Not sure much commentary is required on my part. Lots of big graphs after the jump, showing our rank in the AL for the rotation, bullpen, offence, and defence. FIP was used for the pitchers, wOBA for the hitter, and defensive efficacy ratio (DER) for the gloves. There were 14 American League teams in each of the 33 seasons the Mariners have played.
Figure 1 (above): Inverted rotation rank (AL only) by FIP.
Figure 2 (above): Inverted bullpen rank (AL only) by FIP.
Figure 3 (above): Inverted offence rank (AL only) by wOBA.
Figure 4 (above): Inverted defence rank (AL only) by DER.
Figure 5 (above): Sum of inverted rotation ranks from Figures 1-4 above. Winning percentage shown dashed.
0 recs | 65 comments
Nice. Any chance at seeing an overlay?
Not for any particular reason really.
Bearskin Rugburn - February 9, 2010
My first pass was an overlay
It’s way too messy to make any sense of.
Graham MacAree - February 9, 2010
Gotcha
Bearskin Rugburn - February 9, 2010
Why not try a 3D Graph?
Do you think you could send me your data? I love making graphs!
vivaelpujols - February 9, 2010
Fun!
For a second I thought the 2009 Mariners led the AL in wOBA until I realized the labels were below the graphs, not above.
And judging by these graphs, I’m going to assume the 2001 team was pretty solid.
Teej - February 9, 2010
These should be selections on a treadmill.
Janic - February 9, 2010
It works as an elevation map in profile.
Naming the peaks and valleys is fun. The Bavasi Trench?
Kermit. - February 9, 2010
The Spiezio Defile
Bearskin Rugburn - February 10, 2010
How is the summary axis scaled
on the final graph. Did you attempt to make crossing the winning percentage imply anything, or are these just general trends?
Andersean - February 9, 2010
Also, really cool post
sorry I didn’t gush earlier, it’s just that the above was my very first thought.
Andersean - February 9, 2010
Wait, What?
The 2001 team actually UNDERperformed?
BigR - February 9, 2010
No, I don't think the scaling of the sum
corresponds to any sort of expected performance. Possible winning percentage sort of becomes asymptotic.
The point, I think, is more that they go up and down together.
Andersean - February 9, 2010
Oh ok, I was reading it wrong.
BigR - February 10, 2010
It seems like we were rather good in 2001
seattlebruin - February 9, 2010
We had a 100 win team in the division with us!!
Poochie - February 10, 2010
Imagine if that team had been in the NL Central!
seattlebruin - February 10, 2010
Would have been stuck with 3 ~90 win teams, and would not have gotten and production from Edgar
Poochie - February 10, 2010
Awesome
The M’s get way better at defense around every turn of the decade.
stupidquestions - February 9, 2010
The 2008 to 2009 improvement on defense is amazing.
niceguysfinishlast - February 9, 2010
So is GMZ
seattlecougar - February 9, 2010
So the late 90-s bullpen was exactly as bad as I remembered it being
I do not miss the epic meltdowns from Ayala, Sloccumb and Mesa.
Benne - February 9, 2010
What are the Y-axis values
Save for the last graph, no labels, no tick marks, and no units.
Steve Nelson - February 10, 2010
Rank
Jeff Sullivan - February 10, 2010
That 2001 team was freakin' awesome
IIRC – they were first in MLB in DER, 1st in OPS, and third in SLG.
Gillick was always an old school guy – he was pretty openly caustic about Micheal Lewis and, by extension, the whole numeric analysis crowd. But coming from a scouting basis, he did know how to put together a winning team.
++++
It’s always seemed to me that one aftermath of the Gillick era was that Lincoln and Armstrong seemed to buy into Gillick’s philosophies, not recognizing that Gillick was almost a unique master at what he did. (Terry Ryan and Gillick seem to me to stand apart in that regard. And I’m deliberately setting aside Gillick’s attitudes about drafting, as that isn’t germane to this point.) When Lincoln and Armstrong hired Bavasi, they were seeking Gillick 2.0, and they were totally confident that in Bavasi they had found what they were looking for.
Steve Nelson - February 10, 2010
They've said as much, I believe
I don’t know where it is, but I think after the Bavasi firing one of them said that they saw Bavasi’s methods as an extension of Gillick’s, with which they had obviously seen success. Four years later they decided they were wrong. In this article Lincoln even says upon letting Bavasi go, that they wanted a new look.
And here we are.
Andersean - February 10, 2010
Neat. Alwasy love some more graphs.
One note – “Offence.”
