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The Big Bad Mookie Betts Thread
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Post by jmei on Sept 12, 2016 15:48:58 GMT -5
I moved the Beltre and other discussion to its own thread.
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rjp313jr
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Post by rjp313jr on Sept 12, 2016 19:44:43 GMT -5
40 double and 30 home runs and 20 steals... How many times has that been accomplished?
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Post by zimmerdown on Sept 12, 2016 20:36:22 GMT -5
40 double and 30 home runs and 20 steals... How many times has that been accomplished? At 23 years old he has exceeded everybody here's wildest expectations, even the DeepJohn level Mookie supporters weren't calling for this kind of production at his age.
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Post by thelavarnwayguy on Sept 12, 2016 20:58:32 GMT -5
Certainly not this soon. It was possible he would have 2-3 years like that at the most to me but here he is doing it already.
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Post by zimmerdown on Sept 12, 2016 21:15:15 GMT -5
The thing with getting to that level at such a young age is that you aren't asking if he can sustain these numbers, it's more like "how much better will he be next year?"
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Sept 12, 2016 21:55:01 GMT -5
40 double and 30 home runs and 20 steals... How many times has that been accomplished? 26 times. Most recently by Jacoby Ellsbury in 2011. Mookie ties Nomar as the youngest guy to accomplish it. If you add 100 RBI and 100 R, Mookie's season is the 20th, and he is the youngest of the 17 guys who did it. Bagwell, Abreu, and Soriano did it twice (Soriano with both the Yankees and Rangers). Edit: Assuming he hits .300, if you add that criterion as well, now he's the 15th guy and no one's done it twice.
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Post by klostrophobic on Sept 13, 2016 0:00:20 GMT -5
40 double and 30 home runs and 20 steals... How many times has that been accomplished? At 23 years old he has exceeded everybody here's wildest expectations, even the DeepJohn level Mookie supporters weren't calling for this kind of production at his age. Hey, speak for yourself.
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rjp313jr
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Post by rjp313jr on Sept 13, 2016 8:41:50 GMT -5
The young position player talent on this team is staggering
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Post by zimmerdown on Sept 13, 2016 17:58:04 GMT -5
At 23 years old he has exceeded everybody here's wildest expectations, even the DeepJohn level Mookie supporters weren't calling for this kind of production at his age. Hey, speak for yourself. Not that nobody thought he could reach this level, but to think that he could get there this fast (and as Eric points out nobody has ever had a line like this at 23 years old), they would be seen as a DeepJohn level optimist. To do it so young is to say (to me) that his true potential has not been realized yet. It is truly staggering to think about what his future could hold.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Sept 14, 2016 6:58:40 GMT -5
Not that nobody thought he could reach this level, but to think that he could get there this fast (and as Eric points out nobody has ever had a line like this at 23 years old), they would be seen as a DeepJohn level optimist. To do it so young is to say (to me) that his true potential has not been realized yet. It is truly staggering to think about what his future could hold. When he's already putting up MVP-type seasons, it probably means he's not going to get much better. Mike Trout was a ten-win player at age 20; he's still a ten win player now. He's changed and adapted in various ways but he's never really gotten better because he was basically the perfect ballplayer from the jump. Being a star at a really young age usually doesn't mean you're going to be a superhuman in your prime, it means you reached your full potential early. It also means you have the chance to sustain that peak for a decade-plus, which is how HOFers are made. (Looking forward to the responses telling me I'm underrating Mookie in this post where I compared him to Mike Trout and said he was on a HOF trajectory.)
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rjp313jr
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Post by rjp313jr on Sept 14, 2016 7:24:00 GMT -5
For a player like Mookie and his build I think reaching his peak early is important because I'm not sure his body and skill set will hold up into his 30s.
Looking at you McCutchen
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Post by brianthetaoist on Sept 14, 2016 7:26:34 GMT -5
Not that nobody thought he could reach this level, but to think that he could get there this fast (and as Eric points out nobody has ever had a line like this at 23 years old), they would be seen as a DeepJohn level optimist. To do it so young is to say (to me) that his true potential has not been realized yet. It is truly staggering to think about what his future could hold. When he's already putting up MVP-type seasons, it probably means he's not going to get much better. Mike Trout was a ten-win player at age 20; he's still a ten win player now. He's changed and adapted in various ways but he's never really gotten better because he was basically the perfect ballplayer from the jump. Being a star at a really young age usually doesn't mean you're going to be a superhuman in your prime, it means you reached your full potential early. It also means you have the chance to sustain that peak for a decade-plus, which is how HOFers are made. (Looking forward to the responses telling me I'm underrating Mookie in this post where I compared him to Mike Trout and said he was on a HOF trajectory.) Yeah, I think people are sometimes too tied to a strict age-advancement paradigm, when in reality players just develop at different rates. It's not a smooth upward trajectory. Folks thought Eric Chavez was going to be a HoFer because he put up ~850 OPS seasons in his low 20s, but that turned out to be as good as he ever got (then he had a lot of injury problems). Mookie's a great player, will probably remain a great player for a long time, which is amazing. But he may not get much better. Although his value may go up just if he moves to 2nd base and plays great defense there in 3 years.
