The Decline and Fall of Todd Helton..... - Page 4

indianadrew · June 30th, 2007, 06:16 PM

"Why are there still people out there who don't believe in evolution? Same question. This should also address your inquiry about the origins of sabermetric arrogance"

you are basicly saying that those of us who dont crunch numbers and have "excel on steroids" on our computers are eithor ignorant or clueless. it really does seem like that. it is just really hard to believe that baseball was able to survive as long as it did with out sabermetrics.

Heltonfan · June 30th, 2007, 06:32 PM

Quote:

You are basicly saying that those of us who dont crunch numbers and have "excel on steroids" on our computers are eithor ignorant or clueless.

Not at all; to go back to the evolution analogy, you can be knowledgeable enough without digging up any fossils yourself. You just need to understand the theory, that's all.

For the most part, all you have to do is focus on OBP and SLG instead of RBI and other such nonsense. Not hard.

indianadrew · June 30th, 2007, 10:06 PM

"For the most part, all you have to do is focus on OBP and SLG instead of RBI and other such nonsense. Not hard."

why is the RBI stat nonsense and what others are?

wolf213 · June 30th, 2007, 10:48 PM

I will save Heltonfan an explanation on why RBI is worthless.

Basically it doesn't tell anything about how good a hitter is, more less says that this hitter got a hit and a runner scored, but lets look at two players.

One Player is hitting .325/.400/.500 with 60 RBI's because the top of the order doesn't do their job and get on base for him to knock in. Another player bats .280/.375/.450 and 86 RBI's, but has Ichiro and Reyes at the top of the order setting things up.... which hitter of the two are more valuable? I would take the first.

Kinda a quick and dirty example but I hope it helps.

Heltonfan · June 30th, 2007, 10:57 PM

The two basic flaws with the RBI:

1) It's heavily influenced by the performance of teammates, which means it's not really an individual statistic.
2) It's heavily influenced by the timing of events. A double with the bases loaded tells us no more about a hitter's ability than does a double with the bases empty, but RBI-wise, they're miles apart.

Those two criteria can be applied to any statistic. Runs scored obviously suffers from the same flaws that RBI does. So does ERA (a pitcher who happens to "scatter" the hits against him will fare much better than one who happens to have most of his struggles concentrated in one bad inning - but whether the hits are scattered or bunched isn't within the pitcher's control). Same thing goes for W-L record and saves.

So the stats to focus on are the raw outcomes, stripped out of their situational context: singles, doubles, triples, homers, walks, outs, stolen bases, caught stealings. If you look at the ABR formula I posted earlier in this thread, you'll see that it merely combines those things into one overall measure of value. OBP and SLG, although simpler and less accurate than ABR, basically do the same thing.

Newman · July 1st, 2007, 08:25 AM

1. Atkins
2. Helton
3. Iannetta
4. Holliday
5. Hawpe
6. Tulo
7. Matsui
8. Pitcher
9. Taveras

I imagine you would be laughed out of town if you put up this lineup, HF. I remember when the great Tony LaRussa (is he statistically great?, or just has been around a long time or just with good teams?) tried batting the pitcher 8th. That didn't last long. Why didn't he stick with it?

If the difference is only 5 runs a year, that sounds like no difference at all. That sounds like one bad blowout game to me. Yesterday we won 5-0. There's your 5 runs. So that's like saying the lineup doesn't make one damn bit of difference.

Heltonfan · July 1st, 2007, 08:53 AM

Quote:

Why didn't he stick with it?

You said it yourself - he'd have been laughed out of town if he had kept it up. Doesn't make it a bad strategy, just means that Joe Fan (or Joe Reporter) shouldn't be allowed to make these sorts of decisions.

And no, LaRussa isn't statistically great. He was ahead of the curve in emphasizing lefty/righty matchups, which is definitely a point in his favor, but he also places an inordinate amount of emphasis on individual batter-pitcher matchup stats, which have virtually no predictive value.

Quote:

So that's like saying the lineup doesn't make one damn bit of difference.

5 runs isn't nothing. Hell, it costs around $2 million to buy 5 runs on the free agent market these days. But certainly, the batting order isn't nearly as important as conventional wisdom dictates.

