2009 Boston Red Sox

[Swansong]

Re: 2009 Boston Red Sox

What the hell are you talking about Buckwheat? NOBODY takes the QB rating seriously.

You serious clark? People certainly do.

 

[True Blue Fan]

Re: 2009 Boston Red Sox

One thing to bear in mind when comapring Drew/Ichiro, Ichiro will end an average year with 200 more at bats than Drew.

 

[SPIN CONTROL]

Re: 2009 Boston Red Sox

You serious clark? People certainly do.

Sorry skippy, but you way off the reservation here. Sure you might find some bumbling fool that will claim Chad Pennington is a better QB than Dan Marino but the vast majority of football fans certainly don't.

 

[TonyTheTiger20]

Re: 2009 Boston Red Sox

So, once they get to first, once guy is 10 times more likely to reach second than the other.

That is incorrect. Drew just continues to 2nd when he rips one off the wall.

Also, seeing as how Ichiro is out at 2nd more than 25% of the time, his stolen bases don't really help his team out that much compared to how many times he's responsible for an out.

I mean, honestly, if Drew tried to steal 2nd every single time he was on first base, he'd be out 75% of the time, but he'd have way more SB than Ichiro. And it would be detrimental to the team.

Rover... really... We're never going to agree.

 

[Swansong]

Re: 2009 Boston Red Sox

Sorry skippy, but you way off the reservation here. Sure you might find some bumbling fool that will claim Chad Pennington is a better QB than Dan Marino but the vast majority of football fans certainly don't.

First of all, you can drop the silly and unnecessary snark. I know this is the internet and people like to get all obtuse and stupid, but seriously. Get over yourself.


The fact remains that while the QB rating isn't the best stat in the world - and I'm not arguing that it is at all - just that people use it constantly to compare two different quarterbacks. In print, in radio, on tv, in private discussions, everywhere. Denying that is moronic.

 

[True Blue Fan]

Re: 2009 Boston Red Sox

First of all, you can drop the silly and unnecessary snark. I know this is the internet and people like to get all obtuse and stupid, but seriously. Get over yourself.


The fact remains that while the QB rating isn't the best stat in the world - and I'm not arguing that it is at all - just that people use it constantly to compare two different quarterbacks. In print, in radio, on tv, in private discussions, everywhere. Denying that is moronic.

The talking heads on T.V. and the print columnists use QB rating as a reference quite a bit, your average Joe talking to his friends about quarterbacks does not. In fact everyone I know, who I talk football with, thinks it is a joke and pays absolutely no attention to it.

 

[Rover]

Re: 2009 Boston Red Sox

That is incorrect. Drew just continues to 2nd when he rips one off the wall.

Also, seeing as how Ichiro is out at 2nd more than 25% of the time, his stolen bases don't really help his team out that much compared to how many times he's responsible for an out.

I mean, honestly, if Drew tried to steal 2nd every single time he was on first base, he'd be out 80% of the time, but he'd still have a ton more stolen bases. And it was be detrimental to the team.

Rover... really... We're never going to agree.

Not a problem, I've got plenty of time.

As Ichiro's SB - CS is greater than Drew's (since Drew has 10 SB and 9 CS in his Sox tenure) your point is false.

But, lets put Ichiro aside for a moment, and compare Drew's hitting to another top AL guy - Joe Mauer. Are you aware that Drew had a worse 2009, but a better 2008 than Mauer? Its true, you see, because despite having more runs (98 vs 79), hits (176 vs 103), total bases (242 vs 191), RBI's (85 to 68) & BA (.328 vs .280) Drew was still the better player by virtue of his OPS (.927 vs .864).

I'm convinced.

 

[Swansong]

Re: 2009 Boston Red Sox

Again, you're missing the point. Those media talking heads are the same who deride VORP because it's "too complicated" will whip out QB rating when comparing Brady to either Manning, without second thought.


I can't believe this is so hard to understand.

 

[joegrav]

Re: 2009 Boston Red Sox

Mauer... definitely not an outfielder. You still haven't named one available guy who would be an upgrade over Drew in right even if buying out the contract were no problem. Unless you stand by the bizarre assertion that Cameron is an upgrade.

 

[SPIN CONTROL]

Re: 2009 Boston Red Sox

The fact remains that while the QB rating isn't the best stat in the world - and I'm not arguing that it is at all - just that people use it constantly to compare two different quarterbacks. In print, in radio, on tv, in private discussions, everywhere. Denying that is moronic.

