Thursday Rockpile - Are Sluggers Necessary?
by Purple Rox on Jan 22, 2009 5:04 AM MST
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The Denver Post and Patrick Saunders led off Sunday's paper (12/14/08) with an article asking "whether a team can thrive without a top-flight slugger?" Anytime a question is thrown out like that and then not backed up by anything but baseball anecdotes I have to look into the numbers. The obvious difficulty in answering a question like this is how do you classify a slugger? Is it your home run king, your RBI leader, a combination of HR/RBI leader, or some other stat like OPS? In the Rockies 16 years of existence, the HR and RBI leader was the same only 8 times (Bichette, Galarraga, Castilla, Helton (x3), and Holliday).
In my thinking and looking at 16 years of Rockies data, I will classify a slugger as a batter that hits greater than 18% of their teams HRs or hits in more than 16% of the team's RBIs. So for 2008, Holliday and Hawpe hit 25 HR which individually accounted for 16% of the team's total HR (160). In 2007, Holliday's 36 accounted for 21% of the team's total (171). So Holliday was a slugger in 2007 but not so much in 2008. For RBIs, Atkins had 99 or 13.9% of the team's total (714) in 2008 and Holliday had 16.6% (137) of the team's total (823) in 2007. The All-Time leader is Helton in 2000 when he accounted for 26% of the team's HR at 42 (team 161) and Castilla in 1998 when he had 18.2% of the team's RBIs (144 of 791). So back to the analysis...if you take the years the Rox had a HR slugger (i.e. > or equal to 18%) then there were 12 seasons with HR sluggers. During these 12 seasons, the team had a collective record of 909 - 973 (0.483) versus 280 - 368 (0.432) . The RBI leader team collective records for greater than equal to 16% is 760 - 798 (0.488) versus 429 - 543 (0.441). And finally for those years with the HR and RBI (18% and 16%) you had a collective record of win percentage of 0.488 versus 0.452. Note: For three season of these seasons, the team had a separate HR leader and RBI leader and are not counted in the the win percentage above (2004 Burnitz and Castilla / 1999 Walker and Galarraga / 1994 Galarraga and Bichette). From this analysis, it would appear having a big bat does make for a better Rockies team. For four of five of those winning seasons the HR and RBI leaders were the same...
Let’s see how this stacks up with the rest of MLB. In 2007 and 2008, the MLB average was 18% and 19% respectively for HR leaders with respect to their team totals and 14.3% and 14.5% for RBIs. It is interesting to note that in 2008, only 8 of the 30 teams had different HR and RBI leaders (Marlins, Reds, Cubs, Mets, Rockies, Dodgers, Blue Jays, and Mariners). In summary then, for the two years noted, if you look at collective team records for those that had one batter have more than 18% of the team's total HR then the record was 2431 - 2429 (.500) and evenly split with 30 teams having one batter > 18% vs 30 with no batter > 18% of total team HR. For RBIs, when one batter with more than 16% of the team's RBI total then the record was 1226 - 1205 (.504) with a 15/45 split. From the MLB perspective then having a HR slugger doesn't seem to win many more games but having an RBI man does help to the tune of 21 more wins. Note you would have to get to greater than 22% for HR totals before you see a winning percentage over 0.500 and only to a tune of 30 more wins. Overall not very convincing that having a big bat in the line up makes much of a difference in the MLB although if we assume that all teams seek such a bat in the middle of their line up what exactly can we measure (and of course having a big bat doesn't help if your pitching and bullpen stink!)?
So perhaps there really isn't any true statistical basis for determining if having a slugger is worth more wins. From my perspective having a big bat accounting for a lot of HR and RBIs is probably more relevant to the mental side of the game. How many late inning rallies center around that number 3 or 4 batter? Also there is no way to measure how a team feels if behind by one or two runs with their slugger coming up 3rd or 4th in the order versus having their 7 - 9 hitters? I tend to think of it as the reason baseball has sided with one dominant closer. I don't think it really matters who pitches the 9th but so much of baseball has become mental (based on statistics?) that it may give a team a boost (?).
