Luyman's Term's #12: M15 Limited Report

This past July, I attended my first ever Magic pre-release event. Since it was my first, I set a simple goal for myself of not leaving with a losing record. I walked in with a decent idea of how I would accomplish this. I thought that a WU aggressive would perform pretty well, so I thought I would try that. To give myself the best chance at this, I decided to pick blue as my color because I felt it was stronger than white overall, and I wanted to be able to have a decent back up plan in case WU didn't work out. I thought that blue paired with any other color would be stronger than white paired with any other color. Also, I really wanted to run Ensoul Artifact on an Ornithopter for the dream 5/5 flier on turn 2.

Well, What Did You Open?

I opened my packs and immediately went for the rares. I found myself looking at the following:

1. Ob Nixilis, Unshackled
2. Sliver Hive
3. Sliver Hivelord
4. Chasm Skulker
5. Shield of the Avatar
6. Mercurial Pretender
7. Ob Nixilis, Unshackled II

I found myself slightly underwhelmed, as I was hoping that I would open at least 3 rares in either white or blue. I decided all was not lost, as I still had a slew of common and uncommon cards to look through. I went ahead and sorted everything by color, and counted how many cards were in each pile. I don't remember exactly how many cards I had in each color, but I do remember my white cards numbered in the single digits. There was absolutely no way I was going to be able to run my dream WU deck. Once again, I found myself slightly underwhelmed. My black looked to be pretty good though, so I decided to go UB.

What Did You Build?

Here is the deck I ended up running:

• Creature (17)
• 1 Accursed Spirit
• 1 Aeronaut Tinkerer 
• 1 Amphin Pathmage
• 1 Black Cat
• 1 Chasm Skulker
• 1 Child of Night
• 1 Gravedigger
• 1 Mercurial Pretender
• 1 Ob Nixilis, Unshackled
• 1 Ornithopter
• 1 Rotfeaster Maggot 
• 1 Shadowcloak Vampire
• 2 Typhoid Rats
• 1 Xathrid Slyblade
• 1 Witch's Familiar
• 1 Zof Shade
• Non-Creature Spells (4)
• 1 Turn to Frog
• 1 Caustic Tar
• 1 Ensoul Artifact
• 1 Sign in Blood
• Artifact (2)
• 1 Shield of the Avatar
• 1 Rogue's Gloves
• Land (17)
• Swamp 10
• Island 7
• Sideboard
• I decided not to bother. To be perfectly honest, I forgot I had one. I was just so nervous since it was the biggest event I had ever been a part of and I was just ready to play Magic.

While my dream of a WU aggro deck didn't quite pan out, I would have the opportunity for the Ensoul/Ornithopter dream to come to fruition and I was fine with that. I thought I might be able to steal a game or two with that combo (and that I did). I felt pretty confident in my deck, thinking that my main win-con would be just to stay alive until I could make Chasm Skulker/Ornithopter huge, or make things unblockable with the Pathmage. 

While I don't remember exactly how each of my rounds played out (in my defense, this was 6 weeks ago), I do remember how the deck performed overall...which was underwhelmingly. It was inconsistent at best, and a typical newby build at worst. I'm almost certain I fell into the trap of playing as many rares as possible, as Mercutial Pretender was almost always a 6-drop Typhoid Rat. I'm sure I could have put just about anything else in that spot and been better off.

How Did You Do?

I ended up going 2-2-1 in matches and 8-6-1 in games. Both matches I lost went to three games, so I consider the night a success. I've since participated in one other sealed deck event (going 2-2) and an M15 draft (2-1). I remember a lot less about these two events, but I do remember I ran WB in both and that I opened 2 Souls of Theros and a Liliana Vess in the sealed pool. So, overall I have a winning record in M15 limited, which is a lot more than I can say for JBT limited. I think I'm getting better, but the sample size is probably too small to know for sure. What do you think of my deck build? Do you think I fell into the trap of trying to play too many of my rares? What do you think were cards I could have sided in/out against decks I was weak against?

Luyman's Terms #11: The Value of a Bat, Part 2

In part 1, I discussed the concept of run values, and how we can use them to quantify a players offensive value to his team. I concluded the post saying that Jermaine Dye being worth 0.168 runs with his bat was a good thing, despite looking less than impressive. So why is 0.168 runs a good thing? What if I told you that that the average MLB player was worth -0.777 runs with his bat over the course of the 2002 season?

I understand if that strikes you as counter-intuitive, if the average player was worth negative runs to his team how did anyone score? The answer is simple: while this metric scores an out as a negative event, an out does not result in runs (literally) being taken off of the scoreboard. This explains why a player can be worth negative runs to his team, even though a "negative run" is not a thing the scoreboard measures.

