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The Big Bad Mookie Betts Thread
ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jun 2, 2016 9:29:12 GMT -5
Mookie's short but perhaps we needn't be. How real is this dude? Like Mookie, his batting average is small (.233), but so is the strike-out percentage (10.7). The walks and power are there to make up for his height but how real is the power? For a little man who hit zero homers in 251 AB last year, how much of the 6 in 116 is a fluke and how much is REAL GENUINE POWER? If nothing else, dude is killing the strikezone. 32/16 BB/K. What. C'mon. What sayeth you, the men who have seen Mookie in person? How nice is the power? How smooth is the plate discipline? 50th ranked prospect. Terry Doyle and Kolbrin Vitek are ranked higher. OK, this post is actually about Josh Ockimey being ranked 20th, but I thought this would be fun for the Mookie fans (i.e., everybody). Each line is date in 2013, Mookie's season OPS and his OPS since 5/7/13 when he suddenly started to hit (along with the PA of that sample), and his ranking here. 5/17, 844, 1384 (45), 50 5/24, 903, 1291 (75), 29 5/31, 903, 1183 (104), 25 6/7, 945, 1212 (125), 22 6/14, 913, 1114 (152), 22 6/21, 898, 1069 (166), 23 6/28, 933, 1100 (195), 23 7/5, 897, 1027 (219), 22 7/12, 884, 1016 (235) before promotion, 20 All of these rankings proved to be conservative.
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Jun 3, 2016 17:59:22 GMT -5
We were slow on Mookie. No argument there. He more or less led to an overhaul of how we do rankings, in some part.
That said, if you wanted, you could say that every ranking of a prospect who didn't make it was high (Lars, Lavarnway, Bowden, Place Vitek, etc.) and every ranking of a prospect who did and wasn't at or near the top of the list was low (Shaw, Vazquez before he popped up, Nava, Wright).
There have been a number of guys through the years who we've been asked why we haven't ranked them higher who've flopped. People love it when a guy is hot. Sometimes a guy's just hot. Other times he isn't.
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Post by ray88h66 on Jun 3, 2016 18:13:27 GMT -5
We were slow on Mookie. No argument there. He more or less led to an overhaul of how we do rankings, in some part. That said, if you wanted, you could say that every ranking of a prospect who didn't make it was high (Lars, Lavarnway, Bowden, Place Vitek, etc.) and every ranking of a prospect who did and wasn't at or near the top of the list was low (Shaw, Vazquez before he popped up, Nava, Wright). There have been a number of guys through the years who we've been asked why we haven't ranked them higher who've flopped. People love it when a guy is hot. Sometimes a guy's just hot. Other times he isn't. Good for you, my problem wasn't with the rankings. I t was people telling me I wasn't seeing what I was seeing. Eyes on guys often over react. Stat guys often are late.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jun 3, 2016 18:14:49 GMT -5
We were slow on Mookie. No argument there. He more or less led to an overhaul of how we do rankings, in some part. That said, if you wanted, you could say that every ranking of a prospect who didn't make it was high (Lars, Lavarnway, Bowden, Place Vitek, etc.) and every ranking of a prospect who did and wasn't at or near the top of the list was low (Shaw, Vazquez before he popped up, Nava, Wright). There have been a number of guys through the years who we've been asked why we haven't ranked them higher who've flopped. People love it when a guy is hot. Sometimes a guy's just hot. Other times he isn't. I believe Ock is the 4th guy I've complained was ranked or graded too low, the others being Lowrie (in person to Mike at a SABR meeting), CV, and Wright. The reason why you can believe Ock is for real is that plate discipline is not something that goes on positive streaks the way hard contact does. If you take his ml career as a whole, use the resulting K and W rates, and program a random simulation, you'd get this big a split or larger in those two rates (this year versus the previous two) once per 7,942 runs. You might well say, if that improved plate discipline is for real, he should have a