"Should Have Won" Games
by oaktownmario on Mar 25, 2008 12:24 PM PDT
Email
Print
So after last night’s Huston Street debacle I decided I was going to track my own simple stat which will simply count the games that the A’s “should have won.” I’ve been thinking about doing this for years because unlike Joe Morgan and others, I think April (and now March) games are just as important as September and October games. I guess it’s because they all affect your win-loss record, which in turn affects your playoff chances – but that’s just how I roll.
Anyway, how do you determine what games the A’s “should have won?” I guess I could go all stat geek and look at win expectancy graphs, but I want to do something more subjective and just decide for myself on an every game basis what game the A’s “should have won.” I know this is a bit Joe Morganesque, but what the heck. Because of this subjective nature however, I am inviting everyone else to come up with their own way of deciding what games the A’s “should have won.” Keep track of them and perhaps every month or 30 games we can share our “should have won” tracker and compare how we see things.
A few considerations I will take into account . . . A blown save will almost always translate into a “should have won game” unless the save opportunity is extremely difficult (Street coming into a one rune game with bases loaded and no outs, etc.). But yesterday’s BS is a clear “should have won” game in my opinion. Also, Emil Brown’s attempt to mimick Eric Byrnes alone would also create a “should have won” game. Similarly, taking an 11-0 lead at any time and blowing that game (as the 20 win team almost did), would be a “should have won” game.
I guess if you count “should have won” games, you should also count “should have lost” games to see if things “even out” so to speak, but I honestly don’t have enough time to do this so my game tracking will be admittedly one sided. But if anyone else has the time maybe they can do both.
Again, I am not trying to be objective and admittedly this process will be arbitrary, but I’d like to see if we are collectively on the same page or not. Perhaps at the end of the year we can vote on “should have won” games. Or perhaps we can keep a count on the DLD.
Oh, and just in case you’re wondering. The A’s “should have won” this morning.
“Should have won” games to date: 1
17 comments
|
0 recs |
Do you like this story?
Comments
Geren Lost it in the 6th
I was up following the game on GAMEDAY...don't ask me why...and I believe the game was lost in the sixth innning.
Blanton threw a bunch of pitches to Ortiz prior to Ramirez's double...and if i remeber correctly, he then walked Lowell...at that point his pitch count for the game must have been fairly high. The bigger issue is that his pitch count for the INNING was getting high (must have been above 20) and it was time to make a move.
Geren didn't make the move and, again if I remember correctly, it was Moss who then singled in the third run of the inning.
Get a fresh arm in there after that walk and before that single and there is a much better likelyhood the Sox don't get that third run in the sixth.
Hang this one on Geren; the scenario where I suggest he make that move is pretty standard baseball knowledge and standard managing especially early in the year when pitchers' arm strength and stamina are not in mid season form.
Well..
There is the fact the Manny Ramirez is the best pure hitter in all of baseball. I hear what your saying, but blaming Geren for this loss isn't right. Huston Street needed to shut the door, and he didn't.
I don't think this A's team cares, though. They're too young to care. I just hope they learned something from it... like seeing that the little things, Barton Mis-Scoop... Buck Non-Catch... etc...really do matter. They really do.
by Colorado Fan on Mar 25, 2008 1:18 PM PDT up reply actions
That's just a headline
to grad attention for discussion; like with most games you can go to a variety of points and argue that's what cost the game.
Deciding when to change a pitcher is one of the more important managerial responsibilities and this was Geren's chance to impact the game and he decided to leave blanton in.
Again, simply one of the things that makes this game beautiful; all the oppotunites for discussion and second guessing....but I still feel it was a fairly obvious time to get into the bullpen.
I'm not a fan of this concept at all
It seems like a way to nurse grudges which are minimally supported by reality.
What do you do when the reason that you "should have won" was because of a screwup by the other team? If you get a one-run lead because of a dropped fly by the other team in the top of the ninth, then blow that lead in the bottom half, is that a "should have won" game?
Why not just call Pythagorean W/L or third-order W/L the record a team "should" have?
Your 2008 Athletics: It's Nothing Personal.
Not attempting to create a "serious" stat
Paul,
I'm not attempting to create a serious stat, something objective, or something predictable. It's just a way of keeping track of what I think the A's win record should be at the end of the season. It is admittedly both arbitrary and subjective. As fans I think we are entitled to think about "what could have been." We do it all the time. And I disagree that it is a grudge as defined by "deep seated resentment" or "ill will."
