zeile’s hitting behavior fit into the Mr. Consistent model.
To check this out, we simulated data from a large number of consistent hit-
ters (1000), and for each simulated hitting season we recorded values of the five
statistics shown in Table 5-6. To see if Zeile’s hitting statistics conforms to this
model, we compute a p-value. This is the probability, assuming a consistent
model, of observing a value of the statistic at least as extreme as the Zeile value.
To illustrate, we observed a MAX – MIN value of .479 for Zeile. Using the simu-
lated hitting data, we find the following:
126 CHAPTER 5

p-value = Pr(MAX – MIN value is at least as large as .479) = .01

Thus, if we assume this consistent model, the chance of observing a MAX – MIN
moving average difference of .479 or greater is only .01, or 1 percent. Thus it is
safe to say that Zeile’s data appear different from hitting data generated from a
consistent model.
Likewise, we look at the p-value row of Table 5-6 to check for agreement of
Zeile and the simulated consistent hitters with respect to the other four statis-
tics. The only other p-value that appears unusually small corresponds to “long
runs.” Zeile’s two long runs are unusual for hitters who are truly consistent. The
p-values for the other three statistics are in the .23–.34 range. These statistics
(number of runs, number of hitless games, and number of 3+-hit games) for Zeile
seem to agree with the statistics for the simulated consistent hitters.
So, what have we learned? Even if a hitter is truly consistent, with the same
chance of getting a hit on every single at-bat, his batting performance across 80
games can look pretty streaky. Even so, Zeile’s hitting performance looks a bit
different from the performance of true consistent hitters. The statistics that
seem to stand out for Zeile are the great range between good and poor short-run
batting averages (MAX – MIN) and the two long runs of bad hitting games.

Mr. Streaky
In the above discussion, we gained some understanding of Zeile’s hitting per-
formance by assuming he really was consistent, then seeing how he did and did
not seem to fit into the Mr. Consistent model. But what if Zeile really was a
streaky hitter? What does it mean to be streaky? And how do streaky players
perform during a baseball season?
First, to be streaky, a hitter must have at least two possible hitting states. For
simplicity, we’ll assume that there are exactly two, which we’ll call “hot” and
“cold.” When a hitter is hot, his hitting mechanics are great, he sees the ball well,
and he has a high probability of getting a base hit. We will denote this probabil-
ity as pH. In contrast, a “cold” hitter is struggling with his hitting motion and is
not swinging well. In this cold state, the batter has a small probability pC of
obtaining a hit.
As mentioned earlier, Todd Zeile’s true batting average for 1999 is around
.280. If Zeile really is a streaky hitter, there will be a big difference between the
chance of getting a hit when he’s hot and the chance when he’s cold. We will
assume that Zeile hits 100 batting points better than average when he’s hot, and
100 points lower than average when he is cold. Accordingly, we will assume that
 STREAKINESS (OR, THE HOT HAND) 127

pH = .380 and pC = .180. The hot hitting probability is similar to the average of
Tony Gwynn in his best hitting season; the cold probability is similar to that of
a weak-hitting shortstop who’s in the Major Leagues because of his defensive
ability. (You might not agree with the numbers we’ve assigned to a hot hitting
probability and a cold hitting probability, but there should be a significant dif-
ference between the two.)
So one basic assumption about our truly streaky hitter is that in some games
he hits for a high probability and in others he hits with a small probability. A sec-
ond assumption describes how the streaky hitter moves between hitting states
for different games. A streaky hitter has the tendency to stay hot for a number
of games. If a streaky player is hot for one game, then it is likely that he’ll
remain hot for the next game (and unlikely that he’ll change to cold). In other
words, “If you’re hot, you’re hot!” Likewise, if a player is a cold hitter one game,
then he will likely stay in a cold state in the next game. We will let the letter s
(for “stay”) denote the probability of staying in the same state from one game to
the next:
p(hot in second game if hot in first) = s
p(cold in second game if cold in first) = s

To be streaky, it makes sense to let the probability s be a large value, like s =

.9, which means that the hitter is likely to remain in the same state. Figure 5-7
illustrates the probabilities of shifting between hot and cold states for successive
games. Note that if the chance of staying in the same state is .9, the chance of
switching states (from cold to hot or hot to cold) is .1.
If a player is streaky in the manner we just described, how will he hit during
a season? We learn about his season hitting by means of a simulation like the
one done for the consistent hitter. This simulation is a little more complicated to
run, however, since the probability of getting a hit can change from game to
game.
Here’s how it works. First, we visualize two spinners (shown in Figure 5-8),
one to use when the hitter is hot, and the second to use when the hitter is cold.
The spinners differ with respect to the sizes of their Hit and Out regions. For the
Hot spinner, the hitting area is pH (.380); for the Cold spinner it is pC (.180).
Suppose we want to simulate Mr. Streaky’s hitting for his first ten games: the
results of this simulation are shown in Table 5-7. To start off, we flip a coin to
decide the player’s hitting state for the first game; if the coin is heads, he’ll be
hot, and if the coin lands tails, he’ll be cold. We observe heads, which means that
Mr. Streaky is a hot hitter for this first game. We grab our Hot spinner and spin
128 CHAPTER 5

First Game Second Game

.9 Hot

Hot

Cold
.1

.1 Hot

Cold

Cold
.9

FIGURE 5-7 Probabilities of changing states for a streaky hitter.

“Hot” Spinner “Cold” Spinner

0.18

0.38

0.62 0.82

FIGURE 5-8 Spinners for a streaky hitter.

it for his 4 at-bats in his first game. The spinners lands in the Hit region twice,
which means that he was 2 for 4 in his first game.
Let’s move on to the second game. We use the switching probabilities to deter-
mine the state of Mr. Streaky for this game. He was hot in game 1, so he’ll
remain hot in game 2 with probability .9 and switch to cold with probability .1.
We use a random spinner, as pictured in Figure 5-9, to determine if Mr. Streaky
stays in his current hot state or switches to cold. In this particular simulation,
the result of the spinner is Stay, so Mr. Streaky will be hot in game 2.
Now that we know that the hitter is hot in game 2, we use the Hot spinner to
simulate hitting. Table 5-7 indicates that he has a tough game 2, going hitless in
three at-bats. We continue in this manner to simulate the results of the remain-
ing games. We use the switching/staying spinner to decide the state of a game,
 STREAKINESS (OR, THE HOT HAND) 129

0.10
Switch

0.90
Stay

FIGURE 5-9 Spinner to decide on switching or staying in current hot or cold state.

Game 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

State Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Cold Cold Cold

Hitting Probability 0.38 0.38 0.38 0.38 0.38 0.38 0.38 0.18 0.18 0.18

AB 4 3 4 4 2 4 4 4 3 4

H 2 0 1 3 1 1 1 0 1 0

TABLE 5-7 Simulation of Mr. Streaky’s Hitting for Ten Games

and then the Hot or Cold spinner to determine the hitting results of that game.
Refer again to Table 5-7 to get the simulated hitting results for all ten games.
The results of this particular simulation are interesting. There is a clear pat-
tern in Mr. Streaky’s hitting states—he was really hot (hitting with a high prob-
ability) in the first seven games and cold (hitting with a small probability) for
the remaining three. However, it is difficult to detect this true hitting behavior
by just looking at his hitting statistics. For example, Mr. Streaky was 0 for 3 and
1 for 4 (twice) on days where he was a true hot hitter.

How Does Mr. Streaky Perform During a Season?

Earlier we looked at how truly consistent hitters would perform during an 80-
game season. How would truly streaky hitters perform in the same span of
games? First, we use the streaky model described above to simulate data for
eight hitters. Figure 5-10 shows moving average plots of the batting averages of
Todd Zeile (middle graph) and our eight simulated streaky hitters. If we com-
pare these moving averages with those of the consistent hitters of Figure 5-6, we
130 CHAPTER 5

generally note more up and down behavior in the streaky graphs. That is, it
seems that hitters who are truly streaky, in the way we have defined them, will
tend to have unusually high and low batting averages over short stretches of
games. But, this is not always the case—for example, the moving average plot of
the streaky hitter in the upper center graph of Figure 5-10 looks pretty flat.
Although this player is really streaky, he had a pretty consistent hitting pattern
over the season.
Next, to measure the streakiness that we observe in these graphs, we com-
pute the same five statistics that we used earlier to describe the streakiness we
saw in Zeile’s hitting. The values of these statistics for our eight simulated
streaky hitters are given in Table 5-8.
First, let’s compare the statistics for the eight consistent hitters (Table 5-6)
with the corresponding statistics of the streaky hitters in Table 5-8. The streaky
hitters tend to have larger values of Max – Min (the difference between the
largest and smallest moving averages), a smaller number of runs, a larger num-

0.6
Streaky 1 2 3

0.4

0.2

0.6
4 Zeile 5

0.4

0.2

0.6
6 7 8

0.4
AVERAGE

0.2

0 20 40 60 80 20 40 60 80 20 40 60 80

GAME

FIGURE 5-10 Moving average plot of hitting by Zeile and eight simulated streaky hitters
with hot and cold hitting probabilities of pC = .180 and pH = .380. In all
graphs, moving averages are computed using adjacent groups of eight games.
 STREAKINESS (OR, THE HOT HAND) 131

ber of hitless games, and a larger number of 3+-hit games. It is harder to say
that the streaky hitters tend to have a different number of long streaks based on
this small amount of simulated data.
Does Todd Zeile’s hitting data agree with the hitting data for our simulated
streaky hitters? To make this comparison, we simulate 1000 80-game seasons
using our streaky model. For each season, we compute the five streaky statistics;
the p-value row of Table 5-8 gives (for each statistic) the probability that a truly
streaky hitter obtains a statistic value as least as extreme as Zeile’s value. In
Table 5-9, we compare these p-values with the ones that we obtained earlier for
the simulated consistent hitters.
Note that for each one of the five game statistics, the p-values are larger for
the streaky model. This means that the chance of observing Zeile’s statistic (or
one that’s more extreme) is higher for the streaky model than for the consistent
model. In other words, our streaky model shows a better fit to Zeile’s data than
does the consistent model.

Mr. Consistent or Mr. Streaky?

We have described two probability models for Zeile’s hitting data and presented
some evidence that the streaky model provides a better description of Zeile’s per-
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Zeile 0.479 2 36 26 7

Streaky 1 0.567 0 37 25 8

Streaky 2 0.373 0 42 41 3

Streaky 3 0.456 1 32 29 8

Streaky 4 0.418 0 33 23 6

Streaky 5 0.394 1 36 24 6

Streaky 6 0.466 0 36 35 6

Streaky 7 0.400 0 40 34 10

Streaky 8 0.339 0 47 19 8

MEAN 0.426 0.25 37.9 28.8 6.9

p -value 0.180 0.18 0.5 0.56 0.43

TABLE 5-8 Statistical Values for Todd Zeile and Eight Simulated Streaky Hitters
132 CHAPTER 5

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Zeile 0.479 2 36 26 7

Mean 0.327 0.5 40.4 23.8 5.1

Consistent hitters

p -value 0.01 0.06 0.26 0.34 0.23

Consistent hitters

Mean 0.426 0.25 37.9 28.8 6.9

Streaky hitters

p -value 0.18 0.18 0.5 0.56 0.43

Streaky hitters

TABLE 5-9 Observed Statistics and p-Values of These Statistics for the Consistent
and Streaky Hitters

formance. We will now be more specific. Suppose that, before looking at any data,
you believe that the Mr. Consistent and the Mr. Streaky models are equally plau-
sible descriptions of Zeile’s hitting. After seeing Zeile’s data, what do you believe
about these two models?
We will illustrate a simple way of computing the following:
Pr(Zeile is a streaky hitter)
To do this, we will use the simulated data of the consistent and streaky hitters
and one unusual statistic from Zeile’s hitting data. Zeile had seven games in the
first half of 1999 where he had three or more hits. Based on Zeile’s performance,
we consider the two following mutually exclusive events:
“Fewer than seven 3+-hit games”
and
“Seven or more 3+-hit games”
We will compute the probability that Zeile is a streaky hitter based on the
second of these: seven or more 3+-hit games.
Suppose that we have 2000 hitters like Todd Zeile, and there are two possible
models for his hitting—consistent or streaky. If we think that the chance Zeile is
a consistent hitter is the same as the chance that he is a streaky hitter, then
we’ll call 1000 of these hitters consistent and 1000 of them streaky. We put these
numbers in Table 5-10.
Earlier, we simulated 1000 hitters from the consistent model and found that
23 percent of them, or 230 hitters, had seven or more 3+-hit games. (That means
 STREAKINESS (OR, THE HOT HAND) 133

Less than seven Seven or more

3+-hit games 3+-hit games Total

Consistent hitter • • 1000

Streaky hitter • • 1000

TOTAL • • 2000

TABLE 5-10 Table Classifying Hitters by Ability (Consistent or Streaky) and

Performance (Fewer than Seven or At Least Seven 3+-Hit Games)

Less than seven Seven or more

3+-hit games 3+-hit games Total

Consistent hitter 770 230 1000

Streaky hitter 570 430 1000

TOTAL 1340 660 2000

TABLE 5-11 Table Classifying Hitters by Ability and Performance with Some Counts
Filled In

that 1000 – 230 = 770 hitters had fewer than seven 3+-hit games.) Similarly, of
the 1000 hitters from the streaky model, 43 percent, or 430 hitters, had seven or
more 3+-hit games. (So 1000 – 430 = 570 hitters were in the other category.) We
place these values in Table 5-11.
To find the probability that Zeile is a consistent or streaky hitter based on his
data, we focus on the column headed “Seven or more 3+-hit games” in the table.
There were a total of 660 hitters in our simulation who had a large number of
3+-hit games like Zeile. Of these 660 hitters, 230 (35 percent) were consistent
hitters and 430 (65 percent) were streaky hitters. So we can say, on the basis of
Zeile’s large number of 3+-hits games, the following:
Pr(Zeile is streaky) = .65, Pr(Zeile is consistent) = .35
The probability (65 percent) that Zeile is streaky is somewhat larger than the
initial probability of 50 percent, which means that there is some support for true
streakiness in Zeile’s data. In a similar fashion, we can use another interesting
statistic, such as his large number of “long streaks,” to compute the probability
that he is streaky based on this statistic and the initial assumption that the
134 CHAPTER 5

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Zeile 0.479 2 36 26 7

Pr(streaky) 0.95 0.75 0.66 0.62 0.65

Pr(consistent) 0.05 0.25 0.34 0.38 0.35

TABLE 5-12 Values of Five Interesting Statistics for Todd Zeile and the Probabilities That
He Is a Streaky Hitter

models Mr. Streaky and Mr. Consistent are equally likely.

Table 5-12 summarizes these calculations for each one of the five “streaky
statistics.” With the exception of the MAX – MIN statistic, we see that the prob-
ability that Zeile is a streaky hitter (in the way that we have defined it) is in the
.6 to .7 range, which is higher than the initial probability of .5. The probability
that Zeile is streaky is .95 using the MAX – MIN statistic—this tells us that the
big difference between Zeile’s best and worst moving average is pretty signifi-
cant and is more typical of a hitter who is truly streaky.

Team Play
We have spent quite a bit of time analyzing the streaky behavior of a single hit-
ter, and we have found that there is some evidence that Todd Zeile is truly
streaky. But are groups of players or teams generally streaky? If we performed
the above analysis on all major league players or all teams, would we find that
many of them are streaky or possess the hot hand?
To partly answer this question, we will look at the win/loss sequences for all
30 major-league teams in 1998. For each team, we collected the game results for
all 162 games (approximately) played that season. Figure 5-11 shows this data
for the Anaheim Angels. We see they won their first two games, lost the next
three, won the next three, lost the next two, and so on.
Were the Angels streaky in 1998? To begin, when we look at the above
sequence we see some interesting patterns. Specifically, we see a large number
of wins at the end of the first half of the season (including a winning streak of
nine games), and a losing streak of six games at the beginning of the second half.
As in the analysis of Zeile’s data, one can quantify these clusters of wins and
losses by the computation of moving winning fractions. Suppose we use a width
of 12 games, which corresponds to about two weeks of games. Then we compute
 STREAKINESS (OR, THE HOT HAND) 135

Games 1–81:

WWLLLWWWLLWLLWLLWLWWWWWWLWWWLLLLWLWLWLLWLLWWWWLLLLWLWWWWWWWWWLWWWLWWWWLWWWWLWLLWW

Games 82–162:

LLLLLLWLWLLWLLWLLWWLWLWLWLLLLWWLLLWWWWLWWLWLWWLWWWWWLLWLWLWLWWLWLLLWLLLLWWLLLWLLW

FIGURE 5-11 Win/loss sequence of the 1998 Anaheim Angels.

WWLLLWWWLLWL LWLLWLWWWWWWLWWWLLLLWLWLWLLWLLWWWWLLLLWLWWWWWWWWWLWWWLWWWWLWWWWLWLLWW

6 wins, 6 losses

FIGURE 5-12 Win/loss sequence with winning fraction for games 1 through 12 displayed.

W WLLLWWWLLWLL WLLWLWWWWWWLWWWLLLLWLWLWLLWLLWWWWLLLLWLWWWWWWWWWLWWWLWWWWLWWWWLWLLWW

5 wins, 7 losses

FIGURE 5-13 Win/loss sequence with winning fraction for games 2 through 13 displayed.

WW LLLWWWLLWLLW LLWLWWWWWWLWWWLLLLWLWLWLLWLLWWWWLLLLWLWWWWWWWWWLWWWLWWWWLWWWWLWLLWW
5 wins, 7 losses

FIGURE 5-14 Win/loss sequence with winning fraction for games 3 through 14 displayed.

moving winning fractions for all groups of 12 games. To start, we look at the
Angel’s record in games 1 through 12, which is boxed in Figure 5-12. The Angels
won 6 and lost 6 in this period for a winning fraction of .500.
We next look at games 2 through 13. From Figure 5-13, we see the Angels won
5 and lost 7, for a winning fraction of .417.
Next, we look at games 3 through 14;—again we see 5 wins and 7 losses, for a
.417 winning fraction.
Suppose that we compute this winning fraction for all groups of 12 games.
Figure 5-15 graphs the winning fractions against the mean game number. This
graph dramatically shows the periods where the Angels were hot and cold during
the season. After an initial lukewarm period, the Angels were hot for a short period
(around game 20), and then cold for a period. Then the Angels had an extended
hot spell from game 50 to game 80, including a 12-game stretch where they actu-
ally had a winning fraction over .90. They followed this long hot stretch with an
extended cold spell. They conclude the season with a hot spell and a cold spell.
How can we measure the streakiness that we see in this graph of moving frac-
tions? A simple way is just to compute how far the moving fractions are from the
136 CHAPTER 5

overall season winning percentage. The team went 85–77 in 1998, for a winning
fraction of .525, which is the location of the horizontal line in Figure 5-15. We can
measure the size of the streakiness by finding the sum:
Black = Sum[distance (moving average – .525)]
This sum essentially is the size of the black region of the graph, so we will call
this statistic “Black.” If we see a lot of black in the graph, then the team had a
pretty streaky season. For the Angels, we compute the following number:
Black = 21.7
How does the streakiness that we see in the Angels’ season performance com-
pare to that of other teams? Figures 5-16 and 5-17 display the moving fraction
graphs (using a window of 12 games) for all 30 major-league teams in 1998.
Looking at these graphs and comparing the sizes of the black areas, we see some
teams—such as Anaheim, Baltimore, and Detroit—that appear to have had
unusually streaky seasons. Each of these teams has a large chunk of black in its
plot, indicating that it had at least one major slump or hot period in its season.
Other teams—such as Atlanta, Los Angeles, and Cleveland—appear to have had
unusually consistent seasons, since their moving fraction graph stays pretty
close to a horizontal line. We can describe the amount of streakiness in each
team’s graph using the Black statistic. Table 5-13 gives values of Black for all of

0.8

0.6

0.4
WINNING FRACTION

0.2

0
0 50 100 150

GAME

FIGURE 5-15 Moving fraction plot of the winning pattern of the 1998 Anaheim Angels.
 STREAKINESS (OR, THE HOT HAND) 137

1 Arizona Chicago Cincinnati

0.5

Atlanta

1 Colorado Florida Houston Los Angeles

0.5

1 Milwaukee Montreal New York Philadelphia

0.5

1 St. Louis
Pittsburgh

0.5
WIN PCT

San Diego San Francisco

0 100 100 100 100

GAME

FIGURE 5-16 Moving fraction plots of the winning patterns of National League teams in
1998.

the teams. The values are consistent with what we saw in Figures 5-16 and 5-17:
Anaheim, Baltimore and Detroit are in the 20–27 range, while Atlanta, Los
Angeles, and Cleveland are much smaller, in the 11–16 range.
So the 30 major league teams in 1998 appear to vary quite a bit with regard to
their consistency across the season, but do these patterns mean anything? We’ve
observed that some teams performed streaky, but that doesn’t mean that those
teams actually are streaky. It is possible that they are all consistent teams, but by
luck or chance variability, their season performances happened to look streaky.
138 CHAPTER 5

1.0 Anaheim Boston

0.5

Baltimore Chicago

1.0 Cleveland Detroit Kansas City Minnesota

0.5

1.0 Oakland Seattle Tampa Bay

0.5

New York

1.0 Texas Toronto 100 100

0.5
WIN PCT

0 100 100

GAME

FIGURE 5-17 Moving fraction plots of the winning patterns of American League teams in
1998.

A Consistent Team
To see if these streaky patterns of team performance mean anything, we propose
a few simple models for team abilities and see what type of streaky behavior
during a season is predicted based on these models. The simplest model is The
Consistent Team. This team wins each game during the season with the same
probability. It doesn’t matter if this team is playing the Yankees or Mets or Devil
Rays—the team will always win with the same probability. The winning proba-
bilities of this consistent team are displayed in Figure 5-18 as .525 on game 1,
.525 on game 2, .525 on game 3, and so on. Moreover, the results of different
games are independent. The chance that our consistent team wins a particular
game is unaffected by what happens in previous games. The Consistent Team, as
we have defined it, seems pretty unbelievable–since the chance that a team wins
a baseball game clearly depends on a number of different factors—but we’ll
show that it is a useful model to consider.
 STREAKINESS (OR, THE HOT HAND) 139

Team Gray p-value

Baltimore 26.6 0.002 Boston 16.3 0.52

Anaheim 21.7 0.04 Chicago White Sox 16.2 0.58

Detroit 21.6 0.05 Montreal 16.1 0.52

Cincinnati 20.7 0.08 Philadelphia 16.1 0.56

Florida 20 0.07 Arizona 15.8 0.56

Pittsburgh 19.9 0.12 Atlanta 15.8 0.52

New York Yankees 18.4 0.09 Oakland 15.6 0.65

San Francisco 18.4 0.25 New York Mets 15.5 0.65

St. Louis 18 0.31 Minnesota 15.4 0.66

Tampa Bay 17 0.38 Colorado 14.9 0.74

Chicago Cubs 16.8 0.48 Kansas City 14.8 0.73

Toronto 16.7 0.47 Texas 14.6 0.77

Milwaukee 16.6 0.5 Cleveland 14.1 0.83

San Diego 16.5 0.47 Houston 13.1 0.88

Seattle 16.4 0.5 Los Angeles 11.9 0.98

TABLE 5-13 Values of the Streaky Statistic Black and the p-Value of This Statistic
Assuming a Consistent Team

Now that we’ve defined The Consistent Team, we can see how it performs in
a 162-game season by using simulation. Let’s illustrate how we do this simula-
tion using the Angels as an example. As mentioned earlier, the Angels had a
winning fraction of .525 in 1998. Suppose that this team was truly consistent
and it won each game with probability .525. We then can play a complete simu-
lated Angels season by using a random spinner 162 times, where the Win region
in the spinner is equal to .525. After we simulate the Angels season, we check
for streakiness using the moving fraction plot that we’ve used earlier. We see
some black area in the graph, and we measure the size of the streakiness by the
statistic Black.
We repeat this simulation for 1000 seasons, and for each we compute the sta-
tistic Black. So when we are done, we get 1000 values of the streaky statistic
Black. This simulation tells us how much streakiness we will observe in the
team performance if the team was truly consistent.
In the 1998 Angels season, we observe some streakiness and Black = 21.7. To
see if this is unusually large for a consistent team, we compare it to the values
of Black in the simulation. We compute a p-value which is the chance that the
140 CHAPTER 5

0.60

0.55

WINNING PROBABILITY 0.50

0.45

0.40

0.35

0.30
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160

GAME

FIGURE 5-18 Graph of the probability of winning across games for The Consistent Team.

value of Black is at least as large as 21.7, assuming the consistent model. In

Table 5-13, we see the following:
p-value = Pr(Black is at least as large as 21.7) = .04
Since this probability is small, it seems that the 1998 Angels are not behaving
like a truly consistent team.
We repeat this simulation for each of the 30 teams. The p-values of the
observed values of Black are shown in Table 5-13. What is remarkable is that
most of the p-values are large, and only six of the thirty teams (shown in bold
type) have p-values under 10 percent. If all 30 teams were truly consistent
teams, then one would expect 3 out of the 30 teams to have a p-value smaller
than 10 percent, and the six observed p-values under 10 percent are not much
more than what we expect. So we can conclude that the streakiness (black mat-
ter) that we observe in the moving fraction plot generally agrees with the
observed streakiness of a truly consistent team.

A Streaky Team
We have described what it means for a team to be truly consistent. What does it
mean for team to have a streaky nature? We use a notion of streakiness here
that is different from what we used for Todd Zeile. We do this to show that there
are a number of plausible ways of representing streaky behavior. This model,
like the one used earlier, assumes that the winning probability can change
 STREAKINESS (OR, THE HOT HAND) 141

across the season. Also, if a team is playing well (or poorly) during a particular
game, it is more likely to play well (or poorly) in the next game.
If a team is streaky, we will assume that during the season it can be in one of
three possible states, which we will call “hot,” “cold,” and “lukewarm,” or “aver-
age.” When the team is hot, it wins with a high probability pH, when it is luke-
warm it wins with a smaller probability pav, and when it is cold it wins with the
smallest probability pC. Also we divide the 162-game season into 9 periods of 18
games and assume that during the season the team will be hot for three periods,
lukewarm for three periods, and cold for three periods. (Here 18 days is approx-
imately 3 weeks, so we’re assuming that a team will remain in the same winning
state for about three weeks.) Figure 5-19 shows how the winning probability can
change for this type of streaky team. In this graph, the cold, lukewarm, and hot
winning probabilities are assumed respectively to be .425, .525, and .625. We see
that this particular team is hot for the first 54 games, lukewarm for the next 36,
cold for the next 36, lukewarm for the next 18, and cold for the final 18.
Just as before, we use a simulation to see how a streaky team, of the type just
described, will perform during a 162-game season. We illustrate how we do this
simulation for Anaheim. In 1998, this team had a winning fraction of .525. We
assume that, when Anaheim is hot, it wins with a probability of .625—that is, .1
greater than its season winning fraction. Likewise, it wins with probability .1
lower, or .425, when it is cold. When the team is lukewarm, it wins with proba-
bility .525. We divide the season into nine periods, where the team is hot for

0.70

Hot
0.65

0.60

Lukewarm
WINNING PROBABILITY

0.55

0.50

0.45 Cold

0.40

0 50 100 150

GAME

FIGURE 5-19 Graph of the probability of winning across games for a streaky team.
142 CHAPTER 5

three periods, cold for three periods, and lukewarm for three periods. (The peri-
ods are randomly placed in the season.) After we have decided on the winning
probabilities for all games, we simulate game results (wins and losses). Based on
a moving fraction plot, we compute the statistic Black.
For each team, we perform this simulation using the streaky team model for
1000 seasons. Each time we do the simulation, we compute the streaky statistic
Black. For each of the six teams that appeared streaky, we compute a p-value.
This is the probability that the statistic Black is at least as large as the observed
value, assuming the streaky model. The results are shown in Table 5-14.
To understand what Table 5-14 is telling us, let’s focus on Anaheim. We saw
early that Anaheim had a moving fraction plot that looked streaky, and we
measure this streakiness by the value Black = 21.7. We saw that this value is a
bit unusual for a team that is truly consistent. That is, if a team went through
the season always winning with the same probability, then the chance that you
would see a Black value this large or larger is only 4 percent. Now, if the team
was really streaky (in the way we defined it), we see that the chance of seeing
this extreme value of Black is 14 percent, considerably more than 4 percent. So
Anaheim’s streaky performance is more consistent with a streaky model than a
consistent model. Also, if we thought initially that Anaheim was equally likely to
be a consistent or streaky team, then Table 5-14 says that the new probability
that Anaheim is streaky (given this data) is .78. Looking at the whole table, we
see that there is some evidence that each of the teams is truly streaky, and that
Baltimore has the strongest evidence of streakiness.

p-value p-value
Team Gray Consistent model Streaky model Pr(team is streaky)

Cincinnati 20.7 0.08 0.3 0.79

Florida 20 0.07 0.23 0.77

Anaheim 21.7 0.04 0.14 0.78

Baltimore 26.6 0.002 0.016 0.89

Detroit 21.6 0.05 0.13 0.72

New York Yankees 18.4 0.09 0.37 0.8

TABLE 5-14 Values of the Streaky Statistic Black (p-Values of This Statistic Assume a
Consistent Team and a Streaky Team Model, and the Probability the Team Is
Streaky)
 STREAKINESS (OR, THE HOT HAND) 143

Thinking about Streakiness—Again

What have we learned about streakiness? First, and maybe most important, we
understand now (we hope) that there is a difference between observed streaki-
ness and streaky ability. Every day during the baseball season, we’re confronted
with interesting observed statistics—say, that Barry Bonds is 0 for 12 in his
most recent series of at-bats. Stats like these are just indications that Barry is
having a hitting problem. But they are not, after all, much more than statistics
in isolation. We’re more interested in streaky ability, and what we learn about
this ability based on larger collections of data.
In this chapter, we’ve described several models, such as consistency and
streakiness, that tell how an individual’s (or team’s) hitting (or winning) proba-
bility changes over time. For Todd Zeile, we described two models, called Mr.
Consistent and Mr. Streaky, and showed that there is some evidence that Zeile
was exhibiting streaky behavior. We did a similar analysis for the 1998 teams,
and found some evidence that a few of them were truly streaky.
One basic thing we have learned is that it is pretty tough to interpret streak-
iness data. Even if a hitter like Zeile is really consistent—that is, he gets a hit at
each at-bat with the same probability—we can see very interesting patterns.
The problem is how to make sense of those patterns. Our old caution—about
drawing inferences from small datasets—becomes especially important if you
are trying to draw meaningful inferences from the ups and downs of a player or
team. One should, at the least, be very cautious in thinking a player is streaky
just because an announcer says he was hot last week, and this week he’s cold.
There is a related issue that fans should be aware of—namely, selection bias.
Why did we decide to look at the hitting statistics for Todd Zeile? Well, we had
heard through the media that he was a streaky player. In other words, we
selected Zeile since his hitting statistics were interesting to look it. Now consider
the opposite situation: What if we had heard from a TV broadcaster that Tony
Gwynn had gotten 4 hits in his last 12 at-bats? Would we have picked up on this
information, and done a statistical study? The answer is a clear No, since this
data is not interesting—hitting statistics like these are what we expect from
Gwynn, since his lifetime batting average is over .300. It would be interesting to
hear, say, that Tony is hitless in his last 20 at-bats, since this data would be far
from what we expect. But Tony going 4 for 12? That’s old news.
The point we’re trying to make is that we look at interesting baseball data
and ignore noninteresting data, and that fact alone makes the interesting base-
ball data appear more significant than it really is. We say that inference from
144 CHAPTER 5

this data is biased, or misrepresentative of reality, since the data has been
selected exactly because it appears unusual.
To properly decide if hitters or teams are generally streaky, we need to look at
a large amount of data that doesn’t suffer from selection bias. We did this in the
case of the team data—we looked at all teams that played in the 1998 season
and didn’t select the ones that had interesting win/loss patterns. What we found
is that only six of the thirty teams had streaky patterns of wins and losses that
did not conform to a consistent (constant-probability) model. Only one team
(Baltimore) was unusual with respect to streakiness. Suppose that we look for
true streakiness among 30 teams and decide that there is “significance” if the p-
value is smaller than 10 percent. Then, even if all of the teams are consistent or
non-streaky, we would expect, by chance, that 10 percent of the 30 (or 3 teams)
would show “significant” streakiness. So really there is not strong support in this
1998 season for teams displaying streakiness.
There is currently an active effort among statisticians to detect streakiness
(streaky ability) from sports data. Researchers in the area of human psychology
say that people generally are unable to understand the patterns inherent in coin
tossing, and that there is no statistical evidence for streakiness. What do we
think? On one hand, we think that true streakiness may exist based on our expe-
rience playing sports. When shooting basketball as youths, there were days
when we felt that we had the right shooting touch and could make any basket
we tried. On these days, we believed we had a true hot hand. However, as adults,
we look at this experience differently. In the statistics literature, we see that
most people have been unsuccessful in detecting true streakiness from sports
data. True streakiness is hard to detect since it is a small effect, similar to the
small situational effects described in Chapter 4. As demonstrated in this chap-
ter, we’ve shown that even truly consistent teams or players can demonstrate
very streaky patterns of wins and losses (or good and bad days), and it is diffi-
cult to find true hot-hand behavior in this big cloud of chance streaky behavior.
A baseball fan should be suspicious of any talk in the media about a player or a
team being truly streaky—the reporter is likely reacting to an interesting pat-
tern of performance, similar to the patterns one sees when a coin is flipped.
 Offensive Performance

APTE
CH R

On April 17, 1960, a trade unique in baseball history was consummated.

Cleveland outfielder Rocky Colavito was swapped even up for Detroit outfielder
Harvey Kuenn. What made this trade so remarkable was that Colavito was the
1959 American League home-run co-champion (he hit 42 of them), while Kuenn
was the 1959 American League batting champion (with a .353 average). Never
before (and never since) have two players been traded for each other just one
year after such tremendous personal accomplishments. The trade begged the
question, which type of player is more valuable, a great power hitter or a great
hitter for average?
The 1959 offensive stats for Colavito and Kuenn are shown in Table 6-1.
Colavito had a big edge in home runs, and he received more free passes to first
base. Kuenn got more hits overall, and aside from home runs, more extra-base
hits. So the situation is complicated: It really is not easy to say that one of these
players was better than the other—there are simply too many categories to com-
pare. Nonetheless, the general managers of Cleveland and Detroit must have seen
clear-cut (although opposing) advantages, or they would not have made the trade.

Player AB H 2B 3B HR SH SF SB CS BB IBB HBP

Rocky Colavito 588 151 24 0 42 0 3 3 3 71 8 2

Harvey Kuenn 561 198 42 7 9 3 4 7 2 48 1 1

TABLE 6-1 1959 Offensive Records for Rocky Colavito and Harvey Kuenn

145
146 CHAPTER 6

The Great Quest

If there is one great quest in baseball statistics, it is the search for the best for-
mula for evaluating offensive performance. Who is the more valuable player, a
Tony Gwynn type of hitter, who has a high batting average but little power? Or
a Mike Schmidt type, who displays great power but has a low batting average?
And just how valuable is speed in a player? Or the ability to draw a walk? Or . . .
The question of how to quantify offensive performance is a classic statistical
problem. Offensive statistics offer a rich but not overwhelming set of dimensions
with which to measure players. The question becomes how best to combine these
different measurements into a single number that best reflects the offensive
value of the player.
We examined the players with the top three career batting averages in each
decade. Only players with more than 5000 plate appearances were considered.1
Each player was assigned to a single decade according to the midpoint of his
career. For example, Rogers Hornsby debuted in 1915 and retired after the 1937
season. His career midpoint was 1926, so for our purposes here, he is assigned to
the 1920s. (And 1926 was, incidentally, the year Hornsby, as player-manager, led
the St. Louis Cardinals to their first World Championship.)
Table 6-2 shows for each decade the total number of players, and the number
and percentage of players who had more than 5000 career plate appearances.2 A
total of 5000 plate appearances indicates a substantial major-league career; less
than 10 new players per year (on average) achieve this milestone. The low per-
centage of 1940s players in this category is most likely caused by military serv-
ice in World War II.
Table 6-3 lists the leading players in each decade according to batting aver-
age. Scanning this list, we see only the names of very good hitters. All players
prior to 1980 are in the Hall of Fame, except Browning, Jackson, Alou, Garr, and

1 The sum of at-bats, walks, and hits by pitcher was used here for plate appearances.
2 The primary data source for this chapter was Sean Lahman’s database (now called The
Baseball Archive), available on the web at www.baseball1.com. The database—actually a set of
databases—is of inestimable value to statistical researchers. The two used here are the team
database and the player batting database. Several data items (such as Grounded Into Double
Play) are unavailable. Others are incomplete: Sacrifice Flies (complete from 1954 on), Caught
Stealing (complete from 1951 on), Sacrifice Hits (complete from 1894 on), Hit by Pitcher
(complete from 1887 on), and Stolen Bases (complete from 1886 on). Where a data item was
unavailable, its value was assumed to be zero. The analyses presented here were performed
initially with Version 2.2 of the database, which covered all seasons through 1998. The analyses
were extended to include the 1999 season when Version 3.0 of the database was made available.
 M E A S U R I NG O F F E N S I V E P E R F O R M A NC E 147

Decade Total >5000 %>5000

1880s 900 29 3.2%

1890s 789 47 6.0%

1900s 1013 39 3.8%

1910s 1557 58 3.7%

1920s 1208 54 4.5%

1930s 960 58 6.0%

1940s 1222 46 3.8%

1950s 1046 54 5.2%

1960s 1144 71 6.2%

1970s 1307 100 7.7%

1980s 1393 93 6.7%

1990s 2069 121 5.8%

TABLE 6-2 Total Players from Each Decade and Number and % with More Than 5000
Plate Appearances

Decade Player AVG

1880s Pete Browning .341 Cap Anson .333 Roger Connor .317

1890s Ed Delahanty .346 Billy Hamilton .344 Dan Brouthers .342

1900s Willie Keeler .341 Nap Lajoie .338 Honus Wagner .327

1910s Ty Cobb .366 Joe Jackson .356 Tris Speaker .345

1920s Rogers Hornsby .358 Babe Ruth .342 Harry Heilmann .342

1930s Lou Gehrig .340 Al Simmons .334 Paul Waner .333

1940s Ted Williams .344 Joe DiMaggio .325 Joe Medwick .324

1950s Stan Musial .331 Jackie Robinson .311 Richie Ashburn .308

1960s Roberto Clemente .317 Matty Alou .307 Hank Aaron .305

1970s Rod Carew .328 Ralph Garr .306 Al Oliver .303

1980s Kirby Puckett .318 Don Mattingly .307 Paul Molitor .306

1990s Tony Gwynn .338 Wade Boggs .328 Mike Piazza .321

TABLE 6-3 Players with Highest Career Batting Average from Each Decade 3

3 This table and all other tables of player evaluations in this chapter use player records through
the 2002 season.
148 CHAPTER 6

Oliver. Puckett was elected recently. Molitor, Gwynn, and Boggs are destined for
the Hall, and Mike Piazza is likely to make it as well. But were they truly the
best of their period in producing runs? For example, Richie Ashburn is a per-
sonal favorite of ours, but even we doubt that he was a greater hitter than his
contemporary Mickey Mantle. And was Paul Waner a better hitter than Jimmie
Foxx? And say Hey! Where’s Willie Mays?
Over the years, many systems have been offered to ascertain the offensive
value of players. And each year, more are added to the list by sportswriters and
fans. The 1999 Big Bad Baseball Annual alone listed over 20 systems for evalu-
ating offensive performance. What’s going on here? Isn’t the tried and true
Batting Average enough?
As it turns out, the answer is No. Batting average actually has a relatively
poor correlation with runs scored. Interestingly, the best way to gauge the value
of systems for rating individual offensive players is to analyze team data. In
baseball, a single individual is rarely responsible for production of a run. Batters
get on base, then other batters advance them. The “offensive credit,” as it were,
is shared—by the runner who got on base and scored, the players who advanced
the runner, and the player who batted him in for the RBI. The fact that scoring
is a series of events involving more than a single player is one reason why the
standard counts for runs scored and runs batted in are not satisfactory evalua-
tors of individuals. Even the sum of total runs scored plus RBIs minus HRs has
not achieved widespread use.
Over the next few pages, we’ll take a look at some of the most widely used
stats for offensive performance, analyze how closely they align with runs pro-
duced, examine what they tell us, and what they don’t tell us, about the run-pro-
ducing value of noted players.

Runs Scored per Game

Let’s start our investigation by looking at the runs scored per game by teams in
1998 as presented in Table 6-4. Runs per game (R/G) ranged from the low of
3.827 by the Tampa Bay Devil Rays to the high of 5.957 by the World Champion
New York Yankees. (Coincidentally, both teams were in the Eastern Division of
the American League.) This represents quite a spread. Over the course of the
1998 season, the Yankees scored more than 50 percent more runs per game than
the Devil Rays.
Now let’s suppose you had absolutely no knowledge of baseball except for the
information in Table 6-4 (minus the team names), and that you are asked to
 M E A S U R I NG O F F E N S I V E P E R F O R M A NC E 149

Team Runs per Game

New York Yankees 5.957 Anaheim Angels 4.858

Texas Rangers 5.802 Cincinnati Reds 4.630

Boston Red Sox 5.407 San Diego Padres 4.623

Houston Astros 5.395 Minnesota Twins 4.531

Seattle Mariners 5.335 Detroit Tigers 4.457

Chicago White Sox 5.315 Kansas City Royals 4.435

Cleveland Indians 5.247 Philadelphia Phillies 4.401

San Francisco Giants 5.184 Milwaukee Brewers 4.364

Atlanta Braves 5.099 New York Mets 4.358

Colorado Rockies 5.099 Los Angeles Dodgers 4.130

Chicago Cubs 5.098 Florida Marlins 4.117

Baltimore Orioles 5.043 Arizona Diamondbacks 4.105

Toronto Blue Jays 5.037 Pittsburgh Pirates 4.012

St. Louis Cardinals 5.000 Montreal Expos 3.975

Oakland A's 4.963 Tampa Bay Devil Rays 3.827

TABLE 6-4 Runs per Game for Major League Teams in 1998

guess how many runs per game a certain team scored in 1998. What would be
your best guess? You wouldn’t pick the highest or lowest value, since this would
make your possible error very large. Most likely you would pick some value in
the middle of the distribution. Perhaps you would calculate the average (or
mean) of all the values (4.794 runs per game) and use it as your best guess.
In fact, the average is the best guess (or estimate) you can make . . . without
any further information, that is. Table 6-5 shows the runs per game values, the
guess based on the average, and the difference between this guess and the actual
value. We will refer to this difference as the Error in the estimate. At the bottom
of the Error column is the average value of the errors, 0. Basically, what this
means is that if you use the average value as your guess, you will overestimate
as much as you underestimate in repeated guesses.
Another column presents the square of the error; that is, Error × Error. Doing
this has a great advantage. Now each error, whether positive or negative, has
been converted to a positive value. So, an error of –1 (overestimating by 1 run
per game) is treated the same as an error of 1 (underestimating by 1 run per
game). The average of the squared errors, or Mean Squared Error (MSE), is pre-
sented at the bottom of the column. The square root of MSE, or Root Mean
150 CHAPTER 6

Team Runs per Game Estimate Error Error × Error

New York Yankees 5.957 4.794 1.163 1.352

Texas Rangers 5.802 4.794 1.008 1.017

Boston Red Sox 5.407 4.794 .613 .376

Houston Astros 5.395 4.794 .601 .361

Seattle Mariners 5.335 4.794 .541 .293

Chicago White Sox 5.315 4.794 .521 .271

Cleveland Indians 5.247 4.794 .453 .205

San Francisco Giants 5.184 4.794 .390 .152

Atlanta Braves 5.099 4.794 .305 .093

Colorado Rockies 5.099 4.794 .305 .093

Chicago Cubs 5.098 4.794 .304 .093

Baltimore Orioles 5.043 4.794 .249 .062

Toronto Blue Jays 5.037 4.794 .243 .059

St. Louis Cardinals 5.000 4.794 .206 .042

Oakland A's 4.963 4.794 .169 .029

Anaheim Angels 4.858 4.794 .064 .004

Cincinnati Reds 4.630 4.794 –.164 .027

San Diego Padres 4.623 4.794 –.171 .029

Minnesota Twins 4.531 4.794 –.263 .069

Detroit Tigers 4.457 4.794 –.337 .114

Kansas City Royals 4.435 4.794 –.359 .129

Philadelphia Phillies 4.401 4.794 –.393 .154

Milwaukee Brewers 4.364 4.794 –.430 .185

New York Mets 4.358 4.794 –.436 .190

Los Angeles Dodgers 4.130 4.794 –.664 .441

Florida Marlins 4.117 4.794 –.677 .458

Arizona Diamondbacks 4.105 4.794 –.689 .475

Pittsburgh Pirates 4.012 4.794 –.782 .611

Montreal Expos 3.975 4.794 –.819 .670

Tampa Bay Devil Rays 3.827 4.794 –.967 .935

Average 4.794 4.794 .000 .300

TABLE 6-5 Predicting Runs per Game for MLB Teams in 1998 (Prediction = Average)
 M E A S U R I NG O F F E N S I V E P E R F O R M A NC E 151

Squared Error (RMSE), an estimate of the standard deviation of the error dis-
tribution, provides a measure of how much you may expect to overestimate or
underestimate in your guesses. Approximately two-thirds of all errors are
between –RMSE and +RMSE runs per game. Here the RMSE is the square root
of .300, which equals .548 runs per game. From the Error column in Table 6-5,
we see that 20 teams (exactly two-thirds of 30 teams) have estimates with errors
between –.548 and .548.
One can show mathematically that the average guess results in the lowest
possible MSE among all other possible guesses. Let’s demonstrate this point
with an example. Suppose you had guessed 5 instead of 4.794. How would the
MSE have changed? Table 6-6 is exactly the same as Table 6-5 except that 5 has
been substituted for 4.794 as the estimate. The Error column has been calcu-
lated the same way, by subtracting the estimate from actual runs per game. The
first change we notice is that the average error is not 0 anymore. It’s –.206,
reflecting the tendency of 5 to overestimate the runs per game for a team. The
MSE value (the average of Error × Error) is .342, which is greater than the MSE
value .300 in Table 6-5, when the average 4.794 was used as the estimate. Since
RMSE is just the square root of MSE, the RMSE value is greater as well (.585
versus .548 runs per game).
Figure 6-1 shows the RMSE value for every reasonable guess of runs scored
per game. For each guess (shown on the x-axis), we followed the same procedure
as in Table 6-6 (where 5 was the guess). That is, using the guess as the estimate,
we subtracted it from each data value to obtain an error; the errors were squared
and the average value of their squares calculated. The square root of the average
gave us the RMSE for that guess. The plot shows the RMSE for each guess. The
RMSE values for our guesses of 4.794 and 5 runs per game are included in the
line. For example, our original guess was 4.794 runs per game based on the runs
scored per game averaged over all teams. The calculation in Table 6-5 gave a
RMSE of .548 runs per game if this value were used as an estimate. Figure 6-1
displays a dot on the curve where the RMSE result of this guess is plotted.
Another dot shows the RMSE value when 5 runs per game is the guessed esti-
mate. Note that this dot is higher than that for the 4.794 guess because the
RMSE for a guess of 5 runs per game is higher. In fact, the RMSE reaches its
lowest level with the 4.794 runs per game guess. Clearly, the RMSE is smallest
when the guess is based on the average runs scored per game.
152 CHAPTER 6

Team Runs per Game Estimate Error Error × Error

New York Yankees 5.957 5 .957 .915

Texas Rangers 5.802 5 .802 .644

Boston Red Sox 5.407 5 .407 .166

Houston Astros 5.395 5 .395 .156

Seattle Mariners 5.335 5 .335 .112

Chicago White Sox 5.315 5 .315 .099

Cleveland Indians 5.247 5 .247 .061

San Francisco Giants 5.184 5 .184 .034

Atlanta Braves 5.099 5 .099 .010

Colorado Rockies 5.099 5 .099 .010

Chicago Cubs 5.098 5 .098 .010

Baltimore Orioles 5.043 5 .043 .002

Toronto Blue Jays 5.037 5 .037 .001

St. Louis Cardinals 5.000 5 .000 .000

Oakland A's 4.963 5 –.037 .001

Anaheim Angels 4.858 5 –.142 .020

Cincinnati Reds 4.630 5 –.370 .137

San Diego Padres 4.623 5 –.377 .142

Minnesota Twins 4.531 5 –.469 .220

Detroit Tigers 4.457 5 –.543 .295

Kansas City Royals 4.435 5 –.565 .319

Philadelphia Phillies 4.401 5 –.599 .359

Milwaukee Brewers 4.364 5 –.636 .404

New York Mets 4.358 5 –.642 .412

Los Angeles Dodgers 4.130 5 –.870 .758

Florida Marlins 4.117 5 –.883 .779

Arizona Diamondbacks 4.105 5 –.895 .801

Pittsburgh Pirates 4.012 5 –.988 .975

Montreal Expos 3.975 5 –1.025 1.050

Tampa Bay Devil Rays 3.827 5 –1.173 1.376

Average 4.794 5 –.206 .342

TABLE 6-6 Predicting Runs per Game for MLB Teams in 1998 (Prediction = 5 Runs/Game)
 M E A S U R I NG O F F E N S I V E P E R F O R M A NC E 153

1.2

1.0

0.8
ROOT MEAN SQUARED ERROR

0.6

ESTIMATE IS 4.794 ESTIMATE IS 5

(RUNS PER GAME)

0.4

0.2

0.0

3 4 5 6

ESTIMATE (RUNS PER GAME)

FIGURE 6-1 Root Mean Squared Error (RMSE) values for different guesses of team runs
scored per game in 1998.

Batting Average and Runs Scored per Game

We have established that, without any knowledge about the teams, the best
prediction of run production is a blind guess based on the average runs scored
per game. But what if more information is available? How much can we im-
prove on our guess?
We will examine this with respect to the most popular measure of offensive
production, the Batting Average (AVG). Batting Average is the most quoted of all
baseball statistics in the print and broadcast media; it is simply the number of
hits divided by the number of at-bats. But is AVG worthy of its standing as the
number-one baseball stat for individual offensive performance? As the ratio of
two easily obtained quantities, it has the strength of simplicity. AVG also has
intuitive appeal. It seems reasonable that greater production of hits would lead
to greater production of runs. But how strong is this relationship?
Figure 6-2 plots runs scored per game vs. AVG for all teams in the 1998 sea-
son. As expected, the plot shows a strong correlation between the two measures.
Teams with high AVGs tend to have high run production, and teams with low
AVGs tend to have low run production. Still, note that the New York Yankees
had the highest run productivity without having the highest AVG. On the other
hand, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays had the lowest run productivity and yet were
far from being the worst team in AVG.
 154 CHAPTER 6

6.0

5.5

5.0

4.5
RUNS PER GAME

4.0

Data

3.5 Estimate

.240 .250 .260 .270 .280 .290 .300

BATTING AVERAGE

FIGURE 6-2 Runs per Game vs. Batting Average for 1998 MLB Teams. (Dots represent
actual data, line represents AVG Line.)

We have drawn a line through the dot cloud. This line is special in the sense
that it has the lowest RMSE of any other possible line through the plot. The
RMSE for this line is calculated using the same technique used in Tables 6-5 and
6-6. Here the estimate based on a single average value is replaced by the value
of the line for the appropriate AVG:
Estimated Team Runs per Game = –5.592 + (39.03 × AVG)
Let’s use this AVG Line to predict the run production for the New York
Yankees. The Yankees’ 1998 AVG was .288, and so we predict the Runs per Game
to be as follows:
Estimated Team Runs per Game = –5.592 + (39.03 × .288) = 5.646
This prediction is less than the actual Yankee rate of 5.957 Runs per Game. The
Yankees scored more frequently than we might expect based on the Team
Batting Average.
Table 6-7 presents the predictions for all 1998 teams based on the Team
Batting Average as well as the calculations of the MSE for these predictions. It
has several similarities with Table 6-5. In both, the average of the estimates
 M E A S U R I NG O F F E N S I V E P E R F O R M A NC E 155

Team Runs per Game Estimate Error Error × Error

New York Yankees 5.957 5.646 .310 .096

Texas Rangers 5.802 5.672 .131 .017

Boston Red Sox 5.407 5.334 .074 .005

Houston Astros 5.395 5.325 .070 .005

Seattle Mariners 5.335 5.177 .158 .025

Chicago White Sox 5.315 5.001 .313 .098

Cleveland Indians 5.247 5.040 .207 .043

San Francisco Giants 5.184 5.087 .097 .009

Atlanta Braves 5.099 5.004 .094 .009

Colorado Rockies 5.099 5.772 –.674 .454

Chicago Cubs 5.098 4.729 .369 .136

Baltimore Orioles 5.043 5.068 –.024 .001

Toronto Blue Jays 5.037 4.773 .264 .070

St. Louis Cardinals 5.000 4.484 .516 .266

Oakland A's 4.963 4.453 .510 .260

Anaheim Angels 4.858 5.014 –.156 .024

Cincinnati Reds 4.630 4.640 –.011 .000

San Diego Padres 4.623 4.289 .334 .112

Minnesota Twins 4.531 4.779 –.248 .061

Detroit Tigers 4.457 4.702 –.245 .060

Kansas City Royals 4.435 4.675 –.240 .058

Philadelphia Phillies 4.401 4.705 –.304 .092

Milwaukee Brewers 4.364 4.543 –.179 .032

New York Mets 4.358 4.501 –.143 .020

Los Angeles Dodgers 4.130 4.227 –.098 .010

Florida Marlins 4.117 4.105 .012 .000

Arizona Diamondbacks 4.105 4.024 .081 .006

Pittsburgh Pirates 4.012 4.319 –.307 .094

Montreal Expos 3.975 4.120 –.144 .021

Tampa Bay Devil Rays 3.827 4.595 –.768 .590

Average 4.794 4.794 .000 .089

TABLE 6-7 Predicting Runs per Game for MLB Teams in 1998 (Estimate = AVG Line)
156 CHAPTER 6

equals 4.794, which is the average runs scored per game over all teams. Also, the
average of the errors is 0 in both tables. However, the big difference is in the
MSE and RMSE values. The AVG Line produces a MSE value of .089 in Table 6-7.
After taking the square root, this translates to a RMSE value of .299 Runs per
Game, almost half the RMSE value for the blind guess estimate in Table 6-5.
This should not come as a surprise. The AVG Line is the line with the best fit
to the data. The errors in Table 6-5 were based on an estimate which ignored any
team information and estimated a single run production value of 4.794 Runs per
Game for all teams. Using the information derived from the Batting Average, we
can now estimate team run production correctly within .3 Runs per Game for
two-thirds of the teams; before, our estimates were correct within .6 Runs per
Game for two-thirds of the teams. Batting Average has thus allowed us to shrink
considerably the error in our estimates.
Figure 6-3 is the same as Figure 6-2, but with the addition of a vertical line
showing the error of using the AVG Line to predict run production for each team.
The figure gives a visual demonstration of the effectiveness of the AVG Line in
predicting team run production. The two greatest errors are for the Tampa Bay
Devil Rays and the Colorado Rockies. Both teams were expected to score more
runs on the basis of Team Batting Average.
Figure 6-4, which is similar to Figure 6-3, shows the effectiveness of predic-
tion on the basis of the overall average Runs per Game. A guess based on this
average makes no use of any additional information about the teams, so the pre-
diction is a flat line at the average value. The lengths of the error bars in Figure
6-3 are generally shorter than those in Figure 6-4, which shows why the AVG
Line is a better fit to the data and has a lower RMSE.
Up to this point, the Batting Average looks pretty good: it appears to be cor-
related with team run production. When used in the AVG Line formula, it
improves estimation of run production over blindly guessing at the runs scored
with the average. But while this is a good start, AVG really hasn’t been tested.
What if we looked at some other batting measures? Would they do any better?

Slugging Percentage and On-Base Percentage

The Slugging Percentage (SLG) is another standard measure of individual base-
ball hitting performance. Batting Average counts each hit equally, whereas SLG
weights each hit according to the number of bases attained:
 M E A S U R I NG O F F E N S I V E P E R F O R M A NC E 157

6.0

5.5

Colorado
5.0

4.5
RUNS PER GAME

4.0
Data
Tampa Bay Estimate

3.5 Error
.240 .250 .260 .270 .280 .290 .300

BATTING AVERAGE

FIGURE 6-3 Runs per Game vs. Batting Average for 1998 MLB teams. (Dots represent
data, line represents AVG Line; vertical lines represent Error.)

6.0

5.5

5.0

4.5
RUNS PER GAME

4.0
Data

Estimate

3.5 Error

.240 .250 .260 .270 .280 .290 .300

BATTING AVERAGE

FIGURE 6-4 Runs per Game vs. Batting Average for 1998 MLB teams. (Dots represent
data, line represents overall average runs per game, vertical lines represent
Error.)
158 CHAPTER 6

1B + (2 × 2B) + (3 × 3B) + (4 × HR) H + 2B + (2 × 3B) + (3 × HR)

SLG = =
AB AB

To put it another way, SLG is a measure of total bases achieved divided by at-bats.
The use of the term “percentage” in Slugging Percentage is a misnomer. While
SLG is typically less than 1, we see that it is possible for it to be greater than 1,
and possibly as high as 4 if every at bat produces a home run. SLG is best under-
stood as either of the following:
• a Rate—the rate at which bases are produced per at-bat

• an Expectation—the expected or average number of bases

produced per at-bat
With its emphasis on extra-base hits, SLG improves the rankings of power
hitters over high-average “banjo” (non-power) hitters. At least, the “slugging”
part of the name is very apt. Table 6-8 presents the players with the highest
Slugging Percentage in each decade. The table has much in common with Table
6-3, which simply lists those with the highest Batting Average. But the ordering
has changed, and many new players have appeared.
• Harry Stovey replaces Cap Anson in the 1880s.

• Sam Thompson replaces Billy Hamilton in the 1890s.

• Sam Crawford replaces Wee Willie Keeler in the 1900s.

• Hack Wilson replaces Harry Heilmann in the 1920s.

• Jimmie Foxx and Hank Greenberg replace Al Simmons and Paul

Waner in the 1930s.
• Johnny Mize replaces Joe Medwick in the 1940s.

• Mickey Mantle and Ralph Kiner replace Jackie Robinson and

Richie Ashburn in the 1950s.
• Willie Mays and Frank Robinson replace Roberto Clemente and
Matty Alou in the 1960s.
• The 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s saw a complete overhaul; Carew,
Garr, and Oliver were swept away by Allen, Stargell, and
Jackson, while Schmidt, Rice, and Brett replaced Puckett,
Mattingly, and Molitor. In the 1990s, Ramirez, Bonds, and
McGwire replaced Gwynn, Boggs, and Piazza.
Table 6-8, when compared with Table 6-3, also has a large number of present
 M E A S U R I NG O F F E N S I V E P E R F O R M A NC E 159

Decade Player SLG

1880s Roger Connor .486 Pete Browning .467 Harry Stovey .461

1890s Dan Brouthers .519 Ed Delahanty .505 Sam Thompson .505

1900s Nap Lajoie .467 Honus Wagner .466 Sam Crawford .452

1910s Joe Jackson .517 Ty Cobb .512 Tris Speaker .500

1920s Babe Ruth .690 Rogers Hornsby .577 Hack Wilson .545

1930s Lou Gehrig .632 Jimmie Foxx .609 Hank Greenberg .605

1940s Ted Williams .634 Joe DiMaggio .579 Johnny Mize .562

1950s Stan Musial .559 Mickey Mantle .557 Ralph Kiner .548

1960s Willie Mays .557 Hank Aaron .555 Frank Robinson .537

1970s Dick Allen .534 Willie Stargell .529 Reggie Jackson .490

1980s Mike Schmidt .527 Jim Rice .502 George Brett .487

1990s Manny Ramirez .599 Barry Bonds .595 Mark McGwire .588

TABLE 6-8 Batters With Highest Career Slugging Percentage from Each Decade

and future Hall of Famers; only Browning, Joe Jackson, Stovey, and Allen are not
in the Hall of Fame among the pre-1980s players.
Two principles appear from the comparison of Tables 6-8 and 6-3:
• Power hitters replace singles hitters in the SLG ratings. The
players who are in both tables were power hitters who also hit
for average.
• The differences between the two tables appear to be greater in
recent years. This suggests that in the past, power hitters were
also great hitters for average, while recent hitters are more apt
to be good power hitters or good hitters for average, not both.
Figure 6-5 plots Team Runs per Game vs. Slugging Percentage. As in Figures
6-3 and 6-4, we have also plotted the SLG Line and the errors for each data
point. The formula for the SLG Line is as follows:
Estimated Team Runs per Game = –2.135 + (16.50 × SLG)
Another popular measure for hitting performance is the On-Base Percentage
(OBP), which we examined extensively in Chapter 2. Recall that OBP is defined
as follows:
H + BB + HBP
OBP =
AB + BB + HBP + SF
160 CHAPTER 6

6.0

5.5

5.0

4.5
RUNS PER GAME

4.0 Data

Estimate

3.5 Error

.360 .380 .400 .420 .440 .460 .480

SLUGGING PERCENTAGE

FIGURE 6-5 Runs per Game vs. Slugging Percentage for 1998 MLB teams. (Dots repre-
sent data, line represents SLG Line, vertical lines represent Error.)

