| Voros Mccracken |
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Information AboutVoros Mccracken |
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| baseball statistics | |
| mccracken, voros | |
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McCracken's findings implied that major league Pitcher s had relatively little control over the outcome of balls put into play against them. Specifically, McCracken found that the percentage of balls put into play against a particular pitcher that fell for hits did not Correlate well across seasons. This implied that elements beyond the pitcher's control, including his Defense , Ballpark effects, the weather, and most importantly, Randomness , had significant effects upon his performance. This theory flew in the face of conventional wisdom, but has been confirmed (at least in its simplest form) by many researchers. His subsequent publication of "Pitchers and Defense: How Much Control Do Hurlers Have?" on the writes that McCracken told him “all hell broke loose” after Neyer's column appeared. Alan Schwarz ,''The Numbers Game: Baseball’s Lifelong Fascination with Statistics'' (New York: St. Martin's, 2005)(ISBN 0-312-32223-2). McCracken received nearly 2,000 emails in the next couple of days and thousands more in the ensuing months. In his next column on January 26th, Neyer began: "I received an immense amount of mail regarding Wednesday's column, including a pair of messages from 'celebrity sabermetricians' Craig Wright and Bill James ." In this long column Neyer incorporated extended quotations from Wright and James. Wright remained "distinctly uncomfortable with McCracken's conclusion," and specifically called attention to the effectiveness of Knuckleball pitchers in producing low batting averages on balls in play. James, too, expressed some skepticism but recognized the potential value of McCracken's findings if further research bore them out. He argued that "the research really should be done, for several reasons. First, if McCracken turns out to be correct, this has important consequences, even allowing us, to a certain extent, to predict movements in pitcher's records. . . ." Although he maintained some reservations about how McCracken's findings were being interpreted by others, James became a convert. In his ''New Historical Baseball Abstract'' (2001), James acknowledged that McCracken was correct, that the results were significant, and that James himself felt "stupid for not having realized it 30 years ago."Bill James, ''The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract'' (New York: Free Press, 2001): 885. In a later column, Neyer noted the impact of McCracken's discovery on James' subsequent work: Rob Neyer, "Teams Have Most Success in 'Runs Prevented'," ESPN.com (July 3, 2002) {Link without Title} . For a recounting of McCracken's discovery and its influence on baseball analysis, see Michael Lewis , ''Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game'' (New York: Norton, 2003): 234-243. McCracken continued to refine his new statistic, including addressing the issue of knuckeballers in his DIPS 2.0. He published DIPS statistical results as well as extensions and improvements to his initial formulas in other forums, including Baseball Primer (now called Baseball Think Factory ) [http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/mccracken/dipsexpl.html [http://www.futilityinfielder.com/dips2.html]. A year and a half after the publication of his "Pitchers and Defense" article, McCracken's discovery earned him a consulting position with the Boston Red Sox . An important consequence of this was that by early 2003, he ceased publishing revisions of his formulas or updated results. He announced this step with obvious excitement on his website on February 18, 2003 {Link without Title} : :"BIG TIME NEWS! 2/18/03: First off I'd like to apologize for the long time between updates. Other projects have dominated my time, and then another bigger project monopolized the rest. Not a good excuse but an excuse nonetheless and the best I can come up with since it's the truth. :More bad news. There will be no projections released this season. I feel real bad both in the timing and the nature of the announcement, but the fact is, that they aren't coming. Why? :Because since last October I've been working as a consultant to baseball operations for the Boston Red Sox. It's a dream come true and has already been a tremendous experience for me, and I'm thoroughly excited about the team and the nature of my work with them. The upcoming baseball season {Link without Title} as undertaken a whole new dimension for me and I can't wait for it to begin. . . ." What further changes McCracken may have made to DIPS since then have not been made public. However, other baseball researchers have continued to evaluate and to propose refinements to the measure.Perhaps the most trenchant critique has been presented by Tom Tippett, in his 2003 article "Can Pitchers Prevent Hits on Balls in Play?" {Link without Title} . Other evaluations and critiques can be found at DIPS . And McCracken continues to think deeply about how to measure performance in a variety of organized sports, such as international football (American soccer).For example, see this intervention on BigSoccer.com in a discussion of "Sabermetrics Applying to Soccer": http://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?t=63798. REFERENCES LINKS TO SOURCES AND WORKS
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