Got the Baseball Prospectus Annual, and their quixotic quest to move Chipper off of third base continues, both in the introductory Braves article and in their entry on Chipper. If they’d just left it at moving to first base, I’d leave it alone, but no, they’re talking left field as well. I will reiterate. Dear BP:
1. Chipper doesn’t like playing left field.
2. He also got hurt playing left field, after years of being an ironman playing third base.
3. With Johnson, Langerhans, and Francoeur in the outfield corners and several outfield prospects in the low minors, there’s little call for another left fielder.
4. There is something wrong with your stats that consistently causes Braves third basemen, whoever they are, to rate as far below average. Vinny Castilla, an excellent third baseman everywhere else, rated below average with the Braves. Last year, you rate Betemit lower per game at third than Chipper. I’ve written about this several times with no response. It’s possible that the Braves have terrible third base defense on a consistent basis, but it’s far more likely it’s a statistical illusion. However, you appear unwilling to accept the possibility that your stats are faulty.
Well, at least they’re being original this year. 😉
Speaking of the BPro-ers – this cracked me up a little more than I would have expected…
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=4831
I finally got the annual last night and I like it a lot better this year. They are forecasting RBI, W, L and SV now (which they should have always done, despite their whining about how RBIs are opportunistic – so is every counting stat, you maroons) which I like as a fantasy baseball player. Also, I find the player comments to be funnier and less snarky than in previous years.
I have actually learned a couple of things that I didn’t know but suspected… Reitsma’s ERA coming off a day of rest (2.44) was half of what it was coming off of a workday (4.87). Again, he is miscast in any traditional relief role and either needs to be a starter or used as a long reliever or some other specialist role, because you can’t use him to close or set up.
And Danny threw a fastball 96 percent of the time to lefties and 93 percent to righties. This explains an awful lot.
No Elvis Andrus mention, even with those little squibs at the end of the section (which are a good addition).
He’s also miscast pitching to one time Brewers A-ball farmhands who washed out of American baseball years ago.
no offense,but it takes a special kind of nerd to write a lengthy rotto-league inspited parody of The Raven.
Who do they want to play 3B now that Marte is gone and Betemit is worse at third than Chipper?
DD,
Very true!
They really like Eric Campbell, but he’s about 3 years away, so good question skip.
If Chipper should still be at left field they never would have traded Marte. I don’t know how much you can trust those Baseball Prospectus books anyway if they are saying that Vinny was a below average fielder here. They also said last year they didn’t think much of Kyle Davies even after two strong years in the minors, and thought a lot more of Jake Stevens, who struggled (at Myrtle Beach no less). And how does it come across when you say RBIs and run scored are not as important? Basically that it doesn’t mean much to score runs. If you were to give me those old books without RBIs and runs I wouldn’t be able to tell you how good a year he had. For example, in his new book Winners, Dayn Perry said that in 1993 Ruben Sierra had maybe the worst 100 RBI season of all time just because he hit .236 or something like that, even though he largely says that batting average is irrelevant. Those 100 RBIs are no better and no worse than anyone else’s. It simply means that he was able to drive in the runs when it counted, and didn’t do much when the bases were empty. Its driving in runs when you have to that counts.
Forgive my digression, but I just wanted to give a sampling of my thoughts on Baseball Prospectus.
Steve, your post basically outlined every single reason why they don’t look after RBIs. It’s outlined pretty well in their new book “Baseball by the Numbers.” Specifically, RBI is lineup and context-dependent; it relies too much on your other team members and has too much variance from year to year. It is not a good estimator or predictor of how good a player is or will be in the future; their other metrics are much better at doing that. Ultimately, they are in the business of player evaluation and RBI does not tell you much about a player other than the situation he’s in.
Case in point: Barry Bonds in 2003 had just 90 RBI. Did he have a bad season because he didn’t crack that mythical 100rbi barrier? No; in fact, he had one of the better seasons in the history of baseball (steroid-fueled or not, we’ll leave that debate to the other thread) with a .529 on-base percentage and 1.278 OPS. Metrics such as those are much better at saying how good a player is than RBI. There is a chart in the new book outlining how players with over 100 RBI — such as Tony Batista a few years ago — actually contributed *negative* value to their team.