Decade Player OBP

1880s Pete Browning .403 Roger Connor .397 Cap Anson .393

1890s Billy Hamilton .455 Dan Brouthers .423 Cupid Childs .416

1900s Roy Thomas .413 Honus Wagner .391 Hughie Jennings .390

1910s Ty Cobb .433 Tris Speaker .428 Eddie Collins .424

1920s Babe Ruth .474 Rogers Hornsby .434 Max Bishop .423

1930s Lou Gehrig .447 Jimmie Foxx .428 Mickey Cochrane .419

1940s Ted Williams .482 Eddie Stanky .410 Arky Vaughan .406

1950s Mickey Mantle .421 Stan Musial .417 Jackie Robinson .409

1960s Frank Robinson .389 Willie Mays .384 Eddie Mathews .376

1970s Mike Hargrove .396 Rod Carew .393 Joe Morgan .392

1980s Keith Hernandez .384 Mike Schmidt .380 Jack Clark .379

1990s Frank Thomas .432 Barry Bonds .428 Edgar Martinez .424

TABLE 6-9 Batters with Highest Career On-Base Percentage from Each Decade
 M E A S U R I NG O F F E N S I V E P E R F O R M A NC E 161

OBP is used as an estimate of the probability of getting on base in a plate

appearance. Table 6-9 lists, by decade, the batters with the highest career OBPs.
Again, aside from re-ordering players who appeared in the AVG and SLG lists, a
number of new players have entered the picture: Cupid Childs in the 1890s, Roy
Thomas and Hughie Jennings in the 1900s, Eddie Collins in the 1910s, Max
Bishop in the 1920s, Mickey Cochrane in the 1930s, Eddie Stanky and Arky
Vaughan in the 1940s, and Eddie Mathews in the 1960s. Mike Hargrove, Joe
Morgan, Keith Hernandez, Jack Clark, Frank Thomas, and Edgar Martinez are
new faces in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s.
Some of these new players are in the Hall of Fame (Jennings, Collins,
Cochrane, Vaughan, Mathews, and Morgan), and some may be worthy of consid-
eration for the Hall (Bishop, Hernandez, Thomas, and Martinez). But do we
really think that Mike Hargrove was the best offensive player of the 1970s? Or
that Eddie Stanky was the second best player of the 1940s? OBP seems to rec-
ognize some excellent players overlooked by AVG and SLG, but it also produces
some strange rankings.
Figure 6-6 plots Team Runs per Game vs. On-Base Percentage. We have also
plotted the OBP Line and the errors for each data point. The formula for the
OBP Line is:
Estimated Team Runs per Game = –7.273 + (36.03 × OBP)

6.0

5.5

5.0

4.5
RUNS PER GAME

4.0 Data
Estimate
3.5 Error
.300 .310 .320 .330 .340 .350 .360 .370

ON-BASE PERCENTAGE

FIGURE 6-6 Runs per Game vs. On-Base Percentage for 1998 MLB teams. (Dots repre-
sent data, line represents OBP Line, vertical lines represent Error.)
162 CHAPTER 6

In order to compare how well AVG, SLG, and OBP predict 1998 Team Runs
per Game, we took the errors in their predictions from Figures 6-3, 6-5, and 6-6
and then sorted them. Table 6-10 presents these results. We see that AVG had
the largest single error (overestimating Tampa Bay’s Runs per Game by .768). In
fact, AVG had four estimates which were off by more
AVG SLG OBP
than any estimate based on OBP, which was never off
.516 .544 .374 by more than .466 Runs per Game in its predictions.
.510 .497 .233 SLG also had two estimates worse than any estimates
.369 .381 .229 from OBP. So . . . Batting Average is not looking as
.334 .342 .213 good as it initially did, and both SLG and OBP seem
.313 .323 .178 to do a better job. But we cannot judge by several
.310 .253 .142 extremes. We have to examine the entire distribution
.264 .139 .115 of errors for AVG, SLG, and OBP.
.207 .134 .092 One way to get a visual perspective on the spread
.158 .133 .080 of errors for the different models is to graph side-by-
.131 .102 .079 side boxplots of the distributions. We do this in Figure
.097 .084 .064 6-7. If we examine the SLG boxplot, we see the entire
.094 .022 .061 extent of the distribution of SLG errors in predicting
.081 .019 .060 1998 Team Runs per Game. The distribution ranges
.074 –.004 .058 from underestimating one team’s run production by
.070 –.015 .049 .544 Runs per Game up to overestimating another
.012 –.019 .034 team’s run production by .385 Runs per Game. You
–.011 –.030 .017 may recall from Chapter 2 that the box in the center
–.024 –.036 .006 of the plot represents the central half of the distribu-
–.098 –.089 –.013 tion; 50 percent of the SLG errors fall within this box,
–.143 –.121 –.014 25 percent above the box, and 25 percent below it. The
–.144 –.136 –.031 line in the middle of the box represents the central
–.156 –.194 –.072 point (or median) of the entire distribution, with 50
–.179 –.216 –.131 percent above the line and 50 percent below it.
–.240 –.238 –.159 A good predictor of Runs per Game results in a
–.245 –.240 –.186 tight distribution of errors, one which limits the size
–.248 –.244 –.240 of the error in either direction. Viewing the boxplots in
–.304 –.261 –.253 Figure 6-7, the better predictor is one with a more lim-
–.307 –.364 –.259 ited range (the difference between the highest and
–.674 –.381 –.262 lowest values) and a narrower box. Visual inspection
–.768 –.385 –.466 of Figure 6-7 indicates that SLG appears to have less

TABLE 6-10 Errors in 1998 Team Runs per Game for AVG, SLG, and OBP Lines
 M E A S U R I NG O F F E N S I V E P E R F O R M A NC E 163

spread in its errors than AVG, and OBP has less spread in its errors than SLG.
The results are best summarized by looking at the Root Mean Squared Error
(RMSE) for each predictor. The RMSE values in Table 6-11 as well as their
visual counterparts, the boxplots in Figure 6-7, all indicate that OBP was the
superior measure of batting ability leading to runs in 1998. This is a somewhat
surprising result, given the explosion of home runs in that epochal year.
What about other years? Could this have been true only in 1998, or does it
hold in other years as well? We performed the same analysis for each season
since 1876, the inaugural year of the National League. In each year, we found
the AVG Line, SLG Line, and OBP Line with respect to predicting Team Runs
per Game in that season and calculated the RMSE for each of the three lines. We
then found which Line (AVG, SLG, or OBP) had the lowest RMSE (that is, the
best fit to Team Runs per Game). Figure 6-8 plots this minimal RMSE value and
indicates which measure (AVG, SLG, or OBP) generated it.
We see that the RMSE of the best fit among the three models shows great vari-
ability from season to season. In 1948, Slugging Percentage provided the best fit
(RMSE = .32 Runs per Game); thus, AVG and OBP both had RMSEs greater than

0.6

0.4

0.2

–0.2
PREDICTION ERRORS

–0.4

–0.6

–0.8

–1.0

AVG SLG OBP

FIGURE 6-7 Boxplots of 1998 Team Runs per Game Errors for AVG, SLG, and OBP.

.32. SLG also provided the best fit in 1968, where RMSE is .12 Runs per Game. In

Batting Average Slugging Percentage On-Base Percentage

.299 .248 .178

TABLE 6-11 Root Mean Squared Error for 1998 Team Runs per Game Estimates
164 CHAPTER 6

0.6
AVG

SLG
0.5 OBP
ROOT MEAN SQUARED ERROR (RUNS PER GAME)

0.4

0.3

0.2

0.1

0.0

1870 1880 1890 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000

YEAR

FIGURE 6-8 RMSE of fit to Team Runs per Game since 1876. (Minimum RMSE from
AVG, SLG, and OBP.)

that year, scoring was very low; the reduced variability in runs scored may have
contributed to the improved capability of SLG to predict run production.
Another interesting feature of Figure 6-8 is the improved consistency in fit
over time, especially in post-1960 seasons compared to pre-1960 seasons. From
1958 on, every season had a measure with an RMSE value less than .24 Runs
per Game. On the other hand, in 35 of the first 82 seasons, the best fit had
RMSEs greater than .24. Contributing to this effect may have been the gradual
expansion of Major League Baseball from 16 teams in 1960 up to the current 30
teams. Also contributing to this effect are the short seasons (fewer than 100
games) in the early years of professional baseball, which allowed greater vari-
ability in run production from the basic hitting events.
For our purposes, the most interesting feature is the relatively few seasons in
which Batting Average had the best fit to team run production. AVG has not pro-
vided the best fit to run production since 1955. If all three measures (AVG, SLG,
and OBP) were equally capable of predicting Team Runs per Game, we would
expect AVG to have the best fit (lowest RMSE) in about one-third of the seasons.
In fact, AVG was best in only 16 of 124 seasons, while SLG and OBP split the
 M E A S U R I NG O F F E N S I V E P E R F O R M A NC E 165

remaining seasons almost equally (50 and 58 seasons, respectively). The proba-
bility of this happening if AVG, SLG, or OBP were equally effective measures is
less than 1 in 5 million!4
It is not clear at this point whether Slugging Percentage or On-Base
Percentage is the best predictor of run production, but it is abundantly clear that
Batting Average is the worst of the three. So the king is dead! Long live the king!
But which measure is the new king? SLG and OBP are viable candidates, but
why should we restrict ourselves to these choices alone? Can other models pro-
vide us with even greater improvements in predicting run production? And if so,
how can they be applied to our ultimate goal, evaluating individual players?

Intuitive Techniques
It was not long after the end of World War II that dissatisfaction with the basic
crop of baseball offensive performance measures (AVG, OBP, and SLG) initiated
research into alternatives. Activity started slowly in the 1950s and really accel-
erated in the 1960s. Baseball fans must have been thinking, “Hey, we’ve split the
atom! We’re sending men to the moon! There’s got to be a better way of measur-
ing ballplayers!” Whether this internalized outcry was real or not, activity
peaked in the early 1980s, not coincidentally with the creation of the Society of
American Baseball Research (SABR). Since then, development has stabilized
around several well-established measures.
By far the most popular group of techniques falls into a category we call intu-
itive. With intuitive techniques, no rigorous statistical model is used. (We’ll get
to those in Chapters 7 and 8.) Instead, the intuitive researcher relies on a vision
or paradigm for the workings of baseball, and, inspired by the standard MLB
statistics we’ve talked about earlier in this chapter, “mixes and matches” them to
more accurately reflect his or her sense of the game.
The three measures recognized by Major League Baseball discussed earlier
all had their origins as intuitive techniques. To develop the Batting Average, it
was not necessary to perform analysis of reams of data or develop probabilistic
models simulating baseball games. It arose out of a common-sense understand-
ing of baseball. To put it plainly, it makes sense. The other official MLB offensive
statistics, OBP and SLG, were developed from a similar intuitive sensibility.
Fans of the game used these official measures as a starting point. All three had

4 This value was calculated as the probability of 16 successes or fewer in 124 trials for a binomial
distribution with a probability of success in each trial equal to 1/3.
166 CHAPTER 6

a role to play in the intuitive class of new statistical techniques. These new devel-
opments run the gamut from simple tweaks of the standard existing measures to
major recombinations of the standard batting data. What we’ll see in the balance
of this chapter is how AVG, SLG, and OBP can be combined in ways that create
paradigms of the game that are closer to what actually happens on the field.

On-Base Plus Slugging (OPS)

Given the relative parity between On-Base Percentage and Slugging Percentage
as estimators of team run production, perhaps combining the two would prove to
be a useful predictor. This was not the genesis of a model called On-Base Plus
Slugging (OPS), but perhaps it provides a reasonably simple explanation for its
effectiveness:
OPS = OBP + SLG
Actually, OPS was developed by Pete Palmer as an easily calculated approxima-
tion to his more detailed Linear Weights model (to be covered in Chapter 7).
Table 6-12 presents the leading OPS batters in each decade. Most of these play-
ers appeared on the SLG list or the OBP list. One new player is Reggie Smith,
who struck a good balance of power and getting on-base but was not a leader in
either category separately.
Figure 6-9 plots the minimal RMSE among SLG, OBP, and OPS for each year
from 1876 through 1999. This is similar to Figure 6-8, except AVG has been elim-
inated from consideration, and OPS has taken its place. Clearly, SLG and OBP
taken together as OPS produce a far-superior model than using either individu-
ally. A typical RMSE in twentieth-century baseball is about .15 Runs per Game.
This means that using OPS, the number of runs scored by a team per game can
be predicted within about .15 Runs per Game for two-thirds of the teams.
However, OBP appears to be at least on a par with OPS in predicting runs scored
for nineteenth-century teams. (At this point, we can eliminate SLG from consid-
eration before proceeding to the next challenger.)

Total Average (TA)

Another model that has received a lot of attention is Total Average (TA), intro-
duced by sportswriter Thomas Boswell in 1981. TA is a modification of Slugging
Percentage. Where SLG is the ratio of total bases to at-bats, TA is the ratio of
total bases to total outs. The logic of substituting outs for at-bats is a powerful
one. For the most part, the number of outs per game is a constant 27. Thus, it
 M E A S U R I NG O F F E N S I V E P E R F O R M A NC E 167

Decade Player OPS

1880s Roger Connor .883 Pete Browning .869 Cap Anson .838

1890s Dan Brouthers .942 Ed Delahanty .917 Sam Thompson .888

1900s Honus Wagner .857 Nap Lajoie .847 Elmer Flick .834

1910s Ty Cobb .945 Joe Jackson .940 Tris Speaker .928

1920s Babe Ruth 1.163 Rogers Hornsby 1.010 Hack Wilson .940

1930s Lou Gehrig 1.080 Jimmie Foxx 1.038 Hank Greenberg 1.017

1940s Ted Williams 1.115 Joe DiMaggio .977 Johnny Mize .959

1950s Mickey Mantle .977 Stan Musial .976 Ralph Kiner .946

1960s Willie Mays .941 Hank Aaron .928 Frank Robinson .926

1970s Dick Allen .912 Willie Stargell .889 Reggie Smith .855

1980s Mike Schmidt .908 George Brett .857 Jack Clark .854

1990s Barry Bonds 1.023 Manny Ramirez 1.010 Frank Thomas 1.000

TABLE 6-12 Batters with Highest Career On-Base Plus Slugging from Each Decade

0.6
SLG
OBP
0.5
OPS
ROOT MEAN SQUARED ERROR (RUNS PER GAME)

0.4

0.3

0.2

0.1

0.0
1870 1880 1890 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000

YEAR

FIGURE 6-9 RMSE of fit to Team Runs per Game since 1876. (Minimum RMSE from
SLG, OBP, and OPS = OBP + SLG.)
168 CHAPTER 6

seems natural that the number of runs generated per game should be related to
the number of runs per out, which in turn could be related to the number of
bases generated per out. This relationship should be tighter than total bases per
at-bat since the number of at-bats is more variable over games. Boswell calcu-
lated outs by subtracting hits from at-bats and adding Caught Stealing (CS) and
Grounded Into Double Plays (GIDP). Like others before and after him, Boswell
expanded his model beyond Total Bases (TB) achieved by hitting to include other
aspects of offense such as walks (BB), Hit By Pitcher (HBP), and Stolen Bases
(SB). The formula for Total Average is as follows:

TB + BB + HBP + SB
TA =
AB – H + CS + GIDP

It should be noted that the concept of using a bases-to-outs ratio to rate offen-
sive performance had been introduced earlier in 1979 by Barry Codell in SABR’s
Baseball Research Journal. Codell’s Base-Out Percentage is identical to TA
except that the number of sacrifice hits (SH) and sacrifice flies (SF) are added to
both the numerator (bases) and denominator (outs). This is consistent with the
basic concept, since sacrifice hits and sacrifice flies are both outs that advance
runners. (One could argue that CS and GIDP should subtract a base as well as
adding an out.) However, TA is the more popular formulation of this concept and
the one we will analyze here. As expected, the two formulations provide very
similar results. (Because team data on Grounded Into Double Plays was not
available, GIDP was assumed to be 0 in the calculation of TA here.)
First, let’s look at the Total Average leaders in each decade, as shown in Table
6-13. Joe Morgan, a productive hitter with some power and tremendous base-
stealing ability, has moved to the second spot in the 1970s. Billy Hamilton who
stole 912 bases has moved to the top of the 1890s list. Clearly, TA’s inclusion of
SB and CS has given an edge to players whose base stealing is a significant part
of their game.
Figure 6-10 shows that OBP, OPS, and TA are equally capable from 1876 to the
mid-1890s. Then, OPS dominates into the mid-1930s. Total Average has the edge
from then up to the present day. In fact, TA has been the best estimator since 1991.

Batter’s Run Average (BRA) and Scoring Index (DX)

TA, then, has a slight edge over OPS. But perhaps a better model than OPS can
be created by combining OBP and SLG in a different way. Richard Cramer and
 M E A S U R I NG O F F E N S I V E P E R F O R M A NC E 169

Decade Player TA

1880s Roger Connor .952 Pete Browning .946 Harry Stovey .924

1890s Billy Hamilton 1.191 Dan Brouthers 1.061 Ed Delahanty 1.035

1900s Honus Wagner .949 Elmer Flick .915 Fred Clarke .883

1910s Ty Cobb 1.090 Tris Speaker 1.030 Joe Jackson 1.027

1920s Babe Ruth 1.420 Rogers Hornsby 1.118 Hack Wilson 1.011

1930s Lou Gehrig 1.248 Jimmie Foxx 1.171 Hank Greenberg 1.133

1940s Ted Williams 1.374 Joe DiMaggio 1.043 Johnny Mize 1.028

1950s Mickey Mantle 1.120 Stan Musial 1.067 Ralph Kiner 1.041

1960s Willie Mays 1.027 Frank Robinson 1.008 Hank Aaron .984

1970s Dick Allen .975 Joe Morgan .947 Willie Stargell .914

1980s Mike Schmidt .993 Jack Clark .909 George Brett .874

1990s Barry Bonds 1.239 Frank Thomas 1.151 Manny Ramirez 1.122

TABLE 6-13 Players with Highest Career Total Average from Each Decade

0.6
OBP

OPS
0.5
TA
ROOT MEAN SQUARED ERROR (RUNS PER GAME)

0.4

0.3

0.2

0.1

0.0

1870 1880 1890 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000

YEAR

FIGURE 6-10 RMSE of fit to Team Runs per Game since 1876. (Minimum RMSE from
OBP, OPS, and TA.)
170 CHAPTER 6

Pete Palmer did just that when they multiplied OBP and SLG to create Batter’s
Run Average (with the infelicitous acronym BRA):

BRA = OBP × SLG

The idea here is that scoring runs is the product of getting on-base (OBP) and
advancing the runners (SLG). Figure 6-11 plots the minimal RMSE among the
OPS, TA, and BRA models. BRA appears to be less effective than TA, but more
effective than OPS. So, it seems that multiplying OPS and SLG produces a bet-
ter model than adding the two values.
Cramer and Palmer were neither the first nor the last researchers to create a
model based on this concept. Two of the most notable researchers also adopt this
principle in their models. Earnshaw Cook was a metallurgist with a great inter-
est in baseball statistics. His 1964 book Percentage Baseball was the first work
in baseball statistics to gain the attention of sportswriters and the national
media. The volume overflows with Cook’s ideas, and his enthusiasm for his sub-
ject is evident throughout. However, at times, this energy obscures the clarity of
his exposition. Perhaps Cook’s most lasting contribution was his development of
the Scoring Index (DX). His original concept of DX can be expressed this way:

1B + BB + HBP + E TB + SB
DX = ×
BFP BFP

0.6
ROOT MEAN SQUARED ERROR (RUNS PER GAME)

OPS

0.5 TA
BRA

0.4

0.3

0.2

0.1

0.0
1870 1880 1890 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000

YEAR

FIGURE 6-11 RMSE of fit to team runs per game since 1876. (Minimum RMSE from OPS,
TA, and BRA.)
 M E A S U R I NG O F F E N S I V E P E R F O R M A NC E 171

BFP is the number of times a player came to bat (Batter Faced Pitcher) and E is
the number of times the player was safe on an error. DX was developed to be lin-
early related to runs scored per BFP. He altered the formula in 1971 to this:

H + BB + HBP TB + SB – CS
DX = ×
AB + BB + HBP AB + BB + HBP

The biggest change in this revised expression is the substitution of Hits (H) for
singles (1B) in the first term. The formula is now very similar to BRA, with the
inclusion of base-stealing data.

Runs Created (RC)

The other sabermetric heavyweight to adopt this concept was Bill James (who in
fact invented the term “sabermetrics” in honor of SABR). The basic concept of
James’s Runs Created (RC) model is as follows:

(H + BB) TB
RC =
AB + BB

Since SLG = TB/AB, we see that RC is approximately the same as BRA × AB. So,
RC estimates the total number of runs produced while BRA and DX estimate the
rate of run production per at-bat or plate appearance. In 1985, James got really
serious, as evidenced by his technical version of RC:

(H + BB + HBP – CS – GIDP) (TB + .26 (BB – IBB + HBP) + .52 (SH + SF + SB))
RC =
AB + BB + HBP + SH + SF

The technical RC model (dubbed TECH-1) came with 13 additional versions

(TECH-2 through TECH-14) to handle seasons in which some data was not
available. Most of the modifications to the original formula are common-sense
adjustments (e.g., subtracting runners eliminated by caught stealing and double
plays from the on-base term). Unless indicated otherwise, references to the Runs
Created model will use the TECH-1 version.
In his 1984 Baseball Abstract, James indicates that the .26 and .52 multipli-
ers were chosen empirically to improve the fit of Runs Created to total runs
scored within each league. In performing this optimization with respect to data,
James has moved beyond the realm of intuitive techniques and crossed into
data analysis. (Techniques such as these, which involve linear regression, are
covered in the next chapter, but since RC is primarily a result of intuition, we
will cover it here.)
172 CHAPTER 6

Since RC predicts total run production, we divide it by the number of games

(to obtain RC/G) before fitting it to Runs per Game and comparing it with the
other models. Figure 6-12 plots the minimal RMSE values among the TA, BRA,
and RC/G models for team run production. RC/G is superior to BRA, as it should
be, since it is basically BRA with more data included in the calculation as well as
the optimized weights .26 and .52.5 And RC/G also seems to have an edge over TA.
How does RC/G rate players decade-by-decade? Table 6-14 lists the results of
our calculation for individual players, in which we divided RC by an estimate of
the number of “games” a player’s offensive record represents. This can be done
by estimating the total number of outs and dividing by 27. So, Runs Created per
Game for an individual player may be calculated as follows:
RC
RC / G =
(AB – H + SH + SF + CS + GIDP) / 27

0.6
BRA

TA
0.5
RC/G
ROOT MEAN SQUARED ERROR (RUNS PER GAME)

0.4

0.3

0.2

0.1

0.0

1870 1880 1890 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000

YEAR

FIGURE 6-12 RMSE of fit to team runs per game since 1876. (Minimum RMSE from TA,
BRA and RC/G.)

5 This raises the issue of whether RC/G provides enough improvement in its prediction to justify
the increased complexity of its calculation. This statistical issue is important but beyond the
scope of this book.
 M E A S U R I NG O F F E N S I V E P E R F O R M A NC E 173

Decade Player RC/G

1880s Pete Browning 8.61 Roger Connor 8.41 Cap Anson 7.62

1890s Billy Hamilton 10.40 Dan Brouthers 9.96 Ed Delahanty 9.50

1900s Honus Wagner 8.02 Elmer Flick 7.55 Nap Lajoie 7.51

1910s Ty Cobb 9.77 Joe Jackson 9.26 Tris Speaker 9.05

1920s Babe Ruth 13.87 Rogers Hornsby 10.56 Hack Wilson 8.75

1930s Lou Gehrig 11.84 Jimmie Foxx 10.85 Hank Greenberg 10.31

1940s Ted Williams 13.78 Joe DiMaggio 9.68 Johnny Mize 9.32

1950s Stan Musial 9.89 Mickey Mantle 9.79 Ralph Kiner 8.93

1960s Willie Mays 8.62 Frank Robinson 8.39 Hank Aaron 8.30

1970s Dick Allen 7.99 Willie Stargell 7.42 Joe Morgan 7.00

1980s Mike Schmidt 7.77 George Brett 7.14 Jack Clark 7.06

1990s Barry Bonds 10.41 Frank Thomas 10.33 Manny Ramirez 10.11

TABLE 6-14 Players with Highest Career Runs Created per Game from Each Decade 6

This value represents the total number of runs produced by a team composed
solely of the player analyzed.7 For example, Stan Musial’s RC/G is 9.89.
According to the RC model, we expect that a team composed entirely of Stan
Musial clones in each of the nine batting slots would score an average of 9.89
Runs per Game. Obviously, Stan the Man was a very great hitter, since teams in
this period scored less than half this value, or about 4.5 Runs per Game. This list
comes very close to a typical fan’s perception of great hitters. We might not have
expected the presence of Jack Clark or Manny Ramirez, but in general the list
does not have lots of surprises.

More Analytic Models

This has not been an easy chapter, and we suspect many of you have spent con-
siderable effort following our arguments. You might even feel like you’re out of

6 Readers of the first edition of Curve Ball (2001) may be puzzled by the disappearance of Rickey
Henderson and Tim Raines from the top 1980s players in Tables 6-9, 6-13, and 6-14. Both
Henderson and Raines started their careers in 1979 and were still active in 2002. This places
the midpoint of their careers in the 1990s decade, not the 1980s decade. If placed in the 1980s,
Henderson and Raines would have the top two OBPs (.402 and .385, respectively), and the best
and third-best TAs (1.007 and .928, respectively), based on their career data through 2002.
Henderson would have the second-highest RC/G (7.25) if placed in the 1980s.
7 Actually, the values presented in Table 6-14 somewhat overestimate the actual RC/G since
GIDP data were not available.
174 CHAPTER 6

breath, having stretched a double into a triple. So we will take a moment now to
take stock of where we are and how we got here.
Up to this point, the models we have examined were constructed not from any
statistical analysis but based on a belief, view, or principle that describes, in a
common-sense way, how baseball works. The Batting Average, our starting
point, is based on the premise that scoring runs is related to how often a player
gets hits. The On-Base Percentage expanded this view to include additional
ways of getting on base, primarily through bases on balls. The Slugging
Percentage took a somewhat different view and expanded Batting Average by
weighting hits in accordance with bases obtained. Another model, Total Average,
weighted hits and included walks and hit by pitch data, with stolen bases
thrown in for good measure; TA also is a ratio of good events (bases) to bad
events (outs), as opposed to good events as a percentage or expectation with
respect to opportunity (at bats or plate appearances). Two models (On-Base Plus
Slugging and Batter’s Run Average) combine On-Base Percentage and Slugging
Percentage into a single measure through addition and multiplication, respec-
tively. Runs Created expanded on the Batter’s Run Average, employing a more
detailed accounting of events in which batters get on base and advance runners.
Note that all of these models except Runs Created work completely with inte-
ger values (simple counts and weights). They combine these counts to establish
impacts of (a) getting on-base and (b) advancing runners relative to the degree
of opportunity. For the most part, RC does this as well. But here we see the use
of non-integer weightings (.26 and .52) for events that advance runners, but not
as effectively as hits advance runners.
Figure 6-13 compares the models with respect to their annual RMSEs aver-
aged over the 46 years from 1954 through 1999. This period was chosen because

BRA
RC/G DX

TA OPS SLG OBP AVG

.10 .15 .20 .25 .30

AVERAGE RMSE (RUNS PER GAME)

FIGURE 6-13 Average yearly RMSEs for various models (1954–1999).

 M E A S U R I NG O F F E N S I V E P E R F O R M A NC E 175

of the completeness of its data and greater relevance to baseball as it is played

today. The standard MLB models (Batting Average, Slugging Percentage, and
On-Base Percentage) stand out from the rest as having distinctly worse fits than
the newer alternative models. The Runs Created per Game model had the low-
est average RMSE (.136). However, the other models (BRA, DX, TA, and OPS)
have RMSEs not much greater than RC/G’s. Are these differences in RMSE sig-
nificant?
Table 6-15 compares each pair of models with respect to their RMSEs in
each year. For each pair of models, the percentage of years in which the model
on the row had a lower RMSE than the model in the column were counted. For
example, out of the 46 years of data used, Runs Created per Game had a lower
RMSE than Total Average in 70 percent of the data (32 of the 46 years). The
question remains whether this difference is significant. Perhaps the two mod-
els are equally capable, but chance gave RC/G the edge. If the two models have
equal capability to estimate run production, then in each year there is a 50/50
chance that one or the other will have the lower RMSE. Under this equal-capa-
bility assumption, there is only a 1.1-percent chance that one of these models
will dominate the other with a 32 to 14 edge or greater. This is a very small
chance, and so we conclude that in the years 1954–1999, RC/G is a superior
model to Total Average. In fact, since it dominates all the other models to an
even greater extent, it seems that RC/G provides the best fit to team data of the
models considered so far.
Except for TA vs BRA, TA vs. OPS, and SLG vs. OBP, all differences in model
performance are statistically significant in that the probability of getting the

Model RC/G TA BRA OPS DX SLG OBP AVG

RC/G • 70% 80% 83% 87% 98% 100% 100%

TA • • 57% 61% 72% 93% 96% 100%

BRA • • • 74% 72% 98% 100% 100%

OPS • • • • 67% 98% 98% 100%

DX • • • • • 93% 96% 100%

SLG • • • • • • 61% 96%

OBP • • • • • • • 89%

AVG • • • • • • • •

TABLE 6-15 Percentage of Years That Row Model Had Lower RMSE Than Column Model
(1954–1999)
176 CHAPTER 6

Player BA OBP SP OPS TA RC/G

Rocky Colavito .257 .337 .512 .849 .857 6.512

Harvey Kuenn .353 .402 .501 .903 .923 8.668

TABLE 6-16 Offensive Model Ratings for Rocky Colavito and Harvey Kuenn in 1959

result is less than 5 percent.8 TA, BRA, and OPS are comparable and do very
well, considering their simplicity relative to RC/G. Cook’s DX does not perform
as well as this group, but it is a definite improvement over the MLB standard
statistics, which bring up the rear. The question remains, how much further can
we improve on these models by applying statistical analysis techniques? The
improvement in the Runs Created model gained through the use of optimization
gives us some cause for optimism. So far (except for the optimization used in the
Runs Created model), we have used statistics merely to evaluate models; now we
wish to employ statistics to construct them.
But before we continue, let’s see how our models rated Rocky Colavito and
Harvey Kuenn in 1959. Table 6-16 provides ratings for the major models consid-
ered in this chapter. Of course Kuenn, as the 1959 American League batting
champion, had a higher AVG than Colavito. Colavito’s HR power provided him
with a slight edge over Kuenn in SLG. But this is the only model in which
Colavito dominated. All of the alternatives (OPS, TA, and RC/G) rated Kuenn
distinctly higher. One has to conclude that when all aspects of offense are con-
sidered, Kuenn gave the greater offensive performance in 1959. Unfortunately,
looking forward, 1959 turned out to be a career year for Kuenn. The perform-
ances of both Kuenn and Colavito dropped for their new teams in 1960. Still, all
of the models rated Kuenn’s 1960 performance better than Colavito’s. In the sub-
sequent five years, though, Colavito had at least four seasons which topped his
1959 season, while Kuenn, who was traded to a variety of teams, never regained
his 1959 form. Ironically, Cleveland made a good trade on the basis of 1959 per-
formance, but Detroit got the better performer in the early sixties.

8 In statistics, this is called a .05 level of significance. A level of significance is a quantitative

evaluation of the strength of the data when testing a hypothesis. Here, the hypothesis is that
the two models being compared have the same capability in predicting team run production.
The level of significance specifies that we will accept this hypothesis as being true unless the
data shows that this hypothesis is extremely unlikely (has probability less than the level of
significance). The lower the level of significance, the more proof we are demanding before we
reject the hypothesis. All statistical tests are based on this premise, which is similar to our legal
tradition’s principle that a person (hypothesis) is innocent (true) until proven guilty (false).
 per Play

CHAPTER 7

Many models developed to evaluate hitting productivity sum the bases attained,
then divide that sum by an appropriate measure of opportunity (for example, at-
bats). The simplest example is the Slugging Percentage (SLG), which is the total
bases attained by hits divided by at-bats:

1B + (2 × 2B) + (3 × 3B) + (4 × HR)

SLG =
AB

One of the best models from Chapter 6, Total Average (TA), was a more compli-
cated example of this form. In this chapter, we will look at how additive-type
models like SLG and TA (which sum weighted play frequencies) can be improved
by using actual baseball data in their modification. The three data analysis tech-
niques arrive at very similar conclusions (for the most part). In the end, we will
have found estimates of the average number of runs that each play event can be
expected to produce.

Finding Weights for Plays

Looked at in a more general way, what we have been doing in several different
models is to give each event in a game a certain weight. In the example of
Slugging Percentage, we weight hits, with each type of hit having a weight equal
to the number of bases attained: 1 for singles, 2 for doubles, 3 for triples, and 4
for home runs. Each weight is a measure of the impact of the hitting event

177
178 CHAPTER 7

within the model. So, the SLG model is based on the premise that a home run
has 4 times the impact of a single, but only 2 times the impact of a double. Other
models have done similar things. Total Average uses the same weights for hits as
SLG, and adds walks, hit by pitcher, and stolen bases—each with a weight of 1.

Least Squares Linear Regression (LSLR)

If we generalize the idea of assigning weights to particular play events, and if we
don’t restrict ourselves to integer weights1 (1, 2, 3, etc.), we can use a powerful
statistical technique to optimize the assignment of weights to each play. In
Chapter 6, we used this statistical technique to find the line which minimized
the Root Mean Square Error for a model. Without delving into any detail, we
were in fact using a statistical technique called least squares linear regression.
The term itself captures the technique’s salient features. The word “linear”
refers to the line which is constructed. The phrase “least squares” reflects the
technique’s capability to minimize the sum of the squared errors (which forms
the basis of RMSE). So far we have used this technique just to gauge how well
each model estimates team run production. But the technique is more powerful
than we have let on. As many researchers have discovered, least squares linear
regression can be used to construct as well as measure models. And not just any
models. It constructs the best possible linear model with respect to RMSE.
You may recall that the definition of Total Average is as follows:

TB + BB + HBP + SB
TA =
AB – H + CS + GIDP

Since TB is just total bases obtained from hits, this is really equivalent to the
following:

[1B +(2 × 2B) + (3 × 3B) + (4 × HR)] + BB + HBP + SB

TA =
AB – H + CS + GIDP

In reality, all of the play events have weights, so let’s put them in explicitly:

[(1 × 1B) + (2 × 2B) + (3 × 3B) + (4 × HR)] + [(1 × BB) + (1 × HBP) + (1 × SB)]

TA =
AB – H + CS + GIDP

In the previous chapter we found that TA was one of the better models in esti-
mating team run production. It performed well in the sense that over the course
of baseball history, the difference between its estimates and the actual run pro-

1 As Bill James did when developing his Tech-1 version of Runs Created.
 AV E R AG E RU N S P E R P L AY 179

duction was better than that of estimates based on standard offensive measures
like Batting Average. Still, the question remains whether it is possible to
improve on TA. One way to do this is to preserve the basic pattern of summing
up weighted numbers of the different events used by TA, but simply change the
weights. For example, maybe TA would provide better estimates if the weight for
HR was increased from 4 to 5 or reduced from 4 to 3.5 or reduced from 4 to 3.8,
or . . . As you can see, the possible choices are infinite. And that’s just one weight.
There are six others that can also be adjusted. Actually, the great strength of
least squares linear regression lies in its ability to guarantee finding the weights
that produce the best estimate for a given pattern such as TA.
So far, we haven’t deviated at all from the Total Average definition. But here
we’ll make a minor change. The TA denominator (AB – H + CS + GIDP) is the
total number of outs, ignoring sacrifice hits and sacrifice flies. Since each team
gets approximately the same number of outs per game over the course of a sea-
son, we can replace this with G, the number of games.2 Having made this change,
we will now call our model LSLR for Least Squares Linear Regression model:

(1 × 1B) + (2 × 2B) + (3 × 3B) + (4 × HR) + (1 × BB) + (1 × HBP) + (1 × SB)

LSLR =
G

Our goal is to find weights for singles, doubles, triples, etc., that improve on
the TA estimates. So, we have to generalize the weights to arbitrary values to
which we have given the names wevent. For example, currently, wHR has the value
4, but we will find a new value for wHR which minimizes the error in estimates.
In addition, since there is little (if any) difference between walks and hit by
pitcher we will use the same weight wBB for both events. So, for now, until we
find those values, we now have:

(W1B × 1B) + (W2B × 2B) + (W3B × 3B) + (WHR × HR) + [WBB × (BB + HBP)] + (WSB × SB)
LSLR =
G

Finally, we will divide each event by the number of games:

1B 2B 3B HR BB + HBP
LSLR = W1B × + W2B × + W3B × + WHR × + WBB × +
G G G G G

SB
WSB ×
G

2 Since theoretically each team has 27 outs in each game, the number of games G is
approximately equal to (AB – H + CS + GIDP)/27. For our purposes, the division by 27 is not
needed; 27 is a scaling factor which is constant for all teams.
180 CHAPTER 7

Weight wSB wBB w1B w2B w3B wHR RMSE

TA 1 1 1 2 3 4 .159

LSLR .16 .36 .52 .67 1.18 1.50 .142

TABLE 7-1 Weights in Total Average and in Linear Least Square Regression Model Fit to
1954–1999 Team Runs per Game

This form works best for least squares linear regression. Notice that we now
have the model expressed simply as a sum of weighted quantities; here the
quantities are frequencies of different events per game.
We will not go into any details about how the best weights are calculated.
Descriptions of regression algorithms can be found in a standard statistics text-
book. The results of the calculation are shown in Table 7-1 with respect to team
data from the 1954–1999 seasons. The weights found for LSLR are very differ-
ent in scale from the TA weights. This is because the regression techniques scale
the weights using the same scale as the values being estimated. So, the LSLR
weights are in terms of runs. For example, the regression estimates that each
triple is worth, on average, 1.18 runs. When comparing the TA and LSLR
weights, the important thing to focus on is the relative value of the weights
within each model.
In the Total Average model, stolen bases, walks, hit by pitcher, and singles all
have the same weights. The LSLR model finds a big difference in the values of
these events. Stolen bases have a weight less than half that of walks and hit by
pitcher, and less than a third that of singles. We may quibble about the exact val-
ues of each of these events, but it seems reasonable that singles should have a
greater value than walks and hit by pitcher, which in turn should have a greater
value than stolen bases. Singles, walks, and hit by pitcher all put the batter on
first base, but a single usually advances all runners, while walks and hit by
pitcher only advance runners who are forced. Moreover, singles can advance run-
ners two bases, while walks and hit by pitcher are limited to a one-base advance
at most. Comparisons between walks or hit by pitcher and stolen bases are less
clear-cut. The argument rests on the relative merits of getting on base as
opposed to advancing while on base. In most situations, getting on base produces
greater run potential than a single runner advancing one base. Besides, walks
and HBPs often advance runners in addition to creating another base runner
with the opportunity to score.
With respect to hits, LSLR places less weight on extra-base hits than TA does.
The LSLR weight for home runs is less than 3 times that of singles (compared to
 AV E R AG E RU N S P E R P L AY 181

4 times in TA). The LSLR weight for triples is approximately 2 times that of sin-
gles (compared to 3 times in TA), and the LSLR weight for doubles is roughly 1.3
times that of singles (compared to 2 times in TA). It appears that LSLR finds
additional value in getting on base beyond the number of bases attained. This is
similar to the position taken by OPS, which adds On-Base Percentage to
Slugging Percentage, thereby creating an overall effect similar to that found in
the LSLR weights for hits.
On the whole, the LSLR weights make sense. But how well do they estimate
team run production? As expected, the RMSE for LSLR is less than that of TA.
After all, regression techniques are guaranteed to find the weights that mini-
mize RMSE. Remember that TA and LSLR are virtually identical in form;
their only difference is in the values given to the weights for the various
events. What makes linear regression so powerful is that it requires no knowl-
edge at all about baseball. In order to create Total Average, Thomas Boswell
utilized his insight into baseball as an experienced sportswriter to distill what
he thought were the essential elements of run productivity. And his model per-
formed quite well. But linear regression was able to construct an even better
model without the researcher having any understanding at all about baseball.
We could give the team baseball data to a Greek statistician who has never
seen a baseball game, who doesn’t know what a strike, single, or out is, and
that statistician would be able to develop the weights for this model as capa-
bly as the most knowledgeable sabermetrician can.3
The property of the LSLR model producing the lowest possible RMSE is guar-
anteed only for the set of data with which it was derived. This means that the
LSLR model in Table 7-1 is the best linear model only for the 1954 through 1999
seasons. Employing the same graphical technique from Chapter 6, Figure 7-1
plots the lower RMSE (from TA or LSLR) when estimating team runs in each
separate season. In the period 1954–1999, we find that LSLR had a lower RMSE
than TA in 35 of the 46 seasons. So, although LSLR was better overall in that
period (as guaranteed by the least squares fit), there were individual years (as
recently as 1996) where TA had the better fit.
More important is finding out how well LSLR estimates run productivity in
the years before 1954. This is important because it provides a way to validate the
LSLR weights independently—with a set of data different from the data used to
develop the model. As it turns out, LSLR has a lower RMSE than TA in 57 out of

3 Of course, interpreting the results of the regression would be quite challenging for a Greek
statistician (or any statistician) who was not familiar with baseball.
182 CHAPTER 7

0.6

TA

LSLR
ROOT MEAN SQUARED ERROR (RUNS PER GAME)

0.5

0.4

0.3

0.2

0.1

0.0

1870 1880 1890 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000

YEAR

FIGURE 7-1 RMSE of fit to team runs per game since 1876 (Minimum RMSE of TA
and LSLR).

the 78 seasons from 1876–1953. Its fit compared to that of TA in this earlier
span of seasons is almost as good as it was in 1954–1999 (better in 73 percent vs.
76 percent of the years). Given the more reasonable nature of its weights and the
improved fit over all of baseball history, we must conclude that LSLR is superior
to TA as a model for team run production.
We can make an even stronger statement about LSLR. It is not only better
than Total Average, but it is better than any other possible additive model that
uses the same data in a linear fashion (by summing the weighted frequencies of
plays). In fact, LSLR is superior to the whole family of additive models, including:
• Batting Average and On-Base Percentage, where each on-base
event has the same weight;
• Slugging Percentage, where each hit is weighted by the number of
bases; and
• OPS, where each walk and hit by pitch has a weight near 1, and
each hit has a weight near 1 plus the number of bases attained
(e.g., a double has a weight near 1 + 2 = 3).
We can’t yet say, however, that LSLR as a model provides a better fit than all
weighted models. The Batter’s Run Average (BRA), Scoring Index (DX), and Runs
 AV E R AG E RU N S P E R P L AY 183

Created (RC) models, which are based on multiplying OBP and SLG, do not
belong to the additive class. Let’s look at the basic Runs Created model:

(H + BB) TB
RC =
AB + BB

If we expand H and TB into the individual play counts, we have:

(1B + 2B + 3B + HR + BB) [1B +( 2 × 2B) + (3 × 3B) + (4 × HR)]

RC =
AB + BB

This multiplicative form is different from that of LSLR, so it is possible that

regression applied to this version of the RC model could have a better RMSE
than .142 runs per game. As it turns out, for the period from 1954–1999, Runs
Created per Game (RC/G),4 the best model we have examined in this class, has
an RMSE of .146 runs per game. Figure 7-2 plots the RMSE for the model with
the lower RMSE when estimating team runs in each separate season. (LSLR has
the lower RMSE in 27 out of the most recent 46 seasons.) Using only the results
from 1876–1953 as a test of model superiority, LSLR has a lower RMSE in 43 of
the first 78 seasons in baseball history. This is not strong enough proof that
LSLR is superior to RC/G, but the result does indicate that LSLR is at least as
good as RC/G in estimating team run productivity.
These results are both good and bad news. Good in the sense that we have
found the best model, but bad in the sense that we now know that we cannot do
any better than an RMSE of about 0.14 runs per game using an additive type
model. Remember that two-thirds of the observed team runs per game fall
within one RMSE of the values predicted by the LSLR model. So, out of all the
team predictions in the last 46 years of MLB history, LSLR is correct within .14
runs per game for two-thirds of all estimates. Looking back at team runs per
game in the 1998 season, we see that changing a team’s run productivity by .14
runs per game could move the team up or down as many as 6 places in Table 6-4.
This accuracy cannot be topped by any other linear model with this data. While
it is possible that a model of some other form could produce better estimates, the

4 Since RC (as well as the BRA and DX models) can be described as a weighted sum of cross
product terms, it is possible to use linear regression techniques to find better weights for hits,
walks, and stolen bases in those models as well. Using the RC Tech-1 model form, we found that
the 1954–1999 RMSE could be reduced to about .140 runs per game using better weights.
Interestingly, the weights for walks, hit by pitcher, and stolen bases were not far different from
the .26 and .52 values in the RC Tech-1 model. This is an independent verification of the
effectiveness of James’s empirical development of these weights.
 184 CHAPTER 7

0.6

RC/G
0.5
LSLR

0.4
ROOT MEAN SQUARED ERROR

0.3
(RUNS PER GAME)

0.2

0.1

0.0

1870 1880 1890 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000

YEAR

FIGURE 7-2 RMSE of fit to team runs per game since 1876 (Minimum RMSE of
LSLR and RC/G).

BRA
RC/G DX

LSLR

TA OPS SLG OBP AVG

.10 .15 .20 .25 .30

AVERAGE RMSE (RUNS PER GAME)

FIGURE 7-3 Average yearly RMSEs for various models (1954–1999).

ones we have examined (BRA, DX, and RC) do not provide any improvement. If
we add LSLR to the dotplot in Figure 6-13, we find (not surprisingly) that LSLR
has the lowest average RMSE of all models considered so far. (See Figure 7-3.)

Adding Caught Stealing to the LSLR Model

There is one way that we can improve the LSLR model’s fit: by using addi-
tional information. One piece of information that we have not used is the num-
ber of times runners have been caught stealing (CS). Since we have this data
 AV E R AG E RU N S P E R P L AY 185

Weight (Runs) wCS wSB wBB w1B w2B w3B wHR RMSE

With CS –.11 .19 .35 .52 .66 1.17 1.49 .1421

Without CS • .16 .36 .52 .67 1.18 1.50 .1423

TABLE 7-2 Least Squares Linear Regression Model (With and Without Caught Stealing)
Fit to 1954–1999 Team Runs per Game

for 1954–1999, it is easy to modify the LSLR model to use this information. All
we have to do is add the appropriate CS per game rate multiplied by a new
weight, wCS:

1B 2B 3B HR BB + HBP
LSLR = W1B × + W2B × + W3B × + WHR × + WBB × +
G G G G G

SB CS
WSB × + WCS ×
G G

Using regression techniques on data from 1954–1999, we obtain the results

in Table 7-2 for LSLR with CS. (For comparison, we have also included the ear-
lier results for LSLR without CS.) Since being caught stealing has a detrimental
effect on scoring runs, unlike the other weights, CS has a negative weight. And
in absolute terms, it has the smallest of all weights. While we find that including
CS has indeed decreased RMSE, it has done so by a disappointingly small
amount, from .1423 to .1421. Why is this so?
One way to investigate this almost negligible impact is to delve deeper into
the relationships among the play event quantities—that is, how the frequency of
one event type is related to the frequency of another. Figure 7-4 plots caught
stealing per game (CS/G) vs. stolen bases per game (SB/G) for each team in the
years 1954–1999. An increasing trend is evident in the graph. The five teams
with the highest stolen-base rate per game are noted in the graph. Three of these
teams (the 1976 Oakland A’s, the 1977 Pittsburgh Pirates, and the 1992
Milwaukee Brewers) are also among the teams with the highest rate of being
caught stealing. This should not be surprising to most baseball fans. Teams that
are fast try to take advantage of their skills and attempt to steal more bases; so
the frequency of stolen bases is high, but the number of times they get caught
stealing is also high. Slower teams do not steal as often, so their number of suc-
cesses and number of failures are both low.
186 CHAPTER 7

1.0

1977 Pittsburgh 1976 Oakland

0.75
1992 Milwaukee

1985 St. Louis

CAUGHT STEALING PER GAME (CS/G)

0.5 1986 St. Louis

0.25

0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5

STOLEN BASES PER GAME (SB/G)

FIGURE 7-4 Team CS/G vs. SB/G (caught stealing per game vs. stolen bases per game)
from 1954–1999.

Such strong correlations make the linear regression weights difficult to

interpret. Sometimes the factors are so closely correlated with each other that it
is impossible to separate the effects of one from the other. Imagine if the corre-
lation between two factors was even stronger, so strong that the points formed a
shape closer to a line. In this case, it would be impossible to determine which fac-
tor caused the effect being estimated. Laboratories that conduct research requir-
ing statistical analysis strive to design their experiments to eliminate dependen-
cies between the factors being analyzed. And they often have the luxury of
controlling their environment in order to preserve the independence of the fac-
tors.5 However, when data is recorded in an uncontrolled environment (such as
a season of baseball games), it is rare that the quantities collected are com-
pletely independent of one another.

5 For example, suppose a new drug is being tested for its effectiveness. If we gave the new drug
only to male subjects and a placebo only to female subjects, the two factors, medication and
gender, would be completely dependent. Whatever differences we find in subject response, we
would not be able to tell whether it was from the new drug or the difference in gender. So, to
preserve independence of these factors, we can set up the experiment so that half of each
gender gets the new drug and half the placebo. We have the capability to control the factors so
that the effects of gender and medication can be separated.
 AV E R AG E RU N S P E R P L AY 187

The addition of caught stealing in the LSLR model reduces RMSE very little
because most of its information at a team level is already captured by the num-
ber of stolen bases. When CS is not included in the LSLR model, we see that the
SB weight drops from .19 to .16. Basically, since SB already carries most of the
information about caught stealing, it also assumes the negative effects of caught
stealing once CS is removed from the model. So we see that when two quantities
used in the model are strongly related, the inclusion of one affects the weight of
the other. When both are present—as SB and CS were in our original regression
model—the two actually compete with each other for dominance of the total
weight that they actually share. In conclusion, since the addition of CS provided
little improvement in fit, and since it is closely related to SB, which is already in
the LSLR model, there is no reason to add it to the LSLR model. But we now
understand that the .16 weight for stolen bases encompasses the effects from
unsuccessful steal attempts as well as from successful ones.6

Adding Sacrifice Flies to the LSLR Model

Maybe we’ll have more success with a different piece of information. Let’s try
sacrifice flies (SF). Just as we did for caught stealing, we just add the appropri-
ate SF per game rate multiplied by a new weight wSF:

1B 2B 3B HR BB + HBP
LSLR = W1B × + W2B × + W3B × + WHR × + WBB ×
G G G G G

SB SF
+ WSB × + WSF ×
G G

Table 7-3 shows the weights and RMSE with sacrifice flies included in the
regression model. This time we do see some larger changes. RMSE has dropped
from .142 to .138. The SF weight itself is large, greater than all plays except
triples and home runs. In fact, the weights for all play events except home runs
have decreased with the addition of sacrifice flies to the model.

6 You may have noticed slight changes in the weights of other play frequencies when caught
stealing was added. This is because CS and the other play events are interrelated. We examined
the relationship between stolen bases and caught stealing because it was the most extreme, but
there are other quantities which are correlated with one another. The frequency of home runs in
particular has strong correlations with other play frequencies. This is especially true of doubles
and walks/HBPs. Apparently, teams with more home runs also tend to have more doubles and
also reach first on walks and hit batsmen more frequently. However, none is as strongly related
as CS to SB, so the effects of these other relationships are relatively small.
188 CHAPTER 7

Weight (Runs) wSB w1B w2B wSF w3B wHR wBB RMSE

Without SF .16 .52 .67 • 1.18 1.50 .36 .1423

With SF .14 .49 .61 .73 1.14 1.50 .33 .1381

TABLE 7-3 Least Squares Linear Regression Model (With and Without Sacrifice Flies)
Fit to 1954–1999 Team Runs per Game

0.5

0.4
SACRIFICE FLIES PER GAME (SF/G)

0.3

0.2

0.1
0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5

DOUBLES PER GAME (2B/G)

FIGURE 7-5 Team SF/G vs. 2B/G (sacrifice flies per game vs. doubles per game) from
1954–1999.

The number of sacrifice flies per game is correlated with other play events.
The strongest correlation is between sacrifice flies and doubles. Figure 7-5 plots
sacrifice flies per game vs. doubles per game for teams from 1954–1999. There
does appear to be a slight upward trend. Still, none of the leading teams in dou-
bles is also a leader in sacrifice flies, and similarly none of the leading teams in
sacrifice flies is also a leader in doubles. The cloud of points seems more shape-
less than the pattern seen in CS/G vs. SB/G. So, SF/G is not correlated with any
other play event rate as strongly as CS/G was with SB/G.
While RMSE has dropped much more than it did with CS, the SF weight
seems inordinately high. It is difficult to believe that a play in which the batter
 AV E R AG E RU N S P E R P L AY 189

is out could be more valuable than a walk, much less a double. This leads us to
believe that there is some added information carried by SF that is not contained
in the other play events. In regression, the quantities used in the formula may
possess more meaning than the analyst originally surmises, and this is why
some statisticians refer to these quantities as “carriers.” These quantities may
carry more information than their literal name implies. For example, perhaps
the number of SFs embodies some unknown intangible quality of the team
beyond the tendency to hit sacrifice flies.
The definition of sacrifice fly could give us some perspective. Recall that a sac-
rifice fly always drives in a run. This is part of its definition. And it is not sur-
prising that a play which always results in a run would be highly correlated with
run productivity. But is there some hidden meaning or interpretation of SF
data? One question, for example, is whether the SF weight captures the value of
the situation in which the sacrifice fly tends to occur (a runner on third base
with fewer than two outs). Is it possible that this situation, even more than the
play itself, ties SF closely to run production?
So we have arrived at a quandary. It is possible to reduce the error in our esti-
mate, but this improvement is obtained by using a weight for sacrifice flies that
is suspect. Perhaps further enlightenment will come from taking a more detailed
view of individual plays and their influence in scoring runs.

The Lindsey-Palmer Models

Sabermetrics has many notable contributors; Bill James and Pete Palmer are
perhaps the best known. And then there is George Lindsey, a Canadian defense
consultant who has a great love for baseball. Like many of us who pursued
research in this area much later, he was dissatisfied with the state of baseball
statistics in the late 1950s. He saw no reason why the quantitative techniques
he applied in his day-to-day job could not be used to gain a better understanding
of the game. His research papers on baseball, published in the early 1960s, were
among the first to appear in scientific journals.

George Lindsey’s Analysis

Lindsey’s research focused on run production, its effect on winning the game,
and the use of this knowledge to determine the effectiveness of various strate-
gies (bunting and stealing, for example). In an age when baseball data was not
nearly as available as it is today (remember the first modern baseball encyclo-
190 CHAPTER 7

No Outs, Bases Full Two Outs, Bases Full

13.5%
18.0%

35.0%
10.2%

67.1%

9.2%

26.0%

21.0%

No Outs, Bases Empty Two Outs, Bases Empty

4.9% 1.8% 0.7%

6.8% 4.2%

13.6%

74.7% 93.3%

0 Runs 2 Runs
1 Run >2 Runs

FIGURE 7-6 Probability of scoring runs in selected extreme situations (Lindsey, 1963).

pedia was not published until 1969), Lindsey employed the services of his father
to gather play-by-play data for 27,027 situations in 373 games broadcast during
the 1959 and 1960 seasons.
His analysis of this play-by-play data produced probability distributions of
runs scored in all base-out situations. (One man on, no out; one man on, two out;
and so forth through to bases loaded, two out.) Figure 7-6 shows some of his
results for the most extreme situations. We can see that the least variable situ-
ation is represented by the pie chart in the lower right of the figure—two outs
and no runners on base—where the probability of scoring any runs is less than
 AV E R AG E RU N S P E R P L AY 191

7 percent. At the other extreme (no outs and bases loaded), the team at bat has
an 82 percent chance of scoring runs. While this probability is high, it may not
be as high as we expect; scoring runs even in this most advantageous of all situ-
ations is not a sure thing. Still, there is twice as great a chance that a big inning
(three or more runs) will result than that the team will not score at all. We also
compare two other extreme and opposite situations: bases empty with no outs
vs. bases loaded with two outs. In this pairing, we find that each situation has
close to the same probability that no runs will score (75 percent vs. 67 percent).
But bases loaded with two outs is the more volatile situation, primarily because
the chance of scoring three or more runs is almost three times greater than in
the bases empty with no outs situation.
These results are interesting by themselves, but Lindsey was only getting
started. Table 7-4 shows the 4 probability distributions from Figure 7-6 as well
as all of the other 20 base-out situations. Taken together, the two columns “Bases
Occupied” and “Outs” identify all 24 possible base-out situations within an
inning. The “% of Situations” column gives some feeling for how often each situ-
ation occurs. The most common situation is none on and no outs; this is expected,
since every inning starts this way. In general, the situations become increasingly
rare as the number of base runners, and how far they have advanced, increases.
The middle columns present the probabilities of scoring different numbers of
runs in each situation. The column on the far right gives the expected number of
runs scored in each situation. These values were calculated by Lindsey from the
complete set of run-scoring probabilities, which are presented here for only the
most common run totals.7 As expected, bases loaded with no outs has the great-
est expected value (2.22 runs) while no base runners with two outs has the low-
est expected value (.102 runs). Further scrutiny of the table shows that a greater

7 Lindsey calculated this by multiplying the runs scored by the probability that they would be
scored and then summing these products for all possible runs scored from 0 to ∞. Of course,
there is a practical limit to the number of runs scored in an inning, the record being 18, Chicago
White Stockings (NL) (vs. Detroit Wolverines), seventh inning, September 6, 1883 (The Book of
Baseball Records, Seymour Siwoff [ed.], New York: Elias Sports Bureau, 1999). For example, a
team is expected on average to score .102 runs when they have no base runners and two outs.
This value was calculated as follows:

.933 × 0 runs + .042 × 1 run + .018 × 2 runs + .007 × 3 runs =

.042 runs + .036 runs + .021 runs = .099 runs
The reason for this slight underestimation of Lindsey’s value of .102 runs is that we assumed
that the number of runs associated with the probability of scoring 3 or more runs was exactly 3.
Lindsey did not publish the separate probabilities of scoring 3 runs, 4 runs, 5 runs, etc., which
would have allowed us to reproduce his value exactly.
192 CHAPTER 7

PROBABILITY OF
S I T U AT I O N SCORING RUNS E X P E C TAT I O N

Bases % of
Occupied Outs Situations 0 Runs 1 Run 2 Runs >2 Runs Runs

None 0 24.3% .747 .136 .068 .049 .461

1 17.3% .855 .085 .039 .021 .243

2 13.7% .933 .042 .018 .007 .102

1 0 6.4% .604 .166 .127 .103 .813

1 7.6% .734 .124 .092 .050 .498

2 7.8% .886 .045 .048 .021 .219

2 0 1.1% .381 .344 .129 .146 1.194

1 2.4% .610 .224 .104 .062 .671

2 2.9% .788 .158 .038 .016 .297

3 0 0.2% .120 .640 .110 .130 1.390

1 0.7% .307 .529 .104 .060 .980

2 1.2% .738 .208 .030 .024 .355

1,2 0 1.4% .395 .220 .131 .254 1.471

1 2.6% .571 .163 .119 .147 .939

2 3.3% .791 .100 .061 .048 .403

1,3 0 0.4% .130 .410 .180 .280 1.940

1 1.1% .367 .400 .105 .128 1.115

2 1.6% .717 .167 .045 .071 .532

2,3 0 0.3% .180 .250 .260 .310 1.960

1 0.7% .270 .240 .280 .210 1.560

2 0.8% .668 .095 .170 .067 .687

Full 0 0.3% .180 .260 .210 .350 2.220

1 0.8% .303 .242 .172 .283 1.642

2 1.0% .671 .092 .102 .135 .823

TABLE 7-4 Distribution of Runs Scored in Remainder of Inning (Lindsey, 1963)

number of base runners does not always compensate for an increase in outs. Only
1.64 runs are expected to be scored with the bases loaded and one out, while no
outs with runners on first and third or second and third are expected to produce
1.94 and 1.96 runs, respectively. The possibility of a double play ending the
inning with no runs scored is responsible for much of this effect.
 AV E R AG E RU N S P E R P L AY 193

I N I T I A L S TAT E F I N A L S TAT E CHANGE

Bases % of Expected Bases Expected Total

Occupied Outs Situations Runs Occupied Outs Runs Runs Runs Runs

None 0 24.3% .461 None 0 .461 1 1.461 1

1 17.3% .243 None 1 .243 1 1.243 1

2 13.7% .102 None 2 .102 1 1.102 1

1 0 6.4% .813 None 0 .461 2 2.461 1.648

1 7.6% .498 None 1 .243 2 2.243 1.745

2 7.8% .219 None 2 .102 2 2.102 1.883

2 0 1.1% 1.194 None 0 .461 2 2.461 1.267

1 2.4% .671 None 1 .243 2 2.243 1.572

2 2.9% .297 None 2 .102 2 2.102 1.805

3 0 0.2% 1.390 None 0 .461 2 2.461 1.071

1 0.7% .980 None 1 .243 2 2.243 1.263

2 1.2% .355 None 2 .102 2 2.102 1.747

1,2 0 1.4% 1.471 None 0 .461 3 3.461 1.990

1 2.6% .939 None 1 .243 3 3.243 2.304

2 3.3% .403 None 2 .102 3 3.102 2.699

1,3 0 0.4% 1.940 None 0 .461 3 3.461 1.521

1 1.1% 1.115 None 1 .243 3 3.243 2.128

2 1.6% .532 None 2 .102 3 3.102 2.570

2,3 0 0.3% 1.960 None 0 .461 3 3.461 1.501

1 0.7% 1.560 None 1 .243 3 3.243 1.683

2 0.8% .687 None 2 .102 3 3.102 2.415

Full 0 0.3% 2.220 None 0 .461 4 4.461 2.241

1 0.8% 1.642 None 1 .243 4 4.243 2.601

2 1.0% .823 None 2 .102 4 4.102 3.279

TABLE 7-5 The Run Values of Home Runs

Having set up the data as shown in Table 7-4, Lindsey realized that he
could use it to estimate the value of each hit in terms of runs. The easiest hit
to analyze is the home run, as shown in Table 7-5. At first glance, this table is
194 CHAPTER 7

somewhat daunting, but it is more easily understood once broken down into
its three major components: (1) the Initial State, (2) the Final State, and (3)
the Change in State.
1. The Initial State. The first four columns are carried over from
Table 7-4. They describe the initial state when the batter comes to
the plate (identified by the bases occupied and the number of
outs), the percentage of time that the state occurs, and the
average number of runs scored in the inning after a plate
appearance under these circumstances.
2. The Final State. The next five columns describe the final state,
the game situation after the batter’s plate appearance. Since we
are analyzing the effect of a home run, the outs do not change
from the initial state, and the bases are empty in all cases. The
third final state column presents the expected number of runs
from the final base-out state. These values were found by looking
up Expected Runs in Table 7-4 for the base-out situation that
exists in the final state. Since bases are always empty after a
home run, this has to be one of three values: .461, .243, or .102
runs, depending on the number of outs—0, 1, or 2, respectively.
The fourth column is the number of runners who scored on this
play. For a home run, this is just the number of base runners in
the initial state plus 1.
So, we have two run components: the number of runs that scored
on the play and the expected number that may still score in the
future, based on the number of outs and the runners left on base
after the play. The total value of the final state in terms of runs
(displayed in the fifth final state column) is the sum of these two
components.
3. The Change in State. The third part of Table 7-5 is the change
between the two states. Since we are performing this analysis in
terms of runs, we interpret this change to mean the difference in
run value between the initial state and the final state. The run
value of the initial state is the expected number of runs given in
the fourth initial state column. The run value of the final state is
the total number of runs given in the fifth final state column.
The change in runs is calculated as follows:
 AV E R AG E RU N S P E R P L AY 195

Change = total runs (final state) –

expected runs (initial state)
This change is the run value of the play (HR in this case) in the
particular situation defined by the initial state.
Let’s see how we can apply Tables 7-4 and 7-5 to one of the greatest moments
in baseball history (the #24 all-time moment as picked by The Sporting News in
1999). In 1986, the California Angels were one out away from their first trip to
the World Series. They led the Boston Red Sox 5–4 in the top of the ninth inning,
and Dave Henderson was Boston’s last chance. The Bosox had a runner on first
and two outs. According to Table 7-4, the Red Sox had less than a 5-percent chance
of tying the game and about a 7-percent chance of going ahead. Overall, the Red
Sox could only be expected to score an average of .219 runs in this situation.
However, Henderson connected for a two-run homer and gave the Red Sox the
lead. The final base-out state was two outs with no runners on base. Since the
Red Sox still had another out, they had a chance to score more runs. According
to Lindsey’s data, they could only expect to score .102 more runs on average in
the remainder of the inning. Since they already scored two runs from the home
run, the expected run value of this final state is 2 + .102 = 2.102. Subtracting the
expected run value of the initial state from that of the final state, we obtain:
Change = total runs (final state) – expected runs (initial state)
= 2.102 – .219 = 1.883
To put it another way, before Henderson’s HR, the Red Sox had 4 runs with
the expectation of scoring .219 more runs. After the HR, the Red Sox had 6 runs
with the expectation of scoring .102 more runs. So, the value of the HR in terms
of runs is 6.102 – 4.219 = 1.883 runs.8 Although Henderson’s HR produced two
RBIs, its run value was actually less than 2. This is because the initial state with
a runner on first base had a run value (.219 runs) greater than the final state
(.102 runs), in which the bases were empty after the HR. In fact, looking down
the Change in Runs column of Table 7-5, we see that this is true for all HRs.
According to Lindsey’s model, the RBI statistic overstates the true value of any
home run except one hit with the bases empty. In essence, a home run converts all
potential runs into actual runs, leaving the bases depleted of all run potential.
Another interesting observation in scanning down the Change in Runs col-

8 The Red Sox did not score more runs that inning, but they did go on to win the game and the
AL Championship Series only to be thwarted themselves by ill-luck at the hands of the New
York Mets (or the hands of Bill Buckner) in the 1986 World Series.
196 CHAPTER 7

umn of Table 7-5 is that the value of HRs increases with the number of outs. For
example, Henderson’s two-out HR with a runner on first base had greater value
(1.883 runs) than if he had hit it with one out (1.745 runs) or no outs (1.648
runs). This makes sense. As outs increase, the opportunities for putting runners
on-base and advancing them to score decreases. Lindsey’s model provides quan-
titative support for our intuitive feel for the game.
To proceed with the analysis, we assume that HR frequency is independent of
the situation; that is, a home run is equally likely to occur in any base-out situ-
ation. This is a big assumption, but one that is standard in most baseball mod-
els. Under this assumption, we can construct a distribution of HR values based
on the initial state and Change in Runs column of Table 7-5.
We have done just this in Table 7-6, where the rows representing the initial
states are sorted by run value (“Change in Runs”). Each row also includes the
number of occurrences observed for each kind of situation (“# of Situations”) fol-
lowed by its percentage (“% of Situations”) as compared to the total number of
situations observed. We see that the greatest value of a home run is 3.279 runs
(bases loaded, two outs), less than the 4 RBIs credited to a grand slam. This max-
imum value is found in only 283/27,027 = 1 percent of all HRs. The smallest
value is 1 run (bases empty with 0, 1, or 2 outs). This value is also the mode of
the distribution (the most common value). It occurs in 14,935 out of the 27,027
situations used to create Table 7-5; so, 55 percent (a majority) of HRs have a
value of 1 run.
Note that a home run with no outs and a runner on third does not have much
greater value than one with the bases empty. This makes sense, since it is
expected that this runner should be able to score anyway, with 3 outs available
to the offense; the HR contributes a minimal amount to scoring this runner. In
fact, the lower HR values are dominated by situations with 0 or 1 out and run-
ners in scoring position. The higher HR values are dominated by situations with
multiple runners and two outs; these are high-risk situations where there is
much to gain but little opportunity to do so.
The “Cum % of Situations” column in Table 7-6 tracks the percent of situa-
tions with HR values less than or equal to that of the current row. A visual per-
spective of the HR value distribution can be obtained by plotting this column as
the cumulative probability of HR value. Such a plot (Figure 7-7) shows us how
the probability grows as larger and larger HR values are accumulated, starting
from 0 runs. The line in the plot indicates the probability that a HR has a value
less than or equal to a given number of runs (indicated on the x-axis). We see
that the probability is 0 until 1 run is reached, since it is impossible for any
 AV E R AG E RU N S P E R P L AY 197

Bases Outs # of % of Cum. % of Change

Occupied Situations Situations Situations in Runs

None 0 6561 24.3% 24% 1

None 1 4664 17.3% 42% 1

None 2 3710 13.7% 55% 1

3 0 67 0.2% 56% 1.071

3 1 202 0.7% 56% 1.263

2 0 294 1.1% 57% 1.267

2, 3 0 73 0.3% 58% 1.501

1, 3 0 119 0.4% 58% 1.521

2 1 657 2.4% 60% 1.572

1 0 1728 6.4% 67% 1.648

2, 3 1 176 0.7% 68% 1.683

1 1 2063 7.6% 75% 1.745

3 2 327 1.2% 76% 1.747

2 2 779 2.9% 79% 1.805

1 2 2119 7.8% 87% 1.883

1, 2 0 367 1.4% 88% 1.990

1, 3 1 305 1.1% 90% 2.128

Full 0 92 0.3% 90% 2.241

1, 2 1 700 2.6% 92% 2.304

2, 3 2 211 0.8% 93% 2.415

1, 3 2 419 1.6% 95% 2.570

Full 1 215 0.8% 96% 2.601

1, 2 2 896 3.3% 99% 2.699

Full 2 283 1.0% 100% 3.279

TABLE 7-6 Distribution of Run Values for Home Runs

home run to be worth less than 1 run. At 1 run, the cumulative distribution
jumps up to 55 percent; as mentioned earlier, there is a 55-percent chance that a
home run is worth exactly 1 run. The plot keeps increasing as HRs with greater
and greater value are included. It does not rise steeply at first. There is still only
about a 57-percent chance for a HR to have value less than 1.5 runs, not much of
an increase over the 55 percent of HRs with value less than or equal to 1 run. So,
there is only a 57 percent – 55 percent = 2-percent chance that a HR is worth
between 1 and 1.5 runs. Between 1.5 and 2 runs, the plot rises quickly; there is
about an 88-percent chance that a HR has a value less than or equal to 2 runs. This
198 CHAPTER 7

100%

90%

80%

70%

60%
IS LESS THAN OR EQUAL TO X RUNS

50%
PROBABILITY THAT HR VALUE

40%

30%

20%

10%

0%

0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5

RUNS

FIGURE 7-7 Cumulative distribution of run values for home runs.

shows us that there is a good chance (88 percent – 57 percent = 31 percent) that a
HR is worth between 1.5 and 2 runs. From here, the graph rises steadily until it
reaches 100 percent at the maximum HR value of 3.279; since this is the maxi-
mum, 100 percent of HR values are less than or equal to it and 12 percent (100 per-
cent – 88 percent) are worth between 2 and 3.3 runs.
Using Table 7-6 (or Table 7-5), we can calculate the average value of a home
run. This is done by simply multiplying its value in each situation by the per-
centage of times the situation occurs, then summing over all situations:
Average HR Value = (.243 × 1) + (.173 × 1) + (.137 × 1) + (.002 × 1.071) + . . .
+ (.008 × 2.601) + (.033 × 2.699) + (.01 × 3.279) = 1.42 runs
What does this value represent? Certainly we have seen that in Lindsey’s
model, some HRs are worth less than 1.42 runs while others are worth more. But
on average, for a large sample of situations, Lindsey found that in 1959–1960, a
good estimate of the value of a home run was 1.42 runs.
The next question, naturally, is what about the average run values for other
plays? Lindsey performed calculations following the same procedure for singles,
doubles, and triples. For now, we will just summarize our own numbers, based on
Lindsey’s calculations, in Table 7-7.9 On average, the difference between the most
and least valuable hits is less than one run. More intriguing are the run value
 AV E R AG E RU N S P E R P L AY 199

Ratio of Run Value to

Average Run Value Run Value of Single Base Value

Single 0.454 Runs 1 1 Base

Double 0.818 Runs 1.80 2 Bases

Triple 1.066 Runs 2.35 3 Bases

Home Run 1.419 Runs 3.13 4 Bases

TABLE 7-7 Average Values of Hits with Respect to Runs and Bases

ratios which indicate that a HR is on average about three times as productive as

a single. For the sake of comparison, the rightmost column presents the relative
values of these hits in terms of bases. We see that a base interpretation of value
appears to overestimate the run value of extra-base hits. Besides the home run,
a triple is worth less than three times the runs of a single, and a double is worth
less than twice the runs of a single.
Lindsey’s analysis provides some insight into why the Slugging Percentage
(SLG) provides a relatively poor estimate of team run production. As discussed
in the previous chapter, SLG is just total bases divided by at-bats, where total
bases uses the 1:2:3:4 ratios for singles, doubles, triples, and home runs. Perhaps
a modified version of SLG which uses the average run values for hits to deter-
mine average runs per at bat (instead of SLG’s average bases per at bat) would
be an improvement.
Lindsey calculated run productivity using the following formula, where each
hit is weighted by its average run value from Table 7-7:

(.454 × 1B) + (.818 × 2B) + (1.066 × 3B) + (1.419 × HR)

Average runs per at bat =
AB

When Lindsey’s estimate of average runs per at-bat is used to estimate team runs
per game in the years 1876–1999, its RMSE is lower than SLG’s RMSE in 108 out
of the 124 years. So, simply modifying the 1:2:3:4 weights to .454:.818:1.066:1.419
provides a significant improvement in estimating team runs.

