Adam Dunn
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From: Dan Szymborski on 21 Jun 2007 19:19 In article <1182402237.392453.85230(a)k79g2000hse.googlegroups.com>, coachrose13(a)hotmail.com says... > On Jun 19, 8:47 pm, Dan Szymborski <d...(a)baseballprimer.com> wrote: > > In article <46786d44$0$3184$4c368...(a)roadrunner.com>, > > r...(a)nospam.cinci.rr.com says... > > > > > > > > > > > > > <coachros...(a)hotmail.com> wrote in message > > >news:1182232430.439733.92220(a)k79g2000hse.googlegroups.com... > > > > This thread is now somewhere in the neighborhood of 250 posts. I dont > > > > feel like going back and specifing who said what and when, check it > > > > out yourself. Its been sugested many times and even "proven" through > > > > "stats" that strikeouts are overrated. Adam Dunn I believe, holds, the > > > > major league record for most times having struck out in a season, and > > > > is pretty close to his own record at least a couple of other times. If > > > > that is the case, please tell me who would bat behind Dunn that would > > > > strike out more than HE would??? And I really tire of hearing obout > > > > Dunn's walks and how important they are. Are ALL, or even MOST of > > > > these walks intentional? I dont think so. Dunn doesnt have a whole lot > > > > of say so about most of these walks, it is usually up to the pitcher > > > > who either decides to pitch to the batter, or does not have good > > > > enough control to begin with. > > > > > Oh my Lord. Just when you thought we had already hit rock bottom, we find > > > out that there's no such thing as a good eye. > > > > Yeah, Coachrose, while not skilled at flaming, has packed 3 or 4 years > > of stupid into only 3 or 4 weeks. > > > I guess If I am as stupid as you and a couple of others say I am, and are as smart(or at the very least skilled in the art of undestanding stats) > as you seem to think you are, then what's that old saying about arguing with an idiot? (Not trying to flame or anything of course). > I mean, think about it. What could possible be more stupid than > CONTINUALLING arguing with someone about wether to bat a ballplayer in > the 4, 5, or 6 hole on a team that is 20 games below .500 in JUNE! For > my part, I plead guilty. Do you? Well, you're either being stupid or being deceitful. It's your choice. And yes, there's a saying about arguing with an idiot. But we're not arguing with you, we're mocking you. We're all at the carnival of ideas and gawking at the freakshow. -- Dan Szymborski dan(a)baseballprimer.REMOVE.com "A critic who refuses to attack what is bad is not a whole-hearted supporter of what is good." - Robert Schumann
From: John Kasupski on 21 Jun 2007 19:38 On Thu, 21 Jun 2007 09:47:30 -0700, Ron Johnson <johnson(a)ccrs.nrcan.gc.ca> wrote: >Hell, Pete Palmer wrote a chapter discussing break >even points of various strategies. In general >the break even point for stealing second was around 63% >(he was writing in the 80s. These days you need better) > >But: "As you would expect, the break-even point declines >as time grows short for the team trailing by one or >tied. In the last of the ninth, if the score is tied. >two men are out, and you've got a runner on first >faster than Cliff Johnson, then send him." > >And in the same chapter he also shows that not >you need over 80% (varies with number of outs) to >steal third, but only 35% to steal home with >two out. > >Put it all together and -- well assuming a break even >point of 2/3 get you close in the long run. > >There's only one player whose value in terms of base >stealing comes out substantially different depending >on whether you use simplifying assumptions or detailed >analysis based on game situations -- Rickey Henderson. > >He clearly padded his stolen base totals. When you >take game situations into account, Henderson's >base stealing wasn't much more valuable than >Tim Raines' despite the fairly large difference >in raw numbers) > >(And just to show you why I personally don't bother much >with game situation analysis, Henderson actually >adds more value than anybody else in base running >and reaching on error. Basically it all comes >out in the wash after a honking lot of extra work. >Which is what happens with pretty much everybody) The Marlins won in 2003 not really caring how many times they ran themselves out of an inning. They'd run themselves out of this inning and come out again running the next inning. Wasn't just Juan Pierre, either. Luis