HR Power+Contact
by emarc on Sep 4, 2010 7:30 PM EDT
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PrintIt's a dual skill-set that few MLB players posses. Albert Pujols is a name that comes to mind when we think of someone who can knock the ball out of the park while ripping line drives to all fields and not striking out (too much). But names of players who were once considered huge power prospects, Russel Branyan for example, have far too often turn into all or nothing kind of players (either a home run or a strike out, far too often the latter). And so on that note, who in your opinions are the best HR Power+Contact prospects in baseball. The kind of guys that can hit over .300 and have 30+ HR a year. The kind of guys who we call all stars.
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Wil Myers is the first name that popped in my head.
Jesus Montero too.
R.I.P. cwhitman412, Frederick0220, & Mets2k9
ummmmm...
In the red sox system… Expostio and Reddick come to mind
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by bestbostonsports on Sep 4, 2010 11:28 PM EDT reply actions
The Royals’ troika of Hosmer, Myers, and Moustakas are all pretty remarkable in this aspect. Montero is also a future .300/30 guy if things break right.
I suppose
except “the Mous” has 20 more homers AND 30 les strikouts than Myers. Not downing Myers, just pointing out how remakable Moustakas has been. you guys remeber like 10 days ago when people were saying he was struggling in AAA? ?
May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house.
-George Carlin
Yeah, Moustakas is pretty awesome. If he struggles early on in the majors, it might be in a Delmon Young sort of way, though the fact that he has tons of game power in the minors seems to indicate that he’ll be pretty good in the majors, too.
Best hope he doesn't struggle in a Delmon Young sort of way
Delmon Young is really terrible at baseball.
"We don't want our people to be preoccupied with seminude, crazy men jumping up and down who are chasing an inflated object," said Sheik Mohamed Osman Arus, head of operations for the Hizbul Islam insurgent group.
No, is
Let’s put it this way, the fielding metric that LIKES him makes him look like a 1.5 WAR player (which is fringe-starter territory). The one that dislikes him says he’s below replacement level.
He’s essentially a DH, but he’s a DH who walks 4% of the time with unexciting power. No, he’s terrible.
"We don't want our people to be preoccupied with seminude, crazy men jumping up and down who are chasing an inflated object," said Sheik Mohamed Osman Arus, head of operations for the Hizbul Islam insurgent group.
yeah he is pretty awful
but i he isn’t terrible
I called on the exact pitch - Joe Mauer's first career Home-Run at Target Field !!!
Why Oh Why did the D'Backs select A.J. Pollock over Mike Trout?
by SteveHoffmanSlowey on Sep 5, 2010 4:06 PM EDT up reply actions
Disagree
Of course, maybe you are either joking or crazy. If so, disregard. The silly fielding metrics aren’t gonna convince me that he is any worse than the guys who rank below him in range, aka balls caught (not a method, or a metric, just a total). He’s 8th out 15 guys who have played a lot in LF.
Here’s ESPN’s basic totals and, with a tad of common sense it look like there are 5 LF’ who are clearly better, then a whole bunch of ok ones – and Delmon throws well. Relative to the rest of the LFs in baseball I doubt Delmon has been a single run below average.
http://espn.go.com/mlb/stats/fielding/_/position/lf/sort/rangeFactor
As far as DY in the Twin’s lineup, it strains logic to call a solid regular player “terrible”. I’m fine with it except communicating will get kinda difficult for us If we have to call Hunter Pence, Ichiro Suzuki, Jason Bay, Nick Markakis, Justin Upton, Jay Bruce, Bobby Abreu, Carlos Quentin, Micheal Cuddyer, Gaby Sanchez, etc, etc, terrible as well.
No offense but, what exactly is wrong with you? A five year old girl who has been to 7 or 8 Twins games can tell Delmon is having a good season with the stick and is holding his own with the glove. Why do you hate Delmon so? I have irrational hatreds of players occasionally but, I dont usually try to dillude myself that Arod is “terrible at baseball” or anything. Reality is ok after a while.Try it.
May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house.
-George Carlin
by casejud on Sep 5, 2010 5:53 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
what Twins fans think, based on what they've seen, that he can hold is own
Also, range factor is a joke of a stat that is a complete misnomer and doesn’t actually calculate anything productive.
Offensively?
definitely Just look at his month of July and Early August
he was on FIRE!!!!
Defensively?
Hell no
I called on the exact pitch - Joe Mauer's first career Home-Run at Target Field !!!
Why Oh Why did the D'Backs select A.J. Pollock over Mike Trout?
by SteveHoffmanSlowey on Sep 5, 2010 6:50 PM EDT up reply actions
Delmon should be a DH
To think that he’ll only continue to lose defensive value is… frightening.
To clarify
If he improves his concentration, he could hold his own. He’s not a statue. But he simply lacks any kind of instincts in the field, and that holds him back significantly.
That is incorrect
It has its biases but, it measures what It measures very well. Its still a pretty solid way to see what someones range is. Why does the stat have to be perfect for it to have meaning? Your statement couldn’t be farther from the truth NN.
May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house.
-George Carlin
RF doesn't measure anything...
except the ball-in-play tendencies of your pitching staff. The value of an outfielder is in making the non-routine catches. Those situations arise much, much less often than routine fly balls, but have huge implications for run prevention when they’re botched. The run value difference between an out and a double is 1.18 runs. If Delmon Young lets 10 balls fall in a 162-game season that an average LF would have caught, that’s almost 12 runs he’s cost his team (fly-balls that fall for hits pretty routinely go for extra bases).
Raw data on balls caught tells you absolutely nothing about a guy’s ability to make those difficult plays.
Did you just cite RANGE FACTOR as a counterpoint to UZR?
That’s like trying to disprove Fermat’s last theorem using whole-number arithmetic. Then you follow it up with a childish personal attack.
Stay out of this thread and let’s let the grownups talk, eh?
"We don't want our people to be preoccupied with seminude, crazy men jumping up and down who are chasing an inflated object," said Sheik Mohamed Osman Arus, head of operations for the Hizbul Islam insurgent group.
Range factor is a worse stat than UZR. That doesn’t mean that RF tells us nothing, or that UZR tells us anything.
Correct
It would probably be better to regress 99.99% of the way to UZR and 0.01% of the way to range factor.
But I’m lazy.
One of the other relevant metrics (TotalZone, which is kind of like Range Factor except that it actually makes sense) has Young at an astounding -19 fielding runs this season, which coupled with the positional adjustment and baserunning puts him at a whopping 0.2 WAR. Like I said, UZR is the metric that actually makes Young look BETTER.
"We don't want our people to be preoccupied with seminude, crazy men jumping up and down who are chasing an inflated object," said Sheik Mohamed Osman Arus, head of operations for the Hizbul Islam insurgent group.
Just one thing
. . . a question, only becauseim a child and dont grasp these things. why is it tat almost evrytime one of these stats really hates a guy they NEVER seem to catch any less balls in lF than the average Leftfielder?
Im not saying Delmon Young isnt terrible out there, I grant you that, ut why does he catch just as many flyballs than any other middle of the pack leftfielder? The answer is alweays that he had more easy chances or more hit to him-right? To me it just makes more sense that he is just AVERAGE – as good as most any other Leftfielder – therefore he cant be costing them that many runs. Ive also watched about 20-25 Twins games this year and Young just hasnt been that bad.
Baserunning, really? I know you are a little biased though becausde you were hating on Delmon before he started having a pretty nice season with the stick and, you wouldn’t want to stop now and give the kid a little bit of credit would ya?
May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house.
-George Carlin
The amount of balls hit to a guy ≠ defensive ability
You made the same argument with regards to Decker. Many factors go into where balls are hit.
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Yeah, a lot of it is about batted ball distribution
When you see a guy like Matt Kemp putting up a crazy bad UZR, or Franklin Gutierrez putting up a +30 UZR, it’s generally due to inflation from irregular batted ball distribution.
Kemp probably isn’t -15 bad defensively, but he’s definitely proving to be below-average. Just like with Gutierrez, who’s definitely not +30 good, but is well above-average and one of the best defensive CF in baseball even if he’s not historically good.
