WSU baseball road woes: In search of some answers
by Jeff Nusser on May 15, 2010 8:00 AM PDT
in WSU Baseball News
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PrintSo, I finally was able to finish working up the home/road team splits for the Cougs*, and I'm going to put them out here for you and just offer up some bullet point observations.
*The home splits exclude the first two games of the year, blowout wins over Seattle U. The Redhawks are a transitional D-I team (as in basketball) and are 8-34. They skewed the stats too much. Also, the road stats don't include Friday's game against Stanford.
| R/G | BA | OBP | SLG | BABIP | ISO | HR/9 | XBH% | BB% | K% | |
| WSU at B-B | 6.89 | 0.323 | 0.410 | 0.467 | 0.364 | 0.144 | 0.014 | 9.6% | 8.0% | 14.0% |
| WSU AWAY | 5.05 | 0.253 | 0.333 | 0.379 | 0.309 | 0.126 | 0.020 | 7.3% | 7.4% | 21.8% |
| R/G | BA | OBP | SLG | BABIP | ISO | HR/9 | XBH% | BB% | K% | |
| OPP at B-B | 5.32 | 0.281 | 0.398 | 0.421 | 0.323 | 0.140 | 0.023 | 7.6% | 10.4% | 16.6% |
| OPP AWAY | 5.55 | 0.292 | 0.379 | 0.419 | 0.335 | 0.128 | 0.016 | 7.6% | 8.0% | 15.7% |
I'm no expert sabermetrician, and don't pretend to draw any concrete answers from this, but I there are some things I notice immediately.
First, the pitching staff (bottom set of stats) performs roughly the same at home and on the road. The differences in stats are so small as to be considered insignificant. The same, obviously, can't be said for the offense. And that's an understatement. To have such dramatic differences between home and road is pretty crazy.
Why?
Well, BABIP (defined here if you're unfamiliar with that stat) that's 55 points lower on the road than at home isn't helping. It's been proven that fluctuations in BABIP are due mostly to luck, and that argument as it applies to the Cougs is further boosted by the fact that WSU's opponents have had a relatively consistent BABIP.
That's actually good news. Assuming the Cougs' true ability is closer to what they've gotten at home, they're simply due for some good luck on the road.
However, there's one stat in there that's disconcerting: That road strikeout percentage. That's a pretty significant jump, and I honestly have no clue how to explain it. I know that parks do affect strikeouts, but I have a hard time believing that big of a disparity can be chalked up to the park -- especially when, again, the other team has been fairly consistent under the same conditions. If someone has any ideas about why this team would strike out in nearly 7 percent more of its at bats on the road, I'm all ears.
The rest of it all looks pretty normal to me. Insights from you?
Also, this can serve as today's game thread, if you want. Game's at 2 p.m., and you might be able to find it on channelsurfing.net.
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BABIP could actually be the opposite of what you thought
364 seems high so it may be that the team has been experiencing some heavy regression on the road. With the K%, 21% also seems high, so the lower 14% at home could be regression in a good way. Its hard to tell where our true talent is, still. The exaggerated splits make that even harder.
Great post and stats. Ill have to stare at these more later.
by Brian Floyd on May 15, 2010 8:08 AM PDT via mobile reply actions
Another fun thing to do to find park effects
Isolate the away stats on fields with artificial surfaces (at least at UW and Oregon). We obviously hit a lot of singles and a lot of balls on the ground through the hole. Artificial surfaces could give an unnatural jump for babip.
by Brian Floyd on May 15, 2010 8:16 AM PDT via mobile up reply actions
I thought that too
MLB average BABIP tends to be around .290-.300. I’m sure it’s a bit higher for college but the home BABIP does seem to be quite high. However teams with singles hitters will have higher BABIP due to higher GB rates so our “true talent” may actually be somewhere in the middle of the home/road splits.
My gut tells me the opponents stats are about "league average"
Which tells me were getting unnaturally lucky at home and regressing like we should on the road. Its odd they’re breaking down like that, however.
by Brian Floyd on May 15, 2010 7:17 PM PDT via mobile up reply actions
Well, you're in luck.
