Stolen Signs

Episode 19: Park Factors and Pitch Design

February 28th, 2018  |  1 hr 5 mins

ballparks, baseball, mlb, pitching

When we talk about park adjusted stats, and park factors, what does all of that mean? How do we arrive at those numbers and how do we account for changes over time? We also talk about "pitch design" and how that combines analytical data and player development.

Episode 18: Making PECOTA with Jonathan Judge and Rob McQuown

February 15th, 2018  |  1 hr 16 mins

baseball, mlb, pecota, projections

We talk with Jonathan Judge and Rob McQuown, who oversee Baseball Prospectus' PECOTA projections to get some more insight into how the projections are made, what's new this year, and of course hip hop.

Episode 17: These Are Not the Robot Umpires You're Looking For

January 31st, 2018  |  1 hr 4 mins

baseball, mlb, pitching, radar, umpires

We talk to Jeff Long, Sean O'Rourke, Wayne Boyle, and Russell Carleton about their recent Pitching Week article about the Robot Strikezone and Robot Umpires.

Episode 16: Inning(s) Eaters and Aces

January 18th, 2018  |  57 mins 45 secs

baseball, mlb, pitching, sabermetrics

Stolen Signs is back. Harry and Kendall talk about the slow offseason, collusion and ideas on how to change the economics of baseball. After a short break (14:05) they discuss new research by Duke University that looks into neurological and motor skills and how they translate to baseball production, a new smart baseball that can provide some pitch tracking and tease some new work by the stats team at Baseball Prospectus. To wrap up (32:00), a look into the state of pitching and try to talk about what an inning(s) eater is and also what an ace is.

Episode 15: Twas the Episode Before Christmas

December 22nd, 2017  |  1 hr 42 mins

baseball, hall of fame, miami marlins, pitching, shohei otani

We touch on many issues of the day as we wrap up 2017 in style.
[3:10] - Marlins firesale fallout
[17:05] - Bob Bowman forced out at MLBAM
[23:38] - Shohei Ohtani ZIPS, Steamer and PECOTA projections
[35:20] - Long form movement article from Jeff Long
[51:00] - Major League Baseball's Statcast Can Break Sabermetrics by Emma Baccellieri
[1:19:20] - Hall of Fame discussion

Episode 14: Shohei Otani and Japanese Baseball with Ben Lindbergh and Kaz Yamazaki

December 7th, 2017  |  1 hr 23 mins

baseball, japanese baseball, mlb, ohtani

We talk with Ben Lindbergh and Kaz Yamazaki about the NPB posting system, differences between the mounds, balls, culture of MLB and NPB and dig a little deeper into some of the myths about Japanese pitchers coming over to MLB. We also look into the current state of the sabermetric community in Japan.

Episode 13: Wins Above Replacement discussion with Sean Forman (bWAR), David Cameron (fWAR), Greg Matthews (openWAR), Rob McQuown and Jonathan Judge (WARP)

November 29th, 2017  |  1 hr 2 mins

baseball, sabermetrics, statistics, wins above replacement

We welcome Sean Forman from Baseball Reference, David Cameron from FanGraphs, Greg Matthews from openWAR, Rob McQuown and Jonathan Judge from Baseball Prospectus to the show.

With all the recent discussion about Wins Above Replacement statistics, we wanted to get people who create and maintain the statistics together to talk about how their respective stats are created and calculated. We talk about what replacement level is, positional adjustments, how to accurately portray confidence in the precision of the statistic.

Episode 12: Making Sausage and Catching Up

November 16th, 2017  |  1 hr 25 mins

baseball, pitching, statistics

Harry and Kendall look back at the World Series, discuss the Cy Young awards and the BBWAA vote has lined up with BP's pitching metrics over the past few years.

Next up is a preview of some new pitching statistics that the Baseball Prospectus stats team is working on and why that's proven to be a challenge. Harry gives a look into how these statistics are imagined, designed, tested, and tweaked throughout the process.

Episode 11: Unusual Paths to the Rotation and Everything Old is New Again with Jarrett Seidler

October 26th, 2017  |  1 hr 2 mins

baseball, pitching, world series

This week Harry and Kendall talk to Jarrett Seidler from the Baseball Prospectus Prospects team about the cyclical nature of baseball in general, and analytics specifically.

Harry and Kendall also take a closer look at how pitchers end up in their eventual roles and examine their route to get there. For this exercise they looked at pitchers with a debut season of > 20 IP as a reliever, and fewer starter innings than reliever innings in that year and then went on to log > 75 IP as a starter in a subsequent season, with fewer reliever than starting innings. Check out the spreadsheet.

This Week I Learned:

Harry - A look into research done with Kate Morrison for Ben Lindbergh's Ringer piece about Dallas Keuchel and the Dodgers - https://www.theringer.com/mlb/2017/10/24/16533310/houston-astros-los-angeles-dodgers-dallas-keuchel-kryptonite

Kendall - Is it possible that Major League Baseball is coming to Portland? - http://www.baseballamerica.com/columnists/expansion-trigger-realignment-longer-postseason/#IpHtEd8vb3JeJHOB.97

Episode 10: Looking back at PECOTA

October 12th, 2017  |  1 hr 16 mins

baseball, projection, sabermetrics, stats

We start by talking about projection systems in general, then dive into 2017 PECOTA team projections. We look to see how adding in actual playing time affects the team totals. Then we talk about individual players that out-performed and under-performed their PECOTA projections.

This Week I Learned:
Harry learns that "bullpenning" is a thing, sort of, maybe, kind of. (h/t Matt Trueblood)
Kendall learns to make adjustments in parenting, just like hitters like Mike Trout have had to make adjustments to high fastballs. (h/t to Jeff Sullivan)

Episode 9: Playoff Formats and Rosters w/ Rob Arthur, Ben Diamond, Greg Matthews, and Travis Sawchik

September 28th, 2017  |  1 hr 25 mins

baseball, mlb, playoffs, sabermetrics

We sat down with Rob Arthur, Ben Diamond, Greg Matthews, and Travis Sawchik to talk about the MLB playoffs. We touched on playoff formats (past, present, and future?) and then moved on to talk about roster construction and optimization for the playoffs. After that, Harry and Kendall talk about the things they learned this week.

Episode 8: Pitcher Similarity Scores

September 21st, 2017  |  58 mins 51 secs

baseball, pitching, sabermetrics

This week Harry and Kendall discuss pitcher similarity scores. Where did they come from? What are they? What can they be used for? And what might they evolve into.

Episode 7: The Rise of the Two-Way Player

September 16th, 2017  |  1 hr 6 mins

With the news of Shohei Ohtani's imminent posting from the NPB, this episode we talk with Sung Min Kim from the Sporting News about the posting system as well a

Episode 6: Baseball and Psychology with Dan Brooks and Russell Carleton

September 8th, 2017  |  1 hr 9 mins

baseball, performance, psychology, sabermetrics, stats

This week Harry and Kendall welcome Dan Brooks from Brooks Baseball and Russell Carleton from Baseball Prospectus. We talk with Dan and Russell about how baseba

Episode 5: Sabermetrics Timeline

September 1st, 2017  |  1 hr 1 min

baseball, sabermetrics, stats

Harry Pavlidis and Kendall Guillemette go through a rough outline of the history of sabermetrics.

Episode 4: Stats and Storytellers with Jonah Keri

August 25th, 2017  |  1 hr 12 mins

baseball, sabermetrics, stats

This is the first in a new recurring series called Stats and Storytellers. We're excited to welcome Jonah Keri as our first guest.