The thing with Young, though, is that this is such a long period of awful UZR numbers that it’s hard to believe that this is because of any statistical noise. He might not be 13 runs below average per 150 games like UZR says, but with that much data pointing in such a strong direction, it’s safe to say that he’s below-average.
I like baseball.
I write for Beyond the Box Score and The Hardball Times Fantasy
by Satchel Price on Sep 6, 2010 12:30 PM EDT up reply actions
except
my argument for Decker was better. I clearly pointed out that not only did he have ABOVE-avergae basic defensive numbers (above average in range, tops in assists), his team also got more than average amount of Ks and grounders.
May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house.
-George Carlin
Biased?
Hilarious. I don’t give two tenths of a shit either way about Delmon Young. I’m just not going to “give him credit” for sucking slightly less horribly than he has previously sucked.
Who are these other players who are “hated” by stats who “never seem to” catch fewer balls? Could you actually name them, Senator McCarthy?
"We don't want our people to be preoccupied with seminude, crazy men jumping up and down who are chasing an inflated object," said Sheik Mohamed Osman Arus, head of operations for the Hizbul Islam insurgent group.
DONT, give him credit then!
I give less than two or three shits either you Communist! Ok sorry (get it Im Mr. McCarthy and you are the accused communist), other players would be Adam Dunn, Andre Ethier this year, I also do not believe that Gutierrez is ANY different in CF than last season – so, therefore, UZR is full of shit! The “advanced” (in GIANT quotes, If I could) disagree so much on what they arfe measuring that Id rather look at regular old, pure, range totalls. I just trust it more, sorry.
I just don’t see as many GIANT errors, is about the worst thing a stat can do.
Even if say, Scott Baker were tohave 27 win one year I wouldn’t be misled by the stat. Thats the problem with these fielding metrics and why I dilike them. I’m uppoed to believe that Gutierrez was the greatest CF in hitory last year, and this year he is 6th best – it is just dumb to believe that.
May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house.
-George Carlin
UZR is a counting stat.
Opportunity counts for UZR, which is one of the many reasons you need much more than a single season’s worth of data to get a general picture of a guy’s quality in the field. Nobody suggests you should take any one season’s worth of data as the gospel truth about a player’s contributions in the field.
The ‘10 Mariners, for instance, are much more GB-heavy than the ’09 team. Only Felix eclipsed a 50% gb-rate in ’09. 4 players who’ve gotten regular work have done so this year (Felix, Fister, League, and Pauley – #s 1, 3, 6, and 8 on the team in IP). That means fewer opportunities for Gutierrez to be a hero than he had while he was single-handedly keeping Jarrod Washburn’s ERA down last year.
WHAT?
I thought that this was the ENTIRE reason for people not liking range factor Slam! If Gutierrez was “counted” as being great last year for having a lot of opportunities how does that help us measure how good he actually was? That ends up making the stat sound just like RBI, doesn’t it.
If the M’s get less flyballs this season we are looking for a number that tells us how good Gutierrez is relative to a staff that gets an avergae amount of flyballs aren’t we?
May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house.
-George Carlin
...you really don't get it?
Range Factor = number of balls a guy catches.
UZR = # of runs a guy saves based on how many balls inside and outside of his range he can get to based on ball-in-play data that costs thousands of dollars to obtain.
They’re both imperfect stats. UZR in particular requires years of data to get a general idea of a guy’s value becuase of fluctuations. This is why true WAR analysis gives a range of +/- 5 runs from a guy’s UZR to give a clearer picture of his contribution.
UZR, however, looks at the quality of catches, not just the number of them. That’s what makes it worthwhile, while range factor is a steaming pile of misleading crap.
I disagree
We have a discrepency here! I think it is perfectly usable, though somewhat biased stat.
At least RF doesnt say a player is WAY better or WAY wore than they really are very often. It has its biases, just like say batting average, but we havent tossed aside batting average yet and Im not tossing aside RF.
Why doesnt UZR just get thier stat fixed, aka reasonably accurate, before it even tries to use it? Maybe they should just use range factor? :)
Her’s a question for you? If range factor and whatever your favorite defensive metric agree on say the top 5 leftfielders in the game or any other position does that make both of the stats good or both a “steaming pile of misleading crap”?
May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house.
-George Carlin
It's not usable.
RF says nothing about a guy’s quality. It just tallies the catches he makes. There’s no added value in a hard catch, and no value subtracted by a botched routine play. UZR gauges guys both quantitatively and qualitatively. It also makes use of state of the art ball in play data to gauge difficulty and reach those qualitative conclusions.
Her’s a question for you? If range factor and whatever your favorite defensive metric agree on say the top 5 leftfielders in the game or any other position does that make both of the stats good or both a "steaming pile of misleading crap"?
No. You can reach the right conclusion the wrong way. The process is what makes the results worth paying attention to. RF is the procedural equivalent of throwing darts at post-it notes with players’ names on them.
I’m not saying UZR is the “right” conclusion, but UZR and Dewan’s +/- system currently employ the best methodology and make use of the best input information (they also agree most of the time, though there are instances when one player confuses the systems). When I see trends play out over multiple seasons of UZR, particularly when they’re mirrored in the eyes of both scouts and the fans scouting report, I think we’ve come up with a fair approximation of a player’s defensive value. If/when +/- becomes available for free on the internet and is updated regularly, we’ll have more input data on which to form reasoned conclusions.
RF just does not communicate meaningful information.
They are better
Yes
If they could iron out the errors in thier ways which I believe are there.
I believe you are losing the forest for the trees with RF though. If RF reach the same conclusions “once in a while”, that would be one thing but, It doesnt- guys who have high numbers tend to have good range and guys who dont, dont – and it isnt random or lucky. Good fielders tend to catch balls.
Its actually extremely similar to RBI when you think about it. Of course folks lose thier fucking mind about RBI on here to… nonetheless, if two guys have 600 abs and one knocks in 120 runs and the other knocks in 55, we know who has bit more power usually. Same with RF. Its not perfect but it DOES communicate meaningfull info as long as we know the context – like if one guy has 61 hits and anothere has 188, we need to know the AT BATS!
May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house.
-George Carlin
Why use a stat...
that relies on looking up the stats of 20-25 other players before you have any idea of what it means?
UZR evaluates context. In painstaking detail. The ball-in-play data it’s based on calculates the landing spot of the ball as well as the speed off the bat when it was hit and the angle at which it was hit. It does this thousands and thousands of times to get an idea of what kinds of balls an “average” fielder hits, looks at the results of each individual, and compares those results with know information about the run value of an out vs. the average result of a non-out in that situation (some form of hit, usually for extra bases) to come up with an idea of how many runs are being saved or lost in this process.
Range Factor, in contrast, tallies catches.
Which one seems more valuable?
And since you seem completely results-oriented, look no further than the fact that RF apparently says Delmon Young is ~average (i’m taking your word for it. I don’t want to look up his RF). Nobody who watches him, whether they be professional scouts or enthusiastic amateurs, could possibly disagree more. Neither could either other system, which actually look at the quality of those catches. There’s a concrete reason why: Young plays behind the #1 and #15 most extreme flyball pitchers in baseball, among a bevy of other FB-heavy guys.
Its actually extremely similar to RBI when you think about it. Of course folks lose thier fucking mind about RBI on here to… nonetheless, if two guys have 600 abs and one knocks in 120 runs and the other knocks in 55, we know who has bit more power usually.
It’s exactly that logic that convinced the late-80s Mariners that Jim Presley was a good player, and led to them blocking a completely major league ready Edgar Martinez for 4 years.
to get an idea of what kinds of balls an "average" fielder hits
“hits” obviously should be “catches.”
Im getting worn out but...
I understood what you were saying, no problem.
Edgar was always better than Jimmy, I remeber! B Jimmy didnt knock in 70 more runs than Edgar, I dont think.
If one player has 190 hits and another has 100 hits AND they come to the plate 600 TIMES EACH, we can see who is the better hitter most likely eh?
Seeing that one cat caught 200 flyballs and one caught 300 isn’t exact but it still works.
