Tuesday Rockpile: O'Dowd's Pieces Fit Well, But Is It the Right Puzzle?

or heel kick. Either one.

Speaking of hilarious moments involving Todd Helton. My mom has the BIGGEST crush on Todd (we had to go through the autograph line twice so she could meet him again, he sorta rolled his eyes and laughed). She refers to him as “My Todd” on a regular basis – and as I was taking a picture of Mom and Todd, his daughter was sitting off to the side. My mom told him how he’s known as “My Todd” around our house, and his daughter looks at her, waits a beat, and goes “No, he’s MY Todd!” We were cracking up.

And also add

I’ll go google it or something.

There was another question that I thought was much funnier. One little boy asked, “What do you do when you have to deal with a coach that you’re not liking very much?”

To which Giambi replied: " I don’t know. That’s a great question. Flip him the bird maybe?"

It’s almost a lock that either White or Pom develops into a better pitcher than future Ubaldo. If one develops, we just bought some cheap years of solid pitching. If both develop to be better, we win in a big way.

Offseason conditioning is not eat as much cake every day as his stomach can handle?

I got out of a meeting yesterday where management told us layoffs are almost inevitable… all of that after they laid someone off with one day’s notice. What do you do for a living?

since UZR has nothing to do with OPS+

esp considering Belt, Pagan and Cabrera have little to go on statistically in that park.

I’ll use the projections for Fowler and Pagan as an example in my thinking-out-loud-thought-experiment because they are virtually the same number.

So they way I understand OPS+ and other park adjusted numbers is that Fowler could end up with a 270/350/450 (avg/obp/slg) line and Pagan could have a 250/330/400 line and OPS+ would say equal production. When you factor in pitching, the Giants require less offensive output for an equal number of wins. While it may be more fun to watch Dexter put up decent numbers, his possible increased production (raw numbers) would mean less toward the team actually winning if there is questionable pitching.

I guess what I am trying to say is that even if the Giants were projected to have lower OPS+ numbers across the board, their pitching more than makes up for it.

this explains the Giants zips and why the A’s are stuck in Oakland.

You have to remember that OPS+ is park and league adjusted. This causes for some interesting comparisons when viewing the Giants and the Rockies head-to-head.

The questionable projections to me are Posey, Huff, and Belt. The rest seem pretty accurate. I think the numbers for Posey and Huff are relying on seasons that were aberrations. These seasons help raise the mean to which they were regressing. I find Huff particularly dubious as Posey might be developing enough if everything works out ok.

Belt just hasn’t shown me that he’s ready for a breakout season as suggested here. A league average bat looks worse in SF than elsewhere in the league, but 121 seems a little high for me and mostly based on inflated BABIP numbers.

And OPS doesn’t account for that.

Huff’s projected OPS, even if it’s accurate (which I doubt … it’s pumped up by what I think will prove to be an aberrational 2010), doesn’t reflect the fact that as a poor outfielder to start with, and now an aging horrible outfielder, he’s going to cost his team big time on defense.

Yeah, Helton, Blake and Scutaro are old, but their positions don’t demand great range. (Although I think Scutaro will be fine at 2B, and his OPS reflects 3 years of hitting against AL East pitching.)

Put another way, you could construct an “all OPS outfield” of Huff, Beltran and Cuddyer types, and the OPS list would look great, but on-field it would be a disaster.

He gave me permission to post his responses here:

@biondino Every single player on that list either played above their career averages in 2011 or is pushing 40.

@biondino Tulowitzki’s and to a lesser extent Gonzalez, represent the one-sided risk nature of really good players.

@biondino There are far more scenarios that involve Tulowitzki playing worse than better – that’s one reason reg. toward mean exists.

@biondino If you have a player of any age that’s had OPS+ 140, 140, 140, 140 and don’t project <140, you’re probably doing it wrong.

@biondino And in Fowler’s case, he didn’t have a 105 for the year, just in the majors. His 114 PA minor league line was pretty awful.

@biondino WIth his minor league numbers, Fowler’s OPS+ for the season drops to 92

@biondino So the 2009-2012 proj goes 94, 92, 93, 94, with ZiPS worried about his growth because little power, high K not promising longterm

Via @DSzymborski

if you look at a lot of projection systems, they err on the side of being conservative. I don’t think the project growth very well at all and don’t project breakouts. IT’s why whenever you look at projection systems it looks like we’re going to have an incredibly bad year of baseball league-wide where no one tops 33 home runs and no one pitches with an era lower than like 3.30. I think it makes sense to construct projection systems this way for a number of reasons though I often don’t like the results. That being said, I think there is room for improving projections, particuarly for players 26-30 yrs old as projection systems tend to treat everyone like they’re 32 years old and going to start experiencing small declines….

And I think Zips fared pretty well, but all have their flaws. Anyone?

I believe it was ranked
1) CHONE
2) ZiPS
3) Marcel
4) Oliver
5) Bill James

CHONE is no longer available, since an mlb team hired Sean Smith, so ZiPS is best left, which is why I default to it.

Belt
.609
.769

Dex
.688
.880

How can Belt be projected very high when Dex is projected below average this season?

Good times.

I was there at the time. I will never forget the day they signed Albert Belle and thinking “what the the hell are you doing?”

1996: 88-74, wild card, won ALDS, lost ALCS
1997: 98-64, AL east wire-to-wire championship, won ALDS, lost ALCS. Highest payroll in baseball at the time (IIRC)

And they haven’t been to the postseason since…

But I don’t think the Rockies are actually trying to restock with veterans in the same way, and I certainly don’t think they’re trying to buy championships. I think they’re trying to bring on enough mentors to install a spirit of winning baseball and the mindset you need to complement the raw talent. Only time will tell if DoD has the formula right.

Potential big bat, uncertain outfield defense, crowded outfield for years to come…

April 16th vs. Padres
April 30th vs. Doders
May 28th vs. Astros
June 25th vs. Nationals
July 16th vs. Pirates
August 13th vs. Brewers
August 27th vs. Dodgers
September 10th vs. Giants
September 24th vs. D’Backs

Torchwood?
Sherlock? (only 3 episodes a season but 90 minutes each)

But I love Downton Abbey. The first season is on Netflix.

But I’ve been enjoying the series Merlin.

He might be right.

Sure seems to.