Ultimately what Saunders was getting at was that with the loss of Holliday, the 2009 Rockies will probably not have a big bat in their line up. Atkins will probably lead in RBIs and Hawpe in HRs. History has shown that for the Rockies, a slugger does seem to improve our chances but in the end that is why we watch, because in baseball, statistics don't always lead to wins.
Eat. Drink. Be Merry. But the above FanPost does not necessarily reflect the attitudes, opinions, or views of Purple Row's staff (unless, of course, it's written by the staff [and even then, it still might not]).
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Nice long article
but bottom line is to score runs, and move players more then one base at a time…you need a big hitter. (or 2…or 3). And scoring runs is a big key in having more runs at the end of the game.
The only way I think a team could win and NOT have a big power hitter would be if the entire line up had a high average, batting say .280-.310. Which for 9 guys (and one being a pitcher in the NL. Note to Clint Hurdle Pitchers are not good hitters….use a PH especially when you plan to pull the pitcher anyway!) would be very hard to assemble
"Suck it monkeys, the Rockies will win this year", Rox Girl 1-11-2009
High averages could still mean a lot of outs or few runs...
That’s why for your second scenario, I think OBP’s are more important than just BA. It’s true that entirely walk driven OBP’s won’t be as helpful once you get runners into scoring position, however, and there you would want to have solid contact (aka high average) types spread throughout the lineup to keep the system running smoothly.
Once again, however, I have a hard time with equating a lack of a big power hitter with a lack of power. The Rockies should have six players in their everyday lineup capable of hitting 20 HR’s or more next season, and a couple more (Helton and Barmes) capable of 10 to 15. They will have two more players on their bench, Baker and whoever loses the Smith/Stewart battle, also capable of knocking 20 plus out in full time work. Add in sluggers on the farm like Gonzalez, Koshansky and Fowler who are likely to see work this year, and the argument falls apart. In fact, I think it’s easier to see scenarios where the Rockies pass last season’s 160 total HR’s then it is to see scenarios where they go under it. Losing Holliday, once again, is a crutch and a lame excuse for the media and many fans not to take a closer look at this team.
Aren't Gonzalez and Fowler
more like line drive, doubles hitters?
I don’t have a ton of confidence in their ability to produce big power totals, and Koshansky will never contribute meaningfully to the team. I do agree that there is a lot of power potential on this year’s squad though.
Eschew Obfuscation!
Mostly doubles, particularly with Fowler,
But then again, Smith is also mostly doubles. CarGon is likely going to have a few more HR’s than the other two. But check out Fowler’s Tulsa HR chart at First Inning, where four of his eight were to center field, and then he had two each in right and left. That distribution pattern would suggest he’s got power potential to all fields and from both sides of the plate. Just because he projects for mostly doubles doesn’t mean that there aren’t going to be some finding their way over the fences, particularly at altitude. He’s not just a doubles hitter. And while Koshansky isn’t going to contribute much, the one thing that he will contribute is taking mistake pitches out of the ballpark.
Fowler/R. Alomar
It’s hard to find a switch hitter with Fowler’s mix of tools. I think a similar track of
Alomar with less sb’s for Fowler but a few more homers is likely.
Switch hitting will probably keep him out of the 30 homer club, but in time a pretty consistent 25 homers with a good batting average and solid steal totals can be expected.
I'd say that...
expecting 25 homers for Fowler would probably be unrealistic. All indications show to me a 15-20 HR/year player with plus defense, speed, and OBP. Not at all bad, but not quite what you’re cracking him up to be.
Eschew Obfuscation!
by Jeff Aberle on Jan 22, 2009 10:20 AM MST up reply actions
never know
people talk very excitedly about his power potential, I guess we never really know until they top out, but since he started this switch hitting thing so late, its really difficult to tell.
by brainteaser on Jan 22, 2009 10:34 AM MST up reply actions
Interesting....
however, I wonder if you wouldn’t be better off if you concentrated on raw numbers (perhaps weighted by park factors) rather than % of team totals. Basically, your analysis defines sluggers based in part on how many HRs and RBIs are produced by the remainder of the team. This penalizes “sluggers” who happen to play with other sluggers and rewards players on teams with few HRs overall. For example, Bengie Molina accounted for 17% of his team’s HRs in 2008—does that make him more of a HR hitter than Holliday in 2008 (16) or Carlos Quentin (15—36HRs)?
