SoxProspects News
|
|
|
|
Legal
Forum Ground Rules
The views expressed by the members of this Forum do not necessarily reflect the views of SoxProspects, LLC.
© 2003-2024 SoxProspects, LLC
|
|
|
|
|
Forum Home | Search | My Profile | Messages | Members | Help |
Welcome Guest. Please Login or Register.
redsox04071318champs
Veteran
Always hoping to make my handle even longer...
Posts: 16,869
Member is Online
|
Post by redsox04071318champs on Dec 13, 2015 8:07:06 GMT -5
Yes, better vs LHH than in 2013, 2014, 2015, and for his career. There is no need to overpay for a LHRP. In a given matchup, it's not just the pitcher's platoon splits that matter. The hitter matters as well. A pitcher's record allowed versus a batter handedness tells you what he gives up, on average, to hitters with an average split. There are good or even great lefty hitters with huge platoon splits (think Ryan Howard in his prime). They'll hit a guy like Koji condiderably harder than a LHB of the same overall quality but with an small split. And a LHR with less impressive numbers verus LHB thatn Koji would still be the better choice. In general, you want to match the pitcher split to the hitter. To get hitters with big splits out, use pitchers with big splits. For hitters with neutral splits, use an opposite-handed pitcher with a neutral or reverse split, if you've got one. Now, to my knowledge, the degree to which this is true has not been studied. What happens when a LHR who is completely deadly, like Jesse Orosco, faces a LHB who is completely inept against LHR, like Bill Buckner? (I mean in general. Of course and unfortunately, the actual answer is that he hits the first pitch to Mookie Wilson in CF). You could calculate the expected outcome with the Log5 methodology, but that assumes that the hitter-pitcher interaction work like overall team strength, and it probably doesn't. It's possible that Buckner is so bad against LHR that he struggles nearly as bad against a mediocre one as he would against Orosco, and/or Orosco is so good that he holds the best LHB to nearly as bad a line as he holds Buckner. In fact, I would bet that there is some muting of the interaction; it is well-established that different players have different performance slopes relative to the quality of the opponent, and there seems to be some tendency for the best players to have flatter slopes. (One of the things that made Jeter good was that he hit good pitchers better than expected given how he hit bad ones, i.e., he was less dependent on opponent quality than average.) But how much the interaction between an Orosco type and a Buckner type is muted, on average, I wouldn't want to guess. I was pretty annoyed about that in 1986 and I'm still pretty annoyed about that nearly 30 years later. They had Baylor available to pinch hit, and Stapleton ready to play defense and Roger McDowell had already been in the game! That manager the Sox had was really a blockhead. I hear all the criticism re: Farrell and all I can say is that these people don't have a clear memory of how bad John McNamara was (he batted Ed Romero 3rd because he was too lazy to shift the lineup when Boggs who should have led off was unable to play). |
|
ericmvan
Veteran
Supposed to be working on something more important
Posts: 9,027
|
Post by ericmvan on Dec 13, 2015 12:25:59 GMT -5
In a given matchup, it's not just the pitcher's platoon splits that matter. The hitter matters as well. A pitcher's record allowed versus a batter handedness tells you what he gives up, on average, to hitters with an average split. There are good or even great lefty hitters with huge platoon splits (think Ryan Howard in his prime). They'll hit a guy like Koji condiderably harder than a LHB of the same overall quality but with an small split. And a LHR with less impressive numbers verus LHB thatn Koji would still be the better choice. In general, you want to match the pitcher split to the hitter. To get hitters with big splits out, use pitchers with big splits. For hitters with neutral splits, use an opposite-handed pitcher with a neutral or reverse split, if you've got one. Now, to my knowledge, the degree to which this is true has not been studied. What happens when a LHR who is completely deadly, like Jesse Orosco, faces a LHB who is completely inept against LHR, like Bill Buckner? (I mean in general. Of course and unfortunately, the actual answer is that he hits the first pitch to Mookie Wilson in CF). You could calculate the expected outcome with the Log5 methodology, but that assumes that the hitter-pitcher interaction work like overall team strength, and it probably doesn't. It's possible that Buckner is so bad against LHR that he struggles nearly as bad against a mediocre one as he would against Orosco, and/or Orosco is so good that he holds the best LHB to nearly as bad a line as he holds Buckner. In fact, I would bet that there is some muting of the interaction; it is well-established that different players have different performance slopes relative to the quality of the opponent, and there seems to be some tendency for the best players to have flatter slopes. (One of the