Blog roadmap

An anonymous commentor has asked when I'll address IBL pitching. Please read the exchange between us, which touches a bit on IBL pitchers and how to assess them.

In response, I thought I should let you know what I'm planning to cover in the future, time permitting. Let me know if I'm missing anything of interest, or if you have any other comments about the agenda. Or if you'd like me to focus on one topic before another - these are in no particular order.

Batting

• Finish the batting production leaders charts: runs created per plate appearance, park-adjusted figures.


• Calculation of score rates per runner type and estimation of runs created based on them.

Baserunning

• Leaders in net runs created and lost due to base stealing.


• Looking at frequency of taking the extra base on hits.

Pitching

• Charts of leaders by various raw pitching stats.


• Thoughts about how to evaluate pitchers with so few starts and such unbalanced schedules.


• Actual assessments of pitcher value, including DIPS (defense-independent pitching stats).

Fielding

• What do we really know about it in the IBL?

General

• The splits: Breaking down team stats by field, opposing team, day of week, week of season, inning, etc.


• Compilation of IBL run expectancy charts by outs and baserunner situation.


• A look at reported attendance figures.

Can't promise how long it will take me to get to any of this... I do have other things to do with my life, believe it or not!

Download IBL data files while you can!

I wish the IBL long life and much success, but let's be realistic here. Given the recent updates to the IBL's website, it would probably be wise to save the game data while it's still available.

The game log files, which are hosted by Major League Baseball's Gameday system, are not on the IBL's site. They can be found at:

http://gd2.mlb.com/components/game/ind/year_2007/
(hat tip to weskelton)

Now, maybe the files aren't going anywhere anytime soon. Heck, maybe the league isn't going anywhere anytime soon. But it seems prudent to copy them now if you're thinking about analyzing the IBL stats.

If you're not familiar with the Gameday format, Mike Fast explains how to go about processing the data, with some help from Perl code from Joseph Adler's book, Baseball Hacks. Though the IBL doesn't have pitch-by-pitch data. (I've been writing my own code, since I've been using this project as an opportunity to learn to program in Python.)

Finally, if there's any substance to the announcement of some former IBL players and investors of their intention to form a new league to replace the IBL, I urge them not to forget about the things the IBL did right. In particular, make sure you track the stats. The IBL has a far better statistical record available on the Internet than any of the MLB-affiliated minor leagues. Absurd, but true. Baby, bathwater. Do it right.

Otherwise, we'll always have cricket.

IBL 2007 stolen base leaders

As long as we've been discussing stolen bases, let's glance at the 2007 leaders.

A total of 457 bases were stolen in the entire season. Of them, 314 were taken by the 20 leaders in this chart:



Now let's look at them again, this time emphasizing pure base stealing ability. The next chart is sorted in order of stolen bases per times on base; that is, SB / (H + BB + HBP - HR). It indicates how often a player stole a base given the number of opportunities he had to do so. (The cutoff point for the chart was 80 plate appearances.)



Mike Lyons of Bet Shemesh not only led the league with 32 steals, leaving Netanya's Josh Doane in the dust with 25, but he was in a class of his own in terms of basestealing frequency, stealing on average over 71% of his times on base. That's 46% more often than #2 John Toussas of Raanana, and over four times as high as the IBL league average of 16.5% (compare that with about 5% in the major leagues!). And Lyons was caught just 4 times, in 11% of his attempts.

I don't have any earthshattering conclusions here. Just the stats, ma'am.

More on Rodriguez and Rees

As long as I was discussing Eladio Rodriguez and Jason Rees, I should have pointed out that they were also apparently effective fielders. I say apparently because the only fielding stat I currently have available is errors, and those are known to be only a partial reflection of fielding skill. Rees was charged with two errors over the season in this error-prone league, while Rodriguez, a catcher, was charged with one error and two passed balls. Since catcher is the most challenging defensive position after pitcher, that may give Eladio an edge in his career; catchers aren't expected to be good hitters too.

Also noteworthy is that neither player stood out for stealing bases. Rees was successful enough, stealing 14 (and caught twice), putting him in a four-way tie for ninth place and placing him eleventh for his rate of bases stolen per times on base.
Rodriguez, however, stole just one base the entire season.

So, IBL fans, remember where you stashed those autographed game balls, caps, programs, tickets and Burgers Bar hamburger wrappers. Maybe they'll be worth something some day. Maybe.

What do the Yankees see in Rodriguez and Rees?

While the Red Sox were clobbering the Rockies the other day, IBL fans were treated to a smile when the Yankees announced the signing of IBL batting stars Jason Rees and Eladio Rodriguez, the first IBL position players to sign pro contracts and the first IBL alumni to sign with MLB farm systems.