To clarify: it's not that you can arrange the lineup any way imaginable and still be within 5 runs. If you go completely insane and put Holliday and Helton in the 8-9 spots, and the pitcher at the top of the order, then it's like a 10-15 run loss. But if we confine ourselves to the sort of lineups that anyone (sabermetrician or traditionalist) would actually consider, a 5-run swing is about as big as it gets.

Newman · July 1st, 2007, 04:38 PM

Heltonfan;86186]The two basic flaws with the RBI:

1) It's heavily influenced by the performance of teammates, which means it's not really an individual statistic.
2) It's heavily influenced by the timing of events. A double with the bases loaded tells us no more about a hitter's ability than does a double with the bases empty, but RBI-wise, they're miles apart.

I remember playing slow pitch softball. I was a great leadoff hitter. Mastered hitting singles like a surgeon down the 3B line. I always led my team (usually) in batting average.

However, when a runner got on base I approached things differently. Especially if someone was on 3B. It took away my major line of attack. Plus there was the pressure. I recall telling myself, with the bases loaded, "there's nobody on base, relax." Still, I wouldn't hit as well as when I led off. I would frequently choke. I put too much pressure on myself and in baseball when you squeeze the bat tighter you don't perform as well.

These are the kind of things we purist dinosaurs think of. Not everything is gleaned from your ABR or OPS. Some people respond to pressure better than others.

Those two criteria can be applied to any statistic. Runs scored obviously suffers from the same flaws that RBI does. So does ERA (a pitcher who happens to "scatter" the hits against him will fare much better than one who happens to have most of his struggles concentrated in one bad inning - but whether the hits are scattered or bunched isn't within the pitcher's control).

You say this like it is a FACT. Again, I scratch my head. I was never a pitcher. But from watching baseball and listening to the analysts you can hear how some pitchers throw much better with no one on base, much better from the windup, and so forth. Plus if there is Willy Taveras on first vs. the no threat to steal Todd Helton, again, this has to affect the pitcher.

Scattered or bunched isn't within the pitcher's control? How do you figure? Maybe some pitchers bare down when there is trouble on the bases and perform better. And other pitchers choke. Maybe Steve Carlton gets mad when Spilly gets a 75 foot single off him, bulls his neck, and then strikes out the side, whereas a Rodrigo Lopez might give up a cheap hit and then start thinking "here we go again!".

Same thing goes for W-L record and saves.

So the stats to focus on are the raw outcomes, stripped out of their situational context:

But how can you do that? Situations matter. People get tense in the 9th inning for example. Those last 3 outs are hard to find on some nights.

Or during a laugher game, like today's 12-0 loss to Houston, the situation is a blowout. I contend mop up pitchers are the worst pitchers on a team and the opposing team feasts off of them.

Say in golf you need to make that 6 footer to win the masters. You're telling me that you wouldn't feel any extra pressure from THAT situation? Not every six foot putt is the same. Situations matter is all I'm trying to say.

singles, doubles, triples, homers, walks, outs, stolen bases, caught stealings. If you look at the ABR formula I posted earlier in this thread, you'll see that it merely combines those things into one overall measure of value. OBP and SLG, although simpler and less accurate than ABR, basically do the same thing.

Heltonfan · July 1st, 2007, 05:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Newman

Some people respond to pressure better than others.

That's absolutely true. And I'm quite sure that the average major leaguer responds to that sort of pressure a hell of a lot better than you or I would. But, within the population of major league ballplayers, individuals just don't differ significantly in that regard. And I don't find that counterintuitive at all; they've been in this line of work for long enough that they've learned to overcome the pressure. You should think of them as highly trained professionals, rather than assuming that they resemble amateurs like us.

Quote:

Maybe some pitchers bear down when there is trouble on the bases and perform better. And other pitchers choke.

If that were the case, we'd expect that pitchers who over- or under-perform their component stats in one year would generally do so again the next year. They don't.

The bottom line here is that, no matter how psychologically compelling the idea may be, we simply can't predict clutch performance with any degree of confidence. The stats that I look at are pretty consistent from year to year; that is, a pitcher with a high strikeout rate one year is likely to have a high strikeout rate the next. A hitter who hits 40 HR one year isn't going to drop to 5 HR the year after (barring injury, obviously). These situational splits, however, are completely unpredictable. Kevin Millwood's component stats in 2006 were virtually identical to what he did in 2005, but his ERA jumped from 2.86 to 4.52. He went from being one of the "clutchiest" pitchers in the league to being one of the biggest chokers. There are a slew of examples like that (for both pitchers and hitters, of course); if situational performance were reflective of players' ability (or lack thereof), these things wouldn't happen.

rockieprogress · July 1st, 2007, 08:41 PM

"within the population of major league ballplayers, individuals just don't differ significantly in that regard"

HF, I'm calling BS here. You are full of BS.
Why are the Rockies losing more games than they're winning? Lack of the BIG hit. They stink with runners in scoring position, so they can't come from behind when the BP (or SP for that matter) gives up runs late in the game. They also can't put together big innings that destroys the other teams confidence.