things that made Jeter good was that he hit good pitchers better than expected given how he hit bad ones, i.e., he was less dependent on opponent quality than average.) But how much the interaction between an Orosco type and a Buckner type is muted, on average, I wouldn't want to guess. I was pretty annoyed about that in 1986 and I'm still pretty annoyed about that nearly 30 years later. They had Baylor available to pinch hit, and Stapleton ready to play defense and Roger McDowell had already been in the game! That manager the Sox had was really a blockhead. I hear all the criticism re: Farrell and all I can say is that these people don't have a clear memory of how bad John McNamara was (he batted Ed Romero 3rd because he was too lazy to shift the lineup when Boggs who should have led off was unable to play). True story which I've probably told too often: During the commercial break while they were changing pitchers, my Dad and I had this conversation: John McNamara was the stupidest manager either one of us had ever seen, but there was no manager in the history of baseball so stupid as to not pinch-hit Baylor for Buckner. Note that he could and should have started Baylor at 1B against Ojeda (check out the platoon splits of the three players involved and recall that Baylor had started 13 games for the Sox that year and was probably the better fielder at that point, too.) IOW, if there had been no DH in the AL, the two would have platooned all year ... it was as if he had literally given zero thought as to how the absence of a DH in the NL park might affect the game. But wait, there's more. Buckner had -0.8 WAR in 1983 and 1.4 WAR in 1985. At ages 33 through 35, he had averaged 0.7 WAR per 150 games over his previous three seasons. And he was probably significantly worse, because his defensive ranking was +0, using a metric based on assists and assuming that you only threw the ball to the pitcher if you weren't close enough to the bag to get there yourself. (If you're too young, Buckner always threw the ball to the pitcher because his ankle was so bad.) He had probably been a replacement level player the last three years. So why was this guy even on the 1986 team? This is not a second guess; even though WAR hadn't been invented, I knew he was awful; he'd been last or next to last among MLB 1B in RC/27 the last two years and obviously couldn't field, either. And they brought him back. After I'd spent all winter praying that they'd dump him. (For the second year in a row!) My anger was never directed at Buckner but at the GM who thought he was good and, even more so, the manager who kept him in the lineup. At the moment Buckner flied out, I became, for the first time in my life, the stereotypical defeatist Sox fan. I can still hear the precise tone with which I said these words: "They'll lose this game. They'll lose this game. And you know how they'll lose this game? {I think of the most obvious, absurd and pathetic way that it could end up being Buckner's fault} Someone'll hit a ground ball right through Buckner's legs!" People say, oh, Buckner had an unfair rap, he was a good player who made the one error. No, he was terrible. He hit .188 / .212 / .188 for the series, and had either 0 or 1 hits with RISP. Hitting 3rd! A few months later I made up this joke: Q: How many John McNamaras does it take to change a light bulb? A: Well, we're not going to change the light bulb. It got us this far, so we're just going to stick with it. Compared to John McNamara, John Farrell is Noam Chomsky. |
|
|
|
Post by jimed14 on Dec 13, 2015 12:54:11 GMT -5
I was pretty annoyed about that in 1986 and I'm still pretty annoyed about that nearly 30 years later. They had Baylor available to pinch hit, and Stapleton ready to play defense and Roger McDowell had already been in the game! That manager the Sox had was really a blockhead. I hear all the criticism re: Farrell and all I can say is that these people don't have a clear memory of how bad John McNamara was (he batted Ed Romero 3rd because he was too lazy to shift the lineup when Boggs who should have led off was unable to play). True story which I've probably told too often: During the commercial break while they were changing pitchers, my Dad and I had this conversation: John McNamara was the stupidest manager either one of us had ever seen, but there was no manager in the history of baseball so stupid as to not pinch-hit Baylor for Buckner. Note that he could and should have started Baylor at 1B against Ojeda (check out the platoon splits of the three players involved and recall that Baylor had started 13 games for the Sox that year and was probably the better fielder at that point, too.) IOW, if there had been no DH in the AL, the two would have platooned all year ... it was as if he had literally given zero thought as to how the absence of a DH in the NL park might affect the game. But wait, there's more. Buckner had -0.8 WAR in 1983 and 1.4 WAR in 1985. At ages 33 through 35, he had averaged 0.7 WAR per 150 games over his previous three seasons. And he was probably significantly worse, because his defensive ranking was +0, using