I read somewhere that
RBIs, more than other statistics, were a product of opportunity. So of course a 3-4 hitter will get tons of RBIs so long as the people in front get on base—thus becoming a “slugger” since they get so many more opportunities than their teammates.
For the Rockies in 2008, that label definitely fit Atkins, who had more RISP opportunities than anyone else on the squad. Atkins capitalized on these opportunities at a criminally low rate, but still finished with more RBIs than anyone else.
At least a home-run “slugger” actually has to hit the ball out of the ballpark to indicate their prowess.
Eschew Obfuscation!
RBI
is a useless statistic as it doesn’t really give any incite to a players value. For example, is Holliday any less of a player because he had Tavares “getting on base” in front of him? I imagine if we had Sizemore leading off, his RBI total would be much greater.
RBI is almost as useless as a pitchers win loss record.
Taveras
but yeah my thoughts exactly
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by Andrew Martin on Jan 22, 2009 8:52 AM MST up reply actions
That was indeed my point about RBIs.
If not pointless, then at least not a great indicator of offensive value.
Eschew Obfuscation!
RBIs aren't a mark of a good slugger, in my opinion
High SLG% is.
I’d wager that a good number of people on this website will subscribe to OPS. I heard an explanation of OPS (OBP+SLG) as OBP being the ability to get on base, and SLG being the ability to advance runners along the basepaths.
A High OBP low SLG batter would be optimal for the leadoff spot, as he’ll be making good use of having the most plate appearances, and then the higher SLG guys behind him have a better chance of advancing him along the basepaths.
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OT, but:
The last eight front page articles on the Row have been by eight different people, all espousing diverse, developed topics (excepting me, of course :p).
Nice!
Eschew Obfuscation!
Average with runners in scoring postion
In my opinion the Rockies faulure as a team with runner in scoring postion is what spelled their offensive doom in 2008. Ianetta did well with RISP and I think Barmes did OK. However, I have been unable to find that stat, if anyone can help me find that I would appreciate it.
I love this term from above from Jabberwocky…“Atkins capitalized on these opportunities at a criminally low rate.” However, he was one of the few middle of the order guys who was out there all year (missed a couple of games with strep but no IR time) and 1 and 2 in the order did not get on with any sort of regularity so Holliday did not have the number of chances that he should have, so even with a horrible average with RISP it still makes sense that Atkins would lead the team in RBI. I think that of Holliday’s 25 homeruns all but 7 of them were solo shots. On the face that seems bad, but I would like to see his average with runners in scoring postion before I say much about it. That number could be skewed by the fact there was very rarely anyone on base for him to bring in with a long ball.
So in short, for me the most important stat for a middle of the order hitter is average with runners in scoring postion. Top and bottom ison-base percentage. But we all know that chicks dig the long ball and that puts butts in the seats so homeruns will always be an important stat.
What if the hokey pokey is what it is all about after all????
Since OPS and RISP is the stat of the day...
Here is a split of Rockies GenR v.1 in 2008:
OPS with……RISP……….RISP w/2 outs
Atkins………..0.640……………0.680
Hawpe………0.893……………0.735
Holliday…….0.868……………0.759
Is anyone suprised that Hawpe was so productive?
Keepin' warm by the hot stove season.
Now let's look at the youngsters
Here is a split of Rockies GenR v.2 in 2008:
OPS with……RISP……….RISP w/2 outs
Iannetta…….1.021……………1.226
Stewart…….0.915……………0.658
Tulo………..0.724……………0.645
CI was 10th in the MLB in OPS with RISP, 2nd to Pujols with 2 outs (out of players with at least 50 AB’s in the situation).
