How to Lie with Baseball Stats | Baseball Bits
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PATREON: / foolishbaseball
TWEETER: / foolishbb
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I have a confession to make. I've been lying to you all with baseball stats. Now it's time to tell you all my secrets. Baseball stats like AVG and ERA are easy to lie with, because they aren't park-adjusted stats or era-adjusted stats like OPS+ or ERA+. Baseball defensive metrics are can also be used to obfuscate the truth. Fielding Percentage is a bad stat, but even Defensive Runs Saved and Statcast Outs Above Average can be manipulated for the narrative.
And that's honestly what we're doing here: playing narrativeball. We're taking a look at MLB players like Ken Griffey Jr., Jacob deGrom, Dustin Pedroia, Craig Biggio, Yordan Alvarez, Jeff Conine, and even player from many years ago named Roy Cullenbine. Indeed, what happened to 1947 Roy Cullenbine ties in with a point I'm making.
I hope you'll all enjoy this episode of Baseball Bits, a Foolish Baseball production that has absolutely nothing to do with Tesla. Hopefully you'll learn how to use baseball analytics and baseball sabermetrics to spot baseball lies in the future.
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Roy Cullenbine SABR bio: sabr.org/bioproj/person/roy-c...
Zach Star on lying with statistics: • This is How Easy It Is...
Soundtrack from Maxo:
/ maxoelectronic
maxoisnuts.bandcamp.com/
Wait a second this isn’t my favorite TH-cam channel TESLA LIVE?!?! Did you hack it Bailey? I better get my 1 million bitcoin back!
I’m so sick of these Tesla channels getting hacked
You won't believe it. I found Elon Musk livestreaming on a very popular TH-cam channel, so I sent him a phishing email and he totally fell for it. I took over control of his Tesla channel immediately. My current scam is to occasionally upload video essays about baseball sabermetrics, earning me ad revenue and Patreon subscribers in the process. Again, total scam, but it's working.
@@FoolishBaseball I like Tesla live better. I get to look at a guy with a unique face and a cool accent talk about stuff I don't understand. What could be better? Oh wait... Now I get to watch a guy talk about baseball stats I don't understand. That's definitely better.
@@FoolishBaseballhow wise, scamming one of, if not, the richest person in the world. I'm sure he won't find out or anything
@@neBen_ he’s gotta head out of the states for his protection. At least he might not get blackouts then
All I got from this is that Jeff Conine is the best player ever.
He is! Just ask Jeff Conine!
They don't call him Mr. Marlin for nothing
@@FoolishBaseballButtercup Dickerson is crying rn
He is definitely one of the players to have ever walked
@@FoolishBaseball Craig Biggio never played for an AL team though so the Pedroia comparison falls off a little
"Invented cheating in baseball" got me to laugh out loud. That line was great
Crazy thing about baseball is that absolutely nobody cheated until the late 1980s
@@FoolishBaseball 2017*
@@satagaming9144way earlier lol
they walked so my astros could run 🥲🥲
Hey, you might've noticed that you aren't subscribed to my channel anymore. Here's why: about a week ago, I fell for a phishing email scam, losing control of the channel in the process. The hacker then used my channel to livestream some sort of Elon Musk/Tesla related cryptocurrency scam. Basically, you checked you sub feed, rightfully though to yourself "well I never subscribed to that!" And then unsubscribed. The good news is, I'm back and ready to crank content throughout the MLB season. So if you liked what you saw, good ahead and subscribe. I won't let my channel be compromised again.
Wait but what if we subbed for the crypto scam? I don't even like baseball!
stay cyber safe king
This video should be shown in every high school stats class. Maybe even every science class
gym class too
@@FoolishBaseball if that were to happen I think it would be safe to say that you would officially be a gym class hero.
umm, no. This has no real world use.
@@HKim0072 Yes it does. It uses sports stats to show that just because someone can say something using stats doesn't make it true or necessarily relevant. This teaches critical thinking skills which are severely lacking in today's world. Scammers cash in on the lack of critical thinking and the lack of ability to parse statistics/metrics.
