August 17! Mark Your Calendars
by Corey
This will be the first of several reminders I'll be giving about an upcoming Football Outsiders book signing here in Cleveland.
WHAT: Aaron Schatz, creator of Football Outsiders and lead author of the annual publication Pro Football Prospectus, will be talking plenty of Browns football, discussing fantasy football, talking some more Browns football, holding Q&A, and signing autographs.
WHEN: Thursday, August 17 at 7:00 PM.
WHERE: Barnes & Noble at Eton Collection on Chagrin Blvd. This is only about 1 minute from an I-271 exit, on the east side of town. Click here for a map.
If you're a veteran reader of this blog, you know that the Football Outsiders' innovative statistics are at the forefront of football research and analysis, and a huge part of the Browns coverage Alex and I put together. Over the last year we have pestered Aaron about including Cleveland on his 2006 book signing tour. His publisher felt that Cleveland was too small a market, but he's coming anyway, in large part because of our entreaties.
I promise you--even if you are not a fan of statistical analysis in football--that you will find what Aaron has to say interesting. This will also be a great chance for you to meet some fellow, like-minded Browns fans, including my brother and me. We hope to see you there!
WHAT: Aaron Schatz, creator of Football Outsiders and lead author of the annual publication Pro Football Prospectus, will be talking plenty of Browns football, discussing fantasy football, talking some more Browns football, holding Q&A, and signing autographs.
WHEN: Thursday, August 17 at 7:00 PM.
WHERE: Barnes & Noble at Eton Collection on Chagrin Blvd. This is only about 1 minute from an I-271 exit, on the east side of town. Click here for a map.
If you're a veteran reader of this blog, you know that the Football Outsiders' innovative statistics are at the forefront of football research and analysis, and a huge part of the Browns coverage Alex and I put together. Over the last year we have pestered Aaron about including Cleveland on his 2006 book signing tour. His publisher felt that Cleveland was too small a market, but he's coming anyway, in large part because of our entreaties.
I promise you--even if you are not a fan of statistical analysis in football--that you will find what Aaron has to say interesting. This will also be a great chance for you to meet some fellow, like-minded Browns fans, including my brother and me. We hope to see you there!
3 Comments:
http://www.armchairgm.com/mwiki/index.php?title=The_Statistical_Answer_-_Should_Ortiz_Have_Been_Walked?
Since it involves the Indians game from Monday night, I think it's deserving of space on your blog. Mostly I'm just interested to know if this guy used the correct statistics in the correct way.
For the record, I feel the Indians should have intentionally walked both Ortiz and Manny in the 9th inning of Monday's game.
I believe research has continually shown that it never makes sense to intentionally walk any batter, no matter how good he is--unless the run he represents doesn't matter. For example, if the game had been tied and Ortiz came to bat with two runners on, it would have been okay to intentionally walk him since, who cares if he goes on to score? However, in Monday's game, Ortiz represented the winning run and thus the smart thing was to try to keep him from getting on base.
Even the guys with the highest on-base percentages make outs about 55% of the time. Ortiz makes an out 61% of the time. To go from a 39% chance of letting the winning run on base to a 100% chance is an enormous price to pay.
Let's pretend that the Indians had taken your advice. They walk Ortiz and Manny, and now the bases are loaded, there is still only one out, and the Indians lead 8-7. Historically, the chances of escaping a bases-loaded, 1 out jam without letting any runs score are much lower than 61%, which is the chance of getting David Ortiz out on any given at-bat. Even the chances of escaping that type of jam without letting two runs score (since we could have allowed one and it would have still been tied) are lower than 61%.
Manny Ramirez makes an out about 57% of the time. We can estimate the chances of getting both Ortiz and Manny out on consecutive at-bats as .61 * .57, which comes to about .35, or 35%, which is still higher than the chance of escaping a bases-loaded, 1-out jam with fewer than two runs scoring.
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