9 Although we used his procedures for calculation, the results in Table 7-7 are slightly different
from Lindsey’s 1963 run values: single (.41), double (.82), triple (1.06), and home run (1.42).
200 CHAPTER 7

Palmer Enters the Picture

Pete Palmer has been a consultant for the official statisticians of the American
League, chairman of SABR’s statistical analysis committee, and an editor of
baseball encyclopedias including the current standard, Total Baseball. From the
mid-1960s into the early 1980s, Palmer conducted his own research on evaluat-
ing offensive performance building upon the foundation established by Lindsey.
Palmer moved this work forward on two fronts:
1. He expanded the model beyond hits to include walks, hit by
pitcher, steals, caught stealing, and outs. For each of these plays,
he calculated the average number of runs added or (in the case of
caught stealing and outs, subtracted) by the play.
2. He developed a computer simulation to model run production
through baseball history. The simulation allowed him to replace
Lindsey’s data in Table 7-4 (taken from a relatively small set of
games from only two years) with separate tables of run production
in all base-out initial states for different periods of time.
Surprisingly, as shown in Figure 7-8, Palmer found little
variability in the average run values of different plays across the
decades of baseball in the twentieth century. (The one exception is
outs, which we will address shortly.)
Based on these results, Palmer settled on the following estimate of runs
scored, which he called the Linear Weights formula:
LWTS = (.46 × 1B) + (.80 × 2B) + (1.02 × 3B) + (1.40 × HR) +
[.33 × (BB + HBP)] + (.30 × SB) + (–.60 × CS) + [–.25 × (AB – H)]
A comparison of the Linear Weights model with Lindsey’s model shows very
little difference in the average runs for the various hits. Because neither a walk
nor a hit by pitcher has the advancement capability of a hit, they have less run
value than a single.
One major feature of Palmer’s model that is not part of Lindsey’s is Palmer’s
inclusion of outs from plate appearances (as estimated by AB – H) and outs from
being caught stealing. These plays, which have negative run values, make it pos-
sible for LWTS to have a value below zero if not enough positive plays (hits and
walks) are accumulated to offset the expected runs lost from outs. So, LWTS does
not estimate the total number of runs produced. Instead, it estimates the num-
ber of runs produced above the average expected for the number of play events.
For example, let’s consider the offensive records of two New York shortstops
 AV E R AG E RU N S P E R P L AY 201

Player AB H 1B 2B 3B HR SB CS BB HBP LWTS

Derek Jeter 627 219 149 37 9 24 19 8 91 12 73.81

Rey Ordonez 520 134 107 24 2 1 8 4 49 1 –8.14

TABLE 7-8 Run Production by Derek Jeter and Rey Ordonez in 1999 as Estimated
by LWTS

1.6

1.4

1.2

1.0

0.8

0.6

0.4

0.2
1. 2. 3. 4.
0.0

–0.2

–0.4

–0.6

Caught Out Stolen Walk/ Single Double Triple Home

Stealing Base HBP Run

1. 1901–1920

2. 1921–1940

3. 1941–1960

4. 1961–1977

FIGURE 7-8 Average run values for different plays in different periods of baseball history
(Palmer Simulation).

in 1999. The Mets’ Rey Ordonez was defensively brilliant, but offensively chal-
lenged. Derek Jeter of the Yankees, though maybe not quite as good defensively,
was a thoroughly superior offensive player. Table 7-8 presents their offensive
statistics for 1999 as well as their Linear Weights ratings. According to Palmer’s
model, Jeter contributed many more runs (almost 74 more) than expected by an
average player in a season while Ordonez contributed about 8 less than the
average player.
As we saw in Figure 7-8, the run value of an out has fluctuated throughout
baseball history. Palmer uses the run value of an out to adjust Linear Weights rat-
ings for the average productivity of players. So, the run value of an out is larger in
years when run production is high (–.30 from 1921–1940) and smaller in periods
202 CHAPTER 7

of low run production (–.24 from 1901–1920). This makes sense, since each out
decreases the opportunity to score more runs, and thus is more damaging in eras
when you expect to score a lot than in eras when runs are harder to come by.
Whether or not you believe in the juiced ball, it is indisputable that 1999 was
a year with high run production throughout the major leagues. So, the run value
of an out was closer to –.30 runs than to Palmer’s standard value of –.25. Using
–.30 instead of –.25, then, we obtain LWTS ratings of –27.44 and +53.41 runs for
Ordonez and Jeter respectively. So, after adjusting for run production during the
year, we find that Jeter was actually closer to the average 1999 player, while
Ordonez was even farther from average than originally thought.10 In essence,
the Linear Weights formula as given above with a –.25 run value for outs esti-
mates runs above average, where “average” represents an historical standard,
not average with respect to a particular year such as 1999.
Palmer’s modifications to Lindsey’s ideas do improve estimates of team runs
scored. LWTS, like Runs Created, provides a cumulative (actually, net) estimate
of runs produced. So, as with RC, we must divide it by games before correlating
it with team run production data. We found that the RMSE for LWTS/G is less
than that of Lindsey’s model in 45 of the last 46 years of baseball history. Since
the weights for hits are only slightly different, the improvement in fit is due
mainly to the inclusion of walks, hit by pitcher, and stolen bases in the model.

Comparing the LSLR and Lindsey-Palmer Models

Practically speaking, the regression model LSLR and the Lindsey-Palmer model
are basically the same. Both models assign average run values to each play. The
difference lies in the techniques used to find those values or weights. The LSLR
model weights were found using the standard statistical techniques of linear
regression based on team data from 1954–1999. Lindsey and Palmer found their
weights empirically—by analyzing the changes in large numbers of actual base-
ball game situations, and the results produced by each play type.
Despite the different paths taken by each model, LSLR and the Lindsey-
Palmer models arrive at very similar weights. Using the Palmer version of
LWTS, Table 7-9 compares the models. The weights for singles and walks are

10 Using the formula with a –.3 run value for outs, Chipper Jones of the Atlanta Braves had the
highest 1999 LWTS rating of 72.20 runs above average while Mike Caruso of the Chicago
White Sox had the lowest LWTS rating –47.73 runs below average. Of Caruso’s 132 hits in 529
at bats, only 17 were for extra bases. Ordonez had the sixth lowest LWTS rating in 1999, while
Jeter had the seventh highest.
 AV E R AG E RU N S P E R P L AY 203

Weight (Runs) wSB w1B w2B wSF w3B wHR wBB

LWTS .30 .46 .80 • 1.02 1.40 .33

LSLR with SF .14 .49 .61 .73 1.14 1.50 .33

TABLE 7-9 Model Weights for LSLR (with Sacrifice Flies) and LWTS

close matches. The LSLR model gives less weight to doubles and greater weight
to triples and home runs. The difference in the doubles weight is especially large.
There are several possible reasons for this. One is that the base-running
assumptions used to generate the changes in base situations for the LWTS
model are too liberal. However, a calculation of the Lindsey weight, assuming
just a 2-base advance, only reduces the double weight to .76 runs. Another pos-
sibility is that the LSLR weight for home runs has been increased at the expense
of the double weight because of the correlation between HRs and doubles. A
third possibility is that the weights reflect additional information carried by the
frequencies of plays. The LWTS weights reflect only the value of the play itself,
since they are constructed by calculating the change in run production produced
by each play. The linear regression technique used to develop the LSLR weights
only discovers overall tendencies in run production as the number of play events
changes. This may be good or bad. It’s bad in the sense that we are not sure
exactly what each measure represents within the LSLR model. It’s good in the
sense that the LSLR model may capture aspects of baseball within the data that
are not measured explicitly.
This is related to the question about sacrifice flies that initiated our investi-
gation of the Lindsey-Palmer approach. What is the true value of a sacrifice fly
in terms of runs? Notice that we do not have a LWTS weight for sacrifice flies in
Table 7-9. However, we can use Lindsey’s data in Table 7-4 to calculate one.
We do this in the same way that we evaluated the value of a home run in
Table 7-5. In fact, it is easier. A home run can occur in all 24 base-out situations,
but a sacrifice fly can only occur in 8 base-out situations, those with less than
two outs and a runner on third base.11 A sacrifice fly guarantees that a run will
score and at least one out will occur. We have assumed that only one out occurs

11 A runner on third base is not required for a sacrifice fly. A batter can be awarded a sacrifice fly
for scoring a runner from any base. For example, on April 3, 2001, the Phillies’ Brian L. Hunter
scored the game-winning run from second base on a long fly out by Doug Glanville, who was
awarded a sacrifice fly. However, such sacrifice flies with no runner on third base are so rare
that our calculation is unaffected by ignoring them.
204 CHAPTER 7

I N I T I A L S TAT E F I N A L S TAT E CHANGE

Bases # of Expected Bases Expected Total

Occupied Outs Situations Runs Occupied Outs Runs Runs Runs Runs

3 0 67 1.39 None 1 .243 1 1.243 –.147

1 202 0.980 None 2 .102 1 1.102 .122

1, 3 0 119 1.940 1 1 .498 1 1.498 –.442

1 305 1.115 1 2 .219 1 1.219 .104

2, 3 0 73 1.960 2 1 .671 1 1.671 –.289

1 176 1.560 2 2 .297 1 1.297 –.263

Full 0 92 2.220 1, 2 1 .939 1 1.939 –.281

1 215 1.642 1, 2 2 .403 1 1.403 –.239

TABLE 7-10 The Run Values of a Sacrifice Fly

and only the runner on third advances. So, our calculation, shown in Table 7-10,
is much less complex than the HR calculation.
Looking at the “Change in Runs” column, we see that a sacrifice fly produces
an increase in expected runs only with one out and a runner on third, or runners
on first and third. In the worst case, a sacrifice fly with no outs and runners on
first and third loses almost half a run on average. Weighting each change in runs
by the relative frequency of the situation, we find that the average value of a sac-
rifice fly in runs is about –.12. This is far different from the result of .73 runs
found by the regression techniques for the LSLR model. We conclude that the
LSLR weight for sacrifice flies probably captures the high expected runs value
of the state in which it occurs. Note that the expected runs for the initial state in
Table 7-10 range from a minimum of .98 runs to a maximum of 2.22. This is high
relative to the expected runs for all 24 initial states.
It appears, then, that we have found a case where linear regression may not
provide a useful weight for evaluating player performance. Even though the
inclusion of SF with a .73 run weight reduces the RMSE, it is not advisable to
include the weight in the LSLR model. The lesson here is that while reducing
error (RMSE) is the major objective, it should not be done at the expense of cre-
ating a model that does not have some common sense built into it as well. The
results of regression analysis should not be accepted without questioning model
 AV E R AG E RU N S P E R P L AY 205

assumptions, the data used for the analysis, and ultimately the reasonableness
of the answers.
One characteristic that both techniques have in common is their reliance on
data for the development of the model. Regression techniques require a set of
data describing the value to be estimated and the quantities used in the estima-
tion. In our case with LSLR, the data set contained runs scored and the number
of various play events per team per season from 1954–1999. For Lindsey, the
data set was detailed play-by-play results from games in the 1959–1960 seasons.
For Palmer, the data sets were the frequencies of various plays in each year,
which were used to drive his computer simulation.
Is it possible to break our dependence on data to develop a run production
model? In some ways, the intuitive models examined in Chapter 6 did this. None
of those models was developed using data. Each was inspired by a theory about
what contributed to run production. However, here we have something different
in mind. We would like to use principles of probability to build a model based on
how the game is played.
 THE CURVATURE of Baseball

One feature that makes baseball lend itself to statistical analysis is the discrete
nature of the game. Every inning unfolds play by well-defined play, and at the
conclusion of each play, the inning must be in 1 of 25 well-defined states. We can
break down these states into 8 distinct base situations:
None on.
Runner on first.
Runners on first and second.
Runners on first and third.
Runners on first, second, and third (bases loaded).
Runner on second.
Runners on second and third.
Runner on third.
We can also break down the states into 3 distinct out situations (0, 1, and 2 outs).
We combine these 3 out and 8 on-base possibilities to get 24 states (3 × 8 = 24),
then add 1 for the final state of the inning (3 outs), giving us a total of 25. Every
situation before and after a play in baseball must fit into one, and only one, of
these 25 unambiguous and clearly distinguished states.
Compare this with other sports. In football, we could consider one team’s pos-
session as equivalent to a team’s inning at bat. How many possible states are
there at the end of each play in a single possession? With some simplification,
there are 100 different positions on the field, one for each yard mark. Then there

207
208 CHAPTER 8

are 4 different downs. And then there are 10 different yards to go (for first
down). If we multiply these values, we obtain a large number
Field positions × downs × yards to go = possible states
100 × 4 × 10 = 4000

The number 4000 may seem large, but it is a lower bound—that is, it’s extremely
understated. The number of yards to go for a first down may be greater than 10,
and both this value and the field position value (the line of scrimmage) are actu-
ally continuous. In other words, the ball is rarely placed exactly at a yardline
mark, so neither of these values has to be an integer. Any fractional value for
yards to go, or any line of scrimmage between yard markers, would also have to
be considered, thus making the number of possible states virtually infinite.
So there are at least 160 (or 4000/25) possible states in football for every com-
parable base-out state in baseball. And football is relatively discrete compared to
other major sports, like basketball, hockey, and soccer, which have a continuous
flow in both time and space. The number of possible situations these other sports
present is literally infinite, and in the course of each game or match, there are
very few moments where the action is paused in an easily defined and numeri-
cally described state.

The DLSI Simulation Model

Several researchers besides Lindsey and Palmer have taken advantage of base-
ball’s relatively simple, static, and discrete structure to create probabilistic mod-
els of run production. Among the earliest was the Scoring Index model developed
by D. A. D’Esopo and B. Lefkowitz in a 1960 SRI internal report. Their work was
not available publicly until it was published in the groundbreaking collection of
papers Optimal Strategies in Sports in 1977.1 In the interim, essentially the
same model was developed independently by Thomas M. Cover and Carroll W.
Keilers, who used it to create a batting statistic called the Offensive Earned Run
Average (OERA).
At its heart, the D’Esopo-Lefkowitz Scoring Index (DLSI) model starts with
the basic premise of the BRA, DX, and RC/G models: scoring runs is the prod-
uct of two related types of events, getting on base and advancing runners.

1 This is an excellent work, now out of print but probably still obtainable in many college
libraries. The techniques presented by many papers in the collection are as relevant today as
when they were published more than two decades ago.
 T H E C U RVAT U R E O F B A S E B A L L 209

However, their model puts a different spin on this premise, separating run
production into two processes:
1. Getting on base: An event that describes getting on base a
particular number of times in an inning.
2. Advancing around the bases: An event that describes scoring a
given number of runs when a particular number of players get on
base in an inning.
For ease of computation and explanation, we’ll make some basic assumptions
here about the types of events that occur in a plate appearance and how runners
advance on the bases. The variant of the DLSI model we use assumes that the
only possible events in a plate appearance are BB/HBP, 1B, 2B, 3B, HR, and out.
All outs are effectively strikeouts (i.e., single outs leaving runners in place).
A single scores runners on second and third bases, but only advances a runner
on first to second base. A double advances all runners two bases. Although you
might quibble with this choice of rules, we will see that this model gives results
pretty similar to real baseball.

The Probability of Scoring Two Runs

Using the DLSI model, suppose that we are interested in the following event:
{exactly 2 runs score in an inning}
We need to think of all of the possible ways for runners to reach base so that 2
runs can be scored. We will explain shortly that 2 runs can score when 2, 3, 4, or 5
runners reach base in the inning. So if for now we take that as a given, we can
break down the event {exactly 2 runs score in an inning} into the following events:
{2 players reach base in an inning, and exactly 2 runs score}
or
{3 players reach base in an inning, and exactly 2 runs score}
or
{4 players reach base in an inning, and exactly 2 runs score}
or
{5 players reach base in an inning, and exactly 2 runs score}
The tree diagram in Figure 8-1 illustrates the two steps of this process: (1) play-
ers reach base, and (2) players score 2 runs.
To compute the probability of scoring 2 runs in an inning, we first assign prob-
abilities to the branches of the tree diagram. At the first set of branches, we com-
210 CHAPTER 8

2 REACH 2 RUNS
BASE SCORE

3 REACH 2 RUNS
BASE SCORE

4 REACH 2 RUNS
BASE SCORE

5 REACH 2 RUNS
BASE SCORE

FIGURE 8-1 Tree diagram for scoring exactly 2 runs in an inning.

pute the probabilities that 2 players reach base, 3 reach base, 4 reach base, and 5
reach base. We will call these probabilities Pr(2 reach base), Pr(3 reach base), and
so forth. Then, at the second set of branches, we find the probability of scoring 2
runs if 2 players reach base, which we will denote Pr(2 runs | 2 on base), the prob-
ability of scoring 2 runs if 3 reach base Pr(2 runs | 3 on base), and so forth. We
place these probabilities on the branches of the tree diagram in Figure 8-2.
After all of the probabilities of the branches have been assigned, we find the
probability of scoring 2 runs by multiplying probabilities along each branch of
the tree, then summing the products:
Pr(2 runs) = Pr(2 reach base) × Pr(2 runs | 2 reach base) +

Pr(3 reach base) × Pr(2 runs | 3 reach base) +

Pr(4 reach base) × Pr(2 runs | 4 reach base) +

Pr(5 reach base) × Pr(2 runs | 5 reach base)

Let’s back up and explain some of our logic. In order to score 2 runs, at least
2 players have to reach base. After all, if no players get to first base, how can any
runs score? And if only 1 player reaches first base, the player may or may not
score, but at most 1 run will score. In general, if we want to find the probability
of scoring R runs (where R = 2 in this setting), we only have to look at innings in
which at least R players get on base.
Next, we see that to find the probability of 2 runs scoring we don’t have to
look at innings where 6 or more batters get on base. Why is this? Let’s look at the
case where 6 players reach first base on walks. Assuming that no players are
caught stealing, hit into double plays, or are thrown out at a base, 3 runs will
score in this inning; the first 3 walks will load the bases and each of the next 3
 T H E C U RVAT U R E O F B A S E B A L L 211

Pr(2 RUNS | 2 ON BASE)

2 REACH BASE 2 RUNS SCORE

ase)
ch B
Rea Pr(2 RUNS | 3 ON BASE)
Pr(2 3 REACH BASE 2 RUNS SCORE
Base)
P r(3 Reach

Pr(4 Rea
ch Base)
Pr(5
Rea Pr(2 RUNS | 4 ON BASE)
ch B 4 REACH BASE 2 RUNS SCORE
ase)

Pr(2 RUNS | 5 ON BASE)

5 REACH BASE 2 RUNS SCORE

FIGURE 8-2 Tree diagram for scoring exactly 2 runs in an inning

(expanded with probabilities of scoring for different numbers of players
reaching base).

will force in a run. Because of our assumptions about outs, the order in which
outs are interspersed with the walks does not matter—3 runs will still score in
this inning. And this is the most conservative estimate! The walk (or hit by
pitcher) is the least productive of on-base events. If we substitute any type of hit
(single, double, triple, or home run) for one of the walks, more than 3 runs are
liable to score. So, we can say that if 6 players reach base in an inning, at least 3
runs will score. Consequently, if we wish to compute the probability of scoring
exactly 2 runs, we don’t have to consider any innings in which 6 or more players
get on base.2 In general, if we want to find the probability of scoring R runs, we
can ignore innings in which at least R + 4 players get on base.
This is why in finding the probability of scoring a specific number of runs R
in an inning, we have only to look at four cases: innings in which R, R + 1, R + 2,
and R + 3 players get on base.

The Probability of Scoring No Runs

So what is the probability of scoring R runs in each of these cases? Let’s exam-
ine the simplest case, where R = 0 (no runs score in the inning).
We first focus on computing probabilities at the second set of branches of the tree;
that is, the probability of scoring 0 runs given different number of players on base. The
first value we need is the probability of scoring 0 runs when 0 players get on base. An
easy question: the probability is 1 because if no players reach base, no runs can score:

2 Note that the model does not consider the case where a batter reaches first base on a fielder’s
choice as an on-base event.
212 CHAPTER 8

Pr(0 runs | 0 reach base) = 1

How about the probability of scoring 0 runs when 1 player gets on base?
Assuming no stolen bases (a basic assumption of the model), there is only one
way that a run can be scored with one on-base event; that is, if the event is a
home run. So, the probability of no runs scored (when 1 player gets on base)
equals 1 minus the fraction of on-base events that are home runs. The fraction of
on-base events that are home runs, denoted by f4, is defined as follows:
HR
f4 =
BB + HBP + 1B + 2B + 3B + HR
So,

Pr(0 runs | 1 reaches base) = 1 – f 4

While we are at it, let’s define proportions for all on-base events that are
walks / hits by pitcher, singles, doubles, and triples:3
BB + HBP
Fraction of walks / hit by pitcher f 0 =
BB + HBP + 1B + 2B + 3B + HR

1B
Fraction of singles f 1 =
BB + HBP + 1B + 2B + 3B + HR

2B
Fraction of doubles f 2 =
BB + HBP + 1B + 2B + 3B + HR

3B
Fraction of triples f 3 =
BB + HBP + 1B + 2B + 3B + HR

Only two more cases to go, but they are the most difficult ones. Let’s consider
the probability of scoring 0 runs when 2 players get on base:
• When the first player to get on base gets a walk or hit by pitcher,
the following sequences do not score a run: BB–BB, BB–1B,
BB–2B.4 The probability of these sequences is f0 (f0 + f1 + f2).
• Similarly, when the first player to get on base gets a single, the
following sequences do not score a run: 1B–BB, 1B–1B, 1B–2B.
The probability of these sequences is f1 (f0 + f1 + f2).

3 We use the notation f where n indicates the number of bases for the hit involved and n = 0 for
n
a walk or hit by pitcher
4 To simplify, we will use BB to symbolize a walk or hit by pitcher. Both have the same effect.
 T H E C U RVAT U R E O F B A S E B A L L 213

• When the first player to get on base gets a double or triple, only
two sequences do not score a run: 2B–BB, 3B–BB. The probability
of these sequences is (f2 + f3) f0.
To summarize, if 2 players get on base, the probability of not scoring any runs is:

Pr(0 runs | 2 reach base) = f 0 ( f0 + f 1 + f 2) + f 1 ( f 0 + f 1 + f 2) + ( f 2 + f 3) f 0

= ( f 0 + f 1) ( f 1 + f 2) + ( 1 – f 4) f 0

We are down to the last case, the probability of scoring no runs when 3 play-
ers get on base. We can calculate this value by enumerating all the sequences as
we did above. It turns out when you do this (consider this an at-home exercise),
the non-scoring sequences are the ones above for 2 players on base with a walk
or HBP appended at the end (e.g., BB–2B becomes BB–2B–BB). So, the proba-
bility of scoring 0 runs if three players get on base is just Pr(0 runs | 2 reach
base) times the fraction of on-base events that are walks / HBP:

Pr(0 runs | 3 reach base) = Pr(0 runs | 2 reach base) × f 0

The probability of scoring no runs (similar to the tree diagram for scoring 2
runs in Figure 8-2) is the weighted sum of these probabilities: Pr(0 runs | 0
reach base), Pr(0 runs | 1 reaches base), Pr(0 runs | 2 reach base), and Pr(0 runs
| 3 reach base). The weights are just the probabilities of putting the respective
players on base: Pr(0 reach base), Pr(1 reaches base), Pr(2 reach base), and Pr(3
reach base). So,
Pr(0 runs) = Pr(0 reach base) × Pr(0 runs | 0 reach base) +

Pr(1 reaches base) × Pr(0 runs | 1 reaches base) +

Pr(2 reach base) × Pr(0 runs | 2 reach base) +

Pr(3 reach base) × Pr(0 runs | 3 reach base)

In order to complete this calculation, all we need is a formula for the proba-
bility that a given number of players get on base. (These will be the probabilities
at the first set of branches in our tree diagram.) Fortunately, this is a well-under-
stood statistical process and can be calculated quite simply as follows:5

5 Many will recognize this as a negative binomial distribution for the number of players who get
on base before 3 outs occur. The simplified model assumes that all outs occur from batters, not
runners. A batter is either out or safe on base.
214 CHAPTER 8

(B + 2) (B + 1) p B (1 – p)3
Pr(B reach base) =
2

where B is the number of players who get on base and p is the probability that a
batter gets on base in a plate appearance. So, the probabilities we need are

(0 + 2) (0 + 1) p 0 (1 – p)3
Pr(0 reach base) = = (1 – p)3
2

(1 + 2) (1 + 1) p 1 (1 – p)3
Pr(1 reaches base) = = 3p (1 – p)3
2

(2 + 2) (2 + 1) p 2 (1 – p)3
Pr(2 reach base) = = 6p 2 (1 – p)3
2

(3 + 2) (3 + 1) p 3 (1 – p)3
Pr(3 reach base) = = 10p 3 (1 – p)3
2

Clearly, a reasonable estimate for p to use in calculations is our old friend the
team on-base percentage.6 Based on our probability formula for B, we can esti-
mate the average number of players to reach base in an inning (B) as follows:7

3p
Average reaching base in an inning: B =
1–p

Through some clever insight into the sequence of hits and walks that produce
runs, D’Esopo and Lefkowitz found that the average number of runners left on
base in their model is

L = Pr(0 runs | 1 reaches base) × [1 – Pr(0 reach base)] +

Pr(0 runs | 2 reach base) × [1 – Pr(0 reach base) – Pr(1 reaches base)] +

Pr(0 runs | 3 reach base) ×[1 – Pr(0 reach base) –

Pr(1 reaches base) – Pr(2 reach base)]

6 D’Esopo and Lefkowitz used a slightly more involved estimate for p. Their estimate was also
based on OBP, but it added errors and subtracted double plays from the numerator. In addition,
it added sacrifice flies to the denominator.
7 A bar over a symbol is often used to denote the average value, as in the average number of base
runners in an inning here.
 T H E C U RVAT U R E O F B A S E B A L L 215

Innings AB BB HBP 1B 2B 3B HR

11,047 42,330 3974 232 7744 1788 324 1159

TABLE 8-1 1959 National League Data

The amazing thing about this model is that these formulas used to calculate
the probability of not scoring provide you with all the tools you need to estimate
the average number of runs scored per inning. The basic principle behind this
result is the Law of Batter Conservation:
Every batter is either out, scores, or is left on base.
Since the model assumes that only batters are out and that runners either
score or are left on base, the average number of runs scored in an inning (R) is
just the average number of players who get on base (B) minus the average number
of runners left on base (L) in an inning. D’Esopo and Lefkowitz called their esti-
mate of the average number of runs scored per inning the Scoring Index, which
(as mentioned earlier) we abbreviate as DLSI.

A DLSI Example
Maybe we can get a better handle on this simulation model if we perform a sam-
ple calculation. The year 1959 was one of the most interesting in baseball his-
tory. It was the only year in the decade from 1955 through 1964 that the Yankees
were not in the World Series. The Dodgers, in only their second year in Los
Angeles, took advantage of the Yankees’ absence to win the series with a team
generally regarded as one of the weakest of all World Champions. The greatest
part of the challenge for the Dodgers was to defeat the powerful Milwaukee
Braves in a single National League playoff game after the conclusion of the reg-
ular 154-game season.8 For our purposes, 1959 marks the beginning of serious
baseball run production models by Lindsey, D’Esopo, and Lefkowitz, so in their
honor we’ll use the 1959 National League for our example. We start with Table
8-1, which provides totals for the National League in 1959.
Run production can be characterized by the probability p of getting on base
estimated by the following:

8 See the essay on manager Fred Haney and the 1959 Milwaukee Braves in The Bill James
Guide to Baseball Managers for a wonderful description of how such a great team as the Braves
of this period could have been upset in their quest for a third consecutive National League title.
216 CHAPTER 8

BB + HBP + 1B + 2B + 3B + HR
p=
AB + BB + HBP

3974 + 232 + 7744 + 1788 + 324 + 1159

= = .32708
42330 + 3974 + 232

and by the proportions of on-base events (walks, singles, etc.):

BB + HBP 4206
f0 = = = .27633
BB + HBP + 1B + 2B + 3B + HR 15,221
1B 7744
f1 = = = .50877
BB + HBP + 1B + 2B + 3B + HR 15,221
2B 1788
f2 = = = .11747
BB + HBP + 1B + 2B + 3B + HR 15,221
3B 324
f3 = = = .02129
BB + HBP + 1B + 2B + 3B + HR 15,221
HR 1159
f4 = = = .07614
BB + HBP + 1B + 2B + 3B + HR 15,221

These are the basic elements used by the model. Batters got on base about
32.7 percent of the time, and of the times that they got on base, 27.6 percent
were via a walk or hit by pitch, 50.9 percent via a single, 11.7 percent via a dou-
ble, 2.1 percent via a triple, and 7.6 percent via a home run.
The most complicated part is the three-step procedure used to calculate the
average number of runners left on base per inning:
1. We calculate the probability of not scoring when 1, 2, or 3 runners
reach base:

Pr(0 runs | 1 reaches base) = 1 – f 4 = 1 – .076 = .924

Pr(0 runs | 2 reach base) = ( f0 + f 1) ( f 1 + f 2) + ( 1 – f 4)f 0

= (.276 + .509) (.509 + .117) + .924 (.276)

= .747

Pr(0 runs | 3 reach base) = Pr(0 runs | 2 reach base) f 0

= .747 × .276

= .206
 T H E C U RVAT U R E O F B A S E B A L L 217

As we might expect, the probability of not scoring at all drops

from 92 percent to 75 percent to 21 percent as more runners reach
base.

2. We calculate the probabilities that 0 batters reach base, exactly 1

batter reaches base, and exactly 2 batters reach base:

Pr(0 reach base) = (1 – p)3 = (1 – .327)3 = .305

Pr(1 reaches base) = 3p (1 – p)3 = 3 × .327 (1 – .327)3 = .299

Pr(2 reach base) = 6p2 (1 – p)3 = 6 × .3272 (1 – .327)3 = .196

3. We then use these values to calculate the average number of run-

ners left on base per inning:

L = Pr(0 runs | 1 reaches base) × [1 – Pr(0 reach base)] + Pr(0 runs | 2 reach base) ×

[1 – Pr(0 reach base) – Pr(1 reaches base)] + Pr(0 runs | 3 reach base) ×

[1 – Pr(0 reach base) – Pr(1 reaches base) – Pr(2 reach base)]

or

L = (.924 × [1 – .305]) + (.747 × [1 – .305 – .299]) +

(.206 × [1 – .305 – .299 – .196]) = .979

The last step is easy. Using p, we can immediately calculate the average number
of runners reaching base per inning:

3p 3 × .32708
B= = = 1.458
1–p 1 – .32708

The average number of runs scored per inning is just the average reaching
base minus the average left on base. Therefore:

DLSI = R = B – L = 1.458 – .979 = .479 runs per inning

is the estimated average number of runs scored per inning by National League
teams in 1959.
Notice that in the course of this calculation, the simulation model required
the computation of other values, such as the average number of runners left on
base, various probabilities of putting runners on base, and probabilities of scor-
ing with runners on base. This makes the calculation somewhat longer than
218 CHAPTER 8

other models, but it does provide the benefit of an added richness to our under-
standing of the game. Using these results in some additional calculations, we
can compute the distribution of runs scored per inning, that is, the probability of
scoring. For example, recall that the probability of not scoring in an inning is cal-
culated as follows:

Pr(0 runs) = Pr(0 reach base) × Pr(0 runs | 0 reach base) +

Pr(1 reaches base) × Pr(0 runs | 1 reaches base) +

Pr(2 reach base) × Pr(0 runs | 2 reach base) +

Pr(3 reach base) × Pr(0 runs | 3 reach base)

We have already calculated most of these values. The only extra value we need
to calculate is:

Pr(3 reach base) = 10p3 (1 – p)3 = 10 × .3273 (1 – .327)3 = .107

Substituting these values, we obtain:

Pr(0 runs) = (.305 × 1) + (.299 × .924) + (.196 × .747) + (.107 × .206) = .750

So, we might expect that no runs were scored in about 75 percent of the innings
played by National League teams in 1959.
D’Esopo and Lefkowitz used such a calculation as a test of their model. They
calculated a distribution of runs scored per inning with their model and com-
pared the result against Lindsey’s data and against similar data they collected
from 100 games in the 1959 National League baseball season. Table 8-2 shows
the data they collected as well as predictions based on our version of their model.
The agreement is quite good, considering the relatively simple assumptions of
the simulation model (no stealing, no bunting, no advancement on outs).
Table 8-2 also shows the average number of runs scored per inning in the
data together with the model prediction. In fact, a total of 5462 runs were scored
in the 1959 National League season over 11,047 innings, for an average of .494
runs per inning. The simulation model prediction is somewhat lower than the
averages from the data.

Lessons from the Simulation

You might at this point ask, if you haven’t asked already, what makes this a sim-
ulation model? After all, the calculation is similar to that for the other models we
have covered (for example, Total Average or Runs Created), except DLSI is more
 T H E C U RVAT U R E O F B A S E B A L L 219

D ATA

Runs Scored Lindsey D'Esopo and DLSI Model

Lefkowitz

0 73.0% 74.4% 75.0%

1 14.6% 12.9% 12.6%

2 7.0% 6.8% 6.7%

3 2.9% 2.9% 3.2%

4 1.4% 2.1% 1.5%

5 0.7% 0.7% 0.6%

6 or more 0.4% 0.3% 0.5%

Average Runs 0.488 0.489 0.479

TABLE 8-2 Runs Scored Per Inning in 1959 National League Season (DLSI Model
Results Compared with Data)

complicated. And you might comment that you thought a baseball simulation was
a computer program that played many games over and over to produce results
that replicated actual game play. While computer programs are the most common
form of simulation today, you should recall that APBA, Strat-O-Matic, and Sports
Illustrated—the board games we discussed in Chapter 1—are simulations too.
These games do not require a computer, although if you want to simulate many
entire seasons, you would have to use a computer version.
The D’Esopo-Lefkowitz model differs from these board games only in the rela-
tive simplicity of its rules and its assumption of a single average level of per-
formance for all hitters. (What distinguishes the D’Esopo-Lefkowitz model from
the other models reviewed is its genesis from the rules of baseball applied in a
probabilistic way.) But we could use the rules they define as well as any assump-
tions we wish for the probability of getting on base and on-base profiles to actu-
ally play games of baseball either as a board game or as a computer program.
We could, for example, construct a game very similar to All-Star Baseball.
The game would be a much simpler one, consisting of a single disk. The disk
would have six slices: walk, single, double, triple, home run, and out. All batters
would use this disk. If the game were to simulate play during the 1959 National
League baseball season, the sizes of the slices would be determined by the data
we just discussed. Recall that the probability of getting on base was p = .32708.
So, according to the rules established by the assumptions of D’Esopo and
Lefkowitz, the probability of getting an out is 1 – p = .67292. The out slice would
220 CHAPTER 8

span an arc of .67292 × 360 = 242 degrees. The remaining 118 degrees would be
divided into five slices for walks and the various hits in accordance with the val-
ues f0, f1, f2, f3, and f4. For example, the home run slice would be:

f 4 × 118 = .07614 × 118 = 9 degrees

If we played this game using the rules for runner advancement assumed by
D’Esopo and Lefkowitz for the equivalent of many seasons of virtual play (com-
pleting all innings until three outs are recorded), we would obtain results for the
runs scored per inning which would exactly match those estimated using the
equations described. The simplicity of the model’s rules and player ability
assumptions allows us to circumvent the whole process of replaying every plate
appearance in every game. The results of playing out the simulation can be
obtained simply through calculation, using a few formulas. This is the strength
of the D’Esopo-Lefkowitz model.
The weakness of the model also lies in its assumptions. The same simplicity
which allows us to capture the information from thousands of seasons of replays
with only a few calculations also means that some richness of detail—from the
running game, “small ball” advancement from outs, and variation from different
player abilities—has not been included. The D’Esopo-Lefkowitz model simulates
baseball with very broad strokes. Nonetheless, as indicated by its distribution of
runs per inning in Table 8-2, the simulation produces quite reasonable results
despite the simplicity of its rules. The model tends to underestimate Team Runs
Scored per Inning, perhaps because of its lack of a more sophisticated set of rules
describing the advancement of runners on outs.9 These could be incorporated
into the more general version of the model developed by Cover and Keilers.
Now that we have some familiarity with the mechanics of calculating runs
per inning with the model, let’s examine some aspects more closely. The model
says that there are two key elements in run production:
• The variable p, which states the probability of getting on base (and
avoiding being out).
• The parameters f0, f1, f2, f3, and f4, which we will refer to
collectively as the on-base profile. This profile describes the
distribution of all on-base events considered in the model (walk,

9 Using RMSE tests such as those in Chapter 6, we find DLSI to be one of the best models tested.
It has smaller RMSEs than the basic Runs Created formula (which uses a comparable set of
data), but larger RMSEs than Runs Created Tech-1, which has the advantage of using more
data (e.g., stolen bases, caught stealing, sacrifice flies).
 T H E C U RVAT U R E O F B A S E B A L L 221

hit by pitcher, single, double, triple, and home run), and it always
sums to 1.
How much can these elements vary from team to team and from year to year?
Considering the modern era of baseball, from 1901 through 1999, a typical value
for p is .33, close to the 1959 National League average. The 1908 Brooklyn
Dodgers had the lowest p, with .266 batters reaching base per opportunity. Lest
you think that such a low probability of getting on base is a phenomenon only of
the deadball era, consider that this value was challenged by the New York Mets
in 1965 (with p = .278). The 1950 Boston Red Sox had the highest (p = .385),
almost 50 percent higher than the minimum value. Not surprisingly, the quin-
tessential on-base batter, Ted Williams, was on this team, although he played lit-
tle more than half of the season. And a team as recent as the 1994 New York
Yankees had an exceptionally high value (p = .377), albeit in a strike-shortened
season. So there is, from team to team and season to season, considerable varia-
tion in this measure of performance.
Table 8-3 shows the range of values for each component of the on-base profile
statistic. The table shows a great deal of diversity within each component. For
example, the majority of on-base events for some teams were singles (as high as
69 percent for the 1902 St. Louis Cardinals), while others had less than half (as
low as 39 percent for the 1999 Oakland A’s). However, since the components for
each team must add up to 1, they are not independent of each other; you can’t
increase one component without decreasing at least one of the others. What we
are interested in finding is a realistic combination of components which pro-
duces the most extreme (low and high) results in run production.
To understand how the on-base profile affects run production, we assume
that the typical on-base probability p is .33. We calculated the run production of
each team from 1901–1999 using its own unique on-base profile, but using the

BB+HBP 1B 2B 3B HR
f0 f1 f2 f3 f4

Maximum .378 .685 .177 .069 .118

1949 AL Phi. 1902 NL St.L. 1997 NL Mon. 1903 AL Bos. 1961 AL NY

Average .277 .527 .119 .026 .051

Minimum .174 .391 .072 .005 .002

1921 NL Phi. 1999 AL Oak. 1902 NL Phi. 1998 AL Balt. 1908 AL Chi.

TABLE 8-3 Range of Team On-Base Profile Values (1901–1999)

222 CHAPTER 8

same on-base probability (p = .33) for all teams. We then found the teams with
the highest (1947 New York Giants)10 and the lowest (1908 Chicago White
Sox)11 run production. Since the on-base probability was held constant, the only
difference in run production was their on-base profiles. The bar charts in Figure
8-3 compare the on-base profiles of these two teams. Remember, these are not
the teams with the highest and lowest run production overall, but the teams
that had the best and worst on-base profiles if the probability of getting on base
is kept at .33 for all teams.
Only 10 percent of the 1908 White Sox on-base events were extra-base hits
(not walks or singles), while almost 25 percent of the 1947 Giants on-base events
were extra-base hits. As we would expect, the 1947 Giants have a more produc-
tive on-base profile than the 1908 White Sox because of the shift of walks and
singles to extra-base hits. In fact, when we compare the values in these on-base
profiles to the ranges of the individual components in Table 8-3, we see that the
profiles are not at all extreme, except in home runs, where the 1947 Giants have
one of the highest fractions, while the 1908 White Sox have the lowest.

26.3% 31.8% 48.8% 56.8% 11.2% 8.8% 2.4% 2.5% 11.3% 0.2%
60%
PERCENTAGE OF ON-BASE EVENTS

50%

40%

30%

20%

10%

1947 New York Giants

0%
1908 Chicago White Sox

BB+HBP 1B 2B 3B HR

FIGURE 8-3 The best and worst team on-base profiles (1901–1999).

10 The top on-base profiles included such recent teams as the 1994 Cleveland Indians and the
1997 Seattle Mariners, as well as the legendary 1961 New York Yankees, with Maris and
Mantle (which had the highest fraction of home runs, f4 = 11.8 percent). Apparently, one factor
that separates the 1947 Giants from these other high on-base profile teams is their higher
fraction of triples, possibly a result of the unusually deep center field of the Giants’ home park,
the Polo Grounds. The 1990s included some teams with low production on-base profiles; the
two lowest were the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Boston Red Sox, both from 1992.
11 Not only did these White Sox play during the deadball era, but their home field, South Side
Park, was “the poorest hitting field in major league history” according to Michael Schell in
Baseball’s All-Time Best Hitters.
 T H E C U RVAT U R E O F B A S E B A L L 223

How does the predicted run production change for our simulation model as
either the on-base profile or the probability of getting on base changes? Let’s see
how the predicted run production will change if we take each of our two extreme
on-base profiles, keep them fixed, and change p, the probability of getting on base.
Figure 8-4 plots the predicted runs per inning in this scenario. The upper line in
this chart shows the predicted runs per inning for the 1947 Giants on-base pro-
file, while the lower line shows the predicted runs per inning for the 1908 White
Sox on-base profile. The bullets identify the predicted runs per inning for each
team for the actual historical on-base probability p of each team.
The 1947 Giants had an on-base probability near the historical team average,
but the 1908 White Sox had an on-base probability way below average. Following
the 1908 White Sox line upwards, we see that a team with a poor on-base profile
could be as productive as the 1947 Giants if they could compensate for their lack
of power with an increase in on-base probability near the historical maximum of
.385. Since these are the best and worst on-base profiles, and since the plot
encompasses the highest and lowest team p-values from 1901–1999, the pre-
dicted run production for all teams in the twentieth century lie in the area
bounded by these two lines.
Looking at the 1947 Giants profile, we see that run production does not
increase linearly with the probability of getting on base; that is, the line curves

1.0

0.9
1947 New York Giants
On-Base Profile
0.8

0.7
1908 Chicago White Sox
0.6 On-Base Profile

0.5

0.4
RUNS PER INNING

0.3

0.2

0.1

0.0
.26 .28 .30 .32 .34 .36 .38 .40

PROBABILITY OF ON-BASE EVENT (p)

FIGURE 8-4 DLSI for best and worst on-base profiles as the probability of getting on base
changes. (Bullets [•] indicate DLSI for team’s actual value of p.)
224 CHAPTER 8

upward so that run production increases faster as p increases. The 1908 White
Sox profile shows a similar (though slightly less pronounced) effect. The vertical
distance between the two lines shows the effect of different on-base profiles; that
is the effect of varying the distribution of different types of hits. Increasing p
increases run production, and improving the on-base profile increases run pro-
duction, but they improve it in different ways.

DLSI and Runs per Play

Predicted run production for the 1959 National League falls somewhere in the
middle of the extremes shown by the Giants and White Sox. Taking another look
at the 1959 National League data, what would happen if we added one more
walk? That is, keeping everything else the same, how would run production
change if the total number of walks were 3975 instead of 3974? Redoing (with
greater precision) the calculation described earlier, with this very slight varia-
tion, we find that run production would be .4784369 runs per inning, or .0000336
runs per inning higher than with the historical data (.4784033). In 1959, the
National League played 11,047 innings. Multiplying this change by the total
number of innings gives us the total change in runs

.0000336 × 11047 = .37

Doesn’t this seem familiar? It looks very close to the run value for a walk or
hit by pitcher in the Lindsey, Palmer, and regression models described in
Chapter 7. Perhaps the result will continue to match if we do the same thing for
singles, doubles, triples, home runs, and outs. Table 8-4 shows the variant data,
the predicted change in runs per inning, and the total increase in runs from the
play (by multiplying the increase and the number of innings).
Figure 8-5 compares the changes in run production with run values for the
same events in the Palmer model. The values are very similar. The biggest dif-
ference is in the run value for home runs, which is given more value by the sim-
ulation model than by the 1959 NL data. Perhaps this is a reflection of the sim-
ulation’s assumptions about runner advancement. If the simulation does not
allow runners to advance on outs, it may give added weight to home runs, which
needless to say are very good at advancing runners. Another possibility is that
the increased value of home runs stems from the assumption that runners are
never thrown out on the bases. If a walk is followed by a home run, the runner
will always score; in Palmer’s model, he might be erased on a double play or
caught stealing. Similarly, the value of a double is certainly reduced by the
 T H E C U RVAT U R E O F B A S E B A L L 225

“ W H AT I F ” 1 9 5 9 N AT I O N A L L E A G U E D ATA RUN CHANGE

Per Per
Play AB BB/HBP 1B 2B 3B HR inning play

Walk/HBP 42,330 4207 7744 1788 324 1159 .0000336 .37

Single 42,331 4206 7745 1788 324 1159 .0000476 .53

Double 42,331 4206 7744 1789 324 1159 .0000662 .73

Triple 42,331 4206 7744 1788 325 1159 .0000895 .99

Home Run 42,331 4206 7744 1788 324 1160 .0001434 1.58

Out 42,331 4206 7744 1788 324 1159 -.0000263 -.29

TABLE 8-4 Change in Run Production in 1959 National League Season When Increasing
Each Play Count by 1 (Indicated in Boldface)

.37 .33 .53 .46 .73 .80 .99 1.02 1.58 1.40 –.29 –.25
2.0

1.5

1.0

0.5
RUN VALUE

0.0

1959 NL Simulation
–0.5 Palmer

Walk/HBP Single Double Triple Home Run Out

FIGURE 8-5 Run values for plays in the 1959 National League season: DLSI values
vs. Palmer’s Linear Weights values.

assumption that doubles never drive in runners from first.12 Still, the agree-
ment in run values is very good, considering the simplicity of the simulation’s
assumptions.
The changes in run production predicted by the simulation as we add an addi-
tional event to the data is one way of measuring run value per event. Another
way of doing this is to calculate the slope of the on-base profiles in graphs like
the one in Figure 8-4. However, as we observed in Figure 8-4, these on-base pro-
file lines are curved upwards; that is, their slopes increase as the probability of

12 These last two observations—on home runs and doubles—were suggested by David Grabiner
in personal correspondence.
226 CHAPTER 8

Team Innings AB BB HBP 1B 2B 3B HR

Cleveland 1458 5634 743 55 1079 309 32 209

Minnesota 1449 5495 500 49 1030 285 30 105

TABLE 8-5 1999 Data for the Cleveland Indians and the Minnesota Twins

getting on base increases. Does this mean that plays may have different run val-
ues depending on a team’s ability to get runners on base?
Let’s test this with an example. In 1999, the Cleveland Indians scored more
runs than any other team (1009)13 while the Minnesota Twins scored the fewest
(686). According to the simulation model, would an extra hit have had more
value to the Indians than it would to the Twins? Table 8-5 gives the 1999 season
data for these two teams.14 The major differences between them appears to
reside in their abilities to draw walks and hit home runs.
What run values do we get if we add 1 event to each play type, as we did in
Table 8-4 for the 1959 National League? Figure 8-6 displays the results. As we
expected, each walk and hit has more run value for the better offensive team, the
Cleveland Indians. Even each out is more damaging to the Indians than to the
Twins. This is because each out is one less opportunity to score runs, and since the
Indians are more productive, the out has a greater negative effect on runs scored.
As we suspected from our observation of the curves in Figure 8-4, the run values
of plays appear to vary depending on the run productivity of the team. In particu-
lar, the linear models of run production (Lindsey, Palmer, regression, and even
Total Average) appear to be special cases of this more general simulation model.
Essentially, they provide good estimates of run values for average or typical per-
formances, but do not account for changes in run value for more extreme cases.
Does this mean that they are not useful in evaluating offensive performance
of players? Not necessarily, as we shall see.

Where Do We Stand?
After reviewing many models, we find that they really divide into two groups:
additive and product models.

13 The fifth highest total in this century and the highest since the Boston Red Sox posted 1027
runs in 1950.
14 The number of innings was estimated by multiplying the number of games by 9.
 T H E C U RVAT U R E O F B A S E B A L L 227

.38 .46 .55 .64 .77 .84 1.03 1.10 1.63 1.67 –.30 –.43
2.0

1.5

1.0

0.5

0.0
RUN VALUE

–0.5
1999 Minnesota Twins

–1.0 1999 Cleveland Indians

Walk/HBP Single Double Triple Home Run Out

FIGURE 8-6 Run values of different plays as estimated by the DLSI model for the 1999
Cleveland Indians and Minnesota Twins.

Additive Models
These are the models in which each play is given a value. The values for all plays
which occur are summed. In order to account for differences in opportunity, the
sum is divided by a representative total for the number of chances to bat. The
models often differ in the set of plays considered.
For Batting Average, hits are the only plays considered. Each hit has the
same value, 1. These values are summed, one for each hit, and then divided by
the number of at-bats, the quantity that represents opportunity. Slugging
Percentage is the same as Batting Average, except that each hit is given a dif-
ferent value, the number of bases attained. On-Base Percentage is also the same
as Batting Average, except it includes more plays, walks and hit by pitcher; it
also expands the number of opportunities considered from just at-bats to
(almost) all plate appearances.
Total Average, also an additive model, combined elements of the Slugging
Percentage and the On-Base Percentage. Each hit was given a value equal to the
number of bases, as in Slugging Percentage, and walks/HBPs were each given
the value 1. Total Average also extended the plays included by giving each stolen
base the value of 1. A notable innovation in Total Average was using the number
of outs (not at-bats or plate appearances) as the dividing measure of opportunity.
Total Average provided a significant improvement over the three MLB-recog-
nized measures of offensive prowess (AVG, SLG, OBP) in its ability to estimate
annual team run production per game.
228 CHAPTER 8

Lindsey and Palmer basically used the same framework as in Total Average,
but used estimates of the average number of runs each play produced as the play
values. They developed these values from play-by-play analysis of actual
(Lindsey) and simulated (Palmer) games. This gave their values a more solid log-
ical foundation than the other additive models.
Finally, several researchers used least squares linear regression on annual
team offensive data to derive play values comparable to those of Lindsey and
Palmer. The play values derived from regression provided the best fit (as meas-
ured by RMSE) to annual team run production per game. However, in some
cases (as we observed, for example, with the high value attributed to sacrifice
flies), the values obtained from regression may have captured other attributes
inappropriate for the evaluation of individual players.

Product Models
We have examined two types of product models. One, the BRA model, multi-
plies On-Base Percentage and Slugging Percentage. This is a departure from
the additive model approach, where the weights from different events are sim-
ply added. Here, after weighting the events, the result of getting on base is
multiplied by the weighted counts of events. Cook’s Scoring Index also used
this principle, as did James in his Runs Created model, which produced the
best fit to team data in this group.
The second product model type is the DLSI simulation developed by D’Esopo
and Lefkowitz (and generalized by Cover and Keilers). Here the rules of baseball
were used to develop formulas which estimated the expected runs scored per
inning if millions of simulated games of a simple form of baseball were played.
The model says that the average number of runs per inning is the average num-
ber of runners to reach base minus the average left on base:

DLSI = R = B – L

The average number to reach base should look familiar:

3p
B=
1–p

Remember that a good estimate for p is the On-Base Percentage, the fraction of
plate appearances in which the team gets on base. Since not getting on base
means that you were out, then 1 – p is the fraction of plate appearances in which
the team gets out. So, B is a ratio of on-base events to out events. This ratio has
 T H E C U RVAT U R E O F B A S E B A L L 229

elements of to On-Base Percentage (ratio of on-base events to plate appearances)

and Total Average (the ratio of bases to outs).
Another interesting feature of the DLSI model is the assumption that each
player to reach base is a potential run, and the team’s inability to advance the run-
ner subtracts from this value to find the number that actually score. At this point
it diverges from Total Average, which takes the basic ability to get on base and
then adds extra bases from hits. Another way to perform this subtraction is
through multiplication by a value less than 1. This is what you do every day when
you get a discount at a store. You pay less than the retail price, but instead of get-
ting some amount off the retail price, you pay a fraction of the retail price, where
the fraction is a number less than 1. So, DLSI could also be calculated as follows:

DLSI = R = B × fraction

In this case, the fraction is the percentage of runners that score. So we see that
the D’Esopo-Lefkowitz model can be viewed as another product model, a variant
of BRA, where B assumes the role of On-Base Percentage and the discounting
fraction assumes the role of the Slugging Percentage.
In order to summarize how well each model’s estimates are correlated with
run production, we took our most complete set of team data (1954–1999) and
found the best line (and its associated RMSE) for each model for all the 46 years
of data as a whole (instead of within each year, as was done in Chapter 6). The
models are listed in Table 8-6—according to RMSE from low to high, so that the
models at the top were correlated best with run production. We have identified
each model as an additive or product model. To give some perspective, the high-
est team run production in this era was 6.228 runs per game (the 1999
Cleveland Indians), the lowest was 2.858 (the 1968 Chicago White Sox), and the
average was 4.323. The standard deviation is 0.563 runs per game. Remember
that the standard deviation is the RMSE for the simplest of models, picking the
average (4.323) as the estimate for all teams in all years.
We notice right off the bat that the MLB sanctioned models (AVG, OBP, and
SLG) provide the worst correlation with run production. Still, as poor as AVG,
SLG, and OBP are as estimators, they do reduce the RMSE substantially, from
.563 down to the .3 to .2 runs per game range. Major improvements are found
by adding OBP and SLG to obtain OPS, or by multiplying them to obtain BRA.
From this point on, improvements in estimation are much less dramatic, no
more than a reduction of RMSE from .16 to .14 runs per game. OPS and BRA
have definite advantages in the simplicity of their calculation (especially if
SLG and OBP are already at hand), but the four additive and product models
230 CHAPTER 8

RMSE
Model Abbreviation Type (Runs/Game)

Regression (without SF) LSLR Additive .1423

Runs Created (Tech-1) RC/G Product .1459

Linear Weights LWTS/G Additive .1489

D’Esopo-Lefkowitz Scoring Index DLSI Product .1526

Batter’s Run Average BRA Product .1565

Total Average TA Additive .1591

Runs Created (Basic) RC/G Product .1595

On-Base plus Slugging OPS Additive .1595

Slugging Percentage SLG Additive .2175

On-Base Percentage OBP Additive .2529

Batting Average AVG Additive .3169

TABLE 8-6 RMSEs for Various Models of Team Run Production per Game (1954–1999)

at the top of the list have the edge when it comes to fit (lower RMSE). DLSI
and LWTS/G have additional credibility because of their construction through
a logical analysis of the effect of plays within games. The regression model has
the best fit, but this is really a fait accompli, since the model was designed
from this same data.

