OV Pic of the Day: Byrd =/= Wyrd

[quote name=JMan]So essentially Jackson is Soriano but with a little less power, better defense and the ability to take a walk.[/quote]
You can’t do that. Comps must be the same race.

Stupid Byrd.

Pablo Sandoval did the same thing to Jimmy Rollins yesterday. Jimmy just jumped over him.

[quote name=Aisle424]He slid a bit late, but he stayed down, and wasn’t obviously not even attempting to reach the base. Plus he didn’t spike or elbow the fielder, so I don’t put this in the Holliday category.[/quote]
I don’t either, but it annoys me that plays like this are considered “clean”. When the umpire was emphatically signaling an out I thought it was because they were giving the Reds the double play due to interference.

I don’t have a problem with a good hard clean slide that is meant to disrupt a play. Holliday was trying to injure Castro. There is a big difference.

Does anyone have a video of castros homer yesterday?

[quote name=Berselius]http://chicago.cubs.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=17754041&c_id=chc[/quote]Thanks B

looked for it today and couldnt find it., I really think he will hit 15 or 20 homers one year

I hope Aroldis Chapman gets tried as a starter someday. I’d rather see him get a chance to become the next Randy Johnson than the next Billy Wagner (not that there’s anything wrong with Wagner).

Player of the Week is kind of silly (small sample sizes and such), but I’m happy for him, anyway.

It just occurred to me that Cassie’s PoW doesn’t even include yesterday’s 2-5 with a HR (though he hit a homer last week, too).

[quote name=ACT]I hope Aroldis Chapman gets tried as a starter someday. I’d rather see him get a chance to become the next Randy Johnson than the next Billy Wagner (not that there’s anything wrong with Wagner).[/quote]I agree. I thought this was the plan all along. Seems like a waste of his talent to just use him as a closer.

[quote name=Berselius]Here are some screencaps of that Campana slide I was bitching about yesterday

[/quote]
Wow, he was almost perpendicular to the basepath. That’s a pretty good take-out slide for a midget.

[quote name=bubblesdachimp]For one of you stat fags whow many WAR would castro be worth this year with even mildly solid defense.[/quote]His defense was 5 pts better last year and his WAR was 2.1. This year it’s 2.4 with a -7 compared to a -2

[quote name=bubblesdachimp]Does anyone have a video of castros homer yesterday?[/quote]
Cubs.com does.

http://chicago.cubs.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=17754041&c_id=chc

[quote name=Rice Cube]I don’t think he was trying to injure Castro but he went down way late and thus made the play look a lot dirtier (I’m not really an expert on dirtiness though). I note that both Campana and Holliday seem to have overslid the bag. Holliday with the wider wingspan would’ve been able to slide further out and still reach the bag. Campana stayed pretty much within the basepaths. I would consider it a judgment call, but regardless I think that was a pretty sweet slide by Campana. I also think Holliday could’ve done without the elbow to the chest and the spikes up, but I felt like that was a function of him being taller than Campana and also sliding late. It’s not like he railroaded Castro like that Albert Belle incident (I forgot who the unfortunate MIF was on that play).

I’m almost certain that if Holliday had been the Cub and Castro had been the Cardinal, Holliday would’ve been cheered by Cubs fans for a good hard slide while the Cards would’ve cried bloody murder.[/quote]And he would have been plunked by TLR.

Literally, La Russa would have thrown the pitch himself.

[quote name=Rice Cube]
I’m almost certain that if Holliday had been the Cub and Castro had been the Cardinal, Holliday would’ve been cheered by Cubs fans for a good hard slide while the Cards would’ve cried bloody murder.[/quote]
I’m sure that is true. However, without being able to know exactly what was in Holliday’s mind at the time, his actions were those of someone seeming to go out of his way to injure someone as a means to stop the pivot.

Campana went over the top of the bag for Christ’s sake. The guy just stood there. Of course he got hit.

b-ref’s WAR is similar: add up the columns before RAR and divide by some factor (changes every year) to get WAR.

Last year it made sense, as Marshall was the least impressive starter behind several good candidates, but this year it makes no sense to keep him as a late inning guy, I don’t think.

[quote name=josh]Last year it made sense, as Marshall was the least impressive starter behind several good candidates, but this year it makes no sense to keep him as a late inning guy, I don’t think.[/quote]
They might as well give it a shot, but it seems to me that the Cubs are looking to add more starter pitching after this season so Marshall might not get that shot.

