I also don’t really buy the whole “Cox would’ve shielded him and we couldn’t have gotten rid of him if we’d called him up†thing. In fact, “I don’t really buy it†isn’t strong enough. I think it’s complete BS. By all accounts, Cox tried to do that with Glavine anyway and it didn’t work. He also tried to do that when they sent Jeffy down and it didn’t work. Wren is the GM. Cox can give his input, but it’s obvious that personnel decisions like that rest with Wren and they are final. To say that we couldn’t call Glavine up because Cox would have forced him into the rotation for the rest of the year is a complete cop-out, essentially blaming Cox for something he hasn’t even done and removing all blame from Wren for handling the situation as shittily as he possibly could have handled it.
That Penny rumor doesn’t make much sense to me. I guess the ideas that we’d either then flip him somewhere or trade Vazquez for a bat make some sense, but it still seems a little too complex to pass my sniff test.
Another good thing about Spilborghs—and this is of course also true of Cody Ross—is that they can play center. ‘Course, so can Nick Swisher…
Thinking about it, I don’t hate a move that replaces Vazquez with Penny, if it nets us a real power bat. It gives us replacement for Vazquez plus a prorated portion of 6.5 million to pay that bat.
We’re getting more from Vazquez than we anticipated. Penny is no slouch, even if he isn’t Vazquez. If he isn’t effective, we still have Medlen, and we still might have Huddy coming in August.
Remember we were going to have a roster crunch when Huddy came back anyway. One of Vazquez and Kawakami was going to have to be traded or Hudson’s option declined (isn’t his option the same as Vazquez’s salary next year?). If Vazquez goes now and Penny holds it down… then we still have an abundance to deal with come August.
FWIW I was in favor of using the option on Huddy and trading Vazquez in the offseason. I’d rather trade an 11 million dollar pitcher for a bat than let one walk away a free-agent. I guess that all depends on Huddy’s form when he comes back.
But if trading Vazquez NOW gets us a bat for this year AND next, why wait? Especially if we get Penny for now and can choose between Penny and Huddy later.
Nick, yeah putting our best players on the field is just a terrible idea. What he should do in the future is keep all of the players happy and stay a .500 team at best. Wren made a decision to call up Hanson and trade for McLouth instead of calling up Glavine and spending money on a lost cause. Get over it
I would like you to go find one post where I said that Glavine would help us win more than Hanson, or that the McLouth trade (which Wren is claiming had nothing to do with the Glavine release) was a bad idea. This has nothing to do with putting our best men on the field, and if you missed that, then you’re missing the point entirely.
I understand your point and agree it was handled badly, but we dont know what was offered to Glavine either. Bobby said they would talk to Glavine and offer him three different scenarios. He mightve refused all and said just release me, we have no idea. Either way he was the most expensive player and the worst for the roster spot. Its a tough decision, a PR hit, but the right move was made. We had scouts watching Glavine and they said he wasnt effective, what can you do? Say okay, you’re a legend here’s a $1mil and go throw one start and not try to improve the team? How do you handle it correctly at this point?
There is absolutely no way that Vazquez is traded at this point in time. If the Braves fall out of the race before the deadline, sure it is a possibility.
Um. If the Braves trade Jeff Francoeur for Johan Santana… I bet Vazquez gets traded.
What I mean to say is, in a situation where Vazquez and Francoeur get us quality in RF and in the third spot in the rotation, I don’t see any reason they wouldn’t do it.
ummm…I didn’t know we were talking fantasyland-ese.
Just messing-
I still dont see it happening. Vazquez and his innings (and performance, for that matter) have been paramount to keeping our division chances afloat to this point. And given Wren’s determination to rebuild the rotation, I would think it would take quite the uniquely-crafted deal that would involve Javy leaving ATL…until the Braves fall out of the race. Then, all bets are off…and I’d prefer him to be traded at that time, for that matter.
But I’ll bet you dollars to donuts Javy won’t be going anywhere anytime soon (meaning in the next month).
All I mean is that saying ‘there’s absolutely no way’ is overstating your case.
I can see the Braves downgrading the rotation if a solid but not-dominant ML arm came back. I don’t know… If we got Jayson Werth, Alex Rios, or Corey Hart (Xavier Nady?) for Vazquez… and worked a deal for a guy like… I don’t know, Arroyo, or Randy Wolf. That kind of thing. That’s all I’m saying. It’s an option Frank Wren could consider. I’m not saying any of those players/clubs match up. Just those TYPES of guys.
Hasn’t it been basically understood that, while a crappy writer, whenever Peanut says something about what the Braves are thinking he’s probably right, given he’s a mouthpiece and all?
EDIT: Yeah, I really have no idea. If it were some big personnel move, wouldn’t there have been a leak about it by now?
I suppose Glavine could’ve decided to retire, but if he’s so pissed at us, it doesn’t make much sense that he would do that at Turner Field. Seems like he’d do that through his agent or in his driveway or something.
Anyone hear anything about this supposed 4:30 press conference? I haven’t seen anything about it anywhere else. This better be about French but not Penny.
Hey guys, sorry to disappear in the middle of a discussion last night. My internet cut out during one of the worst thunderstorms my area has seen in decades… which is about what you get once a month in season back in Georgia. We just don’t understand how to deal with weather out this way.
Anyways, I’m glad sansho was there to pick up the slack. He performed admirably in my stead, and in a much more succinct fashion than I’m capable of.
I did want to credit Baseball Reference with the raw data that I used, and I also wanted to add/reiterate my last thoughts: As I said if Diaz continues the level of production he has so far this year then his offense clearly makes up more than the difference, but if you look at a wider sample, say numbers from ’08-’09 the difference doesn’t hold, especially versus RHP… and that sample includes Francoeur’s worst year+ performance of his career and Diaz’s only time as a full-time player.
the press conference is to announce that they’re giving Tommy G. ownership of Turner Field and an apology engraved on a golden tablet because they hurt his feelings.
JS apologized to Glavine for how badly it went down, basically. Said he couldn’t sleep because the meeting ended in a tone and manner that didn’t leave him feeling good on a personal or professional level.