To answer your query: yes, I would call that a "should have won" game b/c if a closer does his job, then it's a win.
I'm not a big fan of Pythagorean W/L b/c it does not account for what players should do, which is their job, and instead focuses on what already happened without regard to execution. Do you think a team should score a runner from third with no outs? I expect the A's to do so every time knowing that sometimes they will not. Perhaps it is irrational but a hitter's job is to bring that runner home in such a situation and failing to do so is a failure. Pythagorean just looks at actual runs scored and given up, not whether more runs should have been scored, or less given up.
by oaktownmario on Mar 25, 2008 1:39 PM PDT up reply actions
OK
I'm going to hazard a guess here and say that virtually every game will be a game a team "should have" won by this definition. I'd lay odds of at least 4 to 1 that your conclusion at the end of the year is going to be that the A's should have won more games than they did, because you're going to forget about (or not notice) the mistake pitches, botched plays and bad bullpen usages of the other team.
It's almost never the case that there was literally nothing a team could have done to win a game. I guess it's not one you "should have won" if the other team homers five times on fastballs out of the strike zone, or something.
You're entitled to think about whatever you want... and I'm entitled to think that it's a pointless, mean-spirited exercise. I don't understand what the purpose is. If you want to be rigorous, there are better ways of doing it, and if you just want to vent, well, there are better (or at least less effortful) ways of doing that, too.
Your 2008 Athletics: It's Nothing Personal.
Why so upset?
Some would argue blogging is pointless but we do it cuz we're fans. I still don't see how this exercise is "mean spirited." And I don't anticipate every pitch being analyzed to death over this. If a pitcher just doesn't have his stuff and gets rocked a la Zito on opening day two years back, that's not a game that should have been won b/c the A's never had a chance, even though Zito didn't do his job. Or maybe the starting pitcher (or whoever) does do his job but the other side plays great. Well, thats just a tough loss. Again, i think you are ignoring the fact that this is admittedly subjective and arbitrary. And maybe I will say at the end of the year that the A's should have won 162 games, but I'm thinking more like 152. . .
I guess we just have fundamentally different conceptions of what the phrase means
that one "should have won" a game.
As far as I'm concerned, the only excuses for claiming that you should have won but didn't are:
1. Your opponent got freakishly lucky, eg a tennis rally hitting the top of the net and creating an unhittable drop shot, or a banked-in 30-foot 3 pointer, or a swinging bunt single, or
2. You got openly hosed by the officials.
I don't think there's any performance-based justification for saying something "should" have happened. It's like the error rule-- why is it an error if you get to the ball but drop it, and not an error if you never get to the ball at all? Why is it a game you "should have won" just because you had a lead in the ninth inning, when the exact same sequence of events a few innings earlier would make it not so? Your performance wasn't good enough to win. Well, OK. That's why they play 9 innings and not 8.
Your 2008 Athletics: It's Nothing Personal.
I see what youre getting at.
To me, what you're saying is "games we lost" vs. "games where we were beat"
Even in sfgate's headlines today, "A's Let Red Sox Get Away With Game 1" .... "A's Can't Close Out the Sox" ....
There are certain things that happen in a game that are out of the variety ... like in chess, there is a counter-move for most other moves, based on what strategy you are using. But if you use the wrong strategy, or the wrong move, you open yourself to new threats, problems.
In the case of this first game, Emil Brown is the deciding factor - he said it himself, "I thought the throw was going to the plate. My mistake".... The only good thing I can see of this is that they're making their mistakes early and hopefully, learning from them.
I don't think pinning the loss on Street (using this subjective framework) is necessary - in part because the "regular" stats will tell you he lost it anyway, so there's some redundancy to avoid.
I can see Official Scorer's choice of "infield single" over "error" or vice versa, being an appropriate value in this equation.
I think if you were to do this all season, you'd have to provide support for why the A's "should have won" - but the catch is that you will begin looking for connecting threads that may or may not be there, in hopes of finding ... something.
But in essence, isn't that what all the hard stats do as well? Isn't that why we pay attention to these things? Why BA used to mean more than it did, or OBP means more now than it used to?
I'm sure plenty of A's fans would have liked to invoke such a stat to condemn Ricard Rincon or Jim Mecir in their respective final years with the team. Maybe if those fans had done something like this, they would have had more leg to stand on than just "ARRRGH I hate Rincon/Mecir!"