Who? Who are all these people touting that as a great statistic? I will answer it for you. NOBODY. And when it is mentioned on the radio or tv it is derided as a pretty meaningless stat about 95% of the time. As for you average Joe six pack football fan, it is never mentioned, except for maybe the statnerds.

 

[TonyTheTiger20]

Re: 2009 Boston Red Sox

As Ichiro's SB - CS is greater than Drew's (since Drew has 10 SB and 9 CS in his Sox tenure) your point is false.

Huh? That didn't really apply to what I said. What did you take my point as?

But, lets put Ichiro aside for a moment, and compare Drew's hitting to another top AL guy - Joe Mauer. Are you aware that Drew had a worse 2009, but a better 2008 than Mauer? Its true, you see, because despite having more runs (98 vs 79), hits (176 vs 103), total bases (242 vs 191), RBI's (85 to 68) & BA (.328 vs .280) Drew was still the better player by virtue of his OPS (.927 vs .864).

I'm convinced.

The OPSs are both decent but not strikingly different. They had a pretty comparable year. Mauer was worth more runs (32.2) and wins (3.0) to his team than Drew (23.7 and 2.2, respectively), though given the same pitching and fielding, a team with nine J.D. Drews would have had a higher winning percentage (.695) than a team with nine Joe Mauers (.644).

OPS+ (OPS adjusted for park factors) was close, with Drew at 137 and Mauer at 134.

Drew Source
Mauer Source

God forbid you use something other than a counting stat or batting average to make a point, though. It's true, the stats you use are bad stats. I'm not just saying it because they don't prove my point. Using counting stats like RBI and runs are as bad as using a pitcher's record (W/L) to decide if he's better than another pitcher.

I'd probably rather have a 2008 Drew than a 2008 Mauer, but it's close to a wash. By the looks of things, Mauer was more important to his team, but Drew played slightly better.

 

[Swansong]

Re: 2009 Boston Red Sox

Who? Who are all these people touting that as a great statistic? I will answer it for you. NOBODY. And when it is mentioned on the radio or tv it is derided as a pretty meaningless stat about 95% of the time. As for you average Joe six pack football fan, it is never mentioned, except for maybe the statnerds.

You know what? Never mind.


Didn't this forum used to be fun?

 

[Rover]

Re: 2009 Boston Red Sox

Mauer... definitely not an outfielder. You still haven't named one available guy who would be an upgrade over Drew in right even if buying out the contract were no problem. Unless you stand by the bizarre assertion that Cameron is an upgrade.

Ummmm I thought that was a given that Mauer doesn't play outfield....but thanks for clarifying.

As of right now, the Sox outfield is Cameron-Ellsbury-Drew. The question posed to me is who would be a replacement. Cameron is already on the team. Therefore, he's not the replacement. For who's available (your criteria) and could take his place, if you could get rid of Drew I'd take Bay back in the outfield.

Tony - you're getting into opinion mixed as stats. You can't know how much two different ballparks affects an individual hitter. Its unquantifiable, and the degree assigned is totally up to the whim of the person creating the model, usually to support a pre-conceived notion.

Now, lets take batting average as an example of a "bad stat" in your opinion. Batting averages over the last 75 years have some remarkable consistancies. Nobody's reached .400 since 1941. The league leaders fluctuate but generally hit in the mid .300's (with some exceptions - Yaz's .301 in '68 for example). Also, batting below .200 over time and your career is generally over pretty quick. So put your mind to this - despite all the changes in baseball over the years, from park size, expanded rotations, changes in the height of the mound, relief pitchers, specialists, etc - MLB batting averages still stay with a typical 150-175 point range no matter the era. There wasn't a time where batting 450 was the norm, nor one where 200lead the league. The stats you're so quick to dismiss tend to compare players a lot better than you think.

Lets take RBI's. Nobody's ever hit 200 of them in a season. The norm for leading the league, even in a good year, is about 150. Not sure if anybody has lead with less than 100. Once again, across eras and with all the changes, that range is pretty consistant. Funny, since the stat is meaningless. I think, while deep diving into other stats might be amusing, you can learn a lot using these time-proven assessments as your base. It also avoids ludicrious notions like JD Drew is one of the best players in the league over his Red Sox career.

 

[Priceless]

Re: 2009 Boston Red Sox

Didn't this forum used to be fun?

No.

 

[TonyTheTiger20]

Re: 2009 Boston Red Sox

Tony - you're getting into opinion mixed as stats.

Well, I mean, you asked for my opinion...