As I said above, sansho did a good job replying to objections over the Diaz/Francoeur arm comparison. There was another substantive objection raised, however, that I need to rebutt here.
@114 on the previous thread, in response to my claim that “Jeff’s 2007 OPS was above average for a major league hitter, and at the median of major league right fielders.” spike says:
A ML hitter – NOT an ML RF. A fact you consistently overlook. Median RF 2007 = 111. Jeff = 103.
In any event, this is all moot WRT to your position which is fixed.
I’m not sure I understand the intent of the final clause there, but the statistics of the first part are incorrect.
In 2007 the average (or mean) OPS+ of a ML RF was 111, but the median was 105 (minimum 100 PA, 50% or more games played at that position.) I couldn’t find the original link at the time, so I was just going from memory. Now that I have found the original link to the Hardball Times article, I remember calculating that the median OPS+ of a ML corner outfielder was 103 (it’s 101 for a ML LF.)
Thus, to correct myself, Jeff was at the median for a ML corner outfielder in 2007, based on OPS+. I’ll shed some light into what I meant by “his run production was leaps and bounds ahead of the general OPS curve” shortly.
Except that OPS, as I’ve said (ad nauseum) overemphasizes slugging at the expense of on-base (which is more important) and Francoeur was high on the slugging side with an on-base at league average. This is the only time he’s even sniffed average in OBP.
2007 OPS+ by position
Pos Mean Median
C 86 83
1B 115 108
2B 96 100
3B 109 101
SS 94 94
RF 111 105
CF 97 88
LF 107 101
Jeffy 103, and OPS+ OVERSTATES even that pitiful number because it weights SLG and OBP equally. He was a poor offensive performer in 07 however you slice it.
Here’s the one category he’s in the top ten in every year though –
Outs Made
2006 NL–507–3rd
2007 NL–477–10th
2008 NL–479–6th
2009 NL–161–5th
So he cherry-picked Median rather than Mean because that takes the value of a AAAA 4th outfielder who batted 50 times in RF and equalizes it to the guys who took 500+ AB’s in RF.
Wren and JS need to concentrate on making the Braves better, not waste time quibbling with multi-million dollar has-beens born fortunate enough to have athletic skills that kept them from worrying about how to feed their kids and pay their mortgage because they were in danger of losing their factory job.
I think that JS realizes something that Wren doesn’t. That PR matters and that you can’t just throw franchise icons on the garbage heap and act like nothing happened. It’s not good for the image of the organization, and the image of the organization matters. It does. Also, that’s kind of his job since he’s the team president. Frank Wren is merely the GM. It is his job to make player personnel decisions. It’s Schuerholz’s job to worry about things like team image and so forth, and I think he’s just doing his job.
I would also say that it’s probably not a good thing for franchise icons to be saying things like Glavine said to day, which was basically that he wouldn’t complete wash his hands of the organization, but that he really didn’t want anything to do with us for awhile. That also matters and can’t just be tossed aside as irrelevant.
Gadfly’s undying loyaltly to Jeffy just reminded me of something…
You guys remember that time at the start of last year that that dude came here and had all those meltdowns about us talking about how badly Chris Resop sucked? That was awesome! 😆
Did we ever figure out what that dude’s relationship with Resop was? Man, those were some sweet melts.
@45: Haha, you beat me to the link already… It depends on your idea of “poor,” but if your idea of poor production includes half of the major league players at a position, then your definition makes no sense. (Note that the overweighting of SLUG to OBP is going to generally favor every corner outfielder, as corner outfielders tend to have a proportionally higher SLUG than OBP.)
I understand Glavine being upset — he’s the one going through rehab, and he’s the one who thinks he can still pitch. I just don’t understand anyone else being upset on his behalf.
The JS press conference is just the old guard closing ranks one last time, and actually casts in bold relief the fact that someone else is making the calls now. JS was not a warm and fuzzy individual in the old days, and that worked out fine. If he wants to mollify a player he’s known for 20 years, that’s understandable.
@49&50: Read that Hardball Times article. He does a great job of showing why using Median is a much more useful tool than average.
In short, average finds the average production of corner outfielders, while median shows the production of the average outfielder.
The problem with average is that it gives too much weight to the top players, because the top players tend to get a ton more PAs than average and below-average players. I’d go on, but I’d never do as good a job as Mr. Baxamusa does in that article.
@61: Thanks for the correction… I should do a bit more proofreading before I send these in… What I meant was that corner outfielders are generally slugging-dominant players. That is, proportionally there SLUG will make up a higher percentage of their OPS than say a center fielder or middle infielder whose skillset more often is getting on base, rather than hitting home runs.
Finally, on run production: I’ve recently become interested in an interesting array of statistics, OBI% and Run Rate (RUNR.) OBI% is the percentage of “others batted in” and is defined as (RBI-HR)/Runners on base (for a particular batter’s PAs.) Run Rate is simply RS/PA. Each has some obvious limitations, and should not in any way be relied upon as the final word. However, they give a good picture of situational hitting and run production while compensating for opportunities.
In 2007, looking only at corner outfielders with a minimum 100 PA, Francoeur ranks 23rd of 99 in OBI%. Ahead of guys who had much higher OPS+ numbers like Adam Dunn (136,) Pat Burrell (127,) Moises Alou (138,) and Barry Bonds (170.)
Now, as I said you can’t look at this number alone, because it penalizes players, like Bonds, with a high walk rate (you end up with fewer OBI when you walk.) In order to counteract this, I’ve began looking at OBI%+RUNR. I have yet to come across anyone else who adds these two, but the numbers are within a very similar band… a much closer and narrower band than OBP and SLUG are in. It also makes logical sense, since a player that draws a walk instead of expanding the strike zone should really only do this if the resulting base on ball increases the chance of scoring runs… Just ask the San Francisco Giants how many games they won because of Bonds’ 132 BBs in ’07. I’ve taken to calling this sum the Run Production Index (RPI.)