higher HR/Contact, which is known to be caused by it. And in fact he does. And if your null hypothesis is that it, too, is random, now your simulation odds are 1 in 640, 953. But let's get back to Mookie. As you might guess, his batting-order metrics have shifted further in the direction of teammate-RBI guy rather than table-setter. He now ranks dead last among the 7 good hitters for providing RBI opportunities for the hitters behind him. He's tied with Xander as the 3rd-best guy for knocking his teammates in. He has the second-lowest ratio of Table-Set to Knock-In of the 7, after Papi. This is now a clear best batting order: Bogaerts Bradley Pedroia Ortiz Betts Ramirez Shaw C LF (where Swihart is even more of a perfect second lead-off hitter than Holt) Theoretically, you'd bat Betts 3rd and Pedey 5th, and you probably want to do that eventually, but for this year it's not worth messing with Pedroia's head.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jun 3, 2016 18:57:30 GMT -5
We were slow on Mookie. No argument there. He more or less led to an overhaul of how we do rankings, in some part. That said, if you wanted, you could say that every ranking of a prospect who didn't make it was high (Lars, Lavarnway, Bowden, Place Vitek, etc.) and every ranking of a prospect who did and wasn't at or near the top of the list was low (Shaw, Vazquez before he popped up, Nava, Wright). There have been a number of guys through the years who we've been asked why we haven't ranked them higher who've flopped. People love it when a guy is hot. Sometimes a guy's just hot. Other times he isn't. I believe Ock is the 4th guy I've complained was ranked or graded too low, the others being Lowrie (in person to Mike at a SABR meeting), CV, and Wright. The reason why you can believe Ock is for real is that plate discipline is not something that goes on positive streaks the way hard contact does. If you take his ml career as a whole, use the resulting K and W rates, and program a random simulation, you'd get this big a split or larger in those two rates (this year versus the previous two) once per 7,942 runs. You might well say, if that improved plate discipline is for real, he should have a higher HR/Contact, which is known to be caused by it. And in fact he does. And if your null hypothesis is that it, too, is random, now your simulation odds are 1 in 640, 953. But let's get back to Mookie. As you might guess, his batting-order metrics have shifted further in the direction of teammate-RBI guy rather than table-setter. He now ranks dead last among the 7 good hitters for providing RBI opportunities for the hitters behind him. He's tied with Xander as the 3rd-best guy for knocking his teammates in. He has the second-lowest ratio of Table-Set to Knock-In of the 7, after Papi. This is now a clear best batting order: Bogaerts Bradley Pedroia Ortiz Betts Ramirez Shaw C LF (where Swihart is even more of a perfect second lead-off hitter than Holt) Theoretically, you'd bat Betts 3rd and Pedey 5th, and you probably want to do that eventually, but for this year it's not worth messing with Pedroia's head. How about this batting order: Bradley Bogaerts Betts Ortiz Hanley Shaw Pedroia Vazquez Swihart Two highest OBP guys at the top. Two best HR hitters at 3 and 4. I'm not sure Pedroia makes a lot of sense in the 7 spot, but then again, neither does Bradley the way he's hitting this year.
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Post by telson13 on Jun 3, 2016 19:08:48 GMT -5
I think Ockimey's underrated (I wrote about his improved discipline elsewhere much earlier this year), but I'm OK with him 20th. I think he'll move up fairly quickly. I get that Ockimey's ranking reflects his rawness, and I can see wanting to have continued success especially with promotion. I love that combo of discipline and power; it's unfair to project much for him at this point, but he's certainly a guy who's breaking out (and had clear talent at the time of drafting him).
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Post by telson13 on Jun 3, 2016 19:09:58 GMT -5
That said, with his K rate, he's still a long ways off of where Mookie was when he busted out. Mookie's on pace to be the shortest 40-HR hitter ever.