You can't know how much two different ballparks affects an individual hitter.

Yes, you can.

Its unquantifiable

It's very quantifiable. There are thousands and thousands of at bats worth of data to analyze to very reliably quantify park factors and adjust the numbers as such.

and the degree assigned is totally up to the whim of the person creating the model, usually to support a pre-conceived notion.

What pre-conceived notion? If you're a baseball statistician, you're going to want to create an accurate model, not one based on your own biases. What the hell is the point of creating a model to accurately judge whether or not a team should sign a certain player if you base it on your biases? Inefficiencies are not your friend, especially to a statistician.

Now, lets take batting average as an example of a "bad stat" in your opinion. Batting averages over the last 75 years have some remarkable consistancies. Nobody's reached .400 since 1941. The league leaders fluctuate but generally hit in the mid .300's (with some exceptions - Yaz's .301 in '68 for example). Also, batting below .200 over time and your career is generally over pretty quick. So put your mind to this - despite all the changes in baseball over the years, from park size, expanded rotations, changes in the height of the mound, relief pitchers, specialists, etc - MLB batting averages still stay with a typical 150-175 point range no matter the era. There wasn't a time where batting 450 was the norm, nor one where 200lead the league. The stats you're so quick to dismiss tend to compare players a lot better than you think.

Lets take RBI's. Nobody's ever hit 200 of them in a season. The norm for leading the league, even in a good year, is about 150. Not sure if anybody has lead with less than 100. Once again, across eras and with all the changes, that range is pretty consistant. Funny, since the stat is meaningless. I think, while deep diving into other stats might be amusing, you can learn a lot using these time-proven assessments as your base.

How in the world does the 'consistency' of a stat's range have anything to do with its value toward ranking hitters? OPS, OPS+, Runs/Wins Created... all of these stats' ranges stay relatively consistent over the years as well. That has literally nothing to do with how valuable they are as statistical predictors.

Also, if you have a guy hitting .200, chances are his OPS+ and other newfangled stats are going to be bad as well. But, what if he went 100 for 500 over the course of the year with 50 HRs and 40 doubles, and walked 100 times? Is he still a bad hitter?

That's why batting average is a dumb stat. There is so much more to it than that number. Which is why OPS+, which looks at how often the guy gets on base as well as how often he gets an extra base hit, and factors in park adjustments, is a much better stat to look at. It actually takes into account batting average, but looks far deeper.

It also avoids ludicrious notions like JD Drew is one of the best players in the league over his Red Sox career.

No one said that, so you can stop putting words in my mouth (on my fingertips? Whatever ).

On another note, have you ever read Moneyball? Serious question.

This quote about the book from the awesome website FireJoeMorgan.com (The website primarily deals with lampooning bad sports journalism) pretty much sums up my entire argument against you:

Moneyball is a very good book by Michael Lewis, which chronicles the ways in which Oakland A’s General Manager Billy Beane tries to keep his team competitive with a small payroll. The clunky and incorrect understanding of the Moneyball philosophy is that it simply involves getting players to walk a lot and hit home runs. In reality, what Moneyball deals with is the search for inefficiencies in the complex world of evaluating baseball players. At the time the book was written, Billy Beane and his crew had determined that there were players who weren’t fast runners, maybe, or were fat, or short, or otherwise had some kind of superficial thing “wrong” with them that made other GMs dismiss them as not good baseball players. But these players were actually good at baseball, and because other people had undervalued their skills (skills like walking a lot, for example) Beane was able to draft them or trade for them and not pay them a lot of money, because no one else wanted them.

These days, enough people have caught on to the idea that on-base percentage is important that such players are not undervalued anymore, and so GMs like Beane, who have to put a team together with a $50 million payroll instead of, say, the Yankees’ $200 million payroll, are looking elsewhere for value.

The book rubbed a lot of traditionalists the wrong way, because it takes the obvious and yet somehow controversial position that the massive amount of observable data we can collect from a baseball player’s performance is more important than that player’s like physical strength or speed in the 40 yard dash. Beane, and others like him, believe that it doesn’t matter if a guy looks like he should be awesome at baseball – it matters if he is actually good at baseball. It doesn’t matter if some crusty old scouts who have been in baseball for seventy years look at a guy and say, “He’s fast, he’s got a cannon for an arm, he’s got a strong jaw line – dadgummit, that thar boy’s gonna be a star!” It does matter if the guy walks a lot and can hit well or is an awesome fielder or something. Seem obvious? Try telling fans of Darin Erstad. They will tell you that he is awesome because he is intense and used to play football at Nebraska. You will blink, confused, and say, “But he can’t hit well,” and they will say, “HE WAS A PUNTER AT NEBRASKA! HE IS INTENSE AND A LEADER!” and you will slink away because they are spitting on you.

