Baseball Prospectus

Baseball Prospectus, sometimes abbreviated as BP, is a think-tank focusing on sabermetrics, the statistical analysis of the sport of baseball. Baseball Prospectus has fathered several popular new statistical tools which have become hallmarks of baseball analysis. Baseball Prospectus was founded in 1996 by Gary Huckabay, who recruited the initial contributor group of Clay Davenport, Rany Jazayerli, Christina Kahrl, and Joe Sheehan, with the publication of the first annual set of forecasts. The analysis and statistics favored by Baseball Prospectus are similar to the principles followed by Oakland Athletics General Manager Billy Beane as featured in the book, Moneyball by Michael Lewis. BP has often been considered the modern successor to Bill James' Baseball Abstract series of books in the 1980s.^[1]

Contents 1 Prospectus Entertainment Ventures, LLC 2 Products 3 Development 4 Theories 4.1 Clutch hitting 4.2 Views on traditional statistics 4.3 Closer usage 4.4 Views on sacrifice bunts and stolen bases 5 Statistical tools 6 Regular writers 7 Criticism 8 Books published by Baseball Prospectus 8.1 The Annual 8.2 Monographs 8.3 External links 9 Notes

Prospectus Entertainment Ventures, LLC

As a legal entity, the organization is known as Prospectus Entertainment Ventures, LLC. Reflecting its legacy as a group of sabermetricians who met over the Internet, BP has no "main office." Working for BP is a second or part-time job for most of the regular staff, who conduct their work for BP in their own home or professional offices. Prospectus Entertainment Ventures partners with Football Outsiders for the publication and promotion of ProFootball Prospectus (ISBN 0452288479). On October 10, 2007, BP launched BasketballProspectus.com, a new website for the analysis of men's college and pro basketball, with Joe Sheehan taking the role of Managing Editor and announcing the lineup of principal writer-analysts for the site. Unlike BaseballProspectus.com, this website is free and does not require a subscription for full access. BP also plans to begin publishing an annual book, College Basketball Prospectus, beginning with the 2008 season.^[2]

Products

Baseball Prospectus creates several products:

• The web site BaseballProspectus.com, which contains articles, statistical reports, and fantasy baseball tools. The site contains some free content, although it has become increasingly available only by paid subscription. A dozen authors write regular bylined columns on the site and numerous other writers contribute occasional articles. The site also covers baseball history as well as current issues and events, including games and series, injuries, forecasts, player profiles, baseball finance, and the player marketplace.^[3] In December 2006, the site introduced a blog called "Baseball Prospectus: UNFILTERED."
• A best-selling annual book (current edition Baseball Prospectus 2007) that contains statistics and analysis of the past season and forecasts of the upcoming season.
• Other baseball-related books, such as Mind Game: How the Boston Red Sox Got Smart, Won a World Series, and Created a New Blueprint for Winning (2005) (ISBN 0-7611-4018-2) and Baseball Between the Numbers (2006) (ISBN 0-465-00596-9). The latter was chosen by the editors of Amazon.com as the best book on baseball (and third best on sports in general) published in 2006.^[4]
• A syndicated and podcasted radio show, Baseball Prospectus Radio (BPR). In June 2007, the regular weekly programming of BPR ended. However, the site continues to provide podcasts, online audio and video, and to explore how to integrate such features into more of its regular content. As of September 2007, a daily podcast of approximately five minutes was provided, called the Baseball Prospectus Rundown.
• The annual Internet Baseball Awards, started in 1996, based on fan voting for the Rookie of the Year, Manager of the Year, Cy Young, and Most Valuable Player in each of the two major leagues.^[5]