The media and politicians use out of context numbers to fool people constantly. Things like crime, homeless, immigration and environment statistics are constantly used out of context to scare people or keep people from understanding.
Data manipulation is a major issue in today's world because *it works*. Folks don't know how to understand statistics.
If you can't see how this type of video is relevant to the real world then you're probably falling for data manipulation.
@@CRneu Then, teach a proper statistics class.
I'm so glad that you felt safe enough with us to come out as a practitioner of advanced defensive metrics in this video, that was very brave of you. I hope you feel accepted and supported by us here in the Foolish Baseball community.
I'm living my truth.
@@FoolishBaseball We know, we love you for it bud
He got his channel back and he posted a banger🙌, welcome back foolish
What happened to his channel?
@@MrNoodle223 It got hacked for some bs scam.
@@MrNoodle223 Got hacked by some dumb Tesla Live thing. The hacker got rid of all the videos and changed the entire channel
we are so back
@@FoolishBaseball you love to see it
The bit at the end about Roy Columbine makes me really want to do an OotP save starting in 1920 but with modern sabermetrics implemented just to see how players' careers and teams' fortunes change
Because of this video, I’m thinking about running an OOTP save from a similar starting year, but instead adding average/replacement-level players from the last 25 years to a team. I don’t think the sim engine will reflect the greater focus on fitness and the three true outcomes to show the disparity alluded to in the video, but I’m curious nonetheless.
@@codysandusky2130 It does sound interesting and I'd bet there are others who've done similar. There may even be a niche within the (hardcore) OOTP community on that.
The earlier quote this was inspired by re: data manipulation would be interesting to apply to saber too. Less about the presentation/arrangement of the truths in the story, which is very interesting in its own right, and more about stresses applied to the underlying data itself to find a conclusion. Eg are the parameters defining ERA+ even that indicative of performance? Baseball is weirdly a lot closer to drilling down to cause effect than most sports, but it’s also got easily the most factors affecting final outcome beyond one players control. This concept here though is a super useful way to think about any data presented - good stuff
Prolly not the best place to ask but you working on anything yourself? Love your videos
Thanks for the thoughtful comment. Glad you enjoyed.
@@FoolishBaseball no one else on TH-cam will look at these things so I’m grateful you’ve made a home for the curious.
Awesome seeing you here, you're a big reason I got into F1, which is now a huge passion for me. Thank you.
Now here's to Foolish Baseball hopefully doing the same just with Baseball!
@@cbj4sc1 I don’t even watch baseball anymore but I do watch this channel haha gotta mean something
The 4-0 joke was one of the best in a while😂
Gonna save this video to share with my students when I teach stats next year. Really good practical explanations of how you can misrepresent stats.
Thanks! Hope they enjoy
Zach Star has a fantastically simple video on this subject as well. I’d highly recommend that, too.
@@chickentenders3018 Already got that one saved haha, cheers!
marcell ozuna clinging to the fence just for the ball to land 15 feet infront of him made me lol
“Here’s the anecdote: I saw a beaver crossing the road once. Here’s the antidote:…” may have been the funniest line in BB history
This is one of the best videos you have put on the channel.
The best part is, it provides a lot of context explaining how some of these SABR stats work, what their deficiencies are, and why they are valuable and an improvement on what we had before to determine how good a player's performance actually was.
Very well done.
👍
11:49 back when Albert Pujols was 63 years old, that had me dying😂😂
Totally unfair-only his *knees* were 63 years old, the rest of his body was 36! 😂
Roy Cullenbine had the leagues 3rd best OBP and hit the 4th most HR's and scored 10th most runs in 1947. The GM's in baseball thought he should never play in the big leagues ever again after that season is wild.
That castellanos vs Kwan comparison is how teams win arbitration hearings
Yeah, and that sucks, but teams are always looking to save money so sometimes you have to alienate your players
I've missed baseball bits a little too much. Glad you have your channel back. Welcome back!
So happy to see foolish baseball back (and better than ever)! Excited for another great year of content
Just a note, graphs that don't start at zero are fine. They can potentially be misleading but also starting at zero isn't always the best way to display data either.