If one guy has 10 homers and another 30 we immediately look at how many abs they have.
How many innings a fielder plays isnt exactly equivelant to abs but, its a unit of playing time.
May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house.
-George Carlin
RBI
told the mariners Presley was a good hitter. He had 107 of them one year! 88 the year after that!
Problem was, Presley sucked. Because outs are bad, and he made a ton of them.
RF is telling you the same thing about Delmon Young. He may make an average number of catches, but he sees an above average number of opportunities. On hard balls in play, he’s way, way worse than an average fielder. UZR, RZR, Total Zone, professional scouts, and amateur scouts are unanimous in this opinion. The only thing that is not is RF, and we can point to the exact reason for the descrepancy (Minny’s FB-heavy staff).
You’re just wrong about this. There are reasons that UZR isn’t perfect, but completely rejecting the information it contains in favor of a completely outmoded and inferior source is just silly.
by slamcactus on Sep 6, 2010 8:54 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
Close
but not exactly.
They arent in agreement from what I hear.
Steve Hoffman Slowey just gave a report about his defense that didnt make it sound that bad.
I dont even necessarily think he’s average. I just dont believe his defense is bad enough to nullify his entire offensive output.
I dont think he’s cost his team anything like 19 runs. How many singles dropping in would it take for him to cost 19 runs? Then hed have to be that many worse than the AVERAGE leftfielder! And they aren’t very good either!
He cant posibly be that much worse than an average AL Leftfielder.
May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house.
-George Carlin
Steve Hoffman Slowey just gave a report about his defense that didnt make it sound that bad.
Yes he did. Read it again. You’ve started with a conclusion and are ignoring or dismissing any and all evidence that refutes it. Delmon is a bad defender.
Bullpen Banter
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twitter: @alskor
... or we could actually look at the number of balls that were hit to them
The proper analogy to Range Factor is not to number of at-bats but more like to number of innings spent in a lineup— which will obviously produce grossly wrong results when evaluating a leadoff hitter against a #9 hitter, because the leadoff hitter will get an extra 160 ABs a season.
"We don't want our people to be preoccupied with seminude, crazy men jumping up and down who are chasing an inflated object," said Sheik Mohamed Osman Arus, head of operations for the Hizbul Islam insurgent group.
Sorta
Although we’d still know who hit the most homers, how many games they played, how many hits.
We could actually take HITS and devide it by games played and still have pretty much the batting title winner every year. Just no batting average :)
We’d also know which CF had the most Putouts and how many strikouts that teams staff had.
We’d know which 3b turned the most double plays and we’d still have our eyes. and we wouldb’t have some dumb stat telling us shit that just doesnt make any sense.
May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house.
-George Carlin
…and we wouldb’t have some dumb stat telling us shit that just doesnt make any sense.
…but you’d still be around to do that, right?
Bullpen Banter
www.bullpenbanter.com
twitter: @alskor
OK
we wouldb’t have some dumb stat telling us shit that just doesnt make any sense.
Just to clarify, the “dumb stats” in question here are every rate stat in existence (ERA, batting average, slugging percentage, OBP, wOBA, the works).
First rule of being in a hole: stop digging.
"We don't want our people to be preoccupied with seminude, crazy men jumping up and down who are chasing an inflated object," said Sheik Mohamed Osman Arus, head of operations for the Hizbul Islam insurgent group.
Having more opportunities
does not bias UZR results positively or negatively. Everyone starts at zero and goes up or down from there. What it does is give you the OPPORTUNITY to score more positive or negative runs by making more (or fewer) plays. If you are a glove-whiz outfielder who has made up his mind to top the UZR leaderboard, then your best bet is to sign with a flyball-heavy staff.
That being said, Range Factor is different in that there, having a flyball-heavy staff actually makes you score better on the metric regardless of your own skill level— more opportunities are never a bad thing, because the worst you can do is not catch the ball. By contrast, if you’re an awful fielder, signing with a flyball-heavy staff will make you look worse on UZR (as it should, since you’re harming your team more).
"We don't want our people to be preoccupied with seminude, crazy men jumping up and down who are chasing an inflated object," said Sheik Mohamed Osman Arus, head of operations for the Hizbul Islam insurgent group.
by PaulThomas on Sep 6, 2010 6:36 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
Right
And signing with the Yankees will make you have 20-30 more RBIs. Its exactly the same thing. the opportunities effect the way a player is PERCEIVED.
You may think that range factor is terrible but, iut has less extremes at the top and the botom and since these advanced metrics even ADMIT they cant measure what they are trying to measure in a given season ( wait a few years til it all adds up) the LEAST we can ask from a stat is not to tell us someone is way better or way worse than they really are.
How about if we had a stat that was an alternative to batting average that told us that Ichiro hit .185 one year and .449 the next? Isnt that kind of that is happening here with UZR?
May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house.
-George Carlin
How about if we had a stat that was an alternative to batting average that told us that Ichiro hit .185 one year and .449 the next? Isnt that kind of that is happening here with UZR?
No.
Less extreme at the top and bottom isn’t a reason to prefer one metric over another. Each ball that an average defender would have caught that turns into a double because of poor defense is worth over a run (the average difference between an out and a double = 1.18 runs). If that happens just 20 times in a 162 game season (out of between 400-600 balls hit at you in an average year), that’s 24 runs you’ve lost your team. Same with catching balls that very few other humans could get to.
Outfield defense is very valuable, and subject to wide fluctuation because of the value of each dropped ball in zone or ball that’s caught out of zone.
the LEAST we can ask from a stat is not to tell us someone is way better or way worse than they really are.
If you know how good they really are, you don’t need a statistic. Most of us don’t put that much faith in our own defensive valuations, and value what the best researchers in the area have come up with.
More to the point: WAR works. A team’s WAR correlates very, very well with their won/loss record. When you give your self a +/- of 5 runs for any single season’s UZR, that correlation is even stronger. If the defensive numbers were truly as random and baseless as you suggest, the correlation would be very, very weak.
Perhaps
and I DO see your point. The problem(s) to me are that a) we cant double check
and b) It doesnt seem to make sense a lot of the times.
there could be more too such as, is there rfeally a TEAM ranking for a teams UZR? Is it relative to how well they have pitched or completely independant?
The correlation of the total could be high because it is predominatly related to the Offensive and Pitching portions of WAR. If fielding was , say , %5 of the ranking it would effect the correlation that much for an individual player.
I actually believe this to be the case.
I have no axe to grind either. I just dont think Gutierrez was that great last year and Ive seen many other defensive toatls that just looked off to me.
May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house.
-George Carlin
um...
there could be more too such as, is there rfeally a TEAM ranking for a teams UZR? Is it relative to how well they have pitched or completely independant?
How would team UZR varry from individual UZR? Sure, there are some balls (particularly fly balls) that multiple players could catch, but those are balls that hang long enough that pretty much every OF alive (including Delmon Young) turn into outs nearly 100% of the time.
The correlation of the total could be high because it is predominatly related to the Offensive and Pitching portions of WAR. If fielding was , say , %5 of the ranking it would effect the correlation that much for an individual player.
You know exactly how WAR is calculated. Batting runs above average + UZR + Replacement level (20 runs per 600 PA) + positional adjustment. As you have noted multiple times, defense can account for anywhere from 0- |30| runs in that calculation.* The numbers add up arithmetically. There’s no complicated algorithm. Defense is a substantial component of WAR, particularly since the numbers routinely reach double digits. That’s your whole complaint about the system.
*Yep, I just pulled out the absolute value symbols in a minorleagueball comment. 15 years later and I still own 6th grade math.
Giving me too much credit
Im very poor ad advanced math and I have no clear idea of how UZR is calculated – though generally I kow about its components. Hadc NO idea there was any limit (+/- 30 runs) or anything though.
That also wasnt what I was asking.
i was asking if the fielding was conected to how well a team pitched or if it sepparate? It would tend to correlate if a team had a 3.50 ERA and another was 4.75 and the fielding runs were based on that somehow.
You can say the TOTAL WAR correlate to winning but, its not as easy to say JUST THE FIELDING part does right? It cant be double checked as easy or,
am I wrong?