Tulo appears to be the exception this year.
Its also one of the reasons why I think the Rockies should trade Holliday.
He doesn't come through often enough to warrant spending big bucks on. You've seen my "J.T.Snow" reference before. J.T. Snow got a lot of hits, but they were seldom in "big" situations, and were mostly in non-pressure situations. Holliday falls into the same category IMO.

"we simply can't predict clutch performance with any degree of confidence. "

Maybe you (and the other sabermatricians) can't, but others can. Those that have experience watching the game (and aren't interested in sucking up to the moderator) can see a player "is clutch" just by watching them play.
That's what Scouts do. They PREDICT what a player will do in 5 years, without the benefit of hindsight to give them MLE's or other parameters by which to judge the player by.

Go back and look at what you predicted Tulo would do THIS YEAR based on his MLE's from AA. He comes through in the clutch more than a lot of the Rockies do, and has exceeded expectations of most "stat-heads".

Heltonfan · July 1st, 2007, 09:07 PM

Quote:

Why are the Rockies losing more games than they're winning?

Because they're hitting .270/.344/.412 as a team, and their opponents are hitting .277/.339/.435. Not complicated.

If you can produce any sort of systematic evidence demonstrating the existence of clutch players, then I'll be interested. Individual player anecdotes mean nothing.

Newman · July 2nd, 2007, 11:35 AM

Heltonfan;86235][color=black]You said it yourself - he'd have been laughed out of town if he had kept it up. Doesn't make it a bad strategy, just means that Joe Fan (or Joe Reporter) shouldn't be allowed to make these sorts of decisions.

Maybe the answer is that it didn't work. Period. Batting the pitcher 8th in the lineup simply didn't work, which is why HOFer Tony LaRussa gave up on his experiment. If a hard headed MGR like Tony, who wears sunglasses at night in the dugout, can't stay the course, than who can?

I'm with rockiesprogress on this, HF. I'm calling BS. People here love to suck up to the moderator (that would be you). Why? Because you are bright, intelligent, have numbers to support what you try to say. So?

Sometimes I feel like you are just full of hot air. You can make numbers do a lot of things, support a lot of theories. Ask any Mafia accountant.

And of course, sometimes you seem to be spot on.

I'd like to go back and ask you about your ideal lineup, the one where you have Ianetta batting 3rd and the pitcher batting 8th. Were you pulling our legs there, more BS, just to see what you can get away with on this site?

Looking at traditionalist numbers I would put Iannetta back in AAA, for more seasoning. Maybe you could make a case for Tulo batting 3rd, but I don't see it for our rookie catcher who is batting a cool .210 as I type.

And no, LaRussa isn't statistically great. He was ahead of the curve in emphasizing lefty/righty matchups, which is definitely a point in his favor, but he also places an inordinate amount of emphasis on individual batter-pitcher matchup stats, which have virtually no predictive value.

Again, what is this? More BS? Some batters owned some pitchers. In my memory Willie McCovey owned Don Drysdale. If Jamie Carroll is batting .021 against Tom Glavine whereas Kaz is batting .444 against him how can you say it has no predictive value?

5 runs isn't nothing. Hell, it costs around $2 million to buy 5 runs on the free agent market these days. But certainly, the batting order isn't nearly as important as conventional wisdom dictates.

To clarify: it's not that you can arrange the lineup any way imaginable and still be within 5 runs. If you go completely insane and put Holliday and Helton in the 8-9 spots, and the pitcher at the top of the order, then it's like a 10-15 run loss. But if we confine ourselves to the sort of lineups that anyone (sabermetrician or traditionalist) would actually consider, a 5-run swing is about as big as it gets.