I think the only way to know is to just try it. Who knows, you could be on to something. The worst thing that could happen is PaulThomas would be right, but I bet over time you could hone this into something even the statheads could enjoy.
Bob Geren, on 8/2/07, on the success of Alan Embree as new interim closer: "What can I say,... he's been our Steady Tremendous Bullpen Man"
You said it better than me
Thanks popcorn.
by oaktownmario on Mar 25, 2008 3:09 PM PDT up reply actions
well, I'm interested in the idea!
As A's/Moneyball fans, in order to make sense of where the A's are today, we look back at what's been done, and hindsight being 20/20, you would think that past experience could tell us how to proceed into the future - obviously, that's not the case.
There are certain "givens" or constants in our equation that don't sit well with me personally (such as "small market team" as a cover for "team owner who wont spend more than ____") and I think that when we assume them to be givens, it sends us off on the wrong foot to begin with - and I like your idea just for the fact that it is TOTALLY different from the hard numbers and softer formulas that I just can't wrap my head around.
I dont know how we should proceed into the season trying to figure this out, but I can see it leading to more lively discussions - maybe a Post-Game thread?
How could we document this? Maybe in one FanPost that we continue to update per game? I dont know!
Bob Geren, on 8/2/07, on the success of Alan Embree as new interim closer: "What can I say,... he's been our Steady Tremendous Bullpen Man"
by popcornjames on Mar 25, 2008 3:52 PM PDT up reply actions
I know you're not looking at WinExp, but...
(link)
Stats don't tell the whole story, but when WE gets to 90.7%, it's hard to dispute.
"The hard... is what makes it great."
almost a blown save
won vs blown save lost stat. if you had only one stat you could look at all year on a deserted island, good as any.
owner of a lonely tarp
I don't understand your example...
If the A's are ahead, and the other team has the bases loaded with no outs, and then Street comes in and blows the save, why does that situation not qualify for a game we should have won? Sure, Street didn't put those runners on base, but someone on the A's did.
"I'm going to take a camera crew and march into Billy Beane's office and demand to know why instituting his newfangled cost-saving measures means that the run manufacturing plant had to get shut down." FJM
To be clear
What I was trying to say was that in the example with bases loaded, no outs, a one run lead and a Street blown save, the blame should not be placed on Street for the loss of the game. Maybe Street got a double play and one run still scored, thus causing a BS. The opponent then goes on to win later. The game was not lost due to Street's blown save even though he technically did not do his job by preventing any runs from scoring. But, to further answer your concern, the game (assuming it is a late inning situation) should have been won but wasn't due to a relief pitcher(s) loading the bases and/or giving up runs before Street came in. So the game would have been won "but for" crappy relief pitching before Street. I know this raises concerns about where to lay responsibility and when you decide a game should have been won, so that's why I said up front it is arbitrary and subjective. But maybe at the end of the season, certain trends will shed light on more objective analysis.
by oaktownmario on Mar 25, 2008 8:45 PM PDT up reply actions
Placing blame for a team's loss on one player
is an entirely different kettle of fish than trying to figure out whether the team writ large "should" have won a game. They're almost mutually contradictory questions.
We can measure Win Probability Added (although I'm not altogether certain how the stat deals with baserunning blunders a la Emil Brown's of last night) and note that Huston Street's awful outing last night cost the A's more than half a win in the standings. Not good, to be sure. But it tells me, at least, little about whether the team as a whole "ought" to have won the game.
Your 2008 Athletics: It's Nothing Personal.
WPA deals with Brown like so:
Two separate plays occurred: first, he doubled in Barton.
Situation before: runner on 1st, 1 out, 9+ inning, -2 differential
After: runner on 2nd, 1 out, 9+ inning, -1 differential
Then, he decided to run himself out.
New situation: No runners, 2 out, 9+ inning, -1 differential
You could skip the intermediary, and take into account just the net (-6.4%), which fangraphs seems to have done. Earlier today, it had both steps, but either way, both are "credited" to Brown, so it doesn't really matter.
"The hard... is what makes it great."
Comments For This Post Are Closed
Secondary Sidebar
User Tools
FanPosts
Community blog posts and discussion.
Certain photos copyright © 2012 by Associated Press or Getty Images. Any commercial use or distribution without the express written consent of Associated Press and Getty Images is strictly prohibited.