The word missing in the first sentence is “was.”

[quote name=Rice Cube]Yeah, I wasn’t talking about you specifically. I am pretty sure there were plays similar to Campana’s and Holliday’s where the MIF actually got seriously injured and they were still considered “clean”. I’m not sure if the slide that injured Nishioka was considered clean or not but the guy was out for a couple months with a broken leg.

Sometimes it seems to me that “clean” is if the player is upended but not seriously injured, but “dirty” pretty much describes any play where someone breaks something even if it looks similar to a play that would otherwise be “clean”.[/quote]Nishioka, similar to (whoever that Reds player is), didn’t jump out of the way.

If they can get CC or somebody like that, then Marsh will probably stay in the BP. Is Dempster’s contract up at the end of the year?

I think shark has been alright this year.. I mean he has had some bad games buyt i trust him more than wood right now

i cant see the yankees not resigning CC..

I know he will opt out but he is worth so much $$ i dont think wee have a chance

In response to the earlier conversation about Castro- in defensive WAR, Fangraphs has Ryan Theriot at -8.4 for 2011, with Castro at -7.1 So, obviously there’s a difference of 1.3 WAR there, but that seems really hard to believe for me.

I think we were all pretty amazed how Castro was able to reach balls that Theriot never had a chance in hell at. I know I certainly was. At the risk of this turning into another redundant scouting versus advanced metrics debate, I have an extremely hard time believing Castro was almost as bad as Theriot in the field. It just doesn’t seem believable to me. Obviously this is why we have advanced metrics- to make up for the discrepancies of our eyes, and I can accept my eyes have been wrong previously, but suggesting Castro is THAT bad in the field is very hard for me to believe based on what I’ve seen him do in the field.

[quote name=josh]Nishioka, similar to (whoever that Reds player is), didn’t jump out of the way.[/quote]
It’s a white-ish guy so I think it was Janish. Campana’s slide was such that Janish had to jump over him because he wouldn’t have been able to sidestep, at least I don’t think so.

I’m almost certain that if Holliday had been the Cub and Castro had been the Cardinal, Holliday would’ve been cheered by Cubs fans for a good hard slide while the Cards would’ve cried bloody murder.

Not only that, but I think if Ryan Theriot was the shortstop Cubs fans, on average, would have cared less about it.

My question is this: how often have players been seriously injured after such plays? I see these guys slide hard and try their best to take the infielder out all the time and I honestly can’t even remember one of them having to leave the game. I’d say it has less of a chance of injury than there is of a collision at 1st base where the baserunner is running as fast as he can and serious injury could happen quite easily.

[quote name=josh]Last year it made sense, as Marshall was the least impressive starter behind several good candidates, but this year it makes no sense to keep him as a late inning guy, I don’t think.[/quote]I’d let him finish the year as a reliever at this point and then stretch him out later. It wouldn’t be the first time a mediocre young starter turned into a lights-out reliever and then went back to the rotation and was much improved. Justin Duchscherer, Ryan Dempster, CJ Wilson….

[quote name=The Wreckard]I’d let him finish the year as a reliever at this point and then stretch him out later. It wouldn’t be the first time a mediocre young starter turned into a lights-out reliever and then went back to the rotation and was much improved. Justin Duchscherer, Ryan Dempster, CJ Wilson….[/quote]Kind of what I was thinking as well.

Nishioka is the only guy I can remember getting seriously hurt on a slide. He didn’t jump at all. The guy slid wide and long, something like Campana, and nailed Nishioka in the leg, busting it.

I’d be shocked if some pro org doesn’t have a scout-based system like FSR in place.

[quote name=Aisle424]I don’t understand how the ratings are calculated, but I would bet money on the fact that Theriot’s range blew and Castro has a tendency to do ill-advised things with the baseball once he has it.

Theriot tended to make the routine plays. Castro makes the spectacular plays, and has more opportunities to do bad things with the baseball.[/quote]Yeah, most of Castro’s negatives come from errant throws, but he has good range. My hope is that it indicates a mental problem, where as he gains confidence, he’ll just let himself go like he does on the spectacular plays, and end up being good. On the other hand, a guy like Asdrubal Cabrera makes amazing plays, but screws up the easy ones, and he’s been doing it for years.

