When the Rockies open their season Friday afternoon at Coors Field, Paul Bessire thinks Todd Helton should be their leadoff man.
Who is Paul Bessire, you ask? And where can you get some of his medication?
His website, , calls him “one of the foremost authorities on mathematically modeling and analyzing all sports.”
Frankly, I thought his recommended Rockies lineup was the biggest baseball abomination I’d heard this year until I got a look at the finalists for Troy Tulowitzki’s walk-up song.
You figured that whole Miley Cyrus thing last year was a goof? Uh, no. When Tulo says he’s trying to relate to his fan base among high school girls, he isn’t kidding. Justin Bieber, welcome to Coors Field.
But back to Bessire, one of those thoroughly modern sports analysts who believe all the answers are in the numbers. I would link him to the modern phenomenon of sabermetrics, but I don’t want my old friend Joe Posnanski of Sports Illustrated to write a nasty blog post about me.
Ever since Joe Poz was abducted by aliens and taken to Bill James’ home planet some years ago, he has had remarkably little patience for those who think baseball is as much art as science.
The speed and capacity of modern computing allow for the compilation of massive databases that include pretty much everything that happens on a baseball field. The numbers they produce, sabermetricians believe, should inform the strategic and tactical decisions of managers and players.
Alas, few managers or players are stat freaks of this sort — although an increasing number of front-office types are — which becomes a source of some frustration for the sabermetricians. It’s a little like jocks and geeks in high school, except in this case the geeks care about sports.
The geeks got traction outside their own circles with the 2003 publication of “Moneyball,” the Michael Lewis book about Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane, coming soon to a theater near you as a movie starring Brad Pitt. I am not making that up.
Beane believed that one statistic — on-base percentage — was undervalued, which allowed him to identify players who got on base a lot and acquire them cheaply. Hence the book’s name, which suggested Beane’s approach to baseball was similar to a value investor’s approach to the stock market.
The A’s have made the playoffs five times in Beane’s 13 seasons at the helm but have been eliminated in the first round four times and in the league championship series the other time. If that’s all it takes to be played by Pitt, Theo Epstein should demand Johnny Depp.
Anyway, Bessire agrees with Beane about on-base percentage, only more so. The conventional wisdom that you want speed at the top of the lineup is misguided, he says. It’s more important to get on base than be fast when you get there. So, even though the Rockies’ dinosaur mascot is faster than Helton, Bessire thinks the 37-year-old first baseman’s high on-base percentage (career .424) makes him the Rocks’ best leadoff man.
“You’re not going to have the same stolen base and put-the-pressure-on-the-pitcher type of game, but I’ve seen very little research that proves that’s as important as having the guy on base to score those runs,” Bessire explains.
He also thinks Tulo should bat in front of Carlos Gonzalez, not behind him, for the same reason.
“If I had this lineup, I would lead off with Helton to get him on base, then probably bat Tulowitzki, then Gonzalez and then either Seth Smith or Ian Stewart,” he says. “My personal preference would be to bat Dexter Fowler ninth no matter who the pitcher is. You can restart your lineup with that kind of player, but you don’t have to start the game with that kind of player.”
Bessire simulated the coming season on his computer 50,000 times and gives the Rocks a 51 percent chance to make the playoffs, either as a division winner (34 percent chance) or a wild card (17 percent).
His computer tells him CarGo will bat .302 with 27 home runs and 101 RBIs. He has Tulo at .302, 26 and 90, and Helton at .290 with a .390 on-base percentage, even if he isn’t leading off.
Bessire predicts Ubaldo Jimenez will come back to earth with a record of 18-12 and an earned-run average of 3.96. Why would his ERA soar by more than a run a game over last year’s 2.88? Because the data suggest reversion to the mean, of course.
But here’s the thing: Bessire’s 50,000 simulations gave the Rocks an average of 89.1 wins this year. After 10 days at spring training, I predicted 90 without even turning on my laptop.
So maybe there’s a chance for peace in our time after all. The difference between art and science in Rockies analysis this year is nine-tenths of a game.
Dave Krieger: 303-954-5297, dkrieger@denverpost.com or