Keepin' warm by the hot stove season.
Wow
CI was 10th in the MLB in OPS with RISP, 2nd to Pujols with 2 outs
I believe Brad Hawpe held a similar distinction in 07…the 2nd most 2-out RBIs to A-Rod
by Andrew T. Fisher on Jan 22, 2009 7:26 PM MST up reply actions
Hey dude
Go here Once you’re there (I hope the link works) click a player you want. The player page will have tabs like split stats, career stats, and situational stats. You’ll want to click on “situational stats”. That will have avg/obp/slg for RISP and more goodies.
Thanks Resolution
I knew I could find some good stats geeks out there. Man now that I look at the numbers the “Big Bats” were totally asleep at the wheel last year with RISP with regards to average. I know there are other good things you can do like get hit by a pitch or get walked, but you can’t count on that. The numbers confirm what I remember from watching all but about 5 or 6 games last year. The Rockies simply let to many chances slip away. During the playoff run in 2007 they capitalized on those chances. IMO, that is what they have got to get back to in order to be successful in 2009.
What if the hokey pokey is what it is all about after all????
Yea
that’s why I’m also optimistic about this year. BA with RISP is so flukey and it really can’t get much worse from last year.
A true Slugger
What is a slugger, does Adam Dunn qualify when he strikeout in over 25% of his plate appearances. That’s what makes the likes of Pujols so amazing, he rarely strikes out, walks a lot and is willing to shorten his stroke with runners in scoring position. Chipper Jones is much the same way. Youk is hardly in the classification of “slugger” but had a .958 ops last year. He could hit #3 or #4 in my lineup any day. OPS takes a big chunk of that into consideration just not the strikeouts so you do have to look at that as well.
Don Baylor only struck out 100 times in a season once, if some of that type of discipline will rub off on Atkins, Hawpe, and Stewart (most notably Stewart) the Rox will have plenty of power to showcase.
Sorry, didn't bother to read....
after you started to throw RBI stats around as an analytical tool. Not a good way to approach such a topic.
RBI's
I know its the new thing to discount RBI’s and to a certain extent I agree that RBI’s are a little overrated because you are dependant on the lineup around you and the OBP of the hitters in front of you. However, I think that a middle-of-the-order hitter for the Rockies should always be expected to have 100 RBI’s, if that player is healthy most of the season. So, although it is hard to put a very specific RBI number requirement to determine a good or bad year, I think a range can be used to see that. Holliday’s low RBI total last year is due to less opportunities and injury for sure, but you can also say that he did not perform as well w/ runners on, and that is evidenced by his .301 BA w/ runners on and .338 w/ nobody on, and slugging .600 w/ no runners on and slugging .466 w/ runners on, and the BA drops from there w/ runners in scoring position. So while I think RBI’s don’t tell the whole story, they do tell us a little.
I also don’t understand why all the new stat heads have completely done away w/ some of the old numbers that used to be important. I can agree that more numbers can tell us more and there is always room for improvement, but I think W/L for a pitcher is important. While it may not be an indicator of future success, because there is luck involved, the bottom line is wins and losses at the end of the year are the most important when measuring team success and pitching success. The bottom line is the pitcher found a way to win on that day and run support played into it, as does defense, but wins and losses are as important as anything for that particular season.
Wins and Losses are stupid
If I have a lineup that gives me 8 runs a game no matter what, I’m probably gonna go like 24-7 every season.
If my lineup gives me 1 run a game no matter what, I’ll probably go like 2-27 for the season.
How good am I as a pitcher?
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by Andrew Martin on Jan 22, 2009 12:22 PM MST up reply actions
Just not smart.....
to even focus on numbers with no predictive value, such as RBI and W/L, while not understanding or focusing on those many advanced statistics that DO help predict the future. The former are “traditional stats” for casual fans to relate to. The latter are more for the intense or “thinking” fan.
I think this is where I have issues with it...
