An interview with Tom Tango

We take a short break from our faux interviews of one another to bring you an actual real interview. Tom Tango who co-wrote The Book and writes on the site Inside the Book has answered many of the questions that Pmayo and I put together. I'd like to thank Tom for taking some of his time to answer the questions of a couple of idiots. Thanks a lot. ACB: We've discussed the problem of prejudice in baseball to some extent here at ACB. How much of a role do you think this has played in Tim Raines' exclusion from the HOF especially given the inclusion of Paul Molitor, a player who used cocaine in the same period as Raines, and the apparent canonization of Josh Hamilton? Additionally, how much, if any, of a role does Raines' participation in the collusion trials play in his exclusion? Tom Tango: I'm not going to impugne any voter's character by discussing racism or prejudice. What I will mention is racial bias. We all have biases, even of a racial nature. I don't know how much it plays a part with Raines specifically, but racial bias toward Blacks with regards to drugs is widely reported. Are white writers somehow different from white people? Is Raines somehow different from black people? I don't know. But, I would say that the racial bias does exist generally. You also will never here about Molitor's drug issues, and you will about Raines. Raines also did what virtually no other superstar involved with drugs did: admit it to the world, at the age of 23. ACB: Not to put too fine a point on it, but 73 WAR has been touted as the "cutoff" for the HOF; better put, no player above 73 WAR has been excluded from the HOF. Raines is slightly below that level, but is obviously a HOF player, and given that, one, the 73 WAR "cutoff" seems correlative rather than causal, and, two, that Raines' "baseball card numbers" are undeniably HOF-caliber, is there any good reason Raines won't get into the HOF? Tom Tango: The 73 WAR is the "guaranteed" line. There are plenty of players below 73 WAR that is not in. Think of it in terms of a scale of 0% to 100%. Anyone below 50 WAR has a less than 5% chance of making it. Anyone above 73 WAR is at 100%. The gray area is 50-73, and obviously, the closer to 73, the more likely you will make it. So, Raines is at 70, which means he's got a fantastic case for the HOF. He's also with a group that includes Tony Gwynn. Basically, Raines belongs in the same room as Gwynn. Wherever Gwynn is invited, so to should Raines. BaseballProjection.com, which counted Raines at 70, also does not include clutch performance. And Raines was one of the best of his generation. That should be enough to get him into the guaranteed spot. ACB: Ronny Cedeno is a player that has always intrigued us. Most Cub fans hate him, particularly because of a baserunning mistake a year or two ago where he overslid 2nd on a walk and was tagged out. We're pretty sure that's a stupid reason to dislike a baseball player. Given that you now work for the Mariners, Cedeno's current employer, we wonder if you might give the average dumb Cub fan some insight into, one, what the Mariners saw in Cedeno, and, two, what type of player you think he might project into? Tom Tango: I have an NDA. ACB: We're of the mind that one of the most misunderstood things in baseball is the difference between the AL and NL. Probably some of this is due to the lack of understanding as to how to quantify, and thereby grasp, this difference. In the Cubs' case, you take a pitcher like Ted Lilly, who was average in the AL, place him in the NL, and he's an above average pitcher, even in the hitter-friendly environs of Wrigley Field. How do we account for this and is there any way to accurately quantify it? Tom Tango: Sure. The easy way is to simply add +.050 wins per game to a pitcher that goes from the AL to NL, and reverse it the other way. ACB: How many runs would you project the 2009 Cubs to score, and if you could, what is their most optimal lineup? How does that vary from Lou's likely lineup of Soriano, Fontenot, Lee, Bradley, Ramirez, Fukudome, Soto, Theriot and the pitcher? Tom Tango: I haven't checked it, but I don't see how I could be any different than what Rally and BPro will say. Forecasting is not a big deal. ACB: While we're talking about the 2009 Cubs, could you explain to the readers here the difference in runs between Soriano leading off and batting 4th? As I'm sure you know, one of the biggest issues with Cubs fans is where Soriano should bat. Also, we know that Soriano's hitting in the leadoff spot has been far better than his hitting in other spots in the lineup and while there's no