I totally agree. Just needed a punchy hook to get people into the video. If you looked at a global temperature graph of the last 150 years starting at 0 Fahrenheit, it would make climate change look pretty negligible.
@@FoolishBaseball Climate change is pretty negligibly; probably not the best example to use, lol.
@@ryanb2607 lol what, how exactly is climate change negligible
@@ryanb2607 I mean, a few degrees of average surface temperature is the differences between having ice caps and not having ice caps lol and a few meters of average ocean levels is the difference between now and half the human population being flooded lmao
Climate is not a linear system, in fact it's the best of a chaotic system; very small variations in the conditions make huge differences in the outcomes.
@@garak55 That's just silly. 'Climate change' is for the sheep to believe they are being taxed and stolen from for good reason, lmao. Every critical thinking person knows its fake
I honestly don't know if Craig Biggio being called an American League second baseman is an intentional lie or not
Fun fact, Biggio played in 2 different divisions in his career, but only 1 team.
Astros were NL west team until 94 when they moved to NL Central. If he played 4 more years he would have played in 3 separate division, 2 separate leagues, but 1 single team lol.
Cool stuff. Young fans really have no idea how amazing Pujols was at defense. They just go by his high injury angel years, when he was mostly a DH. He was unreal.
Your stuff is on a whole other level than all the other baseball channels. Entertaining, informative and hilarious. Well done dude.
What a great video! You gave me an idea on what to do my Stats class presentation on and now I will do it on the many misinterpretations of statistics. Thank you so much!
with the new dimensions of Comerica Park and the Orioles new wall being played for a full season, i think a video on these two ballparks would be great after this season. you already touched on Ryan Mountcastle, but im curious to know more about how the Tigers do now as they are a struggling team now
(i also think you should take a close look at all of Ryan’s standard baseball reference stats between 2021 and 2022. its astounding how similar his season was outside of homers and slugging%)
I mean, it'll be nice to see Miggy not be hitting 418 foot flyouts anymore.
15:35 my man pimped that walk hard
What a tour de force!! Incredibly compelling and easy to understand. One of the best, most entertaining, and most illuminating sports videos I have ever seen!
man i love this video! its always essential to examine why certain stats are useful (or not). especially in a sport like baseball
Bailey I literally taught a lesson in my math class last week about deceptive charts and statistics! Love the videos keep it up! Weird coincidence haha!
Dude...this is your best one yet. I actually met a former Braves pitcher tonight (Jim Nash), and told him about your channel. I told him about the Verlander episode and he, as a man of 78, got excited about it. I asked him who was the toughest hitter he ever faced in his career. His answer was a good one...Carl Yastrzemski...He didn't face him as a Brave of course.
I love your channel. You have a very good and humorous way of presenting. Keep up the good work.
these are straight up the best written videos on all sports. When I see a Baseball Bits show up on recommended I know I'm in for a trip. Masterclass.
Can't believe that from 2019-2021, Jordan Alvarez had a K% of 24.6 well also having a K% of 10.5. Truly an elite player.
7:28
oops
Even when he strikes out, he doesn't strike out. That's GOAT material.
I noticed that too, but its obvious the right one should say BB%. Too bad both the 2022 didn't say K% because then it would be questionable...
Would love to see a video about a luck stat. What player creates his own luck the most ? What batter or baserunner creates the most errors on the field ? Can a certain type of base on ball be defined as lucky ? Etc…
BABIP
Literally babip
incredible video, glad you got your account back
I was the game at 9:38 , one of the wildest live baseball plays I've ever witnessed
Easily the best and most unique topic you could cover. Well done
Im excited to see your commentary on the horrible pitch clock scenario that played out today. Would also love to see you talk about how it has less to do with pace of play and more so accessability.
Accessibility?
I am in favor of the wonderful "pitch clock scenario". I was not a fan of players spending more time out of the box than in it during their at bat.
