Thursday Rockpile:

by Rox Girl on Jul 12, 2007 12:40 PM MDT in Rockpile

Moving day 2 for Rox Girl; again my apologies for updates to the site being so late.

Subscribers at Baseball Prospectus can read an interesting article by Dan Fox on Willy Taveras and the bunt hit in general. Non-subscribers will have to be satisfied with my one sentence summary: Willy T is on pace to shatter Brett Butler's high of forty bunt hits in 1992, and obviously his skill at this is a very good thing for the Rockies.

Flirting is bad? Really? Oh. I have a lot of apologizing to do, I just realized. I better get to that. That and a Pebble Report, it's coming up.

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The second link

is the same as the first link, which can actually be read by non-subscribers since it's free content week over there.

"Don't give up the ship!" - Capt. James Lawrence

by Russ Oates on Jul 12, 2007 1:28 PM MDT reply actions

Baseball Prospectus

BP is such a crack up..

Some people just have too much time on their hands.

by roxhead on Jul 12, 2007 1:49 PM MDT reply actions

Like

people who defend Clint Barmes's honor on message boards ^_^

by A.J. Haefele on Jul 13, 2007 3:24 AM MDT up reply actions

Oh man BURN

by Kindred @ Purple Row on Jul 13, 2007 5:34 AM MDT up reply actions

Taveras...

some quick math from the BP article....
Taveras is hitting .259/.307/.336 when he isn't bunting--a .643 OPS, almost exactly the same as last year 257/.305/322. His bunting is really masking the fact that he isn't hitting very well. For a leadoff hitter, that is ok, but Hurdle really ought to be looking to PH for him with runners on late in the game.

Two things that really surprised me in the article is the success rate of the bunt hit and that the most successful bunters aren't always the speedsters. This makes me think that it is an underutilized weapon and that everyone ought to be learning/practicing bunting for base hits.

Lastly, I would be curious to know what Taveras home/road splits are for bunting--maybe the tall grass at Coors is playing a role in Taveras' improvement this year.

by DenverBears on Jul 13, 2007 5:01 AM MDT reply actions

That's an interesting question

on the bunt splits, but his general hitting splits do suggest he's much better at home than away, though he's still hitting over .300 on the road too.

I'm not sure on the pinch hitting part, because it hasn't been an issue yet. His numbers with RISP are .321/.367/.339, and he's driven in 16 runners in 56 AB's, good for a "success rate" of 29%. I know that is an inexact number because of some "successes" occuring with two runners on, but to compare, Holliday has a rate of 42% and several other middle order hitters are right around the 40% mark. I really don't know what this means or if this is a repeatable skill, but it looks as if Taveras isn't greatly lagging behind. Because his line stats aren't much different with RISP from his season totals, it would suggest that Taveras is not doing any damage to the situation. He may not be driving in the volume of runners of Holliday, but he isn't producing more outs in that situation.

I think you then have to weigh in potential lost defensive production from a late inning sub, which is another question entirely.

I guess my final answer would be the Taveras should be hit for only in the last two innings and with a runner on second in a one-two run ballgame. He's not putting enough juice on the ball to consistently advance a runner from second to home, so if that run is the difference ina tie or a loss, it makes sense.

by David OhNo on Jul 13, 2007 2:48 PM MDT up reply actions

Late response...

This response is a bit late, so I you read it. Your response caused me to research this a bit further. As a team the Rockies have a 'success' rate of 37.2% this year--keep in mind this includes pitchers. Too look at a team without pitchers, I also looked at the middle OPS team in the AL, the Royals, they are at 38% on the year, so 29% is certainly below average. However, you might argue with the sample size--a couple of RBI's and his numbers would look quite different. So I also looked into the last few years with Taveras--in 2006, he had 25 RBI's in 100 ABs with RISP and in 2005 he had 25 RBIs in 110 ABs. In total, that puts him at 25%, which I would guess would put him very low in that category.

by DenverBears on Jul 15, 2007 8:44 AM MDT up reply actions