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8/5-8/7 Red Sox vs. Royals Series Thread
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Post by redsoxfan2 on Aug 7, 2019 10:15:35 GMT -5
The way I look at sabermetrics isn't gospel of performance. What I mean by that is, an 88 mph HR is still a HR. Where sabermetrics come into play is the likelihood of that happening again. If you give up 4 runs on bloop hits you still had a bad night. You gave up 4 runs. It's just encouraging in predicting future success that 4 runs on bloop hits isn't likely. Some people only look at RBI and BA while others will say a guy had a good night despite giving up 3 HR because the exit velocity wasn't there and they were the only 3 hits allowed. Literally no one ever suggested it wasn't. Also, "sabermetrics" predates statcast numbers by like forty years.... No one suggested it wasn't, but it does irk me a bit when a guy gives up 4 runs in 5 innings and stats get used to say it wasn't a bad game. It was, but it's likely not to continue if the peripherals are the same.
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Post by redsoxfan2 on Aug 7, 2019 10:19:32 GMT -5
The way I look at sabermetrics isn't gospel of performance. What I mean by that is, an 88 mph HR is still a HR. Where sabermetrics come into play is the likelihood of that happening again. If you give up 4 runs on bloop hits you still had a bad night. You gave up 4 runs. It's just encouraging in predicting future success that 4 runs on bloop hits isn't likely. Some people only look at RBI and BA while others will say a guy had a good night despite giving up 3 HR because the exit velocity wasn't there and they were the only 3 hits allowed. Yeah, it’s all just information. I mean, BA has *some* value as a statistic, provided it’s used in proper context. Old-school looked at BA as a measure of how good a hitter was, essentially *productivity*, but it’s pretty terrible for that. Same with HR. Or RBI (even more terrible because it’s so dependent on external factors). “SLG” provides a lot more info because it folds in not just HR, but xBH. And OBP folds in walks, which are nearly (but not quite) as valuable as singles. And OPS sort of folds it all together (although it still overweights BA, since it’s included in the weighting twice, for each OBP and SLG). And wRC+ goes a couple of steps further by folding all of that together while removing the BA overrepresentation, coming up with a value for run production (runs created), then weighting it by park factors and normalizing it to league average. wRC+ is an actual measurement of production where old school surrogates like BA, HR, and RBI totally fail. ERA isn’t very predictive, but it IS fairly representative of performance results. But there are issues there, too...hence the value of SIERA (and FIP, although FIP is flawed in its own way as far as being an end-all indicator of pitching performance). I don’t have an issue with talking about any stat as long as it’s in proper context. And most of them don’t really require in-depth explanations...FIP can be described as “fielding independent pitching...it’s a calculation similar to ERA that looks at how well a pitcher has done when he’s not relying on his fielders.” WAR too can be described in a similar way. I get that these numbers feel convoluted to many, because the calculations aren’t simple (FIP is intentionally manipulated with constants to make it LOOK like ERA). But the fundamental ideas are simple. I DO think there’s a bit much emphasis on Statcast metrics these days mostly because they’re new, but they too add information. The job of announcers is to put that information into appropriate and entertaining context. The dumber, more inflexible ones can’t do that, and it leads to shitty broadcasting as they resist or flail. I agree that it would be nice to have a broadcast guy that knows and understands these terms and can break it down in game. Perhaps find a color guy to pair with that only talks about the easy to follow stats for the casual fan so they're not completely lost in the shuffle and can feel like they understand what's going on.
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Post by soxfansince67 on Aug 7, 2019 10:22:23 GMT -5
To each their own, thank goodness. Some of us actually enjoy just watching the game, seeing it unfold, and coming to conclusions based on what we see. When we start considering team and individual records based purely on stats ("this is the worst team, but stats tell us they are actually the best..") count me out.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Aug 7, 2019 10:27:08 GMT -5
There's quite a gap between discussing the difference between fWAR and bWAR or bringing it to an Eric Van level of discussion and understanding that OBP is far more important than BA or that wRC+ or even OPS is more important than the number of home runs. I bet none of them understand that Puig is a below average MLB hitter even with 22 HR this season. I doubt they know that Roughned Odor is barely replacement level with 20 HR. They were gushing about Soler last night because of his 31 home runs(far more than anyone on the Red Sox), but he'd be the 5th best hitter and 8th best player in the Red Sox lineup. Bet they don't understand that either. That's the thing, I'm all for broadcasts being about story, narrative, anecdote, etc... but if you can't get basic things right, like which players are actually good right now, your stories are going to be just flat wrong in a way that's obvious to a large percentage of the audience.
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jimoh
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Posts: 3,962
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Post by jimoh on Aug 7, 2019 10:53:38 GMT -5
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Post by manfred on Aug 7, 2019 10:58:20 GMT -5
I was wondering that. I noticed a lot of rookies around the league without nicknames. Maybe they just haven’t been around the guys long enough to gave one stick. Chavis has been Chief for a long time.
