Secret Formula 2006

[worrierking]

[quote:c52ea998b6]I'm always open to the variant perspective. I think I see a couple of holes in your argument, however, and it may take a true stat guy to to be called upon as a defense witness. The Strato Berce website states that a 4e10 at SS equals a 1e84 SS, so Adam Everett is costing you 75 baserunners that you need to make up. That means a .250 hitting "1" equals a .400 hitting "4" (if you use 500 at bats, a .250 hitter (125 hits) needs to now get 200 hits to even things out from his bad glove). Did Larkin hit .400? Did he steal bases like Everett? Bunt? Hit and Run? Additionally, the true stats nuts (unlike me, a more user friendly stats nut) once had this insane discussion many years ago about lost opportunity cost that occurred when a 1 on defense ended an inning with a double play. I don't doubt your anecdotal evidence, and maybe even under the right opposing ballpark conditions your observation is very valid. I would just say that you're swimming against the current, in my estimation.
[/quote:c52ea998b6]

It's even more complicated than your explanation. You don't have to have Larkin himself achieve the 75 hits, it has to come from the team as a whole. Since Larkin costs less than Everett, you could make up the hits by spending your additional money on other offensive players or (and I think this is Helium's argument) by reducing hits by spending it on better pitchers.

Additionally, by having a four at SS, you give up many more hits which can cause pitcher fatigue, requiring more bullpen usage (and presumably more bullpen spending to be successful). It is very difficult to calculate the cost of this. This is where SOM gets highly complex (and fun) because you have to weigh these factors with little ability to track them. So while a 1 e84 and a 4 e10 give up the same number of baserunners, the cost is not exactly equal since the errors don't cause pitcher fatigue.

Then the opportunity cost discussion comes in. Makes your head swim.

This is a great thread.

[J-Pav]

[b:6bf48a72eb]Worrier[/b:6bf48a72eb]:

The spread was [i:6bf48a72eb]much[/i:6bf48a72eb] larger last year, this year it has "tightened up" somewhat. I'm guessing this has to do with the beta testers attempting to remove the super-reliever strategies, the "all SP/RP" strategies, etc. The successful low budget staff is a lot [i:6bf48a72eb]harder[/i:6bf48a72eb] to pull off this year than years past (although not [i:6bf48a72eb]impossible[/i:6bf48a72eb]).

But I totally acknowledge there is in fact a spread. The only thing magical about 32 is the three year average. This years spread among my 16 teams was 25 low to 46 high. Throwing out those two extremes, it tightens up to 27 low, 35 high. By and large, however, the numbers were very close to 32.

As [b:6bf48a72eb]Palmtana[/b:6bf48a72eb] demonstrated, the tour pitching he looked at was 10% below the $32 million average. To anybody who is unclear, I'm not suggesting to micro-manage your salary structure so it's exactly 32. I'm saying that when you're done building your team, add up your pitching salary and at least know where you're at. If you're at Jacobs with $29.85 in pitching, all other things being equal, you're at least pointed west to see the sun set.

Thx for pointing that out though. I don't want newbs struggling to find $0.54 pitchers just so the pitching salary equals $32.

[J-Pav]

Thx also for your last point. What's also left out is that [b:35b86270de]Helium[/b:35b86270de]'s strategy also included sacrificing defense at MANY of the other positions as well (including [b:35b86270de]2B[/b:35b86270de] and [b:35b86270de]CF[/b:35b86270de]). So his team has to make up for ALL of the defensive deficit, which is huge.

[J-Pav]

Note to [i:9f6e509766]Old Guard[/i:9f6e509766]: [b:9f6e509766]Doug Waechter[/b:9f6e509766] (Tampa Bay) is the only $0.54 pitcher.

