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Post by ray88h66 on May 12, 2016 17:16:10 GMT -5
BTW, the whole "batting order doesn't matter" is a weird cognitive pseudo-myth. Sabermetrics has shown that it doesn't matter nearly as much as people thought. Those estimates, though, assume that hitters hit the same no matter where they bat (they don't), and they also do not take into account the changed platoon opportunities caused by different opponent bullpen usage. I'd put the actual impact as around 2 wins. Hey, we have the opportunity to trade a 2.0 WAR player even-up for a 4.0 WAR player! Would you do it, or say it doesn't matter? I'm not that concerned about the batting order because I think it's hard to mess up too much given the current composition of the lineup. Ortiz is easily their best hitter and LF and catcher are their worst, but the other six project reasonably similarly enough that it shouldn't be that big of a swing if it's not totally optimal. I have a pretty hard time ranking Betts, Ramirez, Bogaerts, Pedroia, Bradley and Shaw (though that's probably my current ranking of them), and if they're all pretty similar hitters, you can't mess up too much when you're putting them in a lineup. That said, for posterity, my current lineups are: vs. L: Betts, Pedroia, Bogaerts, Ortiz, Ramirez, Shaw, Young, Bradley, [catcher] vs. R: Betts, Pedroia, Bogaerts, Ortiz, Ramirez, Shaw, Bradley, [catcher], Holt Rationale: For the above reasons, I think keeping guys happy with the batting order is more important than pure optimization. I think my above lineups do a good job of balancing those two factors (you could switch Bradley and Shaw and I wouldn't complain). Agree about the BA. Most guys just want to be in the line- up. I think order is way over thought. Happy for JBJ, and have no problem admitting I see no difference from the hot streaks and his cold streaks in his swing.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on May 12, 2016 22:44:12 GMT -5
Those estimates, though, assume that hitters hit the same no matter where they bat (they don't) I've not seen the proof that they do hit differently, a citation would be appreciated. I proved (to Dick Cramer's satisfaction) that hitters hit differently with runners on than with the bases empty over the course of their careers, so there's that, because different slots have different runners-on chances. Trot Nixon hit much better 2nd than 5th in his career (even when controlling for opportunities within year), which I was able to tie in to his situational splits: he liked to be challenged (q.v. owning Clemens, who was stubborn enough to keep trying to get him out with thr FB; that pic to the left is, of course, Trot beating him in the national TV Pedro matchup) and disliked being pitched around. IOW, he was a rare hitter who actually benefited from protection. I talked Jed Hoyer into talking Tito into batting Nixon 2nd in early 2005, and then after a while Tito moved Renteria to 2nd and Trot to 5th. He was hitting .308 /.422 /.527 when they made the change and hit .265 / .336 / .423 afterwards. Maybe I got lucky, but maybe I knew something. At the time I did a quick study of guys based on this split: A) Hitting with man on 1st or bases full (challenge situations) vs. B) Hitting with RISP and 1st base open (pitch-around situations) There was a definite career trend for the guys with A >> B to hit better 2nd than 5th, and for B >> A the opposite, as predicted. Drew, BTW, was a big B >> A type. And the there are guys like Bill Mueller, whose numbers hitting 8th were so good it seemed impossible to be a fluke. The team confirmed that he really liked to hit there (without, I think, saying why), so they tried to keep him there.