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Post by James Dunne on Aug 7, 2019 11:00:11 GMT -5
Yeah, I think the names were submitted in Spring Training so he may just never have gotten one. Hernandez was on the 40-man, though. I dunno.
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Post by incandenza on Aug 7, 2019 11:30:11 GMT -5
I wish Betts went with "Marcus" for this.
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Post by incandenza on Aug 7, 2019 11:43:47 GMT -5
Yeah, it’s all just information. I mean, BA has *some* value as a statistic, provided it’s used in proper context. Old-school looked at BA as a measure of how good a hitter was, essentially *productivity*, but it’s pretty terrible for that. Same with HR. Or RBI (even more terrible because it’s so dependent on external factors). “SLG” provides a lot more info because it folds in not just HR, but xBH. And OBP folds in walks, which are nearly (but not quite) as valuable as singles. And OPS sort of folds it all together (although it still overweights BA, since it’s included in the weighting twice, for each OBP and SLG). And wRC+ goes a couple of steps further by folding all of that together while removing the BA overrepresentation, coming up with a value for run production (runs created), then weighting it by park factors and normalizing it to league average. wRC+ is an actual measurement of production where old school surrogates like BA, HR, and RBI totally fail. ERA isn’t very predictive, but it IS fairly representative of performance results. But there are issues there, too...hence the value of SIERA (and FIP, although FIP is flawed in its own way as far as being an end-all indicator of pitching performance). I don’t have an issue with talking about any stat as long as it’s in proper context. And most of them don’t really require in-depth explanations...FIP can be described as “fielding independent pitching...it’s a calculation similar to ERA that looks at how well a pitcher has done when he’s not relying on his fielders.” WAR too can be described in a similar way. I get that these numbers feel convoluted to many, because the calculations aren’t simple (FIP is intentionally manipulated with constants to make it LOOK like ERA). But the fundamental ideas are simple. I DO think there’s a bit much emphasis on Statcast metrics these days mostly because they’re new, but they too add information. The job of announcers is to put that information into appropriate and entertaining context. The dumber, more inflexible ones can’t do that, and it leads to shitty broadcasting as they resist or flail. I agree that it would be nice to have a broadcast guy that knows and understands these terms and can break it down in game. Perhaps find a color guy to pair with that only talks about the easy to follow stats for the casual fan so they're not completely lost in the shuffle and can feel like they understand what's going on. See, I think it's a false dichotomy between 'doesn't know the advanced stats' and 'blathers in alphabet soup acronyms all game long.' There's a lot to be said for the announcer just being informed by the advanced stats. Bad announcing: "Shortstop X is bad defensively - he's made 17 errors." Also bad announcing: "UZR has Shortstop X at -2.1 but newfangled metric Y has him at +3.0 FLOrPS, suggesting average defense overall. Errors are dumb and you are dumb if you care about them." Good announcing: [knowing advanced stats] "Shortstop X has made a lot of errors, but partly it's because he's got great range so he gets to a lot of balls that other guys don't get to, so he's better than the number of errors would lead you to believe." Again, if you want to hear this done well, watch a White Sox broadcast some time (and I'm sure there are other good ones).
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Post by a2sox on Aug 7, 2019 11:52:48 GMT -5
Cashner just isn't very good. This is just what baseball is now. If they don't fix the baseball I won't be watching many more years. It's garbage. Every bad pitch- is a home run and every great pitch can also be a home run. It doesn't even matter who the pitcher is. Given that Sox pitchers are worse than average this year, the argument here must be that Sox pitchers are disproportionately affected by the new baseballs, right? Are there some reasons why that might be the case? For example, Porcello and Sale (recently at least) are both getting hammered, but they have pretty different pitching profiles.
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gerry
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Post by gerry on Aug 7, 2019 12:17:48 GMT -5
I was wondering that. I noticed a lot of rookies around the league without nicknames. Maybe they just haven’t been around the guys long enough to gave one stick. Chavis has been Chief for a long time. Conflicted. As much as I like Chavis, and am inspired by how he keeps improving as a rookie (with too few miLB games) while doing well at two new positions, Robert Parish will always be Chief in my mind.
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Post by James Dunne on Aug 7, 2019 12:40:40 GMT -5
Anyone here who is medically inclined with insight as to what a "knee joint preservation procedure" is?
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Post by Don Caballero on Aug 7, 2019 13:48:34 GMT -5
Anyone here who is medically inclined with insight as to what a "knee joint preservation procedure" is? Isn't that a Funkadelic song?
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Post by huskies15 on Aug 7, 2019 14:19:04 GMT -5
On the announcing and weaving in stats to paint the whole picture, Alex Speier is always a great addition to the booth when he's there for an inning. He seems to be able to mix in some more advanced number discussion without taking away from the game at hand.