What follows is a list of all MLB players who ended the 2002 season with 300 or more plate appearances. Sheet 1 contains the raw number of times each even occurred for each player. Sheet 2 contains the number of runs each player produced with each event. The last column of sheet 2 contains the total number of runs produced by that player (note that all of the "value" columns measure value in runs):

I explained where these numbers came from in part 1, but it's been a couple months so I will explain again. Each "value" column is calculated by taking the count of a certain event and multiplying by how many runs that particular event is worth. Let's so a sample calculation using Jim Thome and singles:

Jim Thome hit into 73 singles in 2002

A single was worth .475 runs in 2002

73 singles * .475 runs = 34.675 runs generated by singles by Jim Thome in 2002

Add up all of the non-out values for each player and you get the "hit value" for each player. This number is the total number of runs generated by that player's hits.

Unfortunately, we cannot stop our analysis here. While score is kept by only counting up, the value that a player provides for his team is certainly not only positive. This is why we must also include the value of the outs a player generates as well. To account for the full value of a player, all we have to do is add his hit value and out value:

Jim Thome Hit Value = 162.777 runs

Jim Thome Out Value = -99.866 runs

Jim Thome Offensive Value = 162.777+ -99.866 = 62.911 runs

I started this piece by saying that Jermaine Dye's 0.168 runs of offensive value being a good thing, that number seems to the dwarfed by the offensive value generated by Jim Thome! In fact, there are quite a few players who dwarf the value put up by Jermaine Dye! How is 0.168 runs of offensive value a good thing? Well, even with the massive values put up by the top of our list, the players at the bottom of the list also played in the major leagues. We must also consider their contribution.

To find the average value of a player with his bat, all we have to do is add up the total offensive value for each player, and divide by the total number of players in the sample (or, in this case, let the spreadsheet do it for us). The total offensive value for the group was -210.508 runs, spread over all 271 players means that the average player was worth -0.777 runs to his team with his bat. If Barry Bonds is removed from the sample (which I will do, since he is such an outlier), the number goes all the way down to -1.169 runs.

Using the average player as benchmark, we can see that Jermaine Dye is ever so slightly above average. He actually ranks 105th out of the 270 players in the sample (remember, we are excluding Bonds)! What this tells me is that an average player is actually quite valuable, even if the average player doesn't seem so good on the surface.

Are there any burning questions you have about baseball that you would like for me to attempt to answer using math (poorly)? The next topic I will attempt to answer will be pertaining to pinch hitting in some form or fashion, but I would love to hear what you guys would like to see analysed!

Link City #1

I'm back! Did you miss me? It has been a couple interesting months. After I posted the first part of my offensive values post, I realized that I had no idea what I was doing. I had just kind of jumped into the deep end and hoped I could swim. I didn't fully realize all the time I would need to fully research and understand the data I was messing with and then be able to flesh out an article that was interesting to read and I could feel proud of. My hope is that now I am comfortable enough with my data and that I have figured out how to better manage my time to I can both put out timely writings and have them be meaningful.

My goal for the foreseeable future is to post three times a week. I want to have a post full of interesting links (and maybe some commentary) on Mondays, a post on baseball/sabermetrics on Wednesdays, and a post about whatever (more than likely MTG) on Fridays.

Here are some things on the internet I have read in the last couple weeks that I have found interesting:

Baseball

First, is an article from Tom Verducci on the merits of banning the shift in baseball. While I can understand his position, he seems to focus quite a bit on one type of player and his stats seems to be a bit too cherry picked for my taste. While it is indisputable that offense is down as a whole across MLB, the shift is just a scapegoat I think.

Here is an article from Johnathan Judge as well as a quick post from Dave Cameron here explaining that Verducci's methodology may be over-simplified. They do a much better job of explaining why than I could.


Magic: The Gathering

I happened upon an interesting way to separate Magic cards from Reddit user u/alexpwalsh. I spent an hour or so constructing the separators, and I think they look great!

Over on Channel Fireball, Frank Karsten takes at look at "the optimal mana curve" for both constructed and limited decks using computer simulations. He even goes so far in one case to take a look at when you should mulligan your opening hand. It should be noted that his methods are completely context neutral, and are probably not super useful in practice. But it's certainly an interesting read, and definitely an interesting place to start if you're trying to build "the perfect deck."

Also on Channel Fireball, Owen Turtenwald tell us all about his Pro Tour M15 experience. Watching his reaction when he found out he made top-8 was something I will never forget. I hope some day that something will make me jump around like a kid again with a big grin on my face the way he did.

Miscellaneous?

I think that will be it for this week. Something quick just to get back into the swing of things!