Castillo ran, Derrek Lee ran, Juan Encarnacion ran, even Ivan Rodriguez sometimes. Castillo, I think he was caught almost as often as he was successful, if I recall correctly. They stole 50 more bases than the next closest team in the NL, but got caught stealing almost twice as often as the next most frequently caught team. That team was Jack McKeon's masterpiece as far as I'm concerned. It was middle of the pack in the NL in runs scored, middle of the pack pitching-wise. Had maybe the league's best defense that year, perhaps that's how they got away with all the rest. They're the only such team I can think of, though. Yes, other teams have won using the running game as an important part of their offense, but I can't think of another team running even when to diehard fans of the running game such as myself it seemed like running was not the thing to do, and going on to win the World Series featuring that as routine tactics. John D, Kasupski, Tonawanda, NY Reds Fan Since The 1960's http://www.kc2hmz.net
From: Ron Johnson on 21 Jun 2007 20:37 On Jun 21, 6:42 pm, John Kasupski <kc2...(a)wzrd.com> wrote: > On Tue, 19 Jun 2007 23:50:57 -0700, Ron Johnson > > <john...(a)ccrs.nrcan.gc.ca> wrote: > >You could have won almost anything off of me if you'd > >offered to bet me that McGwire swung at the first pitch > >more frequently than Juan Gonzalez. (Or about 50% > >more often than Tony Gwynn) > > >You think of guys with walk totals like Joe Carter when > >you think of guys swinging at the first pitch. And > >Carter did in fact swing at the first pitch slightly more > >often than McGwire. So does Ivan Rodriguez. But > >not many do, and most of the guys who did were > >notorious for chasing stuff they should have > >laid off. > > I haven't poured through pitch-by-pitch accounts to verify their > reputations, but there have been more than a few guys pegged as > notorious first-pitch swingers. Among guys who have recently played or > are currently playing, Garciaparra, Rep matches reality. First guy !'ve seen who had a lengthy spell where he swung at the first pitch more than half the time. Since 2006 he's down to a mere 44% -- Bo Jackson territory. > Jay Gibbons, He's made a radical change. Gone from swing at the first pitch about as frequently as McGwire to league average in 2005 to the lowest I'm aware of since then. Around 18%. > Russ Branyan, Yup. Same frequency as Bo Jackson, worse contact rate (though within noise) > and Ivan Rodriguez, whom you mentioned above. > > Josh Hamilton was swinging at a lot of first pitches back in April, in > spite of Narron's talk about his plate discipline, Still is. One of the higher rates I've seen. > but at one point > early in the season his GPA on first pitches was slightly above .500. His numbers aren't great. Only a .313 BA and .750 SLG. 33 PAs so I wouldn't want to draw conclusions. > Dunn's, at the same time, was above .600. This was very early in the > year, maybe small sample size (they both had less than 15 PAs at the > time), but so much for the perception that the pitchers are ahead of > the hitters early in the year. > > Alfonso Soriano...but he's just a notorious free swinger to begin > with, not exactly known for his plate discipline. Again, I'd have bet against the proposition that Mark McGwire swung at the first pitch more frequently than Soriano does, but in fact Soriano's not that much above average. > > >Highest percentage I've found so far is Bo Jackson. > >Jackson also had by far the worst contact percentage > >I've seen. He missed 38% of the time he swung > >at the ball. > > >Dunn misses 28% of the time. High, but not absurd. Average > >is 20%. (Thome and McGwire are within noise. Ryan Howard > >swings and misses 33% of the time. I've only found > >Jackson and Rob Deer with worse contact > >percentages -- though I've just been poking > >around rather than looking systematically) > > Very interesting observation. I've compared Dunn to Deer in the past, > just based on observation of games rather than research into the > numbers. But as I said elsewhere, there's a reason why Dunn's page on > Baseball Reference is sponsored by the Rob Deer Fan Club. Deer was actually a fair amount worse than Dunn at making contact. One big difference between Deer and Dunn though -- Deer was actually a positive in the OF. To be fair to Dunn, he does seem to be more effective than his rep, but he's probably not average at a position where most guys are selected for their bats.