Player Evaluations in the Best Models

Despite the differences in these models, they demonstrate a remarkable simi-
larity in their relative evaluations of players. Let’s look at the 740 players with
more than 5000 plate appearances through the 1999 season. Figure 8-7 plots the
evaluation of these players by the Runs Created model vs. the Linear Weights
model. Each point represents the evaluation of a player’s hitting career using
the two models. Several players with extraordinarily high evaluations (Ruth,
Williams, Gehrig, Hamilton, and Thomas) are noted. We see that both models
place these players at extremely high levels. The other players form a very tight
band; when LWTS/G rates a player highly, RC/G does so as well.
The line shown in Figure 8-7 is the best line fit of the player evaluations by
the two models. If we examine the variation of RC/G player evaluations about
this line, we find that the differences between the RC/G evaluation and the line
have a standard deviation of .17 runs per game. This means that using LWTS/G,
we can predict the RC/G measure to within .17 runs per game for two-thirds of
the players and within .34 runs per game for 95 percent of the players. Given
 T H E C U RVAT U R E O F B A S E B A L L 231

16

Babe Ruth
Ted Williams
12 Lou Gehrig
Frank Thomas
Billy Hamilton
Barry Bonds
8
RC/G (RUNS PER GAME)

Rickey Henderson

–2 0 2 4 6 8

LWTS/G (RUNS PER GAME)

FIGURE 8-7 Career player run production estimated by the Runs Created and Linear
Weights models.

that RC/G player evaluations can range from 2 to 14 runs per game, this is very
good agreement.
There is some indication that LWTS places greater value on speed than RC
does. We have identified three players whose RC/G evaluations are low given
their LWTS/G evaluations: Billy Hamilton, Barry Bonds, and Rickey Henderson,
all exceptionally good runners. Other players with similar LWTS/G ratings have
higher RC/G ratings.15
One way to examine this in more detail is to create a residual plot, which
shows the difference between the actual value and a predicted value. Here, the
residual is the difference between the actual RC/G player evaluation and the
RC/G evaluation predicted from LWTS/G (represented by the line in Figure 8-7).
Figure 8-8 presents the residual plot for the best line in Figure 8-7.
As an example, consider Lou Gehrig. The RC/G evaluation of Gehrig’s run
production is 11.84 runs per game. The LWTS/G evaluation of Gehrig’s run pro-

15 According to The Hidden Game of Baseball, Palmer’s simulation produced lower SB values,
closer to .20 runs. He raised the value to .30 runs since he was persuaded that stolen bases
were more apt to occur in close games than they were to occur randomly as assumed in his
simulation. This rationale for increasing the SB value is weak, whether a game is close or not
does not enter into run production. It is possible that stolen bases occur more frequently in
base-out situations (such as runner on first base and two outs) when the extra base has more
value. Within the context of Palmer’s model, this rationale for increasing SB value makes more
sense than the “close game” argument he gave in The Hidden Game of Baseball.
232 CHAPTER 8

1.2
RESIDUAL (ACTUAL RC/G MINUS PREDICTED RC/G)

1. Vince Coleman
12 2. Dave Lopes
11
0.8 3. Tim Raines
10
4. Joe Morgan

5. Eric Davis
0.4
6. Rickey Henderson
9
7. Billy Hamilton
0.0
8. Barry Bonds

9. Frank Thomas

3 8 10. Lou Gehrig

–0.4
2 4 5 7
1 11. Ted Williams
6
12. Babe Ruth
–0.8

2 4 6 8 10 12 14

RC/G PREDICTED BY LWTS/G

FIGURE 8-8 Career player run production: RC/G residuals vs. RC/G values predicted by
LWTS/G.

duction is 5.661 runs per game above average. The best line in Figure 8-7 says
that RC/G and LWTS/G are so closely related that a good estimate of a player’s
RC/G can be found from LWTS/G using the following formula:

RC/G estimate = 4.41 + 1.1914 × LWTS/G

For Gehrig, this means that:

RC/G estimate = 4.41 + 1.1914 × 5.661 = 11.15

The residual for this estimate is simply the difference between the actual RC/G
evaluation (11.84) and the RC/G estimate predicted by LWTS/G (11.15) or .69 runs
per game. As we can see from Figure 8-8, this is a very large residual compared to
most others, which lie between –.4 and +.4 runs per game. So, even though RC/G
and LWTS/G both agree that Gehrig had one of the best offensive records of all
players, there is some disagreement over the degree to which it was better.
What the residual plot allows us to do is to investigate the departures from
the best line in Figure 8-7 in greater detail. We have noted some other players
with large negative residuals—including Hamilton, Bonds, and Henderson, who
have large departures from the line. Now the residual plot allows us to see other
players whose RC/G values are below the best line in Figure 8-7, and several are
likely to be familiar to contemporary fans: Vince Coleman, Eric Davis, Joe
Morgan, Tim Raines, and Dave Lopes were all speedy players. The plot provides
 T H E C U RVAT U R E O F B A S E B A L L 233

further evidence that LWTS and RC appear to differ over the value of speed (e.g.,
stolen bases) in producing runs.
The residual plot has an added interesting feature. Looking back at Figure 8-7,
we might have noticed some slight curvature in the relationship between RC/G
and LWTS/G. If the relationship were straight we would expect the best line to
shoot right through the cloud of points, with some points below the line and oth-
ers above it in all areas of the plot. However, points on the extreme left end of
Figure 8-7 and those at the extreme right end (e.g., Ruth, Williams, Gehrig) tend
to be above the best line. Does this tell us the relationship is not a straight line,
but curves instead? The residual plot in Figure 8-8 confirms this. The line in that
plot indicates a smooth fit that balances points above and below. This line indi-
cates the true curved nature of the relationship, and makes it easier to see by
accentuating the curvature. (Still, looking closely at Figure 8-7, one can see the
curvature there as well.)
What is the reason for this curvature? Both models fit team run production
data very well and seem to agree very well in the general player evaluations. But
disagreement between the models tends to increase as we depart—in either
direction—from the average players. And this seems to be especially true for the
Olympian players such as Gehrig.

Player Evaluations on an Average Team

Perhaps the reason for the discrepancy between the results predicted by the
RC/G and LWTS/G models lies not with the models themselves but with how
they are applied to evaluate players. The LWTS model, when applied to player
data, rates the player on how many more runs are created by the player than by
an average player. In Figure 8-7, we see that it is possible for a player’s LWTS
rating to be negative. That is, the player produces fewer runs than the average
player. Of course, in Figure 8-7, we were looking only at players who had sub-
stantial major league careers, so the great majority had to be productive offen-
sively. Players with negative ratings (such as the infielders Mark Belanger,
Ozzie Guillen, Larry Bowa, Don Kessinger, and Bobby Richardson, as well as the
catchers Jim Hegan and Bob Boone) must have had very valuable defensive
skills in order to compensate for their lack of run production.
All product models (such as RC) take a different approach. They evaluate the
player not relatively (with respect to an average player) but absolutely—in isola-
tion, not within any standard context. The player is evaluated in accordance
with how well a team composed exclusively of that player would produce runs.
234 CHAPTER 8

16
Mark McGwire

12 Larry Walker

Barry Bonds
Manny Ramirez Sammy Sosa
8
RC/G (RUNS PER GAME)

Rickey Henderson

–4 –2 0 2 4 6 8 10

LWTS/G (RUNS PER GAME)

FIGURE 8-9 1998 player run production estimated by the RC and LWTS models.

1.2
1. Rickey Henderson

5 6 2. Manny Ramirez
0.8
(ACTUAL RC/G MINUS PREDICTED RC/G)

3. Sammy Sosa

4. Barry Bonds
0.4
5. Larry Walker

0.0 4 6. Mark McGwire

2 3

–0.4

1
RESIDUAL

–0.8

–1.2
0 5 10 15

RC/G PREDICTED BY LWTS/G

FIGURE 8-10 1998 player run production: RC/G residuals vs. RC/G values predicted
by LWTS/G.
 T H E C U RVAT U R E O F B A S E B A L L 235

Therefore, product models always produce a positive result for their evaluation
of players. They estimate the cumulative number of runs produced, while LWTS
estimates a differential between this player and the average player. The advan-
tage to the RC method is that it is not necessary to find or define a standard
against which to evaluate each player.
Unfortunately, there is a down side to product models as well. They tend to be
unrealistic for players at either end of the offensive production spectrum. Let’s
look at a very extreme example in recent memory, Mark McGwire in 1998. Not
only did McGwire hit home runs at a record pace in 1998, but when he wasn’t
trotting around the bases he very frequently walked to first base. McGwire had
162 walks (which outnumbered his 152 hits); next highest in walks was Barry
Bonds, with 130. The reason, of course, for walking McGwire is to avoid his
power and leave it to the next man in the lineup to knock in the runs.
But what if the next batter in the lineup is . . . Mark McGwire? The walk then
becomes an extraordinarily effective force in producing runs. There is really no
rationale for pitching carefully and giving the previous batter (Mark McGwire)
a walk just so you can face the next batter (Mark McGwire) with an additional
runner on base. This is just the situation created when the product models are
used to estimate the cumulative number of runs produced by a lineup consisting
of one player. The method evaluates players in a context which is outside the
realm of possibility (imagine a team of McGwire clones!) and so exaggerates the
effectiveness of players at the extreme ends of offensive productivity.
Figure 8-9 is a plot similar to that in Figure 8-7 except that the players eval-
uated are those from the 1998 season with 100 or more at bats. The figure dis-
plays the same curvature as seen in Figure 8-7. The residual plot in Figure 8-10
(constructed from Figure 8-9 just as the residual plot in Figure 8-8 was con-
structed from Figure 8-7) emphasizes this curvature. Mark McGwire and Larry
Walker stand apart from all other players in both figures. The curvature is a
result of the players being evaluated by RC/G with respect to teams composed
only of that player in isolation. Is it possible to use RC/G to evaluate a player in
the more appropriate context of an average team?
Let’s see what happens if we analyze these players using RC/G with a differ-
ent method. We will do this analysis within the context of an average team in
1998. Table 8-7 summarizes the steps in the calculation of the data used. The
second column of Table 8-7 shows the average statistics for a team in 1998.
These values were obtained simply by dividing the Major League totals by 30,
which is the number of MLB teams. The last line of the table is the number of
outs estimated from the data, calculated as follows:
236 CHAPTER 8

Outs = AB – H + CS + SH + SF

Using this formula, we estimate that the 1998 Average Team had 4241.3 outs in
the season:

Average team outs = 5570.6 – 1482.97 + 50.13 + 56.83 + 46.73 = 4241.3

Now what would happen if we replaced an average player on this team with
the 1998 version of Mark McGwire (something every GM dreams of). Since the
number of outs a team has in a season should be relatively fixed, we will do this
by preserving the number of outs the average team had in the 1998 season. The
third column lists McGwire’s impressive 1998 offensive data. Using the same
formula, we estimate that McGwire required 361 outs to achieve his totals:

McGwire outs = 509 – 152 + 0 + 0 + 4 = 361

We will now replace one average player on the 1998 Average Team with Mark
McGwire. To do this, we will first calculate what the 1998 Average Team’s data
would look like if we subtracted one average player with the same number of
outs as McGwire had in 1998. So, removing this one average player reduces the
Average Team’s data by a percentage equal to McGwire’s outs divided by the
Average Team’s outs, or:

361 / 4241.3 = 8.5%

The fourth column of Table 8-7 shows the data for the 1998 Average Team with
one less average player. Each value is simply 100 percent – 8.5 percent = 91.5
percent of the 1998 Average Team values in the second column of the table.
Now, in order to see what the 1998 Average Team would have been like with
Big Mac replacing one of its average players, all we have to do is add Mac’s data
in column 3 to the reduced team data in column 4. The resulting data are shown
in the fifth column of Table 8-7. Notice that the number of outs is exactly the
same as that for the 1998 Average Team in the second column of Table 8-7.
Out of curiosity, we might want to see how much this team differs from the
1998 Average Team. These results are displayed in the sixth column. They were
calculated by subtracting the second column from the fifth column. The Average
Team with Mac would have had about 35 more at-bats and 26 more hits. This is
because McGwire had a better-than-average chance of getting a hit, so an equal
number of outs produces more hits and thus more at-bats. With Mac, the Average
Team would have had a whopping 56 more home runs and 115 more walks,
 T H E C U RVAT U R E O F B A S E B A L L 237

Team Without Avg. Team Avg. Team With Mac

Play Avg. Team McGwire 1 Avg. Player With Mac Minus Avg. Team

AB 5570.6 509 5096.5 5605.5 34.9

H 1483.0 152 1356.7 1508.7 25.8

2B 291.3 21 266.5 287.5 –3.8

3B 30.0 0 27.4 27.4 –2.6

HR 168.8 70 154.4 224.4 55.6

BB 548.2 162 501.6 663.6 115.3

HBP 52.9 6 48.4 54.4 1.5

IBB 35.6 28 32.5 60.5 25.0

SB 109.5 1 100.1 101.1 –8.3

CS 50.1 0 45.9 45.9 –4.3

SH 56.8 0 52.0 52.0 –4.8

SF 46.7 4 42.8 46.8 0.0

Outs 4241.3 361 3880.3 4241.3 0

RUNS CREATED • • 770.44 950.48 180.04

TABLE 8-7 Offensive Data for Average 1998 Team If Mark McGwire Replaced an
Average Player

approximately 33 percent and 20 percent increases, respectively. Incredibly, the

number of intentional walks would increase by about 70 percent.
We are now ready for the final steps. First, we apply the RC formula to the
data for the 1998 Average Team without one average player (fourth column of
Table 8-7):

(H + BB + HBP – CS – GIDP) [TB + .26 (BB – IBB + HBP) + .52 (SH + SF + SB)]
RC =
AB + BB + HBP + SH + SF

Doing this, we find that this team is expected to generate a total of 770.44 runs
using 3880.3 outs. The next step is to apply the RC formula again, this time to the
data for the 1998 Average Team with McGwire (fifth column of Table 8-7). We find
that this team is expected to generate a total of 950.48 runs using 4241.3 outs.
So we conclude that when his performance is considered within the context of
an average team in the 1998 season, McGwire would add 950.48 – 770.44 = 180.04
runs using 361 outs, the difference between the runs the team would be expected
to score with and without him. Since 361 outs is equivalent to 361/27 = 13.37
games, McGwire’s contribution is 180.04/13.37 = 13.47 runs per game. This is
1.36 runs per game less than the 14.83 value estimated by James’s standard
238 CHAPTER 8

method for evaluating individual players.16 So, placing McGwire within a real-
istic team context reduces his RC/G estimate by almost 10 percent.
To what extent are other players affected by making a similar adjustment?
Figure 8-11 plots the change in Runs Created per Game for each player vs. the
original Runs Created per Game estimate. What has happened is that the ad-
justed RC evaluation method has reduced the RC/G estimates for the best and
worst players while providing little or no effect on those more typical players in
the center of the spectrum.
What are the implications of this adjustment relative to the comparability of
the RC and LWTS evaluations of players? Figure 8-12 replicates our analysis
from Figure 8-9, except that that Figure 8-12 uses the adjusted RC player eval-
uation method instead of James’s standard method. A new best line is plotted,
and it now appears to go straight through the points, with no bend in points
above the line at the extreme ends. This is confirmed when we examine the
adjusted RC/G residuals in Figure 8-13. Not only is the plot flat, with no evident
curvature, but the spread of the points has been reduced as well.
This analysis indicates that much of the difference between the Linear
Weights and Runs Created models lies not only in the models themselves, but

0.4

0.0

–0.4
Barry Bonds
ADJUSTED RC/G – RC/G

–0.8 Tim Bogar

Larry Walker

–1.2

Mark McGwire

–1.6
0 4 8 12 16

RC/G (RUNS PER GAME)

FIGURE 8-11 Change in Runs Created evaluation of 1998 players:

(adjusted RC/G – standard RC/G) vs. standard RC/G.

16 Apparently, James has developed a similar method for adjusting his Runs Created evaluation
for individual players. We have not seen the method, but the description in the 1999 Big Bad
Baseball Book indicates that it follows principles similar to those presented here, except that
at-bats rather than outs are used as the basis for player replacement.
 T H E C U RVAT U R E O F B A S E B A L L 239

16

14
Mark McGwire

12
ADJUSTED RC/G (RUNS PER GAME)

Larry Walker

10 Barry Bonds
Sammy Sosa
8

6 Rickey Henderson

–4 –2 0 2 4 6 8 10

LWTS/G (RUNS PER GAME)

FIGURE 8-12 1998 player run production using the adjusted RC and LWTS models.

1.2
1. Rickey Henderson
(ADJUSTED RC/G MINUS PREDICTED ADJ. RC/G)

2. Sammy Sosa
0.8
3. Barry Bonds

4. Mark McGwire
0.4
5. Larry Walker
5
0.0

2
4
–0.4 3

1
RESIDUAL

–0.8

–1.2

0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16

ADJUSTED RC/G VALUE PREDICTED BY LWTS/G

FIGURE 8-13 1998 player run production: adjusted RC/G residuals vs. adjusted RC/G
values predicted by LWTS/G.
240 CHAPTER 8

how they are used to evaluate players. Also we see that each model has its advan-
tages. If we wish to evaluate players, the Linear Weights model is simpler than
the Runs Created model. However, the Runs Created model has greater flexibil-
ity in its ability to analyze run production beyond the context of an average team.
And yet even with these differences, there is a strong correlation between:
1. each model with team runs scored; and
2. the two models themselves.
Thus, in evaluating players, a fan can’t go too far wrong using either of these
models for evaluating players.

Sorting Out Strengths and Weaknesses

Let’s review what we have learned about evaluating players:
1. The batting performance of players should be measured with
respect to the number of runs they contribute to team offense.
2. If these player evaluations are normalized with respect to the
number of opportunities the player had to produce offensively, the
number of outs is a better measure than at-bats or plate
appearances for this purpose. Number of outs can be converted to
equivalent games by dividing by 27 (a theoretical standard).
3. The standard measures used by Major League Baseball and the
media were the worst evaluators of offensive performance among
those reviewed.
4. A model’s correlation with runs produced by teams in a season is
an important measure to establish its capability to estimate run
production. However, to blindly use one model over another just
because its correlation is higher (or its predictive error is lower) is
not wise. The model should be checked to insure that its structure
is a logical representation of our understanding of baseball.
5. A simulation model (the DLSI model) emulates the most basic
elements of baseball play in such a way that run production can
be reasonably modeled without the need to actually play out the
simulation using random number generators.
6. Models can be described as either additive or product. Product
models are a better reflection of the curved nature of run production,
but additive models are simpler to use in evaluating players.
 T H E C U RVAT U R E O F B A S E B A L L 241

7. The best of the additive models (Linear Weights) and product

models (Runs Created) are related to logical constructs derived
from actual baseball play. Linear Weights are constructed from
data analyses and simulation, while Runs Created is related to
the basic equations of the D’Esopo-Lefkowitz model. These two
models are strongly correlated in their player evaluations,
especially after the Runs Created model is applied in the context
of an Average Team.
There are many issues we have left unresolved. Much of this book places
great emphasis on the difference between observed performance (e.g., a player’s
batting average in a season) and ability (e.g., the underlying probability of get-
ting a hit). These past three chapters have focused on reducing the standard
multidimensional array of observed player offensive data into a single value that
is strongly correlated with runs scored. We have not discussed the relation of
this value to some underlying parameter for a player’s ability to generate runs.
Actually, it is not too difficult to calculate confidence intervals for such a param-
eter for many of these measures.
We have also skirted the issue of adjusting player evaluations for different
playing conditions. This issue as it relates to comparing players from different
eras is a cottage industry in itself, with many worthy publications that address
the topic. Interested readers may wish to examine books such as Michael Schell’s
Baseball’s All-Time Best Hitters to see how this question has been addressed.
However, if we rank players within each decade as we did for many measures
in Chapter 6, we are in essence making a gross adjustment for the nature of the
game in each decade. Given the capabilities demonstrated by the Runs Created
model, the list of outstanding hitters in Table 6-14 is a very reasonable compila-
tion of the 36 greatest career performances in generating runs. As great as these
players were, many were dogged by the question of whether they produced in
clutch situations. (As followers of the Phillies, we well remember fellow
Philadelphians’ doubts about Mike Schmidt in this regard—that is, until he led
the Phillies to a World Championship in 1980.) In Chapter 10, we will examine
the clutch hitting issue and put some of the work in Chapter 7 to use in attempt-
ing to quantify contributions to winning.
 NG S E N S E
MA K I
OF BASEBALL STRATEGY

Our primary goal in the last three chapters was to measure offensive perform-
ance. In the process of doing this, we compared a number of classical and mod-
ern measures of hitting performance. Also, we introduced some statistical tools
that are helpful in evaluating other baseball issues. In this chapter, we’ll show
how these same tools are helpful in making sense of three popular Major League
strategies.

What’s Wrong with Baseball?

In his November 23, 2002, ESPN.com column, entitled “Things Wrong with
Baseball,” Peter Gammons listed 25 “traditional things” that bother many peo-
ple who care about the game. We admit to being bothered by some of them our-
selves. For example, one of the 25 items was listed as “Players who slide into first
base.” It reminded us, of course, of a favorite player, Roberto Alomar, who slides
into first instead of running through the base. Whenever we see this, we always
think: Isn’t it obvious that you can reach first base quicker by running through
the bag? Then there’s the item about “the best-of-five Division Series.” To put it
bluntly, we don’t like that either. We think an important playoff series, in order
to be meaningful, needs to be best of seven—we’ll talk about the whole issue of
playoff series, and in particular the World Series, in Chapter 12.
But our real reason for bringing up the Gammons list of irritating things
about baseball is to point out that three traditional and well-established base-

243
244 CHAPTER 9

ball tactics—the sacrifice bunt, the intentional walk, and stealing—seem to get
under the skin of a lot of fans. Here are the relevant items from the list (with our
emphasis added):
1. Major League teams that bunt before the seventh inning.
2. National League managers who intentionally walk the eighth
hitter.
3. One National League GM insists, “We need stricter
consequences for an intentional walk.”
4. Meaningless steals of third base.
Note that the first item refers to bunting—in the Big Leagues, mainly
done as a sacrifice move, in order to advance a runner. The second and third
items of course bring to mind the awesome Barry Bonds, who was given far
more than his share of free passes to first in the 2002 season. (In the third
item, the unnamed general manager is suggesting that the pitching team
“pay” for the intentional pass by having all base-runners advance, even when
they are not forced.) Lastly, the fourth item addresses the issue of stealing
bases—under what circumstances does it pay off? (We devote most of our dis-
cussion in this chapter to stealing second base, but we do address steals of
third.)
Our intent here is to critically examine these time-honored baseball strate-
gies. George Lindsey, in his famous 1963 paper, was one of the first people to look
at baseball strategy from a statistical perspective. Using data collected from the
1959 and 1960 seasons, Lindsey found situations where attempted steals, sacri-
fice bunts, and intentional walks were good strategies. Our technique here is to
introduce some of the calculations used in Lindsey’s analysis, and provide some
insight about the value of the strategies.

Lindsey’s Run Potential Table

To get started, let’s recall Lindsey’s analysis of play-by-play data described in
Chapter 7. Using records compiled by his father, Lindsey found the distribution
of runs scored for each of the 24 possible bases-outs situations. (See Table 7-4,
where the bases occupied and number of outs, taken together, define 24 distinct
situations.) We can summarize the run distributions by the expected runs or run
potential table shown in Table 9-1—the entries in the table represent the
expected or average number of runs scored in the remainder of the inning in
each of the 24 situations. We see from the table that at the beginning of an
 M A K I NG S E N S E O F B A S E B A L L S T R AT E GY 245

OUTS BASES OCCUPIED

None 1 2 3 1, 2 1, 3 2, 3 Full

0 0.461 0.813 1.194 1.390 1.471 1.940 1.960 2.220

1 0.243 0.498 0.671 0.980 0.939 1.115 1.560 1.642

2 0.102 0.219 0.297 0.355 0.403 0.532 0.687 0.823

TABLE 9-1 Run Potential Table (Expected Number of Runs Scored in Remainder of
Inning), Using Data from the 1959 and 1960 Seasons (Lindsey, 1963)

OUTS BASES OCCUPIED

None 1 2 3 1, 2 1, 3 2, 3 Full

0 0.511 0.896 1.142 1.405 1.511 1.838 1.956 2.332

1 0.272 0.536 0.682 0.944 0.936 1.185 1.358 1.510

2 0.101 0.227 0.322 0.363 0.450 0.524 0.633 0.776

TABLE 9-2 Run Potential Table (Expected Number of Runs Scored in Remainder of
Inning), Using 2002 Season Data

inning, with no runners on and no outs, a team will score on average .461 runs
in the remainder of the inning. As the inning progresses, batters will get on base
or create outs. Each change in the bases occupied or the number of outs will
change the team’s potential to score runs. The best offensive situation, as one
would expect, is bases loaded with no outs —a team will score on average 2.220
runs in the balance of the inning. In contrast, it is tough to score runs when
there are no runners on and there are 2 outs—in this situation, a team will score
on average only .102 runs in the remainder of the inning.

Old vs. New Data

Although it is nice to recognize Lindsey’s contribution from a historical point of
view, it is reasonable to ask how valuable is a table based on data collected over
40 years ago. Or, to put it another way, does Lindsay’s analysis have any bearing
on baseball strategy in 2002? To answer these questions, Table 9-2 presents the
run potential numbers from play-by-play data for the entire 2002 baseball sea-
son. (These data appeared in an article by Derek Zumsteg, a Baseball Prospectus
246 CHAPTER 9

writer, in an ESPN.com article on October 18, 2002.) Comparing Table 9-1 and
Table 9-2, we see some small differences, but the values in the two tables are
remarkably similar, and as we move from one situation to another, we see the
same general patterns. To be consistent with the work of Chapter 7, we will use
Lindsey’s run production table in our stolen base and sacrifice bunt analyses,
with the understanding that similar conclusions would be reached if we used the
2002 table. (For our discussion of the third strategy—the intentional walk—we’ll
focus on Barry Bonds, so the data used will be from 2002.)

A Second Important Table

The run potential matrix is particularly useful in the early to middle innings of a
game when the team is trying to score as many runs as possible. In these innings,
it is reasonable to choose strategies that maximize the average runs scored.
However, in the late innings, the score of a game may be close and a team may
be primarily interested in scoring just enough runs in an inning in order to tie
or win the game. For example, if a team is losing 2–1 in the eighth inning, the
objective is to score at least 1 run to tie or take the lead—a manager is less inter-
ested in scoring as many runs as possible. In these situations, it is helpful to con-
sider the probability of scoring at least 1 run in all possible situations. Using
Lindsey’s distributions of runs scored in Table 7-4, Table 9-3 gives this probabil-
ity of scoring table in the same format as the run potential table.
With the run potential table and probability of scoring table in hand, we can
assess some of these traditional strategies as they are routinely used in the
Major Leagues.

OUTS BASES OCCUPIED

None 1 2 3 1, 2 1, 3 2, 3 Full

0 0.253 0.396 0.619 0.880 0.605 0.870 0.820 0.820

1 0.145 0.266 0.390 0.693 0.429 0.633 0.730 0.697

2 0.067 0.114 0.212 0.262 0.209 0.283 0.332 0.329

TABLE 9-3 Probability of Scoring Table, Using Data from the 1959 and 1960 Seasons
(Lindsey, 1963)
 M A K I NG S E N S E O F B A S E B A L L S T R AT E GY 247

Stealing Second Base

One of the most exciting plays in baseball is the stolen base. Especially during
World Series and other high-stakes post-season games, television broadcasters
will go to great length to dramatize the situation that unfolds when a speedy
runner reaches first base. With multiple cameras trained on them, the runner
takes a lead, and the pitcher attempts (or feints) to pick him off. The situation is
much like a chess game. The pitcher may decide to pitch out (throw a pitch out-
side the strike zone), with the hope that the runner will attempt to steal and the
catcher will have a good opportunity to throw the runner out at second base. The
runner may also repeatedly fake a steal attempt, trying to distract the pitcher
from the batter he’s facing. The second baseman and shortstop are also on their
toes, ready to move if the runner tries to steal second. If the runner breaks
towards second, the hitter may swing at the pitch to distract the catcher and
help the runner reach second base safely. In other words, there’s a whole lot
going on.
But is stealing second base a productive winning strategy for a team? Or is it
one of those plays that’s run more to just spice up the game—say, by glorifying a
particular fast runner? To work toward an answer, we can take a look at the base
stealing data from the 2002 season. Figure 9-1 shows a dotplot of the season’s
stolen bases totals for all 30 teams, broken down by league. (A dotplot is a graph
on which each data value is represented by a big dot on the number line.) It is
interesting to note the wide spread in the numbers—Florida (the rightmost dot
in the NL) stole 177 and, in contrast, Oakland (leftmost dot in the AL) stole only
46.

National League

American League

40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180

STOLEN BASES

FIGURE 9-1 Stolen bases for the 30 Major League teams in the 2002 season.
248 CHAPTER 9

180

160

140

120

100

80
STOLEN BASES

60

40
500 600 700 800 900

RUNS

FIGURE 9-2 Scatterplot of number of runs and number of stolen bases for all teams in
the 2002 season.

What could explain the wide variation? Maybe teams that can’t score lots of
runs with thin bats feel they need to steal bases to be competitive, while teams
that can score many runs with walks and extra-base hits don’t need to steal
bases. To see if there is a relationship between runs scored and the number of
stolen bases, we constructed the scatterplot shown in Figure 9-2.
There isn’t any well-defined pattern in the scatterplot, which means that over
a whole season, there doesn’t appear to be any general relationship between the
number of runs a team scores and the number of bases it steals. It is interesting
to note, though, that the worst-scoring team, Detroit, was also pretty poor at
stealing bases. One could speculate that the Tigers didn’t steal very much
because the team didn’t have players who were good at stealing. Or perhaps it
was the fact that the managers (yes, they had more than one manager in 2002)
didn’t think that the stolen base was an effective strategy for scoring runs.
One likely explanation for the wide variation in stealing between teams is
that some managers believe that stealing is an effective strategy, and other
managers don’t. In addition, some teams have (and recruit and train) players
capable of stealing, and other teams don’t. Nonetheless, the question remains . . .
 M A K I NG S E N S E O F B A S E B A L L S T R AT E GY 249

To Steal or Not to Steal

Here we focus on the issue of stealing as an effective strategy. Consider a typical
game situation: A runner on first with no outs. Should the runner steal second?
Looking at Table 9-1, we see that when the runner is standing at first base
with no outs, then the run potential is .813. So, on average, the team will score
about four–fifths of a run in the remainder of the inning. This is the run poten-
tial for the runner currently on first base, and it includes the impact on that run-
ner of base hits, outs, stealing, and other subsequent events.
What happens, though, if the runner attempts to steal second? Suppose he is
successful—then the new situation is “runner on second with no outs” and the
new run potential (looking at Table 9-1) is 1.194. So the team has gained 1.194
– .813 = .381 runs with this successful steal.
At the other extreme, suppose that the baserunner attempts a steal and is
thrown out at second. The new situation, in this worst-case scenario, is “no run-
ners with 1 out,” which has a run potential of .243. Comparing this with the ini-
tial (“pre-steal”) run potential of .813 runs, we see that the cost of this unsuc-
cessful steal attempt is .813 – .243 = .570 runs.
Actually, neither of the two situations described above, taken singly, presents
the complete picture. A good baserunner will generally be successful in stealing
second, but occasionally he will be thrown out. In an attempt to model this fact,
we can describe a base runner’s ability to steal using a number p, the probabil-
ity that he will steal successfully. It then follows that 1 – p is the probability he
will be thrown out at second base.
Figure 9-3 shows the two possibilities (stealing successfully or being thrown
out), the probabilities of the two outcomes, and the run potential of the final sit-
uation.

p STEAL (RUN POTENTIAL = 1.194)

THROWN OUT AT SECOND (RUN POTENTIAL = 0.243)

1–p

FIGURE 9-3 Two outcomes and run potentials of the “attempted steal” strategy.
250 CHAPTER 9

If the runner attempts many steals, then 100 × p percent of the time, he’ll be
successful and 100 × (1 – p) percent of the time, he’ll fail. The expected or
average run potential of this base runner will be:
RUN POTENTIAL = [ p × (run potential if he succeeds)] +
[(1 – p) × (run potential if he fails)]
= [ p × (1.194)] + [(1 – p) × (0.243)]
Figure 9-4 graphs this RUN POTENTIAL for different values of the stealing
probability p. This is the diagonal line in the figure. The horizontal line repre-
sents the run potential for the team (.813) if the base runner does not attempt to
steal.
Attempting to steal will be a good strategy when the diagonal line is above
the horizontal line in Figure 9-4. This will happen when p, the stealing proba-
bility, is above .60. When p is smaller than .60, the stealing strategy will cost the
team some runs.
What are typical values of p, the probability of stealing second base success-
fully? Figure 9-5 shows a dotplot of the probabilities of successful steals for the
30 teams in the 2002 season. Although there is a lot of variation in these num-
bers, it seems that 70 percent is a typical value. Looking at Figure 9-4, we see

1.1

Stealing does Stealing helps

not help
1.0

0.9

0.8
EXPECTED RUNS

0.7

The gain

The cost
0.6
0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9

PROBABILITY OF STEALING SAFELY

FIGURE 9-4 Graph of the run potential of the “attempted steal” strategy for different val-
ues of the stealing probability.
 M A K I NG S E N S E O F B A S E B A L L S T R AT E GY 251

0.56 0.60 0.64 0.68 0.72 0.76 0.80

STEALING PROPORTION

FIGURE 9-5 Successful stealing proportions for the Major League teams in the 2002 season.

that the gain in the “attempted steal” strategy is approximately .1 when p =

.70. So, from an expected runs perspective, it makes sense to steal (with a run-
ner on first and no outs) if a player has an average stealing probability.

A Different Criterion
The analysis of stealing as a strategy that we’ve presented so far may be criti-
cized by some people because we assume a team is attempting a steal because it
wishes to maximize the number of runs scored. But maybe the team is attempt-
ing to steal to improve the chances of scoring at least 1 run. This is clearly the
objective late in a game with the score tied or one team down by just 1 run. Does
a steal attempt make more sense if scoring at least 1 run is the purpose?
To check this out, we repeat the above calculations using the probability of
scoring data presented in Table 9-3.
With a runner on first and no outs . . .
• The probability the team will score at least 1 run is .396.
• If the runner attempts to steal and is successful with
probability p, the chance the team will score at least 1 run is
[p × (.619)] + [(1 – p) × (.145)]
Attempting to steal second base is a good strategy when the probability of
scoring using this strategy exceeds the probability of scoring when the runner
stands on first. In math-talk, this is:
[p × (.619)] + [(1 – p) × (.145)] > .396
In Figure 9-6, we graph the probability of scoring under the two possible
strategies.
Note from Figure 9-6 that it is beneficial to try to steal second base (from the
viewpoint of scoring at least 1 run) when the stealing probability is larger than
.53. For a slow runner with stealing probability of .55, note that it is not benefi-
cial to try to steal second base if the goal is to maximize the number of runs
252 CHAPTER 9

0.60

0.55
Stealing does Stealing helps
not help
0.50

0.45
PROBABILITY OF SCORING

0.40

0.35

The gain

The cost
0.30

0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1.0

PROBABILITY OF STEALING SAFELY

FIGURE 9-6 Graph of the probability of scoring in an attempted steal of second with no
outs for different values of the probability of stealing safely.

scored. However, if the goal is to maximize the chance of scoring, it is advanta-

geous to try to steal. This illustrates an important point. The best strategy in
baseball will depend on what a team considers important in the given situation.
In the early innings, it makes sense to choose a strategy that will help a team
score multiple runs—here they want to choose a strategy to maximize runs. Late
in a close game, by contrast, a team may be interested in scoring just a single
run—here, they would like to choose a strategy that maximizes the probability
of simply scoring.

Stealing in Other Situations

In our discussion, we have only talked about the situation where there is a run-
ner on first with no outs. What about other bases-outs situations?
In Table 9-4, we summarize all of the calculations for a single runner on first
or second base and 0, 1, or 2 outs. We assume we have a good stealer, one whose
success probability is .75. We compare the two strategies (stay on the base or
attempt a steal) by using both criteria (expected runs and probability of scoring)
for each of the six possible situations. The important results can be found in the
 M A K I NG S E N S E O F B A S E B A L L S T R AT E GY 253

NUMBER
S I T U AT I O N OF OUTS RUN POTENTIAL PROBABILITY OF SCORING

Runners Stay on Attempt to Gain in Stay on Attempt to Gain in

on base base strategy steal strategy stealing base strategy steal strategy stealing

1 0 0.813 0.956 0.143 0.396 0.500 0.104

1 1 0.498 0.605 0.107 0.266 0.309 0.043

1 2 0.219 0.223 0.004 0.114 0.159 0.045

2 0 1.194 1.103 –0.091 0.619 0.696 0.077

2 1 0.671 0.760 0.089 0.390 0.537 0.147

2 2 0.297 0.266 –0.031 0.212 0.197 –0.015

TABLE 9-4 Run Potentials and Probabilities of Scoring for the “Stay on Base” and
“Attempted Steal” Strategies for a Good Stealer (p = 0.750) for Six
Different Bases-Outs Situations

“GAIN” column—a GAIN is the increase in run potential (or probability of scor-
ing) for the attempted steal strategy, so it measures the benefit of a steal attempt.
This table gives us general indications of when it is smart and dumb to steal
a base. From both a run potential and probability of scoring perspective, it
makes sense to try stealing when there is a runner on first with 0 or 1 out. On
the other hand, it is better to stay on base when there is a runner on second with
2 outs. However, in one situation, with a runner on second and no outs, things
get interesting. If a team wishes to maximize the run potential, it is advanta-
geous to hold the runner in this situation. But if simply scoring is the main goal,
it makes sense to steal. (This reminds us of a lyric from the Kenny Rogers song
The Gambler—”You got to know when to hold ‘em . . .”)

The Sacrifice Bunt

The sacrifice bunt is another popular baseball strategy with lots of adherents as
well as some detractors. Here’s the basic situation: A team has a runner on first
with 0 or 1 out. A relatively weak hitter is at the plate. The batter is instructed
to bunt (usually by the third-base coach) with the purpose of advancing the run-
ner from first to second. The hitter is sacrificing his at-bat, with the goal of
advancing the runner and making it more likely that his team will score.
Moreover, by attempting to sacrifice with a laid-down bunt, the weak batter is
making it less likely that he will hit into a double play.
254 CHAPTER 9

Name G SH

J. Wilson, Pit Nonpitcher 17 J. Vidro, Mon Nonpitcher 11

G. Rusch, Mil Pitcher 14 K. Millwood, Atl Pitcher 11

D. Eckstein, Ana Nonpitcher 14 M. Mordecai, Mon/Fla Pitcher 10

T. Glavine, Atl Pitcher 13 R. Durham, CWS/Oak Nonpitcher 10

K. Rueter, SF Pitcher 13 J. Haynes, Cin Pitcher 10

J. Cirillo, Sea Nonpitcher 13 L. Hernandez, SF Pitcher 10

Q. McCracken, Ari Nonpitcher 13 J. Vazquez, Mon Pitcher 10

P. Polanco, Phi/StL Nonpitcher 13 O. Perez, LA Pitcher 10

K. Wells, Pit Pitcher 13 M. Clement, ChC Pitcher 10

M. Young, Tex Nonpitcher 13 T. Perez, NYM Nonpitcher 10

R. Wolf, Phi Pitcher 12

TABLE 9-5 Players with at Least 10 Sacrifice Hits in the 2002 Baseball Season

National League

American League

10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110
SACRIFICE HITS

FIGURE 9-7 Number of sacrifice hits by all Major League teams in the 2002 season.

How often is this strategy currently used in baseball? Table 9-5 gives the
players who had at least 10 sacrifice hits (SH) in the 2002 season. We indicate in
the table if the player was a pitcher or nonpitcher.
We see that half of these players are pitchers. This makes sense, of course,
because pitchers are generally weak hitters. However, a number of nonpitchers
had a significant share of the sacrifice hits. Should we be puzzled by this?
To get some more insight, in Figure 9-7 we plot the number of team sacrifice
hits and compare the two leagues.
Note that the teams in the NL sacrifice a lot more than the teams in the AL.
This is expected, since the American League uses the designated hitter, and it is
extremely rare that an AL pitcher gets to bat. So it seems that the sacrifice bunt
 M A K I NG S E N S E O F B A S E B A L L S T R AT E GY 255

is used often with weak hitters like pitchers, but we note that this strategy is
still popular among some nonpitchers like Jack Wilson and David Eckstein.

Sacrifice Bunts in the 2001 World Series

Consider the case of Arizona’s Craig Counsell in the fourth game of the 2001
World Series. This Series, between the Diamondbacks and the New York
Yankees is considered one of the most exciting in Major League history. In Game
4, there was no shortage of drama and surprise.
In the top of the first inning, the leadoff hitter for Arizona, Tony Womack, sin-
gled to center. Then Craig Counsell, the second batter, was instructed to hit a
sacrifice bunt. The bunt was effective—Counsell was thrown out at first and
Womack advanced to second, but the inning finished without Womack scoring.
In the top of the third, the same situation developed: Womack opened the inning
by getting to first base (in this case, on a walk), and Counsell moved him to sec-
ond by sacrifice-bunting. (Again, Womack didn’t score.) In the top of the fifth,
Womack started the inning with a double. Counsell again laid down a sacrifice
bunt, moving Womack to third. The next hitter, Luis Gonzalez, hit a fly ball, but
Womack was thrown out at home plate, ending the inning.
It appears that the Arizona manager, Bob Brenly, liked to play the sacrifice
bunt in this series. Counsell was instructed to sacrifice his at-bat three times in
order to advance the runner one additional base. But in three sacrifice-bunting
attempts, the Diamondbacks came up empty. Does this mean, then, that the sac-
rifice bunt is a dumb play?

Managers Do and Don’t Like to Sacrifice

Before we try to answer this, let’s look at the use of the sacrifice bunt in a few
recent seasons. Table 9-6 presents statistics for all 30 Major League managers in
2000 (from the Major League Handbook 2001, by Stats, Inc.). For each team, the
table gives the number of sacrifice bunt attempts, the percentage of time the
strategy was successful (in terms of advancing a runner), and the most popular
inning for this strategy.
We see significant variation in the use of the sacrifice bunt from manager to
manager. Alou, Baylor, Bell, Cox, and La Russa seem to like to sacrifice, while
Torre, Hargrove, and Kelly seem not to favor it. The success rates for all teams
seem close to the median value of 81 percent. It is interesting that there is con-
siderable variation in the popular inning for the sacrifice bunt—many managers
256 CHAPTER 9

League Manager Attempts Success rate Favorite inning

American Fregosi 45 75.6 1

American Garner 58 79.3 9

American Hargrove 36 80.6 8

American Howe 40 77.5 6

American Kelly 37 75.7 3

American C. Manual 59 84.7 1

American J. Manuel 75 86.7 7

American Muser 72 87.5 7

American Oates 66 83.3 8

American Pinella 73 87.7 5

American Rothsfield 73 79.5 7

American Scioscia 63 84.1 7

American Torre 22 81.8 3

American Williams 49 89.8 7

National Alou 103 83.5 3

National Baker 86 90.7 3

National Baylor 115 84.3 3

National Bell 100 83.0 4

National Bochy 52 76.9 2

National Boles 61 78.7 3

National Cox 109 80.7 2

National Dierker 77 79.2 4

National Francona 89 84.3 3

National Johnson 80 81.3 2

National La Russa 107 79.4 2

National Lamont 78 76.9 3

National Lopes 78 78.2 3

National McKeon 82 76.8 3

National Showalter 89 75.3 3

National Valentine 84 85.7 2

TABLE 9-6 Sacrifice Bunt Statistics for All Major League Baseball Managers in 2000
 M A K I NG S E N S E O F B A S E B A L L S T R AT E GY 257

prefer the third inning, where the bottom of the order is frequently coming to
bat, but other managers seem to prefer sacrificing in the later innings.

Should Curt Schilling Sacrifice?

Clearly, one of the key factors in deciding whether to sacrifice is the strength or
weakness of the batter. Let’s first consider the situation where a weak batter,
like Curt Schilling, comes to bat with a runner on first with no outs. Is it a good
strategy for him to sacrifice?
If a team is thinking about sacrificing, then it seems that the objective is to
score a single run. So we focus on maximizing the probability of scoring at least
1 run. There are two possible options for Schilling—either he can attempt to sac-
rifice, or he can hit away.
If he attempts to sacrifice, he’ll either be successful in advancing the run or
he won’t. Let’s assume Schilling is a pretty good bunter and he’ll successfully
sacrifice with probability .8. (That value is roughly the average success rate
among the 2000 teams.) Table 9-7 shows how one can compute the probability of
scoring in this scenario. If he succeeds, there will be a runner on second with 1
out and (from our probability table) the chance of scoring in that situation is
.390. If he fails, the runner will remain on first with 1 out, and the chance of scor-
ing is .266. Combining these two possibilities, we see that the probability of scor-
ing if he attempts to sacrifice is as follows:
[.8 × .390] + [.2 × .266] = .365
Suppose instead that Schilling decides (or more likely is told) to hit way. In
the last five seasons (1998 through 2002), he has had 341 plate appearances,
with 279 outs, 40 singles, 5 doubles, 1 triple, no home runs, and 16 walks. Using

N E W S I T U AT I O N

Probability of scoring
Outcome Probability Runners Outs runs in that situation

Sacrifice successful 0.8 2 1 0.390

Sacrifice fails 0.2 1 1 0.266

Probability of scoring = 0.365

TABLE 9-7 Computation of the Probability of Scoring if Curt Schilling Attempts a

Sacrifice Bunt with Runner on First and No Outs
258 CHAPTER 9

N E W S I T U AT I O N

Probability of scoring
Outcome Probability Runners Outs runs in that situation

Out 0.818 1 1 0.266

Single 0.117 1,2 0 0.605

Double 0.015 2 0 1.000

Triple 0.003 3 0 1.000

Home run 0.000 none 0 1.000

Walk 0.047 1,2 0 0.605

Probability of scoring = 0.335

TABLE 9-8 Computation of the Probability of Scoring if Curt Schilling Attempts to Hit
Away with a Runner on First and No Outs

these data, we can approximate the probabilities of the different events when he
hits away, and these numbers are shown in Table 9-8. Each event will result in a
new bases-outs situation. Using our probability table, we can find the likelihood
of scoring in that situation. (We assume that a single will advance a runner to
second, and a double will score the runner.)
As before, we find the probability of scoring by multiplying the event proba-
bilities by the corresponding probabilities of scoring, then summing the prod-
ucts. We arrive at the probability of scoring, if Schilling hits away, of .335. So
what, then, should Schilling do? We compare the probabilities of scoring in the
two scenarios:
• Option 1: Schilling attempts to sacrifice: Probability of scoring = .365
• Option 2: Schilling hits away: Probability of scoring = .335
The answer is clear. Since the probability of scoring is significantly higher if
he sacrifices, that is the right strategy.

How About Craig Counsell?

Again, the choice of whether to bunt or hot out depends on the batter. When
Craig Counsell comes to bat, we’re looking at a very different hit-away profile. If
we use his data in the 1999–2002 span, we see that he will get out with proba-
bility .651, single with probability .188, and so on. If Craig Counsell hits away
when there is a runner on first with no outs, then the probability of scoring is
 M A K I NG S E N S E O F B A S E B A L L S T R AT E GY 259

N E W S I T U AT I O N

Probability of scoring
Outcome Probability Runners Outs runs in that situation

Out 0.651 1 1 0.266

Single 0.188 1,2 0 0.605

Double 0.042 2 0 1.000

Triple 0.005 3 0 1.000

Home run 0.007 none 0 1.000

Walk 0.108 1,2 0 0.605

Probability of scoring = 0.406

TABLE 9-9 Computation of the Probability of Scoring if Craig Counsell Attempts to Hit
Away with Runner on First and No Outs

.406. (The calculations are summarized in Table 9-9.) This probability is signifi-
cantly higher than the probability of scoring when attempting to sacrifice (.365),
so Craig really should not sacrifice. (Bob Brenly, are you listening?)
The moral here is that only weak hitters should sacrifice if the goal is to max-
imize the chance of scoring in an inning, but two comments should be made
about this analysis before we go on. First, we ignored the chance of hitting into
a double play. (Remember that one reason for sacrificing was to avoid the double
play.) We could easily include the possibility of hitting into a double play if we
had reliable data regarding the number of sacrifice bunt attempts and hit-away
attempts that result in double plays. The inclusion of the double-play possibility
would reduce the value of hitting away and make the sacrifice bunt attempt a
little more attractive, but it wouldn’t change the strategy decisions for Schilling.
In the case of Counsell, we can show that the sacrifice bunt would be the better
strategy if the probability of hitting into a double play when hitting away is
greater than .207.
The second comment is that the sacrifice bunt is a more effective strategy in
situations when a single run has a significant effect on the probability that the
team wins a game. In Chapter 10, we will link the runs scored during an inning
with the probability that the team wins the game, and it may be best to judge the
usefulness of a sacrifice bunt using the probability of winning measure dis-
cussed in that chapter.
260 CHAPTER 9

The Intentional Walk

In the 2002 World Series, the most talked-about strategy was not the sacrifice
bunt but the intentional walk. This is the third strategy we’ll discuss in this
chapter. Barry Bonds walked 14 times in the 2002 Series, including 6 intentional
walks. Many articles in the sports pages talked about the wisdom or desirability
of the intentional walk strategy. Without doubt, many fans were disappointed
seeing one of the greatest hitters of all time, at his peak, getting walks. The fans’
reaction was understandable—they were denied the opportunity to see a boom-
ing Bonds home run.
To help us get a handle on the magnitude of the intentional walk phenome-
non as it relates to Bonds, Table 9-10 lists the leaders in intentional walks for
the 2002 season. Bonds received a record 68 intentional walks and the runner-
up, Vladimir Guerrero, received only 32—less than half of Bonds’s total. Mark
McGwire, in his record-setting 1998 season, received only 28 intentional walks,
and Ted Williams, in his great 1957 season, when he hit for a .388 batting aver-
age, received only 33 intentional passes. (It should be noted, however, that inten-
tional walks were only recorded starting with the 1955 season, so we don’t have
intentional walk statistics for all of Williams’s seasons, or for earlier sluggers
such as Babe Ruth.)
But is there any measurable way to prove it was good baseball strategy to
walk him? The evidence seems overwhelming—it must have made sense to walk

Player IBB

B. Bonds, SF 68 C. Delgado, Tor 18

V. Guerrero, Mon 32 R. Palmeiro, Tex 16

I. Suzuki, Sea 27 S. Sosa, ChC 15

B. Giles, Pit 24 M. Ramirez, Bos 14

C. Jones, Atl 23 J. Edmonds, StL 14

S. Green, LA 22 M. Anderson, Phi 14

T. Helton, Col 21 E. Chavez, Oak 13

L. Berkman, Hou 20 A. Pujols, StL 13

C. Floyd, Bos/Mon/Fl 19 A. Dunn, Cin 13

J. Thome, Cle 18 A. Rodriguez, Tex 12

TABLE 9-10 Leaders in Intentional Walks for the 2002 Season

 M A K I NG S E N S E O F B A S E B A L L S T R AT E GY 261

Bonds. Giving him an intentional pass incurs a cost. With an extra base runner,
the batting team will have a higher potential to score runs. The pitching team
must think that the cost of intentionally walking Bonds is smaller than the cost
of having him swing away. Logic dictates this kind of cost-benefit analysis.

Compare the Costs

Let’s assume that a team is interested in limiting the number of runs scored by
its opponent in an inning, so they would like to minimize the expected number
of runs scored. Here we will use the run potential table based on play-by-play
data for the 2002 season (Table 9-2), since it best represents the run-scoring abil-
ity for an average team in 2002. Using this run potential table, we have an objec-
tive way of comparing the cost of the two possible strategies, walking Bonds and
pitching to Bonds. Let’s illustrate this comparison for one situation: 1 out with
runners on first and second.
Suppose we walk Barry. When he walks, the bases are now loaded with 1 out.
The run potential of the beginning situation (runners 1,2; 1 out) is .936 runs
(look at Table 9-2), and the run potential of the new situation (bases loaded; 1
out) is 1.510 runs. The cost of this walking strategy is 1.510 – .936 = .574 runs,
which is about half a run. This is a high cost.
But the team thinks that this cost is lower than the cost of pitching to Bonds.
If we decide to pitch to Bonds, we have to consider what Bonds can do at a sin-
gle at-bat.
If he gets to bat and swings, the possible outcomes, along with their probabil-
ities, are as follows:
Single .1737
Double .0769
Home run .1141
Get Out .6303
Triple .0050
These probabilities are derived from 2002 season data—in 403 plate appear-
ances, Bonds had 70 singles, 31 doubles, 46 home runs, 254 outs, and 2 triples. To
find the cost of having Bonds swing away, we first find the cost of each possible
batting outcome. If Bonds singles, for example, we compute the value of this play
by looking at the difference in run potentials in the before and after states and
adding the number of runs scored on the play. This computation is called the
GAIN in Table 9-11. After we do this for each possible batting play, we multiply
262 CHAPTER 9

N E W S I T U AT I O N

Run potential Run potential Runs scored

Outcome Probability Runners Outs of starting state of final state on play Gain

Out 0.630 1, 2 2 0.936 0.450 0 –0.486

Single 0.174 1, 2 1 0.936 0.936 1 1.000

Double 0.077 2 1 0.936 0.682 2 1.746

Triple 0.005 3 1 0.936 0.944 2 2.008

Home run 0.114 None 1 0.936 0.272 3 2.336

Cost = 0.278

TABLE 9-11 Computation of Cost of Having Barry Bonds Hit Away with Runners on First
and Second with 1 Out

OUTS BASES OCCUPIED

None 1 2 3 1, 2 1, 3 2, 3 Full

0 0.30 0.45 0.29 0.65 0.45 0.49 0.31 0.99

1 0.18 0.23 0.07 0.30 0.29 0.25 0.08 0.80

2 0.04 0.02 –0.11 –0.02 –0.04 –0.02 –0.16 0.69

TABLE 9-12 Differences in Costs Between the Intentional Walk and Pitch-to-Bonds
Strategies: A Positive Value Indicates That the Intentional Walk Strategy
Costs More Than the Pitch-to-Bonds Strategy

the gains by the corresponding probabilities of the batting events, and add the
products to get the cost.
In this particular case (runners on first and second with 1 out), we find that
the cost of pitching to Bonds is .278 runs.
Which is a better strategy in this case? The cost of an intentional walk was .574
runs and the cost of pitching to Bonds was .278 runs. The difference in costs is:
Cost of intentional walk – Cost of swinging Bonds = .574 – .278 = .296
So actually, it is better in this case to pitch to Bonds and have him swing. To put
it another way, we gain, on average, about .3 runs by pitching to Bonds instead of
walking him. (And the GAIN is even higher if double plays are considered.)
We repeated this type of calculation for all 24 bases-outs situations and com-
puted the difference in costs between the intentional walk and pitch to Bonds
 M A K I NG S E N S E O F B A S E B A L L S T R AT E GY 263

Walk ??? Pitch

–0.2 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0

DIFFERENCE

FIGURE 9-8 Dotplot of the differences in costs (intentional walk vs. pitch-to-Bonds)
for the 24 situations, with regions of “significant” differences indicated.

OUTS BASES OCCUPIED

None 1 2 3 1, 2 1, 3 2, 3 Full

0 Pitch Pitch Pitch Pitch Pitch Pitch Pitch Pitch

1 Pitch Pitch ??? Pitch Pitch Pitch ??? Pitch

2 ??? ??? Walk ??? ??? ??? Walk Pitch

TABLE 9-13 The Best Decision, PITCH to Bonds, WALK Bonds, or “???” (Too Close to
Call) for Each of the 24 Bases-Outs Situations

strategies. These differences are shown in Table 9-12—remember that a positive

value means that the intentional walk strategy is more costly.
Some of the values in this table are close to zero and may not be significant.
For example, a difference of .04 run may reflect only chance variation, and not a
real difference between the two strategies. Figure 9-8 displays a dotplot of the
group of differences in cost.
Suppose we say that a difference of .1 run or more is “significant.” Then we
can draw some general conclusions about the walking Bonds strategy shown in
Table 9-13.
What does this table tell us?
• In most situations, it is better to pitch to Bonds than to
intentionally walk him.
• The only times when one gains by walking Bonds is when there
are 2 outs, runners are on base, and first base is open.
• In four situations (the three bases loaded situations, and runner
on third with no outs), the cost of walking Bonds is the greatest.
264 CHAPTER 9

The cost in these situations is substantial—between .6 and 1.0

runs.
• In some situations, mostly with 2 outs, there is no significant
difference in the costs of the two strategies.

Some Caveats
The intentional walk strategy was recently discussed in the ESPN.com article by
Derek Zumsteg. Using the run potential table, Zumsteg comes to the same con-
clusion we have—it’s generally better to pitch to Bonds than intentionally walk
him. But Zumsteg mentions a number of factors that could alter this strategy.
Let’s discuss these factors, since they relate to our discussion of situational
effects in Chapter 4.
Our work is based on the run potential table that gives the mean number of
runs scored for an average team against an average pitcher in a given bases-outs
situation. Of course, not all teams have the same ability to produce runs—the
run potential values for the 2002 Oakland Athletics, say, is a lot higher than the
corresponding run potential values for the 2002 Florida Marlins. Similarly, it
will be harder to produce runs against good pitchers than against poor pitchers.
Also, teams playing the 2002 Giants are very aware that the San Francisco play-
ers have varying abilities to produce runs. The run-producing abilities of Barry
Bonds and Jeff Kent are significantly higher than the abilities of Benito
Santiago and David Bell, for example. Wouldn’t it make some sense to walk
Bonds to pitch to the weaker hitter Santiago, who follows Bonds in the order?
Also, since Santiago is a relatively slow runner and is likely to hit ground balls
(as opposed to fly balls), wouldn’t it make more sense to pitch to Santiago, since
he is more likely to hit into a double play? Also, couldn’t you make the “walk
Bonds, pitch to Santiago” even better by using a pitcher who tends to induce
ground balls instead of fly balls? And doesn’t the choice of strategy depend on
the inning and the score of the game?
The first comment is that the cost of intentionally walking a batter is large.
So although the choice of pitcher, the ability of the following hitter, and the game
situation may change the cost of intentionally walking Bonds, these adjustments
will generally be small relative to the cost of walking Bonds. In situations where
it is hard to choose between walking and pitching to Bonds (like the 2-outs situ-
ations), these other considerations may lead to one strategy or the other. The sec-
ond comment is that a team should be wary about adjusting their strategy
according to the situation until they know that the situation corresponds to a
 M A K I NG S E N S E O F B A S E B A L L S T R AT E GY 265

“true” effect. Recall our discussion about situational effects for hitting in
Chapter 4. In a single season, we see many extremely high and low situational
hitting effects (say, home vs. away batting averages), and these extreme values
are just chance variation. To really understand the true run potential effect
according to a given situation, say the use of a ground-ball pitcher, one has to
look at data for many players over many seasons (as we did in Chapter 4). It
would be interesting to see how the run potential tables can change for different
offensive and defensive teams and how the variability in run potentials can lead
to alternative strategies. But until such a study is done, it seems best to put most
of one’s faith in the “average” run potential table (Table 9-2) and regard the par-
ticular situations as having a minor role in the proper choice of strategy. Bonds,
after all, is obviously a colossal threat to an opposing pitcher, but that doesn’t
mean one should always give him a free pass to first.
 S U R I NG
MEA
CLUTCH PLAY

10

“At its most critical moments, baseball chooses its heroes and goats with the ran-
domness of a carnival barker’s rickety spinning wheel. Where she stops nobody
knows.” So wrote Tom Verducci in his Sports Illustrated article describing the
sporting event he would most like to have witnessed.1 The event was Cookie
Lavagetto’s double in the fourth game of the 1947 World Series. The hit, with two
outs in the bottom of the ninth inning, not only won the game for Lavagetto’s
Dodgers over the Yankees, to tie the series—it also spoiled Yankee Bill Bevens’s
bid to pitch the first no-hit game in World Series history.
Out of the 25 greatest moments in baseball history (as selected in the October
18, 1999, issue of The Sporting News), 10 (or 40 percent)2 involve clutch hits.
Here are those 10 great clutch moments, in order as they appeared in the list:
#1: Bobby Thomson’s home run to win the 1951 National League pennant playoff for
the New York Giants.

#2: Bill Mazeroski’s home run to win the 1960 World Series for the Pittsburgh
Pirates.

#4: Carlton Fisk’s home run to guarantee a Game 7 for the Boston Red Sox in the
1975 World Series.

1 Sports Illustrated, November 29,1999, p. 80.

2 #10 on The Sporting News list was St. Louis Cardinal Enos Slaughter’s dash from first to score
the series-winning run in the 1946 World Series. The percentage would rise to 44 percent if we
include the hit by Harry Walker that initiated the play.

267
268 C H A P T E R 10

#6: Kirk Gibson’s two-out, ninth-inning home run, which turned defeat into victory
for the Los Angeles Dodgers in Game 1 of the 1988 World Series.

#14: Bucky Dent’s home run to win the 1978 American League East pennant playoff
for the New York Yankees.

#16: Joe Carter’s home run to win the 1993 World Series for the Toronto Blue Jays.

#21: Chris Chambliss’s home run to win the 1976 American League pennant for the
New York Yankees.

#22: George Brett’s home run to win Game 3 of the 1980 American League
Championship Series for the Kansas City Royals.

#24: Dave Henderson’s two-out, ninth-inning home run in Game 5 of the 1986
American League Championship to keep the Boston Red Sox alive.

#25: Cookie Lavagetto’s double (described above).

Another 3 events (12 percent3) are moments in which hitters were unsuccessful
in clutch situations:
#9: Vic Wertz’s long drive to center field, caught by Willie Mays, in the eighth inning
of a tied Game 1 of the 1954 World Series.

#13: Willie McCovey’s line drive into the final out of the 1962 World Series, with the
series-winning runs in scoring position.

#18: Yogi Berra’s bid for an extra-base hit with two runners on which was caught by
Sandy Amoros in the sixth inning of Game 7 of the 1955 World Series.

Most baseball fans are familiar with at least some of these moments. While we
all may have favorites that were not included and may disagree with the rank-
ings, by and large, these are indeed great moments in the history of the sport.4
But what exactly is it that makes them so?
All thirteen occurred in important games. Eight occurred in World Series
games. Of the remaining five, a league championship was at stake in four and a

3 Two other moments involved plays in which the hitter was unsuccessful, but an error by a
fielder produced a positive result for the team at bat. The Sporting News’ #8 was Bill Buckner’s
error in Game 6 of the 1986 World Series; and #23 was Catcher Mickey Owen’s dropped third
strike, which would have been the final out of Game 4 in the 1941 World Series.
4 We are partial to events involved in deciding a pennant race, including two on the final day of
the 1950 National League season. Phillie Richie Ashburn threw out Cal Abrams’s potential
winning run in the bottom of the ninth inning to preserve the tie game between the two
pennant contenders, Philadelphia and Brooklyn. In extra innings, Dick Sisler’s home run won
the pennant for the Phillies. (Not so incidentally, the climax of dramatizations like The
Natural, Damn Yankees, and Major League is a game that decides the pennant, not the World
Series.)
 M E A S U R I N G C LU T C H P L AY 269

division championship in another. Of course, it isn’t just the game that makes
these moments special—it is the situation within the game. Eight of these
moments were the final play of a game in which victory was decided. Four of
them (the Thomson, Gibson, Carter, and Lavagetto events) turned defeat into
victory; three (Mazeroski, Fisk, and Chambliss) provided the winning edge in a
tie game; and one (McCovey) was the last failed attempt to attain victory.
Of course, few games have the inherent drama of a pennant clincher or the
seventh game of the World Series. But throughout the season, even in inconse-
quential games between two also-ran teams, spectators are gripped by dramatic
situations in which the game hangs in the balance, where one play, even just one
ball or strike, may be the difference between victory and defeat. In trying to
define which of these should be called a “clutch situation” (an admittedly vague
term), we’ve come up with these criteria:
• The score is close. The fan must feel that whatever happens in the
next play will provide a decisive edge in the score and thereby
determine the outcome of the game.
• The situation is late in the game. In the early innings, there is
always the feeling that there will be time to come back. But as the
game proceeds and the shadows lengthen (in those increasingly
rare games played outdoors and in the daytime), each play gains
in importance, especially when the score is close.
• Runners are on base. It is possible (as we will see later) for
situations with no runners on to be important, but the drama
increases when runners reach base and the probability of scoring
increases.
• Two outs is more dramatic than one out, which is more dramatic
than no outs. As outs increase, the number of opportunities to
score in the inning decreases, placing greater value on the
opportunities remaining.

Clutch Hits
If we pick a player and say that he hits in the clutch, what exactly do we mean?
Do we mean that he hits better when runners are on base? When the score is
close? When runners are on and there are two outs?
To gain some perspective, we will examine how well Major League Baseball
players as a group have hit in various situations. From 1985 through 1993, the
270 C H A P T E R 10

Elias Sports Bureau published the annual Elias Baseball Analyst. The books
provided hitting data for each league in the following game situations:
• Entire season—all game situations.

• Leading off an inning.

• Runners on—at least one runner on base.

• Runners in scoring position—at least one runner on second or

third base.
• Runners on and two outs.

• Runners in scoring position and two outs.