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Post by geostorm on Aug 7, 2019 14:23:40 GMT -5
not certain where to post this, but based on Alex Speier's recent exchange involving Chief of Sports Medicine at Tufts, this means "retirement", for Pedroia, or, seems so?
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Post by Smittyw on Aug 7, 2019 14:30:37 GMT -5
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Post by redsoxfan2 on Aug 7, 2019 14:47:41 GMT -5
Interesting question, when was the last time either a 200 million team (or the highest paid team in baseball) lost 8 in a row? What's the record?
I feel like this team just did something historically awful and it's not being appreciated.
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Post by soxfansince67 on Aug 7, 2019 15:14:50 GMT -5
538.com analysis of this year's team as it stands - The Red Sox Were The Toast Of Baseball Last Year. Now They’re Just Toast. fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-red-sox-were-the-toast-of-baseball-last-year-now-theyre-just-toast/One key paragraph Collectively, the Red Sox have not played to the sum of their parts, either in terms of their talent or their ability to convert personal statistics into victories. The negative gap between the record we would predict from Boston’s WAR (65-51) and its actual mark (60-56) is tied with that of the Kansas City Royals for the third-largest in baseball. Red Sox hitters have the fifth-worst “clutch” score in the league, according to FanGraphs, and their pitchers are sixth-worst — including dead last among starters.
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Post by jimed14 on Aug 7, 2019 15:39:49 GMT -5
This is just what baseball is now. If they don't fix the baseball I won't be watching many more years. It's garbage. Every bad pitch- is a home run and every great pitch can also be a home run. It doesn't even matter who the pitcher is. Given that Sox pitchers are worse than average this year, the argument here must be that Sox pitchers are disproportionately affected by the new baseballs, right? Are there some reasons why that might be the case? For example, Porcello and Sale (recently at least) are both getting hammered, but they have pretty different pitching profiles. I think HR suppression is almost completely random now and it's the main thing that matters. When any batter can hit any pitch for a HR no matter who the batter or pitcher is and no matter how good or bad the pitch was, what else can it be?
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Post by a2sox on Aug 7, 2019 16:23:52 GMT -5
Given that Sox pitchers are worse than average this year, the argument here must be that Sox pitchers are disproportionately affected by the new baseballs, right? Are there some reasons why that might be the case? For example, Porcello and Sale (recently at least) are both getting hammered, but they have pretty different pitching profiles. I think HR suppression is almost completely random now and it's the main thing that matters. When any batter can hit any pitch for a HR no matter who the batter or pitcher is and no matter how good or bad the pitch was, what else can it be? I don't know. It'd be nice to see (and maybe it exists) a deep dive on the impact of the new baseballs on different pitchers. Chris Sale's HR/FB rates are insane this year (19.6%). That's 70th out of 74 qualified pitchers. Last year, out of starters with at least 130 IP, Sale was ranked 10th in HR/FB at 9.3%. Porcello's HR/FB has actually dropped year over year (2018 = 13.8%, 2019 = 12.8%).
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Post by jimed14 on Aug 7, 2019 16:31:42 GMT -5
I think HR suppression is almost completely random now and it's the main thing that matters. When any batter can hit any pitch for a HR no matter who the batter or pitcher is and no matter how good or bad the pitch was, what else can it be? I don't know. It'd be nice to see (and maybe it exists) a deep dive on the impact of the new baseballs on different pitchers. Chris Sale's HR/FB rates are insane this year (19.6%). That's 70th out of 74 qualified pitchers. Last year, out of starters with at least 130 IP, Sale was ranked 10th in HR/FB at 9.3%. Porcello's HR/FB has actually dropped year over year (2018 = 13.8%, 2019 = 12.8%). I've seen too many great pitches that get for home runs this year, even by guys who haven't hit home runs before. I know some on this site like to believe that every home run is a bad pitch and every bad pitch deserves to be a home run and every out or swing and miss is a good pitch, but that's not how it has ever worked. There was always a huge variance between how well a pitcher pitches and how well the batters facing him perform and with this juiced ball, that variance seems to be bigger than ever. We're seeing the equivalent of Texas Leaguer home runs now along with the bloop hits. And even then, you'll still get someone like Sam Travis hitting 430 foot home runs when he probably never even did that in batting practice before now.
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Post by jerrygarciaparra on Aug 7, 2019 18:24:10 GMT -5
Come on ERod...!! GDmit !!! Get it together...what the hell is his deal ?
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Post by jerrygarciaparra on Aug 7, 2019 18:51:35 GMT -5
I am no longer worried about Benny. He is looking good again out there.
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Post by jerrygarciaparra on Aug 7, 2019 19:09:34 GMT -5
Good God....this team really isn't playing good baseball.
Add: this is really upsetting. I try to stay positive, but EROD is junk. Trade him this offseason.
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Post by kjkramer on Aug 7, 2019 19:10:08 GMT -5
Can we just let the season end please
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