Development

The website BaseballProspectus.com began in 1997 primarily as a way to present original sabermetric research; publish advanced baseball statistics such as EqA, the Davenport Translations (DT’s), and VORP; and promote sales of the annual book. Beginning in 2003, the site placed most of its new articles, its PECOTA forecasts, and some of its statistical databases in a “premium” section that could be accessed only by subscription. Until 2007, when the site began to post general advertising, the premium subscriptions and books sales were Baseball Prospectus' main source of revenues. Baseball Prospectus does not publish a financial report or information about its subscriber base, but it appears to be using its income to expand its breadth of coverage to attract new customers,^[6] and it has not increased its subscription prices since initiating its premium service. It also offers a subscription to those interested in fantasy baseball, at a lower price than the premium subscriptions and giving access to fewer features and articles. BaseballProspectus.com has a corps of staff writers who publish articles on a regular (typically weekly) basis under a featured heading (see list of "Regular Writers" below). In addition, occasional articles are published by other BP staff or freelance authors. Some former regular writers no longer appear on the site but can be found writing for other media or employed on the staffs of major league baseball organizations (including as of 2007 the Cleveland Indians^[7] and the Tampa Bay Rays^[8]).^[9] Some current regular BP writers also appear simultaneously in other media including ESPN.com and ESPN Radio, Sports Illustrated and SI.com, the New York Sun, the New York Times, Playboy Magazine, and the YES Network. Although the site maintains its sabermetric core and has expanded its statistical databases (most of which are open to non-subscribers), it now regularly attends to issues such as baseball prospects (the First Year Player Draft and minor league baseball), international baseball, the economics and business of baseball (valuation of players, team and stadium finances, the player marketplace),^[10], and fantasy baseball (PECOTA, the "Fantasy Focus" series of articles, forecast manager and other fantasy tools). As BP has begun in addition to publish monographs on specialized topics, it has delved into the application of sabermetric analysis to historical topics – an emphasis clearly seen in Mind Game (2005 – a history of the Boston Red Sox), Baseball Between the Numbers (2006 – which addresses some historical comparisons), and It Ain’t Over 'til It’s Over (2007 – about historical pennant races).

Theories

Baseball Prospectus writers promote several theories on proper baseball management and analysis, many of which are contrary to those of conventional baseball wisdom.

Clutch hitting

Main article: Clutch hitter#Does clutch hitting exist?

Baseball Prospectus researchers have concluded that there is no repeatable ability of clutch hitting. As writer Joe Sheehan said, "Over the course of a game, a month, a season or a career, there is virtually no evidence that any player or group of players possesses an ability to outperform his established level of ability in clutch situations, however defined."^[11] They cite studies which find that there is insignificant correlation between year-to-year performance in clutch situations. In an article published in 2006, Nate Silver argued that clutch hitting ability does exist to a degree. He argued that although not as important as traditional baseball analysis would suggest, clutch hitting ability was more significant than other sabermetric studies had shown. The article also found there to be a connection between clutch hitting ability and situational hitting, or the ability to adjust a hitting approach to fit the given situation.^[12]

Views on traditional statistics

Baseball Prospectus writers often argue that traditional baseball statistics such as RBIs, wins, and Batting Average are poor reflections of a player's true contributions. For example, they have argued that RBIs are too dependent on factors outside of the player's control, namely the production of other hitters in the lineup.^[13][14] They similarly argue that wins are too affected by factors such as the team's offense and bullpen.^[15]

Closer usage

Baseball Prospectus writers assert that teams are typically inefficient in their use of their best relievers. Teams typically assign their most effective reliever to the position of closer, using him in only save situations (when the team is leading by fewer than four runs in the 9th inning). According to many Baseball Prospectus writers, a team's best reliever should be used when the opposing team has its best chance at increasing its chances of winning.^[16]

Views on sacrifice bunts and stolen bases

Many writers argue that the sacrifice bunt and stolen base are overused in baseball. Teams will often attempt these plays when the score is close. Writers for Baseball Prospectus often argue that teams are, on average, actually lowering their expected number of runs scored. They argue that stolen base attempts are not completed frequently enough for them to be beneficial to the offense.^[17] For sacrifice bunts, they argue that the team is giving up more by sacrificing an out than they gain by advancing a runner one base. Their thinking is derived from the grid of expected runs in an inning based on the outs and runner situation, which shows that the sacrifice is detrimental to a team given average players in most of the situations in which it is typically used.^[18] In a series of articles in 2004, James Click argued that sacrifice bunts are beneficial in some situations, dependent on the quality of the batter at the plate and the situation in the game.^[19]

Statistical tools

Baseball Prospectus writers use a wide variety of sabermetric tools. Among the major tools that they are credited with inventing are:

• Value over replacement player (VORP) - a measurement of the number of runs contributed by a player over the expected level of performance the average team can obtain if it needs to replace a starting player at minimal cost.^[20]
• Pitcher Abuse Points (PAP) – a measure of the impact of a particular start by a pitcher on his arm, based on pitch count.^[21]
• Equivalent average (EqA) – a combination of various hitting numbers designed to express a player's overall offensive contribution.^[22]
• Peripheral ERA (PERA) – a pitcher's expected ERA based on park-adjusted hits, walks, strikeouts, and home runs allowed.^[23]
• PECOTA - a system of player projection based on similarity to previous player seasons.^[24]
• Equivalent Baserunning Runs (EqBR) – a statistic indicating a player's rate of run production resulting from his baserunning.^[25]

Voros McCracken's pathbreaking article on Defense Independent Pitching Statistics also first appeared on the BP website.^[26]