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Post by bluechip on May 12, 2016 23:15:18 GMT -5
I've not seen the proof that they do hit differently, a citation would be appreciated. I proved (to Dick Cramer's satisfaction) that hitters hit differently with runners on than with the bases empty over the course of their careers, so there's that, because different slots have different runners-on chances. Trot Nixon hit much better 2nd than 5th in his career (even when controlling for opportunities within year), which I was able to tie in to his situational splits: he liked to be challenged (q.v. owning Clemens, who was stubborn enough to keep trying to get him out with thr FB; that pic to the left is, of course, Trot beating him in the national TV Pedro matchup) and disliked being pitched around. IOW, he was a rare hitter who actually benefited from protection. I talked Jed Hoyer into talking Tito into batting Nixon 2nd in early 2005, and then after a while Tito moved Renteria to 2nd and Trot to 5th. He was hitting .308 /.422 /.527 when they made the change and hit .265 / .336 / .423 afterwards. Maybe I got lucky, but maybe I knew something. At the time I did a quick study of guys based on this split: A) Hitting with man on 1st or bases full (challenge situations) vs. B) Hitting with RISP and 1st base open (pitch-around situations) There was a definite career trend for the guys with A >> B to hit better 2nd than 5th, and for B >> A the opposite, as predicted. Drew, BTW, was a big B >> A type. And the there are guys like Bill Mueller, whose numbers hitting 8th were so good it seemed impossible to be a fluke. The team confirmed that he really liked to hit there (without, I think, saying why), so they tried to keep him there. Kind of getting off track, but Trot Nixons success against Roger Clemens in all of 40 at bats, was one of the more overblown stats back in the day. It was only 40 at bats.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on May 12, 2016 23:53:32 GMT -5
I proved (to Dick Cramer's satisfaction) that hitters hit differently with runners on than with the bases empty over the course of their careers, so there's that, because different slots have different runners-on chances. Trot Nixon hit much better 2nd than 5th in his career (even when controlling for opportunities within year), which I was able to tie in to his situational splits: he liked to be challenged (q.v. owning Clemens, who was stubborn enough to keep trying to get him out with thr FB; that pic to the left is, of course, Trot beating him in the national TV Pedro matchup) and disliked being pitched around. IOW, he was a rare hitter who actually benefited from protection. I talked Jed Hoyer into talking Tito into batting Nixon 2nd in early 2005, and then after a while Tito moved Renteria to 2nd and Trot to 5th. He was hitting .308 /.422 /.527 when they made the change and hit .265 / .336 / .423 afterwards. Maybe I got lucky, but maybe I knew something. At the time I did a quick study of guys based on this split: A) Hitting with man on 1st or bases full (challenge situations) vs. B) Hitting with RISP and 1st base open (pitch-around situations) There was a definite career trend for the guys with A >> B to hit better 2nd than 5th, and for B >> A the opposite, as predicted. Drew, BTW, was a big B >> A type. And the there are guys like Bill Mueller, whose numbers hitting 8th were so good it seemed impossible to be a fluke. The team confirmed that he really liked to hit there (without, I think, saying why), so they tried to keep him there. Kind of getting off track, but Trot Nixons success against Roger Clemens in all of 40 at bats, was one of the more overblown stats back in the day. It was only 40 at bats. Utter bullcrap. That you even cite AB instead of PA suggests that you're posting from 1975. And that's actually a large sample for a pitcher versus hitter matchup, and plenty large enough for a leaderboard against a pitcher to be dominated by HOFers and HOF-worthy guys. All-time career OPS leaders against Clemens, minimum 45 PA: 1450 Trot Nixon 1293 Jim Thome 987 Eddie Murray 985 Gino Petralli 983 Alvin Davis 981 Ken Griffey 968 Lou Whitaker 962 Alex Rodriguez 952 Alan Trammel 921 Todd Walker Given how closely bunched the 3 through 10 guys are, Thome's numbers against Clemens would be eye-opening. But Nixon blows Thome away. And he has the second-lowest career OPS+ of the top 9! Fun fact I never knew: when Nixon homered off Clemens to win that Pedro duel, the three previous times he had made contact against Clemens had gone single, double, triple. He had two strikeouts in the middle of that.
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Post by thursty on May 13, 2016 7:10:03 GMT -5
I'm curious - what was the explanation for Francona making the Renteria to 2nd move?
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wcp3
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Posts: 3,842
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Post by wcp3 on May 13, 2016 7:18:32 GMT -5
I'm curious - what was the explanation for Francona making the Renteria to 2nd move? $$$$$ They had to do something to get him going considering the contract they gave him.