Looking at RPI then: Francoeur’s 2007 RPI was .297, which ranks 33rd of the 99 Major League corner outfielders with 100 PA, and is still ahead of a number of guys with higher OPS+ numbers like Burrell, Alou, Bonds, Ken Griffey Jr. (119,) and Alfonso Soriano (123.) If you raise the minimum to 500 PA, then Jeff ranked 10th of 36 in OBI%, and 16th of 36 in RPI.
Back to OPS+ numbers, as we noticed an OPS+ of 103 is equal to the production of an average ML corner outfielder. Add to this Jeff’s much higher RPI, Gold Glove defense, and 162 Game durability, and there simply is no way you can intelligibly call Jeff’s 2007 anything but above average.
spike (back in the ATL)
on June 5, 2009 at 5:35 pm
Note that the overweighting of SLUG to OBP is going to generally favor every corner outfielder, as corner outfielders tend to have a higher SLUG than OBP.)
It certainly does not. That is without question the most content free thing you have ever posted. How on earth is Frenchy’s crappy OBP being lower than his SLG pct remotely related to the value of either number relative to his peers?
spike (back in the ATL)
on June 5, 2009 at 5:37 pm
The problem with average is that it gives too much weight to the top players, because the top players tend to get a ton more PAs than average and below-average players
So if having more PA’s overvalues your numbers, then Frenchy is EVEN WORSE than he appears? He’s got more PA’s than just about anybody.
My point, Gadfly, is that you have to compare Jeff to fringe major leaguers just to make him look AVERAGE. And that’s in a season you say was GOOD.
Rather than comparing him to guys who made 50% of 100 or more PA’s in RF, try comparing him to guys who made 50% of their TEAM’S RF PA’s, and lets see where he ranked in 07. I think I already know where 08 and 09 rank…
Because that’s what a right fielder is. He’s the guy who goes out and plays right field. Not a guy who doesn’t play, but when he does, does it most often in RF.
Maybe by 2012, Gadfly will have convinced us all that Jeff didn’t suck ass in 2006 and 2007. If that happens, it will only be because we’ve forgotten that we watched it happen with our own eyes.
spike (back in the ATL)
on June 5, 2009 at 5:51 pm
That is, proportionally there SLUG will make up a higher percentage of their OPS than say a center fielder or middle infielder whose skillset more often is getting on base, rather than hitting home runs.
Have you ever even looked at the OBP leaderboard for any season? It’s usually populated slugging corner OF’s.
He’s not losing it. He’s the same as he’s always been.
His mind is made up before he starts typing:
“Jeffy is a golden god.”
After that, all that’s left is to come up with whatever arbitrary anecdotes he can find to support his point, usually something involving the 2007 season. It’d be kind of funny to watch if he weren’t so bad at it. Instead it’s kinda sad.
SEASON
2008
SLG displayed only–not a sorting criteria
OBA OBA SLG
1 Chipper Jones .470 .574
2 Albert Pujols .462 .653
3 Milton Bradley .436 .563
4 Manny Ramirez .430 .601
5 Lance Berkman .420 .567
6 Joe Mauer .413 .451
7 Mark Teixeira .410 .552
8 Matt Holliday .409 .538
9 Nick Markakis .406 .491
10 Hanley Ramirez .400 .540
11 Brian Giles .398 .456
12 Carlos Quentin .394 .571
13 Alex Rodriguez .392 .573
14 David Wright .390 .534
15 Kevin Youkilis .390 .569
16 Ryan Theriot .387 .359
17 Adam Dunn .386 .513
18 Russell Martin .385 .396
19 B.J. Upton .383 .401
20 Brad Hawpe .381 .498
You have two middle infielders and two catchers, the rest all corner men. The median slugging percentages are .538 and .540, and seventeen of the twenty have slugging percentages above the league. The concept that middle infielders and low-power players have higher on-base percentages is laughable. It’s like saying that basketball centers are the shortest players on the court.
@64: I was just making an educated guess on the proportionality, but since I had the numbers in front of me I was just looking into it when I read your comment. In 2007 for players a minimum 100 PA, here’s a table that shows the proportion of OPS made up by SLUG%:
The total average for players with at least 100 PA was 55.3%, and the total average for players with at least 500 PA was 56.2%. Jeff Francoeur’s ’07 OPS was slightly higher at 56.8% but well within one standard deviation (3.3% for the 100 PA figures.)
The reason this is relevant to the conversation was your statement that “Jeffy 103, and OPS+ OVERSTATES even that pitiful number because it weights SLG and OBP equally.” It does do this, but it does it for everyone in the group, and when looking at corner outfielders the difference is next to nothing.
@66: Having a high number of PA doesn’t overvalue your numbers, but it distorts the average production of a certain position. Just because Vlad Guerrero kicks ass in RF, and is rewarded for this with more PA, doesn’t mean that we should judge the “average” right fielder more critically. Seriously though, read the article that we both linked to, he gives a thorough discussion on the reason why looking at median production is a better indicator of the middle than average.
@67: It has to be 50% of their games played in RF, not PA. It also takes into account all of their PA, not just the ones recorded in RF, but very non-corner outfielders are going to spend that much time in either corner to end up counting. You compare him to guys who made 100 PA in the corners, because these are the guys who are options to replace him… in 2007 the guys you are calling “fringe major leaguers” with between 100-200 PA are guys like Milton Bradley, Rick Ankiel, Jacoby Ellsbury, Justin Upton, etc.
If you prefer to rank him against all ML corner outfielders with 500 PA or more, he’s 28th of 36 in OPS. If you reduce the minimum to 300 PA he’s 44th of 65… there are 30 teams in the Major Leagues, and they require two corner outfielders each, so anyone in the top 60, let alone the top 45, unquestionably performed at an above average Major League level.
@68: I understand it’s 2009, and Jeff hasn’t looked like he did in 2007 for a while now. 2007, however, does help to establish his potential, and an accurate understanding of history is important.
In situations like this it is easy to look at a player who is performing well below average and discredit everything he’s done before he descended to such levels. This leads to a dishonest understanding of what occured, which is problematic for many reasons.
Wait, I just read your post. Sorry, haven’t been paying attention.
