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Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!dpb
From: dpb@philabs.UUCP (Paul Benjamin)
Newsgroups: net.sport.baseball
Subject: lineup dependency (again!)
Message-ID: <455@philabs.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 25-Sep-85 12:28:42 EDT
Article-I.D.: philabs.455
Posted: Wed Sep 25 12:28:42 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 27-Sep-85 07:42:51 EDT
Distribution: na
Organization: Philips Labs, Briarcliff Manor, NY
Lines: 106

Frank Adams writes:

>In article <453@philabs.UUCP> dpb@philabs.UUCP (Paul Benjamin) writes:
>>By the way, if you still doubt the existence of lineup dependency (which
>>you undoubtedly still do) then answer the following question:

>>    If there were no lineup interaction, then all managers would bat their
>>    best hitter first, then their second-best, etc. to give them the
>>    most opportunities to hit. [...]
>
>You are mixing apples and oranges here.  Of course lineup order in this
>sense matters: a walk followed by a home run is two runs, while a home
>run followed by a walk is one run.  I thought (up to this point) that
>the discussion was about whether players hit better depending on where
>they bat in the order.  

Not just where in the order, but who is batting ahead of them and
behind them. And as you point out later in this posting, batters
do bat better when men are on base, so I'm not really mixing apples
and oranges at all - lineup order can affect personal stats.

>I don't *think* anyone ever claimed that OBA and
>slugging pct give a complete description of a team's offensive abilities;
>just that they are the two best readily available statistics.  Which they
>are.

You contradict yourself! You state that "of course lineup order matters
in this sense", and then state that personal stats such as OBA and
slugging are the best. How about a stat such as "how many runs you
contribute to", measured by runs you score, drive in, or help advance
the runners, or even better, how much better you are at that than
others batting in similar positions? These stats are virtually impossible
to compute from box scores, because so much information is lost, such as
if anyone was in scoring position when a player made an out, or whether
an out advanced a runner. In this sense, I can agree with you that
OBA and slugging may be the best available, but I'm saying that this
means that the available stats are not very good (we need some new
categories).

>I am unconvinced by the Mattingly data.  There is just not enough there
>to be statistically significant.

Of course. But I didn't say that this proved conclusively that all
players' stats are highly order-dependent. I just showed the existence
of stats that support the belief in lineup dependency. Again, just
because these stats are not often kept is not my fault.

It's the old "garbage in, garbage out" phenomenon. If you only input
personal stats into your model-generation process, then you will
produce only models which emphasize individual performances, and
of course, you will be able to find no evidence of interdependencies.
To be able to find interdependency, you must consider stats which
can reflect it.

>On the other hand, batters definitely DO hit better with men on base.
>The book put out by the Elias Sports Bureau (it has their name in the
>title) has statistics on this for the entire major leagues last year.
>As I remember (the book is not here) the effect was about 20 points in
>terms of batting average.  So clearly there is an advantage to batting
>after a player who gets on base a lot.  Although the statistics for it
>are not available, it seems likely that this is enhanced when batting
>after good base stealers.

Great. I'd love to see what the effects are on slugging, RBI, R, etc.

>I am much more dubious about the claimed advantages of batting *before* a
>good hitter.  This very likely affects the number of walks a player gets
>(certainly the number of intentional walks, but probably others as well).
>I doubt it much affects the overall performance.

Again, one case I cite is the Pirates of the late 70's. Nobody wanted
to pitch to Stargell with men on base, so, as you say, people in front
of him were rarely walked. But this means that they saw more fastballs,
and less nibbling around the corner of the plate. That gave good
fastball hitters, like Madlock, more fat pitches. Note that the
difference need be quite small to still produce a good effect. Over,
say 500 atbats, say about 3000 pitches a season, a hitter in such a
nice spot might get only 30 more fat pitches to hit (1%). This could
lead to several HRs, doubles, more RBI, more R, and higher OBA and
slugging.

Again, I have no printed stats for the Madlock case. It is based on
my personal observation at the time, which was that Madlock was 
put into the 6 spot when he was acquired, and became a steady .280
hitter. He was quoted at the time as saying he didn't care, as long
as the team won. When he was moved to 3 (in front of Stargell) he
immediately became the .320+ hitter he had been before.

This is not the only case I know of. Repeatedly, in reading quotes
of managers, I have run across things like "...he is a fastball hitter,
so I put him in front of (big slugger), so he'll see more fastballs".
Now, I haven't clipped and saved all these quotes, because I never
saw myself getting into an argument about it, but my memory is actually
quite good, and I'm sure that, if we keep our eyes open, we'll see
more quotes like this.

Finally (sigh!) note that if hitting can be affected by the player
in front, then it means that it can be affected by the player behind, too.
After all, if player A bats in front of player B, and B is known to
hit much better when men are on base, then the pitcher can be expected
to try very hard to keep A off the bases. Thus, B's presence affects
A's stats. This is as opposed to the
situation in which a strong hitter bats in front of a weaker hitter.
The pitcher might not care whether the strong one is walked, because
he is not afraid of the weak hitter, particularly if there are two out, 
so he avoids giving the strong hitter anything too good to hit.