reason to believe this would continue, do you think the difference is small enough that we should just defer to Lou's managerial experience? Tom Tango: A bench player will play anywhere. He checks his ego at the door. A star player surrounded by other star players, like at the WBC, will check his ego at the door. But, star players (and I'm not talking about anyone in particular) sometimes have different views. While you can gain a handful of runs (say 1 to 5) a year by optimizing where you could put a player in the lineup, the player's ego has enough of an impact on his performance that it could undo any of that gain. So, let Sori bat wherever he thinks he performs better. If it takes Rickey or Raines to be on the team for him to think differently, then you can take advantage of that. ACB: You've surely read Colin Wyers' recent work on Statspeak where he introduces BACON and SLGCON as metrics to sort through whether or not steroids had as large an impact on hitting as we're to believe. Have you done any research into this and if so, could you briefly tell us about your findings? If you haven't done any research, could you tell us what you think of Colin's article? Tom Tango: I don't have any comment on it as of yet. ACB: In the Bill James Handbook's Manager's Record section, platoon advantage percentage (at the start of the game) is included. NL average in 2008 was 59%, but Lou used it only 47%. In 2007 he used it only 51%. It seems between 2001 and 2004 used this to his advantage frequently, but since then he has not. How would this affect the team's projected runs scored in 2009? Also, do you think this is more an issue of personnel than it is a managerial tendency? Tom Tango: That number inandofitself is meaningless. You have to look at the opportunities to platoon first, and then see how often he did or didn't. And, you have to see if his 25-man roster is geared toward the bench or the bullpen. ACB: Cubs fans have a few questions and/or concerns about Milton Bradley. I recently did some elementary math that showed Milton Bradley to be equal in terms of production to Adam Dunn in roughly half the playing time. Is that at all accurate? What's a reasonable playing time estimate and what are we to make of his defense in 2009? His UZR has been above average in the past, but he hasn't played the field much for a couple years. Tom Tango: Bradley is as high-risk high-reward as you are going to find. The uncertainty range in anyone's estimate of him will be enormous. So, I'm not sure how valuable it is to say that he's better or worse than Dunn. He's got as good a shot as being much better than Dunn as he has as being much worse than him. ACB: Speaking of defense, what is the best way to project the Cubs defense as a team? And is there a metric available that we could follow this season to give us a good idea just how good, or bad, the Cubs defense is compared to the rest of the league? Tom Tango: UZR at Fangraphs is easily your best bet. ACB: I don't think most of the people here are familiar with the WOWY (With or Without You) studies that have been done recently by people like you. Could you briefly explain that for the readers here? Tom Tango: It's simply: how does a player or team play when player X is and is not on the field? You have to be very very aware of sample size issues, as well as whether the "all other things equal" really is "equal". But, given a large enough career, you can tell alot about a player. This article is probably the best at introducing your readers to the concept: http://tangotiger.net/catchers.html ACB: Baseball isn't particularly popular in Canada from my understanding. We were wondering what drew you to the game and we were also wondering if the popularity is increasing perhaps in part because of the World Baseball Classic? Tom Tango: Baseball is tremendously popular. I think Toronto led the league in attendance one or two years, didn't they? And Montreal was getting fantastic turnouts as late as the summer of 1994. I don't see any difference between those two cities and comparable geographical cities. And I think the American fans would have responded EXACTLY as Montrealers did had they been subjected to the same conditions. No groups of Canadians or Americans is any better than the other. ACB: We've definitely got a few every-morning reads here at ACB (Inside the Book, Posnanski, THT, and BTF to name a few). Are there any particular websites or blogs, that you would count as an everyday read? David Tom Tango: I put my list on my blog: http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/site/comments/my_dirty_dozen_favorite_baseball_websites/