Introduction

Hello all.  I know that many people reading Camden Crazies are not familiar with my past work at Frost King Baseball, so I thought that an intro – above and beyond what’s on the right there – would be appropriate. I’m going with a question and answer format here, but if anyone has other inquiries; feel free to send them in.  In fact, I’m perfectly open to picking a good baseball related question or two each week (or month, or whatever) and doing a full post on it.  So if you’ve ever had something you wanted to send in to Jim Palmer and Gary Thorne for their email segment but decided not to (or weren’t selected), go ahead and pass it along to me.  It would be like a very slow and drawn-out chat.

Who are you?

Daniel Moroz
23 years old
Frost King Baseball blogger
Founder of Matt Wieters Facts
Contributor to Baltimore Orioles Round Table
Statistically minded baseball fan and all-around good guy

How did you become a baseball fan?

When I was a kid, I’d often go to birthday parties where one of the things in the “gift bag” was a pack of baseball cards.  I didn’t really know what baseball was, but I’d take the cards out of the pack and sort them by team and player (in alphabetical order, of course).  The Giants and the Padres would often mess me up because their logos are so similar.  Eventually, it became kind of silly to have baseball cards and not follow baseball, so I started following baseball. Learned by listening to the announcers, and then later by reading Bill James and co. I’ve always been an Orioles fan, but in general I like any team that is run “well” (usually with younger players) with more limited financial resources (A’s, Rays, Brewers, Indians) though I’ve got a bit of a soft spot for the Braves because of TBS.

And as Joe Posnanski says: “Baseball is boring. But then, suddenly, it isn’t. And that’s why it’s so great.”

Why did you start blogging about baseball?

I started Frost King Baseball for kind of a silly reason – I was asked how I thought each team would do going into the 2008 season, and I thought it would be more efficient to put it up on a blog than to send out a big email. Then I kept putting up posts.  I figured it would last for 2-3 months and that would be it, but I’m happy I’ve stuck with it.  I already have a great job (though not baseball related), but being able to write about baseball “professionally” is an amazing honor.  It’s something I really enjoy doing, and I’m thankful for the opportunity here.

So you’re one of those basement dwelling stat-people, aren’t you?

I actually have my own place, but yes, I’m one of those people.  With the wealth of data available in baseball, why would any analytical person have it any other way?

I’ve got a Player Valuation Primer up here and a Stat Primer up here, but here’s a quick rundown.

On-Base Percentage (OBP) is more important than Batting Average (BA), though a player’s slash stats (BA/OBP/SLG) work pretty well as far as quick information about a hitter goes.

Runs Batted In (RBI, whether it’s singular or plural) are very context dependent and are basically just something shiny to look at.

Weighted On-Base Average (wOBA) is a relatively complete measure of a player’s offensive performance – with each event (single, double, walk, out, etc) being weighted by how much it helps a team score runs – scaled to OBP. Examples so far from this year include Cesar Izturis (.290 – awful), Aubrey Huff (.354 – above average), Adam Jones (.392 – very good), and Albert Pujols (.473 – absurdly good). I use wOBA from StatCorner, which doesn’t include stolen bases (unlike the FanGraphs version) and also provides wOBA+, which is park adjusted wOBA (or wOBA*) over the league average.

ERA is a lot like BA, and Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP, which uses BB, K, and HR) or Total Runs Allowed (tRA, kind of like wOBA for pitchers) are the way to go.

For defense we’ve got Ultimate Zone Rating (UZR) from FanGraphs, amongst other things that are harder to use. And remember – a player’s position is important.  A catcher that hits .350 is a lot more valuable than a DH that hits .350 (all else being equal).

The player valuation stuff is too lengthy to go through here, but a player’s Wins Above Replacement (WAR) – and the dollar amount associated with it – does a very good job of showing how valuable a player is to a team. League average is 2.5 WAR in the AL (the NL is the weaker league right now), and that costs about $12 M on the free agent market currently.

I’ll try to make somewhat clear what I’m talking about when I use various stats, but every post won’t have its own tutorial.

In-game strategies:

Don’t sacrifice bunt in the third inning.  Don’t intentionally people all willy-nilly – there are a few select instances in which it’s appropriate.  Just because a pitcher in the bullpen is left-handed and the batter is left-handed doesn’t necessarily mean you need to remove the right-hander on the mound.  100 pitches should be more of a guideline than a rule, and pitch-counts should be looked at on a case by case basis. In general, just go read The Book.

Should get into the Hall of Fame:

Barry Bonds
Alex Rodriguez
Jeff Bagwell
Frank Thomas
Chipper Jones
Lou Whitaker
Allan Trammell
Barry Larkin
Tim Raines
Bert Blyleven
Mike Mussina
Edgar Martinez
Larry Walker
Jim Edmonds
Roberto Alomar
Craig Biggio

(Amongst others. That’s a good number of names but, then again, I’d kick some players already in the HOF out.  That’s a whole other can of worms though.)

I’m not really a big Hall or small Hall kind of guy – I would just like for them to be somewhat consistent.  Which they’re not.

Shouldn’t get into the Hall of Fame:

Jack Morris X 50
+1

Steroids?

It was, in my opinion, morally wrong (though implicitly if not explicitly encouraged) and cast a black cloud over the game (based on public perception).  I don’t think they have a very significant effect on the game – not above and beyond other things such as a different baseball, for example – and players should be judged within the era in which they played.  Amphetamines were around for a long time, and nobody seems to care about that. More of my thoughts on the issue can be found here and here.

AL or NL?

AL, and it’s not even close.  It may have been different back when pitchers could hit some, but now I don’t see the point.  Why would you want to watch a wasted at bat 1/9th of the time (though in practice it’s less than that)?  The “strategy” of NL ball isn’t as complicated as many say – how hard is it to figure out a double switch? – and managers largely play things by the book anyway.  It just means that the NL book has 2-3 more pages in it than the AL version.  I’d rather Frank Thomas be able to continue hitting late in his career than be forced to watch Daniel Cabrera take three called strikes from the back corner of the batter’s box.

Anything else?

I spell Yay, “Yaye”.  I know it’s not “correct”.  Sorry.

And there will be frequent occurrences of words like “pretty much”, “about”, “somewhat” and so forth….

“The demand for certainty is one which is natural to man, but is nevertheless an intellectual vice.” – Bertrand Russell

Didn’t think I’d be ending with a quote by Bertrand Russell, but sometimes that’s just how things go.

Tags: Intro