May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house.
-George Carlin
If you are trying to come up with projections
like CHONE does with their fielding projections, then you need to regress small samples of UZR toward the mean.
That does not mean that those samples were “wrong,” just that they are small samples. If you told me someone hit .185 one year and .449 the next, my reaction would be that he didn’t have very many at-bats in either year.
I’m not sure why you keep talking about RBI, which is even more of a bullshit statistic than Range Factor is. The fact that it impacts people’s perceptions is irrelevant. Glenn Beck impacts people’s perceptions. That doesn’t mean Glenn Beck is not an idiot.
"We don't want our people to be preoccupied with seminude, crazy men jumping up and down who are chasing an inflated object," said Sheik Mohamed Osman Arus, head of operations for the Hizbul Islam insurgent group.
Well maybe its because
RBI doesnt offend me. I say a 125 by Albert Pujols name and I jut see it for what it is. I undertand the biases I guess.
Its just a simple total of how many runs a guy knocked in – that it!
Just like Glenn Beck. Of course I don’t listen to Glenn Beck so thats probably why he doesn’t bother me either.
May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house.
-George Carlin
Ethier is actually a case where BIS and Stats Inc. data tell a different story
Regressing to range factor makes no sense, but regressing to RZR and TotalZone actually DOES make sense, because those metrics use subtly different sources of data— the equivalent of cross-checking a scouting report on an amateur prospect (something every conscientious team would do).
Delmon Young still scores horribly in RZR. He scores horribly in TotalZone, which is more primitive but still fairly accurate.
Adam Dunn, same story. Horrible fielder every way people attempt to measure it.
I must say, also, that stating that a metric must be “full of shit” because it tells you that a player one year is not necessarily the same as the same player next year, is ludicrous. Is batting average “full of shit” because it tells you that Jack Cust is getting more singles this year than he did last year? Players’ talents change, and more to the point, their performance changes even when their talent doesn’t because of essentially random fluctuations. Baseball performance is not a smooth continuum— performance gets put into buckets like “base hit” and “out”.
That’s not a reason to throw up your hands and say it’s unmeasurable. It’s obviously measurable. The inability to achieve perfection is not a reason to discount less-than-perfect-but-still-pretty-good.
As for range factor, it’s so obviously full of shit that I can’t believe we’re even having this conversation. It is largely out of the control of the player. It was sort of acceptable as a guess in the right direction back in the infancy of fielding stats. Nowadays it’s hopelessly outmoded. Citing it is like bringing a knife to a tactical nuclear weapon fight.
"We don't want our people to be preoccupied with seminude, crazy men jumping up and down who are chasing an inflated object," said Sheik Mohamed Osman Arus, head of operations for the Hizbul Islam insurgent group.
Not what I am saying
I am not saying that fluctuations dont happen from year to year.
The large difference between Jack Cust having lot less singles happening one year and the next is that he REALLY did have less singles that year! Its a FACT! (In your example)
Gutierrez WASN’T any worse this year than last year! At least I dont believe it to be so. The stat has so much fluxuation from 2009 to 2010 that I find it illogical and innacurate and it makes me not trust the stat.
I think you being hard on range factor myself. Sure balls fly all over the park and a polayer cant control that but, a good fielder tends to make putouts, assist, and whatnot.
May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house.
-George Carlin
Well if you already know the answer...
then why pay attention to any metric at all? Obviously your eyes are the most valuable indicator of anything. If you KNOW Gutierrez is absolutely equal, then nobody can tell you otherwise and you have no need for this information.
Or maybe, just maybe, you can’t pick up on the subtle differences of a guy’s fast-twitch reflexes over a 162-game period such that you can pick up the difference between historically awesome and just plain awesome. Or maybe Gutierrez has had 5-6 fewer opportunities to make heroic catches. Or maybe he’s actually lost a half-step and it’s affecting his range.
More likely, it’s just noise. UZR’s staunchest defenders, including its creator Michael Lichtman, say you need about 3 years of data to form real opinions on any particular player. Seen in that light, Gutierrez’s fluctuation between historically awesome and just plain awesome isn’t really that jarring.
Right
… but is that acceptable?
Would you be okay with a substitute stat for batting average (like UZR and others are a subtitute for RF) saying Ichiro hit .397 one yaer and .222 the next?
In answer to your “question”, if it really is one, is that I relly dont need a stat to tell me how good Gutierrez was in 2009 and 2010 but I do need help in evaluating all the players I dont get to see. That why I need the stat to be like, accurate.
As TERRIBLE as you say Range Factor is, it tells me that Gutierrez was at 3.00 last year and is at 2.89 this year (and that IS per 9 innings). To me, that is more accurate than UZR.
I think a stat has to be predictive in a season for it to be usefull. I dont think you can truthfully say a stat will even out after a few years. We could just say the same thing about Rabge factor couldn’t we. I like Range Factor BECAUSE it has less variables. It screws up less.
May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house.
-George Carlin
Hilarious.
“To me, that is more accurate than UZR.”
You realize you’re evaluating the quality of the metric based 100% on your preconceived notions of what the result should be, right? That’s literally the opposite of reasoned analysis.
Example
So, you just read Kevin Goldsein of BA say that he just saw the greatest hitting propect in the history of baseball, playing in a High School game near your house.
You go to the game to see the phenom, pick up the stat sheet and see that he has these stats for the season…. 6 for 52 with 38 Ks and 2 BB’s.
In the game he goes 0 for 4 with 4 k’s.
Now, sure- he could be injured, he could be a freshman in the toughest confernce in the country but, you might bbe SCEPTICAL and LOOK into it right?
… no matter who, or what stat said different, you might be sceptical.
Thats what I am about UZR, I am scepticl. I set aside my common sense very rarely. We have our instincts for a reason right?
May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house.
-George Carlin
Um...
I don’t understand the analogy. I’m pretty sure it has no application whatsoever to anything we’ve argued about in this thread.
If you had a problem with UZR’s methodology, that would be one thing. If you had a reason not to trust the ball-in-play data it’s based on, I would listen. Instead, you reject something out of hand because it does not reaffirm what you already believe you know.
Again, that’s literally the opposite of rational inquiry.
Skeptics challenge assumptions and critique methods to gain a better understanding of reality. You’re not a skeptic. You summarily reject things that don’t conform to your preconceived notions. There are a few choice words for such people, but “skeptic” is not one of them.
Yes
Good thing that UZR generally produces results which are well in line with what amateur and professional scouts think, and which correlate very strongly with runs given up. Otherwise this might be a problem!
"We don't want our people to be preoccupied with seminude, crazy men jumping up and down who are chasing an inflated object," said Sheik Mohamed Osman Arus, head of operations for the Hizbul Islam insurgent group.
It does
but, be honest, doent range factor do that? There i more to it than that but, it does a well.
Its a problem when someone trie to convince me that Andres Torres is a better baseball player than Andre Ethier.
Sure it is “generally good” but isnt it supposed to be better than that?
May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house.
-George Carlin
Where in god's name
do Andre Ethier, Andres Torres, and who is better come into play? Are you still talking about UZR here? WAR? You do realize these stats show who has had the more valuable season they don’t make definitive statements about which player is more talented, right?
http://bullpenbanter.com
Go ahead and look
In the first page of the WAR standings there is always something that is rediculous.
I think saying that Torres has been better than Ethier THIS SEASON is stupid, let alone saying how talented anybody is.
I realize it doesn’t say that but, its absurd enough as it is.
May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house.
-George Carlin
Torres has hit better than Ethier in 2010
You don’t even need to bring UZR into the equation since since Torres has a 132 wRC+ compared to 129 for Ethier. He also plays a more demanding position much of the time and has played more games. It really isn’t all that close.
Have you looked
at any actual numbers for the two players this year, or are you basing this strictly on your opinion and perception of the two players?
http://bullpenbanter.com
I looked
It was a bad example because Ethiers batting numbers have gone down but the fielding rating makes a kinda ansurd evaluation of his relative value doesn’t it?
Alphonso Soriano is a full win better huh? Ok
May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house.
