SB Nation User Blog: FranklinScott

Midseason Stats of the Pitching Prospects that Matter

FranklinScott — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 22:30:12 -0000

Here's the next installment of DiamondView Lite's efforts. I've got the pitchers coded in and Sean Forman from Baseball Reference said it's fine as long as I cite them. Again, please let me know if you think I should add or remove anyone's name.

Age	Lvl	G	GS	SV	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	SO	HBP	WP	BFP	ERA	WHIP
19	A	18	18	0	76.2	50	37	31	2	63	68	8	13	344	3.64	1.47	Christopher Archer
20	A	17	17	0	89.2	68	22	18	2	33	88	3	6	363	1.81	1.13	Kelvin De La Cruz
19	A+	17	17	0	84.2	99	59	54	10	36	72	10	1	389	5.74	1.59	Jeanmar Gomez
23	AAA	8	8	0	43	38	19	16	4	5	48	2	1	172	3.35	1.00	David Huff
24	AAA	11	0	1	20	16	11	8	2	8	18	1	1	87	3.60	1.20	Jensen Lewis
24	AA	8	8	0	41	41	18	17	0	5	27	1	1	167	3.73	1.12	Scott Lewis
22	AA	15	14	0	61.2	68	43	41	7	43	55	5	3	297	5.98	1.80	Chuck Lofgren
20	A+	18	18	0	93	88	40	36	6	32	101	5	3	393	3.48	1.29	Hector Rondon
24	A+	5	0	0	8	4	2	1	0	3	10	0	0	31	1.12	0.88	Tony Sipp
24	AAA	14	0	5	20.2	14	10	9	3	10	28	1	0	85	3.92	1.16	Jeffrey Stevens

Midseason Stats of the Hitting Prospects that Matter

FranklinScott — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 15:28:44 -0000

Here are the first fruits of DiamondView Lite's labors. They are the midseason lines for the hitters on Jay's Prospects that Matter list (plus a few of others). If in the future you want me add more names, make your case. Drennen and Rivero appear to be the biggest disappointments. Weglarz!, though. I chose to use LaPorta's Akron line going forward and anyway we're probably all familiar with the Huntsville line (I have a framed copy of it). I also omitted the PtMs who are playing for Cleveland now.

Age Tm Lv G AB R H 2b 3b HR RBI BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS

   23   AKR    AA        4     16        2        6     0     0     1        4        0        4        .375     .375     .563     .938         Matt LaPorta
   22   BUF    AAA    34     141     25     46     7     1     4     13        7     25     .326     .375     .475     .850     Asdrubal Cabrera
   20   KIN    A+ 87     305     57     84     17     3     10     35     60     64     .275     .400     .449     .849     Nicholas Weglarz
   21   KIN    A+    78     314     53     76     17     1     0     23     28     44     .242     .316     .303     .619     John Drennen
   20   KIN    A+      64     240     25     61     15     0     3     32     19     58     .254     .312     .354     .666     Carlos Rivero
   24   BUF    AAA    74     288     33     77     20     2     4     27     20     45     .267     .317     .392     .709     Jordan Brown
   21   KIN    A+    88     338     56     94     27     2     15     60     41     70     .278     .362     .503     .865     Beau Mills
   23   AKR    AA      93     363     59     96     15     7     6     40     57     86     .264     .363     .394     .757     Joshua Rodriguez
   23   AKR    AA      91     340     52     107     18     3     10     72     42     71     .315     .389     .474     .863     Wes Hodges

By the way, I've sent an email to Baseball Reference telling them what I've done and whether I'm using their website fairly. I wouldn't think posting these few lines would cause any problems, but I thought I'd let them know.

DiamondView Lite

FranklinScott — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 23:54:11 -0000

DiamondView is the name of the software the Indians use to collect and organize data about players. It's supposed to be as automated as possible to save time and effort. As the PD put it: “Consider it a kind of truth machine, whose function is to temper, or even override, subjective measurements with objective ones.” I like the idea of a truth machine and have always wanted one myself.

