[Triad]

Originally Posted by nanwynnfan

It's not a matter of cutoff; it's a question of role, performance to expectation or better, function in the lineup.

We can emphasize peak and then debate what time frame properly defines peak. We can then dissect data into park factors and subjective focus, which can make the entire process both prismatic and ultimately tedious, which, at a saturation point, kills my enthusiasm for the entire exercise.

I'd say the peak idea should be analyzed one season at a time. Just as the general sabermetrician is not comfortable lumping career stats into one amount, I'm likewise not comfortable lumping 8 or 9 or 10 peak season stats into one amount. I think each season is an island to be separated from all the others and analyzed independently.

Originally Posted by nanwynnfan

What were this player's strong points? Did they pretty much define his role? Where did he generally hit in the batting order? How well did he deliver in that function? How did he defend his position?

Isn't a role rather subjective, though? I know certain players emphasize speed, while others emphasize power, and a team needs table setters, but at the end of the day even though the Brett Butler types do what they did very well, the amount of runs they generated for their teams is going to fall short when measured next to the better sluggers. In the long run, the sluggers by and large are going to come out as being more productive. So, Butler filled his role very well, but the ceiling of that role was lower than for a slugging role.

As for order in the lineup, this would seem to be dictated by the player's value, so it would be a self-fulfilling prophecy, or redundant. I think it would be too speculative to try to project how much Bobby Bonds or Alfonso Soriano would have been worth batting third instead of leadoff. Too many variables would have changed to say how much they would have benefitted. And if a batter is 7th in the lineup for most of his career, then we can't very well give him credit for what he might have done batting 4th, because a strong argument can be made that if he didn't bat 3rd, 4th or 5th for a significant portion of his career, then he was not a big run producer in the first place and didn't deserve to be put in those slots.

Originally Posted by nanwynnfan

However, that mathematical "discount" is a bit like the cuckoo's egg in a robin's nest. The low negative value is derived from the numbers of times it happens to occur in key situations. In other words, overall, it seems harmless, worth a shrug and "who cares?"

I would submit that each inning is nearly equally valuable, or at least say that the 9th inning is not more valuable than the first inning. Getting out to an early lead is just as important as closing up the game well. So, I would say that key situations occur throughout the game. And for sluggers, a key situation can be a runner on first, because he scores that runner and himself with a dinger. A slap hitter, on the other hand, generally needs the situation to be more ideal in order to capitalize. Who would you rather have up to bat with two outs and no one on base or a runner on first? The slugger. The whole notion of RISP is a little misleading. It's a very arbitrary term. With a slugger, first base is scoring position.

Ask yourself this: Before most home runs are hit, is it considered a key situation? Usually it's either with no one on base, or a runner on first or second, and it seems like an ordinary situation. But it's the home run that makes it a key situation after the fact. Sluggers create key situations, whereas singles hitters often need to be in the right scenario, such as leading off the first inning.

Originally Posted by nanwynnfan

In real life however, with the game on the line and less than 2 out with a runner on third base, who would you want at the plate, Ashburn or Murphy?

In that situation, I'd go with Ashburn. But isn't that situation less common than having runners on first?

I don't know if this is the right question to ask, because game-on-the-line situations are pretty much random, and don't exist in a vacuum, separate from the rest of the game. You need to look at the entire game, and not just one at-bat. Murphy might have done more in the first three at-bats to get the team to that point. Let's say they're in the same lineup, and the Phillies pitcher is Steve Carlton. Now we've got three generations of Phillies on one ballfield, but if Joe Jackson can come out of the cornstalks, then surely this arrangement wouldn't be all that difficult. With Carlton on the mound, Ashburn's fielding might not be that much of a factor. But Murphy's batting would still be.

If Murphy and Ashburn are on the same team, I would think Murphy would get more intentional walks with Ashburn batting after him than Ashburn would with Murphy batting behind him.