Again, HF, I respectfully challenge your statements. Where do you pick this 5 runs from? Out of your hat? You mean to tell me that if we batted Hawpe in the 4 hole, then Atkins, then Helton for the rest of the year, instead of the way it is now, that we would only swing the final yearly results by 5 runs?

I don't buy it.

I think you could pick up 5 runs in a week, let alone a year.

Right now Helton has 40 RBI and Hawpe has 55. Both lefty batters. I submit that Todd comes up more frequently and has runners on the paths more often but yet he has less RBI? Why? Because he has more walks (64 to 37)? Maybe that's another reason to move Hawpe to the cleanup role. The other managers won't walk him, they'll pitch to him, and he will come thru with clutch performances. Worth a try.

BigRapidsJackass · July 2nd, 2007, 12:19 PM

HF, I'm convinced as to the general meaninglessness of individual pitcher-hitter matchups. The sample sizes are always so tiny that we just can't infer anything from past results.

But I still believe that one kind of pitcher-hitter history has predictive value: when a hitter strikes out at an extremely high rate against a particular pitcher. For example, I seem to recall some LH hitter earlier this year who had gone 0-11 against Fuentes with 8 Ks. This just implies to me that the hitter simply can't pick up the ball on Fuentes, and I would give this considerable weight when (for example) deciding whether to go with Fuentes vs. Affeldt against a certain hitter.

But again, that's just hunch since the tiny sample sizes will never allow for any kind of statistically significant results here.

Heltonfan · July 4th, 2007, 09:33 PM

Quote:

I'd like to go back and ask you about your ideal lineup, the one where you have Ianetta batting 3rd and the pitcher batting 8th. Were you pulling our legs there, more BS, just to see what you can get away with on this site?

No.

Quote:

Where do you pick this 5 runs from? Out of your hat?

By going through the play-by-play data, you can determine the average run value of each offensive event (single, double, etc.) in each spot in the lineup. I'll spare you the precise statistical details since I'm sure you're not interested in them, but the key point is that the traditional notions of speed being more valuable at the top of the order, power being more valuable in the cleanup spot, etc., are drastically overblown. Which makes perfect sense. If the leadoff man got to lead off every inning, lineup dynamics would be highly significant; as is, since every lineup spot gets its fair share of plate appearances in every possible base/out situation, the differences are minimal.

You think that we could gain 5 runs a week by rearranging the batting order? That's like adding two A-Rods to an otherwise average lineup. I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that that was just an off-the-cuff statement with no real thought behind it.

---------------------------------

Through six innings tonight, Helton has two walks, a double, and a couple flyouts. Matt Holliday has a double, a single, and three walks. Helton has 5 RBI. Holliday has none. Does this mean that Helton has been "clutch" and Holliday hasn't been getting the job done? Hell no. One of Helton's RBI came on a sac fly after Holliday drew a one-out walk (translation: Helton was only able to get the RBI because Holliday preserved the RBI situation). Two of Helton's RBI came on bases-loaded walks following walks by Holliday (same thing; had Holliday doubled instead of walked, Helton doesn't get those RBIs). And Todd's other two RBI came on a two-out, two-run double, immediately preceded by a Holliday single.

So Holliday reaches base 5 out of 5 times, accumulating a total of 6 bases. Helton reaches base 3 out of 5 times, accumulating a total of 4 bases. Holliday is directly responsible for every single one of Helton's RBI opportunities. And yet Holliday gets a goose egg in the RBI column, whereas Helton's line looks spectacular. Why would one ever choose to use this system for anything? It's absolute garbage. If the RBI stat didn't already exist, and someone created it tomorrow, they'd be laughed out of the room by everyone, traditionalists and sabermetricians alike. It's a 19th-century relic that should be looked at only as a historical curiosity, the baseball equivalent of this thing. We can do better, have done better, and will continue to do better. If you want to keep living in the Stone Age, that's your choice, but it completely destroys any credibility you might otherwise have had.

hiaspire · July 4th, 2007, 10:22 PM

It's not garbage. It's an accounting of what happened on the field. You want to score more runs than your opponent, and it just tells you who got the hits to drive the runs home in that instance. That does NOT mean that all other players suck who got on base to score the runs or create the opportunities. Nobody bases jugements on RBIs only. Nobody looks at a 5-for-5 night on base and calls that a bad night. They are only part of the picture of what happened during a game. I personally focus on the guys doing that job who deserve much credit, but that doesn't mean that the RBI stands for nothing either. Someone gets the run home and that should be recorded.