There's play clocks in every other sport, there's no problem with i. After a month the minors adjusted last year
@@ronondechek14 media blackouts are extremely strict in the MLB which means a lot of the younger generation has no way to easily watch the MLB. NHL had a major youth interest problem in the early 2010s and they fixed it by adding more streaming options (which resulted in me, youth at the time, becoming a hockey fan) and it worked. They've been increasing since. For the MLB you're forced to buy a cable box and plan if you want to watch your home town team and people my age and younger would never do that. Accessibility also means having the MLB make a major effort in funding equipment programs for families that can't afford it since baseball is super expensive. There's also been a sharp decline in Black baseball players and that needs to be addressed as well. Sorry for the paragraph lmao
Craig Biggio is a National League 2nd baseman. The Astros weren’t in the AL uet
Best notification all week. Thank you for putting in the work, FB!
15:25 "he moneyballed out" lmao
another banger from foolish
Im sorry as an Astros fan I’ve gotta say. Did you just call Craig Biggio an American League second basemen? No sir. He played in the NL his whole career. That was before Selig essentially blackmailed us into moving when McClain sold the team.
As for Pedroia being a better defender….let’s see him play catcher AND centerfield like Biggio did before we give him that 😉
Came here to say this. Man played his whole career in the NL. Heck, it was nearly a decade into his career before he would have even played a game *against* an AL team.
Not to take anything away from the historically underrated Biggio, but Pedroia really was a better second baseman.
Obviously, Biggio’s still the better player overall.
Just a note, you referred to Biggio as an American League second basemen, but he never played in the AL.
Yep, the Astros didn't switch to the AL until several years after Biggio retired.
That was a joke
@@morgul9832 if that was a joke it was terribly delivered. It seems much more likely that it was a simple error.
That was the lie
he was lying to you
That last point is so insightful - there's a choice element to many stats. Baseball stats aren't the same as an observation of nature. Players train to perform a certain way and over time this has evolved. This isn't talked about enough.
As someone who teaches college statistics, this is excellent stuff. Starting right off the bat with the broken y axis and it just keeps going. Great job Bailey! I'm really glad I found this video.
Welcome back! Can’t wait for more Tesla live content!
I was a very successful electric car livestreamer, but I decided to take a different journey
1:46 1999, when the apple sauce went from the pitchers to the hitters
it's juice all the way down
So so happy to see you again! Welcome back Foolish/Bailey!
you're videos are some of the most creative, well written content on youtube. Baseball or otherwise.
Steven Kwan has 9 postseason hits and Mike Trout has 1. Therefore, Steven Kwan is 9 times as good at baseball as Mike Trout.
7:30 Just happened to notice a small error on Yordan’s BB% from 2019-2021. You’ve got two K% stats that are not similar and I think one of them is supposed to be BB%. Just wanted to let you know…
Sshhhhhh
@@abtwopoint0 Bailey responded to a similar comment, he said quote: "Oops"
@@njackson6807 He's a man of 'tegridy indeed
This was PERFECT. Thank you for putting this together!
I’m _sooooooo_ glad I had the privilege to watch 4 Pedro Martinez starts in person while he was in his prime. Omg, if you never experienced it or never saw how electric the city got on Pedro games, you missed out. I’ve never experienced anything like it. As well as the INSANE atmosphere, when he hit the mound you _KNEW_ he was going to strike out at least 12-15 guys and put on a pitching clinic. He was truly special.
HE IS ALIVE!!!!!
you got third comment, bronze medal
@@FoolishBaseball I’ll take it
8:06 the real lie is trying to tell us Craig Biggio played in the American League
I know I'm about three months too late but thank god I found this video. my teammates and I were having an argument over who is a better career postseason player between Bryce harper and George springer and, even tho harper has a .273 AVG and springer has a .270 AVG, harper also only has 139 career playoff AB's compared to springer's 267. thats where I brought up sample size and I mentioned how harper's sample size has not been seen yet and I told him that they would both be more comparable after harper has a few more playoff appearances. thank god you are someone who understands bc every time I go statistical or analytical on any of my teammates, it feels like I am speaking a totally different language to them
Great video as aways.
So glad you were able to get your channel back.
"when they invented cheating" had me rollin XD
Context behind and surrounding the statistic. I can see this video being employed in undergraduate statistics classes. Great job, as always, Bailey.