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Post by rjp313jr on May 13, 2016 7:40:31 GMT -5
Those estimates, though, assume that hitters hit the same no matter where they bat (they don't) I've not seen the proof that they do hit differently, a citation would be appreciated. All you have to do is pay attention to the players and how they about it. For most players it doesn't matter but for some it certainly will. This also makes it hard to measure but just because it's hard to measure doesn't mean it's not true. Baseball is a long season and the biggest challenge is keeping players mentally engaged. Let's use Hanley as an example. He's engaged like I've never seen him before and he's producing. I doubt it matters to him if he's hitting 2-5 in the lineup, but if u tried to put him at the bottom of the order you think a guy like him will stay engaged? I doubt it. Now I suppose you can argue his production drop will be because of him feeling disrespected not because he's standing in the 8th spot in the lineup. And yea that's true but the lineup spot for some of these players affects their mentality a great deal and that affects their results in the batters box. Don't forget what Yogi said.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on May 13, 2016 9:42:44 GMT -5
I'm curious - what was the explanation for Francona making the Renteria to 2nd move? He really disliked having two LHB, Damon and Nixon, hitting 1-2, and perhaps more importantly, he had wanted to switch Ortiz to 3rd and Manny to 4th all year because he thought they were pitching around Ortiz but Papi was not taking the walks he ought to be. (People forget that when they won the WS, they had Manny hitting in front of Papi. In fact, they made that change on August 7th, which was precisely the point where they started winning like crazy.) But in fact Papi had started walking a ton about 10 days before the switch. And the #2 hole hitters had hit .261 / .320 / .565 starting at the point in the game where they first faced a LHR (Payton, who had been platooning with Trot, subbed for him a few times and had been 2/6, 2B, HR). And they were leading the league with 5.6 RS/G at the time! (That was unchanged afterwards, but that doesn't mean they would haven't have been even better had they not put Renteria second -- he hit there every subsequent game and was .282 / .342 / .393, not exactly the usual 2-hole production for a team scoring 5.6 R/G).
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Post by telson13 on May 19, 2016 19:37:10 GMT -5
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Post by philsbosoxfan on May 19, 2016 20:38:58 GMT -5
Can we agree that the concept behind the thread title is maybe the most obsolete in SP history ?
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Post by telson13 on May 19, 2016 21:28:29 GMT -5
Can we agree that the concept behind the thread title is maybe the most obsolete in SP history ? Which makes it awesome. Just like the Yankees winning the bidding in the Moncada thread poll.
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Post by foreverred9 on May 19, 2016 21:31:31 GMT -5
How can it be that he is bottom 10 in baseball right now for defensive WAR?
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Post by jmei on May 19, 2016 21:37:45 GMT -5
To be fair, I can remember a half-dozen bad defensive plays already this year, and not too many great ones. That probably won't continue, but he's definitely been worse defensively this year than in years past.
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Post by jmei on May 19, 2016 21:52:15 GMT -5
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radiohix
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'At the end of the day, we bang. We bang. We're going to swing.' Alex Verdugo
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Post by radiohix on May 19, 2016 22:07:53 GMT -5
Jmei bashing JBJ, how surprising!
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Post by philsbosoxfan on May 19, 2016 22:08:35 GMT -5
A counterpoint from a FANTASY baseball 'analyst' who's hedging big time and undoubtedly not heard the comments from people that actually watch baseball like Farrell, Ortiz, Eck, Remy. He's being more aggressive and pretty much squaring everything. Is it sustainable at this rate ? Likely not but this guy is all wet.
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Post by philsbosoxfan on May 19, 2016 22:21:16 GMT -5
This might help certain people get out of fantasy mode, I don't think this guy does fantasy. Red Sox Stats @redsoxstats 10h10 hours ago Since Aug 9th the best hitters in baseball by wOBA (min. 300 at bats).