SethGrandpa - February 10, 2010
That's the English spelling
Jeff Sullivan - February 10, 2010
And it's really offencive.
louklimchok - February 10, 2010
Another note -- "Alwasy"
Nadingo - February 10, 2010
These are awesome!
How hard would it be to make these graphs for other teams, for comparison’s sake?
Nadingo - February 10, 2010
Not too hard, just time-consuming.
Graham MacAree - February 10, 2010
I was just peeking at fangraphs
They have tERA instead of tRA now. Is that the same as tRA but scaled to be comparable to ERA instead of RA?
Edgar for Pres - February 10, 2010
Yes. Appelman doesn't like tRA being on the RA scale because it confuses people.
Graham MacAree - February 10, 2010
But now at least we know that Max Scherzer actually uses tRA to evaluate his own perfornance
which is kind of sick in and of itself
seattlebruin - February 10, 2010
He must have been very happy to get away from an organization that would prefer Edwin Jackson to him.
abender20 - February 10, 2010
I know how you feel about this but I think I agree with him
Edgar for Pres - February 10, 2010
Give me a reason to use the ERA scale if we had all been using RA up to now
Graham MacAree - February 10, 2010
We should use it for the same reason we should use wAVG
Poochie - February 10, 2010
I love that our pitching scale
Is a function of runs scored and errors made in a season. Makes a lot of sense to me!
Graham MacAree - February 10, 2010
My feeling is that if I can understand the difference between ERA an RA
then anyone can
Poochie - February 10, 2010
I think that if people are smart enough to find FanGraphs, they are smart enough to understand the RA scale
seattlebruin - February 10, 2010
Although FanGraphs commenters make me doubt this sometimes
seattlebruin - February 10, 2010
No no this definitely isn't true
Graham MacAree - February 10, 2010
Have you read the comments section?
OlSalty - February 10, 2010
Late
seattlebruin - February 10, 2010
I really do think they're overdue for comment moderation over there.
David keeps tinkering with the “ranking comments” thing, but it doesn’t seem to make a difference. And without fail, any whiff of a mention of any player attached to PEDs will instantly turn into a shitstorm.
FG has awesome articles, but it’s really time to raise the standards of the community over there.
Benne - February 10, 2010
Eh, its not really a blog
and I don’t think most people care too much about the comments section besides maybe the author and the people who like to yell at each other. I imagine the author scans for intelligent responses and ignores the bullshit.
Edgar for Pres - February 10, 2010
Then maybe a simple "you must be registered to post" requirement?
That should at least reduce the amount of troll posts if David doesn’t want full-on moderation.
Benne - February 10, 2010
I don't think he wants to do any moderation
I don’t think registration really helps much either.
Edgar for Pres - February 10, 2010
They should just eliminate comments altogether
Except for the odd time when Tango or MGL shows up, they almost never provide any real value. They could leave the comments enabled for the RotoGraphs section — who cares what shit the fantasy players toss at each other.
At the very least it would be nice if there was a way to turn off viewing of comments, so that those of us who want to could avoid stepping in it and getting it on our shoes.
wandergeist - February 10, 2010
I think part of the problem is the retarded threading system they have there
There are only 3 comment threads, and then you just get one big line where you can’t really tell who’s replying to who.
They should either have a threading system like SBNation does, or just go to a BBTF style numbered comments.
That and having a preview and forcing people to enter a verification code before they can post comments. That would make it more annoying for people to post stupid one liners.
vivaelpujols - February 14, 2010
Legacy
you didn’t say it had to be a good reason
Bearskin Rugburn - February 10, 2010
Read my comment again!
Graham MacAree - February 10, 2010
Damn it Graham, thats just how we do things around here.
We weigh ourselves in pounds but measure our daily intake of fat in grams . Drink a gallon of milk and then 2 liters of soda. We care about runs allowed but evaluate pitchers on an ERA scale. If we were good at conversions we would have switched to a unified system a long time ago but that just ain’t gonna happen.
Edgar for Pres - February 10, 2010
I don't think anyone disagrees with that view
And if FanGraphs wasn’t becoming so popular, I think David would have switched FIP to the RA scale instead of the other way around.
vivaelpujols - February 14, 2010
Could the ranks be weighted
to more closely fit the winning pct. line?
If so, we could determine whether or not one rank is more important than another, and narrow the y-axis.
CBF - February 10, 2010
I'll be looking at the relationship between the above graphs and winning percentage at a later date
Graham MacAree - February 10, 2010
cool
CBF - February 10, 2010
THIS is what you've spent your time doing?
Looks like the Cascades. No snow though….. Disappointing
Scott71267 - February 10, 2010
I've spent my time being sick
Graham MacAree - February 10, 2010
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