Luyman's Terms #10: The Value of a Bat, Part 1

Over the history of competition, observers have been trying to separate the good from the bad, and the great from the good. We crown champions, and we wonder how those champions became to be. We realize that some competitors are simple better than others, but what is it that makes them better? In baseball, the most popular way of determining this has been to look at a players batting average.

While batting average is nice, it is very seldom a good way to measure the batter of a hitter. A double is clearly better than a single, but batting average weights them both the same. What we need is a metric that weights doubles more than singles. slugging % tries to compensate by giving doubles twice the value over single, triples three times the value, and home runs four - but is that a good way to go about it? It a double really worth 2 singles?

Lets think about that for a minute. A double puts a man on second base, but 2 singles put men on both first and second! 2 singles is clearly better than a double, so slugging % is not as good of a metric as we originally thought. What we need is a metric than can weigh 2 singles better than a double, but also have a double weigh more than a single. Enter: run values.

The concept of run values is simple: each event in baseball has an expected number of runs. As plays begin to unfold in a game, a team can expect to score a certain amount of runs depending on how the plays turned out. This notion is hardly more than common sense, but by using run values it is possible to quantify exactly how much a hit or an out is worth.

For this post (and for the rest of this series), I will use the values given in The Book by Tango, Lichtman, and Dolphin for the 1999-2002 seasons:

By counting each individual event for each player, we can determine just how much value he gave his team with his bat over the course of a season. Let's do a sample calculation with Jermaine Dye's 2002 Season:

1. Dye hit 71 singles in 2002, good for (71*.475) = 33.725 runs
2. Dye hit 27 doubles in 2002, good for 20.952 runs
3. 1 Triple for 1.07 runs
4. 52 Walks (2 intentional) for 16.508 runs
5. He was hit by 10 pitches for 3.52 runs
6. Add all of these run values for a total of 109.303 runs "created" by Jermaine Dye's bat

This sounds pretty good! All Jermaine Dye has to do is never get out, and he will be worth 109.303 runs to his team!. Except, Jermaine Dye will get out. In fact, he got out 365 times in 2002. We need to make another calculation:

1. 365 outs, good for -109.135 runs
2. 109.303 runs from hits + -109.135 runs from outs = 0.168 runs total

This means that in reality, Jermaine Dye was good for 0.168 runs with his bat, which doesn't look so good upon first glance. In my next post, I'll show you why this is actually a pretty good thing.

Luyman's Terms #9: Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

This is just going to be the week of short posts. I have no idea what I'm doing.

I've spent the last couple days building a Retrosheet database, and it looks like I have been successful. I now have 5.75 GB of baseball data on my computer reaching all of the way back to 1950. The problem now is that I have no idea how to traverse though it to get anything useful out of it. Enter SQL.

This is how I will be spending the next couple days. I thought I would be done with teaching myself computer speak after I switched out of Computer Engineering for Math, but I guess it's not quite done with me. If you guys have any tips for beginners of SQL I would greatly appreciate reading them!

Luyman's Terms #8: Leaning the Ropes

Another short post today, I very much underrated how much work goes into number crunching and this is the first time I have tried to do something on this big of a scale. But that's why I'm doing this blog, it's a learning experience for me (and hopefully for you as well). Here is a look at what I've been working on for the last couple days:



Super interesting right? I'm not sure I'm satisfied with my methodology up to this point, but my results have been interesting nonetheless. Would you guys be interested in post simply detailing my results? Or would you be more interested in process? Both? Let me know.

Luyman's Terns #7: What?

Quick post today, it was a long weekend.

Yesterday, I went to the Lexington Legends game with my dad to celebrate Father's Day. They, of course, lost 10-3. I lost interest sometime around the 7th inning when I finally got up to get a sno-cone, but my interest was piqued in the bottom of the ninth when I got to see the most bizarre play I have even seen in a baseball game. Something that doesn't show up in the box score.

Situation: Down 10-3 in the bottom of the ninth with a runner on first and one out, Chad Johnson attempts to steal second base.

This is hardly an extraordinary play. The base was successfully stolen without a throw and everyone was getting ready for the next pitch. How was Mr. Johnson preparing for it? HE WAS TROTTING BACK TO FIRST BASE! Everyone around me thought that we missed a foul tip (turned out there wasn't even a swing), suddenly the catcher realizes what is going on and chucks the ball to first. The runner gets caught in a rundown and is tagged out.

Laughter ensued, as everyone tried to figure out just what the heck happened. The runner was never credited with the stolen base (which he did get), and the game log does not do justice as to what actually transpired. But now, there is a record of it (such as this blog is a record of anything). Hopefully, Chad Johnson is a major league player one day, and my dad and I can say "I remember him when..." If nothing else, it was definitely a memorable Father's Day.