The reason this is relevant to the conversation was your statement that “Jeffy 103, and OPS+ OVERSTATES even that pitiful number because it weights SLG and OBP equally.†It does do this, but it does it for everyone in the group, and when looking at corner outfielders the difference is next to nothing.
This logic doesn’t follow because not everyone has the same slugging percentage. Also, on-base percentage is a lot more important than slugging percentage.
Hopefully in a couple weeks we can all move on from Francoeur, who will be gone. It’s probably too much to hope for, but it’s possible.
@72
As ecstatic as I was about the McLouth deal, that lineup still looks pretty weak. That is: so long as we bleed runs in the corner outfield slots this team will suffer. What does Diaz have to do to get an everyday spot?
@73: My point was that a corner outfielder is likely to have a higher proportion of his OPS come from his SLUG, relative to other players. See the table @78 for the proof of this.
@75: Mac, I have more respect for you than this, I really do… I’m not saying that corner outfielders have lower OBP, I’m saying that there OPS is proportionally made up of SLUG% at a higher rate than say a center fielder, or middle infielder (per the table it does surprise me that 2B rank as highly as they do, but then we have had an influx of power hitting 2B recently.)
@81&84: I’m missing your point. Obviously they all don’t have the same slugging percentage, but on average a corner outfielder’s OPS is made up of a higher proportion… That is really besides the point, however.
The original point was to show that if you choose to discount Jeff’s OPS+ because OPS inherently overweighs SLUG relative to OBP, then the discount should be miniscule at best… especially when you’re comparing him to other RFers.
Average RF’s OPS is made up of 56.6% SLUG, and Jeff’s is made up of 56.8%… so if you’re discounting Jeff you should discount all the rest almost the same amount.
I think we’re on the same side here, Mac. Frenchy has, in fact, been scientifically proven to suck harder than every vacuum Hoover’s ever built. That we have to search so hard to find ANYONE who plays a corner spot that is worse than Frenchy this year- and that last year, there was no one at all- tells us that we need to hope there’s at least one Gadfly among the league’s other 29 general managers.
@87&89: He’s talking about ’08… and I never have defended ’08, because it isn’t possible to defend. You can defend Cox’s decision to keep sticking him out there, only because our best replacement option was Jason Perry, but I don’t think Bobby needs any defending… he’ll have his plaque soon enough.
@88: Douglass, the only thing you’re adding to this conversation is embarrassment for yourself… if you don’t understand the statistics then ask questions, don’t make claims.
How could anyone be confused? Everyone knows that if a players slugging percentage’s percentage of his OPS is only within one standard deviation of the other players at his poistions’ average then it, in fact, doesn’t mask the fact that he’s got the worst OBP in the league…everyone who knows what they’re talking about anyway… 🙄
I think what I’m trying to tell you Gadfly is that saying that everyone having the same overvaluing of slugging percentage in their OPS isn’t logically relevant because not everyone has the same proportion of OBP + SLG in their OPS.
Hey guys, I didn’t bring up the 2007 discussion. If someone is going to make erroneous statements about the statistics I cite, then I’m going to correct those errors. Sometimes it takes a little longer for me to make my point clear, and for that I’m sorry.
I’m heading out for the night though, so you guys can return to making whatever unsupportable claims about 2007 that you want. I’ll be back soon with some discussion of 2009, as I said 2008 is indefensible, but 2009 actually shows some promise… more wishful thinking than promise probably, but that’s what baseball fandom is all about, right?
It’s been swell!
@96: I didn’t say playing him in ’08 was indefensible, only that calling his production anything but poor in ’08 was indefensible. Big difference. His ’07 production justifies playing him at the start of ’08, and the lack of viable options to replace him justifies playing him the rest of the season and at the start of this one.
@95: The only relevance of the proportion of Slugging that I ever asserted was to rebutt the claim that Francoeur’s OPS+ should be discounted because it weighs SLUG more than OBP… it does, but it clearly does this for every corner outfielder at a very similar rate. Similar enough to reduce the effect to a near negligable factor.
In no way does that fact excuse anyone’s low OBP.
@98: I’m still not sure how that factors in… I understand what you’re saying, and obviously there are probably some slight outliers (though likely not technically outliers)… but on average Jeff has about the same proportion as other corner outfielders, so when judging him against all corner outfielders there is no basis for discounting his OPS for the reason spike stated.
spike (back in the ATL)
on June 5, 2009 at 7:17 pm
The only relevance of the proportion of Slugging that I ever asserted was to rebutt the claim that Francoeur’s OPS+ should be discounted because it weighs SLUG more than OBP… it does, but it clearly does this for every corner outfielder at a very similar rate. Similar enough to reduce the effect to a near negligable factor.
You fail at logic again.
If we multiply OBP by 1.4 and add it to slugging pct, you get a much better correlation to RS (the reason why OPS is a useful stat in the first place). Jeff’s OBP is below average postionally and for the league.
QED, If we weight his OBP at 1.4, his relative OPS – or OPS+ as we call it – will go down because the other component stays the same while his weaker component now carries a lesser value compared to his group.
At the risk of sounding like Gadfly, Braves14, I’ll point out that Frenchy has only struck out in 16 percent of his at bats this year, his lowest strikeout rate as a major leaguer.
Thus ends the lesson on the value of the strikeout.
The first pitch was hardly a pitch, though. It was more of a joke among the Milwaukee team. I think they all took bets before hand. Everyone except Gallardo and Kendall put 100$ in the pot and drew a “swing” or “no swing” card from a hat and instructed Gallardo to throw a breaking ball at least 2 feet in front of the plate. I’m shocked that the no swing card won.
Ive said it and I will say it again .. we panicked or Wren panicked and signed Kawakami and wasted 7 mil a year we could have used for another Right handed hitting bat …
Someone needs to shove Yunel’s head into a bowl of brown dye and get rid of the freaking blonde tips. On a night like tonight he just looks extra ridiculous.
“There ain’t a guy in here who ain’t [ticked] off about it,” said first baseman Adam LaRoche, according to the report. “It’s kind of like being with your platoon in a battle, and guys keep dropping around you. You keep hanging on, hanging on, and you’ve got to figure: How much longer till you sink?