From: Ron Johnson on 21 Jun 2007 20:47 On Jun 21, 6:28 pm, John Kasupski <kc2...(a)wzrd.com> wrote: > > Long ago in a galaxy far away, I seem to recall having read a magazine > article where McGwire was asked about that. From what I remember of > his remarks, he seemed to feel that in normal situations, most > pitchers were trying to get ahead of hitters in the count, so he felt > there was a pretty good chance the first pitch was at least going to > be in the strike zone. He felt it might even be his best chance to get > a hittable pitch, so if that first pitch looked good, he was going to > hit it. This made sense to me at the time, and still does actually, > because I know pitchers will sometimes throw a "waste pitch" when > they're ahead in the count, trying to get a guy to offer at something > that's out of the strike zone. The first pitch thrown to a batter is > *probably* not going to be a deliberate waste pitch. If he misses with > the first pitch, he misses, but he was probably trying to throw a > strike on that first pitch. We can't know what percentage of pitches the various hitters swung at were out of the strike zone, but I want to run a study that looks at first pitch called balls and strikes. I suspect McGwire made his (relative) agression work by swinging at a different selection of pitches than (say) Carter. I'm very interested in how frequently the hitters reach 0-1, how they get there and how much they get out of swinging at the first pitch.
From: coachrose13 on 22 Jun 2007 02:41
On Jun 21, 12:47 pm, Ron Johnson <john...(a)ccrs.nrcan.gc.ca> wrote: > On Jun 21, 2:22 am, coachros...(a)hotmail.com wrote: > > > > > > > On Jun 20, 2:22 am, Ron Johnson <john...(a)ccrs.nrcan.gc.ca> wrote: > > > > On Jun 19, 8:03 pm, "RJA" <r...(a)nospam.cinci.rr.com> wrote: > > > > > <coachros...(a)hotmail.com> wrote in message > > > > >news:1182233576.313164.101440(a)n60g2000hse.googlegroups.com... > > > > > > On Jun 18, 1:22 pm, Ron Johnson <john...(a)ccrs.nrcan.gc.ca> wrote: > > > > >> On Jun 17, 4:20 pm, Kevin McClave <kmcclaveS...(a)SUCKStwcny.rr.com> > > > > >> wrote: > > > > > >> > On Sat, 16 Jun 2007 23:39:52 -0700, coachros...(a)hotmail.com wrote: > > > > >> > > Cant find no one here worth arguing with who thinks striking > > > > >> > > out 200 times a year is insignicant. Hell, the Reds worked with > > > > >> > > Dunn all preseason to try to get him to cut down on his strikouts, > > > > >> > > even Adam says he needs to reduce his strikouts. > > > > > >> No surprise. I know Mike Schmidt and Gary Sheffield have said > > > > >> similar things -- and meant it. Players do not like to > > > > >> strike out. > > > > > >> WHY? Because they understand that hitting the ball is better than not > > > > >> hitting it? > > > > > >> > > I guess statheads > > > > >> > > know more than the oranization or players do, huh? > > > > > >> > Absolutely. That's one reason they haven't been to the playoffs in more > > > > >> > than a decade. > > > > > > And the teams that have made it to the playoffs refer to stats alone, > > > > > and not flesh and blood ballplayers to make them successful? > > > > > This one of the oldest and dumbest arguments out there. That a guy has > > > > heart, therefore he has some value despite the fact that his numbers don't > > > > say so. It's like the whole "Duh...well he doesn't hit with runners in > > > > scoring position." Then you ask them where that got Sean Casey who was a > > > > "team leader" and "had a lot of heart" and who hit with RISP and has never > > > > driven in 100 runs. The numbers are everything. > > > > I'd put it slightly different. You can't *perfectly* explain > > > wins and losses through the stats alone. As a simple example, > > > Bobby Cox's teams have consistently won a few more games > > > than you'd expect. > > > Thing about it is that when your winning, you dont really have to > > explain "perfectly" or not, while you are doing so. Its just when you > > are losing that you gotta come up with answers. Lot of stats out there > > to help you, then. > > > > Thing is that it's stupid to worry about the little things > > > until you've got the big picture in hand. Somewhere close > > > to 90% of a team's offense is summed up in OBP and SLG > > > (and OBP's the more important part) If your target's > > > 90 wins you've got to plan on outscoring the opposition > > > by around 12%. > > > If you cant explain why Cox wins so many games, maybe the "little > >things" are a big reason why. > > We can't explain *perfectly*, but we also don't miss him by much. > His teams have won 36 more games than you'd expect over 25 > year and it's not skewed by one big miss. > How do you KNOW they won 36 games more than on would expect over a 25 year period? Did someone, at the beginning of each season, sit down and predict exactly how many games his team would win and then at the end of 25 years determine that his teams won 36 games more than what was expected of him before the season started???? Or was it (please tell me I'm wrong on this) that dreaded Pythagorean theory? BTW, of all the "non-traditional" stats out there, this is IMO, the stupidest of all. Really doesnt tell me anything at all, other than what a team "should have" won after the fact. Hell, we can all do that! > I'm comfortable with that level of precision and have no > real problem with the notion that the little things could > be worth a game or so a year. (Though he generally either > builds a good bullpen or an unbalanced one and we know > that partially explains misses in team winning percentage. > In other words, in Cox's case the little things probably > explain less than a win a year -- and Cox is right > at the extreme) > I think that you (and a whole lot of others here) miss by a wide magin, the importance of "little things". I think that simply throwing to the right base or cut-off man can mean a win or two a year. Likewise, a good bunt at the right time can mean a game or two as well. Taking an extra base on the ball hit right field, moving a runner from second to third, hitting the ball to the outfield with a runner on third and less than two outs, and a hundred other things I cant think of right now could make a difference over the course of a 162 game season, and I think they take on an even more importance when the post season starts. I think (and I'd have to think all managers at the big league level) that all of these things amount to a "win or two" over the course of the season. Once again, in most of these cases, there is no real way to measure their importance. I also agree that more the MOST PART (please notice emphasis) major league teams are close to being equal in talent, so when, if everything else is equal, "little things" become big things. > > And I certainly dont think that on July > > 16th, with the Braves tied with whomever they are playing in the 8th > > inning, Cox is not worried about outscoring his opposition by 12%. > > He'll take one run, regardless of the percentage. > > Yup. And you'll never hear a stathead argue otherwise. > WRONG! I get argued with all the time about the importance of a single run in the over scheme of things. The two most often used phrases I hear are "statistical insignifigance" and "things tend to even out in the long run". On the contrary, stat heads HATE to listen to arguments over a single play. > Hell, Pete Palmer wrote a chapter discussing break > even points of various strategies. In general > the break even point for stealing second was around 63% > (he was writing in the 80s. These days you need better) > > But: "As you would expect, the break-even point declines > as time grows short for the team trailing by one or > tied. In the last of the ninth, if the score is tied. > two men are out, and you've got a runner on first > faster than Cliff Johnson, then send him." > > And in the same chapter he also shows that not > you need over 80% (varies with number of outs) to > steal third, but only 35% to steal home with > two out. > > Put it all together and -- well assuming a break even > point of 2/3 get you close in the long run. > > There's only one player whose value in terms of base > stealing comes out substantially different depending > on whether you use simplifying assumptions or detailed > analysis based on game situations -- Rickey Henderson. > > He clearly padded his stolen base totals. When you > take game situations into account, Henderson's > base stealing wasn't much more valuable than > Tim Raines' despite the fairly large difference > in raw numbers) > > (And just to show you why I personally don't bother much > with game situation analysis, Henderson actually > adds more value than anybody else in base running > and reaching on error. Basically it all comes > out in the wash after a honking lot of extra work. > Which is what happens with pretty much everybody)- Hide quoted text - > > - Show quoted text - |