Congratulations to Jason and Eladio, as well as to the league for giving them the platform from which to get noticed by the big leagues.

But don't expect to see Rees and Rodriguez in Yankees uniforms any time soon. They were signed to minor league contracts, and both have a long way to go before they're likely to make the majors.

Eladio has minor league experience already, having been signed by the Boston Red Sox in 1998. His (incomplete) record in the minors shows him having played in leagues at the A- and A+ levels, playing variously as catcher, outfielder and pitcher. most recently in 2004. Before the IBL, he played in the Dominican Republic Winter League, where he apparently only had seven at bats in as many games in the 2006-7 season. At 28 years old, typically the peak of a ballplayer's career, he would seem to be a long shot for a major league roster.

Update: Eladio's complete minor-league record is here.

Rees's baseball resume is even thinner. He's played college ball, and not even at the higher levels. And he's played in Australia. None of which is to say that he doesn't have what it takes to make it in the big leagues, but neither is it much evidence that he does. He is only 23, however, and his best years may yet be ahead.

So why Rees and Rodriguez? Most obviously, the two were the IBL's home run leaders. Rees led the league with 17, followed closely by Rodriguez at 16. But Rodriguez was injured for about a week of the season, and he actually hit home runs at a faster pace than Rees when he played: 6.4 at bats per home run, compared to 7.6 for Rees.

Beyond that, how did the two do in the IBL? Let's see how they ranked among the 50 batters with at least 80 plate appearances (that's about 2 per game).









As you can see, despite Rees's higher home run total, Rodriguez was a substantially better hitter over his 34 games than Rees over his 41. Rees also walked less often (9.7% of plate appearances vs. 13.6% for Rodriguez) and struck out more (15.3% of PAs vs. 12.7%). And there were several other batters with better overall stats than Rees.

Considering the short season and the small sample size (remember, about one-fifth the length of a major league season), it's hard to see why the Yankees would sign Rees just on the strength of his home runs rather than, say, Gregg Raymundo (12 HRs), Johnny Lopez (14 HRs) or Adalberto Paulino (11 HRs in just 92 PAs). Though of course I'm not privy to any of their personal plans, and perhaps none of them were available or the Yankees turned them down for other reasons.

On the face of it, it looks like the Yanks just signed the IBL's two home run leaders without thinking any further. If that's the case, this may turn out to be more a PR move than anything else in a city with America's largest Jewish population.

Still, it will be good to see how the two hold up in the minors. We'll have two more data points for assessing the IBL's league quality.

Ari Alexenberg, pitcher and iblemetrician

If you poke around Ari Alexenberg's blog, you'll find I'm not the first iblemetrician.

Ari, a 46-year-old pitcher for the Petach Tikva Pioneers, has also been a pioneer in analyzing IBL statistics. Way back in April he was already tabulating the vital stats of the IBL's players: heights, weights and ages, along with their favorite foods and movies.

On August 2, five weeks into the season, Ari analyzed the league's error rates, performance by nationality, and pitcher control levels.

After the season ended, Ari made an impassioned argument, backed up with stats, that the MVP pitcher award should have gone to Aaron Pribble, not (or along with) Juan Feliciano.

Read the rest of his blog. Other gems include aerial photos of the league's three fields and a consideration of the impact of the home run derby.

Welcome to bIBLemetrics!

With the inaugural season of the Israel Baseball League behind us, I've just launched bIBLemetrics, a blog for Israel Baseball League statistical analysis.

I was a big baseball fan as a kid, but lost interest when I finished high school nearly 20 years ago. This year, partly thanks to the IBL, I'm back with a vengeance. And I'm returning to one of my childhood dreams: to be the next Bill James. Instead of going up against the experienced statheads of Baseball Prospectus, though, I can start with the field to myself, right here with the IBL.

If a statistical analyst of the MLB is a sabermetrician, it seems appropriate that the IBL should have iblemetricians. So that's what you can call me.

I've already downloaded the IBL's box scores and game logs (see the Scoreboards section of their website), and I'm working on the software to extract the data from them. Some of the questions I hope to address once I'm set up:

• Park effects: Does Gezer Field inflate offense? If so, by how much? Do park effects change our assessment of who were the league's top players?
• In general, did the most valuable player awards go to the right players?
• What is the advantage to batting second (if there is one)? With two teams sharing each home field, we can compare games with the same venue but different "home" and "away" sides.
• By how much does Beit Shemesh (or any other team) increase a game's attendance?
• Any other questions on your mind that can be approached with baseball statistics?