I love this channel. The he explains stats and puts them in context is so easy to understand 💯
I wish the same thing could be done to compare NHL pkayers (Gretzky, Lemieux, Ovechkin or Hull as the best scorer) or the NBA (understanding who contributed more in making their team win: Jordan, James, etc?)
I am so glad you got your channel back
yeah me too!
He survived the live Tesla stream 🙏
I beat the allegations
There's a book I had to read in college for geography called "how to lie with maps." A lot of the same applies here. You can manipulate the data to tell any story you want.
I could definitely take some ballpark diagrams and make it look like Coors is a pitcher's paradise.
@@FoolishBaseball hand them to Montfort’s data science guy (his brother in law Jimmy who took a stats class in 1978) and you could alter the front offices trajectory for at least a season or two
Appreciate all the work you did on this!
Outstanding video! Although baseball is my favorite sport, I don't follow it as closely as I once did - and my interest has been more in the numbers than in the actual season-to-season play.
It's funny, I was thinking about baseball analytics earlier before I saw your video in the queue on my home screen. I was thinking about CROWS - my coining - for, "Consensus Ratings Options Wins." I mentioned it on a different channel, but haven't followed through on developing it. I have reservations about WAR because, although I don't consider myself a disciple of Bill James, I believe he has a legitimate argument against the, "above replacement," basis that I believe evolved from Pete Palmer's, "above average," basis prior. Yet, Bill James originated the, "above replacement," concept decades ago, so I guess we could be charged with some hypocrisy here.
Most of us agree that the numbers don't tell the whole story. That's why I took this diversion to see how you addressed the issue. You did a good job in 18 minutes!
I no longer watch baseball because the on field product bores me but this video perfectly illustrates why I still follow closely. I obsessed with the minutiae of stats.
Taking Data Visualization as a college class rn and it was nice to see some key talking points from the lecture in the first minute 😹
We missed you. Seriously dude I watch the 2nd channel but seeing the icon return from the main just my heart skip a beat. Rejoice!
Ahh the baseball content from my favorite channel "Tesla Live" has returned. Glad to see you back.
GREAT TO HAVE YOU BACK BAILEY!!! 🔥🔥🔥
10:20 Case in point: Nick Markakis when he was with the Braves. He rarely committed any errors, but like Castellanos, soooooooooo many balls went over his head that he never had a risk of touching. Thus, few errors.
Fabulous! Glad to see you work in walkin Roy Cullenbine!
Good to see ya channel back!
me too!
@@FoolishBaseball what happened
@@Baseballify Got caught out by a phishing scam and the channel was briefly taken over by some Tesla scam channel. Then he got it back, and got a TOS violation because of the scammers posting scams on the channel.
@@TheMalMeninga that sucks happy his back
Bailey I need more content bro. You are the Pujols of content drops. A slow dopamine drip won't do!
7:29 i love Yordan’s triple K rates 😂
Ohtani could never
You got the channel back. This is great
Welcome back man, great vid. Loved the little jokes
11:08 such a low key fantastic play, he has to slow down just right to time the jump that was unbelievable
Best one yet. Great work!
Worth the wait. Back and more foolish than ever!
This was weird. I didn't even get an alert this video had dropped. I just thought " I wonder if Foolish has dropped anything lately", then searced foolish.. The God's favored me this day. Great video as always Foolish!
Might've gotten unsubbed during the hack (see pinned comment for more)
@@FoolishBaseball I don't see a pinned comment, FYI
@@FoolishBaseball There’s no pinned comment showing for me…
glad to see you got your channel back
Glad you got the channel back.
thanks!
Congrats on getting the channel back!!
Glad the channel is back!!!!
Of course you upload when I’m getting ready for work 😂 hopefully my boss understands when I’m 17 mins and 40 seconds late
Glad you're back Bailey!
Another beauty. Well done Bailey!
Great video as always, though it is worth noting that Pedroia was still performing at an elite level and would've for a while (maybe not as long as Biggio) provided he didn't get his career ended by Machado being a dirty player and spiking his leg.
