Match Stats/Report - Safin vs Federer, Australian Open semi-final, 2005

[metsman]

Are you saying the average #20/30/50/100 player plays in a way that meaningfully lacks 'art and beauty' compared to the similarly-ranked players of yore? I can't say that. There may be less variety but still the game utilises all shots. You can go to challengers and the game is fundamentally the same, just worse. Hasn't it always been that way? Tennis is an art on its own, lesser quality tennis is just that, lesser. The problem is the lack of new quality at the top, for various reasons tied to the modern game and lifestyle of course. You rather look at this like a grumbling old-timer, declaring that Alcaraz isn't worth watching because he can't even approach Ferrer. You have this conception whereby modern tennis has gone essentially soulless or something. I can't say that's reasonable. Less quality is the problem, if there were consistent decent quality it would be just fine, not like before when GOAT peaksters roamed the courts, but still entirely fine.

The air of superiority is consistently there as you snub anyone who doesn't accept whatever analysis you come up with as fully correct and hitting the nail of it.

It's not about quality, it's about style. The average #20 player used to be able to volley and didn't play from 10 feet behind. Where are the Kohlschreibers, Kiefers, Lopezes, Scricaphans, etc.? I guess we had Mischa Zverev for 6 months like 5 years ago.

Not encouraging everyone to play the same horrendously ugly style is something that probably could have been controlled.

I engage in plenty of good spirited argumentation including this one. The people I snub are those who engage in reddit tier argumentation, as of course this is a total waste of time for everyone involved.

 

[TheFifthSet]

Three true outcomes make the game more "exciting" as it produces tons of short highlights you can share on social media, etc. Younger people with no attention span don't want to watch a pitcher perfectly locate his spots and induce a bunch of weak contact and put up a 8ip, 2er, 1bb, 5K line. When people say baseball is boring, that's what they refer to. And baseball television audience is quite old but other forms of media are not, there's significant youtube/social media/podcast, etc. presence. So in a way it's worked.

I understand it's the analytically sound approach, but stealing your opponents' signs is as well. Ultimately a line has to be drawn somewhere. Obviously I'm in the small minority who preferred it when pitchers were horses who went deep into games and carried their teams. Which is why Burnes somehow won the CY over Wheeler last year, absolutely absurd. Much more interesting and glorious than watching 10 guys who all throw the same pitches. The playoffs are just not the same without that one horse trying to will his team through whether it was Schilling, Beckett, Verlander, Bumgarner, etc. The average playoff game now is a bullpen game, it's utterly ridiculous.

I understand baseball analytics extremely well, but yet most of its on-field applications have destroyed the game for me whether that's fielder positioning, bullpen usage, pitch selection, etc. Completely removes the human element, players barely have to think out there anymore.

Agreed with the bottom paragraph, it’s made it a lot less fun for me that’s for sure.

not sure I agree with the bit about TTO’s making the game more exciting for younger people considering baseballs popularity nosedived in concert with contact hitters basically dying out. Most of the gripes I’ve heard from new and old school alike is that there’s very little variety in today’s game, and that there’s actually been minimal engagement with the younger fan.

also, re: weak contact…there’s compelling evidence showing pitchers can do little to control for batting average on balls put in play. Walks and strikeouts they can control, and even home runs to an extent. But the idea that a lot of pitchers are much better at converting batted balls into outs is a myth.

 

[metsman]

Agreed with the bottom paragraph, it’s made it a lot less fun for me that’s for sure.

not sure I agree with the bit about TTO’s making the game more exciting for younger people considering baseballs popularity nosedived in concert with contact hitters basically dying out. Most of the gripes I’ve heard from new and old school alike is that there’s very little variety in today’s game, and that there’s actually been minimal engagement with the younger fan.

also, re: weak contact…there’s compelling evidence showing pitchers can do little to control for batting average on balls put in play. Walks and strikeouts, they can control, and home runs to an extent. But the idea that a lot of pitchers are much better at converting batted balls into outs is a myth.