a metric based on assists and assuming that you only threw the ball to the pitcher if you weren't close enough to the bag to get there yourself. (If you're too young, Buckner always threw the ball to the pitcher because his ankle was so bad.) He had probably been a replacement level player the last three years. So why was this guy even on the 1986 team? This is not a second guess; even though WAR hadn't been invented, I knew he was awful; he'd been last or next to last among MLB 1B in RC/27 the last two years and obviously couldn't field, either. And they brought him back. After I'd spent all winter praying that they'd dump him. (For the second year in a row!) My anger was never directed at Buckner but at the GM who thought he was good and, even more so, the manager who kept him in the lineup. At the moment Buckner flied out, I became, for the first time in my life, the stereotypical defeatist Sox fan. I can still hear the precise tone with which I said these words: "They'll lose this game. They'll lose this game. And you know how they'll lose this game? {I think of the most obvious, absurd and pathetic way that it could end up being Buckner's fault} Someone'll hit a ground ball right through Buckner's legs!"People say, oh, Buckner had an unfair rap, he was a good player who made the one error. No, he was terrible. He hit .188 / .212 / .188 for the series, and had either 0 or 1 hits with RISP. Hitting 3rd! A few months later I made up this joke: Q: How many John McNamaras does it take to change a light bulb? A: Well, we're not going to change the light bulb. It got us this far, so we're just going to stick with it. Compared to John McNamara, John Farrell is Noam Chomsky. That reminds me of when I lived in Philadelphia in 1993. I watched a ton of Phillies games and said in July or so that they would lose the World Series with Mitch Williams on the mound. Worst closer ever. Just check out his stats. In 93, he had 43 saves with a walk rate of 6.39 BB/9 and 8.71 K/9. We both have more career fWAR than he does. I was 15 in 1986 and was screaming at the tv about Baylor and Stapleton. |
|
redsox04071318champs
Veteran
Always hoping to make my handle even longer...
Posts: 16,869
Member is Online
|
Post by redsox04071318champs on Dec 13, 2015 13:43:12 GMT -5
I was pretty annoyed about that in 1986 and I'm still pretty annoyed about that nearly 30 years later. They had Baylor available to pinch hit, and Stapleton ready to play defense and Roger McDowell had already been in the game! That manager the Sox had was really a blockhead. I hear all the criticism re: Farrell and all I can say is that these people don't have a clear memory of how bad John McNamara was (he batted Ed Romero 3rd because he was too lazy to shift the lineup when Boggs who should have led off was unable to play). True story which I've probably told too often: During the commercial break while they were changing pitchers, my Dad and I had this conversation: John McNamara was the stupidest manager either one of us had ever seen, but there was no manager in the history of baseball so stupid as to not pinch-hit Baylor for Buckner. Note that he could and should have started Baylor at 1B against Ojeda (check out the platoon splits of the three players involved and recall that Baylor had started 13 games for the Sox that year and was probably the better fielder at that point, too.) IOW, if there had been no DH in the AL, the two would have platooned all year ... it was as if he had literally given zero thought as to how the absence of a DH in the NL park might affect the game. But wait, there's more. Buckner had -0.8 WAR in 1983 and 1.4 WAR in 1985. At ages 33 through 35, he had averaged 0.7 WAR per 150 games over his previous three seasons. And he was probably significantly worse, because his defensive ranking was +0, using a metric based on assists and assuming that you only threw the ball to the pitcher if you weren't close enough to the bag to get there yourself. (If you're too young, Buckner always threw the ball to the pitcher because his ankle was so bad.) He had probably been a replacement level player the last three years. So why was this guy even on the 1986 team? This is not a second guess; even though WAR hadn't been invented, I knew he was awful; he'd been last or next to last among MLB 1B in RC/27 the last two years and obviously couldn't field, either. And they brought him back. After I'd spent all winter praying that they'd dump him. (For the second year in a row!) My anger was never directed at Buckner but at the GM who thought he was good and, even more so, the manager who kept him in the lineup. At the moment Buckner flied out, I became, for the first time in my life, the stereotypical defeatist Sox fan. I can still hear the precise tone with which I said these words: "They'll lose this game. They'll lose this game. And you know how they'll lose this game? {I think of the most obvious, absurd and pathetic way that it could end up being Buckner's fault} Someone'll hit a ground ball right through Buckner's legs!" People say, oh, Buckner had an unfair rap, he was a good player who made the one