Whys, wherefores and Win Shares

So, how many win shares was that Neftali Soto home run worth, smart guy?

今年のMVP、最優秀新人選手、ベストナインの投票について各NPB選手のWin Shares(ウィン・シェア)を計算しました。Win Sharesの日本語の説明はこちです。

I’ve written in the past that I use Bill James’ Win Shares methodology to generate my short list of candidates for my postseason award votes, the MVP, Rookie of the Year, Best Nine and Gold Gloves. It’s not an easy system to use, but has two very attractive features.

  1. The wins attributed to a team’s players cannot exceed the number of wins the team achieves.
  2. Because it works from the concepts of league defensive norms at different positions rather than raw fielding numbers — that are often skewed toward poor teams that have allowed more base runners.




The system also has many inherent flaws particularly the lack of loss shares — something James is ostensibly still working on — to account for defensive responsibilities and playing time.  The proposed new system would give every player a win-loss record, where the current system has to make do with a single figure.

This comes into play when you compare, for example, two DeNA BayStars outfielders, Yoshitomo Tsutsugo and Neftali Soto. Win Shares assigns Tsutsugo, the Japan cleanup hitter, with 22.5 percent of the club’s offense win contribution, and Soto — who also hit 38 home runs but in just five months and who was vastly more productive with runners on base and in scoring position — with 21.3 percent.

But here’s the catch, Soto made 7.7 percent of the BayStars’ batting outs, while Tsutsugo made 9.4 percent, a 20 percent increase. If we were assign the two loss shares to go with their win shares, I’m guessing Tsutsugo would be 22-11, while Soto was 19-7 and probably more valuable.

This sometimes creates disconnects for a variety of reasons. Two players with identical production on teams playing in similar offensive contexts can have quite different win share totals. If one team wins more games than its totals of runs and runs allowed would suggest, that team will have more wins to divide up among its players than a team that got fewer wins than expected.

A surprise from this year’s win shares calculations involved Yakult Swallows closer Taichi Ishiyama. He finished second in pitching win shares in the Central League behind Tomoyuki Sugano. How could that be?

Because the Swallows’ parks this year gave them the highest run adjustment — meaning runs were easier to come by in their games than in any other team’s in Japan this year — Yakult’s 658 runs scored — the second-highest CL total was not nearly as impressive as their CL-worst 665 runs allowed. Win Shares estimates the Swallows scored 297 runs more than the worst offense imaginable would score, but saved 416 runs more than the worst possible pitching and defense would allow.

That gives a huge amount of the credit for their 75-win total to the pitching and defense, and since the Swallows also won more games than expected given the number of runs scored and allowed — it means pitchers who excelled for them this season could potentially be credited with contributing to more wins than expected.



According to Win Shares, the top 10 CL pitchers this season were, in order:

1. Tomoyuki Sugano,
2. Taichi Ishiyama
3. Katsuki Azuma
4. Daichi Osera
5. Yasuaki Yamasaki
6. Onelki Garcia
7. David Buchanan
8. Yasuhiro Ogawa
9. Randy Messenger
10. Kris Johnson

I would never argue that’s right, but there are bits of truth that the system can illuminate.

Publishing award voting in NPB

The Twitterverse had a few things to say after I posted a photo of my ballot on Friday for the Central and Pacific leagues’ postseason awards .

2018 PL award ballot
2018 CL award ballot

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In roman script my pics were:
Central League
MVP
1. OF Yoshihiro Maru, Hiroshima Carp
2. 2B Tetsuto Yamada, Yakult Swallows
3. OF Seiya Suzuki, Hiroshima Carp
Rookie of the Year
P Katsuki Azuma, DeNA BayStars
Best Nine
P: Tomoyuki Sugano, Yomiuri Giants
C: Tsubasa Aizawa, Hiroshima Carp
1B: Dayan Viciedo, Chunichi Dragons
2B: Tetsuto Yamada, Yakult Swallows
3B: Toshiro Miyazaki, DeNA BayStars
SS: Hayato Sakamoto, Yomiuri Giants
Outfielders
Yoshihiro Maru, Hiroshima Carp
Seiya Suzuki, Hiroshima Carp
Ryosuke Hirata, Chunichi Dragons