You know, Jeter gets regularly criticized for making easy plays look harder than they needed to be, but maybe treating every play like a spectacular play is how he is able to let his body take over and stop overthinking.

[quote name=Aisle424]I don’t understand how the ratings are calculated, but I would bet money on the fact that Theriot’s range blew and Castro has a tendency to do ill-advised things with the baseball once he has it.

Theriot tended to make the routine plays. Castro makes the spectacular plays, and has more opportunities to do bad things with the baseball.[/quote]
Yeah, I think it’s important to note that there are several aspects of fielding. Theriot’s range sucked compared to Castro’s, but Theriot also made the throws. Castro is inconsistent with his. Theriot didn’t have as much of a tendency to boot the easy ones.

in the end my guess is that neither of them are near what their UZR, DRS or whatever else says. They’re probably both closer to their projection. Theriot perhaps a bit worse considering his age and maybe the opposite for Castro.

Here’s the official rule that should apply to both Campana and Holliday

If, in the judgment of the umpire, a base runner willfully and deliberately interferes with a batted ball or a fielder in the act of fielding a batted ball with the obvious intent to break up a double play, the ball is dead. The umpire shall call the runner out for interference and also call out the batter-runner because of the action of his teammate. In no event may bases be run or runs scored because of such action by a runner.

It basically boils down to a judgement call by the umpire as to what counts as “willful and deliberate” interference. Players are taught to slide that way because the umpires don’t call it. I just wish that they did. It doesn’t get more obvious than those two plays.

[quote name=mb21]If I wanted a more accurate WAR for Castro I’d look at what his defensive projection was entering the season and use that. I’d probably regress it 50% to league average before I used it because he has so little playing time entering the season.[/quote]Is that a stats way of saying “just guess”?

[quote name=ZappBrannigan]When seasonal projections are created, do they incorporate past UZR performance into them? I wouldn’t even know where to start creating a seasonal projection for Castro at this point in his career.[/quote]
It depends on what forecasting system you’re using, or course. Most projection systems just do offensive numbers. BP includes whatever their current fielding system is. Actually all of the ones I can think of don’t use UZR. Typically it’s something that we tack on to the offensive projections here. I seem to recall using a UZR projection spreadsheet from BtB before the 2010 season.

[quote name=Berselius]That’s stats way of saying “small sample size”[/quote]That’s what she said…?

[quote name=ZappBrannigan]In response to the earlier conversation about Castro- in defensive WAR, Fangraphs has Ryan Theriot at -8.4 for 2011, with Castro at -7.1 So, obviously there’s a difference of 1.3 WAR there, but that seems really hard to believe for me.
[/quote]Correction: that’s a difference of 1.3 runs. In terms of WAR, it would be about .14. Theriot also hasn’t had as much playing time as Castro.

Here’s Castro’s wRAA (runs above average according to wWOBA) by month:

0.8
-5.1
7.9
2.3
-4.4
5.7
-.1
2.9
-4.9
6.6

Obviously players can be streaky on a monthly basis. I’m more concerned about seasonal WAR totals that incorporate wildly fluctuating defensive metrics. In the course of a season, I think we can both agree that the monthly inconsistencies give way to a more complete picture of a player, as they generally do offensively. The degree to which UZR ratings fluctuate seem to be on a far greater scale, on average, then do offensive ones, also, from year to year.

The problem is that 1 year of defense is a much smaller sample size than 1 year of offense. You can’t reason that defensive metrics should be as stable year-to-year as offensive ones.

[quote name=ACT]The problem is that 1 year of defense is a much smaller sample size than 1 year of offense. You can’t reason that defensive metrics should be as stable year-to-year as offensive ones.[/quote]
I don’t quite follow you here.

[quote name=ACT]Over the course of 1 year, a batter has hundreds of plate appearances. A defender has much fewer chances.[/quote]OK, that’s not quite right (not necessarily). But the chances are different. A shortstop might get lots of chances, but they’re mostly on routine plays. You need much more than 1 year of defensive stats to get data as reliable as 1 year of offensive stats.

[quote name=ACT]Over the course of 1 year, a batter has hundreds of plate appearances. A defender has much fewer chances.[/quote]
Right. I realize that is the case, and that is part of why I don’t trust UZR. I was merely suggesting that offensively numbers are better able to average out over the course of the season, which is why we can better trust yearly offesnive statistics to give us a more complete picture of a player then we can defensive ones.