I put together these advanced stats last year before the regional. Turns out the three-year average BABIP for all NCAA teams is actually .335. Does that change the interpretation at all for you?
By the way, here are the stats.
I was just gonna bug you for some data
So it does seem like the splits may be a result of regression, unfortunately happening on the road. The good news would seem to be we should play towards that level the rest of the year. The bad: we’re playing over our head at home.
How many games do college baseball teams play?
It seems like few enough that wild, SSS-induced variables are more common.
Add a win and a loss
in the Stanford series. It isn’t really a quantifiable stat, but this team has had crucial late inning errors in 5 of their losses. Game one of the Stanford series was a perfect example- a missed third out on a boot opened the flood gates. I recall that three of them happened away from Pullman- so they definitely play a more ‘comfortable’ game when at Bailey.
Key pitching today sets up a rubber game. Be nice to take a road series from a ranked opponent… I think the Cougs have 10 wins over ranked teams this season…
If you can't Go Cougs... don't go.
K rates
How many PAs is this over for most of the team on the road? I know in MLB, K rates can be looked at as stable after about 150 plate appearances. I’m not really sure why it would be too much different in college. If they’ve gotten an average of 150+ PAs out of everyone on the roster on the road at this point (I’m guessing they have?) then there’s a really good chance there is something actually up. If not, it could just be some small sample size insanity.
Is it possibly just the luck of the pitchers they’ve faced on the road?
The guys who have played the most games
Are at 150 or above for the season. The rest of the part-time regulars are either just at 150 or approaching it. In other words, each guy has about half that at home and on the road.
Does every individual need to be at that mark to consider the stat stable, or just the team collectively?
This is probably part of the reason the data seems odd so far
Looking at overall data, 150 will suffice. When it averages out, it ends up being what we’d expect. Looking at splits, though, is still unstable with only about 75 data points (with home being really good and road being really poor).
I would imagine that what you want is every position in the order to have had 150 PAs.
At that point, you can be pretty confident about the team K rate, baring major changes in the line-up.
So my bet would be we have some confidence in the overall rate, but it might go up at home and down on the road in the future.
The key injury to the best
power bat in the Coug lineup in Jones was a big blow to the stats as well. He is coming back now, PH some lately. But his lefty stick and excellent wheels on the base paths have a huge effect on the batting order. Losing him allowed opponents to ‘lean right’ w/ thier staff, which is often an advantage. Getting him back and healthy and in the everyday lineup will skew things a bit to the positive for power. I don’t know his progress, if anyone has news on him I would appreciate hearing it. I hope to see them @ UCLA a couple times…Go Cougs
If you can't Go Cougs... don't go.
Couple things I'd mention
1. BABIP for hitters does fluctuate substantially, but it’s not all or even mostly luck, especially at low levels of play like college ball. Even in the majors, hitters can have consistent, stable BABIP anywhere from about .250 to .350. In college, the range will be a LOT wider than that.
2. This is just a general point, but never assume that one side of a split represents “true talent” and the other side is a fluke aberration. It’s almost always the case that both of them vary somewhat from true talent which is somewhere in the middle.
I’d look to strength of schedule to explain a lot of the performance gap; in college, where teams don’t play balanced schedules, it’s usually the case that a team’s road nonconference opponents will simply be better teams than its home nonconference opponents.
Arthur Dent: You know, it's at times like this, when I'm trapped in a Vogon airlock with a man from Betelgeuse and about to die of asphyxiation in deep space, that I really wish I'd listened to what my mother told me when I was young.
Ford Prefect: Why, what did she tell you?
Arthur Dent: I don't know, I didn't listen!
I was thinking this too
It would also help to have batted ball data, which I doubt there is at this level.
by Brian Floyd on May 16, 2010 4:50 PM PDT via mobile up reply actions
I would agree with some of this
But I’m not sure how much I buy all of it. If I split out just their Pac-10 games, you’d see similar numbers. Granted, that’s dealing with an even smaller sample size, but it doesn’t vary widely from this larger sample size.
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