Super happy to have you back in control of your channel, who else is going to give us these takes
Back in control?
@@JohnM-sw4sc foolish baseball got hacked by some weird Tesla Spam.
@@glucosaminecondroitan9135 oh shit I forgot we are in the weird timeline
4:44 Bailey this video is stellar but this song is a BANGER and a HALF
17:07 Shoutout to Ben Revere, the only professional baseball player of which I am 100% sure I have the stronger throwing arm.
Was just binging the channel for the umpteenth time and noticed the videos all shift over one after watching the Kershaw vid and knew we were about to get pumped
My ole pal Willie Upshaw said it best, “I made it simple. If I could work out one walk and get a hit on one pitch in my zone, they couldn’t replace me.”
During the AstroTurf era he knew what was valued…and MLB pitching, even in the 80s was filthy. Genius.
Love this, missed you
I missed me too. It was a tough week.
@@FoolishBaseball glad to see you got things sorted out
Foolish you brought the heat on this one. I see the exact same ploys / misunderstandings as a data scientist… trying to help people understand what the fuck context means is truly a daily challenge
Some notes and questions:
1) In re: defensive spectrum - I liked the comment "if the Dodgers could move Freeman to SS they would". It reminds me of another Dodger player who lost out on an MVP in 1997 because the BBWAA didn't understand this. That year both Mike Piazza of the Dodgers and Larry Walker of the Rockies had fantastic years with the bat. Much was made of the fact that, for a change, Walker's stats weren't totally a mirage created by Coors Field. He hit great on the road as well as at home. In addition, he was an excellent defensive outfielder whereas Piazza was a poor fielding catcher, at least by reputation. So Walker won the MVP. But apparently no one realized how much more difficult it was for a catcher to put up Piazza's numbers than for an outfielder to hit like Walker. Piazza could have moved to the outfield and still hit; catchers moving away from that physically grueling position happens all the time. But what about Walker moving in the other direction? Well, if the Rockies thought for a second that they could move Walker to catcher and get anywhere near the same results, they would. They didn't.
2) Actual question - how important is throwing as a center fielder? I'm not sure I've seen definitive data on this. Here's why I ask: Both Rickey Henderson and Barry Bonds were outstanding defensive left fielders with tremendous range due to their exceptional speed. They both played a certain amount of time in CF, and by every statistical measure available, they played the position at a very high level. In the case of Bonds, he only played in center for a year or two and then the Pirates got Andy van Slyke to play center and moved Bonds to left. The reasoning given for the move was Barry's weak throwing arm. I wonder if the Pirates made the right move, though. Even with the poor throwing arm, Bonds quite frankly played the position far better than Andy. He ran down and caught balls van Slyke couldn't touch due to superior range. Even as a LF almost any drive hit into the left/center gap was reached by Barry before Andy. So just how many runs did the Pirates assume were being impacted by throwing that they would choose van Slyke over Bonds? In Henderson's case he actually was given the chance to play CF for several years in the 1980s, mostly with the Yankees, and if his poor throwing was costing the team runs, it didn't seem to be impacting anything materially. All stat measures available indicated he was fielding the position at a much better than average level, saving a bunch of runs by running down and catching drives that other CF could only watch go by for doubles at the wall. So why didn't the Pirates give Bonds more of a chance at CF?
3) Roy Cullenbine and 1947 - when players came back from WWII walks went way up in the late 1940s, especially in the American League. Does anybody know why this temporary phenomena happened? Especially that 1947 to 1950 period, walk totals were through the roof! It wasn't all that uncommon for pitchers to average close to a walk per inning. Why?
You have a unique talent for this! This is great.
I would’ve included Ed Delahantys final year. He died after playing 42 games in 1903, famously going over Niagara Falls. He was on pace for a great year and posted a phenomenal final full season with a 6.8 WAR and league leading 188 OPS+
Bailey over here doing a better job of explaining statistics exploitation than my college professor.
Also I believe it was Steve Sabo (of NFL Films) who said "there are lies, bold faced lies, and then statistics."
Just a fun concept for a video, thank you.