Now, I'm no expert when it comes to spreadsheets and programming, but with a couple hours, I made some headway toward a DiamondView Lite.

Initial Desiderata

- to automatically keep track of the stats of the Prospects that Matter in a single spreadsheet.
- to upload the information to Google Docs or some such to share with the LGT community.

Implementation so far

Using Baseball Reference's minor league stats and Neo Office, I'm able to import the raw data for each player into a spreadsheet. I can then select the specific row of information I'm looking for (in this case the basic stats for 2008) and collect it with the other players on one sheet. I can then parse the raw row information into separate cells.

I'm not sure, but I don't think Google Docs allows extraction of web data, so I can't have the spreadsheet update itself online there. I can, however, upload the already updated spreadsheet for everyone to see.

Results

1. I've got the 2008 data for most of the hitters on the Prospects that Matter list. It should be fairly easy to continually update the data as B-Ref updates their stats. It's not that hard to add or delete players.

2. Three hours lost not working on my dissertation.

Additional Benefits

The stats are sortable and allow comparisons among Indians prospects that ordinarily would be much more laborious to conduct. The implementation is easily extendible to other stats, game data, and whatever else B-Ref offers.

Issues for Discussion

1. I'm not sure about the legality of posting the spreadsheet on Google Docs or my website. I don't, of course, intend to make a profit off the thing, but it might be bad to display B-Ref data elsewhere. On the other hand, it's really just an extension of what we and many others already use the data for.

2. Would you find this a useful thing to have?

3. Any additional hints on implementation or requests for features?

Eyes on the prize!

FranklinScott — Sat, 24 May 2008 00:25:04 -0000

Eyes on the prize!

Baseball Prospectus on Barton

FranklinScott — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 22:01:18 -0000

Baseball Prospectus on Barton

It would be really out of character for the Indians to ''whisper concerns about Barton's makeup'' in the sense they describe, but it's good to know for sure it wasn't them.

Strat-o-matic Preview of Opening Day

FranklinScott — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 15:33:51 -0000

I couldn't wait for today's opener, so I simulated the game using the Strat cards from last season and some roster updates. I have no idea what Chicago's lineup will look like, so I just made one up. Below you'll find the boxscore.

BOXSCORE: 2007 Chicago (AL) Pale Hose At 2007
Cleveland Tribesmen

Pale Hose                AB R H RBI   Tribesmen          AB R H RBI
N.Swisher CF              4 0 1 0    G.Sizemore CF        3 0 0 1
O.Cabrera SS              3 0 1 0    A.Cabrera 2B           4 0 1 0
P.Konerko 1B              4 0 0 0     T.Hafner DH       3 0 0 0
J.Thome DH                3 0 0 0     V.Martinez C            3 0 0 0
J.Dye RF                      3 0 0 0     J.Peralta SS             3 0 0 0
C.Quentin LF               3 0 1 0     R.Garko 1B              3 0 0 0
J.Uribe 2B                    3 0 0 0     J.Michaels LF          2 1 1 0
J.Crede 3B                  3 0 0 0     F.Gutierrez RF        2 0 0 0
A.Pierzynski C            3 0 0 0     C.Blake 3B               3 0 1 0
                                   -- -- -- ---                          -- -- -- ---
         Totals                  29 0 3 0          Totals                    26 1 3 1

Pale Hose....... 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 - 0 3 1
Tribesmen....... 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1    - 1 3 0

Pale Hose                IP       H   R ER BB SO HR PC SCORESHEET
M.Buehrle                 6       1   0   0   1   3 0 76 A1 C3
O.Dotel                      1       0   0   0   0   2 0 12 C4 C6
S.Linebrink LOSS 1       2   1   1   0   0 0 16 C7
Totals                        8       3   1   1   1   5 0

Tribesmen                IP       H   R ER BB SO HR PC SCORESHEET
C.Sabathia                7       3   0   0   1   8 0 70 A1 C6
R.Betancourt WIN    1       0   0   0   0   2 0 13 C7 C9
J.Borowski SAVE     1       0   0   0   0   2 0 10 D1
Totals                         9       3   0   0   1 12 0

