Getting The Win
Thursday, September 02, 2010Imagine this scenario in the Major Leagues: Starting pitcher A pitches three scoreless innings while his team supports him with 4 runs. So, at the end of the third inning, the score is 4-0. Pitcher A then feels soreness in his arm and is taken out after the third inning. He’s replaced with Pitcher B, who pitches 1 inning and allows 2 runs. Pitcher C then comes in and pitches 4 shutout innings and is followed by Pitcher D who closes out the ninth inning and the game ends 4-0. Pitcher D would get the save in this scenario, but who gets the win? Pitcher A, B or C?
The answer is... well, it depends! Many people think that the winning pitcher is automatically decided by who pitched when the team who last took the lead. However, the stat is officially decided by the scorekeeper of the game. This brings in Rule 10.17 of the MLB Official Rule Book, which governs how winning and losing pitchers are decided. The rule is a whopping 706 words long and describes how the scorekeeper determines who gets the win. 10.17(b) describes who should get the win in the scenario above. If a starting pitcher leaves a game before pitching 5 innings and his team does not relinquish the lead, then the scorekeeper is instructed to give the win to the relief pitcher who was the “most effective”. So the answer for the above scenario is that Pitcher C should get the win. Pitcher A was the starting pitcher, but did not last 5 innings. Pitcher B was not very effective, allowing 2 runs in 1 inning. Pitcher C was very effective and therefore gets the win.
Why add such a twist to a rule that could be simple? I’m not sure the exact reason, but I could think of two possible scenarios. The first would be to keep teams from gaming the stat. If you wanted a pitcher to amass a lot of wins, a manager could have him pitch until the team took the lead and then bring in a relief pitcher and let the starting pitcher 1 or 2 days later. Although not probable, it is possible. Another possible explanation is that in the early 20th century, it was routine for a pitcher to pitch late into a game or pitch the entire game. Coming out early was considered embarrassing. So, why reward a pitcher who cannot finish out even half of a game with a win?
This also brings up another point. The average number of innings pitched by starting pitchers has been on the decline. I doubt it will ever dip lower than 5, but it is not out of the question for a starting pitcher to pitch 4 innings and be replaced. This scenario is even more likely in the playoffs when games are closer and managers keep pitchers on a short leash. This rule gets invoked a couple times each year - it will be interesting to see if the league decides to keep the definition of the statistic the same or not.
10.8.23 Release
Tuesday, August 24, 2010We are happy to announce our latest release, 10.8.23. The big feature in this release is a New Team Wizard. Now, when you want to create a new team, click the New Team Wizard button to save a bunch of time. The wizard walks you step-by-step through the process of creating a new team, including setting up players, coaches, games, opponents, fields and game types. This will save time in creating a team and help getting a new team started quickly!
10.7.27 Release
Wednesday, July 28, 2010We are excited to announce our 10.7.27 update. This update has several exciting new features:
- Dashboard on Team Details Page
- Export to CSV
Team Dashboards
Three new team dashboards have been added to the Team Details page. To view the team details page, click
the "My Team" link in Stat Monster. The three dashboards show quick information on your team and provide
quick links to access the data. Below is a screenshot of a dashboard:
Export to CSV
This feature allows data on all of the "list screens" to be exported to a spreadsheet program, like Microsoft Excel. A small icon has been added to each list page. Click on the CSV icon, and you will be prompted or save or open the file in your spreadsheet application. Once you open it in your spreadsheet application, you can save or modify the data how you like!
10.6.13 Release
Monday, June 14, 2010We've released update 10.6.13. The big update in this release is sortable stats. Now on the Team Stats screen you can sort by any stat. To sort by a stat, simply click on the stat name in the header column. Click once to sort the value ascending, and click it again to sort the stat descending.
10.4.10 Release
Sunday, April 11, 2010We've just released version 10.4.10. The big feature in this release is reports!
New Reports Menu Item
We've introduced reports to Stat Monster. Reports will allow you to organize your team's information in a simple, straight-forward way that can be easily printed. All of the extraneous formatting seen on standard pages is removed and just the information is displayed
To access the reports on Stat Monster, pull down the Reports Menu and choose the report you would like to see! In addition to the reports with the release, we'll be gradually adding more and more reports to run as time goes on. If there is a report that you want to see, let us know!
Player and Coach List Reports
The player and coach reports give a list of every player or coach on the team. This can be used as a reference or contact sheet for the team.