Plus, as has been said throughout the baseball research community, there is no such thing as a clutch player. Also in the new BBTN book, there is a chapter devoted to testing this “myth” once and for all — I believe by Nate Silver — which shows that out of everything, “clutchness” counts for about 2% of all production and player evaluation. It’s an enlightening read. Needless to say, that 2% is not going to get you to 100 RBI; your lineup ahead of you is going to get you there.
I agree that RBI are not the be-all and end-all of a hitter’s performance; that said, I think BP missed the point when it left them out of projections. Keeping track of RBI and stats like that gets people interested in baseball; some of those people (like myself) go on to learn more. By not including them, you flat out don’t sell as many copies and aren’t as interesting.
Back to the Braves 3B defense:
Dave Pinto’s PMR shows that both Betemit and Chipper were excellent fielders last year. Betemit, in fact, rates first in Runs saved per 27 outs and Chipper is 4th. Pinto’s system seems to factor out those quirks that penalize the Braves in other defensive stats.
I don’t pay much attention to RBI, but Kyle is right, especially since one of their key audiences is fantasy players and in-season leagues generally count RBI.
There is a post today on The Hardball Times on The Fielding Bible that describes a method that is bound to misrank Braves fielders. They split the playing field into 270 vectors and ascribe a percentage that a particular fielder should turn into outs at his specific position. Who else sees the problem?
Bobby Cox overshifts outfielders and infielders probably more than any Major League manager. Andruw Jones is almost never within 30 feet of “straight a way” center. When Chipper makes a play playing shortstop on Jim Thome at normal short, does the system give him extra credit and does the shortstop get a “failure.” Not having tested the Fielding Bible, I feel that the shortstop would be “robbed” in such a situation under their system.
Any system using vectors has to adjust for fielder positioning by manager at the time of contact. I don’t Know if Baseball Prospectus uses the same stuff, but my guess is that is the problem. Castilla is excellent proof of this.
Let’s face it guys. Chipper is not a very good defensive third baseman. Baseball Prospectus (which I like a lot) is not the only outfit saying this. BTW, the Fielding Bible does give extra credit for a player making a play outside his zone. See the chapter on Jeter v Ensberg which should make it clear for all but Yankee fans that Jeter is a truly bad defensive shortstop.
I don’t think he’s very good, but I think he isn’t atrocious.
But the main thing is that he’s better at third than he is in left field, for about a million reasons, and that’s why BP’s system is truly aggravating.
I hate it when stat nerds try to take the human element out of the game. I understand that there may not be guys that are better in cetain situations than others, but there are guys who do handle presure better than others. Dan Kolb is example one. These stats also don’t show that when the player goes home, his kid is sick (Giles) or his wife is a nut bag (Bennson.) I agree that we should look at these stats, but let’s not dismiss the human element that is very important to the game.
From my own experience, you should downgrade a player’s projection by at least 10% if they have a new baby, even a healthy one.
I picked up BP at lunch today – I am anxious to get home to read it.
I’ve never seen a fielding analysis that impressed me, or changed my mind as to how good or bad I thought a fielder was. And I don’t need vectors to tell me that Jeter has limited range. I can see it with my own eyes.
Jeter has decent hands and he’s uncanny on popups of all sorts, but Rafael Ramirez got to more balls up the middle. If Jeter gets to the ball, he generally catches it & makes a play. His arm isn’t a cannon, but his tosses to first are rarely off-line. He also doesn’t make a ton of errors. As a defender, I’d mark him average at best.
I too am growing tired of the obsession with statistical analysis. I think I went to Stat. 2000 maybe 5 times the entire semester and that was years ago. The complete reliance on what a spreadsheet tells you is exactly the type of willful ignorance that leads one to argue for chipper returning to left.
Maybe once the season starts we can focus more on baseball and less on debating the standard deviation for Saberwizard?s analysis on the median-number of times Marcus Giles blinks, while batting against a left handed pitcher from northern ohio, as opposed to a left-handed pitcher from southern ohio, when its between 74-82 degrees outside. Otherwise, I?ll begin writing my thesis entitled, ?The Correlation Between Greg Maddux?s ERA and the Mean Number of Sunflower Seeds Chewed Between Inning?.