Oops, forgot about Hack Wilson. Close but no cigar, Mookie.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jun 3, 2016 22:46:30 GMT -5
But let's get back to Mookie. As you might guess, his batting-order metrics have shifted further in the direction of teammate-RBI guy rather than table-setter. He now ranks dead last among the 7 good hitters for providing RBI opportunities for the hitters behind him. He's tied with Xander as the 3rd-best guy for knocking his teammates in. He has the second-lowest ratio of Table-Set to Knock-In of the 7, after Papi. This is now a clear best batting order: Bogaerts Bradley Pedroia Ortiz Betts Ramirez Shaw C LF (where Swihart is even more of a perfect second lead-off hitter than Holt) Theoretically, you'd bat Betts 3rd and Pedey 5th, and you probably want to do that eventually, but for this year it's not worth messing with Pedroia's head. How about this batting order: Bradley Bogaerts Betts Ortiz Hanley Shaw Pedroia Vazquez Swihart Two highest OBP guys at the top. Two best HR hitters at 3 and 4. I'm not sure Pedroia makes a lot of sense in the 7 spot, but then again, neither does Bradley the way he's hitting this year. Well, Bradley before Bogaerts instead of after him is backwards. Xander creates a bit more RBI opportunities than JBJ, and JBJ is better at knocking guys in. The trouble with Pedroia hitting 7 is that he has a history of being an awful hacker when he think he's the last guy who has a chance to drive in guys on base, which would be true in that lineup. He expands the zone and gets himself out. That's why I like him 3rd in front of Ortiz and Betts -- that would maximize his patience.
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Jun 6, 2016 13:55:02 GMT -5
We were slow on Mookie. No argument there. He more or less led to an overhaul of how we do rankings, in some part. That said, if you wanted, you could say that every ranking of a prospect who didn't make it was high (Lars, Lavarnway, Bowden, Place Vitek, etc.) and every ranking of a prospect who did and wasn't at or near the top of the list was low (Shaw, Vazquez before he popped up, Nava, Wright). There have been a number of guys through the years who we've been asked why we haven't ranked them higher who've flopped. People love it when a guy is hot. Sometimes a guy's just hot. Other times he isn't. I believe Ock is the 4th guy I've complained was ranked or graded too low, the others being Lowrie (in person to Mike at a SABR meeting), CV, and Wright. Carson Blair and Derrik Gibson immediately catapult to mind. I'm certain there are others. Jordan Weems maybe? I won't pretend that I'm perfect if you won't. Deal? As for Ockimey, he could very well be for real. I'm not saying he isn't. Being "for real" for two months is still not enough to just forget everything that's come before. Like I said, he's at 20 and rising. If I had to bet, I'd guess he finishes the year in the top 15 and I'd feel pretty good about it.
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Post by jmei on Jun 6, 2016 18:01:35 GMT -5
Based on a quick search of Eric's posts in the meta forum, other guys who he's mentioned as being ranked or graded too low include Garin Cecchini, Henry Owens, Reid Gragnani and Mike Miller. On the flip side, he's complained that Nick Longhi, Sam Travis and Mauricio Dubon were ranked too high. Nobody's perfect, and I honestly feel kind of dirty pulling all this stuff up, but I feel like it's a necessary counterpoint when you imply that you have a perfect record on rankings discussions.
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Post by burythehammer on Jun 7, 2016 6:28:57 GMT -5
I dunno, 0 for 7 is perfect in a sense.
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Post by jmei on Aug 16, 2016 16:05:41 GMT -5
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Post by bookiemetts on Aug 16, 2016 16:23:42 GMT -5
Yep! This is what that article is saying visually, for all qualified players and Mookie in red: (a) establishes that Mookie is actually pretty patient compared to other hitters when it comes to swinging in the zone (b) shows he's clearly in the lower third in the league in terms of swinging at balls, yet still walks less than everyone around him (c) is my personal theory, that he makes more contact and puts balls in play before getting to ball 4 compared to others. This might not mean anything, but it's here I guess. (d) shows pitchers are just throwing him more strikes than most for some reason
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 16, 2016 16:50:08 GMT -5
It should be pretty simple to devise a metric that predicts BB% based on all of the plate discipline numbers. I am at this very moment try to resist the urge to do so.