ATTENDANCE- 25,093 TIME- Day WEATHER- Average
T- 2:33
LEFT ON BASE- Pale Hose: 3 Tribesmen: 4
DOUBLE PLAYS- Pale Hose: 0 Tribesmen: 1
ERRORS- J.Crede
DOUBLES- O.Cabrera
SACRIFICE HITS- F.Gutierrez
SACRIFICE FLIES- G.Sizemore
WALKS- O.Cabrera, J.Michaels
STRIKE OUTS- N.Swisher-3, O.Cabrera, J.Thome-2, J.Dye,
J.Uribe-2, J.Crede-2,
             A.Pierzynski, G.Sizemore-2, A.Cabrera,
V.Martinez, R.Garko
GIDP- P.Konerko

What would you want for DiamondView?

FranklinScott — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 16:26:29 -0000

Right now, DiamondView seems to be at peak value:

2. Recreating The Tribe - It's clear that Coonelly wanted to use the Indians as the model for the Pirates. Huntington certainly knows how the Indians work, but can he actually find the parts? The Indians have a dynamic GM, solid scouting, a great stats department, and the wild card of the DiamondView system. I've been told that one new GM asked about acquiring the system and was told he'd need to deal a top-level prospect for it. It's time to start wondering what D-View could fetch on the market. Sure, PECOTA likes him, but traditional scouts don't seem to give a damn. There's no way we trade with a division rival, so the Royals might be an option.

Poll

What would you take for DiamondView?

Ichiro

7 votes

Jose Tabata

1 votes

Alex Gordon

6 votes

Evan Longoria

7 votes

Andy LaRoche

2 votes

Clay Buchholz

8 votes

31 votes | Poll has closed

Eastern League All-Star "Game"

FranklinScott — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 17:44:14 -0000

I spent most of yesterday in Norwich, CT at the Eastern League All-Star Game. The South Division was coached by Akron's Tim Bogar and the Aeros had six players there. Dodd Stadium is a pleasant place to watch baseball and the concession prices, relative to most stadiums, are excellent (2 buck hot dogs, 4 dollar 20oz beers!).

Unfortunately, the game was fogged out after three innings. Since the gates opened hours early, I was able to watch batting practice and get some pictures for LGT.

Here are the some really crappy videos of AstroCab, Barton, and Brown:

Outside the stadium:

Players stretching:

Jordan Brown:

Brian Barton:

AstroCab:

AstroCab and Barton:

Watch mlb.tv in full screen on a Mac (without using Mosaic).

FranklinScott — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 01:05:56 -0000

I wanted to be able to watch mlb.tv games in full screen without using Mosaic. Mosaic seems to hog a lot of memory and makes it difficult to do other things while I keep the Indians in the background.

From Lifehacker I discovered you can zoom in at pretty good resolution using the Control button and the trackpad (or mouse-wheel, I believe).

Zooming-in on the regular mlb.tv feed yields a pretty good fullscreen that is easy to get out of.

Watch out, though, if you zoom in too far you might get Pronked.

If there are better ways of achieving fullscreen, please let me know.

Yes, I can beat that team.

FranklinScott — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 22:17:31 -0000

Via Baseball Musings, a fun little challenge:

Come up with a 25 man roster from the past 25 years using the following rules:

Use each player only once.

Only pick one player from each year.

Respect the positions the players actually played (including set-up men, defensive replacements, etc.)

I did a bit of work on the hitters, but see what you come up with:

C 2005 Victor Martinez OPS+ 132

1B 2002 Jim Thome OPS+ 191

2B 2001 Roberto Alomar OPS+ 149

SS 1999 Omar Vizquel OPS+ 111

LF 1994 Albery Belle OPS+ 192

CF 2003 Milton Bradey OPS+ 151

RF 2000 Manny Ramirez OPS+ 185

DH 2006 Travis Hafner OPS+ 183

3B Uh, 1990 Brook Jacoby OPS+ 122 (but, whatever)

I'm pretty sure this destroys the Mets offense in the link, but I haven't added it all up.