FOX is rooting for the “Secret Sauce”

It’s been two days without baseball, and there is still one day to go. Hey, at least there are other things to watch on TV. Oh, wait.

Since it’s been so long, I though I’d remind everyone that there are four teams left in playoffs, two teams in the National League and two in the American League. And, with the NLCS less than 24 hours away, it seems appropriate to give you readers a couple predictions (otherwise known as guesses when it comes to me.)

Or, I can just let Nate Silver and his super-secret formula do it for me.

After Silver invented PECOTA, Baseball Prospectus’ system that projects a player’s performance based on comparisons with thousands of historical players-season, he moved on to slightly simpler projections, like predicting post-season results.

First introduced by Silver and Dayn Perry in Baseball Between the Numbers, the “Secret Sauce” looks at three statistics and team traits generally shared by teams successful in the post-season. These three traits are:

• A power pitching staff
• A good closer
• A good defense

According to the “Secret Sauce,” these three team characteristics were the only ones that related to teams winning post-season games and series, and Silver went out of his way in a post titled “Lies, Damned Lies” to dismiss a few other possible playoff success theories.

“Ending the year hot doesn’t make a whit of difference, for example, nor does having a veteran club, or a smallball offense.”

In the “Secret Sauce,” a power pitching staff is measured by normalized strikeout rate (EqK/9.) EqK/9 is a statistic designed to adjust a major league pitcher’s strikeouts per nine innings, while also taking into account the era in which he played. This allowed Baseball Prospectus to go back years, to further determine the legitimacy of the “Secret Sauce.”

The quality of the closer in the “Secret Sauce” is based on WXRL, a commonly used statistic for relievers. Here’s a fairly basic definition of WXRL, from an article by Derek Jacques of Baseball Prospectus:

“WXRL is a metric developed by Keith Woolner which is based on a Win Expectation framework. Win Expectation has its own statistical report (the Win Expectancy Matrix), and is a pretty complicated topic, so I’ll give you a bare-bones, no-math explanation. Win Expectation breaks down each game situation—inning, score, number of outs, number of runners on base, and which bases they’re on—that occurs in the major leagues, all to measure how the transition from one situation to another alters a team’s chance of winning the game.”

The third factor, a good defense, is measured in the “Secret Sauce” formula with fielding runs above average (FRAA.) FRAA measures the runs saved by a player beyond what a league-average player at that position might have saved.

Together, or separate really, this is a complicated formula with a lot of information going into it. The result at the end, at least this season, is pretty obvious though.

Steve Goldman at PinstripedBible.com rounded up the three parts of the formula and put a list together of this season’s eight playoff teams (and the Tigers and the Rangers) to see how the contenders stacked up against each other.

Ranked first according to Goldman’s calculations, the Yankees, ten spots ahead of the Angels. Right behind the Yankees in second place, the Dodgers. And, the Dodgers have a huge advantage over the Phillies (ranked 20th). ‘

Joe Torre going back to a new Yankee Stadium. Manny Ramirez going back to New York for another big series against the Yankees. The two biggest TV markets in the country in the World Series. I guess we all know FOX is hoping Silver is right.