error. No, he was terrible. He hit .188 / .212 / .188 for the series, and had either 0 or 1 hits with RISP. Hitting 3rd! A few months later I made up this joke: Q: How many John McNamaras does it take to change a light bulb? A: Well, we're not going to change the light bulb. It got us this far, so we're just going to stick with it. Compared to John McNamara, John Farrell is Noam Chomsky. Unfortunately, in Game 7 Jesse Orosco did face Don Baylor pinchhitting in a crucial situation, and Orosco got him to ground out to SS to end the Sox last chance to tie or win in the 8th. You might recall the Sox had closed to within 6-5 with the tying run on with no outs in the top of the 8th but Orosco relieved McDowell and got Gedman to line out to 2b, struck out Henderson, and then got Baylor out. To show how stupid he was Davey Johnson let Orosco face Baylor in that situation. The pitcher's spot was on deck, and the Sox options came to Dave Stapleton, Ed Romero, and Marc Sullivan. I can understand the value of not having Boggs lead off the 9th inning, but if Baylor would have launched one against Orosco, Johnson might have gotten canned. Instead, Baylor got his big hit a year later with the Twins and got his ring. That 1986 Series wasn't exactly managed by two rocket scientists. And yes, Bill Buckner got me into sabermetrics except as a kid I didn't know it yet. I couldn't figure out why when I looked at my adjusted version of OBP plus SA that Gary Redus came out so high and Buckner scored so low when all the experts said how great a player Bill Buckner was. |
|
jimoh
Veteran
Posts: 4,203 
|
Post by jimoh on Dec 13, 2015 14:17:10 GMT -5
From Aug 6 to Sep 27, 1986, Bill Buckner hit .344/.394/.546/.941 and (less importantly) had 43 rbi in 45 games (great team stat).
I always wanted to bump into him in a bar, say "I remember what you did in 86," have him scowl at me, then say "you drove in 43 runs in 45 games in August and September, and there never would have been a sixth game without you."
Yes, the choices in the post-season were crazy. But they partly sprang from a "Dance with the one that brung you" philosophy.
|
|
redsox04071318champs
Veteran
Always hoping to make my handle even longer...
Posts: 16,869
Member is Online
|
Post by redsox04071318champs on Dec 13, 2015 15:00:42 GMT -5
From Aug 6 to Sep 27, 1986, Bill Buckner hit .344/.394/.546/.941 and (less importantly) had 43 rbi in 45 games (great team stat). I always wanted to bump into him in a bar, say "I remember what you did in 86," have him scowl at me, then say "you drove in 43 runs in 45 games in August and September, and there never would have been a sixth game without you." Yes, the choices in the post-season were crazy. But they partly sprang from a "Dance with the one that brung you" philosophy. I remember how poorly Buckner played into August. Down in AAA, Pat Dodson was having a really good year. Then Buckner starting hitting HRs in September when the Sox were pulling away with that 11 game winning streak they had. I remember how much in fear McNamara was of that bullpen. Schiraldi was given a chance in August and was a godsend, but got pretty nervous in those big games, like when he hit Downing in Game 4 of the ALCS, and then he just stopped getting guys out just 1 out away. I always felt McNamara blew the 7th game in that he took Hurst out too soon, and I always felt Clemens should have been in that game, and in the we'll never know category - I wish he had been the kind of guy who would be able to reach Oil Can and refocus him away from his disappointment of not starting and focus him on his importance of coming out of the bullpen. Hurst, Oil Can, and Clemens might have had a chance in Game 7. Schiraldi, Stanley, Sambito, Crawford, and Nipper didn't have a prayer (and of course he wouldn't use Sammy Stewart or Tim Lollar, although nobody in their right mind would have used Tim Lollar either). |
|
|
|
Post by sox fan in nc on Dec 14, 2015 10:05:46 GMT -5
I would hope that this 2016 BP gets us to a world series like the 1986 BP did.
|
|
redsox04071318champs
Veteran
Always hoping to make my handle even longer...
Posts: 16,869
Member is Online
|
Post by redsox04071318champs on Dec 14, 2015 12:56:37 GMT -5
I would hope that this 2016 BP gets us to a world series like the 1986 BP did. I'd say the 1986 BP damaged the Sox much more than it helped them. They got to the Series because they had an awesome offense plus Clemens was totally dominating, and Hurst and Boyd were big contributors as well and Seaver helped out in the second half. The bullpen was a mess. Stanley was always a disaster waiting to happen. Sambito got off to a good start and was terrible afterwards. Crawford helped at times but was hurt a lot. Stewart got off to a good start, got hurt, and fell out of favor with McNamara for behavorial issues. Tim Lollar was a human torch. That was their pen. Schiraldi came on in early August and was the savior they needed but he crumbled at the end, too. If the BP had been any good in 86 the Sox would have been champs. I hope the 2016 BP is nothign like the 86 pen which sabotaged the Sox championship dreams. |
|
|