-George Carlin
LOL
If you think Brett gardner has more value than Hanley Ramirez, even this year, you aren’t valuaing the right things.
May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house.
-George Carlin
FG, BP, and B-R all agree
Gardner has been the more valuable player this year. He’s got a higher OBP, his value with the bat isn’t that far behind, he’s a better base runner, and he’s an elite defensive CF, while Hanley is having another bad defensive season according to all of the metrics out there. It doesn’t mean that Gardner is better, he’s just having a career year, while Hanley is having a slightly down year.
What I don't understand is why people can't understand why a worse overall player can have a more valuable year than a better overall player
Nobody is saying that Hanley Ramirez is better than Brett Gardner.
But looking solely at 2010 performance, it’s absolutely reasonable to argue that Gardner HAS been the better player. That simply doesn’t mean, on any level, that he’ll continue to be the better player going forward.
Far too often I see people making statements about how WAR is dumb because Player X could never be better than Player Y and WAR sucks for even suggesting that. But the point isn’t that Player X is better than Player Y. It’s that for that period of time, a season or whatever, Player X was more valuable to his team than Player Y.
Most people get this, but I find that the vast majority of WAR’s detractors don’t really have a good understanding of this.
I like baseball.
I write for Beyond the Box Score and The Hardball Times Fantasy
by Satchel Price on Sep 7, 2010 10:03 AM EDT up reply actions
I wonder if we could break it down to its bare bones if that would help.
For instance, if the Yankees were playing the Marlins and Brett Gardner went 4-for-4 with 1 HR, 2 SB, 2 R, 2 doubles, and a flawless defensive game while Hanley went 0-for-5, 3 K’s, and an error could a person agree that on this day Brett Gardner had better numbers? That for this one day, Gardner was better. Of course Hanley is the better player. Of course we know who we would want on our team given a choice. But on this day, Hanley wasn’t as good.
Now suppose that for one crazy year, there were enough days that Brett Gardner was just a little better and 9 years out of 10, this won’t be the case. But don’t dismiss WAR because of one years worth of stats.
by Kenneth Arthur on Sep 7, 2010 12:12 PM EDT up reply actions
Yup.
People understand this inherent fluctuation in batting AVG but refuse to give it any credence w/ regards to overall value or defense.
If Hanley Ramirez hits .270 one year and Alex Gonzalez hits .310 that year no one blinks an eye. They understand those aren’t the true talent level values… just an outlier in a range of probabilities.
BUT if somebody’s UZR is off what they expect one year they assume UZR is badly broken and you can’t trust defensive metrics. It would be pretty humorous if it didn’t come up every friggin week.
Bullpen Banter
www.bullpenbanter.com
twitter: @alskor
I do
I just don’t believe Gardner is better than Hanley Ramirez- EVEN FOR JUST THIS YEAR!
May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house.
-George Carlin
Why?
He makes fewer outs, he’s a better base runner, and he’s better defensively. Hanley’s extra power (~100 points in SLG) just isn’t worth nearly as much as you seem to think.
Actually
I think Gardner’s small advantage in the OBP column is overrated in the offense column of WAR. Hanley is a LOT better offensive player than Brett Gardner! Any fool could see that unless they were blinded by thier favorite “know everything” stat.
WAR lists Brett Gardner as 17 Runs above average! He sint even above average is he really?
I dont even believe that gardner has more defensive value – a good Leftfielder versus a average? below average? SS?
Fucking baserunning? Really? You KNOW how valuable Gardner or Hanley are on the basepaths?
May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house.
-George Carlin
If I may interject...
In a court of law I think this would be referred to as a “deadlocked jury” when they simply can’t come to an agreement. In this scenario, the judge would declare a mistrial because there is no point in going forward any more with the discussion.
I think a mistrial should be declared here and everyone will be happy for it.
by Kenneth Arthur on Sep 7, 2010 2:07 PM EDT up reply actions
The guy with the 11th highest OBP in all of baseball is average offensively?
I think tells us everything we need to know about your understanding of the game of baseball.
No one is saying Hanley isn’t better than Gardner offensively, we’re just arguing to what extent. Advanced offensive stats, which have proven time and time again to be very accurate, have Hanley being about 10 runs better when batting. Not surprising, because he has a lot power, but still makes more outs.
The breakdown in defensive evaluations comes to how you value Hanley’s defense. He’s not average or below average. He’s downright bad at SS. Right now, he ranks as the worst defensive SS according to UZR and isn’t much better in any of the other metrics. He’s never been a good defensive SS and he seems to be especially bad this year. Gardner on the other hand is the best defensive LF in baseball (maybe Crawford is slightly better, but he’s the only guy close) and an average CF. If you’re asking if a guy who can play an at least average CF is more valuable on defense than a bad SS, then the answer is yes. Without question.
As for base running, we can go to different levels of depth on it, but yeah Gardener is better. He steals more bases at a higher rate. I’m pretty sure the more advanced stats also show that he gets more extra bases when he’s a runner (adjusting for the batter and what he does) than Hanley. Its not like this disagrees with scouting in anyway. I’m sure just about every scout in the league would agree that Gardner is the better base runner.
+1
I like baseball.
I write for Beyond the Box Score and The Hardball Times Fantasy
by Satchel Price on Sep 7, 2010 4:57 PM EDT up reply actions
I'd be totally okay with a stat that told me that about batting average
if Ichiro only got a hundred at-bats in each season.
Defense requires larger sample sizes to converge on a true talent level than offense does. Why is this a problem? It’s simply a fact of baseball that players get a lot more at-bats than they do difficult-but-makeable fielding plays.
"We don't want our people to be preoccupied with seminude, crazy men jumping up and down who are chasing an inflated object," said Sheik Mohamed Osman Arus, head of operations for the Hizbul Islam insurgent group.
Ok
Then the fluctuations in the defensive runs should be smaller shouldn’t they?
Since it takes years to be significant it shouldnt have Gutierrez as +30 or whatever it was and now the 6th best CF. That doesnt make sense.
It doensnt make sense not because batters like Jack Cust fluctuate from year to year but, because catching a baeball at the same position, same team, no injury, just shouldn’t fluctualte that much.
May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house.
-George Carlin
Here's the thing:
Your opinion on how much defensive performance “should” fluctuate is not relevant. Sorry if that bursts your bubble.
All that matters is how much it actually does fluctuate in real life. Which is measurable, just like how much offense fluctuates is measurable. They both fluctuate a lot, because this is baseball, not Hitting-Baseballs-For-Distance-And-Fielders-Sprinting-Towards-Them-ball.
"We don't want our people to be preoccupied with seminude, crazy men jumping up and down who are chasing an inflated object," said Sheik Mohamed Osman Arus, head of operations for the Hizbul Islam insurgent group.
Thats poetic
I like it but
If it “does” fluctuate, as much a you say why all this talk about UZR not being accurate in a given season . . . needing a few years to get it right. . . having “noise” in it, like a prevois poster said?
If it is so goddamned measurable why all these different meathods of measuring it?
I dont think these meathods are even CLOSE to measuring some things….
such as the GIANT park effect in gavor of Seattle CF’s (and I love Frankie Gutes, dont get me wrong) and UZR measures Joe Mauer as having 0.0 value on defense this year – GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE! They might as well just step aside and admit they dont have any idea how to value how a Catcher like Joe runs a team, a pitching staff, etc.
Sometimes less is more. At least wiith RF I know what was being measured- like RBI or any of the other terrible, outdated stats. They work because they are just a piece of the puzzle and you learn to use them in conjunction with other numbers.
May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house.
-George Carlin
First off, catcher defense is not measured by UZR
Second, if you can’t even conceive of the possibility that Joe Mauer could have declining defense or an off year, then there’s little point in discussing anything. Why are you even here in that case?
"We don't want our people to be preoccupied with seminude, crazy men jumping up and down who are chasing an inflated object," said Sheik Mohamed Osman Arus, head of operations for the Hizbul Islam insurgent group.
Hmm
There ARE ratings liosted for defense… for Catchers. They aren’t as extreme, like between +5 to -5… first off
Uh, dude, Joe Mauer isn’t having no off year behind the dish. He’s thwe same old guy back there. Extremely valuable.
