Dave Cameron has an extremely interesting article up on Fangraphs addressing the question of why the Chicago White Sox seem to consistently end up with a better record than their PECOTA, and apparently other projection systems project(not predict) them to. As you might expect, Cameron has found a potential explanation that has nothing to do with the predictive value of the projection system for performance on the field. The explanation? Good health! You see, over the years, the White Sox have remained remarkably free of injuries.
Injuries are something that projection systems assume we cannot predict and so they adjust to league averages, or something like that. They may make some projection regarding injury because they do project PA's and injuries are a factor in limiting PA's. In other words, if Player X misses significant time 3 years in a row and thus averages only about 400 PA's per year, chances are the projection system will project him to not a whole lot more than 400 PA's for the following year too.
Anyway, why do I as a Giants fan give 1 hoot about all this? Well, it just so happens that the Giants are one of the teams who have been consistently successful in limiting injuries. What else have the Giants done over the last several years? That's right. They have won 2 championships with teams who a lot of people believed were not good enough for that. In both of those champioship seasons, I think all of us have acknowledged at one point or another just how fortunate the Giants have been to keep all their key players, especially the pitchers healthy for the full season.
Now, it seems that it is quite possible that health for the Giants as well as the White Sox has been due to more than good fortune. I appears that some teams have developed a skill at keeping their players injury free while others are not so good at it. The ones who are not good at it end up paying a steep price in performance on the field.
This is something I think ogc might be particularly interested in, as it fits perfectly with his use of business principles in understanding how baseball teams are constructed and find success. Isn't it a goal of all good businesses to minimize days of work lost to work related injury?
At this point, we don't know if the Giants and White Sox' success in limiting injuries is due to the training staff, medical staff, how they teach pitching mechanics and other techniques or some combination of all of the above. After all, Pablo Sandoval is not exactly a poster child for good conditioning and Tim Lincecum has not been either over the last 2 years or so. What we do know from this information is that it is likely that it is not just do to chance. Maintaining a healthy team is likely one of the ways the Giants gain a competitive advantage over other MLB baseball clubs. Can we say it is an undervalued commodity and call it Moneyball?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Unless we can quantify health risks better, too detailed stat work is not warranted, per significant-figure rules.
ReplyDeleteOne way to gain a competitive advantage is to have better access to medical information/knowledge.
When I posted twice about the signficant figure rule for multiplication of factors contributing to the bottom-line performance on the baseball field in the last few months here, I thought I was way out in the left field. Maybe I was wrong to feel that. I am glad I am not the only one to be aware of this.
Let's call it Medicineball. : )
ReplyDeleteJust a guess, but I bet Noah Lowry does not agree that the Giants have a competitive advantage when it comes to the med staff...
ReplyDeleteI am not an orthopedic surgeon nor a neurologist and I do not know the details of Noah Lowry's medical condition. I will say that I am somewhat skeptical of both his original diagnosis of Compartment Syndrome that he got from the Giants medical staff and the later diagnosis of Thoracic Outlet Syndrome which I think came from a second opinion.
DeleteEven the best doctors don't always get it right.
2011? Every regular position player but out-of-shape Huff was on the DL, Sandoval twice: Sanchez and Posey for the season after their injuries, but also Tejada, Schierholtz, Torres, and Beltran; and also Zito, Wilson, and Romo. The newspapers were reporting each health disaster with the gallows amusement that comes from incredulity. The Giants have by and large kept their pitchers healthy, and had at least adequate replacements for those who weren't; and this, in 2011, is why they were able to outperform their Pythagorean expectations.
ReplyDeleteI believe that had it not been for injuries, mainly the big one to Buster Posey, there is a reasonable chance the Giants would be sitting on a threepeat right now.
DeleteBochy's career long excellence at winning 1-run games is actually a large part of beating Pythagorean expectations.
DeleteI thought about the health aspect before, but given all the issues with health that the Giants had from 2000-2008, roughly, I have to chalk this up more to balancing of random luck than any particular health advantage, at the moment. But if they can continue to prove to be more healthy than other teams, say, to 2020, then I would be inclined to agree.
ReplyDeleteAlso, it would help to know what the percentage is, roughly, of pitchers being non-healthy/non-productive. We have had a number of pitchers going down each season, some permanent, some not. 2012: Wilson, Lincecum. 2011: Zito, Sanchez, and I think Runzler. 2010: Wellemeyer, Medders. 2009: Johnson, Hinshaw, I think year Martinez hit in head after doing well. 2008: Zito, Correia, Hennessey, Lowry, Wilson. 2007: Ortiz, Benitez, Kline. 2006: Lowry, Morris, Accardo, Munter, Worrell, Walker. 2005: Schmidt, Rueter, Brower, Williams. And, of course, AFW.
Of course, health is very important any year you win the championship, particularly in terms of players significant to your team, as 2011 proved vs. 2010 and 2012. Whether that's a statistically showable trait is another thing.
Just looked over the article (I guess I should have done that first...), and I see that I focused more on pitching health, not overall health and the Giants were actually 6th among MLB teams from that chart on there on days lost to DL. However, I would note here that we probably could add 50-100 games easily if we count just the games lost due to Durham's hammy injury that the Giants seemed to baby through instead of DLing him, like half the time. That could push the Giants from 6th to 9th, pretty easily, from close to being a Top 5 to close to middle of the pack (11-20).
DeleteStill, part of that high ranking is due to pitching DL reduction, despite all the names I noted (of course, part of my methodology related to poor performance compared to expectations, but still) the Giants look like they were 5th overall in pitching days lost to DL, and they were just eked out by Tampa Bay and LA Angels. And this covers 2002-2011, though I'm not sure how badly Wilson's data hurt the Giants ranking in 2012. Alternatively, I would think that Nen's missing two seasons probably was a large contributor to the pitching days, so one could argue that they likely were Top 3 in DL days for pitching.
Oddly, the Giants were middle of the pack in times to DL, which means that their Days per DL has been on the low side relative to other teams, meaning that their injuries have generally been lower on the scale of severity than other teams. That could suggest that the Giants could be shutting down players at an earlier point than other teams, allowing their players to not go through a long stint, whereas other teams would end up pushing their players too far and lose them for a longer period than if they had been conservative and shut him down earlier. No way to prove this though, that I can think of.
Ultimately, while I will grant that health has been a very important part of the Giants success in recent seasons, the Giants are not so much better, like the White Sox, where I would say that they were definitely a better taken care of team, health-wise. But signs - like low number of days, low days per DL - definitely point to that as a factor that we can't ignore either.
And unless it is something repeatable that a team could say "yes, I'm going to take this path", I can't include that into my business plan, because otherwise all I could say in my post is "keep the team healthy and they will win more games." I would feel the need to be able to explain how one would accomplish that before including it into my plan.
But I do appreciate the shoutout, DrB, and the passing of your idea, I just don't know how to incorporate it into my plan. (I'm open to suggestions! :^)
I do think it's possible it has nothing to do with the training staff and more coaching techniques. For instance, I recently read that one of the things Tidrow emphasizes with young Giants pitchers in the minor leagues is mechanics and making sure they have all their momentum heading directly to home plate instead of pulling in different directions. Is it possible that when everything his going in the right direction, that also reduces stress on shoulders and elbows?
DeleteThat's roughly the theory the old vet pitcher who taught Leo Mazzone had: if you throw the right way, using the right exercises, you improve their health, which to me correlates with reducing stress on the areas that is affected by pitching, including the shoulders and elbows.
DeleteSo that makes a lot of sense to me what you say, DrB. And that I could make a part of my plan, thanks again!