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Post by iakovos11 on Aug 16, 2016 16:56:35 GMT -5
It should be pretty simple to devise a metric that predicts BB% based on all of the plate discipline numbers. I am at this very moment try to resist the urge to do so. Don't resist Eric. Give in to your heart's desires
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 16, 2016 17:14:20 GMT -5
It should be pretty simple to devise a metric that predicts BB% based on all of the plate discipline numbers. I am at this very moment try to resist the urge to do so. Mission accomplished! It's trickier than it looks. You can explain less than 1% of BB rate by Zone% (r = .08). But all of the other metrics, which do correlate strongly with BB rate, themselves correlate strongly to Zone%. The three strongest correlations are expected: Z-Contact to O-Contact (.73) High BB% to low O-Swing% (-.72) Z-Swing to O-Swing (.61) The fourth, however, is high Zone% to low Z-Swing% (-.51). IOW, hitters who take a lot of pitches in the zone invite more of them. The correlation to O-Swing is nearly as strong (-.44). What's initially puzzling is that there is a positive correlation between Zone% and Contact% that seems too strong to be explained by the fact that more selective hitters (who get more pitches in the zone) make better contact. The way to to this is to think about each pair of correlations, ask what skill they represent, and then express one as the residual of the other. For instance, rather than O-Swing%, O-Swing% relative to Z-Swing%. Raw O-Swing% includes how aggressive a hitter is overall, but O-Swing% relative to Z-Swing% measures strike zone judgment. Eventually you can build a model that may make sense of Mookie ...
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 16, 2016 17:18:15 GMT -5
It should be pretty simple to devise a metric that predicts BB% based on all of the plate discipline numbers. I am at this very moment try to resist the urge to do so. Don't resist Eric. Give in to your heart's desires It's so interesting that I've put it as a high priority for long-term projects. But I'm not cooking it up tonight when (as I just this moment realized) I have to leave the house in an hour and I have yet to take my clothes out of the dryer or shower and shave. And yes, I'm going to a group screening of Baby Face (1933) and then coming home to watch and score the game on delay. Such is the life of a man with too many passions (who is still supposed to be doing something more important than any of them).
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Post by honestlyabe on Aug 16, 2016 19:19:13 GMT -5
Don't resist Eric. Give in to your heart's desires It's so interesting that I've put it as a high priority for long-term projects. But I'm not cooking it up tonight when (as I just this moment realized) I have to leave the house in an hour and I have yet to take my clothes out of the dryer or shower and shave. And yes, I'm going to a group screening of Baby Face (1933) and then coming home to watch and score the game on delay. Such is the life of a man with too many passions (who is still supposed to be doing something more important than any of them). Barbara Stanwyck is wonderful, Double Indemnity will forever be one of my favorites. Along with Mr. Mookie!
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Post by azblue on Aug 16, 2016 22:23:32 GMT -5
"This is not the Mookie Betts any of us were expecting."
He obviously does not read this board.
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Post by Oregon Norm on Aug 16, 2016 23:09:04 GMT -5
I pointed this out when he came up and started mashing. There's nothing in his minor league resume - outside of when he was getting his feet wet in Lowell - that would make us think he wasn't this guy. He's up over .560 slugging right now. Guess what he slugged during his time in AA? It was .564. If we ignore the fact that he's not the biggest guy in the room, those number speak to a hitter with pop. I'll be the the first to admit that that pop has become eye-popping at this point, but he's always been able to drill extra base hits since he hit Greenville. He's just drilling them further as we'd expect of a 23 year-old as opposed to a 20 year-old.
Something else I've posted, which deserves a follow up. The formula for kinetic energy - the energy of motion as in a flying baseball - is KE = ½mv2. The mass m is the bat. The really important quantity is v, how fast that bat is traveling when it hits the ball. That's because it gets squared so that every additional bit of bat speed imparts a lot more energy to a baseball.
I'll say it again. Betts has the quickest bat I've ever seen. Those wrists must be steel cables. Maybe it's the bowling? If so, scouts should be scouring lanes across the country. But of course you need the sort of hand-eye coordination to go with those wrists that is a rare thing. He has both those, and it makes him deadly.
The best homegrown Red Sox ballplayer in a long, long time.
