Beating the Dead Horse on Pena's Batting Average

by FreeZorilla on May 13, 2010 9:46 PM EDT

The chart above reflects Pena's batting average over rolling periods of 40 AB since he joined the Rays in 2007 through game 2 of the Angels series. You'll notice while he is hitting new lows, almost every single low mark has come with a spike in the percentage of lefties faced over the same period. This is true of the past few weeks as well.

However, we can also break it down in Rolling 40 AB periods by split (Click on Image to Enlarge):

Carlos Pena vs RHP

via i753.photobucket.com

And Carlos Pena vs LHP:

via i753.photobucket.com

Surprisingly Pena is testing his three year low vs. right-handed pitching at about .100 while hovering slightly below the middle against lefties. The biggest issue has been the perfect storm of struggling against each hand at the same time.The long term trend appears to be more severe versus righties. Pat Burrell can surely sympathize.

I have no definitive conclusions to offer based on these nifty charts but am curious to hear the community's thoughts.

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AVG

FreeZo — I understand the difficulties in getting better data, and I appreciate the hard work you’ve done here. That being said, since so very little of Pena’s value is tied up in his batting average (except, of course, at the extremes when he’s hitting <.100), it’s hard for me to draw any long-term conclusions from simply looking at rolling batting average.

From my nonscounting and nonscientific observation, he looks absolutely terrible at the plate right now. Not sure what the Rays can do beyond (1) bringing up Blalock and (2) hoping he works through it.

by AndrewTorrez on May 13, 2010 9:49 PM EDT reply actions

Usually I avoid averagem but thats the stat that's been out there all week regarding 1-40 etc.

As I’ve stated in previous posts, the walks are still there (North of 15%). These charts if nothing else show it’s not uncharted territory for Carlos so hopefully he puts it together soon.

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by FreeZorilla on May 13, 2010 9:54 PM EDT up reply actions

fancy charts that are easy to understand are fun

Regressing to the mean streets of St. Pete

by stpetelawyer on May 13, 2010 9:58 PM EDT reply actions

the question shouldn't be the trends

the question should be “how can he fix the current problem?”

Witty's 2010 Draft review is full of meaty goodness. What you mean, you're vegan?! Sigh. Just read it.

by witty on May 13, 2010 10:42 PM EDT reply actions

Go the other fucking way

But that easy for my tennis playing lard-ass to say

by tampa_edski on May 13, 2010 11:02 PM EDT up reply actions

how about we leave the pena horse alone and devote some words on uptons sucking?

by davidsmarch on May 13, 2010 10:44 PM EDT reply actions

so many double-entendres, so little time

by SagehenMacGyver47 on May 14, 2010 2:23 PM EDT up reply actions

Would be interesting to see the same analysis for Burrell

Although I suppose we all know what it would look like.

Is it hard to plot wOBA in such a fashion? The rolling average seems like a much better method than monthly splits to look at trends like this.

by ChiBurbRaysFan on May 13, 2010 11:00 PM EDT reply actions

wOBA would be tougher, OBP and SLG seem a bit more reasonable

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by FreeZorilla on May 13, 2010 11:08 PM EDT up reply actions

wOBA would be the best though

Fuzz

by RZ on May 13, 2010 11:09 PM EDT up reply actions

For a shorter time horizon it wouldn't be as bad

4 years is a lot of marking up

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by FreeZorilla on May 13, 2010 11:11 PM EDT up reply actions

Think I've got a good system setup to do it with wOBA.

Going to fanpost PTB tomorrow night Rolling 100 PA using wOBA

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by FreeZorilla on May 14, 2010 12:14 AM EDT up reply actions

I just finished Longo, was curious how you got the dates on your horizontal axis to work seamlessly.

I can’t get it to omit the off-season months from my chart. Really interesting stuff.

Hey, Surly only looks out for one guy...Surly!

by Andy Hellicksonstine on May 14, 2010 2:04 AM EDT up reply actions

I used the play index for PA and pasted each season in successive fashion

First off I used Excel.

Once the entire list was create I deleted all columns except for the CRD#, , the date, the pitcher(in case I wanted to add splits) and the shorthand result.

I redid the CRD column to cover all entries 1-x

.I created additional columns for the components of wOBA, and sorted by shorthand result. This allows for easy autofill of each type of event in the appropriate column.Once complete I resort by CRD.

I then created another set of component columns such as 2B(100). 1oo entries in I autosummed 1-100 of the 2B column. Do this for each component and autofill down to the bottom.

Create a wOBA column and begin with the 100th record using the component (100) sums, with 100 as the divisor. Autofill down for the rolling list.

Finally I add a column prior to wOBA, and copy and paste the dates of record 100 on down

Insert Line Chart with the date and wOBA columns highlighted and voila!

