Second contest ends tonight (Monday night)

Last week I announced the second contest, to solve this intimidating puzzle:

Details are at the first link.  So far no one has fully solved it, so send in your partial solutions--they'll probably make it to the top three.

The contest ends tonight (Monday night) at 11:59 pm.  I'll announce the third contest sometime Tuesday.

Contest Number Two: Two Degrees of Separation

Last week I introduced the contest of the week: each week I will propose a contest, and award Shadow-points to the winners; every two months the person with the most Shadow-points (in the period) will geet their name posted on the side of the blog, a $2 reward, and the chance to write any article they want for the blog.  The results of the first week's contest are here.

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I'm going to try to alternate types of contests, so this week's will be a little bit different from last week's.  This week, the contest is a word puzzle of sorts.  The first person to solve it will get first place, second person second place, etc.

Without further ado, here's the puzzle:

Two Degress of Separation*

Results from the First Contest

A week ago I proposed a contest for readers to construct the best possible lineup from the 2002 Giants roster; the rules are here and here.  The winner of the contest gets 3 Shadow-points; second place gets 2; and third place gets 1.  In addition everyone whose entry beats my own entry gets an additional Shadow-point.  Every two months the person with the most Shadow points gets their name on in the Shadow Hall of Fame, $2, and the ability to write any one article for the blog.

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Today, I'm announcing the winnners of the contest.  The average submission scored somewhere around 4.9 runs per game, and the best scored above 5.  I have more comments to make, but without further ado, the three winners:

Last Chance for Contest

A week ago, I introduced a contest to design the best lineup from the 2002 Giants roster; details are here and here.  Submissions for the contest are due tonight, so if you want  to participate but haven't given me a lineup, either post it as a comment here or email it to me by 11:59 tonight.


I'll announce the results of the contests sometime tomorrow.

Also, I've run some more simulations with Basim on the 2000-2011 season; it looks like the correlation between RAA* and runs scored by a team is .963; without very many simulations (20,000 per player) the correlation between eWAA and runs scored is .952, but that number should go up with more simulations as the noise goes down (due to limited computing power it's taking a while to get a fuller result).


Also, if anyone has a suggestion for what I should write on (baseball, philosophy, or anything else), let me know.



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RAA, runs above average, is the baseline offensive stat used to construct WAR; I'm using a modified version that removes ballpark advantage, etc. to do an apples-to-apples comparison.

Introducing the Contest of the Week: What's Your Lineup?

What's the best lineup, order included, that can be made from the 2002 San Francisco Giants?  Think you can come up with a better one than other readers?

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Today I'm introducing a new feature of the blog: the contest of the week.  Each week, I'll announce a contest to readers.  Each week, the winner of the contest gets three Shadow-points, second place gets two Shadow-points, and third place gets one Shadow-point.  Every two months, the person with the most Shadow-points in the period gets their name put on a Hall of Fame widget to the right of the blog (I'll create it once it's needed), a wallet-busting $2 prize, and the opportunity, if they want, to write a guest article for the blog.

So, on to the first contest:

What's Your Lineup?

I wrote Basim, a python script that simulates baseball games based on the stats of the people in the lineups.  The details of how it works are in the link above; you can also see Basim simulating games live on the right  of the blog.  I've recently been looking into evaluating players with it, but this contest has to do with the original use of Basim: evaluating batting orders.

So, the first contest is to construct the best batting order from the 2002 San Francisco Giants roster.  To enter the contest, submit a lineup from their players; I'll run Basim on all submissions, and the three highest average runs per game are the winners.

Rules:

1)  The players you can draw from are listed here.

2)  You can only use players who had at least 100 plate appearances with the Giants that year.

3) Your lineup must be defensively valid.  That is to say you must have a first baseman, second baseman, etc.  Shortstops and second basemen are considered interchangeable, and all outfielders and first basemen are also interchangeable.  Third basemen and catchers can play first base, but not vice versa.  The position that a person can play, up to interchangeability, is the one listed here. (Technical note: Dunston can play 2B, SS, OF, and 1B, in case you want to play him for some reason).

4) Your pitcher (in your lineup) must be Jason Schmidt.

5)  I will run 1,000,000 simulations on each submitted lineup to find its average runs scored per game.  The highest value will win and get three Shadow-points; second will get two, and third will get one.

So, for example, a submission might look like:

1.  Benito Santiago (C)

2.  J. T. Snow (LF)

3.  Jeff Kent (SS)

4.  Kenny Lofton (1B)

5.  Barry Bonds (CF)

6.  Jason Schmidt (P)

7.  David Bell (3B)

8.  Ramon Martinez (2B)

9.  Marvin Bernard (RF)

Some (quite obvious) things to think about: where do you put Bonds?  What do you think of stolen bases?  What do you want in a leadoff hitter?  Where do you put the pitcher?

Submissions are due by Monday, August 6th; I'll announce winners the next day.  To submit a lineup, either email it to me (sambf at mit dot edu), or post it as a comment on this post.  (Make sure to include your name.)

Good luck!