I never said I didn’t think he could have an off year- but he isnt having one.
May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house.
-George Carlin
The defensive measures for defense on fangraphs account for a few small aspects of catcher defense
CS I think… they aren’t meant to be a complete measure by any means.
Bullpen Banter
www.bullpenbanter.com
twitter: @alskor
You're confusing two different issues of accuracy
1) UZR is accurate in measuring what actually happened. This is not in doubt (for the most part)
2) Much like how defense and the pitchers you face can affect batting AVG in a smaller sample, there are many factors outside of a defender’s control that influence UZR in smaller samples.
For instance, If Pablo Sandoval comes up and hits .330 his rookie season only a fool would assume this was actually his true talent level… No one should be surprised when he can’t repeat this result. Similarly, if a very talented rookie comes up and hits .200 his first month (ie Dustin Pedroia) you wouldn’t assume he’s a .200 hitter. You’d understand his luck hasn’t had a chance to even out yet – that too many things can influence AVG in that small a times. Same with UZR.
Bullpen Banter
www.bullpenbanter.com
twitter: @alskor
Flawed logic
Even when The Panda was hitting .330 that is an INTERMITANT skill- meaning If you start to struggle AT ALL you could be hitting .250 before you know it.
Fielding is not AS intermitant of a skill. It should be far more consistent because it is EASIER. There are ebs and flows- injuries, declining skills, getting bettwer with practice, etc – but it doesn’t fluxuate as much as something as difficult as hitting.
Nice plug for yourself on Panda btw. I think his skilll level is a lot closer to last year than this year- he’ll bounce back.
May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house.
-George Carlin
Fielding is not AS intermitant of a skill. It should be far more consistent because it is EASIER. There are ebs and flows- injuries, declining skills, getting bettwer with practice, etc – but it doesn’t fluxuate as much as something as difficult as hitting.
I don’t think this is true at all. I’m not sure why you assume this. I won’t speak to the difficulty, but I see no reason to think it is easier than hitting… nor do I understand what that would prove. It certainly isn’t as consistent. Guys have defensive slumps and periods where they excel. Ask players and they’ll tell you.
Bullpen Banter
www.bullpenbanter.com
twitter: @alskor
Yeah
‘two tenths of a shit’, ‘sucking’, ’he’s awful’: this is how the grownups talk? lol
by blackoutyears on Sep 7, 2010 5:41 PM EDT up reply actions
Baker and Slowey
are two of the most extreme flyball starters in baseball. Out of all qualifying starters, Slowey’s 28.7% gb-rate puts him as the most extreme flyballer in both the NL and AL. Baker’s the 15th most extreme FB guy among qualifying starters. They rank #3 and 4 on the Twins in innings pitched. Among their more regularly-used relievers, Rauch and Crain also rate as extreme FB guys, while only Alex Burnett is a groundballer. Mahay and Guerrier are pretty neutral, tending towards the FB side. Pavano and Liriano are GB guys, but not extremely so.
That pitching staff sends a lot of balls to the outfield. Any metric that has attempted to look at the range where Young is actually able to cover ground agree that he sucks. Like, really sucks. The scouts tend to agree. So do the fans (you know, the ones who watch him play every day). Tango’s collecting data for 2010 as we speak, but in 2009 the Fans gave Young a 1.5 for reaction/instincts, a 1.5 for acceleration/first few steps, a 2.3 for velocity/sprint speed, and a 2.3 for hands/catching.
When all advanced metrics agree with the eyes both of scouts and the combined “wisdom of the crowds” of the dozens of people who watch Young every day and filled out Tango’s scouting report, you should at least start to listen. Particularly when all you have is the pure numbers of balls caught.
Young has had a nice little improvement at the plate and has gotten to the point where he’s no longer a useless baseball player. He isn’t yet an above average one, though.
i've only missed a handful of Twins games this year
I’ve seen over 130 of them(this year) I’d estimate either in person or on TV (I get FSN North their club’s Fox Affiliate)
And Delmon Young does these things well, 1 positions himself , 2 Uses his Arm (very powerful and pretty accurate too) , 3 Plays the walls and caroms down the lines exceptionally well
But he still frightens the crap out of me when he plays defense, I just simply don’t trust his body out there, he ‘hobbles’ around and seems to have terrible range.
While he has above average to great baserunning speed he doesn’t seem to have it on the defensive side at all. At least to me
I called on the exact pitch - Joe Mauer's first career Home-Run at Target Field !!!
Why Oh Why did the D'Backs select A.J. Pollock over Mike Trout?
by SteveHoffmanSlowey on Sep 6, 2010 5:43 PM EDT up reply actions
then there is this from a post at the Twins SBNation site
While I discount defensive metrics, my eyes and those metrics agree that Delmon Young, despite decent speed and a fine outfield arm, is among the worst defensive outfielders in major league baseball. He judges balls poorly and takes bad routes, limiting his range. He has poor hands, dropping several balls and fumbling several more and is not adept at playing caroms or making catches at the wall. Delmon has hit better than ever before—he will have career highs in homers and RBI and will almost certainly pass the century mark in RBI, but his defense hurts the club a lot. What to do with Delmon? I don’t think DHing him is an answer, he is too young and the Twins probably have other, better options. Delmon was a right fielder in Tampa, but I really don’t think it makes any difference. So the choice is either live with the bad defense in left or trade Mr. Young.
I called on the exact pitch - Joe Mauer's first career Home-Run at Target Field !!!
Why Oh Why did the D'Backs select A.J. Pollock over Mike Trout?
by SteveHoffmanSlowey on Sep 6, 2010 5:47 PM EDT up reply actions
The fans agree...
they gave Young decent marks for his arm, too, but awful marks for his range, acceleration, instincts, and hands.
I trust you
SHS but, I ask you this – since you have watched him. Does his defense really add up to losing -19 RUNS? Even if it is scary and I watched Raul Ibanez for 3 years (almost exactly the same defensive description as you gave of Delmon).
I honestly don’t think Delmon is ONE RUN wore than the naverage LF. Just take a look at some of the other guys who play the position.
May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house.
-George Carlin
Dude.
Do you realize how much it hurts to have an outfielder who can’t make plays? When OFs mess up plays they turn into doubles and triples. Those drive in (and set up) huge numbers of runs. Over 162 games it is absolutely believable that a butcher in the field can cost his team that many runs compared with an average glove.
Besides, UZR DOES look at the other guys who play the position. It’s a comparison between the player and the league average for a given year, and how well they cover ground in the field. That’s kind of the whole point of the statistic. It doesn’t operate in a vacuum.
Well
The guy who sees him play 130 times above says he positions himself well, throws well, plays balls down the line and caroms well.
It sounds like his main weekness is just footspeed, and instincts + mostly a good amount of singles dropping in and not a lot of doubles and triples. I think it is rounghly IMPOSSIBLE for him to be 19 RUNS behind this group of players . . . Holliday, Gomes, Soriano (injured this year and very imobile), Willingham, Bay, Ibanez, and Lee).
I dont know if you ee why this is important but, if UZR takes a year… 2 years … three years to be accurate Delmon needs it to be accurate NOW! So people can resresent his 2010 season accurately.
I see a guy who is roughly the 6th or 7th best offensive Leftfielder this year and a solid average fielding leftfielder.
I am NOT saying that a terrible Leftfielder couldn’t cost a team a lot of runs. I am saying that the stat is INCORRECT and full of crap.
I do not believe in its accuracy.
May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house.
-George Carlin
19 runs...
= about 16 balls in his zone that he drops that an average fielder would have caught. Of the hundreds of balls that get hit to LF in a given season.
You really think that’s impossible?
What's impossible
is judging it with the naked eye. That’s about one ball every week and a half.
It’s like trying to tell the difference between a .300 hitter and a .270 hitter with the naked eye. The human brain does not work on that scale.
If someone wired casejud’s eyes open and made him watch eight games (~24 consecutive hours) of Twins baseball, then asked him to score the games from memory, I suspect he’d do pretty poorly (as would I or anyone else). Yet that’s the amount of game-watching we’re talking about to generate one missed play from Delmon Young. ONE!