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Post by telson13 on Aug 16, 2016 23:52:38 GMT -5
I pointed this out when he came up and started mashing. There's nothing in his minor league resume - outside of when he was getting his feet wet in Lowell - that would make us think he wasn't this guy. He's up over .560 slugging right now. Guess what he slugged during his time in AA? It was .564. If we ignore the fact that he's not the biggest guy in the room, those number speak to a hitter with pop. I'll be the the first to admit that that pop has become eye-popping at this point, but he's always been able to drill extra base hits since he hit Greenville. He's just drilling them further as we'd expect of a 23 year-old as opposed to a 20 year-old. Something else I've posted, which deserves a follow up. The formula for kinetic energy - the energy of motion as in a flying baseball - is KE = ½mv2. The mass m is the bat. The really important quantity is v, how fast that bat is traveling when it hits the ball. That's because it gets squared so that every additional bit of bat speed imparts a lot more energy to a baseball. I'll say it again. Betts has the quickest bat I've ever seen. Those wrists must be steel cables. Maybe it's the bowling? If so, scouts should be scouring lanes across the country. But of course you need the sort of hand-eye coordination to go with those wrists that is a rare thing. He has both those, and it makes him deadly. The best homegrown Red Sox ballplayer in a long, long time. I'm sure his supreme hand-eye helps, since momentum is a vector, and any deviation from a dead-on path means that the transferred energy is divided into vectors that may be useless (i.e., launch angle). He reminds me a lot of Nomar in that sense: selectively aggressive but with the ability to barrel up so frequently that it's an asset, maybe synergistically so. He's still got a long time to hone his craft. I'm certain that he has some .350 seasons in him. What's really impressive is that, although he slugged roughly the same in Portland, he's doing it now with a BA 40 points lower, meaning is ISOP is *way* up. Similar to JBJ, although Mookie's seemingly traded his walks, while JBJ has traded some BA.
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Post by ancientsoxfogey on Aug 17, 2016 7:05:04 GMT -5
I pointed this out when he came up and started mashing. There's nothing in his minor league resume - outside of when he was getting his feet wet in Lowell - that would make us think he wasn't this guy. He's up over .560 slugging right now. Guess what he slugged during his time in AA? It was .564. If we ignore the fact that he's not the biggest guy in the room, those number speak to a hitter with pop. I'll be the the first to admit that that pop has become eye-popping at this point, but he's always been able to drill extra base hits since he hit Greenville. He's just drilling them further as we'd expect of a 23 year-old as opposed to a 20 year-old. Something else I've posted, which deserves a follow up. The formula for kinetic energy - the energy of motion as in a flying baseball - is KE = ½mv2. The mass m is the bat. The really important quantity is v, how fast that bat is traveling when it hits the ball. That's because it gets squared so that every additional bit of bat speed imparts a lot more energy to a baseball. I'll say it again. Betts has the quickest bat I've ever seen. Those wrists must be steel cables. Maybe it's the bowling? If so, scouts should be scouring lanes across the country. But of course you need the sort of hand-eye coordination to go with those wrists that is a rare thing. He has both those, and it makes him deadly. The best homegrown Red Sox ballplayer in a long, long time. Is Betts an ambidextrous bowler? Otherwise, I don't see how both wrists could be affected, unless you're saying he gets all his power from his right wrist. I thought it was interesting last night that both of Mookie's HR's would have been off the wall in Fenway. I wonder if the guy is good enough that he just worries about hitting LD's in a low-fence park like Baltimore, while working to get more loft in Fenway. Being able to do both while not screwing up your swing would be a very unusual but useful skill to have.
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nomar
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Post by nomar on Aug 17, 2016 8:40:08 GMT -5
Mookie is now 3rd in bWAR at 6.9, and 4th in fWAR at 6.0
At the rate he's going, he could be close to 9 bWAR by season's end.
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Post by soxfansince67 on Aug 17, 2016 8:54:50 GMT -5
Mookie is now 3rd in bWAR at 6.9, and 4th in fWAR at 6.0 At the rate he's going, he could be close to 9 bWAR by season's end. Current list as of AM Aug 17 - both leagues Trout 7.7 Altuve 7.0 MOOKIE 6.9 Donaldson 6.3 Bryant (tops for NL) 5.5 Machado 5.5
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wb93
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Post by wb93 on Aug 17, 2016 10:07:57 GMT -5
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