I am not as anti-RBI as yourself, but I certainly understand that your teammates have a lot to do with your totals there also. I'm okay with that, though, because I understand it is a TEAM game. I don't strive to put each and every play and player into a vacuum apart from all context of their unique situations. For most RBIs (other than solo-shots), there is a teammate who got on base to allow that run to be scored. Credit rightfully goes to the runner on base as well as the guy getting the hit to accomplish the goal and score that run.

June 30th, 2007, 06:16 PM	#46 (permalink)
indianadrew Veteran Member Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: indianapolis Posts: 698	"Why are there still people out there who don't believe in evolution? Same question. This should also address your inquiry about the origins of sabermetric arrogance" you are basicly saying that those of us who dont crunch numbers and have "excel on steroids" on our computers are eithor ignorant or clueless. it really does seem like that. it is just really hard to believe that baseball was able to survive as long as it did with out sabermetrics. Last edited by indianadrew; June 30th, 2007 at 06:23 PM.

July 2nd, 2007, 11:35 AM	#57 (permalink)
Newman Veteran Member Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: Aurora Posts: 566	Can we cut down on the BS please? Heltonfan;86235][color=black]You said it yourself - he'd have been laughed out of town if he had kept it up. Doesn't make it a bad strategy, just means that Joe Fan (or Joe Reporter) shouldn't be allowed to make these sorts of decisions. Maybe the answer is that it didn't work. Period. Batting the pitcher 8th in the lineup simply didn't work, which is why HOFer Tony LaRussa gave up on his experiment. If a hard headed MGR like Tony, who wears sunglasses at night in the dugout, can't stay the course, than who can? I'm with rockiesprogress on this, HF. I'm calling BS. People here love to suck up to the moderator (that would be you). Why? Because you are bright, intelligent, have numbers to support what you try to say. So? Sometimes I feel like you are just full of hot air. You can make numbers do a lot of things, support a lot of theories. Ask any Mafia accountant. And of course, sometimes you seem to be spot on. I'd like to go back and ask you about your ideal lineup, the one where you have Ianetta batting 3rd and the pitcher batting 8th. Were you pulling our legs there, more BS, just to see what you can get away with on this site? Looking at traditionalist numbers I would put Iannetta back in AAA, for more seasoning. Maybe you could make a case for Tulo batting 3rd, but I don't see it for our rookie catcher who is batting a cool .210 as I type. And no, LaRussa isn't statistically great. He was ahead of the curve in emphasizing lefty/righty matchups, which is definitely a point in his favor, but he also places an inordinate amount of emphasis on individual batter-pitcher matchup stats, which have virtually no predictive value. Again, what is this? More BS? Some batters owned some pitchers. In my memory Willie McCovey owned Don Drysdale. If Jamie Carroll is batting .021 against Tom Glavine whereas Kaz is batting .444 against him how can you say it has no predictive value? 5 runs isn't nothing. Hell, it costs around $2 million to buy 5 runs on the free agent market these days. But certainly, the batting order isn't nearly as important as conventional wisdom dictates. To clarify: it's not that you can arrange the lineup any way imaginable and still be within 5 runs. If you go completely insane and put Holliday and Helton in the 8-9 spots, and the pitcher at the top of the order, then it's like a 10-15 run loss. But if we confine ourselves to the sort of lineups that anyone (sabermetrician or traditionalist) would actually consider, a 5-run swing is about as big as it gets. Again, HF, I respectfully challenge your statements. Where do you pick this 5 runs from? Out of your hat? You mean to tell me that if we batted Hawpe in the 4 hole, then Atkins, then Helton for the rest of the year, instead of the way it is now, that we would only swing the final yearly results by 5 runs? I don't buy it. I think you could pick up 5 runs in a week, let alone a year. Right now Helton has 40 RBI and Hawpe has 55. Both lefty batters. I submit that Todd comes up more frequently and has runners on the paths more often but yet he has less RBI? Why? Because he has more walks (64 to 37)? Maybe that's another reason to move Hawpe to the cleanup role. The other managers won't walk him, they'll pitch to him, and he will come thru with clutch performances. Worth a try.

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June 30th, 2007, 10:06 PM	#48 (permalink)
indianadrew Veteran Member Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: indianapolis Posts: 698	"For the most part, all you have to do is focus on OBP and SLG instead of RBI and other such nonsense. Not hard." why is the RBI stat nonsense and what others are?