[quote name=Rice Cube]http://mlb.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=15201747[/quote]Who was the pitcher? The Cubs have gone through so many, I can’t keep them all straight. Scott Maine? Is that a real person?

[quote name=josh]Who was the pitcher? The Cubs have gone through so many, I can’t keep them all straight. Scott Maine? Is that a real person?[/quote]
He’s real. He also kind of sucks, which makes him a true Cub.

Misleading headlines ftw:
NL’s leading hitter, Starlin sees work pay off

http://chicago.cubs.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20110807&content_id=22878766&notebook_id=22879228&vkey=notebook_chc&c_id=chc

[quote name=josh]Remember that one time when the Cubs actually produced good pitchers from their farm system? I miss those days.[/quote]
When was that?

[quote name=Aisle424]Sorry, I misread that as “good hitters” for some reason.[/quote]Right, yeah, I mean Maddox, Wood and Prior are really the only ones I can recall, so it’s not exactly that great any way you look at it.

[quote name=josh]Right, yeah, I mean Maddox, Wood and Prior are really the only ones I can recall, so it’s not exactly that great any way you look at it.[/quote]Zambrano

[quote name=ACT]Zambrano[/quote]Who?

[quote name=josh]Right, yeah, I mean Maddox, Wood and Prior are really the only ones I can recall, so it’s not exactly that great any way you look at it.[/quote]
Well, Zambrano. Plus Moyer. Trachsel was an average pitcher, who was better than what they are churning out now.

Farnsworth is still around, as is Juan Cruz as useful bullpen guys.

I didn’t think Farnsworth would last at all, but he’s done all right by himself.

The Giants and Padres pull a Tim Lincecum out of their asses every other year, it seems.

Wells’ career got off to a good start and then…

[quote name=ACT]Wells’ career got off to a good start and then…[/quote]He just doesn’t miss bats anymore. I don’t what the source of this problem might be, though.

[quote name=ZappBrannigan]Right. I realize that is the case, and that is part of why I don’t trust UZR. I was merely suggesting that offensively numbers are better able to average out over the course of the season, which is why we can better trust yearly offesnive statistics to give us a more complete picture of a player then we can defensive ones.[/quote]But if you’re getting into only accepting WAR using stats as reliable as hitting, what about pitchers? One season isn’t quite as reliable as one season of hitting. For a reliever it’s even less reliable than fielding. What about base running?

It sounds to me like you’re wanting to use true talent level, which if that’s the case, using seasonal wOBA or other batting metrics isn’t any good either. Especially for part-time players. The batting runs or wOBA a batter has over a season more than likely doesn’t reflect his true talent level. Reed Johnson isn’t as good a hitter as he’s ten this season.

The question you really want to ask is what type of WAR do you want? Do you want WAR that measures what happened on the field without regard for luck? I prefer that, which is why I’m reluctant now to use FIP in WAR. FIP doesn’t tell us what happened. It only tells us about 3 stats and ignores everything else.

The best way to deal with this, in my opinion, is to just accept that there’s a lot of variance in WAR because of the variance in all of the components used to calculate it. There’s a certain error for base running, defense and even batting. If you like, you can subtract the fielding and base running or just look at the batting runs. I’m pretty sure Fangraphs has that. If they don’t, you can get it by subtracting fielding and base running.

As for pitchers, I don’t know. FIP definitely doesn’t measure what happened. You might prefer rWAR because Rally uses run average and then subtracts team defense. If a team is -10 and some guy was on the mound for 200 innings out of the 1450 they threw, then 13.8% of the fielding is subtracted for that pitcher (that’s the percentage of the total innings the pitcher threw). If you believe defense doesn’t slump, this is the way to go. If you want to incorporate batted balls, you can get rid of FIP and add in tRA or SIERA. Still not a measure of what happened, but it might be better than FIP. I don’t know though.

[quote name=ACT]There has to be a better way of wording that…[/quote]I blame my frustration-tinged pseuduaphed-head sickness.

[quote name=josh]I blame my frustration-tinged pseuduaphed-head sickness.[/quote]I thought the inclusion of the article “a” salvaged the statement. It makes it clear that I’m genericizing Tim Lincecum as a concept of really good pitcher. Plus, maybe it’s just the medicine, but I thought it was funny.