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Post by James Dunne on Sept 14, 2016 8:25:19 GMT -5
For a player like Mookie and his build I think reaching his peak early is important because I'm not sure his body and skill set will hold up into his 30s. Looking at you McCutchen Athletic players whose goodness isn't specifically tied to their athleticism (i.e. stealing bases and otherworldly makeup speed on defense) tend to age the best of anyone. Based on that, McCutchen would generally have been thought likely to age well. McCutchen has now had one down season - he was 4th in the NL in OBP and 10th in total bases just last season. It's possible he's not aging well but just as likely that he's just having a down season. And anyway, Betts and McCutchen are both athletic black dudes under six-feet tall, but their games are only superficially similar - McCutchen is/was a much more patient hitter, and his power developed later. McCutchen was also never this good defensively, though he was quite good for awhile. You understand why thinking a guy who leads the league in total bases at 23 might not age well because he sorta looks like Andrew McCutchen would face resistance, right?
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Sept 14, 2016 11:13:49 GMT -5
How good has Mookie's baserunning been? Sources disagree.
BP has Mookie's SB worth 1.0 runs; FanGraphs has it at 3.0. The sum of the change in Run Expectancy of Mookie's SB, CS, and pickoffs, according to FG's play logs? 0.83. So FG's number seems strange.
BP has Mookie's other baserunning at 7.8 runs; FG has it at 5.0.
So the totals are 8.8 and 8.0, which is not a big disagreement. b-Ref does not separate the two, and has it at 8 total. So it looks like FG may have offsetting errors.
Furthermore, b-Ref has Mookie gaining 3 runs of value by hitting into fewer DP, while FG has it at 1.2. BP includes this in offense.
In general, the three web sites disagree pretty severely. Right now I'm trusting b-Ref over FG a lot, and I don't see a reason for looking at BP to refine b-REf's numbers. More geekage follows if you're interested.
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Runs gained by all of MLB iin 2015:
BP SB: 0.0 FG SB: 4.1
BP Other: 28.5 FG Other: -6.9
BP all: 28.5 FG all: -2.8 bRef all: 17
FanGraph's UBR is so out of line with BP and bRef (which would be somewhere between 13 and 17) that it seems likely to be wrong.
BP breaks down Other into advances on hits, ground balls, balls in the air, and other (WP/PB, etc.). So you can regress b-Ref and FG against that. That verifies that all three websites are trying to count all types of advances, but they disagree on the weights. I may look into this more later, but one thought is that you can either use a fixed value for each type of advance, or use the actual changes in Run Expectancy given the outs and base situation.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Sept 14, 2016 11:38:53 GMT -5
Now that I've figured out how baserunning figures into WAR, here's a bWAR + Clutch ranking I trust. Ties are listed alphabetically.
9.0 Trout 7.4 Beltre 7.4 Betts 7.4 Donaldson 6.6 Machado 6.5 Seager 6.3 Pedroia (added with edit!) 5.4 Altuve
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rjp313jr
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Post by rjp313jr on Sept 14, 2016 19:21:13 GMT -5
For a player like Mookie and his build I think reaching his peak early is important because I'm not sure his body and skill set will hold up into his 30s. Looking at you McCutchen Athletic players whose goodness isn't specifically tied to their athleticism (i.e. stealing bases and otherworldly makeup speed on defense) tend to age the best of anyone. Based on that, McCutchen would generally have been thought likely to age well. McCutchen has now had one down season - he was 4th in the NL in OBP and 10th in total bases just last season. It's possible he's not aging well but just as likely that he's just having a down season. And anyway, Betts and McCutchen are both athletic black dudes under six-feet tall, but their games are only superficially similar - McCutchen is/was a much more patient hitter, and his power developed later. McCutchen was also never this good defensively, though he was quite good for awhile. You understand why thinking a guy who leads the league in total bases at 23 might not age well because he sorta looks like Andrew McCutchen would face resistance, right? Who's bringing race into things? That's a bit unnecessary to imply I was thinking anything of the sort. Any the type of player also had nothing to do with it. There's been plenty of talk (not specific to Betts) about players with slighter builds aging poorly. When so much of a players ability is tied to their lighting quick reaction times those things tend go erode faster and they don't have the raw strength to fall back on.
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Post by zimmerdown on Sept 14, 2016 19:31:52 GMT -5
When he's already putting up MVP-type seasons, it probably means he's not going to get much better. Mike Trout was a ten-win player at age 20; he's still a ten win player now. He's changed and adapted in various ways but he's never really gotten better because he was basically the perfect ballplayer from the jump. Being a star at a really young age usually doesn't mean you're going to be a superhuman in your prime, it means you reached your full potential early. It also means you have the chance to sustain that peak for a decade-plus, which is how HOFers are made. (Looking forward to the responses telling me I'm underrating Mookie in this post where I compared him to Mike Trout and said he was on a HOF trajectory.) Yeah, I think people are sometimes too tied to a strict age-advancement paradigm, when in reality players just develop at different rates. It's not a smooth upward trajectory. Folks thought Eric Chavez was going to be a HoFer because he put up ~850 OPS seasons in his low 20s, but that turned out to be as good as he ever got (then he had a lot of injury problems). Mookie's a great player, will probably remain a great player for a long time, which is amazing. But he may not get much better. Although his value may go up just if he moves to 2nd base and plays great defense there in 3 years. I come here to learn and not to inform, so I am not arguing with this. Just that from my eyes it has been a smooth upward trajectory so far with Mookie. It seems to me that he can improve in a lot of aspects (not that he needs improvement but that he has that potential). Either way, it's pretty remarkable how quickly he has reached his "ceiling".