I don’t mind people quoting W/L or RBI or even saves in relation to past events, because these stats all help tell a story of what actually happened in a game or season. It’s when fans or the media imply there’s a repeatable skill attached, that more RBI’s somehow equates to the superiority of a player over another, more wins or fewer losses equate to a better pitcher, more saves a better reliever. It might actually be the case that these players are superior, but using stats that are so context driven and tied to past events to make that argument doesn’t fly. In reality these numbers tell you nothing of where a player’s skill level is, just what they were once able to accomplish.
deacs brings up Matt Cain as the perfect example. Barry Zito is 21-30 over the last two seasons, Cain just 15-30. Zito once won 23 games and is a Cy Young winner, Cain has topped out at 13 wins. Which is the Giants pitcher you’d rather have right now? The guy that won six more times in the last two years, right? Of course not. Which pitcher has done the most to help his team in any given season in the past? Zito’s 2002 would be the answer to that, and that’s what you can use wins to describe.
Let's take two players from the past and see if you would have thought they had repeatable skills......
The first four full years Player A, a left-handed pitcher won 8, 21, 15 and 21 games.
Player B, a right-handed hitting outfielder, had RBI totals of 69, 106, 92 and 132.
Player A was Warren Spahn who went on to win 363 games. Player B was Hank Aaron who had 2297 RBIs.
And I will bet you that no one on earth said those stats after their first four seasons didn’t mean anything. One year in isolation means nothing. But repeated numbers over several years have got to show that that player is able to repeat those skills (or not as the case may be). Traditional stats aren’t fancy and don’t take a math major to calculate or explain, but they are certainly not worthless as someone earlier said.
I guess where I disagree
is that you are predicting how good that pitcher or player will be in the future and how much of his current season is based on luck, where as my focus is to say how good a season he had, not how good of a season he will have or career he may have. For that season if a guy wins 24 games he had a good season, and to say the lineup scored 8 runs a game is just unrealistic over the course of a season. Obviously I would agree if he was winning every game 8-7 he was not all that good, but that is just a ridiculous comment.
And to say that only casual fans use traditional stats is just a typical egotistical comment that I hear quite a bit on this board. Many fans look at both and still are critical thinking fans that are a lot more than casual fans.
I think you and I are mostly in the same boat...
I wouldn’t go quite so far to say that W/L are the most important measure of pitching success. Team success, certainly should be measured in W’s and L’s, but pitching success I think runs allowed is the most important. As for RBI, like you say, I think they are useful in telling a story of a game or season, but useless at this time of year when we should be looking at what’s going to be happening in 2009.
I can agree
with what you are saying here. I guess what I am saying is that I don’t throw out RBI’s and W/L as completely useless and ignore everything a person says as soon as it is mentioned. I can agree that there are many other things to look at besides those numbers, but they are not completely worthless numbers, sometimes they can tell a part of the story.
W/L & RBI
Are good numbers when viewed across time. If a pitcher wins 15+ straight games for 3 or 4 seasons, it’s usually an indication of something good. Pair that with age, and you can find a casual relationship that will suggest future performance without advanced statistics. Same for RBI. When viewed across 4-5 years, and paired with age, you can see future indicators. But it shouldn’t stop someone from understanding the importance of batting order, on-base percentage, and slugging percentage, and the hits/walks/etc that comprise those numbers. If a hitter somehow has 100 RBIs and a .290 OBP, those 100 RBIs mean a lot less.
As long as the Triple Crown still = AVG, HR, and RBI, those numbers will always be important to people trying to see how a season went.
I see what you guys are getting at
But I still disagree. If you see Greg Maddux with what, 72 15+win seasons, you say “boy howdy he’s good!”. Well, that’s like looking at the sky on a clear sunny day and saying “That’s blue!”
Yes, it’s an indicator of a good, long career. The problem with W/L records is that they credit lousy/average pitchers and forget. Would you say a guy who has a career winning record is a good pitcher? By the stated rationale, sure.
Livan Hernandez has a career .514 W%. Now, I will say, Hernandez used to be pretty good. But as recent as this past putrid season, he went 13-11.
