Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics

STATS

Its never as easy I think its going to be.

The monthly captain’s meeting was last night. I had asked for 10 minutes on the agenda to speak to stats. I didn’t really need the full 10 minutes, but I thought it would give me a buffer. I tend to run on a bit... So here is an excerpt from the meeting:

Jamie McClean: Next on the agenda – Stats. Doug?

Doug Dwyer: Thanks Jamie. This is going to be an easy one guys. I know a lot of people were concerned that I was going to try and ‘revamp’ everything; but my proposal is that we keep everything the same as in previous years.

Ed Vonda: What about the 3rd out issue if the batter is safe and someone else makes the out?

Doug Dwyer: It’s up to you guys, but it seems to work how we have it. Sometimes you get burned, but it averages out.

Ed Vonda: I’m good with that.

Frank Laird: What about counting team strikeouts?

Doug Dwyer: Yeah, I thought about that, but that would be asking the scorers to change how they record things and I think we’re just asking for trouble with consistency. Plus, someone would think that I’m keeping track of how many times certain individuals were struck out and I’m not really interested in that.

Frank Laird: Ok, sounds fair.

Kevin Boston: What about Instant replay?

Doug Dwyer: What about it?

Kevin Boston: Are we going to use it or what?

Doug Dwyer: Well, I don’t know. It doesn’t really fall under the heading of statistics.

Kevin Boston: If we don’t have instant replay my statistics will be negatively impacted again this year, so I think it should be tabled here.

Steve Ross: I’d like to put forward a motion that we never talk about instant replay again.

Motion passes: 18 for; 1 against.

Jamie McClean: Alright, so if everyone is done, can we agree to pass the statistics as being “the same as last year?”

Jeff Dancey: I have a question.

Doug Dwyer: Yes

Jeff Dancey: What about stolen bases.

Doug Dwyer: Um. What about stolen bases?

Jeff Dancey: I think we should track them this year. Also maybe we could have a special award for the league stolen base king.

Doug Dwyer: But our rules don’t allow for stolen bases.

Jeff Dancey: That doesn’t mean we can’t track them though does it? Is there a rule against TRACKING stolen bases? 

Doug Dwyer: Of course not. Why would there be a rule for tracking something we don’t do?

Jeff Dancey: Your mincing words Dwyer, I will not be made a mockery of. Mr. President, will you please instruct the Grisslie co-captain to answer the question with a simple yes or no?

Jamie McClean: (sigh). Doug, would you please answer yes or no to Jeff’s question?

Doug Dwyer: I answered him!

Jamie McClean: I know. But can we please just get through this?

Doug Dwyer: Sure.

Jeff Dancey: Thank Mr. President. Mr Dwyer, I ask you again and please remember that this is on the record: Is there a rule against TRACKING stolen bases?

Doug Dwyer: No.

Jeff Dancey: I’m sorry, I couldn’t quite hear you, would you mind speaking up a bit?

Doug Dwyer: NO!

Jeff Dancey: A-HA. You were deliberately trying to suppress tracking a statistic for which there is no rule against keeping! I believe your battle is lost. Good Day!!!

Doug Dwyer: Jeff, we don’t have stolen bases in our league!

Jeff Dancey: I SAID, GOOD DAY, SIR!!!

Steve Ross: (sigh). Okay, so we’ll track stolen bases this year. Jeff did you want to put forward a motion that we change our rules to allow for stolen bases?

Jeff Dancey: No.

Steve Ross: Um. Jeff. I just want to be really clear here. We are NOT allowing stolen bases.

Jeff Dancey: Perfect

Steve Ross: But you have emphatically argued to track stolen bases.

Jeff Dancey: Also correct. And probably stolen base attempts too, so that we can see stolen base percentages.

Steve Ross: I don’t want to overstate the obvious, but you realize that everyone will be tied with 0 stolen bases, right?  Is that really reflecting the honor we have in the league?  What's the truth behind the whole stolen base thing?

Jeff Dancey: It’s not about the stolen base Steve, it’s about all of you acknowledging my speed.   My wheels, while grotesque and incomprehensible to many of you, wins games. You don't want the truth because deep down in places you don't talk about at parties, you want the stolen base, you need the stolen base.  You use words like honor, code, loyalty. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent reading pitchers and breaking for second base.  You use them as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very stolen base that I have provided, and then questions the manner in which I provide it. I would rather you just said thank you, and went on your way.

Steve Ross:  Honest to God Jeff, can you just answer the question?

Jeff Dancey:  You want answers?

Steve Ross:  Well, I think we're all entitled, so yeah; just the truth.

Jeff Dancey:  The Truth?  YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!

ALL:   (sigh)

Rob Farah:   Best meeting EVER!

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And there is just a small example of what our meetings are like. They are open meetings by the way, so feel free to drop by on the last Wednesday of any month and be entertained!

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Ahhhh, stats.

Stats are interesting to me because I'm a baseball junkie.  In 'real' baseball, you can tell just about everything about a game if you can read a box score or score card.  In our league?  Not so much.  Don't get me wrong, that's not a complaint at all, just a reality. We're there for the fun of the game and all that goes with it; not for the stats. 

So before anyone gets excited about big changes to the way we do stats, that's not going to happen.  Our scoring is done either 'on the fly' by players and captains or by wonderfully participatory volunteers.  We / they do our best, but the objective remains to have fun playing the game and not around registering singles and doubles (and stolen bases). 

As a league, all of our stats are from the game sheet (which is actually a hockey term used in place of scorecard).   In the past, we have rolled up the number of times a person has reached base safely.  This includes walks, hits and errors.  We take this total and divide it by the total number of plate appearance and come up with an On Base Average.  Example, after three games, you have been up to bat (plate appearance) 13 times and have reached base safely on 8 occasions.  Your On Base Average (OB) would be 8 divided by 13, or .615.  After a few weeks of the season have gone by, we publish the league's top 25 hitters along with each individual team (and players) averages. 

My personal challenge with the stats and particularly the top 25 is that we highlight the same people.  In fairness, I'll say, "tend" to highlight the same people.  And good for them, its well deserved.  I don't want to necessarily turn the spot light off of these people, but I'd like to call attention to some other folks as well. 

Let me stress, everything that you are accustomed to with stats will remain exactly the same.  What I'm looking for are ways to complement that data. 

I have been kicking this around with a few people and have come up with a few ideas. 

First off, the OBA is the only stat we keep.  We don't keep base running, pitching, fielding or specific hitting statistics. Therefore we're kind of limited in how to changed the presentation without changing how we score and we're not going down that road. 

Here are a couple of things I'm planning to try out

1.  A who's hot and who's not list.  This would look at a specific period of time, who had the "hottest July", or maybe two week increments.  I would expect that it would be largely the same names as that top 25, but we may have some new ones come in and out.  Probably worth a try. 

2.  A year over year compare:  I think this has the best opportunity to achieve what I'm looking for.  It would compare your OBA from last year to this and we'd identify people who have made the largest improvements.  For example, I hit .660 last year.  If I got off to a .705 start (I've probably just cursed myself to a slow start), I would be listed as +.045.  The best hitters in the league don't have a lot of room to go up, where as we had several people last year who improved their OBA by over .100 from the previous year.  Its sort of a variation on who's not and who's not. 

3. 5 hit games.  I think I'll report those in the T.O.T. Weakly Supplement every weekend.

If you have ideas around what else we could do, please let me know.  The only suggestion that I would say is "off the table" is any kind of sorting by rating.  Otherwise, I'm open to any ideas.

Thanks.

Next BLOG on Sunday and then the season!!!!  Giddy-up!