For pitchers on average, yes. ERA usually converges to FIP. But we don't really care about that. There are several pitchers including many of the great ones that can certainly control batted ball quality. For example it's well known that great changeup pitchers get more flyballs and popups (and homers) than average, which result in a lower BABIP.

Also FIP is a predictive metric not a descriptive one. And even as a predictive metric it's way outdated, no team uses it anymore and most will use some batted ball component, as if a pitcher consistently induces certain extreme batted ball events they probably have a knack for it. But when I watch the game I also don't really care about whether what I'm seeing is sustainable. Curt Schilling pitching to a 1 ERA throwing 8+ innings a game in the heart of the steroid era in the 01 playoffs wasn't sustainable (although the guy is the best postseason pitcher ever for a reason) but that didn't make it any less one of the most incredible things I've seen. Yet today you'd take him about after 6 innings because he would "regress" during innings 7-9.

 

[Third Serve]

Talk Baseball Warehouse

 

[TheFifthSet]

For pitchers on average, yes. ERA usually converges to FIP. But we don't really care about that. There are several pitchers including many of the great ones that can certainly control batted ball quality. For example it's well known that great changeup pitchers get more flyballs and popups (and homers) than average, which result in a lower BABIP.

Also FIP is a predictive metric not a descriptive one. And even as a predictive metric it's way outdated, no team uses it anymore and most will use some batted ball component, as if a pitcher consistently induces certain extreme batted ball events they probably have a knack for it. But when I watch the game I also don't really care about whether what I'm seeing is sustainable. Curt Schilling pitching to a 1 ERA throwing 8+ innings a game in the heart of the steroid era in the 01 playoffs wasn't sustainable (although the guy is the best postseason pitcher ever for a reason) but that didn't make it any less one of the most incredible things I've seen. Yet today you'd take him about after 6 innings because he would "regress" during innings 7-9.

Indeed it’s a predictive metric, don’t think i said otherwise though. FIP has definitely fallen out of favour as the go-to in recent years as baseball metrics will just always get more granular until they reach something resembling an endpoint. That said, it still captures the reality that there are a very small (at best) subset of pitchers that can consistently produce (at best) slightly lower than average defence-adjusted BABIP’s…but we’re in ‘tempest in a teapot’ territory because it isn’t the valuable skill it was cracked out to be. The main predictors of pitching success are the three components alluded to (w/strikeouts and walks being far easier to control) and the defence surrounding you.

This applies to most of the vaunted ‘weak contact’ pitchers throughout history: Maddux (VERY low walk rate, slightly above average strikeout rate, dominant defence behind him), Glavine (decent walk rate, didn’t allow lots of home runs, dominant defence), Palmer (maybe the best ever defence around him), Halladay (crazy low walk rate, above average strikeout rate, good homer rate). These are (again at best) secondary skills being passed off as the main strength of a number of great pitchers…and they just never are.

I do agree fully that the total absence of workhorses in today’s game makes starting pitchers less fun to follow.

 

[AnOctorokForDinner]

I engage in plenty of good spirited argumentation including this one. The people I snub are those who engage in reddit tier argumentation, as of course this is a total waste of time for everyone involved.

Yeah, you do because at least you don't take disagreement as an affront even if you think it's worth zilch, unlike most arguebots. Not much of an enterprise as far as changing anyone's mind goes but there's a little fun to be had maybe.

It's not about quality, it's about style. The average #20 player used to be able to volley and didn't play from 10 feet behind. Where are the Kohlschreibers, Kiefers, Lopezes, Scricaphans, etc.? I guess we had Mischa Zverev for 6 months like 5 years ago.

Not encouraging everyone to play the same horrendously ugly style is something that probably could have been controlled.

Ugly because low quality, no? Sure if you think e.g. spinbotting is ugly by nature then even Nadal is an eyesore no matter how well he plays. I sympathise but it's a kinda mad disrespectful attitude. Net game kinda died for the most part, which sure is lamentable, but rally patterns still differ across the tour. It's lack of quality making them disappointing.