The point I’m sort of drawing out of this is that pitchers who can pitch great numbers of innings for decent teams tend to be rewarded by good W-L records. If I can pitch into the 7th every game, there’s a good chance that any hole I dug my team in the early innings might be filled in by the later innings. Jorge De La Rosa won’t get that chance, because he’s a 5/6 inning starter. Hernandez could pitch through a 5 run shelling over 4 innings and still go into the 8th. He’s done it before, he’ll do it again.
There are better, common numbers to look at to determine a pitcher’s value. Strikeouts. Walks. ERA. HRs allowed. Those kinds of things. Wins and Losses aren’t in that category.
RBIs are “valuable” but you can’t just say “Oh he hit 25 HR and 115 RBI he’s obv really good” – the 25 HRs indicates he has something going for him, but how many RBI opportunities did he capitalize on? If you can put RBIs in the context of Hitting w/RISP, they start to have some value. But looking at them in a vacuum isn’t smart.
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by Andrew Martin on Jan 22, 2009 3:57 PM MST up reply actions
oops
“…and forget the shorter pitchers who are lightning for 5 and get pulled from a jam”
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by Andrew Martin on Jan 22, 2009 3:58 PM MST up reply actions
These stats have been
eschewed by “statheads” mainly because while they do tell us something about a player, they don’t tell us much about a player’s true talent level. RBI’s and wins tell us more about the player’s specific season than they tell us about the player’s true, specific abilities. RBI and wins become a little bit more relevant when examined across an entire career. Yes wins are bs, but getting 300 wins isn’t as BS as getting 20 in a season. These oldschool stats have much more meaning as longitudinal aggregates than in season-to-season isolation.
Having said that, I don’t blame purplerox for using RBI here, there’s a good chance I would have too.
Hmm
probably should have read all the comments before I repeated everything everyone’s said. Oh well…
Missing the point
Both you and MagicNumber are missing the point about Wins, though. Yes, Greg Maddux’s 15+win streak is impressive. You need to look at the peripheral numbers to understand how good, but any casual fan can look at wins or RBIs across time and say that if a pitcher wins 15+ games in 5 or more straight seasons, or has 110 RBI over the same period, that they’re not a terrible player. As I mentioned previously, it is important to look at the peripheral numbers. A player could have a season or two where they make a ton of outs but still get a ton of opportunities to drive in runs (like Atkins just did) or two or three straight 15, 16 win seasons, but not be a very good player. Brian Bohanon won 12 games two years in a row for the Rockies but nobody thought he was a great pitcher. Casual fans can recognize this too, because even if a pitcher wins 15 games twice in a row, if their ERA is awful or their walks extraordinarily high, they will likely flame out by the third season.
Once you’re talking about 4 or 5 seasons in a row, however, you’re talking about someone who may be lucky statistically, but is still putting up good enough stats to win those games. Chances are if his ERA is over 5, and his K/BB ratio is near 1, he won’t be winning 15 for three seasons in a row. A casual fan doesn’t need to know that; they’ll figure out by a reversal of luck indicated in the loss column that the pitcher was never that good. Same for a guy who produces a ton of outs by had a consecutive seasons where he was an out machine. By the third or fourth, he’ll be finished getting opportunities and he’ll be batting 6th or 7th. This, by the way, is why Atkins should be traded quickly if he starts out hot.
A casual fan can make an accurate connection (without just guessing) between performance and age based on wins or RBI, because everybody outside the Giants front office knows that players’ performance declines with age, generally in their early 30s, and the player will likely not be lucky enough to put up great numbers across time. They can casually look at Helton’s drop in production at a basic level and find that he likely won’t be going back to his former numbers, that the drop is real, steep, and continuing for ’09.
You started off
saying RMN and I were missing the point but I’m not entirely sure how what you’re saying is different than what I said. If anything, it seems like it supports what I said.
The issue
isn’t as much the broad painting. Yeah, saying a 12 win pitcher is OK isn’t a bad thing. If you weren’t ok, you probably wouldn’t last past the 5th for all those games and get credited for that many decisions.