Pacific League
MVP
1. OF Yuki Yanagita, SoftBank Hawks
2. OF Shogo Akiyama, Seibu Lions
3. 1B Hotaka Yamakawa, Seibu Lions
Rookie of the Year
OF Kazuki Tanaka, Rakuten Eagles
Best Nine
P: Takayuki Kishi, Rakuten Eagles
C: Takuya Kai, SoftBank Hawks
1B: 1B Hotaka Yamakawa, Seibu Lions
2B: Hideto Asamura, Seibu Lions
3B: Nobuhiro Matsuda, DeNA BayStars
SS: Sosuke Genda, Seibu Lions
Outfielders
Yuki Yanagita, SoftBank Hawks
Shogo Akiyama, Seibu Lions
Masataka Yoshida, Orix Buffaloes
Designated Hitter
Alfredo Despaigne, SoftBank Hawks



岡本和真ではなく、ピシエドに入れのか?? – You picked (Dayan) Viciedo over Kazuma Okamoto?
平田よりソトじゃね?– You picked Hirata over (38-home run man) Neftali Soto?
みんなこういう風に公表すればいいのにね!–I wish everyone would publish their ballots this way!
パリーグで岸だけ防御率が2点台なんですよね。– Kishi was the only PL pitcher with an ERA under 3.00 wasn’t he?
127打点と.310打率の成績を残しながら、リーグ優勝にひっぱた選手(浅村栄斗)はMVP投票から外したの?–A guy that had 127 RBI and hit .310 in leading his team to the league championship is not on your (MVP) list?
こうやって全員が全員公表してくれたら謎GGとかなくなると思うんだよなぁ–I think that if all the members make public this way, mystery GG is gone
完全同意. 迷うとしたら3位を誠也か大瀬良かてところやな–I completely agree, but I’d prefer if the third-place MVP vote went to (Carp) pitcher Daichi Osera instead of giving a vote to Seiya Suzuki.

もちろん今季の成績だけで選ぶなら丸山田菅野の三強だと思います。 しかし2016年のように優勝に強く貢献した選手が選ばれる傾向があるので大瀬良にも票がかなり入るんじゃないかと思います– Of course, I think that the three strongest this season in the CL were Maru, Yamada and Sugano–if one chooses only by the season’s results. However, I think that the final award vote will favor Daichi Osera because there is a tendency that the player who contributed a lot to the championship gets in — (as they did in 2016, when Takahiro Arai was MVP

MVPにその年の優勝に最も貢献した選手ではなくてその年の勝ちに最も貢献した選手に投票してるんですね👏
成績が大差ないなら優勝チーム優先でいいと思いますが私もMVPはその年に最も勝ちに貢献した選手が取るべきだと思います–You aren’t selecting the player who most contributed to the year’s championship, but voting for the player who contributed most to wins during the season. 👏 If players’ production is close, I think the MVP vote should go to the player who contributed to a championship.

投票用紙初めて見たよ。ちゃんと社名氏名も書くんだね。NPBがこれをファンに公表してくれたら不可解な投票やふざけた投票はかなり減るだろう。–This is the first time I’ve seen a ballot. If NPB made this public to the fans, it would reduce the number of inexplicable or throw-away votes.

優勝した西武を押し退けてMVP1位に選ばれる柳田凄スギィ–You pushed aside players who won the championship with Seibu to give your first-place MVP vote to (SoftBank’s) Yuki Yanagita, amazing.

A few people also asked whether publishing ballots was allowed. I couldn’t find any rules against it, but it’s less common in Japan than giving your No. 1 MVP vote to a player whose team didn’t win the pennant.



writing & research on Japanese baseball

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