“It’s fine. Heck with it. We’re not the GM. We don’t run the team. If they feel like it’s the best move for three or four years from now, great,” LaRoche said, according to the report. “Unfortunately, that does me no good. I’ve still got to be in here telling guys it’s going to be fine with Nate gone. Well, you can only do that for so long until guys just kind of … well, they know.”
Wow. Maybe others noticed this already, but I just saw it. Our pal Francoeur pulled a grand total of ONE walk in May. Which tied him for the month with teammates Derek Lowe, Jair Jurrjens, and Jo-Jo Reyes.
Is it just me, or have the Braves had a lot of these games in the last couple weeks where no one wanted to show up for work? (We’ve had a lot of them over the last three years, but the last fortnight seems to have an unusual concentration.)
Idle thoughts while watching our idle bats: In the graphic for the Civil Rights Game (on Gameday), which race will come in with the dreaded “eagle claws”?
I wasn’t talking about Resop himself. I was asking about that douche that showed up here at the beginning of last season and had all the meltdowns whenever we talked about how much Resop sucked. What happened to that guy? What was his login? links?
Posted at the end of the last thread:
I also don’t really buy the whole “Cox would’ve shielded him and we couldn’t have gotten rid of him if we’d called him up†thing. In fact, “I don’t really buy it†isn’t strong enough. I think it’s complete BS. By all accounts, Cox tried to do that with Glavine anyway and it didn’t work. He also tried to do that when they sent Jeffy down and it didn’t work. Wren is the GM. Cox can give his input, but it’s obvious that personnel decisions like that rest with Wren and they are final. To say that we couldn’t call Glavine up because Cox would have forced him into the rotation for the rest of the year is a complete cop-out, essentially blaming Cox for something he hasn’t even done and removing all blame from Wren for handling the situation as shittily as he possibly could have handled it.
That Penny rumor doesn’t make much sense to me. I guess the ideas that we’d either then flip him somewhere or trade Vazquez for a bat make some sense, but it still seems a little too complex to pass my sniff test.
Another good thing about Spilborghs—and this is of course also true of Cody Ross—is that they can play center. ‘Course, so can Nick Swisher…
Grr, posted at the end of last thread:
Thinking about it, I don’t hate a move that replaces Vazquez with Penny, if it nets us a real power bat. It gives us replacement for Vazquez plus a prorated portion of 6.5 million to pay that bat.
We’re getting more from Vazquez than we anticipated. Penny is no slouch, even if he isn’t Vazquez. If he isn’t effective, we still have Medlen, and we still might have Huddy coming in August.
Remember we were going to have a roster crunch when Huddy came back anyway. One of Vazquez and Kawakami was going to have to be traded or Hudson’s option declined (isn’t his option the same as Vazquez’s salary next year?). If Vazquez goes now and Penny holds it down… then we still have an abundance to deal with come August.
FWIW I was in favor of using the option on Huddy and trading Vazquez in the offseason. I’d rather trade an 11 million dollar pitcher for a bat than let one walk away a free-agent. I guess that all depends on Huddy’s form when he comes back.
But if trading Vazquez NOW gets us a bat for this year AND next, why wait? Especially if we get Penny for now and can choose between Penny and Huddy later.
It could definitely work.
Nick, yeah putting our best players on the field is just a terrible idea. What he should do in the future is keep all of the players happy and stay a .500 team at best. Wren made a decision to call up Hanson and trade for McLouth instead of calling up Glavine and spending money on a lost cause. Get over it
Swisher has been hot of late and they have a log jam very soon.
Melky, Nady, Swisher, Gardner, Matsui, and Damon
Between Chino Cadahia and Brad Penny, I don’t know if theres enough square footage in the clubhouse.
I would like you to go find one post where I said that Glavine would help us win more than Hanson, or that the McLouth trade (which Wren is claiming had nothing to do with the Glavine release) was a bad idea. This has nothing to do with putting our best men on the field, and if you missed that, then you’re missing the point entirely.
Glavine says he feels “betrayed”, in the Bowman piece on atlantabraves.com.
Dang, now he knows what a bunch of Braves fans felt like several years ago.
Wren didn’t handle this perfectly…but geez, come on T-Glav…let’s look at things realistically…and not let our ego come into play.
@6
If Chino and Texiera’s ginormous thirst for money can fit in the same clubhouse…then Penny can fit.
Nick you didn’t say that Glav would help more than Hanson. You just implied that we should pitch Glav instead of Hanson. Which might be even sillier..
My barber says:
ATL gets: Hawpe, Jason Hammel and DeRosa
BOS gets: Peralta, Prado, and Corpas
COL gets: Jo-Jo, Frenchy, Travis Denker
CLE gets: Penny, Lugo and Medlin
I understand your point and agree it was handled badly, but we dont know what was offered to Glavine either. Bobby said they would talk to Glavine and offer him three different scenarios. He mightve refused all and said just release me, we have no idea. Either way he was the most expensive player and the worst for the roster spot. Its a tough decision, a PR hit, but the right move was made. We had scouts watching Glavine and they said he wasnt effective, what can you do? Say okay, you’re a legend here’s a $1mil and go throw one start and not try to improve the team? How do you handle it correctly at this point?
Peanut says the Penny rumor is false.
the money dump angle of the Francoeur for Penny deal doesn’t make sense–Penny has a larger salary–unless the Sox eat some of Penny’s salary
I bet Penny would be good in a brawl.
or an all you can eat restaurant
It could be a money dump if the Braves get Penny to unload Vazquez and his large salary. I don’t know about trading Vazquez though…
Telling him the truth instead of telling him the only reason that they were doing it was because he sucked might be a pretty good start.
EDIT: Well, so much for the five minutes of Brad Penny talk. Truly, a page in all of our lives has been turned.
“Okay. Tom. You DO suck. But you don’t JUST suck. You suck, AND you’re expensive.”
There is absolutely no way that Vazquez is traded at this point in time. If the Braves fall out of the race before the deadline, sure it is a possibility.
But no way it happens right now.