It’s when you have Matt Cain’s past 2 seasons where he pitched 200+ innings with an upper 3’s era, good K totals and Very Good home run control putting up a cumulative (2 season) record of 15-30. On the flip side of things, you have, again, Livan Hernandez, who is a “Winning” pitcher because he can pitch later into games and still hang on to decisions.
Another guy, Felix Hernandez, went 9-11 with a 3.45 ERA and 175K’s.
What drives me up the wall is when idiots say "Well Livan Hernandez is a winner I’ll take his 13 wins over Felix Hernandez’ 9 wins wins wins wins " and try and use Wins as a justifiable stat of comparing 2 pitchers.
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by Andrew Martin on Jan 23, 2009 11:19 AM MST up reply actions
Seems a little harsh to call someone an "idiot" just because that person has a different opinion than you.
by pedalpusher on Jan 23, 2009 11:55 AM MST up reply actions
seems
I’ve been reading a few too many old “Fire Joe Morgan” columns
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by Andrew Martin on Jan 23, 2009 12:25 PM MST up reply actions
gahhhh
there was an article where Ron Gardenhire said that he’d take a 13-10 pitcher with an ERA of 7 over a 6-14 pitcher with an ERA of 3, and that’s straight idiocy and you know it. It was directly related to Livan Hernandez being an overpaid BP pitching machine.
I didn’t mean it to the people here. I know that the people here are smarter than just saying that a W-L record is all that matters. Sorry if I “ruffled feathers”.
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by Andrew Martin on Jan 23, 2009 12:30 PM MST up reply actions
No ruffled feathers here.
But while thinking through this “Wins don’t mean anything” approach, I started wondering about number of wins vs.number of starts regardless of who got the “W”. Is there any validity to that kind of stat?
by pedalpusher on Jan 23, 2009 12:55 PM MST up reply actions
not necessarily
I see what you’re doing, trying to make it into a rate, but it’s all somewhat arbitrary.
Imagine I’m the pitcher and I go 7 1/3 innings allowing only 1ER and the offense comes out flat and I get pulled in the 8th (pitch count) for Corpas with a 1-1 deadlock. Corpas finishes the inning, and then Stewart belts one over the rockpile with Hawpe on first, and then Street closes the game and we win 3-1.
I should’ve gotten a win, but the offense stunk it up for me.
That’s why John Lowe developed the idea of a Quality Start. 6IP, <3ER allowed, that’s a quality start. If you weighed Hernandez’ QualityStart/GamesStarted against Matt Cain’s, you’d see who the better pitcher is.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality_start
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by Andrew Martin on Jan 23, 2009 1:59 PM MST up reply actions
Or were you saying
How many games the ROCKIES win when I start, regardless of who gets the W?
I don’t think you can nail it down as anything concrete, because it has too much to do with the Offense and things the pitcher can’t really control too well.
See, we called that Josh Fogg Run Support Mode.
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by Andrew Martin on Jan 23, 2009 2:00 PM MST up reply actions
They also track run support
Francis and Baldo don’t get run support.
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by Andrew Martin on Jan 23, 2009 2:06 PM MST up reply actions
Part of that's Baldo's own fault...
Frankly a bat as negative as his I believe is going to have an outsized effect on his run support.
But for real
did deacs say anything different in his post than what I said? It seems like he was a little more in depth about things but I feel like he basically says don’t pay attention to wins, pay attention to peripheral stats, and that any casual fan can see 300 wins and know there was a good pitcher there. I feel like that mirrors my statement of wins and rbi not being good for true talent predictors during a single season and better at true talent indicators across a career. I’m just trying to make sure I’m not crazy.
Also, can we just call him Ubaldo? It’s just 1 more letter, Baldo sounds bad. Ubaldo is already not up there for all-time great names, Baldo isn’t any better…
That's where I was going.
Guess it sort of gets to the quality start thing. What % of games by a given starter result in wins. Regardless of who gets the win and how the win came about.