• Late Inning Pressure (LIP)—a situation in the seventh inning or

later with the score tied or with the batter’s team trailing by one,
two, or three runs (or four runs and the bases loaded). The
definition (and name) of this situation was the creation of the
Elias Sports Bureau, who wanted to capture those circumstances
in which the game was close and there was a decreasing
opportunity to change the outcome. LIP has become standard
enough to be listed in The Dickson Baseball Dictionary.
• Leading off an inning in a LIP situation.

• Runners on in a LIP situation.

• Runners in scoring position in a LIP situation.

Situation AB H AVG

All 464,057 121,269 .261

Leading Off 111,756 28,856 .258

Runners On 201,183 54,029 .269

Runners/Scoring Position 114,773 30,144 .263

Runners On/2 Out 84,996 21,208 .250

Scoring Position/2 Out 54,476 13,187 .242

Late Inning Pressure (LIP) 66,824 16,901 .253

LIP Leading Off 16,745 4,156 .248

LIP Runners On 28,447 7,373 .259

LIP Runners/Scoring Position 16,165 4,048 .250

TABLE 10-1 Batting Averages in Various Game Situations, American League, 1984,
1986–88, 1990, 1992
 M E A S U R I N G C LU T C H P L AY 271

All Situations

Leading Off Runners On

LIP

Leading Off in LIP Runners On in LIP Scoring Position Runners On/2 Outs

Scoring Position in LIP Scoring Position/2 Outs

FIGURE 10-1 Schematic depiction of situational subsets (each line connects a subset at a
lower level to a superset at a higher level).

Table 10-1 provides American League total at-bats, hits, and overall batting
averages for the years 1984, 1986–88, 1990, and 1992. (We restricted the com-
parison to the American League to exclude the batting of pitchers and so pre-
serve consistency in the types of hitters analyzed.)
Before comparing averages in the different situations shown in Table 10-1,
we must understand that many of these situations are not independent of one
another. Let’s consider “Runners On” and “Scoring Position.” When a runner is in
scoring position, there are always runners on base. This may be obvious, but it is
important to understanding the data in Table 10-1. Every at-bat tabulated in the
Runners in Scoring Position row of Table 10-1 is also included in the totals for
the Runners On row; one situation is a subset of the other. So, the two rows can-
not be compared directly. The Runners in Scoring Position row must be sub-
tracted from the Runners On row to create Runners Not in Scoring Position. The
AVG in this situation can then be compared to the Runners in Scoring Position
AVG to determine the effect of having runners in scoring position as opposed to
having a runner only on first base.
Figure 10-1 shows the dependencies between the situations in Table 10-1.
Each line connects one situation to another situation (at a higher level in the
hierarchy) of which it is a subset. For example, Scoring Position is connected to
Runners On, which is at a higher level. In a general sense, the lower the situa-
tion is in Figure 10-1, the more we regard it as a clutch situation.
Each line in Figure 10-1 represents a possible comparison of situations:
• Leading Off an Inning versus Not Leading Off an Inning (Overall
or in LIP).
272 C H A P T E R 10

OVERALL L AT E I N N I N G P R E S S U R E

AB H AVG AB H AVG

Leading Off 111,756 28,856 .2582 16,745 4156 .2482

Not Leading Off 352,301 92,413 .2623 50,079 12,745 .2545

Difference • • –.0041 • • –.0063

TABLE 10-2 Leading Off an Inning vs. Not Leading Off, American League, 1984,
1986–88, 1990, 1992

OVERALL L AT E I N N I N G P R E S S U R E

AB H AVG AB H AVG

Scoring Position 114,773 30,144 .2626 16,165 4048 .2504

Bases Empty 262,874 67,240 .2558 38,377 9528 .2483

Difference • • .0069 • • .0021

TABLE 10-3 Runners in Scoring Position vs. Bases Empty, American League, 1984,
1986–88, 1990, 1992

OVERALL L AT E I N N I N G P R E S S U R E

AB H AVG AB H AVG

Scoring Position 114,773 30,144 .2626 16,165 4048 .2504

First Base Only 86,410 23,885 .2764 12,282 3325 .2707

Difference • • –.0138 • • –.0203

TWO OUTS

AB H AVG

Scoring Position 54,476 13,187 .2421

First Base Only 30,520 8021 .2628

Difference • • –.0207

TABLE 10-4 Runner in Scoring Position vs. Runner on First Base Only, American League,
1984, 1986–88, 1990, 1992
 M E A S U R I N G C LU T C H P L AY 273

• Runners in Scoring Position versus Bases Empty (Overall or in

LIP).
• Runners in Scoring Position versus Runner on First Base Only
(Overall, With Two Outs, or in LIP).
• Two Outs versus None/One Out (With Runners On or With
Runners in Scoring Position).
• LIP versus No LIP (Overall, When Leading Off, or With Runners
in Scoring Position).
Let’s look at each comparison separately, as presented in Tables 10-2 through 10-6.

Leading Off an Inning vs. Not Leading Off

Hitters appear to bat about .004 points less when leading off than when not
leading off. The difference is not appreciably changed in Late Inning Pressure
situations.

Runners in Scoring Position vs. Bases Empty

Batters hit better with runners in scoring position than when bases are empty,
showing an increase in AVG of .007. However, the effect is not significant in LIP
situations. This effect may be a reflection of pitching skill, which produces the
scoring situation. Since less capable pitchers are likely to put runners in scoring
position more often than better pitchers do, the increase in AVG may result from
the greater chance that the pitcher in scoring-position situations is on average
worse than one encountered in bases-empty situations. It also seems reasonable
that the effect would be less in LIP situations, when the manager is more likely
to replace the less effective pitcher with a more capable reliever.

Runner in Scoring Position vs. Runner on First Base Only

In this scenario we are considering only situations where runners are on base.
What we are examining is how batters perform when a runner is on first base
only compared with all situations with a runner in scoring position. We see large
effects here: overall, batting average is reduced by .014. In LIP situations and
with two outs, batting averages are even lower, reduced by about .020 with run-
ners in scoring position, as compared to when a lone runner is on first base. This
difference may result in part from the first baseman playing near the base in
order to hold the runner on first, leaving a hole between second and first. The
batter is more likely to have this hole when there is a runner on first base only;
274 C H A P T E R 10

RUNNERS ON F I R S T B A S E O N LY

AB H AVG AB H AVG

Two Outs 84,996 21,208 .2495 30,520 8021 .2628

0 or 1 Out 116,187 32,821 .2825 55,890 15,864 .2838

Difference • • –.0330 • • –.0210

SCORING POSITION

AB H AVG

Two Outs 54,476 13,187 .2421

0 or 1 Out 60,297 16,957 .2812

Difference • • –.0392

TABLE 10-5 Two Outs vs. None/One Out, American League, 1984, 1986–88, 1990,
1992

OVERALL LEADING OFF

AB H AVG AB H AVG

LIP 66,824 16,901 .2529 16,745 4156 .2482

No LIP 397,233 104,368 .2627 95,011 24,700 .2600

Difference • • –.0098 • • –.0118

SCORING POSITION

AB H AVG

LIP 16,165 4048 .2504

No LIP 98,608 26,096 .2646

Difference • • –.0142

TABLE 10-6 Late Inning Pressure vs. No Late Inning Pressure, American League,
1984, 1986–88, 1990, 1992
 M E A S U R I N G C LU T C H P L AY 275

if there are runners in scoring position, the first baseman is less likely to play
near the first base bag.

Two Outs vs. None/One Out

With a runner on base, batters have a harder time getting a hit when there are
two outs as compared to when there are one or no outs. When there is only a run-
ner on first base, batting averages drop about .021 when there are two outs.
There is an even larger drop-off, .039, when a runner is in scoring position. A
possible reason for this difference may be that better hitters are not given much
opportunity to hit with runners in scoring position and two outs; they are walked
instead.5 Overall, the decrease is about .033.

Late Inning Pressure vs. No Late Inning Pressure

Batting averages drop in Late Inning Pressure situations. In general, the LIP
effect is a drop of about .010 in AVG. While it may appear that the effect varies
from AVG drops of .010 to .014 (for runners in scoring position), this difference is
not significant.
So we see that the game situation can have an effect on how well a batter hits.
This is likely due to the pitcher, who may draw from his reserve of strength to
make a special effort to bear down as the occasion demands. The effect can also
be the result of managerial pitching strategy: in clutch situations, he may call on
relief pitchers, who in general have more success, at least in the short run, in
getting batters out.

A Player in a Short Series

What happens if we look at the performance of an individual player in a short
series? Let’s pick one of the players from the 25 greatest moments. The most
recent is Joe Carter, whose home run in the 1993 World Series is remembered by
many fans.6 The question is, do we recall how well Carter did in his 28 total plate
appearances in the series? He had 3 sacrifice flies, no walks, no sacrifice hits,

5 Data from The 1993 Elias Baseball Analyst provides some evidence substantiating this
conjecture. In the American League in 1992, with two outs, a walk was almost twice as likely to
occur in a plate appearance with runners in scoring position than with a runner on first base
only.
6 Some with more pleasure than others. One of us told his son (also a Phillies fan) that he should
be prepared to see this event in replay for the rest of his life. Coincidentally, he was the same
age (14) his father was when the Phillies collapsed in the 1964 National League pennant race.
276 C H A P T E R 10

AB H 2B 3B HR SF AVG SLG OBP

Leading Off 9 2 1 0 0 0 .222 .333 .222

Runners On 11 3 0 0 2 3 .273 .818 .214

Scoring Position 5 2 0 0 1 3 .400 1.000 .250

Runners On/2 Out 2 0 0 0 0 0 .000 .000 .000

Scoring Position/2 Out 0 0 0 0 0 0 .000 .000 .000

LIP 5 1 0 0 1 0 .200 .800 .200

LIP Leading Off 3 0 0 0 0 0 .000 .000 .000

LIP Runners On 2 1 0 0 1 0 .500 2.000 .500

LIP Scoring Position 2 1 0 0 1 0 .500 2.000 .500

Overall 25 7 1 0 2 3 .280 .560 .250

TABLE 10-7 Summary of Joe Carter’s Plate Appearances by Game Situation in the 1993
World Series

and was not hit by a pitcher, so his total number of at-bats was 25. His 7 hits
(including 1 double and 2 home runs) gave him a .280 AVG and a .560 SLG. Since
he had no walks, and sacrifice flies are included among opportunities for getting
on base, Carter’s on-base percentage (7/28 = .250) was actually lower than his
batting average. Carter scored 6 runs and had 8 RBI.
Table 10-7 provides a situational summary of Carter’s plate appearances in
the 1993 World Series along the lines of those in the Elias Baseball Analyst.
Carter led off a relatively large number of times, in about one-sixth of Toronto’s
innings. He performed poorly in this situation. He did very well with runners on
base, and especially with runners in scoring position. However, he was not able
to come through with runners on when there were two outs. In Late Inning
Pressure situations, he was only successful in one at-bat. Of course, this was his
legendary home run, which produced an impressive slugging percentage in his
limited number of LIP situations.
So how are we to judge Joe Carter as a clutch hitter in the 1993 World Series?
He was a poor lead-off hitter in many at-bats (for the simple reason that he did
not often get on base—the leadoff man’s main job). On the other hand, he hit well
with runners on, but not with two outs. And of course, he came through big
under Late Inning Pressure, but only once. By what criterion can we gauge his
clutch performance when there are so many metrics to choose from? One solu-
tion is to reduce these multiple criteria into a single metric that “weights” his
 M E A S U R I N G C LU T C H P L AY 277

performance in different situations. None of the models we have considered so

far in earlier chapters perform this kind of weighting. They all consider each
event generically, without regard to the situation in which it occurred.
Is it possible to integrate a clutch effect (the effect of game situation) into
player evaluation? Actually, George Lindsey’s data on run production allows us
to do this relatively easily.

Situation Evaluation of Run Production

Recall from Chapter 7 that Lindsey developed a table (Table 7-4) of expected
runs produced in each situation (outs and runners on base) within an inning of
a game. We used this table to estimate the value of each type of hit in terms of
runs. These values (presented in Table 7-7) are the average or expected number
of runs for each hit after the frequencies of all game situations have been con-
sidered. But different players may come to bat in these situations with frequen-
cies different from the typical values in Table 7-4.
If we knew the situation for each plate appearance for a player, we could cal-
culate the expected number of runs produced for the player’s specific opportuni-
ties, instead of using the generic frequencies in Lindsey’s calculation. In this way
we would capture the batter’s specific level of opportunity as well as his response
to it (the results of his plate appearances).
Of course, this requires much more data than the summaries of at-bats, hits,
home runs, etc. We need to know, for every plate appearance, the situation when
the player came to bat and the situation after he came to bat. Data on each plate
appearance is becoming more accessible as the years go by, but it is still rela-
tively difficult to find in electronic form.7 (Of course, they are available in writ-
ten form in the official scoresheets, but the sheer volume of these records make
them difficult to use except in very limited quantities.)
Joe Carter’s batting performance in the 1993 World Series provides us with a
reasonable amount of data and allows us to include a top-25 moment as well.
Table 10-8 lists each plate appearance in chronological order in the series. The
first column identifies the result of Carter’s at-bat in standard terms. Most of the
abbreviations should be readily identifiable, with the exception of FO and GO,
which indicate outs caught on the fly and on the ground, respectively. The second
column indicates the game in the series. The third column lists the innings, with

7 See the Retrosheet Web Page at www.retrosheet.org for advances on this front.
278 C H A P T E R 10

B E F O R E P L AY A F T E R P L AY

Play Game Inning VRuns HRuns Bases Outs VRuns HRuns Bases Outs

1B 1 2H(L) 2 0 0 0 2 0 1 0

SF 1 3H 3 2 3 1 3 3 0 2

GO 1 6H(L) 4 4 0 0 4 4 0 1

K 1 7H 4 8 2 1 4 8 2 2

FO 2 1H 0 0 1 2 0 0 0 3

HR 2 4H 5 0 1 0 5 2 0 0

FO 2 6H(L) 5 2 0 0 5 2 0 1

K 2 8H 6 3 2 0 6 3 2 1

SF 3 1V 2 0 3 0 3 0 0 1

1B 3 3V 4 0 0 2 4 0 1 2

FO 3 5V 4 0 0 2 4 0 0 3

K 3 7V 6 1 13 0 6 1 13 1

GO 3 9V 8 2 1 0 8 2 1 1

1B 4 1V 0 0 12 1 0 0 123 1

FO 4 3V(L) 3 6 0 0 3 6 0 1

FO 4 4V(L) 7 6 0 0 7 6 0 1

FO 4 6V 8 12 1 0 8 12 1 1

1B 4 8V 9 14 0 1 9 14 1 1

2B 4 9V(L) 15 14 0 0 15 14 2 0

FO 5 1V 0 0 1 2 0 0 0 3

K 5 4V 0 2 1 1 0 2 1 2

GO 5 7V(L) 0 2 0 0 0 2 0 1

FO 5 9V(L) 0 2 0 0 0 2 0 1

SF 6 1H 0 1 3 1 0 2 0 2

GO 6 3H 0 3 0 1 0 3 0 2

FO 6 5H 1 5 0 1 1 5 0 2

FO 6 8H(L) 6 5 0 0 6 5 0 1

HR 6 9H 6 5 12 1 6 8 0 3

TABLE 10-8 Joe Carter’s Plate Appearances in the 1993 World Series (Squares Mark On-
Base Events, Triangles Mark Plays That Scored Runs)
 M E A S U R I N G C LU T C H P L AY 279

V and H identifying the visitor and home half of each; an L in parentheses is

appended to the inning if Carter was the leadoff batter. The next two sets of four
columns each describe the state of the game before and after the play; the state
is described by the score (visiting-team runs are VRuns, home-team runs
HRuns), the bases occupied, and the number of outs. Note that for Carter’s
Game-6 home run we have listed the number of outs after the play as three; this
is done since Carter’s HR ended the game, consequently ending the possibility of
scoring any more runs. Plate appearances in which Carter got on base are
marked by squares, and those in which he drove in a run are marked by trian-
gles. We see that Carter got a hit in every game except Game 5, when Curt
Schilling shut down Toronto completely. We also see that Carter produced runs
only with the long ball—either a home run or a sacrifice fly.
Now we will reduce Table 10-8 to its essentials for our calculation. Table 10-9
shows the situation (outs and runners on base) before Carter’s plate appearance,
the situation after Carter’s plate appearance, and the number of runs scored on
the play. The three Expected Runs columns show the number of runs Toronto
would be expected to score in the Before situation, the number expected to score
after the play (including the runs which actually scored), and the Change (the
difference between the Before and After situations in terms of runs).
As an example, consider Carter’s first RBI of the series, in the second row of
Table 10-9. As Carter came to bat, Toronto had a runner on third base with 1 out.
According to Lindsey’s data in Table 7-4, a team on average would score .980
runs in this situation. This is the value of the Before situation in terms of runs.
After Carter’s sacrifice fly, Toronto had bases empty and 2 outs. According to
Lindsey’s data in Table 7-4, a team on average would score .102 runs in this sit-
uation. Since the SF scored the runner from third, the expected number of runs
scored after the play is 1 + .102 = 1.102. So here a SF was worth 1.102 – .980 =
.122 runs, the change in expected runs between the Before and After situations.
A special case for this calculation occurs in the bottom half of the ninth and
any subsequent innings. The expected values for runs scored in Table 7-4 are
predicated on the team having 3 outs to complete the inning. However, in the
bottom of the ninth, the game ends as soon as the home team scores enough runs
to win the game, thus limiting the run-production capability of the home team.
For example, consider the situation in Joe Carter’s final at-bat. If this were an
inning in the middle of the game, Table 7-4 indicates that the Blue Jays would
be expected to score .939 runs. This expectation is derived from the probabilities
of scoring different numbers of runs. Toronto has a 57.1-percent chance of scor-
ing no runs, a 16.3-percent chance of scoring exactly 1 run, an 11.9-percent
280 C H A P T E R 10

B E F O R E P L AY A F T E R P L AY EXPECTED RUNS

Pitcher Bases Outs Runs Bases Outs Play Before After Change

Schilling 0 0 0 1 0 1B .461 .813 .352

Schilling 3 1 1 0 2 SF .980 1.102 .122

Schilling 0 0 0 0 1 GO .461 .243 –.218

Andersen 2 1 0 2 2 K .671 .297 –.374

Mulholland 1 2 0 0 3 FO .219 0 –.219

Mulholland 1 0 2 0 0 HR .813 2.461 1.648

Mulholland 0 0 0 0 1 FO .461 .243 –.218

Mason 2 0 0 2 1 K 1.194 .671 –.523

Jackson 3 0 1 0 1 SF 1.390 1.243 –.147

Jackson 0 2 0 1 2 1B .102 .219 .117

Jackson 0 2 0 0 3 FO .102 0 –.102

Rivera 13 0 0 13 1 K 1.940 1.115 –.825

Andersen 1 0 0 1 1 GO .813 .498 –.315

Greene 12 1 0 123 1 1B .939 1.642 .703

Greene 0 0 0 0 1 FO .461 .243 –.218

Mason 0 0 0 0 1 FO .461 .243 –.218

West 1 0 0 1 1 FO .813 .498 –.315

Andersen 0 1 0 1 1 1B .243 .498 .255

Thigpen 0 0 0 2 0 2B .461 1.194 .733

Schilling 1 2 0 0 3 FO .219 0 –.219

Schilling 1 1 0 1 2 K .498 .219 –.279

Schilling 0 0 0 0 1 GO .461 .243 –.218

Schilling 0 0 0 0 1 FO .461 .243 –.218

Mulholland 3 1 1 0 2 SF .980 1.102 .122

Mulholland 0 1 0 0 2 GO .243 .102 –.141

Mulholland 0 1 0 0 2 FO .243 .102 –.141

Mason 0 0 0 0 1 FO .461 .243 –.218

Williams 12 1 3 0 3 HR .695 3.000 2.305

Sum of Change = 1.231

TABLE 10-9 Change in Expected Runs for Joe Carter Plate Appearances in the 1993
World Series (Squares Mark On-Base Events, Triangles Mark Plays That
Scored Runs)
 M E A S U R I N G C LU T C H P L AY 281

chance of scoring exactly 2 runs, and a 14.7-percent chance of scoring 3 or more

runs. However, Carter’s situation occurred in the ninth inning, with his team
trailing by a single run. So, as soon as Toronto scores two runs, the inning ends
and there are no more opportunities to score additional runs. This has the effect
of truncating the distribution of runs to no more than 2, the number needed to
win the game. This means that all of the situations in which more than 2 runs
could have scored in a full inning are reduced to occurrences of 2 runs. So, in this
score-inning situation, the probability of scoring two runs is 26.6 percent, the
sum of the probability of scoring two runs (11.9 percent) and the probability of
scoring 3 or more runs (14.7 percent). The expected number of runs scored with
runners on first and second with 1 out (when trailing by 1 run in the bottom of
the ninth inning) can now be estimated as follows:
(0 × .571) + (1 × .163) + (2 × .266) = .695 runs
This result is .244 runs less than in other innings because of the limitation of not
being permitted to score more runs than the number needed to win.8
Performing these calculations for every play, we find the value of each plate
appearance for Carter in terms of runs. This is similar to the calculation we did
in Chapter 7 to determine the average value of each type of hit in terms of runs.
There we generated a different After situation for each possible Before situation,
then calculated the Change in expected runs. Here we are taking an actual
record of plate-appearance results and finding their values in terms of expected
runs produced. If we total the run values in the Change column of Table 10-9, we
find that the net result of Carter’s batting in the 1993 World Series was +1.231
runs. This means that Carter produced 1.231 more runs (.205 more runs per
game) than an average batter would be expected to produce in the same set of
Before situations.
What we have done is integrate clutch effects into the estimate of run pro-
duction for a specific batting performance. We have replaced the various cate-
gories of clutch situations of Table 10-7 with a single value of run production
weighted by the situation in which each event occurred.

8 This is an underestimate of the actual value because of baseball’s ruling that all runs that score
on a game-winning home run are counted. There is a chance of scoring 3, 4, or 5 more runs
when trailing by 1 run in the bottom of the ninth inning. (Carter’s HR, which resulted in 3 runs
scored, is an example of this.) However, since these scores can only be achieved with a final HR,
they are much less probable than in normal circumstances. For simplicity (and the lack of
data), we use the lower value here.
282 C H A P T E R 10

B E F O R E P L AY A F T E R P L AY EXPECTED RUNS

Pitcher Bases Outs Runs Bases Outs Play Before After Change

Schilling 0 0 0 1 0 1B .461 .813 .352

Schilling 3 1 1 0 2 SF .980 1.102 .122

Schilling 0 0 0 0 1 GO .461 .243 –.218

Andersen 2 1 0 2 2 K .671 .297 –.374

Mulholland 1 2 0 0 3 FO .219 0 –.219

Mulholland 1 0 2 0 0 HR .813 2.461 1.648

Mulholland 0 0 0 0 1 FO .461 .243 –.218

Mason 2 0 0 2 1 K 1.194 .671 –.523

Jackson 3 0 1 0 1 SF 1.390 1.243 –.147

Jackson 0 2 0 1 2 1B .102 .219 .117

Jackson 0 2 0 0 3 FO .102 0 –.102

Rivera 13 0 0 13 1 K 1.940 1.115 –.825

Andersen 1 0 0 1 1 GO .813 .498 –.315

Greene 12 1 0 12 2 FO .939 .403 –.536

Greene 0 0 0 1 0 1B .461 .813 .352

Mason 0 0 0 0 1 FO .461 .243 –.218

West 1 0 0 1 1 FO .813 .498 –.315

Andersen 0 1 0 1 1 1B .243 .498 .255

Thigpen 0 0 0 2 0 2B .461 1.194 .733

Schilling 1 2 0 0 3 FO .219 0 –.219

Schilling 1 1 0 1 2 K .498 .219 –.279

Schilling 0 0 0 0 1 GO .461 .243 –.218

Schilling 0 0 1 0 0 HR .461 1.461 1.000

Mulholland 3 1 1 0 2 SF .980 1.102 .122

Mulholland 0 1 0 0 2 GO .243 .102 –.141

Mulholland 0 1 0 0 2 FO .243 .102 –.141

Mason 0 0 0 0 1 FO .461 .243 –.218

Williams 12 1 0 12 2 FO .695 .318 –.377

Sum of Change = –.902

TABLE 10-10 Change in Expected Runs for Joe Carter Plate Appearances in the “Parallel
Universe,” or “Twilight Zone” Version of the 1993 World Series (Squares
Mark On-Base Events, Triangles Mark Plays That Scored Runs)
 M E A S U R I N G C LU T C H P L AY 283

To see that we have actually accomplished this, let’s examine an alternate- or

parallel-universe batting performance for Joe Carter. The alternate performance
in Table 10-10 is one that Phillies’ fans wish had actually occurred. Focus your
attention on the boldfaced rows. Everything in Table 10-10 is the same as in
Table 10-9 except for these four rows, in which we have swapped the play results.
Suppose we swap the results of Carter’s first two at-bats in Game 4. So,
instead of singling with runners on first and second with 1 out in the first
inning, Carter flies out without advancing the runners, and in the third inning
he leads off with a single instead of flying out. In Table 10-10, we see that the run
value of the fly out is now –.536 runs (instead of –.218 runs, as originally), while
the single is now worth .352 runs (compared to .703 runs in reality). So, the swap
produces a net change:
[–.536 – (–.218)] + (.352 – .703) = –.669 runs
While we are making changes, let’s swap that depressing (to us Phillies fans)
HR in the ninth inning of Game 6 with Carter’s fly out in his last at-bat in Game
5. Carter’s second HR is now worth only 1 run (compared to 2.305 runs in real-
ity) and the fly out in his final at bat in Game 6 is worth –.377 runs (compared
to –.218 runs in its original spot).9 So, the swap produces a net change as follows:
[–.377 – (–.218)] + (1 – 2.305) = –1.464 runs
What we have done is preserve the count of individual batting events. In
Table 10-10, Carter still has the same number of singles, doubles, triples, home
runs, and outs as in Table 10-9. He still has the same batting average, on-base
percentage, and slugging percentage. All we have done is change the situation in
which they occurred. When we did this, the run values of the swapped events
changed. If we total the run values in the Change column of Table 10-10, we see
that Carter’s performance in this alternate universe is now worth –.902 runs, a
worse-than-average performance. We have substantially degraded Carter’s run
production merely by changing when the events occurred, rather than the num-
ber of each type of event. This example demonstrates that this measure success-
fully integrates a clutch effect (the when of batting results) into an evaluation of
player performance.

9 The expected runs scored with 2 outs and runners on first and second (trailing by 1 run in the
bottom of the ninth inning) was determined in a manner similar to that for the same situation
with 1 out. Using probabilities from Table 7-4, the value is calculated as:
(0 × .791) + (1 × .1) + [2 × (.061 + .048)] = .318
284 C H A P T E R 10

A New Criterion for Performance

We’ve been able to integrate certain aspects of situational hitting into player
evaluation. We have used the base and out aspects but (with the exception of sit-
uations in the bottom half of the ninth and extra innings) ignored the factors
which contribute to defining Late Inning Pressure—the inning and the score. To
do this, we have to move from run production, which has been our major crite-
rion for evaluating players, to a more general level.
The ultimate goal of any baseball team is not to score runs. Scoring runs is
only the means to a higher goal, winning games. Teams can amass large run
totals and still lose. Just look at the same 1993 World Series in which Carter
played. In Game 4, the Phillies scored 14 runs and still lost to Toronto. And there
is a classic example of the same phenomenon: Table 10-11 shows the scores for
the seven games of the 1960 World Series, which the Yankees lost to the Pitts-
burgh Pirates.
The Yankees scored more runs in the first three games than Pittsburgh would
score in the entire series. Overall, the Yankees scored more than twice as many
runs as Pittsburgh. Despite this, the seventh game and the series were won by a
Pirates homer that drove in only one run. There is no doubt that producing more
runs increases your chances of winning. But a hit (even a single) at the right
time can be more important to winning than a grand slam.
In 1970, a small book called Player Win Averages: A Computer Guide to
Winning Baseball Players, by the brothers Eldon G. and Harlan D. Mills, devel-
oped a new metric for clutch play. The truly revelatory aspect of their system was
that it focused on measuring not the events that lead to victory (the number of

Game Pittsburgh New York

1 6 4

2 3 16

3 0 10

4 3 2

5 5 2

6 0 12

7 10 9

Total 27 55

TABLE 10-11 1960 World Series Scores

 M E A S U R I N G C LU T C H P L AY 285

hits, walks, stolen bases, RBIs, etc.), but victory itself. But how can you measure
a player’s contribution to victory? According to the Mills brothers, you have to
arrive at some sense of the degree to which the player contributes to the proba-
bility of winning a game.
They called this measure the Player Win Average (PWA). It was defined as a
ratio of Win Points to the sum of Win Points and Loss Points:
PWA = Win Points/(Win Points + Loss Points)
The points were based on how much the player added to or subtracted from
the probability of his team winning. If a player increased the probability of his
team winning by D, the player was awarded:10
Win Points = 2000 × D
On the other hand, if a player decreased the probability of his team winning by
D, the player was given:
Loss Points = 2000 × D
Every play in a baseball game increases the probability of winning for one
team or the other. Win and Loss Points were awarded on each play to an offen-
sive player and a defensive player. A batter who got a hit was awarded Win
Points based on how much the hit improved his team’s probability of winning
the game; the pitcher who gave up the hit was given an equal number of Loss
Points. Naturally, the situation is reversed for an out, where a defensive player
(typically the pitcher) is awarded the Win Points and the batter the Loss Points.
Consider this example, which the Mills brothers reckoned to be the biggest
offensive play of the 1969 World Series, in which the Miracle Mets defeated the
heavily favored Baltimore Orioles. Al Weis, the Mets’ second baseman, came to
the plate in the top of the ninth inning of Game 2 with the score tied. The Mets
had runners on first and third with 2 outs, clearly a Late Inning Pressure situa-
tion. The probability of a Met victory was .510. Weis singled, placing runners at
first and second as well as knocking in the go-ahead (and eventual game-win-
ning) run. His hit raised the probability of a Met victory to .849, an increase of
D = .339. Weis was therefore credited with the following Win Points:
Win Points = 2000 × .339 = 678
Orioles pitcher Dave McNally was given an equal number of Loss Points.

10 Since PWA is calculated as a ratio of points, it is not necessary to multiply the change in
probability D by 2000 to get the same PWA value. Most likely the Mills brothers only used this
conversion to make the Win and Loss Points easier to read.
286 C H A P T E R 10

In addition to analyzing the 1969 World Series, the Mills brothers used every
play in the 1969 season to assign a PWA rating to every player. Each play in
which a player was the primary offensive or defensive participant was analyzed.
The Win Points and Loss Points from these plays were summed over the season,
then substituted in the PWA formula. The highest PWA ratings for batters with
enough plate appearances (502) to qualify for a batting championship were
achieved by Willie McCovey (.677) in the National League and Frank Robinson
(.615) in the American League.11 McCovey was selected by the sportswriters as
National League MVP, but the American League MVP Award went to Harmon
Killebrew, who had a .608 PWA.
When Win Points equal Loss Points, PWA equals .500, which is the rating for
an average player. Clearly, McCovey, Robinson, and Killebrew were all way
above average; their Win Points were all at least 50 percent greater than their
Loss Points. But how low can PWA reasonably get? Bob Barton, a catcher with
San Francisco, had a PWA of .255, lowest among players with 100 or more at-
bats. Among full-time players, Hal Lanier, a shortstop also with the Giants, had
a PWA of .348 in 495 at-bats, with almost twice as many Loss Points as Win
Points. (The Giants appear to have had the best—McCovey—and worst PWA
players in 1969.)
A unique capability of PWA is to measure defensive as well as offensive per-
formance. In most plays, the pitcher is the defensive player who receives Win or
Loss Points. The Mills brothers tabulated PWAs for pitchers in the exact same
manner as for batters. The highest PWAs for starting pitchers were .612 for
Larry Dierker of the Houston Astros (National League) and .585 for Denny
McLain of the Detroit Tigers and Jim Palmer of the Baltimore Orioles (American
League). The highest-rated relief pitchers were Tug McGraw (.651) of the New
York Mets and Ken Tatum (.643) of the California Angels. McLain shared the
1969 Cy Young Award with Mike Cuellar (Baltimore Orioles, .569 PWA).
Dierker, however, received no Cy Young votes, losing to Tom Seaver (New York
Mets, .609 PWA).
Because both offensive and defensive players are measured according to the
same metric, it is possible to use PWA to compare the value of pitchers and bat-
ters. McCovey is a clear standout when all players are considered, but the Mills’s

11 Mike Epstein of the Washington Senators finished ahead of Robinson with a .641 PWA, but
had only 500 plate appearances. Epstein was the Mills brothers selection as the “Most
Winning” player in the American League in 1969.
 M E A S U R I N G C LU T C H P L AY 287

analysis indicates that a good case could have been made for Tatum over
Killebrew as the most valuable player in the American League in 1969.
PWA also has the capability to include fielding in its evaluation of players. If
a fielder made an error, the fielder was substituted for the pitcher in receiving
Loss Points for the play. For example, in the bottom of the third inning of Game
1 in the 1969 World Series, Don Buford grounded a ball off Tom Seaver to second
baseman Al Weis, who fumbled it, allowing Buford to reach first safely. Before
the play, the Orioles led 1–0 and had no runners and one out in the bottom of the
third inning. After the play, they had a runner on first, still with only one out. In
the Mills’s analysis, the play was split into two parts:
• Win Points to Seaver. Because Weis was charged with an error, the
implication from the official scorer was that Buford would have
been out if Weis had executed properly. So an intermediate result
is created assuming that Weis had made the play. The result
would have left the Orioles with two outs and no runners on base.
Baltimore’s probability of winning decreased from .658 to .644 for
a change of D = .014. Seaver was awarded Win Points =
2000 × .014 = 28, and Buford was given 28 Loss Points.
• Loss Points to Weis. However, Weis’s error reversed this
intermediate result and placed a runner on first base with one
out. This increased Baltimore’s probability of winning from .644 to
.679 for a change of D = .035. Buford was awarded Win Points =
2000 × .035 = 70, and Weis was given 70 Loss Points.
So the final result of the play was that Buford received 70 Win Points and 28
Loss Points, Seaver received 28 Win Points, and Weis received 70 Loss Points.
An unfortunate aspect of the Mills’s book is that, apart from several exam-
ples, the authors do not provide detail about how they applied fielding in their
analysis of the 1969 season. Although not explicitly stated, it is likely that field-
ing was included in the overall player ratings. So the PWA ratings cited are
probably a reflection of fielding (and running) as well as batting performance.
The Mills brothers provided a play-by-play analysis of the 1969 World Series.
An interesting result was that the true MVP of the series was not the sports-
writers’ choice, Donn Clendenon, but journeyman infielder Al Weis. Oddly, the
authors based this selection not on PWA but on Net Points, the difference
between Win Points and Loss Points. In many ways, this metric seems a more
reasonable measure than PWA. Weis had 1277 Net Points, almost three times
that of Clendenon (450 Net Points). In fact, three teammates, pitchers Koosman
288 C H A P T E R 10

(783), Seaver (564), and Gentry (475), also had more Net Points than Clendenon.
The second highest Net Point total was achieved by a member of the losing team,
starting pitcher Mike Cuellar (998).
The Mills brothers used PWA to identify “Hidden Heroes,” players who
achieved above-average PWAs despite having low batting averages (less than
.250). In the authors’ view, these players were true clutch performers, those who
rose above their normal ability when the game was on the line. Thirty years
later, most of the players are not familiar, but one player does jump out. Hall-of-
Famer Joe Morgan batted .236 in 1969, but he had a .521 PWA. Still, it is not
clear that this PWA rating is a result of clutch performance. Morgan may have
only had a .236 AVG, but he drew 110 walks, so his on-base percentage was quite
respectable.
The Mills’s goal in creating PWA was to evaluate clutch performance.
Actually, PWA does not rate clutch performance; instead, it integrates or weights
clutch performance with the frequency of different events. A good analogy is
slugging percentage, which does not explicitly measure a player’s power;
instead, it integrates power (using the number of bases as weights) with batting
average into the evaluation of a player’s hitting performance. PWA does the
same thing, except its weights are based on the game situation as well as the
result of the play. Indeed, this is an even greater achievement than their origi-
nal intention. Instead of rating one facet of a player’s game, they established a
structure for evaluating all aspects (including the player’s clutch performance)
into a single quantitative value.
Even so, as carefully thought out as their concept was, the Mills’s work left
some room for improvement. We have alluded to some areas already. In develop-
ing PWA, it is evident that the authors were intent on developing an average
that could replace the batting average, which still reigned supreme and virtually
unchallenged as the king of batting statistics in 1970. This is evident in the
Mills’s comparison of AVG with their statistic PWA for “Hidden Heroes.”
Late in the book, it seems that the Mills brothers discovered that Net Points
might be more useful in rating players according to contribution to winning.
What are the advantages of Net Points?
• Simplicity. Net Points is easier to calculate than PWA. Just
subtract Loss Points from Win Points, and you’re done.
• Intelligibility. Dividing Net Points by 2000 gives the number of
wins the player contributed above an average player. For example,
4000 Net Points is equivalent to two wins above average.
 M E A S U R I N G C LU T C H P L AY 289

Player Win Points Loss Points Net Points PWA

A 2000 1000 1000 .667

B 3000 2000 1000 .600

TABLE 10-12 Example of Players with the Same Net Points and Different PWA Ratings

• Consistency. Consider Players A and B in Table 10-12. Both have

the same Net Points, but different PWA ratings. Player A has a
better PWA rating because the total number of points accumu-
lated is less than that of Player B. There are two major ways
Player A could have achieved this. One possibility is that he
earned his points in less critical situations than Player B. In this
way, each event would have less value—either positive or nega-
tive. It is not clear that this should entitle Player A to a higher
rating than Player B. In fact, if PWA is truly supposed to evaluate
clutch performance, it could be argued that Player B should be
rated higher than Player A, since his results were achieved in
more critical circumstances.
Another possibility is that Player A achieved his results in fewer
plays (or games) than Player B. This presents some rationale for
rating Player A higher than Player B. But then consider two more
players, C and D, in Table 10-13. Player D has accumulated twice
as many points as Player C, yet their PWA ratings are the same.
So, dividing by total points does not give a consistent inter-
pretation of player value in PWA.
In general, it is not clear what dividing by total points repre-
sents in evaluating player performance. On the other hand, Net
Points provides a consistent interpretation of player contribution.
• Sustained Contribution. Apparently, the Mills’s intent was to
construct PWA as a ratio of accumulated achievement (Win
Points) divided by accumulated opportunity (total points) as a

Player Win Points Loss Points Net Points PWA

C 1000 1000 0 .500

D 2000 2000 0 .500

TABLE 10-13 Example of Players with the Same Net Points and the Same PWA Ratings
290 C H A P T E R 10

parallel to batting average (which does the same thing in terms of

hits and at-bats). However, in the Mills’s system, when a player
comes to bat, the possibility exists of getting Loss Points or Win
Points. So in each play, the player can be rewarded or penalized.
Net Points provides a measure of the accumulated net contri-
bution to victory. For this reason, there is no need to resort to a
ratio such as PWA. This can’t be done with hits in batting average
or bases in slugging percentage. Hits and bases can only be
accumulated; we can’t subtract hits or bases from a player.
The title page of Player Win Averages contains the phrase “1970 Edition.”
Apparently, the authors intended to publish an annual analysis of each baseball
season using PWA. Unfortunately, there was no 1971 edition. By the late 1970s,
the 1970 (and only) edition of Player Win Averages was out of print, and remains
so to this day. Other publications and papers have alluded to the book and the
PWA concept. A common criticism is provided by Palmer and Thorn in their book
The Hidden Game of Baseball. “The major flaw in the Mills brothers’ system is
that the Player Win Average weights a few events very heavily, many others
quite lightly . . .” (p. 176).12 The impression is that PWA gives too much weight
to a handful of critical events that drown out the effects of standard plays in
evaluating baseball performance. Experience with a variant of PWA (to be
described presently) in evaluating World Series performance over several years
has provided evidence counter to this view.
Besides such criticism, another more practical reason lies at the heart of the
lack of interest in Player Win Averages at the time. The Mills brothers provided
no description of how to calculate the probability of victory at different stages of
a baseball game. Using computer simulation, the brothers developed a table of
probabilities that was not revealed to readers. Only the win probabilities of
selected situations that arose in the 1969 World Series could be gleaned from the
book. Without this table, it was impossible to calculate Win and Loss Points;
without Win and Loss Points, PWA could not be calculated. So without the table
of win probabilities, no one could use the technique. The need to capture play-by-
play data is a large impediment to PWA’s practicality, but the lack of win proba-

12 Despite this perception, their succeeding volume (with Bob Carroll), The Hidden Game of
Football, proposed Win Probability, which utilized basic principles similar to those of PWA. Win
Probability was the probability of a football team winning the game based on field position,
score, and time remaining. Win Probability points were credited to or subtracted from the
offense and defense according to the change in Win Probability for different events. Sadly,
Player Win Averages was not cited in the book.
 M E A S U R I N G C LU T C H P L AY 291

bilities made its calculation impossible for anyone but the Mills broth-
ers . . . until 1984.

The Calculation of Win Probabilities

Following the Phillies first and only World Championship, in 1980, John Flueck
and one of us (Jay Bennett) wanted to see if Mike Schmidt was really the Most
Valuable Player in the series. PWA seemed an ideal metric for determining this,
but the effort was stymied because of the lack of the table of win probabilities.
However, recent research in run production models led to Lindsey’s data. We
have already described some of this data, the distribution of runs scored after a
given situation within an inning. Using data on the distribution of runs scored
in each inning and assuming independence, Lindsey calculated the expected
probability of winning given the score at the end of an inning, as shown in Table
10-14.13

Inning

H–V 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

–6 .061 .054 .039 .029 .020 .012 .005 .0005 0

–5 .095 .087 .067 .053 .038 .025 .013 .004 0

–4 .142 .133 .109 .091 .070 .050 .029 .011 0

–3 .207 .196 .171 .150 .122 .093 .060 .025 0

–2 .290 .280 .257 .236 .207 .168 .122 .063 0

–1 .389 .383 .368 .353 .331 .295 .244 .153 0

0 .500 .500 .500 .500 .500 .500 .500 .500 .5

1 .611 .617 .632 .647 .669 .705 .756 .847 1

2 .710 .720 .743 .764 .793 .832 .878 .937 1

3 .793 .804 .829 .850 .878 .907 .940 .975 1

4 .858 .867 .891 .909 .930 .950 .971 .989 1

5 .905 .913 .933 .947 .962 .975 .987 .996 1

6 .939 .946 .961 .971 .980 .988 .995 .9995 1

TABLE 10-14 Probability of Home Team Victory Given the Score Difference (Home Team
Minus Visiting Team) at the End of Each Inning

13 Table 10-14 presents a slight revision of Table 7 in G. R. Lindsey, “The Progress of the Score
During a Baseball Game,” American Statistical Association Journal, September 1961, 703–728.
292 C H A P T E R 10

Lead
1.0

6
0.9 5
4
0.8
3

0.7 2

0.6
PROBABILITY OF HOME TEAM VICTORY

0.5 0

0.4
–1

0.3
–2

0.2 –3
–4
0.1
–5
–6
0

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

INNING

FIGURE 10-2 Probability of home-team victory given the home-team lead (home team
minus visiting team) at the end of each inning.

Plotting these probabilities in Figure 10-2, we can see some quantitative sup-
port for the critical nature of Late Inning Pressure. Each line in Figure 10-2 rep-
resents a score differential for the home team over the visiting team. Looking at
the lines in which the home team has the lead, each line curves upward as the
game progresses. The smaller the lead, the more extreme the curvature. (The
value of an extra run increases as the lead becomes smaller, and this value
becomes even greater in late innings.) The difference between being ahead by 1
run or behind by 1 run after the first inning is about .2 in win probability, but
about .7 in win probability after eight innings.
So, Table 10-14 and Figure 10-2 capture the score and inning aspects of win-
ning, while Table 7-4 captures the base and out aspects of scoring runs. Putting
them together, we can derive a reasonable replication of the win probabilities
used by the Mills brothers. The calculation to do this is somewhat like that for
expected run production described earlier.
Suppose we wish to calculate the probability of winning when the home team
trails by 1 run with runners on first and second and 1 out in the bottom of the
ninth inning. This is the situation that Joe Carter faced as he approached the
plate in the ninth inning of Game 6 in the 1993 World Series. Lindsey’s data in
 M E A S U R I N G C LU T C H P L AY 293

Table 7-4 tells us the probability of scoring different numbers of runs in the
remainder of the inning:
• Toronto scores no more runs. In this case (first and second base
occupied, with 1 out), there is a .571 chance that Toronto will
score no more runs in the remainder of the inning; if this happens,
Toronto loses the game. The probability of a Toronto victory is 0
(as shown in Table 10-14).
• Toronto scores 1 more run. Table 7-4 also tells us that there is a
.163 chance that Toronto will score exactly 1 more run in this
inning. In this case, the game is tied and goes into extra innings.
Toronto would then have an even chance (.5 probability) of
winning (as shown in the ninth inning column of Table 10-14).
• Toronto scores two more runs. Table 7-4 tells us that there is a
.119 chance that Toronto will score exactly 2 more runs in this
inning. In this case, Toronto wins and its probability of victory is 1
(as shown in the ninth-inning column of Table 10-14).
• Toronto scores 3 or more runs. Table 7-4 tells us that there is a
.147 chance that Toronto will score 3 or more runs in this inning.
Again, Toronto wins and its probability of victory is 1.
Table 10-15 summarizes the calculation. Each line of the table represents the
possibility of scoring a specific number of runs in this inning given the situation
(1 out and runners on first and second). The line then goes on to analyze the con-
sequences of scoring those runs given the inning and the score. In the last col-
umn, we multiply the probability that the home team scores the runs times the

SCORING IN INNING R E S U LT O F S C O R I N G

Pr(Win Pr(Runs) ×
Runs Pr(Runs) Home Lead Given Runs) Pr(Win Given Runs)

0 .571 –1 0 0 0

1 .163 0 .5 .0815

2 .119 1 1 .1190

3 or more .147 2 or more 1 .1470 .1470

Pr (Win) = .347
Pr(Win) = .3475

TABLE 10-15 Calculation of the Probability of Home-Team Victory When the Team Trails by
1 Run in the Bottom of the Ninth Inning with 1 Out and Runners on First
and Second Bases
294 C H A P T E R 10

probability that they win if they do. Summing the results in the last column
gives the final result of the probability of winning given all that could possibly
occur in the remainder of the inning. In this case, the probability of Toronto win-
ning as Carter stepped to the plate was almost .35.
Let’s look at a more general calculation, where the inning results are not win,
lose, or tie the game, but where the Pr(Win Given Runs) values (other than tie)
are different from 0 and 1. In The Sporting News #18 greatest moment, Sandy
Amoros of the Brooklyn Dodgers made his game-saving catch in the bottom of
the sixth inning with his Dodgers ahead of the Yankees 2–0 in Game 7 of the
1955 World Series. Yogi Berra had come to the plate with runners on first and
second, no outs. Table 10-16 summarizes the calculation of the Yankee probabil-
ity of winning at the moment Berra came to bat. The Pr(Run) probabilities in the
second column are taken from Table 7-4 for runners on first and second and no
outs. The Pr(Win Given Runs) probabilities in the fourth column are taken from
Table 10-14 for the sixth inning and the appropriate lead. The probability of a
Yankee win was .3758, slightly better than the situation Toronto was in when
Carter came to bat.14 Comparing the situations, both teams had identical bases
occupied. While New York trailed by more runs than Toronto, the Yankees had
fewer outs in the inning and were not in their last at-bat, all of which more than

SCORING IN INNING R E S U LT O F S C O R I N G

Pr(Win Pr(Runs) ×
Runs Pr(Runs) Home Lead Given Runs) Pr(Win Given Runs)

0 .395 –2 .168 .0664 0

1 .220 –1 .295 .0649

2 .131 0 .500 .0655

3 or more .254 1 or more .705 .1791 .1470

Pr (Win) = .3475
Pr(Win) = .3758

TABLE 10-16 Calculation of the Probability of Home-Team Victory When the Team Trails by
2 Runs in the Bottom of the Sixth Inning with No Outs and Runners on First
and Second Bases

14 This calculation is actually a slight underestimate of the true value, which is closer to .397. In
order to achieve this more accurate estimate, assumptions about the probability of scoring 3, 4,
5, 6, etc., runs must be made to replace the single “3 or more” value given by Lindsey. The
calculation then follows the same pattern outlined here. The calculation of the Carter situation
is exact because the probability of a Toronto win is 1 as long as 2 or more runs score.
 M E A S U R I N G C LU T C H P L AY 295

counterbalanced their disadvantage in the score relative to the Blue Jays. All of
these factors are accounted for in the calculation of the probability of winning.
We also see that there is more spread in the Pr(Win Given Runs) for Carter’s
situation (from 0 to 1) than for Berra’s situation (from .168 to .705). This indi-
cates greater instability in Carter’s situation; that is, the possible change in vic-
tory from scoring 0 or 3 runs in the inning has a greater effect in Carter’s situa-
tion than in Berra’s, and this indicates that the degree of clutch is more intense
in Carter’s than in Berra’s.
Applying this system to Lindsey’s data, Bennett and Flueck were able to cal-
culate their own table of win probabilities. Figure 10-3 is an application of these
win probabilities to Game 6 of the 1993 World Series. The line tracks the proba-
bility of Toronto victory as it changed after each play. The effects of plays in
which Joe Carter batted are emphasized with heavy lines. The end of each
inning is indicated on the x-axis, giving the score at the end of the inning
(Toronto– Philadelphia). A diamond symbol on the line indicates the result of the
last play of the visitors’ (Phillies’) half of the inning.

Inning 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
100%
FO
HR

GO
75%
SF
PROBABILITY OF TORONTO VICTORY

50%

25%

FO

0%

3–0 3–0 3–0 4–1 5–1 5–1 5–6 5–6 8–6

SCORE

FIGURE 10-3 Win probabilities for Toronto after each play in Game 6 of the 1993 World
Series. Effects of plate appearances by Joe Carter are emphasized with heavy
lines. The scores at the end of each inning are marked on the x-axis.
Diamonds identify result of last play in visitors’ (Phillies’) at-bat.
296 C H A P T E R 10

We see that Toronto’s probability of winning rose from the start as they pre-
vented the Phillies from scoring in the first inning. This trend continued as the
Blue Jays scored three times in the first inning. Carter’s sacrifice fly was part of
this effort; it provided a small boost in the probability by knocking in the second
run of the inning. There was no scoring in the next two innings. Toronto’s proba-
bility of winning rose slightly as they preserved their lead. The fourth inning
saw a small dip in Toronto’s probability of victory as the Phillies scored a run. By
matching Philadelphia with a run of their own, Toronto restored their three-run
lead and inched their probability of winning to an even higher level. The Phillies
had an opportunity to score some runs in the fifth inning (bases loaded and 2
outs), but failed when Dave Hollins grounded into the third out. The low point in
the inning for Toronto occurred just after John Kruk walked to load the bases.
Note how win probability is able to account for establishing a scoring threat
even if it eventually fails. Hollins’s big out is shown by the rise (ending with the
diamond symbol) in Toronto’s victory probability from this low point in the fifth
inning. Toronto responded to this scare with another run, to inch ahead their
lead and chances of winning.
The sixth inning was uneventful, but in the seventh the Phillies turned the
tables on Toronto, scoring five runs to take the lead. The plot of Toronto’s proba-
bility of winning looks like the Dow Jones Industrial Average in free-fall.
Toronto did not score in its half of the seventh, pushing its probability of winning
even further down. When the Phillies did not score in the top of the eighth
inning, Toronto had a chance to tie or get the lead. Joe Carter had Toronto’s first
crack at the Phillies, but flied out in a critical at-bat that decreased Toronto’s
chances even further. After Carter, the plot rises (and the plot thickens) in the
eighth inning as a result of a threat with bases loaded and two outs. Like Hollins
on the opposing team, Pat Borders made the third out, producing a net gain in
the probability of the Phillies winning in the inning since their one-run lead was
preserved. In the ninth inning, the Phillies went down quickly. Toronto came out
storming in the ninth, quickly putting runners on base. The triumphant (or cat-
aclysmic, depending on your view) impact of Carter’s home run is evident in the
steep rise in the final markings of the plot.

Player Game Percentage (PGP)

In addition to the calculation of win probability, Bennett and Flueck made other
modifications. They adopted the Net Points viewpoint instead of the PWA ratio
 M E A S U R I N G C LU T C H P L AY 297

concept. Instead of using Win Points and Loss Points, their measure used the
change in probability directly expressed as a percentage. Half of the change was
attributed to the offensive player’s performance, and the other half to the defen-
sive player’s performance. This simplification allowed the direct computation of
wins above average without the need for dividing by 2000 (as in the Mills system).
Consider Joe Carter’s home run in the 1993 World Series finale. As described
in Table 10-15, the probability of a Toronto victory was .3475 when Carter came
to bat. His home run won the game, so the probability of a Toronto win was
exactly 1 after his at-bat. The change in Toronto’s win probability was 1 – .3475 =
.6525, or 65.25 percent. Half of this change (32.63 percent) was awarded to
Carter, and the negative half of the change (–32.63 percent) was given to Mitch
Williams, the hapless Phillies reliever who delivered the ill-fated pitch.
For the most part, Bennett and Flueck adopted the procedures used by the
Mills brothers in identifying the major offensive and defensive contributors in
each play, following the examples provided by the Mills’s analysis of the 1969
World Series. There were departures, however. One of these was the method
used to evaluate errors. Earlier in this chapter, we looked at the Mills brothers’
analysis of Weis’s error in Game 1 of the 1969 World Series. Basically, the analy-
sis broke the play up into two parts: a ground-out giving Win Points to the
pitcher Seaver, and the error giving Loss Points to Weis. However, the batter
ended up getting 28 Loss Points on the ground ball to Seaver and 70 Win Points
on Weis’s error, for a net gain of 42 points, more than the 28 Win Points given to
Seaver. It did not seem right for the batter to get any positive recognition for this
play, much less greater recognition than the pitcher.
The solution adopted by Bennett and Flueck was not to give any positive
credit to the batter in this play and award the entire negative change from the
error to the fielder. So, using the example above, the first part of the play is the
same (except for the change from the Points framework); the change was D =
.014, or 1.4 percent, so Seaver gets D/2 = 0.7 percent, and Buford gets –0.7 per-
cent. However, Weis’s error produced a negative change (from his team’s per-
spective) of D = .035, so he is debited the entire change, –3.5 percent. In this way,
only the pitcher receives any positive recognition from the play.
PGP (and PWA) have very powerful capabilities to quantify defensive contri-
butions to winning. However, while the mechanics of the probability calculations
are objective, identifying the players and whether their defensive contributions
were outstanding enough for special recognition remain subjective judgments.
This is less of a problem for errors, since MLB has assigned official scorers the
task of identifying misplays in the field. But how do we identify great plays by
298 C H A P T E R 10

B E F O R E P L AY A F T E R P L AY

D Play Game Inning Lead Bases Outs Pr(Win)% Lead Bases Outs Pr(Win)%

3.80 1B 1 2H(L) –2 0 0 32.91 –2 1 0 36.71

2.07 SF 1 3H –1 3 1 49.16 0 0 2 51.23

–3.22 GO 1 6H(L) 0 0 0 57.16 0 0 1 53.94

–.22 K 1 7H 4 2 1 98.41 4 2 2 98.19

–2.15 FO 2 1H 0 1 2 52.15 0 0 3 50.00

9.68 HR 2 4H –5 1 0 10.10 –3 0 0 19.78

–2.49 FO 2 6H(L) –3 0 0 14.33 –3 0 1 11.84

–6.67 K 2 8H –3 2 0 15.43 –3 2 1 8.76

–.31 SF 3 1V 2 3 0 76.89 3 0 1 76.58

.44 1B 3 3V 4 0 2 85.92 4 1 2 86.36

–.37 FO 3 5V 4 0 2 89.81 4 0 3 89.44

–.62 K 3 7V 5 13 0 98.77 5 13 1 98.15

–.04 GO 3 9V 6 1 0 99.75 6 1 1 99.71

6.64 1B 4 1V 0 12 1 54.67 0 123 1 61.31

–2.40 FO 4 3V(L) –3 0 0 19.60 –3 0 1 17.20

–2.23 FO 4 4V(L) 1 0 0 63.20 1 0 1 60.97

–2.34 FO 4 6V –4 1 0 9.69 –4 1 1 7.35

.61 1B 4 8V –5 0 1 .89 –5 1 1 1.50

4.78 2B 4 9V(L) 1 0 0 84.70 1 2 0 89.48

–2.20 FO 5 1V 0 1 2 47.69 0 0 3 45.49

–3.23 K 5 4V –2 1 1 26.29 –2 1 2 23.06

–3.38 GO 5 7V(L) –2 0 0 16.80 –2 0 1 13.42

–3.01 FO 5 9V(L) –2 0 0 6.30 –2 0 1 3.29

1.45 SF 6 1H 1 3 1 69.38 2 0 2 70.83

–.69 GO 6 3H 3 0 1 83.94 3 0 2 83.25

–.32 FO 6 5H 4 0 1 93.58 4 0 2 93.26

–6.03 FO 6 8H(L) –1 0 0 28.67 –1 0 1 22.64

65.25 HR 6 9H –1 12 1 34.75 2 0 3 100.00

TABLE 10-17 Player Game Percentage Evaluation of Joe Carter’s Performance in the 1993
World Series in Chronological Order (Squares Mark On-Base Events, Triangles
Mark Plays That Scored Runs)
 M E A S U R I N G C LU T C H P L AY 299

fielders? And once recognized, how do we reward the fielder? Willie Mays’s
renowned catch in the 1954 World Series, for example, was unquestionably a
great fielding play. One possibility is just to give the defensive credit for the out
to the fielder instead of the pitcher, as might be done in the case of Mays’s catch,
but is this enough credit for an extraordinary play? Probably not. So, the other
possibility is to analyze it as an error in reverse. Split the play into two parts, the
first being a hit off the pitcher and the second being the out credited to the
fielder. PGP has used both methods at times for evaluating fielding plays, but
there is much room for improvement in this aspect of its use.
While Bennett and Flueck’s measure was derived from the same concepts as
PWA, there were enough differences (especially the use of their own table of win
probabilities) that they gave their measure its own name, Player Game
Percentage (PGP).
Let’s see how well PGP rated Carter’s 1993 World Series performance. Table
10-17 is the same as Table 10-8 except that it also presents the probability of a
Toronto victory before and after each play (as a percentage). The first column (D)
gives the change in these probabilities, subtracting the Before probability from
the After probability. Carter’s net contribution over the course of the series can
be found by summing the values in the D column and dividing by 2 (since the
change is split in half between offense and defense). This calculation produces
the following net contribution:
52.80/2 = 26.40
This is roughly equivalent to a quarter of a win over the course of the six
games.15 Carter’s PGP rating is then found by dividing his net contribution by
the number of games:

Net contribution 26.4

PGP = = = 4.4
Number of games 6

This means that Carter’s play in the 1993 World Series was good enough to raise
a team’s winning percentage by .044. So, a play of this caliber over the course of
a season could raise a .500 team to a .544 team.
We can summarize Carter’s play game-by-game by just adding up his contribu-
tions in each game individually. Figure 10-4 displays these values in the bars. The
line shows Carter’s PGP for the series as it progresses; each value is the sum of the

15 Before his final home run, Carter actually had a negative net contribution (–12.45/2 = –6.225).
A negative value does not mean that he prevented a victory but rather that his performance
was below average up to that point.
300 C H A P T E R 10

30

25

20

15

10

–5
Series to Date
PGP

–10 Game
1 2 3 4 5 6

GAME

FIGURE 10-4 Game history of Joe Carter’s Player Game Percentage throughout the 1993
World Series.