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Post by philsbosoxfan on May 19, 2016 22:28:13 GMT -5
To be fair, I can remember a half-dozen bad defensive plays already this year, and not too many great ones. That probably won't continue, but he's definitely been worse defensively this year than in years past. For context, I put a like on that comment because it's the first one I've seen you make that actually involves watching baseball.
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Post by telson13 on May 20, 2016 1:24:53 GMT -5
Except you're looking at an article that's deriving conclusions largely based on a stretch of time when JBJ was struggling to hit anything. That's the reason I posted the article I did: it shows a very clear development of approach/skill: the ability to hit the fastball (2015), and then recognizing and hitting off speed stuff (2016). The article you posted also has some glaring, questionable statements, the most egregious of which is that "JBJ is *fast*." No, he's not. He's barely above average. His high BABIP is likely fueled not by speed, but by an all-fields approach, which fits just about every bit of data there is: hitting coach's methodology, spray charts, basic scouting, knowledgable commentary from teammates and qualified observers, and just watching games. The author is making a truly terrible argument, in that it presupposes that Bradley hasn't evolved as a hitter, which just about anyone who's seen him play will attest he's done. In fact, his BABIP during his MLB stints have gone .246-.284-.310-.396. That sure looks like progression to me, especially with his ISO going .149-.068-.249-.269, despite his K rate dropping from 29.0-28.6-.27.1-20.8%. Couple this data with the knowledge that he made a TON of weak contact in 2014 (hence the awful HR/FB rate, and atrocious BABIP, due to excessive GB especially on inside fastballs), and it's not that hard to see that he's making adjustments. Now, he is probably just incredibly locked in right now, and .390-something is essentially unsustainable for a BABIP, but .350 isn't. The assertion that he's likely a .240-250 hitter with maybe a dozen HR a year absolutely flies in the face of any reasonable interpretation of his career to date, because it denies any trend towards improvement. In his first 530 PA (to start his career), he had 4 HR and struck out nearly 30% of the time. Since then, in 414 PA, he's raised his BA about 75 points, his SA over 200 points, and he's striking out about 5% less. I'm not saying he's going to hit .330/.400/.600 with 25-30 HR and 40 doubles, because that's an MVP-worthy season. But at this point, I think .300/.360/.500 is a pretty safe bet, give or take a little here or there. He *could* lose it and go back closer to the hitter he was before, but that seems awfully unlikely barring injury or some devastating psychological event.
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Post by jimed14 on May 20, 2016 6:50:20 GMT -5
I'm gonna hate when people use JBJ as an example of how prospects sometimes figure it out after it looks like all hope is lost.
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Post by greatscottcooper on May 20, 2016 7:01:40 GMT -5
Yes I believe the bat does outweigh the glove.
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Post by soxfanatic on May 20, 2016 7:03:42 GMT -5
I'm gonna hate when people use JBJ as an example of how prospects sometimes figure it out after it looks like all hope is lost. Why?
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Post by jimed14 on May 20, 2016 7:13:29 GMT -5
I'm gonna hate when people use JBJ as an example of how prospects sometimes figure it out after it looks like all hope is lost. Why? Because I don't think it could ever be duplicated where someone was that lost and became such a great player. Hoping for that to happen is like buying a lottery ticket in an attempt to raise money.
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Post by soxfanatic on May 20, 2016 7:31:36 GMT -5
Because I don't think it could ever be duplicated where someone was that lost and became such a great player. Hoping for that to happen is like buying a lottery ticket in an attempt to raise money. So you're saying there's a chance?
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Post by soxfanatic on May 20, 2016 7:35:51 GMT -5
Because I don't think it could ever be duplicated where someone was that lost and became such a great player. Hoping for that to happen is like buying a lottery ticket in an attempt to raise money. On a more serious note: Alex Gordon comes to mind. Although his struggles were on both side on the ball, yet he didn't struggle as bad as Jackie at the plate.
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