Starter could pitch a complete game and win or could go 5 innings and the team wins in the 14th. Is there anything of value to be gained knowing what % of games are won when Pitcher X starts?
It's an interesting thought
And it may have something to do with the pitcher’s ability to handle themselves at the plate or field their position
It kind of falls into the intangibles like leadership and scrap and such. Why would DLR pitching affect how the bats hit? Would you bench Hawpe because he bats .145 when Francis is on the hill?
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by Andrew Martin on Jan 24, 2009 11:18 PM MST up reply actions
Or does it come down to a confidence factor by the other 8?
Are you going to play better knowing Pitcher X is going to keep you in games by not walking a ton and getting lit up?
by pedalpusher on Jan 25, 2009 11:41 AM MST up reply actions
stats
Many of the “traditional stats” as they were called earlier are more important for valuing a career than a single season. Its one thing for Cliff Lee to pitch out of his mind last year, its totally different if he wins 300 games in his career. Those are the stats that people compare from era to era though there are immense problems with that as well.
Those stats kind of get to the bottom line whether it be right or wrong but they don’t always speak fairly of a player’s performance.
Font size?
Is there something weird about the font size/leading of this post compared to others? Or am I seeing thing?
I think he cut and paste it from somewhere and our platform did something odd to automatically convert it...
It’s not just you that’s seeing it, but I don’t want to mess things up more by trying to take out all the HTML codes and missing something in the process.
Okay
I just wanted to make sure it wasn’t just me. I just got a new system (laptop, yay!) and monitor at work, so my eyes are still sort of getting used to it.
The reason
why Jeremy left our great network of blogs can be found here.
"If we never try, we shall never succeed." - Abraham Lincoln
Purple Row - Covering all your Rockies needs!
I hope you and Rox Girl
don’t leave when they expand to Baseball when the season starts….Unless you get paid big bucks…then f’ ’em
"Suck it monkeys, the Rockies will win this year", Rox Girl 1-11-2009
Sellout to the Great Satan?
Please, ESPN is amateurish when it comes to blogging. It won’t be too long before we dominate the world.
"If we never try, we shall never succeed." - Abraham Lincoln
Purple Row - Covering all your Rockies needs!
SBN's got more baseball pull than basketball pull, I think
We’ve got the top team blogs for two and a half of the other teams in our division, four of the six NL Central teams, two in the NL East, three and a half in the AL West (USS Mariner=Lookout Landing), three in the AL Central and two in the AL East. Plus Sickels. Like Russ says, we’ve got the better platform here. We have a community with lots of virtual friends. ESPN has what for baseball bloggers? Keith Law? Rob Neyer? Okay, that’s good, but not really an upgrade. The four letter network would have to come up with an awfully enticing package to lure us away, I think.
Like 50 Bucks?
SB Nation should be sharing profits with those that are making those profits. The sites and their writers are why fans come to the network. You are the strippers at the bar….you should get a cut.
"Suck it monkeys, the Rockies will win this year", Rox Girl 1-11-2009
That
transmitter we all have lodged in our brains stops us from saying anything more.
"If we never try, we shall never succeed." - Abraham Lincoln
Purple Row - Covering all your Rockies needs!
Sorry Russ. My transmitter must not be working...
If you see local Denver based ads on the site, such as the CBS4 widget, the chances are we’re going to be getting at least some cut from it. And the more popular the blog becomes, the bigger the pie we’ll be cutting that piece from. I say this because if all goes well, there might be more in the not too distant future. I will ask that if you see them, that you support our advertisers for supporting us. And uhp, that’s where my transmitter turns back on.
Anyway, I just wanted to mention that to say that SBN isn’t just taking our blood sweat and toil, it’s more like a co-op, or maybe like Amway. Right now we’re near the bottom rung, but we hope to be double diamond sellers someday. And once again you can see the big “L” on my forehead.
Buy low, sell high..
And vote Republican. That’s what the investment bankers said back when I worked for Wells Fargo.
Keepin' warm by the hot stove season.
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