June 30th, 2007, 10:48 PM	#49 (permalink)
wolf213 Member Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Thornton Co Posts: 197	I will save Heltonfan an explanation on why RBI is worthless. Basically it doesn't tell anything about how good a hitter is, more less says that this hitter got a hit and a runner scored, but lets look at two players. One Player is hitting .325/.400/.500 with 60 RBI's because the top of the order doesn't do their job and get on base for him to knock in. Another player bats .280/.375/.450 and 86 RBI's, but has Ichiro and Reyes at the top of the order setting things up.... which hitter of the two are more valuable? I would take the first. Kinda a quick and dirty example but I hope it helps.

June 30th, 2007, 10:57 PM	#50 (permalink)
Heltonfan Moderator Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Yerevan, Armenia Posts: 902	The two basic flaws with the RBI: 1) It's heavily influenced by the performance of teammates, which means it's not really an individual statistic. 2) It's heavily influenced by the timing of events. A double with the bases loaded tells us no more about a hitter's ability than does a double with the bases empty, but RBI-wise, they're miles apart. Those two criteria can be applied to any statistic. Runs scored obviously suffers from the same flaws that RBI does. So does ERA (a pitcher who happens to "scatter" the hits against him will fare much better than one who happens to have most of his struggles concentrated in one bad inning - but whether the hits are scattered or bunched isn't within the pitcher's control). Same thing goes for W-L record and saves. So the stats to focus on are the raw outcomes, stripped out of their situational context: singles, doubles, triples, homers, walks, outs, stolen bases, caught stealings. If you look at the ABR formula I posted earlier in this thread, you'll see that it merely combines those things into one overall measure of value. OBP and SLG, although simpler and less accurate than ABR, basically do the same thing.

July 1st, 2007, 08:25 AM	#51 (permalink)
Newman Veteran Member Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: Aurora Posts: 566	1. Atkins 2. Helton 3. Iannetta 4. Holliday 5. Hawpe 6. Tulo 7. Matsui 8. Pitcher 9. Taveras I imagine you would be laughed out of town if you put up this lineup, HF. I remember when the great Tony LaRussa (is he statistically great?, or just has been around a long time or just with good teams?) tried batting the pitcher 8th. That didn't last long. Why didn't he stick with it? If the difference is only 5 runs a year, that sounds like no difference at all. That sounds like one bad blowout game to me. Yesterday we won 5-0. There's your 5 runs. So that's like saying the lineup doesn't make one damn bit of difference.

July 1st, 2007, 04:38 PM	#53 (permalink)
Newman Veteran Member Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: Aurora Posts: 566	Heltonfan;86186]The two basic flaws with the RBI: 1) It's heavily influenced by the performance of teammates, which means it's not really an individual statistic. 2) It's heavily influenced by the timing of events. A double with the bases loaded tells us no more about a hitter's ability than does a double with the bases empty, but RBI-wise, they're miles apart. I remember playing slow pitch softball. I was a great leadoff hitter. Mastered hitting singles like a surgeon down the 3B line. I always led my team (usually) in batting average. However, when a runner got on base I approached things differently. Especially if someone was on 3B. It took away my major line of attack. Plus there was the pressure. I recall telling myself, with the bases loaded, "there's nobody on base, relax." Still, I wouldn't hit as well as when I led off. I would frequently choke. I put too much pressure on myself and in baseball when you squeeze the bat tighter you don't perform as well. These are the kind of things we purist dinosaurs think of. Not everything is gleaned from your ABR or OPS. Some people respond to pressure better than others. Those two criteria can be applied to any statistic. Runs scored obviously suffers from the same flaws that RBI does. So does ERA (a pitcher who happens to "scatter" the hits against him will fare much better than one who happens to have most of his struggles concentrated in one bad inning - but whether the hits are scattered or bunched isn't within the pitcher's control). You say this like it is a FACT. Again, I scratch my head. I was never a pitcher. But from watching baseball and listening to the analysts you can hear how some pitchers throw much better with no one on base, much better from the windup, and so forth. Plus if there is Willy Taveras on first vs. the no threat to steal Todd Helton, again, this has to affect the pitcher. Scattered or bunched isn't within the pitcher's control? How do you figure? Maybe some pitchers bare down when there is trouble on the bases and perform better. And other pitchers choke. Maybe Steve Carlton gets mad when Spilly gets a 75 foot single off him, bulls his neck, and then strikes out the side, whereas a Rodrigo Lopez might give up a cheap hit and then start thinking "here we go again!". Same thing goes for W-L record and saves. So the stats to focus on are the raw outcomes, stripped out of their situational context: But how can you do that? Situations matter. People get tense in the 9th inning for example. Those last 3 outs are hard to find on some nights. Or during a laugher game, like today's 12-0 loss to Houston, the situation is a blowout. I contend mop up pitchers are the worst pitchers on a team and the opposing team feasts off of them. Say in golf you need to make that 6 footer to win the masters. You're telling me that you wouldn't feel any extra pressure from THAT situation? Not every six foot putt is the same. Situations matter is all I'm trying to say. singles, doubles, triples, homers, walks, outs, stolen bases, caught stealings. If you look at the ABR formula I posted earlier in this thread, you'll see that it merely combines those things into one overall measure of value. OBP and SLG, although simpler and less accurate than ABR, basically do the same thing.