Stu,
That means the deal is true. Now if DOB makes a post saying no way, then the team store should start printing Penny t-shirts
Um. If the Braves trade Jeff Francoeur for Johan Santana… I bet Vazquez gets traded.
What I mean to say is, in a situation where Vazquez and Francoeur get us quality in RF and in the third spot in the rotation, I don’t see any reason they wouldn’t do it.
@22
Lol, it would have to be some cab driver from NYC named Johan Santana.
ummm…I didn’t know we were talking fantasyland-ese.
Just messing-
I still dont see it happening. Vazquez and his innings (and performance, for that matter) have been paramount to keeping our division chances afloat to this point. And given Wren’s determination to rebuild the rotation, I would think it would take quite the uniquely-crafted deal that would involve Javy leaving ATL…until the Braves fall out of the race. Then, all bets are off…and I’d prefer him to be traded at that time, for that matter.
But I’ll bet you dollars to donuts Javy won’t be going anywhere anytime soon (meaning in the next month).
FWIW, I’d take Olney’s word. Peanut is just a fat boy with a notepad and a blog.
All I mean is that saying ‘there’s absolutely no way’ is overstating your case.
I can see the Braves downgrading the rotation if a solid but not-dominant ML arm came back. I don’t know… If we got Jayson Werth, Alex Rios, or Corey Hart (Xavier Nady?) for Vazquez… and worked a deal for a guy like… I don’t know, Arroyo, or Randy Wolf. That kind of thing. That’s all I’m saying. It’s an option Frank Wren could consider. I’m not saying any of those players/clubs match up. Just those TYPES of guys.
Dammit, Peanut has a Major League Source. Major League!
Um…I just heard on the radio that John Schuerholz is giving a press conference at 4:30. Anyone have any idea what in the hell that might be about?
Wo, this has been a crazy few days.
What would JS have a press conference about? Saying goodbye to Glavine?
Hasn’t it been basically understood that, while a crappy writer, whenever Peanut says something about what the Braves are thinking he’s probably right, given he’s a mouthpiece and all?
EDIT: Yeah, I really have no idea. If it were some big personnel move, wouldn’t there have been a leak about it by now?
Not exactly. He’s saying what the Braves want you to think they’re thinking.
I suppose Glavine could’ve decided to retire, but if he’s so pissed at us, it doesn’t make much sense that he would do that at Turner Field. Seems like he’d do that through his agent or in his driveway or something.
Maybe they’re sending Frenchy down..
Anyone hear anything about this supposed 4:30 press conference? I haven’t seen anything about it anywhere else. This better be about French but not Penny.
Hey guys, sorry to disappear in the middle of a discussion last night. My internet cut out during one of the worst thunderstorms my area has seen in decades… which is about what you get once a month in season back in Georgia. We just don’t understand how to deal with weather out this way.
Anyways, I’m glad sansho was there to pick up the slack. He performed admirably in my stead, and in a much more succinct fashion than I’m capable of.
I did want to credit Baseball Reference with the raw data that I used, and I also wanted to add/reiterate my last thoughts: As I said if Diaz continues the level of production he has so far this year then his offense clearly makes up more than the difference, but if you look at a wider sample, say numbers from ’08-’09 the difference doesn’t hold, especially versus RHP… and that sample includes Francoeur’s worst year+ performance of his career and Diaz’s only time as a full-time player.
the press conference is to announce that they’re giving Tommy G. ownership of Turner Field and an apology engraved on a golden tablet because they hurt his feelings.
JS apologized to Glavine for how badly it went down, basically. Said he couldn’t sleep because the meeting ended in a tone and manner that didn’t leave him feeling good on a personal or professional level.
Wow. In all seriousness, the press conference was to publicly apologize to Glavine. Didn’t expect that.
Yeah you’d think ol’ Tommy was Ru…better not go there.
Wait, it was? Really?
Yeah. It was.
As I said above, sansho did a good job replying to objections over the Diaz/Francoeur arm comparison. There was another substantive objection raised, however, that I need to rebutt here.
@114 on the previous thread, in response to my claim that “Jeff’s 2007 OPS was above average for a major league hitter, and at the median of major league right fielders.” spike says:
A ML hitter – NOT an ML RF. A fact you consistently overlook. Median RF 2007 = 111. Jeff = 103.
In any event, this is all moot WRT to your position which is fixed.
I’m not sure I understand the intent of the final clause there, but the statistics of the first part are incorrect.
In 2007 the average (or mean) OPS+ of a ML RF was 111, but the median was 105 (minimum 100 PA, 50% or more games played at that position.) I couldn’t find the original link at the time, so I was just going from memory. Now that I have found the original link to the Hardball Times article, I remember calculating that the median OPS+ of a ML corner outfielder was 103 (it’s 101 for a ML LF.)
Thus, to correct myself, Jeff was at the median for a ML corner outfielder in 2007, based on OPS+. I’ll shed some light into what I meant by “his run production was leaps and bounds ahead of the general OPS curve” shortly.
Gadfly. No one cares. So Jeff was average in 07. Let’s do backflips about it. He’s a freaking black hole today and has been for a year.
Except that OPS, as I’ve said (ad nauseum) overemphasizes slugging at the expense of on-base (which is more important) and Francoeur was high on the slugging side with an on-base at league average. This is the only time he’s even sniffed average in OBP.
http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/the-burdens-of-being-average/
2007 OPS+ by position
Pos Mean Median
C 86 83
1B 115 108
2B 96 100
3B 109 101
SS 94 94
RF 111 105
CF 97 88
LF 107 101
Jeffy 103, and OPS+ OVERSTATES even that pitiful number because it weights SLG and OBP equally. He was a poor offensive performer in 07 however you slice it.
Here’s the one category he’s in the top ten in every year though –
Outs Made
2006 NL–507–3rd
2007 NL–477–10th
2008 NL–479–6th
2009 NL–161–5th
Anyone have a link to a report or audio from the JS press conference?
No, but here’s a story:
Braves’ Schuerholz issues apology to Glavine | ajc.com
First, good for Schuerholz! (speaking of names of people we’ve had forever whose names I still can’t spell.)