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Sept 15, 2016 10:12:14 GMT -5
Yeah, I think people are sometimes too tied to a strict age-advancement paradigm, when in reality players just develop at different rates. It's not a smooth upward trajectory. Folks thought Eric Chavez was going to be a HoFer because he put up ~850 OPS seasons in his low 20s, but that turned out to be as good as he ever got (then he had a lot of injury problems). Mookie's a great player, will probably remain a great player for a long time, which is amazing. But he may not get much better. Although his value may go up just if he moves to 2nd base and plays great defense there in 3 years. I come here to learn and not to inform, so I am not arguing with this. Just that from my eyes it has been a smooth upward trajectory so far with Mookie. It seems to me that he can improve in a lot of aspects (not that he needs improvement but that he has that potential). Either way, it's pretty remarkable how quickly he has reached his "ceiling". Curious as to what you think those aspects might be.
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Post by jmei on Sept 15, 2016 10:38:28 GMT -5
He'll probably walk more, for one. Add 50 points of OBP and he looks a lot like a poor man's Mike Trout.
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Post by cologneredsox on Sept 15, 2016 10:51:32 GMT -5
He'll probably walk more, for one. Add 50 points of OBP and he looks a lot like a poor man's Mike Trout. My question would be: does that mean fewer extra bas hits? Less slugging maybe?
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Post by jmei on Sept 15, 2016 11:06:39 GMT -5
Yeah, probably. Then again, Mookie's power is still mostly pull power (generated from his lightning-fast wrists). If he adds strength as he gets older (remember, he's only 23 (turns 24 in October)), maybe he adds some more opposite-field power. He doesn't really have the frame to add much more weight, but you could have said the same thing about a lot of young players.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Sept 15, 2016 11:21:37 GMT -5
He'll probably walk more, for one. Add 50 points of OBP and he looks a lot like a poor man's Mike Trout. Yeah that's the obvious area for growth. I'm kind of baffled as to why he doesn't walk more already though. He does see more pitches in the zone than the average hitter, so it might end up being a thing where he gives away some of the power for more walks as pitchers start being more careful with him.
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Post by bookiemetts on Sept 15, 2016 11:44:35 GMT -5
He'll probably walk more, for one. Add 50 points of OBP and he looks a lot like a poor man's Mike Trout. 50 more point of OBP and he literally is Mike Trout. That would give him (of course walking more would mess with his BA and SLG, but for purposes of my argument: .311/.402/.540 And Mike Trout's career line: .306/.403/.559 Honestly that top line with 30 homers and 23 SBs is pretty much what you expect from Trout and Mookie's better defensively Edit: If you were to double Mookie's walk rate, at this point he would have 82 BBs, and we have 41 PAs of normal production replaced by walks. If we take those 41 PAs of average production it's about 8 singles, 3 doubles and 2 HR. Subtracting the 41 PA, 8 singles, 3 doubles and 2 HR, while adding 41 BBs gives him a final line of: .311/.405/.540
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Post by zimmerdown on Sept 15, 2016 18:52:58 GMT -5
I come here to learn and not to inform, so I am not arguing with this. Just that from my eyes it has been a smooth upward trajectory so far with Mookie. It seems to me that he can improve in a lot of aspects (not that he needs improvement but that he has that potential). Either way, it's pretty remarkable how quickly he has reached his "ceiling". Curious as to what you think those aspects might be. I've been mentally backpedalling on this all day at work. I know that you are essentially right. He's probably not going to get THAT much better. I was thinking 35 SB wouldn't be out of the question, but maybe he's so efficient because he picks his spots and isn't going to try to steal that many. I was thinking that he could be more consistent in his hitting, he's a little streaky, IMO. I think that if he had hit in the 4 spot for the whole year his numbers might be better right there, but I really don't know if that's true. Probably not significantly. I just think of Mookie like DeepJohn thinks about Kopech and TheLavernwayGuy thought about TheYaleGuy. He's superman. ETA: I realized that the fact that he reached his ceiling at such a young age is significant mostly because he will (hopefully) give you more years of elite production in his (hopefully) full Red Sox career.
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Post by James Dunne on Sept 16, 2016 7:30:07 GMT -5
I just think of Mookie like DeepJohn thinks about Kopech and TheLavernwayGuy thought about TheYaleGuy. He's superman. But Betts is already one of the top five or so players alive. It's normal and healthy to think of him that way.
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