[geekor]

[quote:7aaff63f5c]Pitching $

The 32M number holds up well for the random leagues, while the Event 1 teams averaged less:

Random - 31.41 [SP-17.21; RP-14.2]
Event 1 - 28.28 [SP-17.0; RP-11.28]

Any guesses where the 3M difference in relief pitching showed up? It wasn’t slugging. The Random leagues had a SLG of .431 and the Event 1 teams were at .428. I’ll go back and look at OBP and BA and see if there are significant differences.

In last years Secret Formula thread J-Pav reported that the champ teams he surveyed had a 4.05 ERA and 1.31 WHIP. This year, with all of my 26 teams combined, it was 3.97 and 1.31. [/quote:7aaff63f5c]

Part of this is just this year, and I'm pretty damn sure this will go up next year. Even before the 06 game came out, those with the ratings could see it was a weak offensive year, and that pitching would be more dominant. Every set has it's own flavor so to speak. Next year, the pitching will be much weaker than this year, so maybe the big bomber teams will be back :wink:

[J-Pav]

[b:125ee1de93]Helium[/b:125ee1de93]:

[color=darkblue:125ee1de93]http://andrew-stevens.tripod.com/index/stratfield.html[/color:125ee1de93]

Browsing around I found this from [b:125ee1de93]DeanTSC[/b:125ee1de93] as a response to [b:125ee1de93]Valen[/b:125ee1de93] in his [color=blue:125ee1de93]strato experts:Advanced Fielding Chart question[/color:125ee1de93] thread.

I don't have a clue how to interpret it, but it looks like fun if you've got the urge to get really down and dirty.

[CHARLESBELL]

J-Pav, great article and discussion! One thing bothers me, though. When we deal with averages we also have to deal with variances and deviation. Two teams both with a $32M pitching staff will have an average cost of $32M. But so will two pitching staffs, one with a $20M staff and one with a $44M staff. The "average" is still $32M.

So my question would be, what is the actual price paid for pitching for each of those winning teams in your average? How closely do they actually get to a $32M pitching staff?

[J-Pav]

[b:3afb524f08]Charlie[/b:3afb524f08]:

Great point, as [b:3afb524f08]Worrier[/b:3afb524f08] also mentioned. The actual numbers of the first eight were 27, 31, 32, 46, 33, 35, 27 and 24. The other eight were 31, 34, 32, 30, 34, 31, 30 and 26. All this averages out to 31.5, but if you include the fractions (and the fractions from 11th or 12th pitchers), it bumps up to a touch below 32. I acknowledge there's some range, but as you can see, if you drop the two extremes it's pretty tight around that 32 number.

There's also a skill level to consider as well. You better know what you're doing as you depart the efficient frontier for the fringes. I'm no rocket scientist, but I'm guessing you take on a whole lot of unnecessary risk as you head for the lower 20s. Proceed with caution. Newbs, don't even bother (unless you're in my division!)

So while there will be plenty of examples of teams that beat the trend, I think that (as a generality) they're swimming into the current.

[J-Pav]

I can barely bring myself to look at the tour thread, but I did and have this to report from the upper echelons:

1. $7.66-[color=blue:9390435126]$8.03[/color:9390435126]
2. $6.03-[color=blue:9390435126]$5.86[/color:9390435126]
3. $5.23-[color=blue:9390435126]$5.50[/color:9390435126]
4. $4.02-[color=blue:9390435126]$3.62[/color:9390435126]
5. $2.65-[color=blue:9390435126]$2.82[/color:9390435126]
6. $2.05-[color=blue:9390435126]$2.31[/color:9390435126]
7. $1.55-[color=blue:9390435126]$0.90[/color:9390435126]
8. $1.13-[color=blue:9390435126]$0.78[/color:9390435126]
9. $0.95-[color=blue:9390435126]$0.61[/color:9390435126]
10. $0.62-[color=blue:9390435126]$0.55[/color:9390435126]
11. XXXX-[color=blue:9390435126]$0.50[/color:9390435126]