 

[Patman]

Re: 2009 Boston Red Sox

Again, you're missing the point. Those media talking heads are the same who deride VORP because it's "too complicated" will whip out QB rating when comparing Brady to either Manning, without second thought.


I can't believe this is so hard to understand.

i think its more to do with the fact that baseball has so many tangible statistics... if you whip up one that's complicated its going to fail the smell test because they won't understand it.

with football the only other thing you've got really is completion % or maybe yards per throw.

Of course I don't know how VORP is calculated (nor do I really care, if its comlpicated then its likely not measuring what's intended) and I've forgotten all the parts of the QB rating.

 

[mookie1995]

Re: 2009 Boston Red Sox

....Just like in poker, knowing the math will make you win more money in the long run, knowing the math in baseball will help you win more games in the long run as well. That's what it's all about, isn't it?

knowing the math will not make you more money. it will however help you to make more money.

Holy crap, Drew has NEVER been retired or gotten a base hit on a 3-0 count. That's incredible.

not really. all this tells you is that JD has never swung the bat on a 3-0 count. which is what we would all expect to read here.

Well to be fair, while determining OBP is fairly simple in theory, the formula looks daunting:

OBP is a good stat. SLG is as well. so obviously OPS is.

but era, avg, & hr also work. as well as old time scouting and seeing what a player looks like.

** couple 'MLB' threads ago around hof time we had a little talk about new stats when one of the cornell guys typed that he didn't realize that bobby grich was one of the best 2b'men of his era. now in his era joe morgan was the best. joe morgan is one of the all time best. and even if grich was 2nd best, he wasn't top 100 anything all time. nobody ever moved to the edge of their seat and said, "oh boy, bobby grich is coming up now!!". nobody got scared when he came up. but his vorp and other stuff seemed to be impressive.

so in a vacuum, these new stats sometimes overstate and become a little too useful.

*** funny how it used to be if you K'd a lot, it was a detriment to your value. now it is great for two things. 1) you hit into fewer dp's, and 2) you make a pitcher throw more and get into the bullpen quicker.

i can see the validity in both points, but this is relatively new.

**** teddy ballgame was given a hard time in his day for taking pitches and getting walks instead of maybe swinging at a pitch a hair off the plate and trying to drive in a run. writers in boston got on him for that all the time and used it to blame him for the sox not winning while he was here. he was selfish, according to them. but he didn't want to swing at a bad pitch. interesting how things have changed, and how ted was ahead of his time.

 

[Patman]

Re: 2009 Boston Red Sox

the strikeout was always a prestige stat... if you throw a lot of them you embarrass the batters... if you strike out a lot you end up embarrassing yourself because obviously if you don't get the bat on the ball then you can't get it a hit. The ratio of strikeouts MAY indicate other things... but we've got better stats for those other things.

I think the big thing about large K players is that you always think they can perform better. That being said, I'd be rather suspect about the DP ball thing since we have stats for that or that we could easily if we wanted it (DP/ABwrunnerat1st). As for the bullpen bit... probably true... but that'd really be an "all else being equal" situation.

 

[TonyTheTiger20]

Re: 2009 Boston Red Sox

knowing the math will not make you more money. it will however help you to make more money.

My mistake, that's what I was going for.

 

[joegrav]

Re: 2009 Boston Red Sox

Mook-master, I don't think anyone ever said HR wasn't a good stat to look at. Unlike RBI, HR is something you put up by yourself and isn't dependent upon people getting on base and over to scoring position before you come up to bat.

AVG is also a useful tool in analyzing a player - it's just not the be-all, end-all of analyzing hitting ability. There are a LOT of different ways to look at a hitter's quality beyond AVG. OPS is just a much, much deeper look. Doesn't mean we can't learn a lot from AVG.

And Grant already touched on this, but adjusted stats like OPS+, ERA+, park factors, etc. aren't 'at the whim of the statistician.' You calculate a park factor by taking the eight hundred zillion samples from previously played games, looking at what the average # is for each stat is throughout the major leagues, then calculate the difference between the overall average and the average at, say, Coors Field - then start multiplying/dividng. While it's not as simple and intuitive as looking at OBP, batting average, homers, or walks, it's not exactly PhD level math, either.