Game PGPs divided by the number of games to that point in the series. We see that
Carter’s PGP fluttered about the average (0) level until the big boost in Game 6.
Looking at Table 10-17, we see that Carter got off to a good start in Game 1,
with major contributions early in the game. His sacrifice fly tied the game, which
Toronto would eventually win. Game 2 saw the best (almost) and worst of Carter’s
play. His home run chipped into the early Phillies lead, and was Carter’s second
biggest play of the series. On the other hand, he struck out late in the game, put-
ting the brakes on a possible big inning to get Toronto back in the game; this was
his worst at-bat in the series. Despite the HR, his contribution was negative in this
game. His contributions in Game 3 were relatively minor (positively and nega-
tively) in a Toronto victory that was assured early in the game.
Game 4 was a wild affair that Toronto won 15–14. Carter played a positive
role in Toronto’s victory. His first single set the stage for a big Toronto first
inning. His second single started the rally that eventually brought Toronto from
way behind into the lead, but it gave Carter very little credit (+.3). When the sin-
gle was hit, the likelihood of a Toronto comeback was very remote, a probability
of winning less than .01 before the single and less than .02 after it. Toronto had
to score 5 runs just to tie and thus reach a 50-percent chance of winning. The
view that Carter’s single was a big hit is hindsight; PGP (and PWA) evaluate a
play at the moment of its resolution, not after the fact. The credit for the Toronto
rally went to the hits made by Rickey Henderson and especially Devon White,
 M E A S U R I N G C LU T C H P L AY 301

who delivered when the game was more in doubt, later that inning. Ironically,
Carter got more credit for his double in the ninth inning, setting up a potential
insurance run (which did not score). PGP and PWA operate on probabilities, but
sometimes the remote possibilities do occur.
Game 5 was Carter’s worst game, as it was for the rest of Toronto’s players.
Phillie starting pitcher Curt Schilling took charge and pitched a shutout. Game
6 started off well for Carter as his sacrifice fly helped Toronto to an early lead.
But unlike Game 4, when his team, trailing by a lone run, needed a runner, he
flied out to lead off the eighth inning; this was his second greatest negative at-
bat of the series, although his final at-bat more than made up for it.
The analysis of Carter’s at-bats within the context of the game using proba-
bility of victory lets us see the ebb and flow of player production. It quantifies
our intuitive feel for the great dramatic plays such as Carter’s home run to win
the final game and the series. Unlike most statistical summaries of player per-
formance, a PGP/PWA analysis tells a revealing story.
Suppose we sort Table 10-17 not chronologically but according to play type, as
shown in Table 10-18. What does this tell us about the value of different plays?
Of course, we must keep in mind that this is a very small (and unrepresentative)
sample of situations in which these plays could occur. Still, we see that the eval-
uation of these plays follows our intuition of their values. The average value of
Carter’s home runs (average D = 37.5) is higher than that of any other play type.
The average value of a single (average D = 2.9) is less than that of the double
(D = 4.8) and greater than that of the sacrifice fly (average D = 1.1). All outs
(except SFs) have negative values.
However, taking a closer look beyond the averages, we notice exceptions to
these generalities. One single which energized a big opening in Game 4 had
greater value than Carter’s lone double. Two sacrifice flies had more value than
some singles; both SFs occurred with one out and the score close. On the other
hand, one SF which occurred with no outs had a negative value; apparently, an
SF with no outs reduces the possibility of a big inning, while an SF with one out
in a close game guarantees the scoring of a run when less opportunity exists.
Also note that Carter’s leadoff outs tended to be more damaging than other outs.
In fact, the average value of Carter’s leadoff outs was –3.3, and –1.7 for all other
outs, excluding SFs. This provides some quantitative support for the leadoff spot
being a critical element of each inning.16

16 In general, given the same score and inning, leadoff outs are more costly than outs in bases-
empty situations with 1 or 2 outs already achieved, but less costly than outs in most situations
with runners on base.
302 C H A P T E R 10

B E F O R E P L AY A F T E R P L AY

D Play Game Inning Lead Bases Outs Pr(Win)% Lead Bases Outs Pr(Win)%

65.25 HR 6 9H –1 12 1 34.75 2 0 3 100

9.68 HR 2 4H –5 1 0 10.10 –3 0 0 19.78

4.78 2B 4 9V(L) 1 0 0 84.70 1 2 0 89.48

6.64 1B 4 1V 0 12 1 54.67 0 123 1 61.31

3.80 1B 1 2H(L) –2 0 0 32.91 –2 1 0 36.71

.61 1B 4 8V –5 0 1 .89 –5 1 1 1.50

.44 1B 3 3V 4 0 2 85.92 4 1 2 86.36

2.07 SF 1 3H –1 3 1 49.16 0 0 2 51.23

1.45 SF 6 1H 1 3 1 69.38 2 0 2 70.83

–.31 SF 3 1V 2 3 0 76.89 3 0 1 76.58

–.04 GO 3 9V 6 1 0 99.75 6 1 1 99.71

–.22 K 1 7H 4 2 1 98.41 4 2 2 98.19

–.32 FO 6 5H 4 0 1 93.58 4 0 2 93.26

–.37 FO 3 5V 4 0 2 89.81 4 0 3 89.44

–.62 K 3 7V 5 13 0 98.77 5 13 1 98.15

–.69 GO 6 3H 3 0 1 83.94 3 0 2 83.25

–2.15 FO 2 1H 0 1 2 52.15 0 0 3 50

–2.20 FO 5 1V 0 1 2 47.69 0 0 3 45.49

–2.23 FO 4 4V(L) 1 0 0 63.20 1 0 1 60.97

–2.34 FO 4 6V –4 1 0 9.69 –4 1 1 7.35

–2.49 FO 2 6H(L) –3 0 0 14.33 –3 0 1 11.84

–2.40 FO 4 3V(L) –3 0 0 19.60 –3 0 1 17.20

–3.01 FO 5 9V(L) –2 0 0 6.30 –2 0 1 3.29

–3.22 GO 1 6H(L) 0 0 0 57.16 0 0 1 53.94

–3.23 K 5 4V –2 1 1 26.29 –2 1 2 23.06

–3.38 GO 5 7V(L) –2 0 0 16.80 –2 0 1 13.42

–6.03 FO 6 8H(L) –1 0 0 28.67 –1 0 1 22.64

–6.67 K 2 8H –3 2 0 15.43 –3 2 1 8.76

TABLE 10-18 Player Game Percentage Evaluation of Joe Carter’s Performance (Sorted by
Play Type) in the 1993 World Series (Squares Mark On-Base Events,
Triangles Mark Plays That Scored Runs)
 M E A S U R I N G C LU T C H P L AY 303

World Series Most Valuable Players

Continuing the tradition established in Player Win Averages, the first applica-
tion of PGP was to evaluate players in the 1980 World Series. Since then, PGP
has been used to analyze each World Series since 1987. Just as the Mills broth-
ers identified the erroneous selection of Donn Clendenon as the 1969 World
Series MVP over Al Weis, it has been interesting to see how often the sports-
writers’ MVP selection matched the PGP selection.
Despite his spectacular home run, Carter did not have the highest PGP rat-
ing in the 1993 World Series. That honor belonged to Paul Molitor (6.8 PGP), who
was the sportswriters’ pick as the Series Most Valuable Player. The two honors
do not always coincide. Table 10-19 presents the official MVP selected by the
sportswriters and the unofficial MVP selected by PGP. Indeed, at times, PGP has
selected a player from the losing team! These players (Aikens, Pena, Jones, and

TEAMS SPORTSWRITERS’ MVP HIGHEST PGP

Year Winner Loser Player PGP Player PGP

1980 Philadelphia Kansas City Mike Schmidt, 3b 4.6 Willie Aikens, 1b 8.0

1987 Minnesota St. Louis Frank Viola, p .8 Tony Pena, c 2.8

1988 Los Angeles Oakland Orel Hershiser, p 5.4 Kirk Gibson, ph 8.7

1989 Oakland San Francisco Dave Stewart, p –.8 Mike Moore, p 6.2

1990 Cincinnati Oakland Jose Rijo, p 8.5 Jose Rijo, p 8.5

1991 Minnesota Atlanta Jack Morris, p 7.6 Jack Morris, p 7.6

1992 Toronto Atlanta Pat Borders, c –.6 Ed Sprague, ph–1b 5.5

1993 Toronto Philadelphia Paul Molitor, dh–1b 6.8 Paul Molitor, dh–1b 6.8

1995 Atlanta Cleveland Tom Glavine, p 5.1 Tom Glavine, p 5.1

1996 Yankees Atlanta John Wetteland, p 3.6 Chipper Jones, 3b 3.7

1997 Florida Cleveland Livan Hernandez, p –.9 Gary Sheffield, of 3.2

1998 Yankees San Diego Scott Brosius, 3b 7.0 Tony Gwynn, of 8.1

1999 Yankees Atlanta Mariano Rivera, p 3.6 Chuck Knoblauch, 2b 4.8

2000 Yankees Mets Derek Jeter, ss 3.8 Mariano Rivera, p 5.7

2001 Arizona Yankees Randy Johnson, p 4.5 Randy Johnson, p 4.5

Curt Schilling, p 1.0

2002 Anaheim San Francisco Troy Glaus, 3b 4.4 Troy Glaus, 3b 4.4

TABLE 10-19 Most Valuable Players in Recent World Series (Players in Boldface Were on
the Losing Team)
304 C H A P T E R 10

Gwynn) deserved a better fate. Some MVPs actually had subpar performances,
as indicated by their negative PGP ratings.
In 2001, the sportswriters felt that Arizona pitchers Randy Johnson and Curt
Schilling deserved to share the award. Yet according to a PGP analysis, Johnson
clearly gave the superior performance. The MVP award would have been more
properly shared in 2002. Looking at the 2002 World Series game by game, it may
not be clear who the MVP of the Series was. Troy Glaus, the Series MVP as cho-
sen by the sportswriters, ended up with a slight edge over teammate Tim Salmon
(4.4 vs. 4.3 PGP). Glaus performed more consistently from game to game, but
Salmon had a spectacular Game 2. In this case, PGP agreed with the sports-
writers’ selection, but the difference between the players was so small that a
shared award was probably more appropriate. Later in this chapter, we will pres-
ent a detailed examination of the 2002 World Series from the PGP perspective.
With two exceptions, the PGP ratings presented for pitchers here did not
include their appearances at bat. PGP rates players with respect to average per-
formance. Pitchers are at a severe disadvantage compared to an average hitter,
and their ratings generally suffer accordingly. Since pitchers are not expected to
hit, their hitting skills are considered a bonus rather than an expectation. This
is especially relevant in recent World Series play, in which some games have
pitchers batting and others do not because of the designated hitter rule. The
exceptions are Orel Hershiser and Mike Moore. Hershiser’s 3 for 3 in the 1988
World Series raised his 4.9 PGP rating from pitching alone to an overall PGP
rating of 5.4. Mike Moore’s two-out double early in Game 4 of the 1989 World
Series, which knocked in 2 runs, was more valuable than his pitching perform-
ance (which was excellent in its own right). His batting performance raised his
overall PGP rating to 6.2 from his pitching PGP rating of 4.2. It would be igno-
ble to ignore these valuable (unexpected) contributions when highlighting great
performances in the World Series.
The sportswriters selected a pitcher as MVP in 10 out of 16 World Series exam-
ined, while PGP selected a pitcher only 6 times. From the PGP viewpoint, the
media are not properly appreciative of the relatively rare but powerful contribu-
tions made by offense to team victory. Nowhere is this more evident than in the
evaluation of the 1988 World Series. Kirk Gibson came to bat only once in the
series, but in that one at-bat he turned defeat into victory, raising the probabil-
ity of victory from about .13 to 1. Orel Hershiser pitched very well in two starts,
as indicated by his high PGP rating. However, in both games, the Dodger offense
produced early leads (5–0 after three innings in Game 2, and 2–0 before
Hershiser threw his first pitch in Game 5). Hershiser’s contribution was mainly
 M E A S U R I N G C LU T C H P L AY 305

35

30

25

20

15

10

–5
PGP

–10
1 2 3 4 Average

Gwynn
GAME
Brosius

FIGURE 10-5 PGP ratings of Tony Gwynn and Scott Brosius in the 1998 World Series.

to preserve a lead already given to him. Pitching cannot win a game alone, as
Gibson’s home run did. From the perspective of winning games, Gibson’s lone
but seismic contribution (#6 among the game’s greatest moments in the opinion
of The Sporting News) was greater than Hershiser’s accomplished (but not criti-
cal) performance.
Critics of the PWA/PGP system might say “Aha! We told you that too much
weight is given to the big hit!” If that is so, how do they explain that Tony
Gwynn’s performance in the 1998 World Series (on a team that lost in four
straight!) is rated higher by PGP than the performance of Scott Brosius. After
all, Brosius had the biggest hit of the series, a home run in Game 3 that brought
the Yankees from behind into the lead late in the game. And it was his second
home run of the night. (His first, only an inning earlier, started the Yankee come-
back.) Figure 10-5 shows PGP ratings for Brosius and Gwynn in each game of
the 1998 World Series. We see that Game 3 was definitely the highlight of Bro-
sius’s series; he also had a great performance in Game 2, but Games 1 and 4
were below average. Gwynn, on the other hand, had no dramatic game-winning
moment (how could he, when the Padres were swept in the series?), but he had
consistently good performances; his PGP rating was positive in every game of the
series. Apparently, PGP is capable of rewarding consistently good play that con-
tributes to a team’s chances of winning—even if the victory afforded by the
opportunity presented is not realized. This view is further buttressed by Molitor
306 C H A P T E R 10

Year Player PGP Games Net Contribution

1991 Jack Morris, p 7.6 7 53.2

1980 Willie Aikens, 1b 8.0 6 48.0

1988 Kirk Gibson, ph 8.7 5 43.5

1993 Paul Molitor, dh-1b 6.8 6 40.8

1990 Jose Rijo, p 8.5 4 34.0

1992 Ed Sprague, ph-1b 5.5 6 33.0

1998 Tony Gwynn, of 8.1 4 32.4

2001 Randy Johnson, p 4.5 7 31.5

2002 Troy Glaus, 3b 4.4 7 30.8

1995 Tom Glavine, p 5.1 6 30.6

2000 Mariano Rivera, p 5.7 5 28.5

1989 Mike Moore, p 6.2 4 24.8

1997 Gary Sheffield, of 3.2 7 22.4

1996 Chipper Jones, 3b 3.7 6 22.2

1987 Tony Pena, c 2.8 7 19.6

1999 Chuck Knoblauch, 2b 4.8 4 19.2

TABLE 10-20 Net Contributions of Highest PGP-Rated Players in Recent World Series

being rated higher than Carter in the 1993 World Series despite Carter’s game-
winning HR.
Comparing PGP ratings in Table 10-19, one might get the impression that
since Kirk Gibson had the highest PGP rating, his performance must be rated
the best of all players in recent World Series. However, when comparing per-
formances in different series, it is better to use Net Contribution.

Net contribution = PGP × number of games

Remember that with each play a player’s Net Contribution can go down as
well as up, so playing in more games is not necessarily an advantage. Listing the
best players from each series according to Net Contribution moves Jack Morris’s
pitching performance in the 1991 World Series (climaxed by his heroic 11-inning
shutout victory in Game 7) to the top of the heap in Table 10-20. Willie Aikens’s
name would undoubtedly be better remembered if his Kansas City Royals had
prevailed over the Phillies in 1980. His high Net Contribution indicates that his
22 total bases in 20 at-bats (for an amazing 1.100 slugging percentage!) made
 M E A S U R I N G C LU T C H P L AY 307

contributions to victory that the rest of the team (primarily the pitching staff)
could not preserve.
A common question that comes up in reference to World Series play is
whether PGP can be adapted to evaluate players with respect to the probability
of winning the series as opposed to winning individual games. This is certainly
possible, although we refrain from using the system in this way. The basic unit
of play in baseball is the game. Each player is focused on that objective.
Evaluating players on that basis provides a uniformity and consistency of the
application throughout the season or at any level in the playoffs.
It should be made clear that PGP and PWA as defined here are not measures
of ability but of observed performance. In order to draw inferences about ability,
they must be modeled using principles similar to those outlined in other chap-
ters of this book.

The 2002 World Series

To get a detailed view of how Player Game Percentage (PGP) can be used to eval-
uate performance and may be used to find the Most Valuable Player (MVP), let’s
use it to analyze the 2002 World Series. This Series pitted the San Francisco
Giants against the Anaheim Angels. The story line spun around the first-time
appearances of a team and an individual in the World Series. In their 42-year
history, the Angels had never before appeared in the Fall Classic. They had, how-
ever, sustained several near misses, most notably coming within one strike of a
World Series appearance in 1986. The 2002 Angels were one of the surprise
teams of the American League (the Minnesota Twins being the other), having
finished with a poor 75–87 record in 2001. Their opponents, the San Francisco
Giants, were led by Barry Bonds, who had arguably put together two of the
greatest consecutive batting years in MLB history. Like the Angels, Bonds him-
self had come close to getting into a World Series several times before but had
been consistently denied. Both the Angels and the Giants were wild-card playoff
teams; this was the first time that wild-card teams had faced each other in the
World Series.
A few facts worth considering: The Angels won their first World Championship,
and their third baseman Troy Glaus was named MVP of the Series. The Series went
seven games; the Angels had to take the final two games to win the trophy. Much of
the interest in the Series centered around strategies of pitching to Barry Bonds.
Throughout the playoffs, teams had given Bonds little opportunity to hit and had
walked him instead of risking one of his famously gargantuan home runs. Had the
308 C H A P T E R 10

Giants held their lead in Game 6, Bonds might have been the first player to walk
away (literally) with the Series MVP award.
But what can statistics tell us about this end-of-season drama? For one thing,
PGP gives us the chance to see objectively whether players’ performances lived
up to our subjective impressions of them. Figures 10-6 and 10-7 show the PGP
ratings in each game of the 2002 World Series for each Angels and Giants player.
The figures also show the PGP/Game rating for each player (the sum of the indi-
vidual game ratings divided by 7). Note that the PGP rating includes all facets
of play (e.g., fielding, running) as well as hitting. For pitchers, the PGP rating is
based on pitching and fielding. Batting by pitchers is generally not included for
reasons explained earlier in the chapter.
The PGP rating scheme supports the conclusion that Glaus was indeed the
MVP of the Series (with a PGP/Game of 4.4). However, the margin of victory was
a narrow one over teammate Tim Salmon (PGP/Game of 4.3). The relatively short
length of the gray band spanning Glaus’s individual PGP game results in Figure
10-6 indicates that his performance was more consistent from game to game,
while Salmon’s value resided mainly in his Game 2 performance. Similarly, on
the Giants, Barry Bonds (PGP/Game of 3.4) was narrowly ahead of J. T. Snow
(PGP/Game of 3.3). Bonds also showed more consistency than Snow; this is not
surprising because Bonds was given many intentional passes, which should
reduce the variability in the results of his plate appearances. Giants starting
pitcher Russ Ortiz had the curious distinction of giving the best (Game 6) and
worst (Game 2) performances by a pitcher in an individual game of the Series.
Figure 10-8 shows the PGP/Game rating for Glaus, Salmon, Bonds, and Snow
at the conclusion of each game of the Series. Each of these players was the Series
MVP-to-date at some point during the seven games. Snow was the Game 1 MVP
and, at that point, also the Series MVP. He was succeeded by Salmon in Game 2.
Salmon, in turn, held the lead until Game 5, when Bonds overtook him. Then
Glaus took the lead in Game 6 and managed to hold on in a tight finish with
Salmon, who had a strong Game 7.
Figures 10-9 through 10-15 are similar to Figure 10-3. Each figure plots the
probability of an Anaheim victory (POV) as it changed play-by-play in a Series
game. The vertical lines separate the innings of the game, and the score at the
end of each inning (Visitors–Home) is provided below the graph; diamonds sep-
arate the bottom and top halves of the innings. Each play during which Troy
Glaus was awarded a contribution to his PGP rating is denoted, and the change
in POV produced by the play is marked by a bold line. Since all graphs are
aligned with respect to the probability of an Anaheim victory, an upward slope
 M E A S U R I N G C LU T C H P L AY 309

PGP
–30 –25 –20 –15 –10 –5 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40

Troy Glaus, 3B 75 2 13 6

Tim Salmon, RF 1 5 4 3 76 2

Troy Percival, P 7 2 6

Brendan Donnelly, P 56 3 1 7

John Lackey, P 4 7 2

Scott Spiezio, 1B 2 4 7 51 6 3

Chone Figgins, PR 6

Benji Gil, 2B 43 5

Francisco Rodriguez, P 4 6 7 2

Darin Erstad, CF 5 14 72 6 3

Adam Kennedy, 2B 2 57 6 3 41

Ramon Ortiz, P 3

Alex Ochoa, RF 5

Scot Shields, P 5

Shawn Wooten, 1B 35

Scott Schoeneweis, P 1 3

Brad Fullmer, DH 4 67 1 2

Garret Anderson, LF 3 145 26 7

David Eckstein, SS 16 4 7 3 52

Orlando Palmeiro, PH 1 46 5

Bengie Molina, C 21 6 4 53 7

Ben Weber, P 2 5 14

Kevin Appier, P 2 6

Jarrod Washburn, P 5 1

1 Game 1 3 Game 3 5 Game 5 7 Game 7

2 Game 2 4 Game 4 6 Game 6 PGP/Game

FIGURE 10-6 PGP ratings of the Anaheim Angels in the 2002 World Series.
 310 C H A P T E R 10

PGP
–30 –25 –20 –15 –10 –5 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40

Barry Bonds, LF 6 7 43 1 2 5

J.T. Snow, 1B 36 54 7 2 1

Shawon Dunston, DH 35 2 6

Robb Nen, P 6 4 1

David Bell, 3B 3 1 67 5 2 4

Chad Zerbe, P 5 7 2

Rich Aurilia, SS 6 17 5 23 4

Kirk Rueter, P 4 7

Jason Schmidt, P 15

Kenny Lofton, CF 2 1 7 3 56 4

Ramon Martinez, PH 43

Scott Eyre, P 6 53

Reggie Sanders, RF 4 6 375 12

Pedro Feliz, DH 7 35

Felix Rodriguez, P 2 6 3 5 4 1

Tsuyoshi Shinjo, RF 7 51

Tim Worrell, P 6 27 5 4 1

Jay Witasick, P 3 2

Tom Goodwin, RF 76 1 4

Aaron Fultz, P 2 3

Jeff Kent, 2B 4 1 7 2 63 5

Russ Ortiz, P 2 6

Benito Santiago, C 4 62 13 57

Livan Hernandez, P 7 3

1 Game 1 3 Game 3 5 Game 5 7 Game 7

2 Game 2 4 Game 4 6 Game 6 PGP/Game

FIGURE 10-7 PGP ratings of the San Francisco Giants in the 2002 World Series.
 M E A S U R I N G C LU T C H P L AY 311

15

10

–5
PGP/GAME

–10
GAME 1 GAME 2 GAME 3 GAME 4 GAME 5 GAME 6 GAME 7

Troy Glaus, 3B
Tim Salmon, RF
Barry Bonds, LF
J.T. Snow, 1B

FIGURE 10-8 PGP/Game ratings of 2002 World Series MVP leaders after each game.

signifies a positive contribution to Anaheim while a downward slope signifies a

negative contribution. The figures provide a visual history of the course of each
game and the influence Glaus had on its outcome.

Game 1
No one scored in the first inning. In fact, no batters reached first base. The
Giants were the visiting team so Anaheim’s probability of victory inched up a lit-
tle as each batter was retired in the top of the inning and then inched back to 50
percent as each of its batters went down in turn.
In the top of the second inning, the graph shows two sharp downward lines to
the 31-percent level as a result of two solo home runs from Barry Bonds and
Reggie Sanders. In the bottom of the second, Troy Glaus came to bat for the first
time in the Series and hit a solo home run that raised the POV to 41 percent.
The 2–1 score remained unchanged through the fifth inning. Over this period,
the POV dropped from 38 percent to 33 percent. However, Anaheim had oppor-
tunities in each inning to tie the score. These threats are shown in the graph by
312 C H A P T E R 10

the jagged lines that jut up toward the 50-percent level. Adam Kennedy started
off the third inning with a double that actually raised the POV above 50 percent.
In the fourth inning, Garret Anderson’s leadoff single and Scott Spiezio’s 2-out
double each brought the POV up near 50 percent. In the fifth inning, back-to-
back 1-out singles by David Eckstein and Darin Erstad again lifted the POV to
the 50-percent level. Nevertheless, all of these runners were stranded. In his sec-
ond at-bat, Glaus was one of the batters incapable of advancing Anderson in the
fourth inning.
J. T. Snow’s 2-out 2-run homer in the top of the sixth inning increased the
Giants lead to 3 runs and dropped the POV to 14 percent. This play—the biggest
of the game—was instrumental in making Snow the MVP of Game 1 according
to PGP. Anaheim did not give up. Glaus’s leadoff HR increased the POV to 24
percent, and Adam Kennedy’s RBI single pushed it back up to 34 percent. The
Angels got no closer than that. Glaus’s strikeout leading off the eighth inning is
representative of the Angels’ futility in the last three innings. Nevertheless,
Glaus had a good game overall and along with Adam Kennedy the most valuable
performance on the Angels team.

Inning 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
100%

75%
PROBABILITY OF ANAHEIM VICTORY

50% FO

HR
K
25%

HR

0%

0–0 2–1 2–1 2–1 2–1 4–3 4–3 4–3 4–3

SCORE

FIGURE 10-9 Win probabilities for Anaheim in Game 1 of the 2002 World Series.
 M E A S U R I N G C LU T C H P L AY 313

Game 2
Game 2 was owned by Tim Salmon, who according to PGP measures had the
most valuable single game performance in the Series. The Angels came out on
fire. After stopping the Giants in the top of the first, they put 5 runs on the
board, raising the POV to 91 percent. The biggest hit of the game was Darin
Erstad’s double, which batted in the first run. Salmon followed with a single and
eventually scored in the rally. Glaus flied out during this inning.
The Giants responded immediately with 4 runs, bringing them within 1 run
of the Angels and dropping the POV to 66 percent. The rally was ignited by two
crucial, back-to-back plays: Reggie Sanders’s 3-run HR and David Bell’s solo HR.
Tim Salmon’s 2-run HR in the bottom of the second gave the Angels a cushion,
jacking the POV up to 82 percent. Troy Glaus followed with a double and
advanced to third on a passed ball. Since his double came with 2 outs and the
Angels already had a substantial lead, it advanced the Angels’ POV only a small
amount. In any case, he did not score.
Over the next two innings, the Angels mounted no threats to score, but the
Giants did. Jeff Kent led off the top of the third inning with a HR that dropped
the POV to 72 percent. When Barry Bonds followed with a walk, the Giants had
the potential for another big inning, and the POV dropped again to 69 percent.
But David Bell hit into a double play that killed the rally, and the POV rose back
up to 77 percent. Leading off the fourth inning, Reggie Sanders smacked a sin-
gle and stole second base, reducing the POV to 66 percent. Again the Giants
failed to exploit the scoring opportunity.
In the fifth inning, the Giants finally broke through. Rich Aurilia led off with
a double. With 1 out, the Angels opted to give an intentional pass to Barry
Bonds, dropping the POV to 70 percent. This time the strategy did not work as
Benito Santiago singled to load the bases. J. T. Snow responded with a single in
his critical at-bat; this tied the game and dropped the POV to 41 percent. For the
first time in Game 2, the Giants had a better chance of winning than the Angels,
even though at this moment the game was tied—POV takes the bases-outs situ-
ation into account (runners on first and third with 1 out) as well as the score.
When Reggie Sanders struck out, it appeared that the damage could be con-
trolled, and the POV rose to 49 percent. But David Bell and Shawon Dunston
batted back-to-back singles that produced two more runs, and the POV plum-
meted to 27 percent by the end of the Giants’ fifth inning. A game that started as
a rout by the Angels had changed dramatically, as exemplified by the swing in
POV in Figure 10-10.
314 C H A P T E R 10

Inning 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
100%

2B PB

75% FO

FO
PROBABILITY OF ANAHEIM VICTORY

50%
E

25% 1B

0%
0–5 4–7 5–7 5–7 9–8 9–9 9–9 9–11 10–11
SCORE

FIGURE 10-10 Game 2 win probabilities for Anaheim in the 2002 World Series.

As they did in Game 1, the Angels fought back. Glaus led off with a single and
advanced to third when Kenny Lofton muffed Brad Fullmer’s subsequent single.
Quickly the POV rose back to 47 percent. Here again we see how the POV takes
into account the bases-outs situation (runners on first and third with no outs) as
well as the score (Angels trailing by 2 runs). Unfortunately, the Angels could
only generate 1 run from this situation, and the POV sank back to 33 percent by
the end of the inning. Scott Spiezio swatted a sacrifice fly that scored Glaus but
did not advance Fullmer. This play dropped the POV to 41 percent. This is one
example when an SF is not a positive contribution to the team. With no outs, the
runner on third has a great likelihood of scoring at some point in the inning.
Giving up an out to get Glaus home without advancing Fullmer diminished the
Angels’ chance of scoring the runs needed to catch the Giants. The risk of not
advancing Fullmer was played out when Bengie Molina grounded into a double
play to end the inning.
Initially, events did not bode well for the Angels in the sixth inning when
their first two batters grounded out. However, the Angels were able to tie the
game when Garret Anderson batted home Darin Erstad, who had doubled. In-
between Anderson’s and Erstad’s at-bats, Tim Salmon had walked; although he
 M E A S U R I N G C LU T C H P L AY 315

was thrown out at third for the final out, his attempt at advancing had aided
Erstad in scoring the tying run. After six eventful innings, the game was tied
and the POV was right where it started: at 50 percent.
In the bottom of the eighth inning, lightning struck the Giants out of a clear
sky. With 2 outs and a runner on first, it appeared as if the game would enter the
ninth inning in a tie. Then, Tim Salmon belted a homer that gave the Angels a
2-run lead. With only one more inning to play, it vaulted the POV to 94 percent.
Troy Percival gave up a 2-out solo HR to Barry Bonds, but the play left the
Giants a run short in the end. Here, we have a case where a home run makes vir-
tually no dent in the probability of winning.
Given the final score, 11–10, it is no surprise that Giants pitcher Russ Ortiz
had the worst single game of any starter in the Series. On the other hand, Angels
middle reliever Francisco Rodriguez, who held the Giants scoreless in the sixth,
seventh, and eighth innings, had the best single game performance by an Angels
pitcher in the Series.

Game 3
In Game 3, the Series shifted to San Francisco. The Giants managed to manu-
facture a run in the top of the first inning. Through the efforts of Kenny Lofton
and Jeff Kent, the Giants had runners on first and second with just 1 out. Again,
the Angels decided to walk Bonds and load the bases. This decision reduced the
POV to 34 percent. The pressure was on Benito Santiago to deliver a hit.
Santiago hit a grounder that scored Lofton and advanced the other runners.
This dropped the POV only slightly, to 33 percent. Now the pressure was on J. T.
Snow to deliver a 2-out hit with two runners in scoring position. His failure to do
so raised the POV to 39 percent. Since this equals the POV when Bonds came to
bat, the decision to walk Bonds in this case appears to have had a neutral effect
here.
In the second inning, neither team scored. Although the Angels mounted a 2-
out threat, it was stymied when Bengie Molina was intentionally walked to get
to the pitcher, Ramon Ortiz, who obliged the Giants by striking out.
The Angels produced an exciting third inning. Before the first out was made,
David Bell’s error had put Tim Salmon on and allowed David Eckstein (leadoff
walk) to score the tying run, raising the POV to 61 percent. With 1 out, Troy
Glaus knocked in the go-ahead run scored by Darin Erstad who had followed
Eckstein with a double. Scott Spiezio tripled home Salmon and Glaus to raise
316 C H A P T E R 10

100% Inning 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
1B
FO FO

BB

75%

1B
PROBABILITY OF ANAHEIM VICTORY

50%

FO
25%

0%

0–1 0–1 4–1 8–1 8–4 9–4 9–4 10–4 10–4

SCORE

FIGURE 10-11 Game 3 win probabilities for Anaheim in the 2002 World Series.

the POV to 84 percent. In the end, the Angels were unable to plate Spiezio, which
dropped the POV to 78 percent.
The Angels struck again in the fourth inning when they produced four more
runs through a sequence of walks, singles, and stolen bases. The POV reached 97
percent and only dipped slightly below this level for the remainder of the game.
In the sixth inning, home runs by Rich Aurilia and Barry Bonds could only
reduce the POV to 93 percent. The Angels tacked on two more runs, but since the
game’s course had already been decided in the early innings, they had little
effect on the result.
Spiezio’s third inning triple was the biggest play of the game and made him
the Game 3 MVP. Troy Glaus, too, had a good game and provided a key single in
the third inning.

Game 4
As in Game 3, the Angels built an early lead, but in Game 4, they were unable to hold
it. However, it first appeared as if the Giants would be the team off to a fast start.
The Giants started off well in the first inning. Leadoff singles by Lofton and
Aurilia had dropped the POV to 32 percent. When Kent struck out, the POV rose
to 39 percent. Again the Angels decided to intentionally walk Barry Bonds to
 M E A S U R I N G C LU T C H P L AY 317

load the bases. The tactic succeeded when Santiago bounced into a double play
to end the Giants’ chances of scoring.
In the second inning, consecutive singles by Gil, Molina, and Lackey (the
pitcher!) loaded the bases and pushed the POV to 62 percent. Unfortunately, the
Angels were only able to score 1 run on a sacrifice fly by Eckstein and settled for
POV at 57 percent at the end of their at-bat.
In the top of the third inning, the Angels struck again. Salmon led off with a
single and Glaus hit a 1-out HR. The Angels had a 3-run lead and the POV rose
to 80 percent. However, in the bottom of the inning, Lofton and Aurilia led off
with a single and a double. When Kent lined out, the POV still had been reduced
to 67 percent. With first base open, Bonds was again given an intentional pass.
In an uncanny repeat of the first inning, Santiago hit into an inning-ending dou-
ble play, raising the POV to 83 percent.
In the bottom of the fifth inning, Rueter (the other starting pitcher!), Lofton,
and Aurilia led off with singles that scored 1 run and reduced the POV to 53 per-
cent. Even though the Angels still led by 2 runs, the bases-outs situation made
the game almost even at this point. A sacrifice fly by Kent scored another run
but was not a positive contribution as the POV rose to 59 percent. However, an
error by Tim Salmon on the play had allowed Aurilia to advance into scoring
position at second base. So, the POV stood at 56 percent as Bonds came to the

Inning 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
100%

DP

75%
HR
PROBABILITY OF ANAHEIM VICTORY

50%
FC
FO

25%

0%

0–0 1–0 3–0 3–0 3–3 3–3 3–3 3–4 3–4

SCORE

FIGURE 10-12 Game 4 win probabilities for Anaheim in the 2002 World Series.
318 C H A P T E R 10

plate again with first base open. And again he was given the intentional walk.
This time, though, Santiago singled to tie the game, and the POV dropped to 38
percent. The Giants were not able to capitalize on the first and second 1-out
opportunity, and the POV rose to 50 percent at the end of the inning.
Spiezio led off the sixth inning with a single but was left stranded when Gil
struck out and Molina hit into a double play. In the bottom of the inning, Tom
Goodwin walked and stole second base, but was stranded also.
No one reached base until the bottom of the eighth inning when Snow opened
with a single and advanced into scoring position on a passed ball. After Sanders
popped out, David Bell delivered a single, giving the Giants’ their first lead of
the game and dropping the POV to 12 percent. In the ninth inning, reliever Robb
Nen escaped potential trouble from Adam Kennedy’s single when Brad Fullmer
hit into a game-ending double play.
David Bell’s game-winning hit was the biggest play of the game, but Rich
Aurilia was the Game 4 MVP for providing scoring opportunities early in the
game and sparking the Giants big rally in the fifth inning. For the Angels, Glaus,
Adam Kennedy, and reliever Ben Weber made positive contributions, but were
unable to turn the tables on the Giants.

Game 5
The Giants got off to a fast start and never let up. They scored 3 runs in the first
inning and dropped the POV to 21 percent. It never rose higher than 29 percent
after that. The inning included a double by Barry Bonds that scored the first run
of the game. Bonds came home with the third run on David Bell’s 2-out bases-
loaded walk.
The assault continued in the second inning. Lofton and Kent singled and dou-
bled to put runners on second and third with 1 out. Barry Bonds was again given
the open base. Santiago came through with a single that scored 2 runs and
dropped the POV to 5 percent. Bonds scored the third run in the inning on
Sanders’s sacrifice fly.
The Angels attempted a comeback. They scored 3 runs in the fifth inning to
raise the POV to 10 percent. The biggest hit was Troy Glaus’s 2-out double that
scored the third run. After the Giants went down in order in the bottom of the
fifth inning, the Angels started the sixth inning with great promise. Molina and
Gil led off with a single and double, and the POV rose to 29 percent. However,
Eckstein, Erstad, and Salmon went down in order to drop the POV to 14 percent.
Jeff Kent’s 2-run homer in the bottom of the sixth inning dropped the POV back
 M E A S U R I N G C LU T C H P L AY 319

Inning 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
100%

75%
PROBABILITY OF ANAHEIM VICTORY

50% K

25%

2B

K K
E
0%
0–3 0–6 0–6 0–6 3–6 4–8 4–12 4–16
SCORE 4–16

FIGURE 10-13 Game 5 win probabilities for Anaheim in the 2002 World Series.

down to 5 percent. It precipitated a long, slow, steady decline to 0 percent as the

Giants doubled their runs scored in the final three innings. Although a lot of
scoring was done in this period, these plays (including a fielding error by Glaus)
had little effect on the outcome of the game.
No matter what they did (walk Bonds or let him hit), the Angels’ strategy
backfired in Game 5, when Bonds had his most valuable game of the Series.
Even more valuable was the performance of Jeff Kent who also had his best
game of the Series.

Game 6
The Series moved back to Anaheim and Game 6 started as a pitcher’s duel
between the Giants’ Russ Ortiz and the Angels’ Kevin Appier. No one scored, and
few runners reached first in the first four innings. The only player to reach sec-
ond base was Jeff Kent who was forced to second when Barry Bonds was inten-
tionally walked with 2 outs in the first inning. This unconventional strategy
worked as Santiago fouled out.
In the top of the fifth inning, the Giants drew first blood when Shawon
Dunston’s 2-run homer dropped the POV to 25 percent. Kenny Lofton then man-
320 C H A P T E R 10

ufactured his own run by doubling, stealing third, and scoring on a wild pitch to
drop the POV to 17 percent. In the top of the sixth inning, Bonds’s leadoff homer
dropped the POV to 7 percent. In the top of the seventh inning, Kent plated
Lofton with a single. The Giants led 5–0, the Angels had only 9 outs left, and the
POV had dropped to 3 percent. The Giants seemed to be assured of a World
Championship.
That’s when it all started to unravel. Fittingly, the first hit of the Angels’ rally
was a single by Troy Glaus. When Brad Fullmer followed with another single,
Giants manager Dusty Baker decided to relieve starter Russ Ortiz with Felix
Rodriguez. Ortiz left the game having given the best performance by a starting
pitcher in the Series; ironically, he would not win this game. Scott Spiezio hit a
homer that brought the Angels within 2 runs. The POV rose to 16 percent, and
the Angels suddenly had a pulse.
In the top of the eighth, Darin Erstad greeted the Giants new reliever Todd
Worrell with a leadoff home run that brought the Angels within 1 run and
increased the POV to 29 percent. Salmon and Anderson followed with 2 singles.
An error by Barry Bonds allowed the pinch runner, Chone Figgins, and Anderson
to advance to second and third on Anderson’s single. Although the Angels still
trailed by a run, with no outs and two runners in scoring position, the POV had

Inning 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
100%

2B
75%

BB
PROBABILITY OF ANAHEIM VICTORY

50%

25%

FO
1B
0%
0–0 0–0 0–0 0–0 3–0 4–0 5–3 5–6 5–6
SCORE

FIGURE 10-14 Game 6 win probabilities for Anaheim in the 2002 World Series.
 M E A S U R I N G C LU T C H P L AY 321

risen in favor of the Angels to 67 percent. Troy Glaus then delivered the biggest
hit of the game: a double that scored both runners. With the Angels up 1 run, a
runner on second, and no outs, the Angels had a good opportunity to tack on an
insurance run, and the POV stood at 92 percent. However, they were not able to
score Glaus, so the POV dropped to 85 percent by the end of the inning.
Nevertheless, the Angels’ closer Troy Percival got all three Giant batters out in
the ninth inning, and the Angels had made a triumphant comeback.
Troy Glaus was the Angels’ MVP for the game. Surprisingly, the Giants start-
ing pitcher Russ Ortiz gave an even better performance.

Game 7
Initially, it appeared that the Angels would strike first in Game 7. However, with
runners on first and second with 1 out, David Eckstein was doubled off second
when Anderson lined out in the first inning. This allowed the Giants to put the
first run on the board in the top of the second inning on a sacrifice fly by Reggie
Sanders. The Angels tied the game in the bottom half on a 2-out double by
Molina that scored Spiezio from first base.
In the third inning, the Angels used 2 singles and 1 hit batsman off Giants
starter Livan Hernandez to load the bases with no outs and raise the POV to 72
percent. Garret Anderson belted a bases-clearing double that raised the POV to
88 percent. Troy Glaus was intentionally walked, but the Angels were unable to
produce more runs and the POV dropped to 83 percent.
The Angels never scored again in the game, but they didn’t need to because
the Giants never scored either despite several rally attempts. In the fourth
inning, Bonds and Santiago both singled with 1 out to drop the POV to 78 per-
cent, but they were not able to score. In the sixth inning, Santiago and Snow
were stranded on second and third. In the ninth inning, Goodwin and Bell were
stranded at first and second.
There was no single outstanding player in Game 7. Garret Anderson and Angel
starter John Lackey both had good games. Even J. T. Snow on the losing Giants
had a good game. But the edge as MVP went to Angels’ catcher Bengie Molina who
knocked in the Angels first run. Ironically, Troy Glaus, who was named the Series
MVP at the conclusion, did not put a ball in play at all in Game 7.
Examining the flow of the game with respect to probability gives us a sense of
how each player contributed to the outcome of the game. The descriptions here
emphasized not only the key scoring plays, which are typically noted, but also the
322 C H A P T E R 10

Inning 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
100%

IBB BB K

75%
PROBABILITY OF ANAHEIM VICTORY

50%

25%

0%
0–0 1–1 1–4 1–4 1–4 1–4 1–4 1–4 1–4
SCORE

FIGURE 10-15 Game 7 win probabilities for Anaheim in the 2002 World Series.

threats that did not result in a score. The prevention of scoring at these moments
had as much impact on the Series as the scoring plays we all remember.

Looking to the Future

This investigation started with ways to measure clutch play. But we may have
accomplished much more. Instead of isolating clutch play and examining player
capabilities with respect to that one facet alone, we have found a system that
integrates clutch play into an overall evaluation of player performance: One
which can be used to compare starting pitchers with relief pitchers, pitchers
with hitters. One which recognizes the importance of a good bench in winning
games. One which is able to evaluate stolen bases within the context of a game.
With the increasing availability of play-by-play records, evaluating players
on the basis of probability of winning using metrics like PWA and PGP may be
the wave of the future.
 APTE
CH R

11

Part of what makes baseball an exciting sport, at least to us, is its unpre-
dictability. During the preseason, experienced and knowledgeable sportswriters
make a number of predictions regarding the best and worst teams, the best and
worst hitters and pitchers. But it is pretty common for the season to play out in
a way very different from what is predicted. Teams often perform much worse or
better than expected, and players many times achieve much more (or less) than
expected. Many fans can remember teams like the Whiz Kids (the 1950
Philadelphia Phillies) and the Miracle Mets (the 1969 New York team), who had
amazingly successful seasons despite virtually unanimous preseason predic-
tions of mediocrity. Likewise, it is easy to think of young players who surprised
everyone with great seasons. (Remember Mark Fidrych of the Tigers and, more
recently, Sean Casey of the Reds?) So it is clear that there is a lot of uncertainty
in any preseason prediction. In this chapter, we will describe some statistical
methods that can be used in prediction and make some comments about the
accuracy of these predictions. We will first talk about prediction of individual
game outcomes, then discuss prediction of home-run numbers for two recently
famous and fantastically successful sluggers, Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire.

Predicting Game Results

Let’s first focus on the basic problem of predicting game results. Suppose team
A, say Anaheim, plays team B, say Boston, in a single game at team A’s home
park. Can we, with any degree of certainty, answer the question, “Who will win?”

323
324 C H A P T E R 11

Guessing
The simplest way of predicting the outcome of a baseball game (or anything else)
is to make a blind guess. Suppose we knew nothing about baseball and we
thought that the teams all had roughly the same ability. Also, since we’re igno-
rant about baseball, we are not aware of any advantage (to either team) of play-
ing in team A’s ball park. So we make our prediction by flipping a coin. If the coin
lands heads, we’ll predict A to win the game; if the coin is tails, we’ll pick team B.
Suppose that we use this “guess method” in predicting many baseball games.
How good are these predictions? Well, since the result of the coin flip has noth-
ing at all to do with the outcome of the baseball game, we can expect to be right
about half of the time. In other words, our success rate using the guess method
would be 50 percent.

Picking the Home Team

We can certainly improve on mere guessing, since we do know something about
baseball. For example, we know that there is some advantage for a team playing
in their home ball park. So it would be reasonable to always predict that the
home team would win. How good is this prediction? In 1999, 52.1 percent of all
games were won by the home team. So our success rate if we predict the home
team is 52.1 percent.
In other words, our predictions are slightly better if we pick the home team
than if we simply guess, but the improvement is pretty small—only 2.1 percent.
The home-field advantage in baseball is much smaller than the home-court
effect in basketball or the home-field advantage in football. (In recent profes-
sional football games, the home team wins approximately 58 percent of the time,
and in professional basketball the home team wins 66 percent.)

A “Team Strengths” Prediction Model

We can do better than merely choosing the home team. We know that teams have
different abilities, and we should be able to use this knowledge to make a more
accurate prediction. We will describe one simple statistical method, similar to the
least-squares method of fitting a line to a scatterplot (as discussed in Chapter 5),
and use it to make a prediction based on the relative strengths of the teams.
First, we will code the game results, with team A as the home team and team
B the visitor. If the home team (A) wins, we will record the result as +1; if the vis-
itor (B) wins, we’ll record a –1. So all of the game results for the season are
recorded as a sequence of +1s and –1s.
 PREDICTION 325

Next, we need to construct a prediction formula that takes into account the
teams’ strengths and the home-field advantage. We’ll denote the strength of
team A as SA and the strength of team B as SB, and let H denote the home-field
advantage. A simple prediction formula says:
Prediction = SA – SB + H
If we knew the strengths of the two teams and the home-field effect, then we can
compute Prediction. For example, if Anaheim had a strength of .3 and Boston
had a strength of .4 and the home field advantage is .2, then our prediction
would be:
Prediction = .3 – .4 + .2 = .1
We can then use the value of Prediction to make our game prediction as fol-
lows:
• If Prediction is positive, then Team A will win.

• If Prediction is negative, then Team B will win.

In our example, since Prediction is .1 (a positive number), we would predict

Anaheim to win the ball game.
The only problem with this method is that we don’t know either the team
strengths or the home-field advantage. To use this prediction method, we have to
estimate these numbers, using data from the season. We use a popular estima-
tion method called least-squares to do this.
Suppose we collect the results for a large number of games. For each game we
record the game outcome (+1 if the home team wins, –1 if the visiting team wins)
and the names of the two teams that played. There are 30 teams—we don’t know
the strengths of the teams which we represent by S1, . . . , S30, and we don’t know
the value of the home-field advantage H. Using the least-squares method, we
find values of the team strengths and the home-field advantage which makes
the sum of [Outcome – (Shome – Saway + H)]2 as small as possible, where Shome is
the strength of the home team and Saway is the strength of the visitor.

Predicting 1999 Game Results

Let’s illustrate this method for predicting the results of the games in the 1999
regular season. At the beginning of the season, we can’t make any predictions,
since we don’t know the team strengths. We could use the results from the 1998
season to learn about the team abilities, but there is a lot of movement of play-
ers between teams in the off-season, and it is not clear how relevant the 1998
game results will be in predicting 1999 results.
326 C H A P T E R 11

Team Strength

Anaheim 0 Detroit –0.07 Oakland 0.13

Arizona 0.41 Florida –0.11 Philadelphia 0.19

Atlanta 0.44 Houston 0 Pittsburgh 0.26

Baltimore –0.17 Kansas City 0.42 San Diego 0.03

Boston 0.32 Los Angeles 0.29 San Francisco 0.29

Chi Cubs 0.36 Milwaukee 0.13 Seattle 0.08

Chi White Sox 0.04 Minnesota –0.16 St Louis 0.25

Cincinnati 0.30 Montreal 0 Tampa Bay –0.02

Cleveland 0.40 NY Mets 0.24 Texas 0.23

Colorado 0.16 NY Yankees 0.24 Toronto –0.02

Home Field Advantage 0.01

TABLE 11-1 Team Strengths and Home-Field Advantage Estimated Using Game Results
of First Two Months of the 1999 Season

So we will initially use the game results for the first two months of the sea-
son in 1999 to estimate the team strengths. From these game results, we use the
least-squares method to obtain values of the team strengths and the home-field
advantage. These least-squares estimates are displayed in Table 11-1.
Now we can use the least-squares method to predict the results of the games
on June 1. Table 11-2 gives the predictions, the game results, and whether we
were right or wrong in our prediction for this particular day.
Let’s illustrate this prediction process for one game, the Atlanta-Colorado
game played on June 1, 1999. We see from Table 11-1 that Atlanta has a strength
of .44 and Colorado has a strength of .16, and the home effect is estimated to be
.01. So for this game, the value of Prediction is calculated as follows:
Prediction = .44 – .16 + .01 = .29
This means that we predict Atlanta will win. From Table 11-2, we see that the
home team (Atlanta) won this game, so we were right on this prediction.
For the next day (June 2), we repeat the process. Using the 1999 data for all
of the games prior to June 2, we estimate the team strengths and the home
advantage. We use the formula to predict the June 2 games and keep track of our
correct and incorrect predictions. The next day we update our estimates of the
team strengths and H using the new set of results through June 2, then using
these values in the new formula to predict the June 3 results, and so on. How did
 PREDICTION 327

Home Team Visiting Team Prediction Who Won Game? Right or Wrong?

Anaheim Minnesota 0.17 Home team Right

Atlanta Colorado 0.29 Home team Right

Boston Detroit 0.40 Home team Right

Chicago Cubs San Diego 0.33 Away team Wrong

Florida St. Louis –0.35 Away team Right

Milwaukee Houston –0.28 Away team Right

Montreal Arizona –0.40 Home team Wrong

NY Mets Cincinnati –0.05 Away team Right

NY Yankees Cleveland –0.14 Home team Wrong

Oakland Tampa Bay 0.16 Home team Right

Philadelphia San Francisco –0.08 Away team Right

Pittsburgh Los Angeles –0.02 Home team Wrong

Seattle Baltimore 0.26 Away team Wrong

Texas Kansas City 0.25 Home team Right

Toronto Chicago White Sox –0.04 Away team Right

TABLE 11-2 Predictions and Game Results for All Games Played on June 1, 1999

we do? In predicting 1616 games during the 1999 season, the formula gave cor-
rect predictions for 924 games. In other words:
924
Success rate using the prediction formula = = 57.2%
1616

How Good Were Our Predictions?

One thing that is a bit surprising is the low value of the success rate. If we
guessed at the winners, we would have a success rate of 50 percent. By using
information about the team strengths and the home effect, we’ve raised this suc-
cess rate to only 57.2 percent. People have tried this same method for predicting
games in professional basketball and football and achieved better results. Using
the same least-squares method as the one described above, one can get a 63 per-
cent success rate for predicting professional football games and a 69 percent suc-
cess rate for professional basketball. This tells us that the results of baseball
games are pretty uncertain relative to football and basketball.
How could we improve our predictions? Is there other information about the
game that one could incorporate, making for a better prediction formula? One
328 C H A P T E R 11

obvious piece of information to add would be the quality of the starting pitchers
of the two teams. Starting pitchers like Randy Johnson, Greg Maddux, and
Pedro Martinez have the potential to dominate a game, and so it would seem
that knowledge of the starters should help our predictions.
To investigate this conjecture, we look at the ten best pitchers in each of the
National and American Leagues on the basis of ERA, and check the success of
our method in predicting the games started by these star pitchers during the
months June through September. For each pitcher, Table 11-3 displays the num-
ber of games correctly predicted. Also, the table divides the incorrectly predicted
games into two groups—the games where the team was predicted to win but
lost, and the games where the team was predicted to lose but won. Note from the

Number of Correct Predicted to Predicted to

Pitcher Predictions Predictions Win, but Lost Lose, but Won

P. Martinez 17 12 2 3

D. Cone 19 9 7 3

M. Mussina 18 9 6 3

B. Radke 21 12 7 2

J. Rosado 20 11 5 4

J. Moyer 20 12 3 5

B. Colon 20 12 4 4

M. Sirotka 23 13 4 6

F. Garcia 21 9 6 6

O. Hernandez 21 17 1 3

R. Johnson 23 13 6 4

K. Millwood 21 15 3 3

M. Hampton 21 18 2 1

K. Brown 23 11 8 4

J. Smoltz 19 9 4 6

T. Ritchie 19 9 2 8

C. Schilling 13 8 3 2

G. Maddux 22 15 4 3

J. Lima 25 15 5 5

O. Daal 22 17 3 2

Totals 408 246 85 77

TABLE 11-3 Outcomes of 1999 Predictions in Games Started by the Twenty Best Pitchers
 PREDICTION 329

“Totals” row that our method gave correct predictions in 246 out of 408 games,
for a success rate of 60 percent. (This is a little better than our success rate for
all games.) Now if the knowledge of the pitcher improved our predictions, we
would expect to see more errors where the team won with star pitchers although
predicted to lose. Actually, in Table 11-3 we see just the opposite pattern—in 85
games the teams lost games they were predicted to win, and in 77 games the
teams won games they were predicted to lose.
Generally, we were unsuccessful in developing a more useful prediction for-
mula that incorporated the starting pitchers. That doesn’t mean that the start-
ing pitchers are not important in determining the game results. Instead, what it
most likely means is that the strength of the starting pitchers is already part of
the team strengths used in our earlier prediction formula. For example, Pedro
Martinez is a great pitcher who helps Boston win some games, but his ability is
built into Boston’s team strength, which we used in our predictions.

Predicting the Number of McGwire and Sosa Home Runs

Let’s shift gears from predicting game results to predicting individual player
accomplishments. The 1998 baseball season will forever be remembered as one
of the most memorable, largely due to the achievements of Mark McGwire and
Sammy Sosa. Before 1998, there were two notable achievements in home-run
hitting for a single season—Babe Ruth’s 60 home runs in 1927 and Roger
Maris’s 61 in 1961. McGwire’s 70 and Sosa’s 66 home runs both shattered
Maris’s record. Moreover, the two players achieved these marks in dramatic
fashion, with McGwire hitting 2 home runs on the final day of the season.
It’s no surprise that in the summer of 1998, McGwire and Sosa were the cen-
ter of media attention, and that every home run hit by either player, especially
during August and September, added to the excitement. During the season,
everyone wondered: would Mac or Sosa break Maris’s home run record, which
had stood for 37 years? And if the record was broken, how many home runs
would these two sluggers eventually hit?
As we write the first version of this chapter in September 1999, with the 1998
season a fond memory, it’s not that interesting to talk about predicting 1998
results. So we’ll focus instead on one current prediction problem, where the out-
come is still not known. It is September 8, 1999, and Sammy Sosa has hit 58
home runs in 535 at-bats. He has 23 games left with 90 at-bats (approximately).
Will Sammy break 60? Will he break 70? Will Sammy hit more than McGwire,
who currently has hit 54 home runs, with roughly 60 remaining 1999 at-bats?
330 C H A P T E R 11

A Simple Prediction Method

First, let’s discuss one simple way of predicting the number of Sosa home runs.
This method is probably used by most of the sports sites in the World Wide
Web—usatoday.com, espn.com, sportsline.com, and cnnsi.com.
First we compute Sosa’s rate of hitting home runs in 1999. He has already hit
58 home runs in 535 at-bats, so his 1999 rate is:
1999 Home-run rate = 58/535 = .108, or 10.8%
Suppose he keeps hitting home runs at the same 10.8 percent rate. So if he has
90 more at-bats, we expect him to hit:
90 (.108) = 9.7, or approximately 10
additional home runs. Since Sosa has already hit 58 home runs, we then predict
that his 1999 total will be
1999 Home-run rate = 58 + 10 = 68
So we predict that Sosa will hit a couple of home runs short of the record number 70.

What’s Wrong with This Prediction?

There are some problems with this method of prediction. First, although we pre-
dict that Sosa will hit 68 home runs, we really have little idea how likely it is
that he will hit 68 home runs. People who see a prediction that says, “Sosa will
hit 68 home runs,” will expect that this will happen, and be surprised if Sosa
actually hits 66 or 67 or 70 home runs. What we’ll learn in this chapter is that
there is a lot of uncertainty in prediction. Although a prediction like “68 home
runs” may be the most likely possibility based on our knowledge, there is a
greater probability that Sosa will not hit 68 home runs.
Another problem with this prediction is that it is based on a particular set of
assumptions, and often fans forget about these assumptions when they see the
answer. Here the prediction that Sosa will hit 68 home runs makes the impor-
tant assumption that Sosa will continue to hit home runs at the same rate as he
did in the months April through August. Is this reasonable? Is Sosa really a hit-
ter who hits home runs at a 10-percent rate throughout the season? Or maybe
Sosa had an unusually good streak of home-run hitting that stretched through
the 1998 season and into the first five months of 1999, and really he isn’t as good
as this 1998 and 1999 data would indicate.
The point here is that if you gather a group of baseball fans in September
1999, each fan will have his own opinion about the home-run prowess of
 PREDICTION 331

McGwire and Sosa during the remainder of the 1999 season. One fan might
believe that Sosa is really in a groove (with respect to home-run hitting) this
year and will continue to stay in this groove for the remainder of the season.
Another fan might think that Sosa has been hitting over his head this season
and will cool down. And another fan’s opinion about Sosa’s home-run hitting
might be based on the teams and pitchers and ball parks where he will play the
23 remaining 1999 games. Fans will have divergent opinions about the abilities
of McGwire and Sosa, and these opinions will result in different predictions
about the 1999 home-run totals of these two players.
Can we do anything to reduce some of this uncertainty? In the next section of
this chapter, we narrow our focus and describe a simple statistical method for
predicting results—for example, the number of home runs by one player in a
season, the number of strikeouts by a pitcher, the number of RBIs for a team,
and so on. First, we take a look at one player’s true home-run rate by means of a
probability table. Second, we develop a probability table for the result we are
interested in. The probabilities in this table tell us which result is most likely to
happen, and reveal that many results besides the most likely one are possible.
At the end, we derive a range of possible values, so instead of having to say, “Sosa
will hit 68 home runs,” we can make a statement like “there is a 90-percent
chance that Sosa will hit between 64 and 72 home runs.”

A Spinner Model for Home-Run Hitting

Let’s first describe a simple probability model for Sosa’s home-run hitting for the
remainder of the 1999 season. When Sammy comes to bat, we can put the results
into three categories:
1. He gets a walk, gets hit by a pitch, or gets a sacrifice—none of
which is counted as an official at-bat.
2. He has an official at-bat (a hit or an out) but doesn’t hit a home run.
3. He hits a home run.
If we ignore the plate appearances that don’t result in an official at-bat, then
there are two outcomes—home run or not a home run. Suppose that every time
Sammy has an at-bat, he spins a spinner. The spinner has two areas labeled
Home Run and Not a Home Run, and the area of the home run region is p. He
spins the spinner to bat, and a home run is the result if the spinner lands in the
Home Run region.
332 C H A P T E R 11

Note that the chance that Sammy hits a home run on an official at-bat is p for
each at-bat. We’re assuming that the home-run probability is the same in Wrigley
Field, away from Wrigley Field, against Randy Johnson, and against Chad Ogea.
Actually, we don’t believe that this is true: Sammy’s got to have a higher proba-
bility of hitting a home run against Ogea than Johnson. Still, this model works
pretty well in representing the variation of home run-data that we see.
So this model assumes that Sammy’s chances of hitting a home run are the
same regardless of the pitcher he is facing. And there is a second big assumption
here: the chance of Sammy hitting a home run in, say, the twentieth at-bat is not
affected at all by his performance in the previous 19 at-bats. We’re assuming
that he can’t have true hot or cold streaks in his hitting. (For a more extensive
discussion of this point, see Chapter 5.)

How Many At-Bats?

We don’t know for sure how many at-bats Sammy will have in the final 23
games, but we note that he has played in every single Cubs game this season. So
it is reasonable to assume that he will play in each one of the remaining 23. Also,
in his first 138 games, Sammy averaged 3.9 at-bats. If he continues to get at-bats
at this rate, we would expect him to have:
23 (3.9) = 89.7, or about 90 at-bats
So, in our spinner model, we will assume that Sammy will get 90 opportunities
to spin the spinner and get home runs.

What If We Knew Sosa’s True Home-Run Rate?

To complete our spinner model, we have to know the chance that Sammy will hit a
home run on a single at-bat—this is the size of the Home Run area in the spinner.
Let’s first assume, hypothetically, that Sammy is a true 10-percent home-run
hitter. That is, the chance that he hits a home run on an official at-bat is .1. In our
spinner model, the area of the Home Run region would be .1, and Sammy could
play the remainder of the 1999 season by spinning this particular spinner 90
times (corresponding to the 90 at-bats). How many home runs would Sammy hit?
Well, a reasonable guess would be 9. Since the chance of hitting a home run is
10 percent, one would expect him to hit 90 (.10) = 9 home runs in the remainder
of the season. But the actual number of home runs he will hit is random or
uncertain, and although 9 home runs is pretty likely, there is a good chance that
he will hit fewer or more than 9.
 PREDICTION 333

There is a well-known formula called the binomial that is used for computing
such a probability. We will take a close look at it to see if we can determine the
probability that Sammy will hit a specific number of home runs for our spinner
model with 90 at-bats (spins) and a home-run probability (spinner area) of .1.

Binomial Probabilities
Suppose you have a random experiment that consists of a sequence of trials. On
each trial, only one of two things can happen, which we call a success (labeled S)
or a failure (F). Assume that the chance of an S on a single trial is p, and that the
chance of getting a getting a S or F on a particular trial is not affected by what
happens on previous trials. If there are N trials, then the probability of seeing
exactly x successes in the experiment is given by the following formula:

Pr(x successes in N trials) = N x

x p (1 – p)
N–x

In this formula, the symbol

N
x

called “N over x,” is the number of ways of choosing x items from a larger group
of N items. In the example above, the number of trials is N = 90, a success is “hit-
ting a home run,” the probability p = .1, and we are interested in the probability

Home Runs Probability

0 0 11 0.101

1 0.001 12 0.074

2 0.004 13 0.049

3 0.012 14 0.030

4 0.030 15 0.017

5 0.057 16 0.009

6 0.089 17 0.004

7 0.119 18 0.002

8 0.137 19 0.001

9 0.139 20 0

10 0.125

TABLE 11-4 Binomial Probabilities for Number of Home Runs Hit in 90 At-Bats with a
Home-Run Probability of .1
334 C H A P T E R 11

of hitting a particular number of home runs. Table 11-4 displays some of these
binomial probabilities.
Looking at Table 11-4, we see that the most likely number of home runs
Sammy will hit in the final part of the 1999 season is 9. But the probability that
Sammy will hit exactly this number is only about 14 percent. That’s a small
probability. Looking further at the table, we see that the probabilities that
Sammy hits 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11 home runs are all above 10 percent. The message
here is that even if we know Sammy’s hitting probability, we aren’t too sure
about what can happen in Sammy’s next 90 at-bats.

What If We Don’t Know Sosa’s True Home-Run Rate?

But we can’t use the results of Table 11-4 to predict the number of home runs
Sosa will hit. Why? Well, we don’t know for sure the value of Sammy’s hitting
probability, and it is not reasonable to assume that it is exactly equal to .1.
To get some idea what Sosa’s home-run probability in 1999 might be, Table
11-5 shows Sosa’s at-bat and home-run data for the previous ten years in the
Major Leagues. (For this discussion, we are basing our judgments on Sosa’s accom-
plishments prior to 1999. Later we’ll talk about how to change this judgment after
seeing the home-run data for the 1999 partial season.) For each year, we have com-
puted Sosa’s home-run rate and put those numbers in the last column.
Let’s focus on Sosa’s home run rates:

Year Team AB HR HR Rate

1989 Texas-ChiW 183 4 0.022

1990 ChiW 532 15 0.028

1991 ChiW 316 10 0.032

1992 ChiC 262 8 0.031

1993 ChiC 598 33 0.055

1994 ChiC 426 25 0.059

1995 ChiC 564 36 0.064

1996 ChiC 498 40 0.080

1997 ChiC 642 36 0.056

1998 ChiC 643 66 0.103

TABLE 11-5 Number of At-Bats and Home Runs for Sosa in His Major League Seasons
Prior to 1999
 PREDICTION 335

.022, .028, .032, .031, .055, .059, .064, .080, .056, .103
Figure 11-1 plots these values as a function of the season. We see an interest-
ing pattern here. For Sosa’s first four years, he hit home runs at roughly a 3-
percent clip. Over the next five years, he hit home runs at rates between 6 and 8
percent. And in 1998, his rate was over 10 percent!
Based on Sosa’s career home-run statistics, we have to make some judgment
about the value of his home-run probability for the 1999 season. From his stats,
it appears that Sammy has matured considerably as a home-run hitter, and the
statistics for the last few years are probably the ones that are most representa-
tive of his current ability. But we also have to realize that the home run rates in
Figure 11-1 are really not hitting probabilities, but observed home run rates.
Maybe Sammy was not a real 10 percent home-run hitter in 1998, but was lucky
and had a good year.
After some reflection, we realize that we’re pretty uncertain about Sammy’s
home-run probability for 1999. Based on his 1998 season, we believe that he has
the potential to be a “great” home-run hitter where his home-run probability is
10 percent or higher. (We consider 10 percent a useful reference point, since it
corresponds to the observed home-run percentage of Babe Ruth in his prime.) In
addition, based on the pattern of home-run hitting shown in Figure 11-1, he
appears to be fully matured, or at least close to fully mature, as a home-run hit-
ter. However, we can’t forget the relatively small home-run rates that he

0.10

0.08

0.06
SEASON HOME RUN RATE

0.04

0.02

1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998

YEAR
FIGURE 11-1 Sosa’s home run rates for the first ten years in the Major Leagues.
336 C H A P T E R 11

achieved just a few years ago. Based on these beliefs, we constructed the bar
chart in Figure 11-2 to graphically represent his 1999 home-run probability.
Remember again that these beliefs are based only on Sammy’s accomplishments
for the ten-year period 1989–1998; for the moment, we’re ignoring the 1999 data.
Looking at the probability graph, we see that the values of .09 and .10 are
each assigned the largest probabilities. This means we think it’s most likely that
Sosa will have a 9 or 10 percent home-run probability in 1999. However, as the
figure indicates, we’re not sure that his home-run probability is 9 to 10 percent,
and we think it is possible that his probability can be as small as 5 percent or as
large as 13 percent. Actually, our beliefs about Sosa’s chance of hitting a home
run are pretty vague. Before the 1999 season begins, we’re not sure if he will con-
tinue to hit home runs at his 1998 rate, or revert back to his pattern of hitting
home runs in the earlier seasons.1

Revising Our Beliefs about Sosa’s Home-Run Probability

We’ve discussed how to construct a probability table that reflects our beliefs
about Sosa’s home-run probability in 1999. Now we watch Sosa’s batting per-
formance in the first five months of the season, and we observe 58 home runs in
535 at-bats. This is a pretty impressive performance, and we’re more confident
that Sammy’s home-run probability in 1999 is high. So we want to revise the

0.30

0.25

0.20

0.15

0.10
PROBABILITY

0.05

0.04 0.06 0.08 0.10 0.12 0.14

(P )

FIGURE 11-2 Graph of probabilities for Sosa’s true home-run rate.