 

[TheFifthSet]

Talk Baseball Warehouse

haha, can’t help but veer off the trail

 

[Third Serve]

haha, can’t help but veer off the trail

eh no problem, it’s an interesting discussion even for someone who only ever has baseball on in the background

 

[metsman]

Yeah, you do because at least you don't take disagreement as an affront even if you think it's worth zilch, unlike most arguebots. Not much of an enterprise as far as changing anyone's mind goes but there's a little fun to be had maybe.




Ugly because low quality, no? Sure if you think e.g. spinbotting is ugly by nature then even Nadal is an eyesore no matter how well he plays. I sympathise but it's a kinda mad disrespectful attitude. Net game kinda died for the most part, which sure is lamentable, but rally patterns still differ across the tour. It's lack of quality making them disappointing.

Do they? Every notable baseline player among the younger crowd has less aggressive court positioning than Nadal on average. And what they all have in common is just flat out ugly strokes and movement patterns. Give me even a Dimitrov or Nishikori any day over that. Nishikori and Dimitrov are basically poor or very poor man's versions of great players, but at least they play more or less in a nice way. We can't even get one guy who plays like say Tommy Haas?

 

[metsman]

Indeed it’s a predictive metric, don’t think i said otherwise though. FIP has definitely fallen out of favour as the go-to in recent years as baseball metrics will just always get more granular until they reach something resembling an endpoint. That said, it still captures the reality that there are a very small (at best) subset of pitchers that can consistently produce (at best) slightly lower than average defence-adjusted BABIP’s…but we’re in ‘tempest in a teapot’ territory because it isn’t the valuable skill it was cracked out to be. The main predictors of pitching success are the three components alluded to (w/strikeouts and walks being far easier to control) and the defence surrounding you.

This applies to most of the vaunted ‘weak contact’ pitchers throughout history: Maddux (VERY low walk rate, slightly above average strikeout rate, dominant defence behind him), Glavine (decent walk rate, didn’t allow lots of home runs, dominant defence), Palmer (maybe the best ever defence around him), Halladay (crazy low walk rate, above average strikeout rate, good homer rate). These are (again at best) secondary skills being passed off as the main strength of a number of great pitchers…and they just never are.

I do agree fully that the total absence of workhorses in today’s game makes starting pitchers less fun to follow.

Eh, weak contact is basically Maddux's and Glavine's main strength. Halladay had a bit more power stuff, but basically the same thing. Plenty of pitchers have great control and low walk rates, but they had great command. Without extraordinary HR suppression (basically miss a spot badly an extra couple times a game) they'd be much more decent rather than ATG (say a Bartolo Colon or Mark Buehrle, good #2 starters, or even a decent #1 like Mussina). And of course part of the reason they were HR suppressors were because they got tons of ground balls, but to run below league average BABIP while getting ground balls part of it is defense, but most of it is inducing lots of choppers that any mug can field.

 

[AnOctorokForDinner]

Do they? Every notable baseline player among the younger crowd has less aggressive court positioning than Nadal on average. And what they all have in common is just flat out ugly strokes and movement patterns. Give me even a Dimitrov or Nishikori any day over that. Nishikori and Dimitrov are basically poor or very poor man's versions of great players, but at least they play more or less in a nice way. We can't even get one guy who plays like say Tommy Haas?

Well if quality is essentially measured by how early you take the ball and that's all there is to it, then sure.

 

[TheFifthSet]

Eh, weak contact is basically Maddux's and Glavine's main strength. Halladay had a bit more power stuff, but basically the same thing. Plenty of pitchers have great control and low walk rates, but they had great command. Without extraordinary HR suppression (basically miss a spot badly an extra couple times a game) they'd be much more decent rather than ATG (say a Bartolo Colon or Mark Buehrle, good #2 starters, or even a decent #1 like Mussina). And of course part of the reason they were HR suppressors were because they got tons of ground balls, but to run below league average BABIP while getting ground balls part of it is defense, but most of it is inducing lots of choppers that any mug can field.

Maddux at his peak led the league in SO:BB ratio three years in a row. He led the league in BB/9 innings a whopping nine times. His strikeout rate in the 90’s was also well above league average.