July 1st, 2007, 08:41 PM	#55 (permalink)
rockieprogress Member Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: aurora Posts: 183	"within the population of major league ballplayers, individuals just don't differ significantly in that regard" HF, I'm calling BS here. You are full of BS. Why are the Rockies losing more games than they're winning? Lack of the BIG hit. They stink with runners in scoring position, so they can't come from behind when the BP (or SP for that matter) gives up runs late in the game. They also can't put together big innings that destroys the other teams confidence. Tulo appears to be the exception this year. Its also one of the reasons why I think the Rockies should trade Holliday. He doesn't come through often enough to warrant spending big bucks on. You've seen my "J.T.Snow" reference before. J.T. Snow got a lot of hits, but they were seldom in "big" situations, and were mostly in non-pressure situations. Holliday falls into the same category IMO. "we simply can't predict clutch performance with any degree of confidence. " Maybe you (and the other sabermatricians) can't, but others can. Those that have experience watching the game (and aren't interested in sucking up to the moderator) can see a player "is clutch" just by watching them play. That's what Scouts do. They PREDICT what a player will do in 5 years, without the benefit of hindsight to give them MLE's or other parameters by which to judge the player by. Go back and look at what you predicted Tulo would do THIS YEAR based on his MLE's from AA. He comes through in the clutch more than a lot of the Rockies do, and has exceeded expectations of most "stat-heads".

July 2nd, 2007, 12:19 PM	#58 (permalink)
BigRapidsJackass Veteran Member Join Date: Nov 2006 Posts: 1,175	HF, I'm convinced as to the general meaninglessness of individual pitcher-hitter matchups. The sample sizes are always so tiny that we just can't infer anything from past results. But I still believe that one kind of pitcher-hitter history has predictive value: when a hitter strikes out at an extremely high rate against a particular pitcher. For example, I seem to recall some LH hitter earlier this year who had gone 0-11 against Fuentes with 8 Ks. This just implies to me that the hitter simply can't pick up the ball on Fuentes, and I would give this considerable weight when (for example) deciding whether to go with Fuentes vs. Affeldt against a certain hitter. But again, that's just hunch since the tiny sample sizes will never allow for any kind of statistically significant results here.

July 4th, 2007, 10:22 PM	#60 (permalink)
hiaspire Member Join Date: Nov 2006 Posts: 481	It's not garbage. It's an accounting of what happened on the field. You want to score more runs than your opponent, and it just tells you who got the hits to drive the runs home in that instance. That does NOT mean that all other players suck who got on base to score the runs or create the opportunities. Nobody bases jugements on RBIs only. Nobody looks at a 5-for-5 night on base and calls that a bad night. They are only part of the picture of what happened during a game. I personally focus on the guys doing that job who deserve much credit, but that doesn't mean that the RBI stands for nothing either. Someone gets the run home and that should be recorded. I am not as anti-RBI as yourself, but I certainly understand that your teammates have a lot to do with your totals there also. I'm okay with that, though, because I understand it is a TEAM game. I don't strive to put each and every play and player into a vacuum apart from all context of their unique situations. For most RBIs (other than solo-shots), there is a teammate who got on base to allow that run to be scored. Credit rightfully goes to the runner on base as well as the guy getting the hit to accomplish the goal and score that run.