1 As this book is going to press, at the beginning of the 2003 season, we have seen Sosa’s home
run statistics for the 2002 season, and we are more certain that he is a hitter with a 8- to 12-
percent home-run probability.
 PREDICTION 337

probabilities we displayed in Figure 11-2 in light of this new batting data.

Fortunately, there is a simple formula, called Bayes’ Rule, that tells one how to
change one’s probabilities when given new data.
We’ll use Bayes’ Rule to update the probabilities. We are interested in learn-
ing about a batter’s home-run probability p, and our initial beliefs about p are
represented by means of a prior probability distribution. After we observe
some data, then our new, or posterior, probability distribution for p is given by
this formula:
Pr(p given Data) = Pr(p) Pr(Data given p) / c
where c is the probability of observing Data based on our initial opinion. The
value of c ensures that the probabilities add up to 1.
In our setting, our Data is “58 HR in 535 AB.” To find the new probability that
Sosa’s hitting probability is 10 percent, we compute the product:
Pr(p = .1 given 58 HR in 535 AB) = Pr(p = .1) Pr(58 HR in 535 AB given p = .1)

= (.2353) (.0451)

= .01062
In the formula, Pr(p = .1) is our initial probability that Sosa is a 10 percent hit-
ter and Pr(58 HR in 535 AB given p = .1) is the binomial probability that Sosa
gets 58 home runs in 535 if he really is a 10-percent home-run hitter.
In Table 11-6, the product [Pr(p) Pr(Data given p)] is found for each of the pos-
sible home-run probabilities for Sosa. In this table, each of the entries in the
Product column is divided by c, the sum of the products, to get the new (poste-
rior) probabilities in the last column.
The probabilities in the last column of Table 11-6, Pr(p given Data), reflect our
beliefs about Sosa’s home-run probabilities after seeing his 1999 data. Remember
that, before seeing Sosa perform in 1999, we thought he was a 9- or 10-percent
home-run hitter—with a small chance of being either a 5- to 6-percent or an
(unimaginably great) 13-percent home-run hitter. After seeing Sammy’s perform-
ance in the first five months of 1999, we see that the values of p in the set {.09, .10,
.11, .12} have most of the probability, which means we’re pretty confident that
Sammy’s home-run probability is in the 9- to 12-percent range.

One Prediction
We are finally ready to predict the number of home runs Sosa will hit in the
remainder of the 1999 season. Recall that if we really knew Sosa’s 1999 home-
338 C H A P T E R 11

p Pr(p) Pr(Data given p) Product Pr(p given Data)

0.05 0.0490 0 0 0

0.06 0.0490 0 0 0

0.07 0.0490 0.0003 0.00001 0.0005

0.08 0.0980 0.0039 0.00038 0.0136

0.09 0.2353 0.0195 0.00458 0.1647

0.10 0.2353 0.0451 0.01062 0.3816

0.11 0.1373 0.0550 0.00755 0.2714

0.12 0.0980 0.0390 0.00383 0.1375

0.13 0.0490 0.0174 0.00085 0.0306

1 0.02782 1

TABLE 11-6 Bayes’ Rule Computations to Obtain Updated Beliefs about Sosa’s New
Home-Run Probabilities p

run probability p, then we could compute the probability that he would hit a par-
ticular number of home runs using a binomial formula. We don’t know the value
of the home-run probability p, but our beliefs about this probability are
described by the probabilities shown in Table 11-6.
The probability that Sosa hits a given number of home runs, say 10, is given
by the formula:
Pr(10 HR) = sum of [Pr(HR prob. is p) × Pr(10 HR if the HR prob. is p)]
for all possible values.
We use Table 11-7 to illustrate how we compute the probability that Sosa
hits 10 additional home runs in the 1999 season. The first column lists the pos-
sible values of the hitting probability, the second column lists the corresponding
probabilities from Table 11-6. The third column lists the probability that Sosa
gets 10 home runs for each probability value. To get the probability of 10 home
runs, we multiply, for each row, the values in the second and third columns—
and the products are placed in the fourth column. The sum of the products is
the probability of interest.
Suppose that we repeat this calculation for all possible home-run numbers.
Table 11-8 displays the following probability table for the number of additional
home runs Sammy will hit in 1999.
From this probability table, we can make the following predictions. Remember,
Sosa has already hit 58 home runs, and this table tells us how many additional
home runs he will hit in his future 90 at-bats. On September 8, 1999:
 PREDICTION 339

Pr(10 HR if the Product

p Pr(HR prob is p) HR prob is p)

0.05 0 0.0092 0

0.06 0 0.0245 0

0.07 0.0005 0.0486 0

0.08 0.0136 0.0779 0.0011

0.09 0.1647 0.1055 0.0174

0.10 0.3816 0.1250 0.0477

0.11 0.2714 0.1326 0.0360

0.12 0.1375 0.1282 0.0176

0.13 0.0306 0.1144 0.0035

Pr = 0.1233

TABLE 11-7 Illustration of the Computation of the Probability that Sosa Hits Ten
Additional Home Runs

Home Runs Probability

0 0 11 0.105

1 0.001 12 0.082

2 0.004 13 0.060

3 0.011 14 0.040

4 0.027 15 0.025

5 0.050 16 0.014

6 0.080 17 0.008

7 0.106 18 0.004

8 0.125 19 0.002

9 0.131 20 0.001

10 0.123 21 0

TABLE 11-8 Probability Table for the Number of Home Runs Sosa Will Hit in the
Remainder of 1999

• It is most likely that Sosa will hit 9 more HRs (for a total of 67),
but the chance of this happening is only about 13 percent.
• There is a high probability (.9025) that Sosa will hit between 5
and 14 additional home runs (for 1999 totals between 63 and 72).
It would be a bit surprising if Sammy hit fewer than 5 or more
than 14 home runs in the remainder of the season.
340 C H A P T E R 11

• The chance, at this point in the season, that Sammy will break the
record is the chance that he will hit 13 or more home runs, which is:
Pr(Sosa hits 71 or more) = .154

Many Predictions
We have focused on predicting Sosa’s home-run totals at a particular point of
time during the 1999 season. But there is nothing special about September 8—
this prediction procedure can be used at any point in time during the season.
Our beliefs about Sammy’s hitting probability are based on our knowledge about
Sammy prior to 1999 and any home-run data we’ve observed in 1999 up to that
particular point in time.
Figure 11-3 shows our predictions for Sosa’s 1999 home-run total. After each
game that Sosa played in that season, a vertical line shows the limits of a 90-
percent prediction interval for the 1999 home-run total. Before the season
began (at Game 0), our prediction interval is seen from the graph to be (33, 81).
This interval seems pretty wide, but we had little clue in early April how many

SAM M Y SOSA

80

70

60

50
NUMBER OF HOME RUNS

40

30

25

0 50 100 150

GAME

FIGURE 11-3 90-percent prediction intervals for Sosa’s 1999 home-run total after each
game played in the 1999 season.
 PREDICTION 341

0.30

0.25

0.20

0.15

0.10
PR(71 OR MORE)

0.05

0 50 100 150

GAME

FIGURE 11-4 Graph of predictive probability that Sosa will break the home-run record of
70 for each game of the 1999 season. The dots along the horizontal axis
show the games in which Sosa hit his home runs.

home runs Sosa would hit. We were not sure what Sosa’s true home-run rate
(the value of p) would be in the 1999 season, and he hadn’t yet hit any home
runs in 1999. As the season proceeds and Sammy is hitting home runs, we see
from the graph that the length of the prediction interval shortens consider-
ably—and eventually, near the end of the season, we are pretty sure about the
final total. (Obviously, when Sosa finishes the season, we know exactly how
many home runs he hits in 1999.)
In this season, many fans were wondering if Sosa would break the season
home-run record of 70. In Figure 11-3, a horizontal line has been drawn at 71
home runs, which represents a new record. Note that for much of the season,
our 90 percent prediction interval covers 71, which indicates that Sosa had a
significant probability of breaking the record. This point is reinforced in
Figure 11-4, which graphs the predictive probability that Sosa will break the
home-run record after each game of the 1999 season. (The dots at the bottom
of the graph show when Sosa hit his home runs.) Note that whenever Sosa hit
one or more home runs during a game, the probability that he breaks the
record jumps up. This increase in the probability has two explanations. First,
since he has hit home runs, he is closer to the record of 71. Also, the fact that
342 C H A P T E R 11

he has hit home runs increases the likelihood that his home-run hitting prob-
ability (p) is large.
Finally note that the number of home runs that Sosa actually hit in the 1999
season, 63, is included in most all of the prediction intervals that we constructed
that season. Although Sosa slumped a little at the end of the season, his final
total of 63 was consistent with the predictions that we made using our model.
Let’s compare Sosa with Mark McGwire. The same method we applied above
can also be used to predict McGwire’s 1999 home-run total. One difference in the
analysis of McGwire is that our initial beliefs (before the season started) about
Mark’s 1999 true home-run probability, p, are notably different from our beliefs
about Sosa’s. Figure 11-5 shows the probabilities we used. There is a lot more
evidence from past seasons that McGwire hits home runs at a high rate, so we
place a high probability on the likelihood that he will hit home runs at a 10- to
13-percent clip. Another difference in our predictions is that we assume that
McGwire averages only 3.2 official at-bats per game. (McGwire generally walks
more than Sosa, resulting in fewer official at-bats.)
Figure 11-6 shows our 90-percent prediction intervals for Mark McGwire.
The pattern in these predictions is very different from the pattern in Sosa’s
graph (Figure 11-3). Before the season started, we predicted that McGwire
would hit 60 home runs with a prediction interval of (41, 81). McGwire started
the season slowly, so the predictions dropped off substantially. In fact, for most
of the season, we predicted that Mark’s 1999 home-run total would be in the mid
50s, and he had essentially no chance of breaking his 1998 record of 70. But

0.30

0.25

0.20

0.15

0.10
PROBABILITY

0.05

0.06 0.08 0.10 0.12 0.14 0.16

(P )

FIGURE 11-5 Graph of probabilities for McGwire’s true home-run rate.

 PREDICTION 343

M ARK M CGW I R E

80

70

60

50
NUMBER OF HOME RUNS

40

30

0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140

GAME

FIGURE 11-6 90-percent prediction intervals for McGwire’s 1999 home-run total after
each game played in the 1999 season.

McGwire’s home-run hitting picked up toward the end of the season, with a final
flurry that gave him the 1999 crown. Nonetheless, during most of the season, it
was Sosa who had the greater chance of setting a new record.

Predicting Career Statistics

The previous discussion focused on predicting the number of home runs at some
time during a season. But Sammy Sosa is currently only 34 years old, and he will
likely play in the major leagues for a good number of years. How many home
runs will he hit in his career? Will he break the 600 and 700 career home-run
marks? And what’s the chance he will eventually break Bonds’s season home-
run record of 73?
This is a more difficult prediction problem, since there are more unknowns.
Earlier we concentrated on learning about Sosa’s home-run probability p only
during the 1999 season. Now we have to think about Sosa’s home-run probabili-
ties for each of the remaining seasons of his career. We don’t know how many
years Sosa has left in his baseball career. And, even if we knew that he would
344 C H A P T E R 11

play for, say, eight additional seasons, we don’t know exactly how many at-bats
he will have.
Nonetheless, in this section we will describe one statistical model for predict-
ing Sosa’s career home runs. We will first talk about a model for Sosa’s home-run
probabilities. Next, we’ll discuss the number of opportunities (years and at-bats)
that Sosa may have to hit home runs, then use this model to make our predictions.

Sosa’s Home-Run Probabilities

In our earlier discussion, we estimated Sosa’s 1999 home-run probability p using
two types of information: our beliefs about his home-run probability prior to
1999, and his hitting data during the 1999 season. How can we learn about
Sosa’s home-run probabilities in the years 2003 and beyond, when we haven’t
yet observed any data for these years?
Obviously we can’t look into the future, but it is reasonable to believe that
Sosa’s pattern of hitting home runs over his career will be similar to the hitting

Aaron Ruth Mays

0.1

0.05

0
Robinson Killebrew Jackson
0.1

0.05

0
Schmidt Mantle Foxx
0.1

0.05
HR RATE

0
20 30 40 20 30 40 20 30 40

AGE

FIGURE 11-7 Observed home-run rates and smooth fitted curves for the career perform-
ances for nine great home-run hitters.
 PREDICTION 345

pattern of other sluggers in history. Figure 11-7 plots the home-run hitting rates
(HR divided by AB) against the player’s age for the nine greatest career home-
run hitters in baseball history. Smooth curves are drawn over each of the graphs
to show the basic patterns in the rates. Looking at the graphs, we note that there
are significant differences between these ten great players in terms of their
home run rates. But we notice a general pattern, as shown in Figure 11-8.
Generally, the curve shows us, a home-run hitter improves (matures) in his
first few years, reaching a peak near the age of 30. After that peak, the home-run
hitter tends to decline. Although this pattern seems to hold for most players,
there are differences in the peak age and the degree of maturation and decline
between players. For example, Hank Aaron peaked relatively late, then declined
relatively slowly. In contrast, Mickey Mantle peaked at an earlier age but
showed dramatic declines later in his career.
Using Sosa’s home-run data through the 2002 season and the career statis-
tics of the 50 greatest home-run hitters, we can learn about Sosa’s home-run
probabilities for the remainder of his career. We assume that Sosa’s home-run
probabilities for his career will follow the basic shape, and assume that his
career pattern of home-run probabilities will be similar to the pattern of the
other 50 home-run hitters.
We don’t know exactly what Sosa’s “true” home-run rates will be, but we can
generate sets of home-run rates, as shown in Figure 11-9, that we think are rea-
sonable based on our model. The dark solid line represents our best guess at
what Sosa’s home-run probabilities will look like over the years. We think that
he will peak at age 34 (in the year 2003) at a value close to .1, then the proba-
bility will decrease to a value of .08 when Sosa is 40 years old. But this figure
shows that, even though we have a best guess at his home-run probabilities, it is
possible that they will deviate a bit from this best guess. Specifically, it is possi-
ble that Sosa will peak at a later age and show faster or slower rates of decline.

How Long and How Many At-Bats?

Now that we have a handle on Sosa’s home-run probabilities, we have to next
decide how many years Sosa has in his career. We really don’t know much about

FIGURE 11-8 Pattern of home-run rates for great home-run hitters.

346 C H A P T E R 11

Past Future
0.14

0.12

0.10

0.08

0.06

0.04

0.02
(P )

20 25 30 35 40

AGE

FIGURE 11-9 Plausible graphs of Sosa’s home-run hitting probabilities based on the model.

this. Sosa appears to be a well-conditioned athlete and likely has many produc-
tive years ahead of him. But many things, like injuries, could have an impact on
the length of his career. We will first assume that Sosa could play until the ripe
old age of 40, but since this is an important assumption, we will present predic-
tions assuming that Sosa does retire at an earlier age.
Given his past playing performance, it is reasonable to think that Sosa will con-
tinue to play regularly and have a large number of at-bats for a number of years.
However, for most players, the number of batting opportunities (at-bats) does
decrease by 5 to 10 percent as the player approaches the twilight of his career. So
we assume that Sosa’s at-bats in the coming years will look something like this:

Sosa’s Age Expected

(Years) At-Bats

34, 35, 36 560

37, 38, 39 530

40, 41, 42 500

 PREDICTION 347

Of course, a lot could happen in Sosa’s career that will cause him to have fewer
at-bats during particular years, but these values seem consistent with the pat-
tern of at-bats for other home-run sluggers in history.

Making the Predictions

Now we’re ready to make our predictions. What we do is perform a large number
of simulations for the remainder of Sosa’s career using the probability model we
have constructed. We first simulate a set of home run probabilities from the model
described earlier. Each of these probabilities defines a random spinner where the
area of the Home Run region of the spinner corresponds to the probability. In the
particular simulation illustrated in Figure 11-10, Sosa’s home-run probability at
age 34 is 10 percent, his home-run probability at ages 35–36 is 9 percent, his prob-
ability at age 37 is 8 percent, and so on. Then we use the random spinners to sim-
ulate home-run results using the at-bat numbers given above.
Table 11-9 summarizes the results of doing our simulation for a total of 1000
Sosa careers. Since the results depend heavily on how long Sosa remains active
in the major leagues, we give results assuming that Sosa plays until particular
ages. In each case, the table gives a “best guess” at Sosa’s number of career home
runs, and the chances that he will break the home-run milestones of 600, 700,

10% 9% 9%

Age = 34 Age = 35 Age = 36

8% 7% 6%

Age = 37 Age = 38 Age = 39

5% 5%

Age = 40 Age = 41

FIGURE 11-10 Set of random spinners corresponding to a particular simulation of Sosa’s

home-run probabilities.
348 C H A P T E R 11

Plays Until Age 34 36 38 40

Best Guess at Career HR 554 662 757 840

Pr(600+) 0.00 0.99 1.00 1.00

Pr(700+) 0.00 0.07 0.90 0.99

Pr(755+) 0.00 0.00 0.49 0.89

Pr(74+season) 0.02 0.11 0.19 0.27

TABLE 11-9 Results of Simulation of Sosa’s Career Using Our Probability Model

and 755. Finally, we give the chance that Sosa will sometime break the single-
season home-run record of 73.
Several interesting things can be learned from Table 11-9. First, the number
of career home runs depends basically on how long Sosa will remain an active
player. Hank Aaron, with 755, currently owns the career home-run total. Sosa
has an excellent chance of breaking 700 career home runs only if he stays active
until at least 40. Also, note that Sosa’s chance of breaking Bonds’s season home-
run mark is relatively small. Why? Well, we are assuming that Sosa is currently
at or near his peak, and his home-run ability will start decreasing-meaning it
will be less likely that he will break the mark later in his career.
Then again, Sammy is looking good, looking healthy, looking over pitches
with that sparkle in his eye, so we would not bet against him. Nobody’s going to
make tons of money following the prediction rules described in this chapter. But
hopefully we are now more aware of the great amount of uncertainty in predic-
tion. Predictions like “Sosa will hit 60 home runs this year” have a lot of vague-
ness connected with them, and anyone who tells you that he or she can make
more accurate predictions than the ones described here is misinformed, or lying.
 Team Win?

12

Major League Baseball is currently a competition between 30 teams, 16 in the

National League and 14 in the American. Each league is divided into three divi-
sions—East, Central, and West. Each team plays a 162-game schedule during
the regular season, playing most of its games against teams in its own league.
We say “most” because beginning with the 1997 season, MLB has experimented
with inter-league play, where each team from the National League plays approx-
imately 15 games against selected opponents from the American League.
At the end of the regular 162-game season, the four best teams from each
league continue playing games in a “post-season,” with the goal to win the cham-
pionship. The teams with the highest winning percentage in each of the three
divisions compete together with a “wild-card” team, which has the best winning
percentage among all teams who are not division winners. The eight teams go
through a three-tier playoff system to decide the championship of baseball. First,
the four teams in each league compete in two playoffs—each pair of teams plays
a “best of 5” competition to decide the final two teams of each league. Next, each
pair of teams in each league play a “best of 7” competition to decide the winner of
each league. Last, the winners of the American and National Leagues pennants
play a “best of 7” competition called the World Series to decide the champion.

349
350 C H A P T E R 12

The Big Question

The winner of the World Series is declared the “best team in baseball” and is
immortalized as one of the premier teams in the history of the game. Each of the
players on the championship team receives a special World Series ring, and
there are substantial bonuses paid to each player, the manager, and the coaches
for their achievement. However, after all of the games have been played and the
winner declared, a natural question to ask is: “Did the best team actually win
the championship?” In 1997, the Florida Marlins defeated the Cleveland Indians
to win the World Series. This particular contest was very close—the series was
not decided until the last extra inning of the seventh game. Many Cleveland
Indians fans thought the Indians should have won the series, focusing on several
pivotal plays during the series that greatly influenced the outcome. If a pitcher
had not made one particular poor pitch, the Cleveland fans felt, or if a player had
executed cleanly instead of misplayed in one particular defensive mishap, the
Indians would have won the championship. These fans may feel that the Indians
were indeed the better team, but, due to some unfortunate circumstances or bad
luck, their team lost the series.

Ability and Performance

What does it mean to be the “best team” in baseball? Since the Marlins won the
World Series, most people would refer to the Marlins as the best team in 1997.
After all, they did win the championship. They were “best” in the sense that they
performed the best in the series of playoffs following the regular season. But
that’s not what we’re talking about. What we mean is, “Did the team with the
greatest ability win the World Series?” Did the team with the best players, that
is, the most talented players, win the championship? Here we are again making
the important distinction between ability and performance. The Indians may
have had a more talented team in 1997, but they may not have performed to the
best of their abilities. Alternatively, the Marlins may have had less overall abil-
ity than the Indians, but they could have performed particularly well during the
7-game series to win the championship. In other words, chance could have
played a major role in the World Series.
Looking over the recent history of Major League Baseball, we see teams that
performed in a relatively average fashion during the regular season but some-
how won the World Series. A good recent illustration of this phenomenon is the
Minnesota Twins in 1987. The Twins that year finished with a season record of
 DID THE BEST TEAM WIN? 351

85 wins and 77 losses, winning just 52 percent of their games. The team scored
786 runs during the season and allowed 806, so it is surprising that they even
had a winning season. Their team batting average was a lackluster .261, which
was lower than the American League average of .265, and their slugging aver-
age of .430 was only slightly higher than the league average of .425. You may be
thinking that they must have had good pitching. Well, their team ERA was a
weak 4.63, which was higher (worse) than the league ERA of 4.46.
This array of less-than-stellar stats may lead you to ask, “Did they do any-
thing well?” The answer is yes, the Twins had the fewest number of fielding
errors in the major leagues. More importantly, they played well in their home
ball park. Their record during the regular season was 56–25 (a winning percent-
age of .691) at the Metrodome and 29–52 (a winning percentage of .358) on the
road. The Twins continued this pattern of winning during the post season—they
won all six games played at the Metrodome during the American League
Championship and World Series. Nonetheless, although the Twins won the
World Series in 1987, it would be difficult to argue, on the basis of their team sta-
tistics, that they were the best team in baseball that particular year.
Similarly, if one looks at team statistics, one can question if the Florida
Marlins, the winner of the 1997 World Series, was the best team ten years later.
Let’s compare the Marlins with the Atlanta Braves, a team that played in the
same National League division. Table 12-1 lists a number of statistics for the
two teams that year. We see that Atlanta had a higher winning percentage,
scored more runs, allowed fewer runs (“OR” stands for Opponents’ Runs), had a
higher team batting average and slugging percentage, and had a lower earned-
run average. When Florida defeated Atlanta in the National League Champion-
ship that season, a number of explanations were offered, and some argued seri-
ously that Florida was the better team. But based on the regular season
statistics, it should be pretty clear that Atlanta was the superior team and was
more deserving than Florida of a World Series championship.
Note that we observe a baseball team’s performance throughout a season, but
we never know for sure, even after the last game of the year, exactly how tal-

Wins Losses Win % R OR AVG SLG ERA

Florida Marlins 92 70 0.568 740 669 0.259 0.395 3.83

Atlanta Braves 101 61 0.623 791 581 0.270 0.426 3.18

TABLE 12-1 Team Statistics for Atlanta and Florida for the 1997 Baseball Season
352 C H A P T E R 12

ented the team is. The Marlins were better than the Indians in the sense that
they performed better during the World Series. An Indians’ fan may argue that
the Indians were a better team than the Marlins—he’s saying that the Indians
had more ability. This statement can’t be refuted by a Marlins fan, since he or
she really doesn’t know which team had more talent.

Describing a Team’s Ability

Since a team’s ability or talent is an abstract quantity that is unknown, it is
helpful to use a number to describe it. We will denote the talent of a team by the
letter t. If t is equal to 0, then we can think of the team as having average talent.
A negative value, say t = –.4, will correspond to a team with below-average abil-
ity, and a positive value (like t = +1.2) will correspond to a team whose talent is
in the upper half of all major-league teams (see Figure 12-1). If a team’s talent is
a positive number, then we expect the team to win more than half of its games,
although we will see that the team may not win more than half of its games dur-
ing a 162-game season.
Each team in the major leagues can be assigned a number t that corresponds
to its talent. Since there are currently 30 major-league teams, there exist 30
numbers t1, . . . , t30 that correspond to their abilities. The problem is that we
never know exactly the values of these talents; in fact, we could know them to a
reasonable degree of certainty only if the teams were able to play millions of
games during the season. Clearly that’s impossible, since a baseball season is
scheduled over a six-month period, so we view these abilities as unknown hypo-
thetical quantities.

Describing a Team’s Performance

So are we stuck? Since we will never know the abilities of these major-league
teams, can we go no further? No. We get information about the teams’ abilities
by observing their performances during a 162-game season. Each team gets an
opportunity to play all the teams in its respective league, and they win and lose

NEGATIVE VALUE OF t POSITIVE VALUE OF t

0
BELOW-AVERAGE TALENT ABOVE-AVERAGE TALENT

FIGURE 12-1 Interpreting the talent (t) of a team.

 DID THE BEST TEAM WIN? 353

games. At the end of the 162-game season, we observe winning fractions for all
the teams. We’ll use the letter p to denote a team’s proportion of wins for the sea-
son. So, for example, if the Baltimore Orioles win 90 and lose 72 games during
the season, the value of p for Baltimore is 90/(90+72) = .56. We observe these
winning fractions for all 30 major-league teams and denote them p1, . . . , p30.
These numbers are simply the winning percentages reported in the team stand-
ings after the last day of the regular season. (We should apologize for the change
in notation—p represented an ability in earlier chapters.)
The primary goal of this chapter is to show how the baseball teams’ abili-
ties, as measured by the talent numbers, are linked to their season perform-
ances, which are described by the observed winning fractions. We’ll first look
at baseball teams’ winning percentages since the beginning of professional
baseball (1871). This investigation will show that baseball teams appear to be
similar in their performances over time. Then we’ll look at a few simple mod-
els which relate the teams’ abilities to their season performances. Once we
have found a simple model which seems to describe baseball competition rea-
sonably well, we’ll use the model to relate teams’ abilities with their season
performances. To whet your appetite, we’ll address the following questions
(among others):
1. How does baseball competition in 1997 relate to competition
during the 1920s? Were teams more similar in ability back then?
2. How does a team with average ability perform during the regular
season? Can this average team ever win the World Series? On the
other hand, can this average team finish last in their division?
3. Suppose a team like the Marlins wins the World Series and is
declared the best team in baseball. What’s the chance that the
Marlins were indeed a team with great ability? What’s the chance
that the Marlins were an average team? What’s the chance that
there was a team in the major leagues that year with greater
ability than the Marlins?

Team Performance: 1871 to the Present

How have baseball teams performed in the past? From the first days of profes-
sional baseball in 1871, records have been kept of the winning percentages for all
teams. Figure 12-2 plots all of the team winning percentages against the season
year. There are a number of interesting features that one can see from this graph.
354 C H A P T E R 12

100

80

60

40
WINNING PERCENTAGE

20

0
1860 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000

YEAR

FIGURE 12-2 Scatterplot of team winning percentages and season year.

• There was a large spread in the winning fractions in the early

years of baseball—from 1871 to the late 1800s. Some teams won
10 percent or fewer of their games, and other teams won over 80
percent of theirs.
• Generally, as we look from left to right in the graph (earlier to
later years), we see that the spread in the winning fractions
appears to get smaller. One way to notice this change is to focus
on the teams winning between 60 and 70 percent of their games.
There have always been teams that have performed this well,
from 1871 to the present. However, it seems that the number of
teams in this category is decreasing relative to the number of
average teams, which by our definition win between 40 and 60
percent of their games. This same comment is true for weak teams
that win only 30 to 40 percent of their games. The fraction of teams
that perform this poorly has appeared to decrease over time.
• Reinforcing the previous comment, note that the winning
percentages in the early years, say 1880–1900, appear to be
uniformly spread out from 30 to 70 percent. In contrast,
practically all of the winning percentages in the last few years
have been located in the 40- to 60-percent range. Sure,
 DID THE BEST TEAM WIN? 355

occasionally there are poor or weak teams that win 30 percent

and 70 percent of the time, respectively, in recent years. But such
occurrences are pretty rare, and the trend seems to be toward
more “average” performance.

Explanations for the Winning Percentages

What are possible explanations for the patterns we note in Figure 12-2? Have
there been some changes to the structure of baseball competition that might
account for them?
Let’s first look at the number of games played in a season for all of these
teams. Figure 12-3 plots the number of games played for all teams as a function
of year. From this graph, we see that in the early years of baseball, seasons were
relatively short. In the beginning, seasons were only 20 games long, but by 1900
there were 154 games in a season. From the turn of the last century to 1960, the
number of games played averaged about 150. In 1961 (the historic year when
Roger Maris hit 61 home runs), the number of games increased to 162, which is
the length of the current season.
This graph partially helps to explain the spreads in winning percentages that
we saw in Figure 12-2. In the early years, the large spread in winning percent-
ages is partly due to the fact that the seasons were short. Because of the varying

180

160

140

120

100
NUMBER OF GAMES PLAYED

80

60

40

20

1860 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000

YEAR

FIGURE 12-3 Number of games played by professional teams plotted against year.
356 C H A P T E R 12

season lengths in the pre-1900 years, it is harder to compare the winning per-
centages in these early years with the present day. A team with a winning per-
centage of 80 percent in 1880 wasn’t necessarily better than the great teams of
the 1990s. This 120-year-old winning rate of 80 percent may reflect the basic
truth (from statistics) that it is easier to win 80 percent of only 60 games than
80 percent of 162 games. Because of the varying season lengths in these early
years of baseball, we will focus our analysis on the teams in recent years, where
the seasons were generally from 150 to 162 games long.
So one change in baseball competition over the years is in the length of the
season. What about the number of professional teams in baseball? Figure 12-4
plots the number of teams against the year. We see that in the early years there
were many changes in the basic competitive structure of the sport. In some years
there were fewer than 10 teams in the major leagues, and in one year there were
over 30 professional teams. But starting with 1900, the number of teams stabi-
lized. In fact, in the 60 years from 1901–1960, there were generally 16 teams—8
in the National League and 8 in the American.1 Then, starting in 1961, profes-
sional baseball embarked on its modern expansion. Two new teams were added
in 1961, two in 1962, four in 1969, two in 1977, and two in 1993. This expansion
may have had an impact on the winning percentages observed in Figure 12-2. As

35

30

25

20

15
NUMBER OF TEAMS

10

1860 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000

YEAR

FIGURE 12-4 Plot of number of professional baseball teams and year.

1 A third major league, the Federal League, with 8 teams, existed briefly in 1914–1915.
 DID THE BEST TEAM WIN? 357

35

30

25

20

15

10

5
COUNT

0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7

WINNING PERCENTAGE

FIGURE 12-5 Histogram of winning percentages for ten recent years.

one adds new teams to baseball, one can speculate that the pool of available
ballplayers is spread out over all of the teams, which might make the teams
more similar in ability. This similarity in ability is reflected in the small spread
in the winning percentages in the last 20 years.

A Normal Curve Model

Let’s focus on the group of winning percentages during the 12 years 1986–1997,
excluding the years 1994 and 1995. (A baseball strike in 1994 and 1995 resulted
in canceled games and significantly shortened seasons.) For the remaining 10
seasons, the number of games for all teams was pretty constant (from 160 to 162).
Figure 12-5 displays a histogram of all of the teams’ winning percentages for
this modern ten-year period. We see that that the curve of winning percentages
is bell-shaped, with most teams winning between 45 and 55 percent of their
games. The distribution is symmetric about the value of .5, which corresponds to
an average team that is winning half of its games. It seems pretty uncommon
during these years to have percentages smaller than 40 or larger than 60. Since
winning over 60 percent of the games is a relatively rare event, the few that
reach or exceed that number can be viewed as outstanding.
Since the distribution of winning percentages is mound-shaped, one can
model this distribution by using a smooth curve—the so-called normal curve fre-
quently used in statistics. As discussed in an earlier chapter, a normal curve is
bell-shaped and is described by two numbers, a mean M and a standard devia-
358 C H A P T E R 12

35

30

25

20

15

10

5
COUNT

0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7

WINNING PERCENTAGE

FIGURE 12-6 Histogram of winning percentages for ten recent years with a normal curve
placed on top.

tion S. For a normal curve, the mean M is the middle or most common value of
the curve. Here a good choice for the mean is M = .5, which corresponds to the
winning fraction for an average team. The standard deviation S is a positive
number that reflects the spread of this curve. One can choose a value of S by
computing the standard deviation of the winning fractions of the modern teams.
Here the standard deviation turns out to be .0626. So a normal curve with mean
M = .5 and standard deviation S = .0626 appears to be a reasonable match to this
set of winning percentages. To check this out, Figure 12-6 shows the histogram
of winning percentages with the normal curve drawn on top. It seems to be a
good fit.
This normal curve provides a convenient description of the performances of
modern baseball teams during a 162-game season. If the data follow a bell-
shaped curve, then roughly 68 percent of the winning fractions will fall within 1
standard deviation of the mean, and 95 percent will fall within 2 standard devi-
ations of the mean. If we apply these rules in this setting, we find the following:
• 68 percent of the winning fractions will fall between [.5 – .0626]
and [.5 + .0626], or .44 and .56.
• 95 percent of the winning fractions will fall between
[.5 – 2 (.0626)] and [.5 + 2 (.0626)], or .37 and .63.
These statements help us to understand the season performances of teams.
For a team to win only 35 percent of their games during a season is a bit un-
usual, since only 5 percent of all winning percentages are smaller than 37 or
 DID THE BEST TEAM WIN? 359

0.14

0.12

0.10
STD DEV OF WINNING PCT

0.08

0.06

0.04

1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000

YEAR

FIGURE 12-7 Plot of standard deviations of season winning fractions for different years.
A smooth moving-average curve is placed on top.

larger than 64. Also, these statements reinforce the parity of baseball. About
two-thirds of all teams have winning percentages between 44 and 56. One can
interpret this statement as saying that most teams have season performances
that are close to average.

Team Performances over Time (Revisited)

Season performances of all baseball teams are generally bell-shaped, as illus-
trated in Table 12-6, and the standard deviation gives a useful measure of the
similarity of the teams. Let’s return to Figure 12-2, which plotted all of the win-
ning fractions against the season year. We now have a measure, the standard
deviation, that can be used to describe the spread of performances for each year.
Figure 12-7 graphs the standard deviations of the season winning fractions
against the season number. We focus only on the seasons since 1900, since that
is the point from which the lengths of the seasons are pretty constant. There is
a lot of scatter in the graph shown in Figure 12-7. The standard deviation can be
influenced heavily by a few extreme values, which would correspond to teams
with unusually good or poor seasons. But there is also a clear pattern in this
graph, which is visible in the smooth curve through the points as shown in
360 C H A P T E R 12

S = .102 S = .095 S = .091 S = .076 S = .065

0.75

0.70

0.65

0.60

0.55

0.50
WINNING PROPORTION

0.45

0.40

0.35

0.30

0.25

1900–1920 1921–1940 1941–1960 1961–1980 1981–1997

FIGURE 12-8 Boxplots

COLUMNof season winning proportions for teams of different eras. The stan-
NUMBER
dard deviation of each group of proportions is indicated above each boxplot.

Figure 12-7. This smooth curve is found for a given year, say 1980, by computing
the average of the ten years that are close to that year (1975–1984).
Remember, the standard deviation measures the disparity of the group of
winning fractions. In the early 1900s, teams had a greater disparity in perform-
ances (winning percentages), which is reflected in large standard deviations.
The team performances became more similar until about 1920, when they
seemed to get more divergent. From the 1950s to the present day, the standard
deviations of the winning fractions have been decreasing again, which means
that the teams are becoming more alike in their season performances. To rein-
force this point, Figure 12-8 shows boxplots of the winning fractions for teams
from different time periods. The leftmost boxplot displays the fractions for the
teams from 1900–1920, the next boxplot shows the fractions for the 1921–1940
teams, and so on. The associated standard deviation for each group of winning
fractions is shown at the top of the figure. We see that the boxplot with the
smallest spread corresponds to the 1981–1997 values, which results in the
smallest standard deviation value.
One important finding in this analysis is that the current major-league teams
appear to be more similar in ability than teams in any time in baseball history.
This conclusion will have a significant effect on our exploration into the rela-
tionship between teams’ abilities and their season performances.
 DID THE BEST TEAM WIN? 361

A Mediocrity Model for Abilities

Let’s return to our basic question. What is the relationship between the abilities
of the current major-league teams and the performances of these teams during
the 162-game season? We looked at the season performances, that is the winning
percentages, of baseball teams and noted that modern teams appear to be rela-
tively similar in their abilities.
In general, a model relates parameters or characteristics to observations.
Here, the model is a description of the relationship between teams’ abilities and
their performances. Remember that we describe teams’ abilities in terms of their
talent numbers t1, . . . , t30 and their performances using the season winning frac-
tions p1, . . . , p30. A model describes how the ts are linked to the ps.
Given the current parity of baseball teams and the movement of a large num-
ber of free-agents between teams, it might be reasonable to think that all base-
ball teams have roughly the same talent. If that is true, then all teams would
have an average ability, and the talent number for each team would be 0. If this
“mediocrity model” is true, then the observed differences in season winning per-
centages are solely due to good and bad luck. If you believe this model, then any
team in 1997 had the same chance of winning the baseball championship. The
Marlins just had the best luck, and that’s why they won.
If this model is correct, then it would be easy to simulate a baseball season.
Suppose any two teams play, say the Phillies and the Marlins. Since they are of
equal abilities, then the probability the Phillies win the game is .5—this would
be true for any other pair of teams. A complete season could be simulated by a
sequence of coin flips, where each coin flip corresponds to the outcome of a
single game.
Suppose that we do this simulation many times and keep track of the season
winning fractions p for all teams. One team playing a season is analogous to flip-
ping a fair coin 162 times and keeping track of the fraction of heads. Since we
expect each team to win 50 percent of its games, a standard formula in statistics
tells us that the season winning fractions for many teams will be normal shaped
with mean .5 and standard deviation calculated as follows:

.5 (.5) / 162 = .0393

To see if this is a reasonable model, we compared the above distribution of win-

ning fractions to the actual winning fractions that we observed for the recent ten-
year period. Recall that the standard deviation of this distribution of actual team
362 C H A P T E R 12

performances was estimated to be .0626. This standard deviation (.0626) is much

larger than the standard deviation that would be predicted if the mediocrity
model was true (.0393). Since this model doesn’t explain the variation in winning
percentages between teams, we reject it. Modern baseball teams do appear to
have different abilities. This might seem to be a pretty obvious statement, but it
illustrates how we state a model and how we can check if the model is a reason-
able description of baseball competition. Even when a conclusion seems intu-
itively obvious, it is important to validate it with data before proceeding.

A Normal Model for Abilities

So baseball teams have different abilities. Remember, we describe a team’s abil-
ity by a number t which we call the team’s talent. There are 30 talent numbers
that we write as the symbols t1, . . . , t30. We saw in the previous section that it is
inappropriate to assume that all of these talents are equal to 0. A model will tell
us how these 30 team abilities can be different.
Recall that the performances of teams across different seasons are well
described by a normal curve. Most teams have a winning fraction p that is in the
neighborhood of .5, and a relatively small number of teams have poor or great
winning fractions. It is reasonable to think that teams’ abilities are also
described by a normal bell-shaped curve. If a fan thinks about the quality of the
current group of 30 baseball teams, then he or she will likely view most teams as
“close to average” and think that there are only a few teams that are blessed
with superior players and only a small number of teams that are rebuilding with
young players. So we suppose that the team talents t1, . . . , t30 have a normal pat-
tern. We center this normal curve about the value 0, since we are assuming that
an “average” team has a talent t = 0. Figure 12-9 displays this normal curve
model for team abilities.
This normal model for the talents is centered about the mean value 0, which
corresponds to an average team. The standard deviation of this curve tells us
about the spread of team abilities. We know teams have different abilities, but
can we figure out how different? In other words, how can we find the standard
deviation of this normal curve? We choose a standard deviation so that the win-
ning season percentages predicted from this normal ability model match the
pattern of baseball winning season percentages that we saw in Figure 12-5. (We
will shortly describe how the talent numbers determine who wins and loses indi-
vidual baseball games.) How we actually find this standard deviation is a bit com-
plicated. But it turns out that if we let the ability distribution have a standard
 DID THE BEST TEAM WIN? 363

deviation of .19, then the season performances (the p) that are predicted from this
model match very well the observed season performances in Figure 12-5.
Recall that the standard deviation of the season proportions from recent
years was .066. This variation in the teams’ winning proportions is due to two
factors. First, teams have different abilities, and the variation in these abilities
is measured by the standard deviation of the normal curve of the team talents.
But this variation in team abilities doesn’t explain all of the variation in season
winning proportions. The second factor is chance variability, which is analogous
to the variation that we see in the number of heads when we toss 20 coins
repeatedly. Teams perform well or poorly during a season due to different abili-
ties, but also due to luck.

Weak, Average, and Strong Teams

Now that we have a good model for describing team abilities, we can use the
model to group teams into meaningful categories. How does one define an “excel-
lent” team? There are many ways to think of excellent teams, but we’ll define
them in a simple and somewhat arbitrary way. These are the teams that are in
the top 10 percent with respect to team ability. Likewise a “bad” team is one that
is in the bottom 10 percent of all the team talents. We’ll define an “average” team
that is in the middle 30 percent of the distribution. That leaves two final cate-
10% (EXCELLENT)
30% (AVERAGE)

25% (GOOD)
25% (POOR)
10% (BAD)

–0.9 –0.6 –0.3 0 0.3 0.6 0.9

FIGURE 12-9 Normal curve model for team abilities.

364 C H A P T E R 12

gories, “poor” and “good.” Figure 12-9 shows where the different types of teams
fall in the distribution of team abilities. Table 12-2 gives the cutoffs for the dif-
ferent type of teams.
So an “excellent” team, one that is among the top 10 percent, has a talent
number larger than +.24. A “good” team is one that has an ability between .07
and .24. “Average,” “poor,” and “bad” teams are defined in a similar way.

A Model for Playing a Season

We’re discussing how to model baseball competition, and we have focused on
how to model team abilities. But the model isn’t complete. Given the team tal-
ents, we have to model the actual competition between teams in a 162-game
regular season.
Bradley and Terry thought of a simple way of modeling a competition
between a set of players or teams. For simplicity, suppose that there are four
teams in the competition, which we’ll call A, B, C, and D. We assign talents to the
teams as given in Table 12-3. Under our normal model for talents, teams A and
D have average ability, team B has below-average ability, and team C has the
most talent.
We convert these talents to positive numbers, called strengths, by taking the
exponential of each value. For example, we convert the talent number t = 0 to the
strength number as follows:
s = e0 = 1

Percentiles of
Category Ability Distribution Team Talent

Bad 0–10 less than –.24

Poor 10–35 –.24 to –.07

Average 35–65 –.07 to .07

Good 65–90 .07 to .24

Excellent 90–100 larger than .24

TABLE 12-2 Five Categories of Ability of Baseball Teams

Team A B C D

Talent (t ) 0 –0.1 0.4 0

TABLE 12-3 Talent Numbers Assigned to Four Teams

 DID THE BEST TEAM WIN? 365

Team A B C D

Strength (s ) 1 0.9 1.5 1

TABLE 12-4 Strength Numbers for Four Teams

Then we convert the talent value t = –.1 to

s = e–.1 = .9
(Note that e is a special mathematical number that is approximately equal to
2.78. So when we write e–.1 we are taking the number 2.78 to the –.1 power. ) If
we do this exponential operation to all the talent numbers, we get the strengths
as shown in Table 12-4.
We use the strength values to compute the probability that one team will
defeat another team in a single game. Suppose two teams, say A and B, play one
game. The chance that team A defeats team B is given by the following formula:

strength of team A
Pr(team A defeats team B) =
strength of team A + strength of team B

Here, team A has strength 1, B has strength .9, so the probability that A wins the
game is as follows:
1
Pr(team A defeats team B) =
1 + .9
We can use the strength numbers to find the probability that any team
defeats any other team. So the probability that team C (with strength 1.5)
defeats D (with strength 1) is:
1.5
= .6
1.5 + 1
What if two teams have equal strengths? Note that teams A and D both have
strengths of 1. The chance that A defeats D is:
1
= .5
1+1
which makes sense.

Simulating a Season
We now have a complete description of a model for modern baseball competition.
Teams have different abilities, and we describe these abilities by means of a nor-
mal curve. Once we know the talent numbers for all of the teams, we can com-
366 C H A P T E R 12

pute strength numbers for the teams, and these strength numbers are used, in
the Bradley-Terry model, to compute the probability that one team will defeat
another team in a single game.
Using this competition model, we can use random numbers to simulate a
baseball season. We first choose abilities for the teams at random from the nor-
mal curve ability distribution. We then can play all of the games of the baseball
season using probabilities given by the Bradley-Terry formula and a random
spinner. To show how this simulation works, we’ll step through a single simula-
tion of the American League baseball season.

Simulating an American League Season

Let’s focus on a hypothetical American League baseball season. The American
League currently consists of 14 teams, arranged in the East, Central, and West
divisions.
The first step in this simulation is to assign random abilities to these teams. Our
model for the team talents is a normal curve with a mean 0 and standard deviation
.19. We randomly select 14 numbers from this normal distribution and assign them
to the teams. Table 12-5 lists the teams and their randomly assigned abilities.
The particular assignment of abilities to teams might look strange to the
baseball fan, since they don’t correspond to the current strengths of the teams.
For example, Kansas City has a higher talent then Cleveland, which would seem
very surprising to the 1999 fan. We could have assigned abilities based on our
knowledge of the strengths and weaknesses of the individual teams. But what is
important here is the spread of the talent numbers assigned. The spread of
assigned team talents mimics the spread of abilities in modern-day baseball
competition.

EAST DIVISION CENTRAL DIVISION WEST DIVISION

Team Talent Team Talent Team Talent

Tampa Bay –0.288 Detroit –0.128 Anaheim 0.140

Toronto –0.223 Kansas City –0.010 Texas –0.010

Baltimore 0.030 Cleveland –0.073 Oakland 0.095

Boston 0.086 Chicago 0.077 Seattle –0.094

New York 0.039 Minnesota –0.139

TABLE 12-5 Randomly Assigned Talent Numbers for the American League Teams
 DID THE BEST TEAM WIN? 367

Also note that, since the talent numbers are given, we now know who should
win each division title. Boston, Chicago and Anaheim have the largest abilities
in their respective divisions, so they should win their divisions. Also, since
Anaheim has the largest assigned talent, this team should be the American
League representative in the World Series.
Given these ability numbers, we compute strength numbers for all of the
teams. For example, see from the Table 12-5 that Tampa Bay and Toronto had
respective talent numbers of –.288 and –.223. So their respective strength
numbers are:
s = e–.288 = .75, s = e–.233 = .80
These numbers are listed in Table 12-6.
Now we can proceed with the simulation of the baseball season. We’ll use a
baseball schedule close to the actual schedule used in Major League Baseball. In
this schedule, each team will play each of the other teams in its division 14 times
and play each team in the other two divisions 12 times. A slight adjustment is
made to the schedule so that every team plays a total of 162 games.

EAST DIVISION CENTRAL DIVISION WEST DIVISION

Team Strength Team Strength Team Strength

Tampa Bay 0.75 Detroit 0.88 Anaheim 1.15

Toronto 0.80 Kansas City 0.99 Texas 0.99

Baltimore 1.03 Cleveland 0.93 Oakland 1.10

Boston 1.09 Chicago 1.08 Seattle 0.91

New York 1.04 Minnesota 0.87

TABLE 12-6 Randomly Assigned Strength Numbers for the American League Teams

New York
wins
Toronto
57% Wins
43%

FIGURE 12-10 Spinner for simulating the result of a single baseball game.
368 C H A P T E R 12

It’s now opening day in our simulated season, and New York is playing
Toronto. The strength numbers for these two teams are respectively 1.04 and
.80, and so the probability that New York wins this game is 1.04/(1.04 + .80) =
.565. The probability that Toronto wins this game is 1 – .565 = .435. We can play
this game using a random spinner. In Figure 12-10, we have drawn a circle
where the areas of the two regions correspond to the probabilities that New York
and Toronto win. Imagine spinning an arrow which is equally likely to land any-
where around the circle. If the arrow lands in the New York region, New York
wins the game; otherwise, Toronto wins. Note from the figure that the spinner
lands in the Toronto region, so Toronto wins this particular game.
Other games are simulated in this same manner. Figure 12-11 shows the sim-
ulation for four other opening-day games. For each game, we construct a spinner
divided into two regions, where the areas of the regions correspond to the prob-
abilities that each team wins the game. (We compute the probabilities from the
two teams’ strength numbers.) Then we spin the spinner, and the location of the

Boston Vs. Baltimore Cleveland Vs. Minnesota

Baltimore Minnesota
51% 52%

Boston Cleveland
49% 48%

Detroit Vs. Chicago Anaheim Vs. Texas

Detroit Texas

45% 54%

Chicago 55% Anaheim 46%

FIGURE 12-11 Random spinners for playing four games on opening day.
 DID THE BEST TEAM WIN? 369

EAST DIVISION CENTRAL DIVISION

Team W L p Team W L p

Boston 88 74 0.543 Detroit 90 72 0.556

New York 84 78 0.518 Chicago 84 78 0.518

Baltimore 77 85 0.475 Cleveland 82 80 0.506

Toronto 66 96 0.407 Kansas City 78 84 0.482

Tampa Bay 63 99 0.389 Minnesota 74 88 0.457

WEST DIVISION

Team W L p

Anaheim 101 61 0.624

Texas 94 68 0.580

Oakland 80 82 0.494

Seattle 73 89 0.451

TABLE 12-7 Results of One Simulated Baseball Season

arrow tells us who won the game. We see that the winners of these games on this
day were Boston, Minnesota, Chicago and Anaheim.
We continue this process until we have played a complete 162-game season
for these fourteen American League teams. All of the games are played using
win probabilities based on the team abilities that were assigned at the begin-
ning of the season. How did our teams do this season? The final standings of the
teams are shown in Table 12-7.
The results of the simulated season may surprise you. Let’s focus on the
American League West. Looking at the abilities of the four teams, Anaheim and
Oakland had above-average abilities (with positive talent values), Texas had
average ability (talent close to 0), and Seattle had an ability in the below-aver-
age range (negative talent). Although Anaheim and Oakland had similar abili-
ties, Anaheim won the division title very easily—they finished with a 7-game
lead over second-place Texas. Anaheim and Texas played much better than their
abilities, while Oakland and Seattle played worse then their abilities. So we see
significant differences between the teams’ abilities and performances for this
particular season.
370 C H A P T E R 12

0.65
Anaheim
0.60
Texas
0.55 Detroit
PERFORMANCE (p )

0.50

0.45

0.40
Tampa Bay
0.35

–0.3 –0.2 –0.1 0 0.1 0.2

ABILITY (t)

FIGURE 12-12 Abilities and simulated season performances for 14 American League teams.

To see how the abilities for all 14 teams are related to their season perform-
ances, Figure 12-12 displays a scatterplot of the values of the talents t and the
season win fractions p. We see a positive drift in the plot, which indicates that
there is a moderate positive relationship between teams’ abilities and perform-
ances. We have placed a best fitting line on the scatterplot. Points above the line
correspond to teams that played better in the season than expected, and points
below the line correspond to “disappointing” team performances. In particular,
we have labeled points corresponding to Anaheim, Texas, and Detroit, who had
better-than-expected years. We have also labeled one point under the line that
corresponds to Tampa Bay, which had a disappointing season. This graph illus-
trates that the relative standing of the teams’ abilities will generally be differ-
ent from the relative standing of the teams’ performances during a 162-game
season. To illustrate this, note from the graph that Texas had the second-best
record during the season, but there were a number of teams that had greater
ability than Texas. But when the entire league as a whole is examined via the
trend line, a reasonable relationship does exist between ability and performance.

Simulating Many American League Seasons

Above we simulated one baseball season between teams of the American League
and found that the results were a bit surprising. Some teams with similar abili-
ties had very different season performances, and the winners of the divisions
were not necessarily the ones with the greatest abilities. But this one simulated
season may have been a fluke. Perhaps we’re members of the army of Yankee-
haters and just happened to pull out one particular simulation where the
Yankees had a particularly bad season.
 DID THE BEST TEAM WIN? 371

0.7

0.6

0.5

0.4
PERFORMANCE

0.3
-0.5 0 0.5 1

–1 –0.5 0 0.5 1

ABILITY

FIGURE 12-13 Scatterplot of abilities and simulated season performances for American
League teams in 1000 seasons.

To get a better understanding of the pattern of the relationship between team

abilities and team performances, we can repeat this baseball simulation a large
number of times. Remember, this simulation is a two-step process: first we gener-
ate a set of team talents (ts) from the normal curve ability model, then we play out
a season of games using the Bradley-Terry model and a set of random spinners.
We repeat the American League season simulation a total of 1000 times. For
each team and for each season, we keep track of two quantities: the team’s abil-
ity given by its talent number t, and the team’s winning percentage p for the
162-game season. Figure 12-13 displays a scatterplot of the team abilities
against the team performances for all 14 teams playing 1000 seasons. There are
several interesting features in this plot. First, there is a moderate positive rela-
tionship between the teams’ abilities and the teams’ performances. Teams with
higher abilities tend to win a higher proportion of games during a season. But
there is also a lot of scatter in this plot. This means that season performances of
teams can be very different from their abilities.
To illustrate this last point, look at all of the teams with average abilities—
that is, talent numbers close to 0. (This is the vertical line in Figure 12-13 pass-
ing through the value 0 on the team ability scale.) Figure 12-14 shows a boxplot
of the season winning fractions of the truly average teams whose talent number
is close to 0. We see from this boxplot that these teams had season winning frac-
372 C H A P T E R 12

0.60

0.55

0.50

0.45
PERFORMANCE

0.40

FIGURE 12-14 Boxplot of simulated season performances for American League teams of
average ability where the talent number is close to 0.

tions falling between .4 and .6. So it’s possible for a team to have average talent
(t = 0) and have very bad (p = .4) or very successful (p = .6) seasons.

Performances and Abilities of Different Types of Teams

Recall our categorization of teams of different abilities. The top 10 percent of the
teams on the talent scale are considered “excellent,” the teams between the per-
centiles 10 and 35 in talent are considered “good,” the teams between the per-
centiles 35 and 65 are considered “average,” and so on. Another way of thinking
about a team’s ability is how it performs in the long run. Suppose that the team
plays a very long sequence of games against random opponents that is much
longer than the 162 games that a team plays during a major-league season.

Percentiles of Ability Long-run Winning

Category Distribution Team Talent Proportion (P)

Bad 0 – 10 less than –.24 .000 – .442

Poor 10 – 35 –.24 to –.07 .442 – .483

Average 35 – 65 –.07 to .07 .483 – .517

Good 65 – 90 .07 to .24 .517 – .558

Excellent 90 – 100 larger than .24 .558 – 1.000

TABLE 12-8 Five Categories of Ability of Teams with Associated Team Talents and Long-
run Winning Fractions
 DID THE BEST TEAM WIN? 373

Then we define a long-run winning proportion P as the fraction of games that a

team wins. For example, consider a team with a P = .6. This team will, in the very
long run, win about 60 percent of its games. We’ll see that this team can win
fewer than 60 percent or more than 60 percent of the games during a 162-game
season. But if this team were able to play thousands or even millions of games,
the fraction or proportion of games won would be close to 60 percent. This team
has above-average ability since its long-run winning fraction is over 50 percent.
If one knows the talent number t of a team, one can compute its long-run win-
ning proportion P. Table 12-8 shows the long-run winning fractions of teams of
different ability levels.
Suppose that we use the categorization of Table 12-8 to describe season per-
formances. So an “excellent” season performance corresponds to a team that
wins at least 55.8 percent of their games, which corresponds to a season record
of 91–71 or better. A “good” performance means that a team wins between 51.7
percent and 55.8 percent of its games—in a 162-game season, this type of team
will win have a record ranging from 84–78 to 90–72. Table 12-9 lists the five
types of teams and what kind of seasons they will have.
Let’s return to our simulation of 1000 American League seasons. For each
team and each season, we can classify its ability depending on its talent number
t. In addition, after the team has played its season, we can classify its season
based on the proportion of wins p. Since there are 14 teams in the American
League, each playing 1000 seasons, there are a total of 14 × 1000 = 14,000 team
seasons. Table 12-10 classifies the performances and abilities for these teams by
means of a two-way table. The rows of the table correspond to different team
abilities, and the columns correspond to different team performances. Each table
entry represents the number of teams having a specific ability and performance
level. To help understand this table, note that the count in the third row
(Average Ability) and first column (Bad Performance) is 371. So there were 371

Category Winning Proportion (p) Number of Games Won

Bad .000 – .442 71 or fewer

Poor .442 – .483 72 to 78

Average .483 – .517 79 to 83

Good .517 – .558 84 to 90

Excellent .558 – 1.000 91 or more

TABLE 12-9 Five Categories of Performance of Teams in a 162-Game Season

374 C H A P T E R 12

teams of average ability that had bad seasons. Looking across the same row,
there were 1146 teams of average ability that had poor seasons, 1112 teams of
average ability that had an average season, and so forth.
This two-way table is useful for seeing how teams of different abilities perform
during a 162-game season. Suppose that we convert the table to row percentages
by dividing each count by the total count of the corresponding row. The resulting
table is shown in Table 12-11. Look at the first row—these numbers represent
percentages of the teams with bad abilities. Of these bad teams, 73.8 percent had
bad seasons, 21.7 percent had poor seasons, and 4.1 percent had average seasons.
Also note that there are zeros in the Good and Excellent columns; these indicate
that it was rare for these bad teams to have either good or excellent seasons (see

PERFORMANCE

Ability Bad Poor Average Good Excellent Total

Bad 1015 299 56 6 0 1376

Poor 1090 1312 706 334 43 3485

Average 371 1146 1112 1063 350 4042

Good 47 374 716 1431 1054 3622

Excellent 0 16 85 336 1038 1475

Total 2523 3147 2675 3170 2485 14000

TABLE 12-10 Abilities (Rows) and Performance (Columns) of American League Teams in
1000 Simulated Seasons

PERFORMANCE

Ability Bad Poor Average Good Excellent

Bad 73.8 21.7 4.1 0.4 0.0

Poor 31.3 37.6 20.3 9.6 1.2

Average 9.2 28.4 27.5 26.3 8.7

Good 1.3 10.3 19.8 39.5 29.1

Excellent 0.0 1.1 5.8 22.8 70.4

TABLE 12-11 Performances of Simulated Teams of Different Ability Levels. Each Number
Represents a Percentage of the Row
 DID THE BEST TEAM WIN? 375

PERFORMANCE

Ability Bad Poor Average Good Excellent

Bad 40.2 9.5 2.1 0.2 0.0

Poor 43.2 41.7 26.4 10.5 1.7

Average 14.7 36.4 41.6 33.5 14.1

Good 1.9 11.9 26.8 45.1 42.4

Excellent 0.0 0.5 3.2 10.6 41.8

TABLE 12-12 Performances of Simulated Teams of Different Performance Levels—

Each Number Represents a Percentage of the Column

Table 12-10). So teams with very weak abilities tend to play badly during a sea-
son. What about the poor teams? The possible performances of these teams is
pretty spread out—31 percent of their performances fall into the category “bad,”
38 percent “poor,” 20 percent “average,” and 10 percent “good.” So it is possible
(but not probable) that a poor team will have a good season. The performances of
the teams with average abilities are the most spread out. These teams are
equally likely to have poor, average, or good seasons. Also, these average teams
have a plausible (9 percent) chance of having bad or excellent seasons.
The data in Table 12-10 can be used in a different manner. When we observe
the results of a single baseball season, we’re interested in what is learned about
the team’s ability. For example, suppose our team has a “good” season, that is,
they win between 84 and 90 games. What can we say about the team’s ability?
We can answer these type of questions by converting the table of counts to col-
umn percentages—that is, we divide each count by the total in the correspon-
ding column. Table 12-12 gives us insight into the abilities of the teams that
have different types of seasons. To illustrate, look at the first column of the table,
which corresponds to teams that had bad seasons. Of these teams, 40 percent
were actually teams whose ability was categorized as “bad,” 43 percent were
“poor,” 15 percent were “average,” and 2 percent were “good.” So it is likely that
this team was a bad or poor team. What if our team has an average season? Does
it mean that this team was average in ability? Looking at the third column of the
table, corresponding to average, we see that there is a 42-percent chance that
this team was actually average, and a 26-percent chance that the team was poor,
the same 26-percent chance that the team was good, and relatively small
chances that the team was bad or excellent in ability.
376 C H A P T E R 12

Simulating an Entire Season

Up to this point we’ve focused on what happens in an American League 162-
game season with 14 teams, relating the teams’ abilities with their season per-
formances by use of a simulation experiment. But, as all baseball fans know,
baseball really gets exciting when the regular season ends and the playoffs
begin. At this point, a select group of teams get to continue in a series of playoffs,
with the ultimate goal of winning the World Series.
We can extend the simulation we did earlier in this chapter to include all
playoffs. As in the earlier simulation, we begin by simulating a set of abilities for
all teams in the major leagues, including both the American and National
Leagues. Then each team plays a complete 162-game season. At the end of the
regular season, the division winners and wild card teams are found. Then the
simulation can be used to play all of the post-regular-season series, concluding
with the “best-of-7” World Series.
In investigating the “extended season,” we simulated a total of 1000 complete
baseball seasons. For each team and each season, its randomly generated ability
and its season performance (wins and losses) were recorded. Also we recorded if
the team achieved any of the following distinctions:
• The team won its respective division.

• The team was a wild card team for its league.

• The team won its pennant (was the winner of its league) and
appeared in the World Series.
• The team won the World Series and was champion of baseball.

Table 12-13 summarizes what happened in these 1000 simulated baseball

seasons. This table gives the number of teams of each ability level that reached

P L AY O F F P E R F O R M A N C E

Wild Card Won World

Ability Won Division Team Won Pennant Series Won Nothing Total

Bad 15 1 0 0 2960 2976

Poor 278 110 53 17 7194 7582

Average 1140 483 268 116 6977 8600

Good 2592 953 839 397 4266 7811

Excellent 1975 453 840 470 603 3031

TABLE 12-13 Playoff Performances of Simulated Teams of Different Ability Levels

 DID THE BEST TEAM WIN? 377

various plateaus. Looking at the first row of the table, we see that there were a
total of 2976 bad teams in all of the simulations. Of these 2976 teams with bad
ability, only 15 teams won a division, and one team was a wild card team. None
of these teams ever won a pennant or a World Series. So it is virtually impossi-
ble for a bad team to win a World Series. The performance of the teams of aver-
age ability is more interesting. Of the 8600 teams of average ability in the simu-
lation, 1140 (13 percent) won their divisions, 483 (6 percent) were wild card
teams, 839 (3 percent) won their pennants, and 116 (1 percent) won the World
Series. So it’s possible, but not likely, that these average teams will achieve suc-
cess in a season. What about the success of the excellent teams that represent
the top 10 percent of all teams? Of the 3031 teams of this type, 1975 (65 percent)

PROBABILITY THE TEAM...