"We don't want our people to be preoccupied with seminude, crazy men jumping up and down who are chasing an inflated object," said Sheik Mohamed Osman Arus, head of operations for the Hizbul Islam insurgent group.
by PaulThomas on Sep 6, 2010 9:02 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
Not only that...
… my memory is -19 units below the average memory, even on minorleagueball.com, a below average league.
May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house.
-George Carlin
What?
Why would each ball that drops in cost a RUN? It would take 2-3 balls dropping to cost a whole RUN wouldn’t it Thats my essential problem with the total. I just dont believe he is that costly.
May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house.
-George Carlin
No
If it’s the start of an inning, the difference is usually between a runner on second with no out and no runners and one out.
If there’s a runner on first the difference is usually between “a run scored and a runner on second and no out” and a runner on first and one out.
People have studied all the 24 different base/out scenarios in this manner and determined, by adjusting for the frequency of the situations (none on/none out is obviously far more frequent than man on third/none out) and then summing the total, that missing one ball in the outfield costs a team something like 8/10ths of a run, on average, compared to making an out on that ball.
"We don't want our people to be preoccupied with seminude, crazy men jumping up and down who are chasing an inflated object," said Sheik Mohamed Osman Arus, head of operations for the Hizbul Islam insurgent group.
interesting
I really have to admit that I know much less about these metrics than you do, If that isn’t obvious.
Thought come to mind, I’m not really questioning it but,its just a thought – a bunch of singles dont count as much in the Runs Created formula. for instance, when counting ingles on offense.
I was looking at it naively perhaps…
Delmon catches 40 less balls than a good leftfielder – most of them are singles- he throws well and LOOKS like he avoids falling on his face and letting the ball roll to the wall for a tripe often, stuff like that. It just seems like he’s as good as the average lF- but I could be wrong. I think the stat can be wrong too though.
I’m going to bed. Appologies If I was too much of an A-hole today – later
May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house.
-George Carlin
i think Montero is the most obvious example
But there are a few guys like that in the minors right now: Montero, Hosmer and Myers are kind of the Big Three from my perspective.
Freddie Freeman could be another one of those guys, though. I think it’s more difficult to find contact hitters with that kind of power, most guys who can hit for power don’t really gear their swings and approaches towards putting the ball in play. A lot of power hitters just wait for their pitch, which leads to lots of walks and strikeouts.
I like baseball.
I write for Beyond the Box Score and The Hardball Times Fantasy
+1
Montero is really the ONLY guy like that in the minors. Others have to vastly improve on power or contact skills to get there. Montero already has that kind of toolset.
I wouldn't say that Hosmer has to vastly improve either of his skills to get there
The power is absolutely plus, his strikeout rate is surprisingly strong, and his overall performance has been nothing short of awesome.
We’re talking about a guy who’s batted .337/.404/.569 with 43 doubles, 9 triples and 20 homers. He’s got a very strong 59/66 BB/K ratio. He’s even gone 14-for-16 on SB attempts. At this point, I put Hosmer awfully close to Montero.
I like baseball.
I write for Beyond the Box Score and The Hardball Times Fantasy
by Satchel Price on Sep 6, 2010 12:33 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
Has anyone figured out why he was so awful in 2009?
"We don't want our people to be preoccupied with seminude, crazy men jumping up and down who are chasing an inflated object," said Sheik Mohamed Osman Arus, head of operations for the Hizbul Islam insurgent group.
injured wrist and lack of vision....
where’ve you been?
Fire Everyone
by billybeingbilly on Sep 6, 2010 2:08 PM EDT up reply actions
Devin Mesoraco
comes to mind
I called on the exact pitch - Joe Mauer's first career Home-Run at Target Field !!!
Why Oh Why did the D'Backs select A.J. Pollock over Mike Trout?
by SteveHoffmanSlowey on Sep 5, 2010 6:48 PM EDT reply actions
I hate to keep answering questions with Devin Mesoraco
but he was among the first guys to come to mind for me as well. Leaving aside the Triple-A SSS, he’s hit for power and solid average while maintaining commendable walk and strikeout rates.
by blackoutyears on Sep 7, 2010 6:35 PM EDT up reply actions
still
a consistent .300 hitter with 30 HR would be pretty optimistic.
by auclairkeithbc on Sep 7, 2010 7:18 PM EDT up reply actions
Montero and Hosmer
I was thinking those two also. I’m not sure if Freeman really has the swing that can loft 30 HR a year, but hes promising in many other ways
Pedro Alvarez?????
and on that note, what do you think of alvarez so far in the bigs. Hes off some power, but has struck out a ridiculous 95 times in a mere 248 AB. How much promis do you see in this kid’s (23 y/o) future. Can he hit for power and contact like the guys mentioned above, or will he turn into Brandon Wood
I think he'll improve...
but he’s not looking like the Pujols-Lite he was billed as coming off his first couple years in college. I think he’ll settle in somewhere around an .800-.840 OPS hitter (.345-.355 wOBA). Not a star, but serviceable. Might start putting up some big power numbers in a few years.
Watching him today against the Braves, looks pretty good. Just missed a HR to the opposite field (hit it probably 380), then followed that up with a hard double.
He will probably always K too much but the real question still remains his defense for me (which has nothing to do with this topic). As far as his bat, I’m not sure he has the contact ability to be in this conversation but I don’t think he will be Wood either.
Here are some guys..
with above average power(not just HR power), good K/BB rate, contact rate and good age relative to league.
Daniel Descalso*
Jesus Montero
Hank Conger#
Buster Posey
Lonnie Chisenhall*
Osvaldo Martinez
Johnny Giavotella
Matt Dominguez
Caleb Gindl*
Domonic Brown*
Mike Moustakas*
Brandon Belt*
Devin Mesoraco
Jose Pirela
Eric Hosmer*
Stephen Lombardozzi#
Corban Joseph*
Mike Trout
Jonathan Singleton*
Angelo Songco*
Vincent Catricala
Tyler Kelly#
Carlos Perez
Cesar Hernandez#
Marcus Knecht
Ramon Flores
Royce Consigli
Anthony Garcia
Ji-Man Choi
Jacob Marisnick
Roberto Perez
Tyler Roberts
Ronald Torreyes
http://milbprospects.blogspot.com/
How did Freeman miss that list?
Compared to Montero (one of the better guys on the list), his ISO is 11 points lower, he gets .03 fewer BB per K, he has a higher contact rate, and has roughly the same ARL. If this list came from a query in your database, I think something may be wrong in there. Not sure how Marcus Knecht shows up, but not Freeman.
His K/BB rate knocked him out.
I sorted this a bunch to get to a managable number of players. He missed it because of that.
http://milbprospects.blogspot.com/
by Matt Garrioch on Sep 7, 2010 1:20 PM EDT up reply actions
Considering the list you got
I think you placed a little too much emphasis on the K/BB and too little on this like contact and power (which is what the original question was about). No disrespect or anything (you know I like what you’re trying to do), just saying.
I can see that...
but there are very few guys who hit HR’s and hit for average, so I did what I thought would come up with a good group. The only major guys this left off in Moose and Josh Reddick, I think.
http://milbprospects.blogspot.com/
by Matt Garrioch on Sep 7, 2010 4:52 PM EDT up reply actions
Moustakas is still on there
It also left Freeman off while including a bunch of mediocre prospects unlikely to ever make it to the majors.
Problematic list
Lombardozzi, for instance, is basically included because of his SSS power surge since his promo to Double-A. I haven’t read one scouting report that thinks he’s a long term power threat. How about Nick Weglarz as a guy who’s not on there but who’s likely to hit for decent power without striking out excessively? Maybe if your list was using ISO and a certain max K Rate?
by blackoutyears on Sep 7, 2010 6:40 PM EDT up reply actions
Well,
They did not see Lombardozzi win the HR derby at the Twins game last year in convincing fashion. I don’t care if they were standing behind 2B, that is legit power :)
Good call with Weglarz. His contact rate is a little light, has some pop and a good eye.
