How to check pitching numbers for fly balls/ground balls

I just saw that vape is the word of the year, so I'm trying to work that into my post. Wait, I just did! My son wants to know why he should wash his car, he KNOWS it's only going to get dirty again. My other son wants to know why he has to make his bed when he KNOWS he's going to mess it up again tonite.

I guess I'll just break out The Princess Bride quote...

Inconceivable!!!

The good news is, we both agree with Valen when it comes to the part about there being no wind in Strat-O. For the love of all that is holy and sacred in baseball, I agree. THERE IS NO WIND IN STRAT-O. I actually do understand this stuff.

What I am not getting is why G/F ratios are "irrelevant" in Strat-O. Sometimes it takes explaining things in a different way, so if someone else can lend a hand here, now is a good time to pipe in. And what the heck happened to OP Barigood??

J-Pav

"I guess I'll just break out The Princess Bride quote..."

I don't think I'm going out on the limb here, but that is most likely the first Princess Bride quote any SOM (or sports) board has ever seen. Is Puss in Boots next?

''

JT

Inconceivable!!!

The good news is, we both agree with Valen when it comes to the part about there being no wind in Strat-O. For the love of all that is holy and sacred in baseball, I agree. THERE IS NO WIND IN STRAT-O. I actually do understand this stuff.

What I am not getting is why G/F ratios are "irrelevant" in Strat-O.

Firstly, your baroque intensity in the middle of the day amazes me. You really have to tell me what you do for a living.

Secondly, actual GB/FB ratios are irrelevant to SOM because SOM doesn't represent them in its potential outcomes. It represents what it has determined to be the ratios of GB's to FB's according to each individual pitcher and batter as simulated by SOM. That does not in any way represent the actual GB/FB ratios of actual baseball.


P.s. Keep those cool terms coming. The only ones I hear from my daughter come from Korra or Adventure Time.

Firstly, you're confusing baroque intensity for befuddled amusement!

Secondly, if what you and Valen are suggesting is that real life G/F ratios do not correlate well with Strat-O G/F ratios, I can kind of half go along with that. The implication is, a card has to be filled out, so SOM just assigns a pct of fly balls, a pct of ground balls etc etc according to expected MLB averages across the board. However, I do believe ground ball pitchers have more ground ball results on their respective cards. If they didn't, you should see things like regression to the mean when it comes to the stats. But this is not the case. Known ground ball pitchers like Masterson, Cobb and Burnett virtually always have two GB outcomes for every FB outcome at the end of any given SOM Online season. Guys like Travis Wood and Tillman virtually always give up more FB than GB.

So far, this is what we have:

G/F is irrelevant because the x chances are all the same.
G/F is irrelevant because the stats are fixed.
G/F is irrelevant because there is no wind in Strat-O.

More Princess Bride:

Buttercup: We'll never survive!
Westley: Nonsense. You're only saying that because no one ever has.

So I'm going to need a little more.

Let's try: The experiment will not work because (fill in the blank).

If G/F is not predictive, then by definition I should not be able to predict who the G/F guys to have are. But I can.

Thirdly, bbfan, The Princess Bride is one of the great quotable movies of all time. Unless of course you did not get the memo on the changes to the TPS cover sheets!

* Note: all of the above is intended humor and NOT baroque intensity, except the part about there being no wind in Strat-O.

Ok, so I agree with JPav that strat will fill out a card with more gbs for GB guys, and visa versa for FB guys....just like K guys have more k's....cause strat is trying to provide a simulation that replicates real life performance from the season. We all agree on that much, correct?

I'm also interested to see what his experiment shows...mainly cause I'm not really following the analysis yet (sorry JPav!). BUT I'm confident if there's an edge to be found, he is the man to do it.

"My name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die!"

Westley: Give us the gate key.
Yellin: I have no gate key.
Inigo Montoya: Fezzik, tear his arms off.
Yellin: Oh, you mean this gate key.

Key,

To bring you up to speed as briefly as possible...

1. Barigood asked about a place to research G/F ratios.

2. I mentioned espn.go.com (for the real-life G/F ratios) and the Sim Misc tab (for the simulated G/F ratios) for the SOM Online teams.

3. Valen has argued that the simulated G/F ratios are flawed for various reasons.

4. I counter-argued that G/F ratios are predictive of SLG. Previous experimental teams of mine bear this out. Further, by polling the positions throughout any given league, you can quickly find players who will likely have a very low G/F ratio, and according to the sabremetricians, low G/F correlates with more run scoring. Sampling league averages also bears out that the leading offenses (sorted by runs scored) tend toward low G/F ratios.

