Pin dropping, correlation, and a brain teaser

Jim Tracy was given a one-year extension today.

ok.. just kidding. I had to get your blood moving again.

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Brain exercise - put the following players in order based on offensive contribution (regardless of number of at bats - in other words, what they did with the AB's they did get), starting with the best player.

Cesar Izturis, Steve Pearce, Carlos Maldonado, Nyjer Morgan, and Humberto Cota.

Answer at the end.

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Am I off to the consulting world?

I received an anonymous email from someone that turned out to be a very strong sabermetric individual in the game wanting to know what formula I used to achieve my Pirates starting pitching projections back in December 2006.

Of course I refused. As the emails shot back and forth, he finally told me I had one of the highest correlation rates for a starting group (club) he had seen and he basically wanted to know if there was any science behind it.

I told him there was - it was called my science. I never broke down my weights to him but he asked me to project out two pitchers for the 2008 season which I did. My final answer to him was an xERA stat. He asked my if I worked with Dwight Gill and I said no - who is he?

Later in the emails I found out I had been using outdated weights on two of my steps and, when the updated weights were plugged in, my correlation shot from .65 to .76. Wow.

That blew me away. Is it possible I found something everyone has been searching decades for?

So I contacted Dwight Gill (ex-scout for the Indians and ex-statistician for the Mets) and he was kind enough to send me his updated xERA stats for the Pirates using his new formula which is used by a club or two and I have to admit I my results were more than locked-in.

To make a long story short, maybe there is consulting in my near-term resume?

Here are the 2007 club projections I made starting with the southpaws:

	IP	ERA	AB	R	ER	K/9	HR/9	H/9	BB/9
proj	585	4.77	2199	332	310	5.5	0.7	9.5	2.7
act	486	4.66	1922	274	252	5.2	1.0	10.7	2.6

And here are the right handers:

	IP	ERA	AB	R	ER	K/9	HR/9	H/9	BB/9
proj	400	4.99	1545	241	222	6.9	1.3	9.2	3.4
act	379	5.32	1490	236	224	6.9	1.0	10.7	3.8

Between the new xERA data and the updated weights I received, I then recompiled the five starting rotation slots below.

So I don't give away secrets here, for this exercise I simply took every MLB pitcher who threw 100 innings or more and broke them into five groups based on their 2007 xERA stats and then determined the mean for each group. The five means then became the baseline for the slot. I then plugged in each of the Pirates pitchers into the applicable slot so you can see how our guys did:

slot	#1	#2	#3	#4	#5
xERA	<3.21	3.95	4.30	4.78	5.59>
	Chacon	Snell		Maholm	Duke
		Gorzy		Morris	Armas
		Youman			JvB

Obviously Chacon's 19 innings as a starter is a bit biased so don't put a lot of stock in his ranking although his overall contract year 3.89 xERA was pretty impressive. Also, Youman, JvB, Armas, and Morris all had less than 100 innings as starters in Pittsburgh but Morris is probably going to fit comfortably in a #4 slot in 2008.

I have to toot my own horn - I doubt you'll find any fantasy service or baseball site on the Internet that was anywhere near as close to my overall 2007 club starting pitching projection. In fact, I doubt you'll find any MLB club who had as solid a rotation projection for the Pirates.

BTW, Dwight Gill's new xERA system is just plain good. The end result is a reliable pitching forecasting model. Add a few of your own tweaks and it's no wonder some clubs swear by it. Who needs k:bb or regression anymore?

You can visit Gill's site here: xera-baseball.com.

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Josh Phelps - the Pirates Adam Dunn? One front office person I spoke to thinks so. Despite a strikeout rate rivaling BJ Upton this year, Phelps rocked NL pitching.

True, 77 at bats doesn't make the player but you can't help wondering how he would play out over a 162 game schedule if he had a position to play.

Just keep him away from the flame throwers.

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Bobbleheads and fireworks are now giving way to field level experiences. Great idea.

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Brain teaser answer: Maldanado, Cota, Morgan, Pearce, Izturis.

I know you didn't expect to hear that.

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Word has it Sprint is filming a new 'can you hear the pin drop now' wireless commercial at 115 Federal Street. It's absolutely brutal up there right now.