Regular writers

• Jim Baker – joined BP in 2004 and writes the "Prospectus Matchups" weekly column, in which he discusses upcoming series. Baker contributed to the first edition of Bill James' Historical Baseball Abstract and also writes for ESPN.com, primarily on ESPN's "Insider" and "Page 2."
• Maury Brown – debuted with a new column in 2006 called "The Ledger Domain," in which he discusses the business of baseball. Brown is former co-chair of SABR’s Business of Baseball committee and was the creator of the committee's website BusinessOfBaseball.com. He now is the founder and creator of The Business of Sports Network, which includes BizofBaseball.com. Brown wrote an essay outlining the collusion rulings in the '80s in Rob Neyer's "Big Book of Baseball Blunders" and is a former columnist for The Hardball Times.
• Alex Carnevale – in 2006 took over over the "Week in Quotes" column, a collection of quotes from baseball personalities from the previous week.
• Will Carroll – a Senior Writer for BP who since 2003 has written the "Under The Knife" daily column, a summary of injury news, and is a host of Baseball Prospectus Radio. In the preseason, he writes "Team Health Reports" and "Positional Health Reports." He also has published Saving the Pitcher (ISBN 1-56663-578-0), and The Juice (ISBN 1-56663-668-X), which won the 2005 Sporting News-SABR Baseball Research Award. He is a contributor to MLB.com's Fantasy 411 and writes a weekly column on NFL injuries for RotoWire.com. He used to also write about NFL injuries for ESPN.com which was entitled the "Carroll Injury Report" and appeared on the The Fantasy Show on ESPN.
• Clay Davenport – a co-founder of BP who is responsible for many of the website's behind-the-scenes operations, including its advanced statistics, statistical reports, and play-off odds simulations.^[27] Davenport invented Equivalent average, the Pythagenport Formula (a variation on the Pythagorean expectation)^[28] and "Davenport Translations" or "DT's", which translate minor league and international baseball statistics into American major league baseball equivalents and place all statistics on the same scale, regardless of era.^[29]
• Neil deMause – a writer for BP since 2003, has contributed occasional articles about stadium building and baseball finance. He is co-author of the 1999 book Field of Schemes: How the Great Stadium Swindle Turns Public Money into Private Profit (ISBN 1-56751-138-4). He also maintains his own website and writes for The Village Voice and other print and on-line publications.
• John Erhardt – is the lead editor for BP and through most of 2006 wrote "The Week In Quotes" column.
• Dan Fox – since 2006 has written a weekly "Schrodinger's Bat" column, usually employing hard-core quantitative sabermetric techniques, and addresses varied problems in depth. Fox is a former author for The Hardball Times. In addition to innovative analyses of pitch-by-pitch data and creating new metrics accounting for baserunning,^[30] he has developed and distributed software for charting the locations of balls in play.^[31] He also expounds on sports, technology, history and other curiosities in his blog, Dan Agonistes.
• Steven Goldman – since 2004 has written "You Could Look It Up" columns, discussing baseball's history using new statistical tools. Goldman edited BP's book Mind Game as well as authored his own book Forging Genius: The Making of Casey Stengel. (2005 — ISBN 1-57488-873-0) (2006 — ISBN 1-57488-874-9). Goldman also writes the "Pinstripe Bible" and "Pinstripe Blog" for the YES Network as well as regular columns on the New York Yankees and New York Mets for the New York Sun.
• Kevin Goldstein – since 2006 has written multiple-times-per week "Future Shock" columns on high school, college, and minor league player prospects, with an emphasis on scouting rather than sabermetrics. He also covers Winter League baseball, Spring training, the Major League Baseball draft, scouting, personnel development, and the baseball player marketplace. Before joining BP, Goldstein was a writer for Baseball America.
• Gary Huckabay – founder and former Executive Vice-President of Baseball Prospectus, announced his return as a regular contributor to BaseballProspectus.com with an "Unfiltered" post on August 2, 2007.^[32] He resumed his "6-4-3" bylined columns on September 4, 2007. However, this was one of only two such columns contributed during the 2007 season.
• Derek Jacques – since 2006 has written on a variety of topics including the "Prospectus Game of the Week" feature in 2006, the Caribbean Series, and most recently the on-going "Prospectus Toolbox" series in which he explains advanced sabermetric tools in layman's language.
• Jay Jaffe – since 2005 has written a weekly "Prospectus Hit List" column, which "power ranks" all major league teams and comments on the rankings. In July 2007, Jaffe debuted a second weekly column, "Prospectus Hit and Run," which took over some of the content that previously was included in the "Hit List," while allowing him to expound his interpretation of trends more fully. Jaffe created the JAWS score for evaluating Baseball Hall of Fame Prospects.^[33] He also maintains the Futility Infielder blog.
• Rany Jazayerli – a co-founder of BP who writes occasional "Doctoring the Numbers" columns for Baseball Prospectus.com. For many years he also compiled BP's annual Top 50 Prospects list and was the inventor of the concept of Pitcher Abuse Points.^[21]
• Christina Kahrl – one of the co-founders of BP, is the Managing Editor of BaseballProspectus.com and the group's annual book. She also writes the bi-weekly "Transaction Analysis" columns, listing and then commenting on the roster activity of all 30 major league teams. She has also written for SportsIllustrated.com, ESPN.com, the New York Sun, Salon.com, Slate, Playboy, and the Washington Blade, and is an associate editor of The ESPN Pro Football Encyclopedia. She is the former Acquisitions Editor of Brassey's Sports, a mid-list publisher that focused on sports history and analysis.^[34]
• David Laurila – since late 2006 has taken the main responsibility for the "Prospectus Q & A" column, in which he interviews personages from the baseball community: players, managers, and analysts/writers. He is the author of the book Interviews from Red Sox Nation (2006) (ISBN 0977743616).
• Marc Normandin – joined the BP staff in 2006 and writes the weekly "Player Profile" column in which he analyzes the record and performance of a particular player from a sabermetric perspective. He also runs the sabermetric website Beyond the Box Score.
• John Perrotto – since 2007 has enhanced BP's weekend coverage with his "Every Given Sunday" column as well as contributed other articles on timely topics of the day. He is on the staff of Beaver County and Allegheny Times and some of his other work can be found online at TimesOnline.com. Perrotto also writes a regular "Around the Rim" column for Basketball Prospectus.
• David Pinto – joined BP in 2007 and wrote "The Big Picture", a weekly column which presented ideas about the league in general.^[35] Pinto is also the writer for Baseball Musings, a general interest baseball blog. On September 26, 2007, Pinto wrote a farewell column and announced that he will become a regular columnist for Sporting News.
• Joe Sheehan – a co-founder and a BP Senior Writer who discusses an important topic from the previous day's action in the almost-daily "Prospectus Today" column. Sheehan co-edited the first Baseball Prospectus annual volume, which appeared in 1996, as well as several subsequent editions. In October 2007, he assumed an added role as Managing Editor of Basketball Prospectus.
• Nate Silver – is Managing Partner of BP and since 2003 has written a weekly "Lies, Damned Lies" column, which often debunks current common baseball opinion. He is also the creator and steward of the PECOTA forecasting system.
• Bryan Smith – joined the BP staff in 2007 after merging his Wait 'Til Next Year blog into The Baseball Analysts in 2005. Writes on college baseball, the minor leagues, and major league prospects under the "Wait 'Til Next Year" feature heading. Smith has also written for SI.com, Baseball America, and other media outlets.
• Keith Woolner – began writing for BP in 1999 and in 2001-2007 wrote "Aim For The Head" columns, discussing statistics and how they help to interpret the game. Worked behind the scenes on BP's databases and the "statistics" section of the website. Woolner invented Value over replacement player^[36] and a variation on Pitcher Abuse Points.^[37] Woolner left BP in May 2007 to join the front office of the Cleveland Indians.^[38]

