Comments on Sons of Steve Garvey: Graphs Gone Wild

EK, I love it. Great work--you've sparked a lot o...

2007-11-20T09:34:27.415-08:00

EK, I love it. Great work--you've sparked a lot of thought about business frameworks can be overlaid onto baseball statistics...next, Porter's five forces???

I thought this was great fun. Not perfect--is any ...

2007-11-19T20:26:26.201-08:00

I thought this was great fun. Not perfect--is any baseball metric?--but totally original and quite provocative.

Good job.

I would suggest using Win Shares instead of OPS an...

2007-11-19T17:13:56.539-08:00

I would suggest using Win Shares instead of OPS and ERA, since they account for defense, as well as for the fact that some players play more games than others and are thus more valuable.

http://www.hardballtimes.com/thtstats/main/?view=winshares

Good point S-Monk and Orel...maybe I should state ...

2007-11-19T14:34:51.450-08:00

Good point S-Monk and Orel...maybe I should state some caveats regarding this analysis to make sure it's not over-interpreted:

1) Scale was determined by simply taking the highest and lowest value of qualifying players for each metric and using them to define the end values. This means that the origin is located not based on the median or average OPS/ERA/Salary of the group of players (as would be more mathematically sound), but rather on the approximate average of only the extreme high and low values. The primary goal was to fit it all on one page and look pretty. This also means I didn't try to equate a particular ERA with a particular OPS.

2) Where the dots/circles are plotted is a communication of raw data based on the players' ERA/OPS and salary, nothing more. It's oblivious to guys playing hurt, poor run support, stadium configuration, a great outfield arm, the fact that a guy only has to pitch to left-handed hitters, or any other factors that ERA/OPS do not consider.

3) The four quadrants were assigned based on what the salary/performance combo directionally means (i.e., a high-salary & low-performance directionally means a bust). But because the scale and origin were imperfectly determined as described in 1) and the OPS/ERA stats have the limitations described in 2), a guy falling into the "Busts" or "Stars" quadrant doesn't necessarily mean he is that.

Sorry, but you guys have to be kidding me. You ca...

2007-11-19T12:27:14.540-08:00

Sorry, but you guys have to be kidding me. You can't call a 3.60 ERA average at the same time as you call a .790 OPS average. 3.6 was about an average ERA in the American League in 1988.

I wouldn't call Lowe a bust - a league average pitcher (4.5 ERA in the new park factor 100 Dodger Stadium) with the run support he got would have a W-L of like 15-49 after 3 years in LA. He's about the only mistake on there, though.

Alas, the data isn't aware of who's playing injure...

2007-11-19T08:02:03.340-08:00

Alas, the data isn't aware of who's playing injured nor how the guy did last year. So Furcal's .688 OPS in '07 coupled with a huge salary (over $13m) puts him way in bust territory.

One look at that graph and I thought, Hey cool, EK...

2007-11-19T07:38:30.238-08:00

One look at that graph and I thought, Hey cool, EK posted today. Always enjoy some hot graph-on-graph action to start my week. Excellent job!

Why do you suppose Furcal has ascended into "Bust" territory? Of course he was playing injured last season, but he had a solid 2006.