Top 20 AA hitters with 100+ PA, ISO +.150 and 80% contact rate:
Matt Dominguez
Lonnie Chisenhall*
Eric Hosmer*
Chris Marrero
Starlin Castro
Mike Moustakas*
Brandon Laird
Josh Vitters
Thomas Neal
Stephen Lombardozzi#
Chih-Hsien Chiang*
Ryan Kalish*
Dave Sappelt
Brandon Belt*
Collin Cowgill
Luis Exposito
Devin Mesoraco
David Cooper*
Willie Cabrera
Charles Blackmon*
http://milbprospects.blogspot.com/
by Matt Garrioch on Sep 7, 2010 7:39 PM EDT up reply actions
Which guys are in the bunch of mediocre prospects?
I like almost all these guys. Would like to hear who you don’t. I look at this stuff all the time and kind of get the can’t see the forest from the trees syndrome.
http://milbprospects.blogspot.com/
by Matt Garrioch on Sep 7, 2010 7:42 PM EDT up reply actions
Jerry Sands?
Either at the top or very close to the top of HR leaders in the minors, has hit over 300 for the season and has and OPS of .984. K’ing about 21% of the time.
by lakersdodgersyankees4life on Sep 7, 2010 12:00 AM EDT reply actions
21% is pretty high
Well above MLB average.
"We don't want our people to be preoccupied with seminude, crazy men jumping up and down who are chasing an inflated object," said Sheik Mohamed Osman Arus, head of operations for the Hizbul Islam insurgent group.
I’m kind of surprised that Moustakas isn’t getting more credit in this thread. He might have the best raw power in the minors, and his K rate has always been incredibly strong for a guy who also has great game power.
98% of this thread is one conversation about WAR. Other than that there is you mentioning Moustakas and Montero getting some love, and then a couple of other guys.
I don’t think it’s some conspiracy.
by Kenneth Arthur on Sep 7, 2010 12:15 PM EDT up reply actions
Heh
Apparently sarcasm about Delmon Young will spark arguments. I must make a note to do it more often!
"We don't want our people to be preoccupied with seminude, crazy men jumping up and down who are chasing an inflated object," said Sheik Mohamed Osman Arus, head of operations for the Hizbul Islam insurgent group.
I think
the only knock on Moose right now is his BB rate.
http://milbprospects.blogspot.com/
by Matt Garrioch on Sep 7, 2010 1:22 PM EDT up reply actions
yeah
Robinson cano and ichiro Suzuki hould walk more too, a well as any number of other All-Star performers who don’t care about walking much.
May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house.
-George Carlin
Robinson Cano is having his best year ever
in large part to him nearly doubling his walk rate. Walks are much more important than you seem willing to admit.
http://bullpenbanter.com
by gatling on Sep 7, 2010 4:18 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
I agree
. . .that they aren’t entirely unimportant but, I also think that they aren’t AS important as others make them seem.
I’m not saying selectiveness isn’t good, or even crucial to sucess but, I dont know – I guess we see what we want to see. Cano had a pretty similar season to the one he is having now, last year, and he walked 30 times. The walks THEMSELVES are good- getting on base more Is good – just not sure Id credit the walks for his 2010 season. Perhaps the added walks are more a by-product of his excellence at the plate than a cause?
May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house.
-George Carlin
So more walks are good but it hasn't contributed to him having a career year?
His improved season is a combination of a 26 point increase in SLG and a 30 point increase in OBP. That OBP increase has almost everything to do with a 4% increase in walk percentage from 4.5% to 8.5%. Some of that can be attributed to the last two months when he posted 10-12% walk rates in July and August, possibly somewhat due to the fact that he is now a dangerous power hitter, but he was still posting a notable improvement in plate discipline over the first 3 months of the season. It’s a combination of things that have made Cano better this year, but part of that combination is walks which is undeniable.
by Kenneth Arthur on Sep 7, 2010 6:12 PM EDT up reply actions
I didn't say that it didn't contribute
I said he was very productive player before thi eason when he hardly walked at all and that the fact that he is such a dangerous hitter is more responsible for the increase in walks than the incrrease in walks is responsible for him being a dangerous hitter.
Again, drawing more walks is good but, it didn’t amke him a good hitter. He was already one.
May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house.
-George Carlin
Similar how?
In his batting average and HR totals? Cano is posting a wOBA 24 points higher than last year and an OPS 57 points higher than last year. His slugging is up 26 points which makes sense seeing as he’s in that age 27-28 physical peak part of his career. He’s had a few more doubles turn into HR’s this year. The biggest difference between this year and last year is the fact he’s walked 20 more times this year in 87 FEWER plate appearances.
http://bullpenbanter.com
Sure
This season is BETTER but, last season is still a similar season – simlar average, Hrs, doubles, etc.
The point is that it is great and wonderful that he was able to increase nhis BB’s this year while keeping all his other components the same but, I don’t believe the better plate discipline is RESPONSIBLE for his having a better season.
He was already an oustanding player last year with 30 walks. I see your point though, I do. Its just that to me it is more rreasonable that all the liners he smacks all over the yard led pitchers to be more careful with him.
May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house.
-George Carlin
Yeah, I actually think people overlook the fact that walks and hitting ability aren’t independent.
by limozeen on Sep 7, 2010 9:39 PM EDT via mobile up reply actions
They aren't completely independent, no.
When we’re looking at BBs & BB/K as a measure of selectivity. Look at what guys hit on pitches outside of the zone and one pitches inside the zone. Selectivity is a big part of hitting for AVG in the majors. Its not a hard rule, but its not “independent.”
Bullpen Banter
www.bullpenbanter.com
twitter: @alskor
No they aren't
. . .and I didn’t mean to say that they did. Like you said, it isn’t a hard and fast rule. I just felt like It was a little odd to give all the credit to his 2010 season to the increased walks when he was nearly as good in 2009. I fully realize that he is not a typical player though.
Then again, Mike Moustakas may not be either.
May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house.
-George Carlin
I guess you misunderstood me before
I’m not giving all the credit for his 2010 season to the increased walk total. I’m saying the difference between last year’s production and this year’s production is mainly due to the increased walk rate. His bat has been worth 10 more runs, or a full win, than it was last year. That’s huge. With so much of his other numbers remaining fairly constant from last year(AVG, BABIP, LD%) the walk rate has been the driving force behind the better production. I wasn’t trying to say the walk rate has made him a more dangerous hitter or a better hitter, but it has made him a more valuable hitter which is reflected in his wOBA and BRAA.
http://bullpenbanter.com
I gotcha
My bad.
I guess I’m testy about walks lately because so many good players just don’t walk a lot.
It’s a complicated issue though, I admit because, coming from the minors to the majors (which is usaully what we are talking about here) being selective is important.
May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house.
-George Carlin
A lot of good players walk a lot though.
If you look at the top 35 BB% in baseball you’ll see Jose Bautista, Prince Fielder, Miguel Cabrera, Joey Votto, David Ortiz, Albert Pujols, Jason Heyward, Brian McCann, Kevin Youkilis, Mark Teixeira, Adrian Gonzalez, Ryan Zimmerman, etc.
Some guys, Nick Johnson and Daric Barton for instance, have excellent eyes and use that ability to make themselves more valuable because they aren’t the quality of hitters that the guys listed above are… but their ability to walk does make them much more valuable.
You won’t see many top hitters in baseball walk at below-average rates. Josh Hamilton is a bit low, which is surprising. CarGo is considerably below, which doesn’t surprise me all that much because he’s got a lot to work on still.
Robinson Cano isn’t blowing anyone away in the walk department, but the significant jump that doubles his career rate just about, can’t be ignored. Not saying you are, just pointing out that many good players do walk a lot.
by Kenneth Arthur on Sep 8, 2010 2:57 PM EDT up reply actions
I don’t disagree that “the walk rate has been the driving force behind the better production,” but it also seems somewhat evident to me that “better past production has (at least partly) led to an increased walk rate” is another part of that story.
well that's the question
is he walking more because he’s more selective, or because he’s flashing more power and scaring pitchers?
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