I think Chipper is probably a C- fielder, or rather averages that with ranges from B to D-. BP would probably say that he’s a D to F fielder, and he’s simply not. And there’s no way he’s giving back fifteen runs a year with his glove, which is what they claim. I didn’t mention this on this occasion, but part of their problem is that they’re using a false baseline of “average” rather than replacement, which is going to make half the fielders in the league look bad. But the real problem is the stat illusion, which they refuse to address even to dismiss.
Somebody ought to be able to come up with some middle ground behind the sabr statheads who treat players as if they were Strat-O-Matic cards and “baseball” people that act as if statistical analysis is the antichrist. While I haven’t read “Moneyball” I suspect that the author made statistical analysis into more of an all or nothing proposition than it actually is. Even the best statistics are nothing but averages that don’t necessarily reflect the best way to handle a specific game situation and don’t always reflect the value of leadership and other intangible factors that do affect human performance. By the same token, relying on random human observations by scouts–notoriously unreliable as any criminal trial attorney will tell you–leads you to such priceless jewels of wisdom as “he has good face.”
“While I haven’t read Moneyball I suspect…”
which means whatever you say after that is a wild-ass guess. The only fact that holds no value is the one you made up; the only statistic that holds no value is the one pulled out of thin air.
Bill James made exceptional insights at quantifying defensive capabilty 20 years ago. Simple thing such as chances per game can say a great deal about a player. But assists, while not saying as much about a fielder’s range of motion, do say he performed well enough to get in to make the plays.
Chipper doesn’t kill us. We could do better, but I wouldn’t give up his bat to do it.
Do these fielding stat guy figure in things like: rocks in the infield, how tall the grass is, if a player has a jammed finger, the angle of the sun, the spin of the ball off of a bat? You know the things that led to you making errors in Little League (or at least that is what you told you coach)
Argh, Chipper with a GIDP with the bases jammed, 1 out, down 1-0 to Canadia. No longer hitting 1.000/1.000/4.000 🙁
Al Leiter sucks. It’s nice that they let him be on the team, but he should be saved for garbage time versus South Africa.
O Canada…ouch.
There’s only one thing we can do to combat the Canadian menace. Quickly everyone, we must assault their capital city. To Toronto!
I’ve always jokingly told my Canadian friends that we could take over their country with the Vermont National Guard.
Now they can tell me that we can’t beat a team full of Pete Orrs & Corey Koskies.
BTW, the capital is Ottawa.
Al Leiter sucks, but what a color commentator! I hope we hire him when he retires to replace Rathbun and Paciorek.
Wow. Adam Stern. Wow.
ububba wins the award as the first person who didn’t get my joke. Congrats. (Has no-one seen “Canadian Bacon”?)
Latnam that was excellent.
I didn’t get the Canadian Bacon ref, but you don’t need to pick up on that to get the joke. It’s just so disrespectful, so disdainful to not even know the capital. It’s so beautiful (and I like Canada for the record).
But seriously, when you have some of the pitchers on that team . . . why Leiter?
Outstanding! But you know, I kinda feel bad for the Canadians, especially Cyr. I mean they’re basically throwing minor league pitchers against our stars. Poor kids!
You just made my list #44. Lucky for you you’re autistic.
http://www.deadspin.com/sports/espn/they-love-erin-andrews-in-iowa-156299.php
phoa…EA is got game though, huh? I’d like to go over and back on that hardwood.
Oh, now I get it. Kinda like when the Braves had the Canadian flag upside down. Hysterical.
Has anybody noticed that Betemit is tearing it up right now? This guy won’t lay low long. We’re not talking about another DeRo here.
As long as he’s better than LaRo.
I love Frenchie in right field. USA just got an out at the plate on a relay from a double in the corner, Frenchy hit the relay man perfectly and in a hurry.
This is Barry Bonds’ fault.
I only watched the end of the game. What’s wrong with the pitching? It’s not like it’s all Leiter’s fault as the Canadians scored in the first five innings. Who was the starter?
It’s all Bud Selig’s fault.
