MVN - Most Valuable Network

This Week in News and Sabermetrics: 4/6-4/12

Welcome to the first edition of TWINS - This Week in News and Sabermetrics.  This will be a weekly article recapping the goings on in the baseball world, ranging anywhere from top games of the week or oddest stats to frontrunners for awards based on my formulas and links to great articles.  Expect one of these bad boys every Saturday.  If anybody has suggestions for additions they would like to see feel free to post them in the comments.  Without further delay:

Interesting Bits of Tid
Well, the Tigers finally won a game after starting the season 0-7 and worrying the moustache off of Jim Leyland (not in a literal sense).  Unfortunately, any hope of a winning streak was put to rest when Tim Wakefield took the mound the next night.  Two weeks into the season the team expected to score 1,000 runs in 162 games (6.17/gm for anyone wondering) has scored 28 runs in 9 games (not 6.17/gm for anyone wondering).  To show how bad things have been Placido Polanco even made errors in consecutive nights.

Staying in the AL, Travis Buck of the Athletics started the season by going 0-21, with 9 strikeouts, and a .043 OPS… out of the leadoff spot.  He was about as effective as Travis Buckley–the other guy that appears when you type “Travis Buck” into Baseball Reference–but then remembered how to hit.  In his next three games Buck went 7-16, with 6 doubles, 4 RBIs, and a 1.284 OPS.

MVP Predictor
I came up with a pretty simple formula to see who would win the MVP should the season end at any given point.  The formula is: (OPS+ / 2) + VORP + VB.

OPS+ compares production to the rest of the league; VORP offers how important a player proved to be in accounting for runs than a replacement level player; VB is a Victory Bonus, just like in the James Cy Young Predictor, that awards points to a division leader.  In this case, +10 for first place and +6 for second place.  It’s simple but effective in determining how important a player statistically performed.  It does not take into account the more human factors of the game but the MVP is usually awarded to the best hitter on the best team; this formula measures that. 

I will be revising this throughout the season I am sure but for now it will work fine.  Here are the top five in the NL:

1. Kendall, MIL, 135.7
2. Ramirez, FLA, 130.9
3. Burrell, Phi, 123.5
4. Pujols, StL, 120.9
5. Upton, Ari, 107.2

And the AL:

1. Pierzynski, CHW, 131.4
2. Scott, BAL, 126.7
3. Crede, CHW, 123.2
4. Dye, CHW, 120.0
5. Drew, BOS, 114.8

Cy Young Predictor
In The Neyer/James Guide to Pitchers Bill James presented a formula that could, with pretty good accuracy, predict the eventual Cy Young Award.  For a description of the formula, click here.  Though I altered his formula in previous articles to account for old-time players, his works great here.  Here are the top five in the NL:

1. Jake Peavy, SD, 23.3
2. Brandon Webb, ARI, 19.6
3. Micah Owings, ARI, 18.8
4. Ben Sheets, MIL, 18.6
5. Jason Isringhausen, StL, 18.4

And the AL:

1. Daisuke Matsuzaka, BOS, 23.2
2. Zach Greinke, KC, 22.2
3. Edwin Jackson, TB, 22.0
4. Chien-Ming Wang, NYY, 20.3
5. Brian Bannister, KC, 19.9

Beane Count
Over at ESPN.com Rob Neyer created a really cool stat I had never heard of until earlier this month, titled Beane Count.  The stat measures all of the contributions Athletics GM Billy Beane looks for in players and evaluates the teams that best fit his desires.  The total is found by adding the team rank in home runs hit, walks, home runs allowed, and walks allowed.  Interestingly enough, as of right now, both the Chicago White Sox and Chicago Cubs lead their respective leagues–and by significant margins.

Cain Watch
Many readers here should know that I have some crazy manlove for Matt Cain, despite having no allegiances to the Giants, and really cannot stand how unlucky he gets on the mound.  In 2007 he went 7-16, though my Adjusted W-L system had him pegged at 16-7; my SP Effectiveness System even scored him a +50, just meeting the cutoff for a #1 pitcher.  Each week I will look at his starts and see if the unlucky trend continues.

• #1, 4/1/08, 5.2 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 4 BB, 5 K, ND.  Records an AQND because it was an Adjusted Quality Start.  Game Score of 64.  From what I saw and heard he was squeezed and really should have only walked two batters.
• #2, 4/7/08, 4.1 IP, 7 H, 5 R, 4 ER, 5 BB, 5 K. Loss.  Does not record an AQS and legitimately deserved to lose.  Unlike his first start he was not terribly squeezed and this was not a good start by any means.

Game Scores of the Week
Bill James created the Game Score statistic to measure the exact quality of a pitched game.  Info on the easy to calculate figure can be found here.  For the record, a GSC of 50 or higher is good.  Below are the top three game scores of the week of 4/6-4/12.

• Ben Sheets, April 6th: 9 IP, 5 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 8 K - 85 GSC
• Edwin Jackson, April 10th: 8 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 4 BB, 6 K - 80 GSC
• Wandy Rodriguez, April 7th: 7.1 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 6 K - 78 GSC

Weekly Oddibe Award
The Oddibe Awards are given to the hitter with the slash stats (BA/OBP/SLG) closest to the league average and are named after Oddibe McDowell, whom RJ Anderson of Beyond the Box Score determined to have the career slash line closest to the league average from 1960-2006.  As of this week the league average slash line is .257/.327/.403.  Should the season for some odd reason end today, the 2008 Oddibe Award recipient would be - Orlando Hudson, Ari: .270/.325/.405.

If the Season Ended Today
Speaking of whether or not the season ended today I think it will be interesting to look at the playoff matchups each week if it did end.  This way we can see which teams were in it all year as opposed to burning out or surging in. Note - this was done at 11:16 PM EST, so the As had played while the Angels were still playing.

• Baltimore Orioles (AL East) vs. Chicago White Sox (Wild Card)
• Kansas City Royals (AL Central) vs. Oakland Athletics (AL West)
• Arizona DBacks (NL West) vs. Winner of Tiebreaking Game between CHC/MIL
• Florida Marlins (NL East) vs. St. Louis Cardinals (NL Central)

In Case You Missed It
Here are some great sabermetrics articles from this past week:

• Geoff Young looks at whether or not Trevor Hoffman struggles during non-save situations.
• While I measure the most average hitters via The Oddibe Award, Steve Treder is in the midst of a series of articles examining the worst hitters at each lineup spot.  Earlier this week he did the #2 batter.
• Cyril Morong chimes in with his thoughts on whether or not David Ortiz is a clutch hitter.
• Jeff Sackmann takes a well-thought out look at whether or not the Triple A Rangers are better than the Major League SF Giants.
• Marc Hulet examines the pretty impressive 2001 Draft Class.

This entry was posted on Friday, April 11th, 2008 at 10:22 pm and is filed under AQS, adjusted, Seidman, quality starts, Earned Run Average, projection, baseball reference, cy, expectancy, cain, WPA, tango, neyer, average, E.R.A., Bill James, greg maddux, postseason, analysis, stats, pitching, baseball, ESPN, National League, Strategy, Matt Cain, American League, statistics, cy young, starting pitchers, playoffs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.