Their BABIP’s, fwiw, weren’t that low… .286 and .285, league average was .295 across the years they played. Given the elite fielding around them (est. 30-80 fielding runs above average every year, multiple Gold Glovers), that’s about what you’d expect, with lots of variance thrown in there (some years they were well below average and had a .320-.330 BABIP against).

we could be splitting hairs because I do ultimately agree that ground-ballers can control for home runs somewhat…(less so than walks and strikeouts, but still)…but anything that’s inside the ballpark, pitchers have next-to-no sustainable control over. Also, pitching to contact comes with it’s own set of trade-offs, one being lessened K rates…which would bring us back to square one. Ultimately those four factors (1ab K’s/walks, 3home runs and 4fielding support) account for most of it,..rest is window dressing.

 

[metsman]

Maddux at his peak led the league in SO:BB ratio three years in a row. He led the league in BB/9 innings a whopping nine times. His strikeout rate in the 90’s was also well above league average.

Their BABIP’s, fwiw, weren’t that low… .286 and .285, league average was .295 across the years they played. Given the elite fielding around them (est. 30-80 fielding runs above average every year, multiple Gold Glovers), that’s about what you’d expect, with lots of variance thrown in there (some years they were well below average and had a .320-.330 BABIP against).

we could be splitting hairs because I do ultimately agree that ground-ballers can control for home runs somewhat…(less so than walks and strikeouts, but still)…but anything that’s inside the ballpark, pitchers have next-to-no sustainable control over. Also, pitching to contact comes with it’s own set of trade-offs, one being lessened K rates…which would bring us back to square one. Ultimately those four factors (1ab K’s/walks, 3home runs and 4fielding support) account for most of it,..rest is window dressing.

popups and weak fly balls is also a repeatable skill.

But like I said, I don't really care what's repeatable, the best pitchers in their best years do draw weak contact and do so consistently. Over the course of a career it's impossible to maintain sure.

 

[metsman]

Well if quality is essentially measured by how early you take the ball and that's all there is to it, then sure.

In essence that is indeed the main measure of baseline quality, given your court positioning are you prepared for the ball as quickly as possible? If prepared, some may choose to take it earlier/later or give different shapes to the ball. But Nadal and Federer both prepare to take balls just as quickly (at a high level) despite their other differences. If a player does this better than another player he will almost most certainly win barring a huge serving gap. Besides serve this is basically the essence of tennis, "intensity" most would call it.

 

[TheFifthSet]

popups and weak fly balls is also a repeatable skill.

To a small extent, but the impact on ERA’s over a long span of time is basically negligible. We’re talking about the main factors behind pitcher success. It’s still those four.

But like I said, I don't really care what's repeatable, the best pitchers in their best years do draw weak contact and do so consistently. Over the course of a career it's impossible to maintain sure.

The fact that it tends to even out over the span of a full career suggests that could itself be at least partially owed to variance, no?


Take Pedro from ‘97-‘02 (in my books, the best pitching peak since Koufax)…here are his yearly BABIP’s:

.263, .272, .325 (!!!), .237 (!!!), .310, .274.

Basically no stability.

How about RJ, who had a similarly dominant peak, from ‘97-‘02?

.283, .323, .294, .294, .335, .321, .291

A little better, but still, he was at worst the second best pitcher in the league yet his BABIP against ranged from average to below average every single year.

I don’t doubt that the odd pitcher can outperform expectations somewhat (Kershaw is one example, though his post-2012 groundball tendencies being complemented by a very good infield defence helps some), the extent to which it happens is wildly exaggerated tho

 

[metsman]

To a small extent, but the impact on ERA’s over a long span of time is basically negligible. We’re talking about the main factors behind pitcher success. It’s still those four.






The fact that it tends to even out over the span of a full career suggests that could itself be at least partially owed to variance, no?


Take Pedro from ‘97-‘02 (in my books, the best pitching peak since Koufax)…here are his yearly BABIP’s:

.263, .272, .325 (!!!), .237 (!!!), .310, .274.

Basically no stability.

How about RJ, who had a similarly dominant peak, from ‘97-‘02?

.283, .323, .294, .294, .335, .321, .291

A little better, but still, he was at worst the second best pitcher in the league yet his BABIP against ranged from average to below average every single year.