Second, here’s the link to the Hardball Times article I mentioned above.
So he cherry-picked Median rather than Mean because that takes the value of a AAAA 4th outfielder who batted 50 times in RF and equalizes it to the guys who took 500+ AB’s in RF.
Ding Ding Ding! jjchiller, come on down!
I’m sure Frank Wren appreciates that like I enjoyed having my mom kiss my cheek before getting in the school bus.
Maybe it should’ve been Frank Wren apologizing then.
That is the sort of real story here isn’t it? I thought Wren ran this ball club, but I guess he’s just an errand boy.
Smoltz should shut up.
Tom should grow up.
Wren and JS need to concentrate on making the Braves better, not waste time quibbling with multi-million dollar has-beens born fortunate enough to have athletic skills that kept them from worrying about how to feed their kids and pay their mortgage because they were in danger of losing their factory job.
I think that JS realizes something that Wren doesn’t. That PR matters and that you can’t just throw franchise icons on the garbage heap and act like nothing happened. It’s not good for the image of the organization, and the image of the organization matters. It does. Also, that’s kind of his job since he’s the team president. Frank Wren is merely the GM. It is his job to make player personnel decisions. It’s Schuerholz’s job to worry about things like team image and so forth, and I think he’s just doing his job.
😆
some vintage gadfly in this thread.
I’ll say what I always say about him: I just hope he’s getting paid for his posts here. If he really believes the stuff he posts, well…. 😆 😆 😆
I would also say that it’s probably not a good thing for franchise icons to be saying things like Glavine said to day, which was basically that he wouldn’t complete wash his hands of the organization, but that he really didn’t want anything to do with us for awhile. That also matters and can’t just be tossed aside as irrelevant.
Gadfly’s undying loyaltly to Jeffy just reminded me of something…
You guys remember that time at the start of last year that that dude came here and had all those meltdowns about us talking about how badly Chris Resop sucked? That was awesome! 😆
Did we ever figure out what that dude’s relationship with Resop was? Man, those were some sweet melts.
heard the Bravos are looking at ole Brad Penny & the BoSox are looking at Frenchy..thoughts please
@45: Haha, you beat me to the link already… It depends on your idea of “poor,” but if your idea of poor production includes half of the major league players at a position, then your definition makes no sense. (Note that the overweighting of SLUG to OBP is going to generally favor every corner outfielder, as corner outfielders tend to have a proportionally higher SLUG than OBP.)
I understand Glavine being upset — he’s the one going through rehab, and he’s the one who thinks he can still pitch. I just don’t understand anyone else being upset on his behalf.
The JS press conference is just the old guard closing ranks one last time, and actually casts in bold relief the fact that someone else is making the calls now. JS was not a warm and fuzzy individual in the old days, and that worked out fine. If he wants to mollify a player he’s known for 20 years, that’s understandable.
So, Gadfly you’re telling me that an OF’s slugging pct. will be higher than his obp?
😯
My mind is blown. Please break it down for my feeble little mind, oh wise one.
@49&50: Read that Hardball Times article. He does a great job of showing why using Median is a much more useful tool than average.
In short, average finds the average production of corner outfielders, while median shows the production of the average outfielder.
The problem with average is that it gives too much weight to the top players, because the top players tend to get a ton more PAs than average and below-average players. I’d go on, but I’d never do as good a job as Mr. Baxamusa does in that article.
@61: Thanks for the correction… I should do a bit more proofreading before I send these in… What I meant was that corner outfielders are generally slugging-dominant players. That is, proportionally there SLUG will make up a higher percentage of their OPS than say a center fielder or middle infielder whose skillset more often is getting on base, rather than hitting home runs.
Finally, on run production: I’ve recently become interested in an interesting array of statistics, OBI% and Run Rate (RUNR.) OBI% is the percentage of “others batted in” and is defined as (RBI-HR)/Runners on base (for a particular batter’s PAs.) Run Rate is simply RS/PA. Each has some obvious limitations, and should not in any way be relied upon as the final word. However, they give a good picture of situational hitting and run production while compensating for opportunities.
In 2007, looking only at corner outfielders with a minimum 100 PA, Francoeur ranks 23rd of 99 in OBI%. Ahead of guys who had much higher OPS+ numbers like Adam Dunn (136,) Pat Burrell (127,) Moises Alou (138,) and Barry Bonds (170.)
Now, as I said you can’t look at this number alone, because it penalizes players, like Bonds, with a high walk rate (you end up with fewer OBI when you walk.) In order to counteract this, I’ve began looking at OBI%+RUNR. I have yet to come across anyone else who adds these two, but the numbers are within a very similar band… a much closer and narrower band than OBP and SLUG are in. It also makes logical sense, since a player that draws a walk instead of expanding the strike zone should really only do this if the resulting base on ball increases the chance of scoring runs… Just ask the San Francisco Giants how many games they won because of Bonds’ 132 BBs in ’07. I’ve taken to calling this sum the Run Production Index (RPI.)
Looking at RPI then: Francoeur’s 2007 RPI was .297, which ranks 33rd of the 99 Major League corner outfielders with 100 PA, and is still ahead of a number of guys with higher OPS+ numbers like Burrell, Alou, Bonds, Ken Griffey Jr. (119,) and Alfonso Soriano (123.) If you raise the minimum to 500 PA, then Jeff ranked 10th of 36 in OBI%, and 16th of 36 in RPI.
Back to OPS+ numbers, as we noticed an OPS+ of 103 is equal to the production of an average ML corner outfielder. Add to this Jeff’s much higher RPI, Gold Glove defense, and 162 Game durability, and there simply is no way you can intelligibly call Jeff’s 2007 anything but above average.
Note that the overweighting of SLUG to OBP is going to generally favor every corner outfielder, as corner outfielders tend to have a higher SLUG than OBP.)
It certainly does not. That is without question the most content free thing you have ever posted. How on earth is Frenchy’s crappy OBP being lower than his SLG pct remotely related to the value of either number relative to his peers?
The problem with average is that it gives too much weight to the top players, because the top players tend to get a ton more PAs than average and below-average players
So if having more PA’s overvalues your numbers, then Frenchy is EVEN WORSE than he appears? He’s got more PA’s than just about anybody.