5. To prove my point, I created a team specifically designed to maximize the G/F ratios both offensively and defensively, and hopefully compete for a ring, a merciful HAL willing, Peace Be Upon Him.

I'm slightly defensive that Valen believes no matter how the experiment goes, you can't discern anything from it. If I make a hypothesis and it proves correct, and you replicate the experiment and it proves correct again, how much further do you have to go to demonstrate you're not deluding yourself?

So I guess where we're at is trying to figure out why I can't get buy-in from Valen. For whatever reason, I can't understand his point of view on this.

Firstly, you're confusing baroque intensity for befuddled amusement!

* Note: all of the above is intended humor and NOT baroque intensity, except the part about there being no wind in Strat-O.

I would say Thou dost protest too much, but I'd be misquoting Hamlet's Mom. Even if you meant befuddled amusement (which I believe), what you wrote was still baroque intensity. Baroque means characterized by flamboyance or extravagance; so, your jumping from current hip words to your sons' queries to The Princess Bride to "THEIR IS NO WIND IN STRAT-O" was baroque. Your use of all-caps affirmed the intensity.

There's nothing wrong with baroque intensity once in awhile. Some of my best professors in graduate school and some of my most brilliant colleagues engage in it almost daily.

However, I do believe ground ball pitchers have more ground ball results on their respective cards. If they didn't, you should see things like regression to the mean when it comes to the stats. But this is not the case. Known ground ball pitchers like Masterson, Cobb and Burnett virtually always have two GB outcomes for every FB outcome at the end of any given SOM Online season. Guys like Travis Wood and Tillman virtually always give up more FB than GB.

You didn't include me in your summary. i did contribute you know. We are in agreement above, though.. I'm sure SOM works to most accurately represent the ground ball and fly ball tendencies of each pitcher and hitter. As long as we don't make the mistake and believe and/or assert SOM works or even attempts to represent actual FB and GB tendencies and the physical dynamics shaping them.

As to The Princess Bride, I was never much of a fan. I am, however, a huge fan of Office Space and its brilliant script. My personal pick for most quotable movie has to be either This is Spinal Tap--which had its own semiotic quandaries--or The Big Lebowski. I could watch either weekly if I had to do so.


P.s. You have me really intrigued about your job now. You have to at least give me a hint...

J-Pav, your analysis is interesting. However, if you check out T-shirt #3 at this link, you'll understand why I don't buy it.

http://guff.com/t-shirts-that-only-true ... eciate8/20

I also don't believe the Superbowl predicts stock market results. In other words (for those who don't want to follow the above link), correlation does not equal causation.

Now obviously if all doubles, triples, and homeruns are counted as "flyballs," then you want to see more "flyballs." But when you start counting popouts and flyouts (a,b,c,X) as "flyballs," it doesn't mean anything in SOM for reasons stated by Valen.

http://www.snopes.com/business/bank/superbowl.asp

Coyote,

I agree 100%. A better example would be using the SOM pitch count. The SOM pitch count does absolutely nothing. The game engine does not use pitch count to substitute for pitchers, and Moneyball-type batters do not extract "tiredness" from pitchers in the game. You could analyze the pitch counts all you want, but it will never tell you anything more than if a pitcher is more likely to be an S5, S6 or S7, if it even does that. It may actually be just a random number.

But regarding G/F ratios, since doubles, triples and home runs DO count as fly balls (and fly balls also advance runners, and hence add to run production), you absolutely do want hitters who have more fly balls. So we're in agreement, no? I don't follow the correlation - causation argument. Let's not even call them fly balls anymore, HAL forbid we have to discuss the swirling winds again. Let's call them data inputs that reflect one of the following outcomes: double, triple, home run, fly out A, B, and C, lineout, popout, and foul out. These inputs are not equal in strength, but when one of these happen, you mark an F on the F side of the G/F ledger in the Sim Misc tab. When a single, bunt or ground ball A, B, or C occurs, you tally a mark on the G side of the ledger. When a season is complete, review the G/F results. When evaluating a player's contribution, I think it's safe to say you want guys who add more F's to the ledger. This has nothing to do with correlation and causation. This is third grade math. Ask any kid who he wants on his fantasy team, Mike Trout or Juan Pierre. He doesn't need to understand how to compute RC-27 to know he doesn't want Juan Pierre.

Professor,

I didn't include you in the summary because I don't know if you agree with me, Valen, both or neither. SOM G/F ratios might not reflect actual MLB G/F ratios any more than the stats of 12 imaginary all-star teams reflect the stats of the actual MLB players. But there are probably enough clues in the data to give you a place to start looking.