I don’t doubt that the odd pitcher can outperform expectations somewhat (Kershaw is one example, though his post-2012 groundball tendencies being complemented by a very good infield defence helps some), the extent to which it happens is wildly exaggerated tho

Unit was not really a BABIP suppressor in any case. Pedro, if you look at his entire prime was, ran BABIP's 10-20 points below on the balance, which makes sense as he's a changeup/flyball pitcher. And unlike most of guys he also ran massive K rates and suppressed home runs. In terms of raw ability basically the best there's ever been (I thought deGrom reached even another level last year but we know what happened), but obviously he somewhat lacks that horse quality to throw 250 innings and then go into the playoffs and give you 40-50 more.

My main point is that if you look at the .237 year and the .325 year, not all that difference is due to lucky hits or defense. He did probably induce weaker contact on average in one year vs the other. Was it repeatable year to year, no, but it happened.

In general, FIP is next to a useless stat for elite pitchers. Elite pitchers should almost always be given the benefit of the doubt in regards to "luck". I've never found myself caring about an elite pitcher's ERA vs FIP, as a standard RA-9 based WAR will be adjusting for team defense quality anyways (which is very far from perfect but still decent enough).

 

[RS]

Alex Rodriguez.

 

[RS]

Talk Baseball Warehouse

Baseball , Basketball , Boxing , Football and WWE.

 

[TheFifthSet]

Unit was not really a BABIP suppressor in any case. Pedro, if you look at his entire prime was, ran BABIP's 10-20 points below on the balance, which makes sense as he's a changeup/flyball pitcher. And unlike most of guys he also ran massive K rates and suppressed home runs. In terms of raw ability basically the best there's ever been (I thought deGrom reached even another level last year but we know what happened), but obviously he somewhat lacks that horse quality to throw 250 innings and then go into the playoffs and give you 40-50 more.

My main point is that if you look at the .237 year and the .325 year, not all that difference is due to lucky hits or defense. He did probably induce weaker contact on average in one year vs the other. Was it repeatable year to year, no, but it happened.

In general, FIP is next to a useless stat for elite pitchers. Elite pitchers should almost always be given the benefit of the doubt in regards to "luck". I've never found myself caring about an elite pitcher's ERA vs FIP, as a standard RA-9 based WAR will be adjusting for team defense quality anyways (which is very far from perfect but still decent enough).

Fair enough, lets agree to disagree here cuz I think it’s hard for me to deny the factor of luck—the variance wrt BAPIP absent a noticeable difference in pitch quality (which is rarely reflected in the other three stats) suggests it’s an important consideration. When you see .237 one year and .325 the next, of course we can infer that weaker contact was induced in the former…I just think it’s more due to circumstance/variance/hitting success rather than a marked difference in pitch quality. That it isn’t particularly repeatable but the others (k’s, w, homers) are…suggest as much. But we’ll naturally diverge here.

 

[Herald]

That's because we actually know enough about the game to credibly construct such arguments. Most others make only first order reddit tier arguments (in terms of narrative and stats). It's pretentious to say but it's true.

At least we agree on something, even if we disagree on the validity of the opinions of professional analysts, top ten players, all time greats, and of course the players' own self-assessments.

 

[Herald]

lol I was waiting for someone to say this quiet part out loud

So is it fair to say that if someone disagrees with you, they're "first tier redditors" who don't go beyond the shallow realm of evidence based argumentation using head to heads, statistical achievements, and professional analysis to support their views?

 

[metsman]

So is it fair to say that if someone disagrees with you, they're "first tier redditors" who don't go beyond the shallow realm of evidence based argumentation using head to heads, statistical achievements, and professional analysis to support their views?

Nah first tier redditor is too kind, that would imply the best of that crowd, whereas what I meant was the ordinary standard fare there.

 

[Herald]

Nah first tier redditor is too kind, that would imply the best of that crowd, whereas what I meant was the ordinary standard fare there.

Honesty is the foundation of progress. Appreciate you.

 

[Roddickulous1]

@Waspsting needs to do a match report of the mythical Fed/Roddick 2007 USO QF