1. $8.61-[color=blue:9390435126]$10.80[/color:9390435126]
2. $7.22-[color=blue:9390435126]$7.71[/color:9390435126]
3. $6.59-[color=blue:9390435126]$6.50[/color:9390435126]
4. $5.51-[color=blue:9390435126]$5.50[/color:9390435126]
5. $4.24-[color=blue:9390435126]$4.55[/color:9390435126]
6. $3.74-[color=blue:9390435126]$4.10[/color:9390435126]
7. $3.10-[color=blue:9390435126]$2.97[/color:9390435126]
8. $2.14-[color=blue:9390435126]$2.16[/color:9390435126]
9. $1.69-[color=blue:9390435126]$1.44[/color:9390435126]
10. $1.10-[color=blue:9390435126]$0.96[/color:9390435126]
11. $0.86-[color=blue:9390435126]$0.60[/color:9390435126]
12. $0.73-[color=blue:9390435126]$0.54[/color:9390435126]
13. $0.67-[color=blue:9390435126]$0.54[/color:9390435126]
14. $0.61-[color=blue:9390435126]XXXX[/color:9390435126]

This is a small three team (all $80 mill league) sample from one of the Top Twelve finalists in the tour. $31.48 pitching/$48.37 hitting for a $79.85 total (i.e. no salary dumps in the FA pool). All 2s at eight of the nine middle infield positions, one 3 ([b:9390435126]2.1[/b:9390435126] average). Two teams won over 90 games, one team did not.

The tour finalists will have to come to their own conclusions, but for all you newbs out there trying to learn something in the threads, mail the check to your friend the Hoosier Daddy at...

[worrierking]

I studied the nine 2006 leagues I have completed so far to look at the same issues as J-Pav. Here are the results: (BTW, I would like to post this in an excel file or another chart, but I can't figure out the code). These are the nine teams with the highest number of regular season wins. All are 80 million leagues and all featured the DH.


Wins:

92
95
87
100
93
87
100
94
105

Average 94.77

Pitching Dollars

32.18
29.63
23.56
24.34
28.44
29.46
33.92
30.72
31.85

Average 29.34

Hitting Dollars

47.64
49.97
56.41
53.33
49.72
44.39
46.05
46.47
47.66

Average 49.07

CF Defense

2
2
4
2.5*
3
3
1
1
1

Average 1.9
* Team used two CFs, a 3 and a 2, with the 3 getting more innings. The 3 was Griffey and he was injured quite a bit. Beltran was a defensive sub and got some regular time too.

2b Defense

2
2
1
3
3
3
2
1
2

Average 2.1

Shortstop Defense

2
2
2
3.5*
4
2
2
2
2

Average 2.0
* Team changed from a four to a three mid season.

Runs Scored (rank)/Runs Allowed (rank)

844 (2)/756 (eight)
748 (5)/609 (1)
884 (2)/833 (9)
1080 (1)/838 (5)
839 (2)/797 (7)
868 (2)/773 (eight)
850 (2)/708 (3)
703 (3)/597 (3)
872 (4)/751 (4)

Stadium/Manager

US Cell/Worrierking
Safeco/odieworks
Coors/durantjerry
Ameriquest/scorehouse
SBC/bobs ballers
Ameriquest/scorehouse
US Cell/Worrierking
PNC/MtheB
US Cell/Worrierking

Some thoughts:

Obviously these teams vary a bit from J-Pavs experience. I have witnessed more teams win with less pitching and with poorer defense at the key positions. Also fewer pitching park and Minute Maid teams. Several of the teams made add/drops during the season so their dollar totals are less than normal, which probably depresses both numbers very slightly. I used the dollar totals at the end of the season.

Look at the ranks of offense compared to pitching/defense. All were above-average in run production, with five seconds, a first a third a fourth and a fifth. Runs allowed was much closer to average.

Nine seasons is not that much. It's a very small sample. If anybody wants to use these as part of a larger study I can post the league names (so there's no duplication) and also the links to the teams.