Team Batting, Pitching and Fields Stat Reports
The team stats reports give the exact same information seen in the team stats page, but in report form. Right now, all team stats are returned, but stay tuned for additional filters similar to what is seen on the team stats page.
In Addition to the reports, we've also added the ability to change passwords and several back-end updates.
On-base Percentage Anomaly
Saturday, March 27, 2010The calculation for On-base Percentage (OBP), the stat with a misleading name, leaves a small chance for a very odd stat line. There is a very slim chance that a batter can have a lower OBP than batting average (AVG). How does this happen? Well, lets take a look at the calculations for OBP and AVG:
AVG: H / AB
OBP: (H + HBP + BB) / (AB + BB + HBP + SF)
OBP adds BB, HPB and BB back into the formula, so getting walked or hit by a pitch raises a batter's on-base percentage since the two stats are on both sides of the division. However, Sacrifice Flies (SF) are also added to the calculation, but only in the denominator. So, every sacrifice fly actually lowers a player's OBP. A player with virtually no BB or HBP and several sacrifice flies will actually have a lower OBP than their batting average.
As impossible as this sounds to achieve, it has actually happened in the Major Leagues. Take a look at Phil Niekro's 1982 batting stat line. In 91 plate appearances, "Knucksie" had 17 hits, 1 sacrifice fly and was not walked or hit by a pitch. This gave him 87 at bats. Let's calculate his AVG and OBP:
AVG = 17 / 87 = .195
OBP = (17 + 0 + 0) / (87 + 0 + 0 + 1) = 17/88 = .193
Of course this anomaly will likely only happen to pitchers in the Major Leagues, but it still makes for an interesting stat line!
10.3.5 Release
Saturday, March 06, 2010We've released update 10.3.5 with several updates.
Team Stats Page
Several additions have been made to the Team Stats page. A filter was added to the page to allow filtering stats by player, game, date, location, opponent and game type. This will allow you to dig deep into stats and determine player and team performance is specific scenarios. Here's a screenshot of the stat filter:
To use the filter, select which values you would like to filter on. If you don't want to use a specific filter, just set it to "
A total row was also added to the team stats page. The total row will give you a quick view of the team's total in stats, not just individual player performance.
A couple other minor updates were made:
- Added Site Map
- Updated security so only team owner can access team data.
- New users are now sent email on signup.
- Added drop down for Win/Loss/Save selection on the game stats entry page
Calculating Times On-Base and On-Base Percentage
Tuesday, February 23, 2010On-base percentage (OBP) and On-base percentage plus slugging (OPS) are two statistics commonly used to track for hitter performance. OBP indicates how often a player gets on base and OPS shows the true value of a batter by combining on-base ability with a power of the slugging percentages. Both stats are based on the times on-base (OB) stat.
These stats should be easy to calculate, right? Times on-base is the total number of times a player reaches base and OBP is the percentage of those times divided by plate appearances?
Not quite. As with many things in baseball, the answer isn’t quite that easy. But once understood, these stats become even more powerful and meaningful. The OB stat doesn’t count every time a batter safely reaches base. It only counts times where the batter "productively" reaches base – hits (H), walks (BB) and hit-by-pitches (HBP). Not counted are fielder’s choice (FC), times reached on error (ROE) and dropped third strikes. So, the batter only gets credit for a time on base if they reach safely on their own accord. If the batter causes another runner to be tagged or forced out (FC) or they reach on error of a fielder (ROE), they don’t get credit. FC especially makes sense here – why award the batter’s statistics if the end result of their action is an out for the team without moving a runner forward? ROE implies that the fielder, in normal circumstances, would have recorded an out without the error, so it is also logical that this does not count for times on base as well.
Since only H, HBP and BB are counted towards the OB stat, the On-base percentage is also a little more difficult to calculate than simply dividing OB/PA. The formula looks like this:
(H + HBP + BB) / (AB + BB + HBP + SF)
In the divisor, at bats (AB) will already take care of hits, so only BB and HBP need added back in. Also note that sacrifice flies (SF) are also added in. To be more specific, note that in modern baseball stats, Major League Baseball differentiates between sacrifice flies and sacrifice bunts (SAC). Sacrifice bunts are seen as a strategic move, therefore the batter's stats are not punished by them. However, sacrifice flies are not considered strategic, and are counted against the batter.
For reference, the OBP statistic is defined as item 12.21(f) in the MLB rule book :
On-base percentage, divide the sum of hits, bases on balls and times hit by pitch by the sum of at-bats, bases on balls, times hit by pitch and sacrifice flies.