It was Dontrelle Willis. I’m shocked right now. I’m not upset at all, just shocked. And from what I hear, I missed a pretty good game between Cuba and Panama, too. This WBC is turning out to be way more fun than I thought.
The WBC should be fun. Those who are against it must either have self-interest conflicts or too much of a traditionalist.
In a way, I can foresee this USA team being kicked out of the WBC in the early rounds like the NBA Dream Team in the Olyimpics. Once a while, even the Royals can win a series against the Yankees. It’s very refreshing to see a double A pitcher shutting down Francouer, Lee, ARod, and Tex in the bottom of the ninth inning.
I know one thing. If Brian Jordan had been in the line up, we’d be talking about a W right now. He’s all heart, man.
Wow, Javy just destroyed that baseball…
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought one of the rules for being a good GM was not to freak out about spring training?
Reason 548946833 why Jim Bowden is not a good GM
That 22-12 loss was hilarious, though. We spent the whole afternoon watching the WBC on ESPN waiting for the next score update to come around on the crawl and laughing hysterically whenever it did.
Oops, I think I messed up the link. Sorry. Stupid quotation marks.
Wait until the regualr season when this happens all the time.
The sad thing is that Jim Bowden’s boss–the owner of the Washington Nationals–is the other 29 teams in the MLB. Hence, they would like him to do his job as poorly as possible. His best job security is to fuck up as much as he can, which he’s doing admirably.
I really feel bad for that team, although I’m glad they’re in our division.
To be fair, I’ll point out something else I learned from BP: The Reds’ offense was genuinely outstanding last year, and all of their regulars were acquired by Bowden.
Bowden generally did a very good job at assembling an offense for the Reds, but their pitching was consistently piss-poor. As a result, they were near the bottom of the division every single year, except for their miracle 90-win season of 1999. Then, Ken Griffey happened, and everything went to hell…
That’s not Bowden’s fault. However, the gods of baseball have a sense of humor, and sent him to the most extreme pitchers’ park in the majors, and Bowden’s flaws have manifested themselves in a major way.
My problem with the WBC isn’t that I’m against the conecept; it’s that it’s not real baseball with real baseball rules. Pitch counts are bogus. In Olympic hockey, for example, there’s no rule that says your best centerman only gets a certain number of shifts.
I’m vaguely paying attention, but it has more to do with the fact that I’m a little baseball-starved.
Totally off topic:
Went to a party tonight commemorating the 25th anniversary of Joe Frazier’s triumph over Muhammed Ali.
I met his son Marvis & then Smokin’ Joe himself. The conversation went like this:
Me: So, champ, at the very end of the fight, as soon as the final bell rings, I remember you yelling in Ali’s face. What did you say?
Smokin’ Joe: I said, “I JUST KICKED YOUR ASS!”
Well ESPn just ran a thing about how the Braves can’t win this year. Joe Morgan still wants Smoltz to close games. Steve Phillips thinks we don’t even have a pitching coach anymore. Why is Phillips such a Mets fan, even thought they fired him?
Not sure if this has been mentioned on here or not, but Tom Paciorek will not be back this season on FSN. Jeff Torborg will replace him.
Thoughts?
Can we get Dale Torborg, AKA “The Demon,” to replace Rathbun?
Smitty, have you yet to realize that ESPN analysis is best watched with the sound off, the guys they have on their are just about as intelligent as a conversation on Hardball or Crossfire. I even have a theory that Joe Morgan is like the little talking doll where you pull the string and he spouts off another “old baseball” cliche.
Guess it sounds really dumb when I insult someone’s intelligence and use “their” instead of “there”.
ububba, I know what you mean. On the other hand, I can’t think of any other sports which have a role as specialized as pitchers in baseball. Unless WBC becomes a big money event, I don’t think the bogus pitch count rule will leave.
As long as Chipper, Sosa, Villareal, Reitsma, Orr and Francoeur don’t get hurt…
so you’re saying you can live with it if Andruw goes down for the year?
No, I am saying if those guys go down it will suck. If Andruw goes down, I won’t even watch baseball this year.
that sounds about right
Question: Who would you rather see defensively at third than Chipper?
Second Question: If you think Jim Bowden is bad, do you think Allard Baird is even worse? Bowden at least looks like he’s trying.