Wild Card Won World

Ability Won Division Team Won Pennant Series Won Nothing

Bad 0.01 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.99

Poor 0.04 0.01 0.01 0.00 0.95

Average 0.13 0.06 0.03 0.01 0.81

Good 0.33 0.12 0.11 0.05 0.55

Excellent 0.65 0.15 0.28 0.16 0.20

The Best 0.76 0.13 0.35 0.21 0.11

TABLE 12-14 The Probability a Team of Different Ability Levels Reaches Different
Playoff Levels

6.
0.8 5.
PROBABILITY OF WINNING

0.6

6. Best Team
4.
0.4 5. Excellent Team
4. Good Team

0.2 3. 3. Avg Team

2. Poor
2.
0 1. 1. Bad

Division or Pennant World Series

Wild Card

FIGURE 12-15 Graph of probabilities of reaching different plateaus for teams of different
ability levels.
378 C H A P T E R 12

won their division, 453 (15 percent) were wild card teams, 840 (28 percent) won
their pennants, and 470 (16 percent) won the World Series. These top teams will
achieve success, but perhaps not at the high rate that one would expect. Table
12-14 shows these teams’ chances of reaching these plateaus for teams of all
ability levels. Figure 12-15 displays these probabilities using line graphs.
Again let’s turn this logic around. Suppose a team wins the World Series—is
it reasonable to call this team the “best team in baseball”? In our simulation,
there were 1000 World Series winners. Looking at the fourth column of Table
12-13, we see that 470 (47 percent) of these teams had excellent ability, 397 (40
percent) were good, 116 (12 percent) were average, and 17 (2 percent) were poor.
So the answer to our question is no. The chance that a great team, a team of
excellent ability, won the World Series is under 50 percent. It is likely that one
or the other of the two (a good or excellent team) wins this contest, and it is pos-
sible (but not likely) for an average and even a poor team to accomplish this feat.
By looking at the Won Division and Won Pennant columns of Table 12-13, we can
check into the abilities of teams that won the division and won the pennant,
respectively.
Let’s answer one final question. The title we gave this chapter was, “Did the
Best Team Win?” In other words, is it likely that the best team—that is, the team
with the greatest ability among all 30—will win the World Series? Using the
simulation, this question is easy to answer. For each simulated season, after we
simulate the talents (the ts) for all teams, we find the particular team with the
largest talent. We then record if this team won the World Series that year. The
results of the success of the best team in these 1000 seasons is presented in the
last row of Table 12-14. For the 1000 seasons, the best team—the team with the
highest value of t—won the World Series 213 times. So the chance that the best
team wins the World Series is about 21 percent. We also find that this best team
wins a division title with a probability of 76 percent, is a wild card team with a
probability of 13 percent, and wins the pennant with a probability of 35 percent.
So this best team will very likely get into the baseball playoffs, but it has a mod-
est chance of actually winning the World Series. To put it another way: the cream
won’t generally rise to the top.

Chance
The point of this chapter is to relate the abilities of major-league teams with
their performances during a baseball season. We measure a team’s ability by a
 DID THE BEST TEAM WIN? 379

talent number t. Teams possess different talents, that is, different abilities, and
we model the distribution of abilities of all teams by a bell-shaped curve. By
choosing a reasonable value for the spread (the standard deviation) of this curve,
the observed season winning fractions (p), predicted using the model for differ-
ent teams, will match the actual winning percentages that we observe for major-
league teams over the last 20 years. Our model for baseball competition consists
of this normal curve model for the teams’ abilities and a simple coin-tossing
model (the Bradley-Terry model) for describing the results of games between
teams of different abilities. It is important to stress that the model seems rea-
sonable in that it appears to predict well the observed season results for the 30
major-league teams.
By using the model, we simulated a large number of baseball seasons. In
each simulation, we select at random a set of team talents and then use these
talents to play a 162-game baseball season and the playoffs. We use the simu-
lation results to connect the team abilities (that we don’t know in real life) and
their season performances. What we learned is that teams with high abilities
tend to perform better than teams of low abilities. But it is pretty common for
good teams to have average or worse seasons—likewise, mediocre teams can
have good seasons. Probably the most surprising result, from a typical fan’s per-
spective, is the range of abilities found in teams that win the World Series. Over
half of the World Series winners are in the “good,” “average,” or “bad” ability cat-
egories. So we shouldn’t be too surprised when a team like the Florida Marlins
in 1997 wins the World Series over a clearly superior team like the Atlanta
Braves. Also, this study should be encouraging to a Philadelphia Phillies fan—
even if the team doesn’t possess great talent (as is usually the case!), the
Phillies have a reasonable chance for a good season, even to the point of win-
ning the fall classic.
In other words, we’ve shown that chance variability has a lot to do with
teams’ performances during a season. When a team reaches a certain pinnacle
such as the World Series, sportswriters and fans will offer a thousand explana-
tions why this team performed so well. Any good performance has to have a
cause—perhaps a few ballplayers got “hot” or performed at a higher level than
expected, or perhaps a few players on the opposing team experienced slumps.
Maybe the umpires made a number of questionable calls which influenced the
outcome. Many things can happen during a game that cannot be explained eas-
ily and yet influence the final result. These “things” include good or bad pitches,
the locations of balls hit in the infield and outfield, good and bad defensive or
380 C H A P T E R 12

base-running plays, the weather conditions, and so on. We can lump all of these
events into a broad category called “chance occurrences.” But lumping them
together and giving them this name does not diminish their importance:
Whether we like it or not, chance events have a big effect on the patterns of
wins and losses that we observe.
 (A Brief Afterword)

Baseball is a fascinating game for the statistical analyst. On the surface, it

appears so simple and limited. But the more closely one studies the game, the
more, it seems, there is to know. For us it is like driving toward the horizon, then
at the top of that last hill finding a valley on the other side, with more hills and
another horizon.
The chapters in this book have examined some aspects of baseball statistics
that we’ve found particularly interesting over the years. We make no claim that
this is the last word on these issues, nor do we make any claims for complete-
ness. As we write, there are thousands of fans taking fresh new looks at baseball
and the usefulness of its statistical underpinnings. Undoubtedly, refinements
and advances will be made. Our book is not, for example, a complete guide to
sabermetrics. Many issues of interest to sabermetricians and their disciples are
not covered, or are examined superficially.
This book is best approached as a loosely connected collection of quantitative
essays on baseball statistics. Each essay examines a topic in baseball in the way
a professional statistician might approach the issue in any other field (health,
business, technology) using the data at hand. In some cases, the work presented
was original research performed by us, the authors, while in other cases the
essay described work performed by others whose efforts we have found particu-
larly enlightening. Hopefully, we have brought to your notice some older
research that has not received the attention it deserves, and provided a new per-
spective on work with which you’re already familiar.

381
382 C H A P T E R 13

But there is a common thread that runs through the chapters, and it can be
summarized as the role of chance in baseball. A Major League Baseball season
(and indeed a single batter’s swing or the whole history of the sport) is a process
that is at the mercy of chance. Chance affects all baseball events, from the out-
comes of individual at-bats to the awarding of World Championships. While
chance occurrences may seem to defy description and analysis, to make expla-
nation and prediction impossible, we believe chance can be mastered—or at
least tamed. This is the role of statistics as it is applied in business and indus-
try. Statistics involves not just enumerating and summarizing data, but
attempting to extract the underlying truth that is obscured by the fog of chance.
If there is one lesson the reader should take from this book, it is that baseball
data are like observations in experiments. They are the best measures we have,
but they are not exact with respect to the underlying process. The result of each
at-bat is the culmination of many factors, but even if all are held constant, the
difference in the batter’s reflexes or reactions for one tiny fraction of a second, or
one tiny fraction of an inch one way or the other, may make the difference
between a strikeout and a home run. We cannot (and would not wish to) alter
these elements of chance in the game. But when we analyze baseball data, we
should attempt to take them into account.
Several chapters in this book have presented ways in which we can gauge the
influence of chance on baseball. We always assume that the winner of the World
Series is the best team in baseball, but in Chapter 12 we found that the role of
chance in the game gives an inferior team a significant shot at winning the
series. By inferior, we mean that the championship team’s abilities are not as
good as those of some other teams. It may have had great performances that
year, but those performances were better than expected.
The trick is to find the signal in the noise. At times, this can be difficult.
Chapter 4 examined ways of detecting situational effects in batting data. Base-
ball announcers present figures on batting averages in the day, at night, on turf,
on grass, against left-handers, against right-handers, at home or away, and so
forth. These figures are presented as facts. And they are factual observations of
what has occurred. But generally they are not valid statements about how these
situations affect ability. Chapter 4 demonstrated how certain effects were large
enough to be beyond the realm of chance, while others were indistinguishable
from chance.
Similarly, baseball announcers are quick to highlight notable batting streaks
and discuss certain hitters as being hot or cold. But how much of this is due to
chance as opposed to the possibility that a batter really has an ability which
 P O S T GA M E C O M M E N T S ( A B R I E F A F T E RWO R D ) 383

fluctuates depending on recent success? Chapter 5 examined one player (Todd

Zeile) noted for his streakiness. While evidence was found to support the possi-
bility that Zeile truly had a streaky kind of ability, it was still difficult to rule out
chance as the primary cause. Generally, while some players may exhibit some
streaky batting behavior, one should be pretty doubtful of labeling someone a
streaky hitter. Chance is a very powerful force in creating streaks.
In Chapters 6 and 7, we examined different ways of measuring player contri-
butions to run production. The primary metric used to determine how well these
measures worked was Root Mean Squared Error (RMSE) as it related to team
run production. RMSE is a measure of how much chance remains in a predic-
tion. The RMSEs for standard measures such as Batting Average were relatively
large, leaving chance a major element in the prediction of runs produced. Newer
measures such as Runs Created and Linear Weights had much lower RMSEs;
their predictions greatly reduced the element of chance in predictions of run pro-
duction. The capability of a measure to control or limit chance is a major factor
in making the measure a useful statistical tool.
Simulation models attempt to incorporate the element of chance. In Chapter
8, we described a very basic simulation model that used the rules of probability
to model the chance elements in games. The model was found to match closely
the variability of runs scored in an inning. The structure and behavior of the
model provided some theoretical support for the Runs Created model, which was
developed totally (almost) from intuition. An interesting feature of this simula-
tion was its construction from formulas of probability that made it possible to
produce predictions without the need for great numbers of computer replays.
Chapter 7 developed the notion of average runs per play, and this concept is
applied in two different directions in Chapters 9 and 10. In Chapter 9, we saw
that a manager can learn about good and bad baseball strategies using the table
of average runs for different bases-outs situations. Chapter 10 found a use for
chance as a measure in itself. Where most measures for player value focus on
run production or run prevention, two related measures of player contributions
were described based on how much a player increases or decreases his team’s
chance of winning. These measures provide the next step in the evolution of
baseball metrics, going beyond counts of individual events to measures of run
production and on to measuring the ultimate goal, winning.
While chance is a major element of baseball (and everything else), it is not
powerful enough to make baseball data arbitrary. We just have to be a bit more
wise in our analysis of the data to understand the degree of chance’s control and
how we may allow for its influence in our understanding. A direct blunt analyt-
384 C H A P T E R 13

ical approach (using simple averages) will often be satisfactory, but it can also
prove to be deceptive.
Or, to put the same bit of advice in baseball terms, look for the fast ball, but
watch out for the curve.
 TA
TABBLLEETTOOPP Baseball Games

APPENDIX

This appendix provides background that is helpful to understanding the mate-

rial in Chapter 1 of this book. In particular, this appendix describes the All-Star
Baseball, APBA, Strat-O-Matic, and Sports Illustrated tabletop baseball games
for readers who are unfamiliar with these games.
Tabletop baseball games have a history about as long as professional baseball
itself. Most of the early games were “generic” in nature, with each batter coming
to the plate having the same chance of getting a hit. The games made no attempt
to reflect the different skills of players, much less replicate the performances of
actual professional players. It was not until well into the twentieth century that
the games took on a statistical perspective.
The first game that attempted to simulate the play of Major League Baseball
was Clifford Van Beek’s National Pastime, produced in 1931. Since then, table-
top games of ever-increasing sophistication and accuracy have attempted closer
and closer simulations of the “real thing.”
The tabletop baseball games discussed in Chapter 1 have been among the
most widely played. However, the games were selected as much for the different
ways that the batter-pitcher interaction is modeled as for their popularity. As
broad as these games have been in their appeal, tabletop baseball gamers are
notorious for their parochialism in regard to their favorite games, so some read-
ers may be unfamiliar with and even highly skeptical of the statistical under-
pinnings of one or more of these games. Nonetheless, we feel all of them are

385
386 APPENDIX

interesting from a statistician’s point of view, so this appendix provides a more

lengthy and detailed description of each.

All-Star Baseball
All-Star Baseball is the oldest game considered in Chapter 1. It was developed
in 1941 by Ethan Allen, a professional ball player, but it is currently out of print.
However, a photograph of an All-Star Baseball disc (and a discussion of their col-
lectibility) can be found at:
www.beckett.com/vintage/news/index.asp?a=2636&s=27
In All-Star Baseball, the manager of each team is provided with a set of cir-
cular player disks that make up the team’s roster. Each disk provides the
player’s name, defensive position, and batting ability. Figure 1-1 in Chapter 1
shows an illustration of a typical All-Star Baseball disk. There, the disk is like a
pie chart, and each slice is identified with a particular play. The sizes of the var-
ious slices represent the batting ability of the player. For example, in Figure 1-1,
the amazing home run ability of Babe Ruth is reflected in the relatively large
home run pie slice (the slice numbered “1”).
When a player comes to bat, his disk is placed on a spinner, and the manager
spins. When the spinner stops, it points to a numerically coded play result. To
find the result, the manager looks the number up on a chart that indicates the
play (e.g. single, walk, or strikeout).
All-Star Baseball is the simplest model of the tabletop games considered
because the pitcher does not influence the outcome.

APBA Baseball
APBA (American Professional Baseball Association) Baseball is the oldest table-
top simulation baseball game still published today. The game was introduced in
1951 by its designer J. Richard Seitz. A brief biography of Seitz can be found at:
www.apbastadium.com/stadium/hall_of_fame/seitz.html
APBA Baseball has undergone several subsequent revisions. The system
described here and analyzed in Chapter 1 is the basic version of the game. The
Master version provides more detail, but is built on the same basic concepts.
Each team has a set of 20 cards that make up the roster. Managers (players of
the game) have the option to preserve the teams historically as presented in the
rosters or to draft players in new fictitious teams. Each card gives the player’s
name, defensive positions, and, if applicable, a letter rating his pitching ability.
 TA B L E T O P B A S E B A L L GA M E S 387

The batting ability is represented by a table on each card. Table A-1 is an exam-
ple of an APBA player card.
When a player comes to bat, the manager rolls two six-sided dice, a large die
and a small die. The large die provides the first play number and the small die
the second number. So, if the small die result is 1 and the large die result is 5,
the result is 51. The manager looks up 51 on the batter’s card and finds the play
number listed immediately to the right of the dice number. If this play number
had been #0 (produced by dice results of 11 and 66 in Table A-1), the manager
would roll the two dice again and use the third column (not the second column)
to find the play number. Play results from #1 to #11 are generally hits while
other results (except #14 for walks) are generally outs. Using the example card
in Table A-1, we see that a dice result of 51 produces a play result of #9. As we
shall see shortly, the play resolution of a #9 result depends on the opposing
pitcher’s rating.
Initially, the APBA game seems quite similar to the All-Star Baseball game,
aside from the use of dice instead of a spinner. However, there are several impor-
tant differences between the two. First, All-Star Baseball uses a single chart for
interpreting play numbers; APBA Baseball uses eight different charts, one for
each base situation: bases empty, runner on first base, runner on second base,
runners on first and second bases, runner on third base, runners on first and

P L AY E R N A M E P O S I T I O N S

11 0–1 31 14–2 51 9–1

12 25–6 32 26–6 52 27–6

13 14–6 33 7–1 53 19–6

14 30–6 34 31–6 54 32–6

15 10–1 35 14–2 55 9–1

16 39–6 36 33–6 56 34–6

21 30–6 41 24–6 61 24–6

22 8–1 42 13–2 62 13–2

23 31–6 43 29–6 63 32–6

24 13–6 44 8–1 64 22–6

25 10–1 45 14–6 65 35–6

26 12–6 46 13–6 66 0–1

TABLE A-1 Example of an APBA-Type Player Card

388 APPENDIX

third bases, runners on second and third bases, and bases loaded. Second, unlike
All-Star Baseball, ABPA play results are determined, in part, by the skill of the
pitcher involved. Each of the eight ABPA charts is divided into columns which
provide possible variations in the play result depending on the rating of the
opposing pitcher. The six possible ratings of pitchers run from best to worst:
A&B, A&C, A, B, C, and D (as described in greater detail in Chapter 1). In our
example, if the bases are empty, the play result #9 produces a single against
pitchers with a B or D rating and an out against all other pitchers.

Strat-O-Matic Baseball
Strat-O-Matic Baseball, designed by Hal Richman, was introduced in 1962. An
interview with Richman can be read at:
www.sportplanet.com/features/interviews/som/
Strat-O-Matic Baseball was the first tabletop baseball game to capture pitch-
ing performance at the same level of detail as batting performance. Its basic
pitcher/batter model lies at the heart of several subsequent tabletop baseball
games, including Pursue the Pennant and Ball Park Baseball. Strat-O-Matic
Baseball has a devoted following and survives to this day in both tabletop and
computer forms. Like other tabletop baseball games, it has evolved into

P L AY E R N A M E P O S I T I O N S

1 2 3

2–foulout 2–lineout 2–flyout

3–popout 3–walk 3–groundout

4–lineout 4–groundout 4–homerun

5–groundout 5–walk 5–homerun

6–groundout 6–strikeout 6–homerun

7–single 7–flyout 7–single

8–single 8–groundout 8–double

9–groundout 9–flyout 9–single

10–popout 10–groundout 10–single

11–popout 11–groundout 11–groundout

12–popout 12–flyout 12–triple

TABLE A-2 Example of a Strat-O-Matic-Type Batter Card

 TA B L E T O P B A S E B A L L GA M E S 389

Advanced and Super-Advanced versions that are built on the same operating
principles, while providing even more detailed simulations of baseball. The sys-
tem described here and analyzed in Chapter 1 is the basic version of the game.
Each team has a set of 20 cards that make up the roster. Each card provides
the player’s name and defensive positions. If the player is a pitcher, the card is
divided into three columns labeled 4, 5, and 6; each column presents play results
describing the pitcher’s ability in terms of the frequencies of these play results.
Position player cards’ have a similar layout of three columns that are labeled 1,
2, and 3. Each column presents play results describing the player’s ability at bat.
Tables A-2 and A-3 are examples of a batter’s card and a pitcher’s card.
When a player comes to bat, the manager rolls one white six-sided die and
two red six-sided dice. The white die determines the column used to find the play
result: Column 1, 2, or 3 on the batter’s card or Column 4, 5, or 6 on the pitcher’s
card. The two red dice are summed to produce a number between 2 and 12 which
indicates the row in the appropriate column. For example, if the white die
showed 4, and the two red dice showed 5 and 1, the result of the play would be a
lineout found next to the 6 (=5+1) under column 4 on the pitcher’s card in Table
A-3. However, if the red dice were the same but a 3 was on the white die, the
result would be a home run, found next to the 6 (=5+1) under column 3 on the
batter’s card in Table A-2.

P L AY E R N A M E P I T C H E R

4 5 6

2–home run 2–home run 2–flyout

3–first baseman x 3–shortstop x 3–right fielder x

4–center fielder x 4–single 4–popout

5–popout 5–flyout 5–single

6–lineout 6–flyout 6–single

7–strikeout 7–second baseman x 7–walk

8–flyout 8–shortstop x 8–popout

9–flyout 9–groundout 9–lineout

10–third baseman x 10–catcher x 10–double

11–pitcher x 11–strikeout 11–left fielder x

12–groundout 12–walk 12–triple

TABLE A-3 Example of a Strat-O-Matic-Type Pitcher Card

390 APPENDIX

Several results on the pitcher’s card have an x next to the name of a fielding
position. This means that the result of the play depends on the fielding rating of
the defensive player at the position. A number from 1 to 20 is selected randomly
by the batter and referenced against a defensive play chart which has different
columns for each fielding rating. The better the fielding rating, the less of a
chance of giving up a hit or an error. Thirty permutations of the three dice can
produce an x result on the pitcher’s card in Table A-2. Since three six-sided dice
can produce 6 × 6 × 6 = 216 permutations, fielding influences 30/216 = 14 percent
of all batting results.

Sports Illustrated Baseball

Sports Illustrated Baseball was introduced in 1971. The game was designed by
David S. Neft, who was a co-author of The Sports Encyclopedia: Baseball. It is
likely that this game was an outgrowth of his work on the encyclopedia (or vice
versa). In the late seventies, the Avalon Hill Game Company purchased the
Sports Illustrated game line and published a modified version under the title
Superstar Baseball.
In this game, each manager is provided with a chart describing his/her team’s
roster of 25 players, both batters and pitchers. A reproduction of a portion of the
all-time all-star Philadelphia Phillies chart can be seen at:
www.innova.net/~randycox/SSBATcht.htm
Each player’s card lists 30 possible dice results numbered from 10 to 39. The
dice used for Sports Illustrated Baseball are three six-sided dice, one black and
two white, that are special to the game. When rolled, the black die is used to find
the 10’s digit and the two white dice are summed to obtain the 1’s digit. In each
plate appearance, the pitcher rolls first. The resulting number is checked
against his pitching chart and can result in an out, a walk, hit batsman, a single,
or the Batter Swings.
The first four results listed above end a plate appearance. A team’s fielding is
represented on the pitcher’s chart in the Defense results section. The play
results from 10 to 15 are directly affected by the fielding skills of the team as a
whole. The greater the fielding skill, the more Outs that occur in the 10–15
range. For example, a team with a fielding rating of 30 would produce an Out
when the pitcher rolls 11 or 12, while a team with a fielding rating of 50 would
produce an Out when the pitcher rolls 11, 12, or 13. If the Defense result is not
an Out based on the team’s fielding rating, the Batter Swings. The worst defense
 TA B L E T O P B A S E B A L L GA M E S 391

will produce an Out when 10 is rolled while the best defense will produce an Out
when 11, 12, 14, or 15 is rolled.
Table A-4 shows the chart of a Hall of Fame caliber pitcher. The dice for the
game will produce an Out result for this pitcher 26 percent of the time and a
walk about 6 percent of the time. Depending on the quality of the team’s defense,
an Out will occur an extra 1 percent to 9 percent of the time. So, a “Batter
Swings” play can result from 59 percent to 67 percent of the dice rolls depending
on the fielding rating of the defensive team.
When the fifth result, “Batter Swings,” occurs, the batter rolls the dice and
looks up the play result on one of two charts. One chart is used when facing
right-handed pitchers, and the other is used against left-handed pitchers. Table
A-5 provides an example of a batting chart for a Hall of Fame caliber hitter. In

10 Defense 20 Batter Swings 30 Batter Swings

11 Defense 21 Batter Swings 31 Batter Swings

12 Defense 22 Batter Swings 32 Batter Swings

13 Defense 23 Out 33 Batter Swings

14 Defense 24 Batter Swings 34 Out

15 Defense 25 Walk 35 Out

16 Out 26 Batter Swings 36 Batter Swings

17 Out 27 Batter Swings 37 Batter Swings

18 Batter Swings 28 Out 38 Batter Swings

19 Batter Swings 29 Batter Swings 39 Batter Swings

TABLE A-4 Example of a Sports Illustrated-Type Pitcher Chart

10 Double 20 Home Run 30 Flyout

11 Single 21 Single 31 Flyout

12 Triple 22 Single 32 Single

13 Strikeout 23 Strikeout 33 Flyout

14 Double Play 24 Home Run 34 Flyout

15 Double 25 Single 35 Flyout

16 Double 26 Groundout 36 Groundout

17 Error 27 Groundout 37 Double Play

18 Strikeout 28 Strikeout 38 Double Play

19 Double 29 Strikeout 39 Strikeout

TABLE A-5 Example of a Sports Illustrated-Type Batting Chart

392 APPENDIX

general, dice rolls in the 20s and 30s are twice and three times as likely respec-
tively as dice rolls in the 10s.
The evolution of tabletop baseball board games is almost as fascinating as the
history of baseball itself. Readers who would like more detail on this subject can
find a brief history of these games in Diamonds in the Rough: The Untold His-
tory of Baseball, by Joel Zoss and John Bowman. A book dedicated entirely to
this subject is Baseball Games: Home Versions of the National Pastime, 1860s–
1960s, by Mark Cooper and Douglas Congdon-Martin.
Glossary
Ability (Chapter 3): The intrinsic skill of a player to hit or pitch, or the skill of a team to win
games. Ability values are determined by a player’s or a team’s performance over a large
number of games.
Ability effect (Chapter 4): This is the difference in performance in different situations
(such as home vs. away) that depends directly on a player’s or team’s ability.
Additive model for hitting (Chapter 8): A measure of hitting performance created by sum-
ming the contributions of different batting play events, such as singles, doubles, triples,
home runs, walks, and outs.
Additive probability model (Chapter 1): A model for probabilities created by summing the
contributions of the batter and the pitcher in the Strat-O-Matic tabletop baseball game.
Bayes’ Rule (Chapter 11): A mathematical formula useful in updating probabilities in
order to tie in new data or information.
Bias effect (Chapter 4): This is the difference in performance in different situations (such
as home vs. away) that depends solely on the situation. It is the same for each player and
each team.
Biased inference (Chapter 5): Inaccurate conclusions drawn from data that was not
selected randomly. For example, our conclusions about the true streakiness of Todd Zeile
were biased because we selected a player who had the reputation of being streaky.
Binomial distribution (Chapters 1 and 4): A probability distribution for trials with only two
possible results. The observed number of heads when a coin is flipped a given number of
times is an example of binomial distribution.
Boxplot (Chapter 2): A graph of the low, lower quartile, median, upper quartile, and high
values of a collection of data.
Bradley-Terry model for team competition (Chapter 12): A probability model for determin-
ing the chance that one team will defeat another team, given that the teams have differ-
ent abilities.
Chance variation (Chapter 3): Variation in baseball data that is not attributable to a “real”
cause, but to natural “luck” variation only. It is similar to the variation in the patterns of
coin tossing. Differences between two players’ batting performances in a week of baseball
is primarily due to luck variation, while differences between two players’ career batting
records reflects “real” differences in the players’ abilities.
Coin-toss model (Chapter 3): A probability model that works like the repeated flipping of
a coin. It can be used to explain the pattern of sequences of successes and failures of play-
ers and teams.
Conditional probability (Chapter 12): The probability of a certain outcome given some
knowledge of prior outcomes. We found, for example, the probability of that a team might
truly be the best team given the knowledge that it won the World Series.

393
394 G L O S S A RY

Confidence interval (Chapter 3): An interval of values that we believe contains the
unknown batting ability with a high probability. For example, if a 90 percent confidence
interval for a true batting average is (.23, .35), the chance that the player’s true batting
average falls between .23 and .35 is 90 percent.
Consistent model (Chapter 5): A probability model used for a player or team whose proba-
bility of a hit (win) is the same for each plate appearance (game) during a season.
Contingency table (Chapter 12): When a player or a team can be classified with respect to
two categorical variables, this table is used to give the number of individuals in each com-
bination of levels of the two variables. Table 12-12, for example, is a contingency table. It
classifies teams by their true ability and their performance in a season.
Correlation coefficient (Chapter 4): A measure of association between two variables. In
Figure 4-27, for example, the correlation value of +.172 indicates there is positive associa-
tion between the 1998 situational effect and the previous four-year situational effect.
Cumulative distribution function (Chapter 7): A function that indicates the probability of a
given value and all smaller values.
Dotplot (Chapter 9): A simple graph used to display numerical data, with each data item
represented by a dot on a number line.
Doughnut plot (Chapter 1): A graph used to compare two pie charts.
Error in estimate (Chapter 6): The difference between the actual data value and the value
predicted from a model.
Expected runs (Chapter 7): The average number of runs that are likely to be scored in an
inning of baseball based on a team’s previous performance.
Expected value (Chapter 7): An average value drawn from a probability distribution. Table
7-4, for example, gives the expected values of runs scored in all possible situations of run-
ners on base and the number of outs.
Five-number summary (Chapter 2): The low, lower quartile, median, upper quartile, and
high values of a collection of data.
Histogram (Chapter 2): A graph of a batch of numerical data, such as the graph of player
OBPs (on-base percentages) in Figure 2-6.
Inference (Chapter 3): Drawing conclusions about abilities of players or teams on the basis
of collected data.
Interaction probability model (Chapter 1): A probability model for baseball hitting used
when the effect of a hitter depends on the pitcher. The Sports Illustrated Baseball game
uses this model.
Least squares (Chapter 6): A method of fitting a “best” line to a scatterplot.
Margin of error (Chapter 3): The error of an estimate of ability used in constructing a con-
fidence interval.
Mean (Chapter 2): The arithmetic average of a group of numerical data.
Mean Squared Error, MSE (Chapter 6): A measure of the soundness of a statistical model
to predict data, such as the ability of a model to predict runs per game in Chapter 6.
Median (Chapter 2): The middle value of a group of numerical data that is arranged in
ascending order.
 G L O S S A RY 395

Moving average (Chapter 5): In a plot of batting averages over time, a moving average is a
batting average for a group of games within a given window of time. By plotting the mov-
ing averages over time, one sees short-term patterns in batting performance.
Multinomial distribution (Chapter 1): A probability distribution for an experiment with
repeated trials in which there are more than two possible outcomes for each trial, such as the
probability distribution of the spinner outcome of an All Star Baseball disk in Table 1-2.
Nonlinear relationship (Chapter 8): A pattern in a scatterplot that does not follow a straight
line, such as the pattern in the scatterplot in Figure 8-10.
Normal curve (Chapter 2): A bell-shaped curve used to represent a collection of numerical
data, such as the presentation of on-base percentages (OBPs) in Figure 2-7.
Observed effects (Chapter 4): This is the observed difference in performance in different
situations (such as home vs. away). See also Ability effect and Bias effect.
Observed proportion (Chapter 3): This is a fraction, such as the number of hits divided by
the number of at-bats, based on certain hitting data.
Percentile (Chapter 12): A value that bounds particular percentages of data. For example,
the 90th percentile is the value that is greater than 90 percent of the data.
Pie chart (Chapter 1): A circular graph of a batch of numerical data that fall in different
categories, visually represented as wedges of a pie.
Predictive probability (Chapter 11): The probability that tells us how likely it is that a par-
ticular event will happen in the future.
Prior distribution (Chapter 11): A distribution of probabilities that reflects one’s predic-
tions about the ability of a player or team before any data is observed.
Probability of victory, POV (Chapter 10): The probability that a team wins a game, calcu-
lated at a particular instance during a game.
Product model for hitting (Chapter 8): A measure of hitting performance created by multi-
plying the contributions of different batting play events, such as singles, doubles, triples,
home runs, walks, and outs.
p-value (Chapter 5): The chance of observing the data result or a more extreme value given
a particular statistical model. Table 5-8, for example, computes the chance that a consis-
tent hitter has at least as many long streaks as Todd Zeile.
Quartile (Chapter 2): A value that contains 25 percent of a batch of numerical data. One
quarter of the data falls below the lower quartile, and one quarter of the data falls above
the upper quartile.
Random-effects model (Chapter 4): A probability model for assessing players that
assumes the abilities of the players follow a normal probability curve, such as the distri-
bution of true batting averages in Figure 4-7.
Regression to the mean (Chapter 3): A statistical phenomenon where players with extreme
performances in one season tend to perform closer to the average the following season.
This phenomenon was illustrated by looking at players’ on-base percentages in two con-
secutive seasons (see Figure 3-2).
Residual (Chapter 6): When fitting a line to a scatterplot, the residual is the difference between
the actual response and the predicted response, as illustrated in Figures 6-3 and 6-4.
396 G L O S S A RY

Rule of total probabilities (Chapter 8): A rule used to calculate the probability of an event
from conditional probabilities.
Run potential table (Chapter 9): A table that computes the average number of runs scored
in the remainder of an inning for each possible situation of runners on base and the num-
ber of outs.
Runs of good and bad games (Chapter 5): Sequences of days with consistent good or bad
performance that are useful in determining if a player or team has a hot hand.
Scatterplot (Chapter 2): A dot graph of two variables that is used to determine the rela-
tionship between these variables.
Skewness (Chapter 2): Data with nonsymmetrical shape that either trails off toward large
values or toward small values. The distribution of pitcher-strikeout totals in Figure 2-14,
for example, is right-skewed.
Spinner model (Chapter 3): A probability model represented by a spinner divided into
areas that correspond to probabilities of different events.
Standard deviation (Chapter 2): The spread of a data set that represents a typical distance
of the data from the mean.
Statistical significance (Chapter 7): An observed statistic is said to be statistically signifi-
cant if the value is larger than one would expect from chance variation.
Stemplot (Chapter 2): A histogram-style tabulation of data developed by mathematician
John Tukey, such as the graph of on-base percentages in Figure 2-3.
Streaky model (Chapter 5): A probability model used for a player or team whose probabil-
ity of a hit (win) for each plate appearance (game) can change during a season, and if the
player or team has a high hitting (winning) probability one game, he (or the team) is more
likely to have a high hitting (winning) probability the next game.
Talent of a team (Chapter 12): Number used to represent the ability of a team to win
games.
Tree diagram (Chapter 8): A method of listing all outcomes of a random experiment. For
example, Figure 8-1 is a tree diagram that represents the possible ways of scoring two runs
in an inning.
True proportion (Chapter 3): The probability of a hit that is to be distinguished from the
observed proportion of hits. In a season of baseball, the batting average is the observed pro-
portion of hits, but the true batting average or true ability to hit is unknown.
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Index
Page numbers in italics refer to Figures and Tables outside text discus-
sions. Page numbers with n, e.g., 4n, refer to footnotes. Teams are listed
under their place of origin, e.g., Anaheim Angels.

1984 Baseball Abstract age, players’ peak, 344–45 analog randomizing devices,
(James), 171 Aikens, Willie, 303, 306 15
1999 Big Bad Baseball Alfonzo, Edgardo, 97–98 Anderson, Garret, 312–22
Annual, The (Malcolm), All-Star Baseball (ASB) APBA Baseball
148 absence of pitcher effect, 9, analysis of model, 9–15
1999 Big Bad Baseball Book 18, 24–25 comparative analysis,
(James), 238n batting disks, 1–7, 15 16–17, 19, 24–25
development of, 8–9, 386 development of, 9, 386
A model assumptions, 8 playing instructions,
Aaron, Hank, 345, 348 pitcher disks, 8 386–88
ability playing instructions, Appier, Kevin, 319–22
batting averages deter- 386–88 Arizona Diamondbacks, 255
mined by, 80–81 randomizing device, 4 arms, opposite vs. same, 87
defined, 52, 241 simple version of, 219 ASB see All-Star Baseball
estimating for batting, all-time moments see great- (ASB)
62–68 est moments in baseball Atlanta Braves, 351, 379
mediocrity model, 361–62 Allen, Ethan, 8, 386 Aurilia, Rich, 313–22
normal model, 362–79 Allensworth, Jermaine, 97–98 Avery, S., 50
percentiles for teams, Alomar, Roberto AVG see Batting Average
372–73 1999 season statistics, 28 (AVG)
vs. performance, 350–52, 379 career data, 57, 59 awards, xvii
reliability of comparisons, estimating true ability of, away games see home-field
68–70 66–68 advantage
of teams, 352 OBP, 28–29, 57, 59–62
true OBPs indicating, 59–62 OBP/SLG data, 38–39 B
ability effects situational effects simula- back-to-back stemplots,
pitch count, on batting tion, 93–94 46–47
averages, 101–9 sliding into base, 243 Baker, Johnnie “Dusty,” 320
and situational effect, on Alston, Walter, xviii Ball Park Baseball (game),
batting averages, 91–92 American League Baseball 19
additive models (ALB) ball parks
additive probability model, 1998–1999 OBPs, 52–55 home-field advantage,
17–18 “regular” players’ OBPs, 72–73, 86, 99–101, 324
described, 226–28 29 situational effect of,
LSLR superiority among, simulated season, 366–76, 99–101
182 379 Baltimore Orioles, 142, 144
for offensive performance team divisions, 349, 356 base situations, 207
measurement, 177 Anaheim Angels base stealing see stealing
player evaluations, 230–41 2002 World Series analysis, Baseball Archives, The
SOM model, 15–19, 21, 307–22 (database), 146n
24–25, 388–90 streakiness, 134–43 baseball cards, 4, 4n

401
402 INDEX

baseball games Batting Average (AVG) Bonds, Barry (cont’)

criticisms of, 243–44 (cont’) run production, 235
predicting results of, of Rolen, 76 walks, 244, 260–65
323–29 situational effect simula- books
season schedules, 349, tions, 88–89, 91–94 on baseball statistics, 51–52
355–56 situational effects, 86–87, on board games, 392
Baseball Research Journal 98–101, 109 first baseball encyclopedia,
(SABR), 168 with no situational effect, 189–90
Baseball’s All-Time Best Hit- 89, 92, 96–98, 109 Boone, Bret, 111
ters (Schell), 222n, 241 Bayes’ Rule, 337–38 Bordick, Mike, 55
basketball, 324, 327 Bell, David, 12, 313–22 Boston Red Sox, 195–96,
Batter Conservation, Law of, bell-shaped curves see nor- 221, 222n, 226n
215 mal curves Boswell, Thomas, 166, 168,
batters Belle, Albert, 85 181
in APBA Baseball, 19 Bennett, Jay, 291, 296–99 boxplots, 34–38
minor vs. major league, Bere, J., 50 Bradley–Terry model
xxi–xxii “best team in baseball,” 350, simulated AL season,
Batter’s Run Average (BRA) 378 366–76
comparative evaluation, betting see gambling simulated MLB season,
174–76, 182–84 Bevens, Bill, 267 376–79
described, 168, 170–71, 228 bias effect team evaluation, 364–66,
batting ability on batting averages, 90–92 379
defined, 52–53 variables determining, Brenly, Bob, 255
estimating, 62–68 98–101, 109 Brooklyn Dodgers, 221, 294
reliability of comparisons, biased inference, 143–44 Brosius, Scott, 55, 305
68–70 Bill James Guide to Base- Buckner, Bill, 195n
true OBPs indicating, ball Managers, The bunts see sacrifice bunts
59–62 (James), 215n
see also ability; hitting binomial distribution, 6–7 C
performance binomial probabilities, Cal softball team (UC
Batting Average (AVG) 333–34 Berkeley), 111–12
.276 spinner model for, Blue, Vida, 21–24 California Angels, 195
79–81 board games career statistics, predicting,
1998 Regulars, 78 All-Star Baseball, 1–9, 15, 343–48
ability determining, 80–81 18, 24–25, 219, 387–88 Carroll, Bob, 290n
ability effects, 101–9 APBA Baseball, 9–17, 19, Carter, Joe
comparative evaluation, 24–25, 386–88 batting performance,
227 Ball Park Baseball, 19 275–77
correlation with runs, 148 books on, 392 clutch performance, 294–96
data interpretation, development of, 385, 392 performance evaluation,
114–20 National Pastime, 385 297–298
defined, 153 Pursue the Pennant, 19 PGP evaluation, 299–302
development of, 165–66 as simulation models, 219 in situation evaluation,
of Huskey, 95–96 Sports Illustrated Base- 277–83
to measure offensive per- ball, 20–25, 390–92 Caruso, Mike, 202n
formance, 153–157, Strat-O-Matic Baseball, caught stealing see stealing
174–76, 383 15–19, 21, 24–25, chance
observed and true, 75–77 388–90 importance of, 380
players with highest, Superstar Baseball, 390 role of, 382–84
146–47 use of models, xx chance variation
random spinners to simu- Bonds, Barry differentiating from real
late, 81–85 2002 World Series, 307–22 effects, 53–55, 88
 INDEX 403

chance variation (cont’) correlations (cont’) data analysis (cont’)

in situational effects, 265 reliability of, 186, 186n selection bias, 143
situational effect vs., 109 Counsell, Craig, 255, 258–59 skewness, 42–44
in team performance, 363 counts see pitch counts standard deviation, 33,
in true vs. observed pro- Cover, Thomas M., 208, 220, 33n, 360
portion, 57–59, 75 228 stemplots, 29–31, 33–34,
in World Series, 378–80 Cramer, Richard, 168, 170 46–47
Chicago White Sox, 222–24, criticisms of baseball, tree diagrams, 209–10
229 243–44 see also models; statistics
Chicago White Stockings, crowd data interpretation, 114–20
191n negative reactions by, Dean, Jay Hannah “Dizzy,”
Cleveland Indians 243–44 10–11
1997 team evaluation, 350, situational effect of, 88–92defensive performance
352 cumulative distribution measurement, 284–91
run production, 222n, 226, function, 196–98 defensive players, OBPs of,
226n, 227, 229 37–38
clutch hits D derived statistics, 45
Carter evaluation, 275–83 data analysis designated hitter (DH) rule,
defined, xxi biased inference, 143–44 8, 254, 304
evaluations of, 271–75 binomial distribution, 6–7 D’Esopo, D.A., 208, 215, 218,
situations for, 269–71 boxplots, 34–38 228
clutch performance meas- defined, 27 D’Esopo–Lefkowitz Scoring
urement dot plots, 83–84, 247 Index (DLSI) model
PWA method, 284–91 doughnut plots, 3–4 derivation, 208–15
win probabilities method, five-number summaries, evaluation of, 218–26,
291–96 35–37 228–29, 383
clutch play, greatest histograms, 31–32, 42–44 worked example, 215–18,
moments in, 195, inference, 66, 143–44 226–227
267–69, 294, 305 interaction effect, 19n, 20n Detroit Tigers, 248
clutch situations, 269–71 and interpretation, 114–20 dice see randomizing devices
Codell, Barry, 168 isolated power, 39–40 DiMaggio, Joe, 11
coin-toss model, 57–60, level of significance, 176n DLSI model see
361–62 line of “best fit,” 55–56 D’Esopo–Lefkowitz
Colavito, Rocco “Rocky,” 145, margin of error, 66 Scoring Index (DLSI)
176 mean, 31–32 model
computer programs, 219 Mean Squared Error dotplots, 83–84, 247
conditional probability, (MSE), 149 doughnut plots, 3–4
376–78 median, 31–32 Dunston, Shawon, 313–22
confidence interval, 64, moving fraction plots, DX see Scoring Index (DX)
66–68 135–138
consistent (non-streaky) multinomial distribution, E
model, 121–26, 131–34, 5–7 earned run averages
138–40, 143–44 normal curves, 30–31, 82 (ERAs), 41
constant-probability model pie charts, 2–4 Eckstein, David, 312–22
see consistent (non- quartiles, 32–33 Elias Baseball Analyst , 270,
streaky) model “regression to the mean,” 275n, 276
contingency tables, 373–75 56–57 Ennis, Del “Skinny,” 12–14,
Cook, Earnshaw, 170, 228 residual, 157 16–18
correlation coefficient for residual plots, 231–33 ERAs (earned run aver-
situational effects, 108 Root Mean Squared Error ages), 41
correlations (RMSE), 149–50, 383 error in estimate, 149
in play events, 187n scatterplots, 38–40 Erstad, Darin, 312–22
404 INDEX

expected runs ground-ball effects, 99–101 Huskey, Robert “Butch,”

DSLI simulation model, Guerrero, Vladimir, 265 95–96
208–227 Gwynn, Tony
evaluation of models, 202–5 batting average, 88, 116, I
Lindsey–Palmer models, 127, 143 inference
189–202, 224–25, batting style, 106 biased, 143–44
244–46 PGP rating, 305 confidence interval negat-
LSLR model, 178–89 ing, 66
see also runs H intentional walks
expected value, 191, 191n Hall of Fame, xvii, 146, 148, 2002 World Series, 260–61
159, 161 Bonds simulation, 261–64
F Hamilton, Billy, 168 public’s dislike of, 244
Fantasy League Baseball, Hargrove, Mike, 161 strategy evaluation,
xvi–xvii Hastings, Kevin, 20n 263–65
see also virtual baseball Henderson, Dave, 195–96 interaction effect, 19n, 20n
Federal League Baseball, Henderson, Rickey, 173n interaction probability
356n Hernandez, Livan, 320–22 models
Field of Dreams (film), xv Hershiser, Orel, 304–5 APBA Baseball, 9–15,
Figgins, Chone, 320–22 Hidden Game of Baseball, 24–25
five-number summaries, The (Thorn & Palmer), SI Baseball model, 20–25
35–37 231n, 290 intuitive techniques for per-
Flaherty, John, 78 Hidden Game of Football, formance measurement
Florida Marlins The (Carroll, Thorn & BRA model, 168, 170–71,
1997 team evaluation, Palmer), 290n 174–76, 182–84
350–52, 379 “Hidden Heroes,” 288 comparative evaluation,
2002 team evaluation, 264 histograms 173–77, 182–84
base stealing, 247 defined, 31–32 development of, 165–66
Flueck, John, 291, 295–99 right-skewed, 42–44 OPS model, 166–167,
fly-ball effects, 99–101 hitters see batters 174–76
football, 207–8, 290n, 324, hitting ability see batting RC model, 171–76, 182–84,
327 ability 383
Friedman, Arthur, xviii hitting performance Scoring Index (DX),
Fullmer, Brad, 314–22 advancement ability 170–71, 175–76, 183n,
analysis, 38–40 184
G On-Base Percentage TA model, 166, 168–169,
gambling, xvi analysis, 27–38 174–77
games see baseball games; Hodges, Gil, 3–5 isolated power (IP), 39–40
board games home-field advantage,
Gammons, Peter, 243 72–73, 86, 99–101, 324 J
Gehrig, Lou, 230–33 home runs Jackson, Reggie, 10
Gibson, Kirk, 304–6 game-winning rule, 281n James, Bill
Gil, Benji, 317–22 predicting for career, on managers, 215n
Glanville, Doug, 203n 343–48 RC model, 178n, 183n,
Glaus, Troy, 304, 307–22 predicting for season, 228, 237–38, 238n
Gomes, Wayne, 50 329–43 sabermetrics contribution,
Gonzalez, Luis, 255 records for, 329 171, 189
Goode, Bud, xviii scoring process, 28 see also Runs Created (RC)
Goodwin, Tom, 318–22 home teams see home-field Jeter, Derek, 37–38, 201–2,
grass vs. turf, 87, 98, 100 advantage 202n
greatest moments in base- hot-hand performances see Johnson, Randy, 46, 48
ball, 195, 267–69, 275, streakiness Jones, Larry “Chipper,”
276, 294, 305 Hunter, Brian L., 203n 111–12, 202n
 INDEX 405

Jones, Willie “Puddin’ Linear Weights (LWTS) models

Head,” 12–14 model (cont’d) .276 spinner for batting
development of, 166, 200 averages, 79–81
K player evaluations, 230–33 additive, 15–19, 21, 24–25,
Keilers, Carroll W., 208, 220, player on average team 177, 182, 226–28,
228 evaluations, 233–41 230–41
Kennedy, Adam, 312–22 see also Lindsey–Palmer Batter’s Run Average
Kent, Jeff, 313–22 models (BRA), 168, 170–71,
Knoblauch, Chuck, 52–53 LIP (Late Inning Pressure), 174–76, 182–84, 228
Kuenn, Harvey, 145, 176 270, 284 Batting Average (AVG),
Lofton, Kenny 153–157, 165–66,
L 2002 World Series, 314–22 174–76, 227, 383
Lackey, John, 317–22 on advancement of run- in board games, xx, 9–19,
Lahman, Sean, 146n ners, 71–72, 109 21, 24–25, 219
Late Inning Pressure (LIP), Knoblauch compared with, Bradley–Terry, 364–79
270, 284 52–53 coin-toss, 57–60, 361–62
Lavagetto, Harry “Cookie,” OBP, 56 consistent (non-streaky),
267 Los Angeles Dodgers, 215, 121–26, 131–34,
least squares, 55 222n, 267 138–40, 143–44
least squares linear regres- losing streaks see streaki- constant-probability see
sion (LSLR) ness consistent (non-
caught stealing added, LSLR see least squares lin- streaky) under this
184–87 ear regression (LSLR) heading
comparative evaluation, LWTS model see Linear defined, 57
180–84 Weights (LWTS) model DLSI, 208–29, 383
described, 178–80 function of, xx, 361
Lindsey–Palmer model M interaction probability,
compared with, 202–5 Major League Baseball 9–15, 20–25
sacrifice flies added, (MLB) Lindsey–Palmer, 189–205,
187–89 expansion of, 164 224–25, 228, 244–46
Lefkowitz, B., 208, 215, 218, simulated season, 376–79 Linear Weights, 166,
228 team divisions, 349 200–203, 230–41, 383
left-handedness, 87 Mantle, Mickey, 222n, 345 LSLR, 178–89, 202–5, 228
level of significance, 176n margin of error, 66 for mediocrity, 361–62
Lindsey, George Maris, Roger, 222n, 329 for no situational effect,
data analysis, 189–200, Martinez, Edgar, 34 93–94, 96–98
205, 215, 218, 228, 291 Martinez, Tino, 114–16 normal, 82, 362–79
run potential table, 244–46 Mays, Willie, 299 normal curve for team per-
Lindsey–Palmer models McGwire, Mark, 235–38, formance, 357–60, 379
DLSI compared with, 265, 329, 342–43 for offensive performance
224–25 mean, 31–32 measurement, 166
Lindsey’s analysis, Mean Squared Error (MSE), On-Base Plus Slugging
189–200 149 (OPS), 166–167, 174–76
LSLR compared with, median, 31–32 player evaluations using,
202–5, 228 mediocrity model for abili- 230–41
Palmer’s analysis, 200–202 ties, 361–62 for player streakiness,
run potential table, Mills, Eldon G., 284–91 113–14, 120–34,
244–46 Mills, Harlan D., 284–91 143–44
line of “best fit,” 55–56 Milwaukee Braves, 215, product, 226, 228–30
Linear Weights (LWTS) 215n for random-effects, 83–85
model Minnesota Twins, 226, 227, random spinners for bat-
described, 200–203, 383 307, 350–51 ting averages, 81–85
406 INDEX

models (cont’d) New York Yankees (cont’d) offensive performance meas-

random spinners for situa- clutch evaluation, 294–95 urement (cont’d)
tional effects, 93–94 offensive performance, PWA system for, 284–91
Scoring Index (DX), 153–54 RC model, 171–76, 383
170–71, 175–76, 183n, run production, 221, 222n runs per game, 148–153
184, 228 runs per game, 148 Scoring Index, 170–71,
for situational effects, sacrifice bunts, 255 175–76, 183n, 184, 228
87–93, 109 nonlinear relationships, Slugging Percentage, 156,
spinner, described, 60–62, 234–35 158–160, 162–65,
76–77 normal curve model, 174–77, 199
spinner for career statis- 357–60, 379 TA model, 166, 168,
tics, 347–48 normal curves, 30–31, 82 174–76
spinner for home runs, normal model see also performance
331–43 simulated AL season, offensive players, OBPs of,
for team streakiness, 366–75 37–38
134–44 simulated MLB season, Olerud, John, 78
“team strengths” predic- 376–78 On-Base Percentage (OBP)
tion, 324–29 for team abilities, 362–66, 1998–1999 AL players,
see also On-Base Percent- 379 52–55
age (OBP); Runs Creat- for team abilities and per- batters with highest,
ed (RC); Slugging Per- formance, 372–73 160–61
centage (SLG); Total calculation of, 28–29
Average (TA) O comparative evaluation,
Molina, Bengie, 314–22 Oakland Athletics, 247, 264 227
Moore, Mike, 304 OBPs see On-Base Percent- development of, 165–66
Morgan, Joe, 168, 288 age (OBP) IP and, 39–40
Morris, Jack, 306 observed effects 96, 108 to measure offensive per-
Most Valuable Players observed performance, 241 formance, 159, 161–65,
(MVPs), 303–8 observed proportion, 58–59, 75 174–76
moving averages, 116–19 Odom, John “Blue Moon,” 11 of offensive and defensive
moving fraction plots, Offensive Earned Run Aver- players, 37–38
135–138 age (OERA), 208 predicting, 55–57
multinomial distribution, offensive performance meas- for “regular” AL players, 29
5–7 urement SLG and, 39, 40
Musial, Stan, 173 batting average, 153–157, in stemplots, 29–31
MVPs (Most Valuable Play- 174–76 true vs. observed, 59–62
ers), 303–8 BRA model, 168, 170–71, On-Base Plus Slugging
174–76 (OPS), 166–167, 174–76
N Colavito–Kuenn model OPS see On-Base Plus Slug-
National League Baseball ratings, 176 ging (OPS)
(NLB), 349, 356 comparison of methods for, Optimal Strategies in Sports
National Pastime (game), 162–65, 174–76 (Ladany & Machol), 208
385 criteria for, 146, 148 Ordonez, Rey, 201–02, 202n
Neft, David S., 20, 390 intuitive techniques for, Ortiz, Ramon, 315–22
Nen, Robb, 318–22 165–77 Ortiz, Russ, 308–22
New York Giants, 222–24 Lindsey–Palmer models, Ozark, Danny, xviii
New York Mets, 195n, 221 189–202, 224–25 Ozarkisms, xviii
New York Yankees LSLR model, 178–89
1947 World Series, 267 OBP model, 159, 161, P
1960 World Series, 284 174–76 p-value, for streakiness,
absence from World Series, OPS model, 166–167, 125–26, 140, 144
215 174–76 Palmer, Jim, 10–11
 INDEX 407

Palmer, Pete Player Game Percentage probability of victory (POV)

BRA development, 170 (PGP) (cont’d) 2002 World Series analy-
LWTS development, 200, described, 296–302, 308 sis, 307–22
205, 228, 231n World Series player evalu- Mills’s system, 284–91
OPS development, 166 ation, 303–7 PGP system, 296–302, 308
sabermetrics contribution, Player Profiles (STATS Inc.) using Lindsey’s data,
189 batting average data, 291–96
peak age of players, 344–45 108–9 product models
Percentage Baseball (Cook), pitch count situational described, 226, 228–30
170 data, 103 player evaluations, 230–41
percentiles of team abilities, Rolen’s performance, 74–75 Pursue the Pennant (game),
372–73 situational effects data, 72 19
Percival, Troy, 315–22 situational hitting data, 95 p-value, 125–26, 131–32,
performance Player Win Average (PWA), 139–40, 142, 144
vs. ability, 350–52, 361–62, 284–91 PWA (Player Win Average),
379 Player Win Averages (Mills 284–91
vs. ability of teams, & Mills), 284, 287, 290
350–52, 372–76 players Q
normal curve model for with highest OPS, 167 quartiles, 32–33
team, 357–60, 379 with highest TA, 169
of teams, 352–53 peak age of, 344–45 R
of teams over time, World Series Most Valu- Raines, Tim, 173n
353–57, 359–60 able, 303–7 Ramirez, Manny, 34, 40
see also offensive perform- playoff system, 243, 349 random-effects model, 83–85
ance measurement POV see probability of vic- randomizing devices
PGP see Player Game Per- tory (POV) in APBA Baseball, 15, 387
centage (PGP) prediction in ASB, 4, 15, 386
Philadelphia Phillies, of career statistics, 343–48 in SOM Baseball, 15–16,
294–96, 300–301, 379 by guessing, 324 389–90
pie charts, 2–4 of home runs using simple Raschi, Vic, 17–19
pitch counts, 87, 101–7, 109 method, 329–31 RC model see Runs Created
pitchers of home runs using spin- (RC)
1999 MLB statistics, 41 ner model, 331–43 real effects, 53–55, 88
in APBA Baseball, 19 of OBPs, 55–57 “regression to the mean,”
in ASB, 8 picking home team, 324 56–57
classification of, 72 “team strengths” model, “regular” players, 29
contribution to winning, 16 324–29 relievers
situational effect of, 87, unreliability of, 323, strikeout rates, 46–48
99–101 330–31, 348 walk rates, 50
“starters,” defined, 47 predictive probability, residual, 157
strikeout rates, 42–50 340–43 residual plots, 231–33
walk rates, 42–50 prior probability distribu- Reynolds, Allie, 11, 16–19,
pitching performance, 41–50 tion, 337–40 22
plate appearances, 147 probability Richman, Hal, 388
player evaluations binomial, 333–34 right-handedness, 87
on average team, 233–40 conditional, 376–78 right-skewed histograms,
best models for, 230–33, 240 defined, 57 42–44
criteria for, 240–41 predictive, 340–43 RMSE see Root Mean
Player Game Percentage for streakiness, 125–26, Squared Error (RMSE)
(PGP) 140, 144 Roberts, Robin
2002 World Series evalua- probability models see mod- APBA Baseball grade, 11
tion, 307–22 els career data, 10–11, 21–22
408 INDEX

Roberts, Robin (cont’d) SABR (Society of American situational effects (cont’d)

in SI Baseball game, 21–24 Baseball Research), models for, 87–93, 109
SOM Baseball grade, 19 xix, 165 “no effect” situations,
Rodriguez, Francisco, sacrifice bunts 93–94, 96–98
315–22 2001 World Series, 255 on Rolen, 73–74
Rolen, Scott, 12, 72–76, 85 Counsell simulation, variables determining,
Root Mean Squared Error 258–59 72–73, 86–87, 324, 382
(RMSE), 149–50, 383 described, 253 situational statistics
Rotisserie Baseball, xvi–xvii frequency of, 254–55 described, 71–72
Rueter, Kirk, 317–22 managers’ use of, 255–57 for Rolen, 72–75
run potential table, 244–46 MLB 2000 teams, 254 skewness, 42–44
run production players with over ten, 254 SLG see Slugging Percent-
situation evaluation of, public’s dislike of, 244 age (SLG)
277–83 Schilling simulation, sliding into base, 243
team profiles, 222 257–59 Slugging Percentage (SLG)
runners-on-base, 101–2, strategy evaluation, 259 batters with highest,
107–9 sacrifice flies, 187–89, 203 158–59
runs Salmon, Tim, 304, 308–22 comparative evaluation,
1998 MLB teams, 149 San Francisco Giants, 199, 227
vs. batting average, 307–22 defined, 39, 156, 158
153–157, 162–65 Sanchez, J., 50 development of, 165–66
expected average, 191n Sanders, Reggie, 309–22 to measure offensive per-
game-winning rule, 281n Santiago, Benito, 264, formance, 156,
of good and bad games, 313–22 158–160, 162–65,
119–20 Sauer, Hank, 21–22 174–77
innings record, 191n scatterplots, 38–40 OBP and, 39–40
intuitive modeling tech- Schell, Michael, 222n, 241 weighting of, 177
niques, 165–76 Schilling, Curt, 257–59 Snow, J. T., 308–22
vs. OBP, 161–65 Schmidt, Mike, 241 Society of American Base-
in offensive performance Scoring Index (DX), 170–71, ball Research (SABR),
measurement, 148–153 175–76, 182–184, 228 xix, 165
scoring process, 27–28 scoring process, 27–28 SOM Baseball see Strat-O-
vs. SLG, 156, 158–59, season lengths, 355–56 Matic (SOM) Baseball
162–65 Seattle Mariners, 222n “sophomore slump,” 56–57
see also expected runs Seitz, J. Richard, 387 SOR see strikeout rate
Runs Created (RC) selection bias, 143 (SOR)
comparative evaluation, Seminick, Andy, 12–14 Sosa, Sammy
174–76, 182–84 Shantz, Bobby career home runs predic-
described, 171–73, 228 career data, 21–22 tion models, 343–48
offensive performance in SI game, 22–24 home runs prediction mod-
measurement, 383 SI Baseball see Sports Illus- els, 329–43
player evaluations, 230–33 trated (SI) Baseball spectators see crowd
player on average team significance, level of, 176n Spiezio, Scott, 312–22
evaluations, 233–41 simulation models see models spinner models
runs of good and bad games, situational effects .276 for batting averages,
119–20 “ability” situations, 101–7, 79–81
see also streakiness 109 Alomar simulation, 60–62
Ruth, George “Babe,” 2, 329 “bias” situations, 90–92, for career statistics,
Ryan, Nolan, 42, 48 98–101, 109 347–48
chance variation in, 265 for home runs, 331–43
S clutch effect, 277, 283 many random for batting
sabermetrics, xix, 171, 189 on Huskey, 95–96 averages, 81–85
 INDEX 409

spinner models (cont’d) streakiness Thome, Jim, 106

many random for situa- data interpretation, Toronto Blue Jays
tional effects, 93–94 116–20, 143–44, 383 clutch evaluation, 294–96
Rolen simulation, 76–77 described, 112–13, 126–27 PGP evaluation, 299–301
to simulate consistency, player simulation models, probability of victory, 297
121–26, 132–34 113–14, 120–34, 143 Total Average (TA)
to simulate streakiness, public perception of, comparative evaluation,
127–34 111–13, 144 174–77, 227
spinners see randomizing runs of good and bad creation of, 181
devices games, 119–20 described, 166, 168, 227
Sports Illustrated (SI) Base- teams simulation models, model evaluation, 178–82
ball, 20–25, 390–92 134–43 players with highest, 169
sports statisticians, xviii, streaky model, 126–34, weights, 178, 180
xix–xx, 382 140–44 total probabilities, rule of,
see also statisticians strikeout rate (SOR) 213–15
spread, measures of, 32–34 defined, 44–47 tree diagrams, 209–10
standard deviation, 33, 33n, starters and relievers com- true proportion, 57–59, 75
360 pared, 46–48 turf vs. grass, 87, 98, 100
Stanky, Eddie, 161 strikeouts, 42–50 typical values, 31–32
“starters” (pitchers) strikes (disputes), 357
defined, 47 Superstar Baseball (game), V
strikeout rates, 46–48 390 values
walk rates, 50 determining unusual, 38n
states of play, 207–8 T expected, 191, 191n
statistical significance, 186 tabletop baseball see board typical, 31–32
statisticians, xvii–xx, 53, 381 games Van Beek, Clifford, 385
statistics talent of a team, 352, Verducci, Tom, 267
“carriers,” 189 361–62, 378–79 virtual baseball, 219
correlation, 186, 186n see also ability see also Fantasy League
derived, 45 Tampa Bay Devil Rays, Baseball
least squares, 55 111–12, 148, 153
public appetite for, xv–xvi team performance see offen- W
significance in, 186, 186n sive performance meas- wagering see gambling
situational, 71–72 urement; performance walk rates, 42, 48–50
use of, xv–xvi, 382 team play see also intentional walks
see also data analysis; consistent simulation Walker, Larry, 78, 235
models model, 138–40, 143–44 walks see intentional walks
stealing streakiness in, 134–38 Weber, Ben, 318–22
in LSLR model, 184–87 streaky simulation model, websites
other bases-out, 252–53 140–44 All-Star Baseball, 386
public’s dislike of, 244 “team strengths” model, APBA Baseball, 9n
second base, 247–52 324–29 The Baseball Archive, 146n
team trends, 185 teams Copernicus Books, xiv, 9n
stemplots ability models, 361–79 Curve Ball, xiv, 9n
analysis of, 34 assessment of, 350–53, Richman interview, 388
back-to-back, 46–47 378–79 Seitz biography, 387
construction of, 29–31 numbers of, 356–57 SI Baseball, 390
with quartiles, 33 performance over time, sports sites, 330
Stengel, Casey, 87 353–60 “Thinking Baseball,” 112
Strat-O-Matic (SOM) Base- strength categories, weights, types of, 177–78,
ball, 15–19, 21, 24–25, 363–64, 372 182
388–90 Terry, Bill, 3–7 Williams, B., 37–38
410 INDEX

Williams, Mitch, 50
Williams, Ted, 221, 265
win probabilities
in basketball, 324, 327
calculation of, 291–96
in football, 290n, 324, 327
see also prediction
winning streaks see streaki-
ness
Womack, Tony, 255
Wood, Joe, 10–11
World Series
1960 World Series, 284
1969 World Series, 285,
287–88
1987 playoff, 350–51
1997 playoff, 350, 379
2002 playoff, 307–22
Bonds’s walks, 260–61
greatest moments in, 195,
267–69, 275–76, 294,
305
Most Valuable Players,
303–7
playoff system, 349
role of chance in, 378–80
team abilities, 379
winners’ abilities, 378, 382
winners’ kudos, 350
Worrell, Todd, 320–22

Z
Zaidlin, Mike, 112
Zeile, Todd
streakiness, 112–13,
116–21, 126, 143, 383
streakiness simulations,
113–14, 121–34, 143
Zimmer, Don, 112
Zumsteg, Derek, 245, 264