Criticism

Baseball Prospectus, as well as other sabermetric analysts, are criticized for taking the human aspect out of the game of baseball. For example, Murray Chass of the New York Times wrote in an article that he did not want to hear or read about new-age baseball statistics any more (referencing Value over replacement player specifically), saying:

"I suppose that if stats mongers want to sit at their computers and play with these things all day long, that’s their prerogative. But their attempt to introduce these new-age statistics into the game threatens to undermine most fans’ enjoyment of baseball and the human factor therein.

People play baseball. Numbers don’t."^[39]

Nate Silver responded to this criticism in "An Open Letter to Murray Chass," including offering to meet Chass to watch a ballgame.^[40] He expounded on the case for a positive impact of sabermetrics on the game of baseball in an article "How Sabermetrics Helps Build a Better Ballgame," published on Baseball Analysts.com.^[41]

Another type of criticism comes from those who believe that by broadening its coverage and audience, Baseball Prospectus is becoming more like the mainstream media and losing what made it unique. In response to a question along this line in an on-line chat, Silver wrote:

From a brand standpoint, we're more concerned about differentiation based on quality than differentiation based on where we fall on sort of the "saberpolitical" spectrum. We brought people like Kevin [Goldstein] and Bryan Smith on because [they're] the absolute best at what they do.^[42]

Books published by Baseball Prospectus

External links

• BaseballProspectus.com
• BasketballProspectus.com
• FootballOutsiders.com

Notes