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by FreeZorilla on May 14, 2010 4:29 AM EDT up reply actions

I found a much easier way

Just do a replace with the wOBA values, ie. ctrl+f, find Out, replace with 0, find 1B, replace with .9. Etc.
it gives you the wOBA for that PA.
Put each of these individual wOBA into a scatter plot.
Create a trendline that looks at moving average, last 40.
Set your series 1 to no marker.

Let me know if anything is unclear, but this was a very quick and easy solution for me.

Hey, Surly only looks out for one guy...Surly!

by Andy Hellicksonstine on May 14, 2010 10:43 AM EDT up reply actions

Beej

Hey, Surly only looks out for one guy...Surly!

by Andy Hellicksonstine on May 14, 2010 10:49 AM EDT up reply actions

Barty

Hey, Surly only looks out for one guy...Surly!

by Andy Hellicksonstine on May 14, 2010 10:49 AM EDT up reply actions

This is good stuff.

by wtbudlight on May 14, 2010 11:00 AM EDT up reply actions

ONLY I CANT SEE ANY OF IT!!!!

EHHHHHHHH WORK FILTERS!

by rglass44 on May 14, 2010 11:09 AM EDT up reply actions

I'll e-mail it to you if you really want, I'd appreciate any criticism you had to offer as this is a first attempt.

Hey, Surly only looks out for one guy...Surly!

by Andy Hellicksonstine on May 14, 2010 11:14 AM EDT up reply actions

Only suggestion I can think of is to put a darker horizontal line at .340

To show league average.

by ChiBurbRaysFan on May 14, 2010 11:28 AM EDT up reply actions

That's not a bad idea, it's a lot of stuff that I was trying not to clutter up too much, but I'll see how it looks.

Hey, Surly only looks out for one guy...Surly!

by Andy Hellicksonstine on May 14, 2010 11:31 AM EDT up reply actions

Same

stupid school

Founding member of the Leslie Anderson fan club.

by staplemaniac on May 14, 2010 11:24 AM EDT up reply actions

WTFs with guys having the worst slumps of their careers right now

Beej and Los are both strugg-a-ling

Free Dan Johnson!

by Sveet on May 14, 2010 11:14 AM EDT up reply actions

Can you post the Evan's again a little larger?

Free Dan Johnson!

by Sveet on May 14, 2010 11:15 AM EDT up reply actions

the Evan?

I’m an idiot

Free Dan Johnson!

by Sveet on May 14, 2010 11:15 AM EDT up reply actions

You can just open up the image directly and it's larger

http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/jj216/SayHeyRays/Longo.jpg

by ChiBurbRaysFan on May 14, 2010 11:23 AM EDT up reply actions

Having trouble today?

As you can always expect come from behind victory is when you least expect it.

by Buc Wild on May 14, 2010 11:41 AM EDT up reply actions

.

Hey, Surly only looks out for one guy...Surly!

by Andy Hellicksonstine on May 14, 2010 11:26 AM EDT up reply actions

Holy eff, he hits or tops .600 a few times.

Time to go change the drawers.

As you can always expect come from behind victory is when you least expect it.

by Buc Wild on May 14, 2010 11:42 AM EDT up reply actions

can we petition the OED

to have this picture placed next to the entry for “streaky hitter?” Wow.

by AndrewTorrez on May 14, 2010 11:59 AM EDT up reply actions

Do you mind writing out the replace formula for me?

Not familiar with the function

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by FreeZorilla on May 14, 2010 11:26 AM EDT up reply actions

just hold ctrl and F

Highlight the column, and click on replace in your display box. Then type in what you want gone in the top line and what you want in on the bottom line. voila.

Hey, Surly only looks out for one guy...Surly!

by Andy Hellicksonstine on May 14, 2010 11:28 AM EDT up reply actions

You'll only come across so many states

IBB, Out, FC, SO = 0 (Stupid on IBB, I know, but I’m following the book)
BB= .72
HBP = .75
1B = .9
2b = 1.24
3b = 1.56
hr = 1.95
ROE = .92

Hey, Surly only looks out for one guy...Surly!

by Andy Hellicksonstine on May 14, 2010 11:30 AM EDT up reply actions

Maybe it's better to delete the IBBs?

Hard to penalize the player for them

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by FreeZorilla on May 14, 2010 11:31 AM EDT up reply actions

Over larger samples its prob insignificant

But if we are looking at 40 PA it’s meaningful

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by FreeZorilla on May 14, 2010 11:32 AM EDT up reply actions

You could, but like any recipe I just follow the steps, and mention the broken eggs in the batter later.

Hey, Surly only looks out for one guy...Surly!

by Andy Hellicksonstine on May 14, 2010 11:32 AM EDT up reply actions

I'd have to see what the book says about it

I would guess they were ignored due to the small significance. Every thing is meaningful in 40 PA, either that or nothing is meaningful due to sample size.

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by FreeZorilla on May 14, 2010 12:20 PM EDT up reply actions