My point, Gadfly, is that you have to compare Jeff to fringe major leaguers just to make him look AVERAGE. And that’s in a season you say was GOOD.
Rather than comparing him to guys who made 50% of 100 or more PA’s in RF, try comparing him to guys who made 50% of their TEAM’S RF PA’s, and lets see where he ranked in 07. I think I already know where 08 and 09 rank…
Because that’s what a right fielder is. He’s the guy who goes out and plays right field. Not a guy who doesn’t play, but when he does, does it most often in RF.
And Francine has been a bad rightfielder.
This just in: Its 2009
😆
Maybe by 2012, Gadfly will have convinced us all that Jeff didn’t suck ass in 2006 and 2007. If that happens, it will only be because we’ve forgotten that we watched it happen with our own eyes.
Francoeur didn’t “suck ass” in 2007. He was okay that year.
2006, 2008 and 2009 are different stories.
He may not have sucked ass on the field, or at least not as badly as usual, but rest assured, he sucked ass none the less.
Lineup:
Johnson 2b
Escobar ss
McLouth cf
Chipper 3b
McCann c
Anderson lf
Francoeur rf
Prado 1b
Jurrjens p
I’d rather have Prado batting 6th. Actually, I’d rather have Diaz 6th, Prado 7th, Anderson 8th, and Frenchy never.
That is, proportionally there SLUG will make up a higher percentage of their OPS than say a center fielder or middle infielder whose skillset more often is getting on base, rather than hitting home runs.
Have you ever even looked at the OBP leaderboard for any season? It’s usually populated slugging corner OF’s.
You are really losing it.
He’s not losing it. He’s the same as he’s always been.
His mind is made up before he starts typing:
“Jeffy is a golden god.”
After that, all that’s left is to come up with whatever arbitrary anecdotes he can find to support his point, usually something involving the 2007 season. It’d be kind of funny to watch if he weren’t so bad at it. Instead it’s kinda sad.
Last year’s 20 top OBPs:
SEASON
2008
SLG displayed only–not a sorting criteria
OBA OBA SLG
1 Chipper Jones .470 .574
2 Albert Pujols .462 .653
3 Milton Bradley .436 .563
4 Manny Ramirez .430 .601
5 Lance Berkman .420 .567
6 Joe Mauer .413 .451
7 Mark Teixeira .410 .552
8 Matt Holliday .409 .538
9 Nick Markakis .406 .491
10 Hanley Ramirez .400 .540
11 Brian Giles .398 .456
12 Carlos Quentin .394 .571
13 Alex Rodriguez .392 .573
14 David Wright .390 .534
15 Kevin Youkilis .390 .569
16 Ryan Theriot .387 .359
17 Adam Dunn .386 .513
18 Russell Martin .385 .396
19 B.J. Upton .383 .401
20 Brad Hawpe .381 .498
You have two middle infielders and two catchers, the rest all corner men. The median slugging percentages are .538 and .540, and seventeen of the twenty have slugging percentages above the league. The concept that middle infielders and low-power players have higher on-base percentages is laughable. It’s like saying that basketball centers are the shortest players on the court.
Oh, and every now and again, he completely talks out of his ass too, just for good measure.
😆
Down in Gadfly’s lab…. proving the goodness of Jeff
@64: I was just making an educated guess on the proportionality, but since I had the numbers in front of me I was just looking into it when I read your comment. In 2007 for players a minimum 100 PA, here’s a table that shows the proportion of OPS made up by SLUG%:
C: 56%
1B: 61.1%
2B: 58.4%
3B: 55.6%
SS: 54.6%
LF: 55.9%
CF: 55.1%
RF: 56.6%
DH: 55.7%
The total average for players with at least 100 PA was 55.3%, and the total average for players with at least 500 PA was 56.2%. Jeff Francoeur’s ’07 OPS was slightly higher at 56.8% but well within one standard deviation (3.3% for the 100 PA figures.)
The reason this is relevant to the conversation was your statement that “Jeffy 103, and OPS+ OVERSTATES even that pitiful number because it weights SLG and OBP equally.” It does do this, but it does it for everyone in the group, and when looking at corner outfielders the difference is next to nothing.
Wow, Buddy Carlyle has Type I Diabetes. That would explain al ot about his performance this season.
@66: Having a high number of PA doesn’t overvalue your numbers, but it distorts the average production of a certain position. Just because Vlad Guerrero kicks ass in RF, and is rewarded for this with more PA, doesn’t mean that we should judge the “average” right fielder more critically. Seriously though, read the article that we both linked to, he gives a thorough discussion on the reason why looking at median production is a better indicator of the middle than average.
78 — That doesn’t really mean anything because those numbers are all pretty much the same.
Does he really think he proved something with 78?
😆
@67: It has to be 50% of their games played in RF, not PA. It also takes into account all of their PA, not just the ones recorded in RF, but very non-corner outfielders are going to spend that much time in either corner to end up counting. You compare him to guys who made 100 PA in the corners, because these are the guys who are options to replace him… in 2007 the guys you are calling “fringe major leaguers” with between 100-200 PA are guys like Milton Bradley, Rick Ankiel, Jacoby Ellsbury, Justin Upton, etc.
If you prefer to rank him against all ML corner outfielders with 500 PA or more, he’s 28th of 36 in OPS. If you reduce the minimum to 300 PA he’s 44th of 65… there are 30 teams in the Major Leagues, and they require two corner outfielders each, so anyone in the top 60, let alone the top 45, unquestionably performed at an above average Major League level.
@68: I understand it’s 2009, and Jeff hasn’t looked like he did in 2007 for a while now. 2007, however, does help to establish his potential, and an accurate understanding of history is important.
In situations like this it is easy to look at a player who is performing well below average and discredit everything he’s done before he descended to such levels. This leads to a dishonest understanding of what occured, which is problematic for many reasons.
Wait, I just read your post. Sorry, haven’t been paying attention.
The reason this is relevant to the conversation was your statement that “Jeffy 103, and OPS+ OVERSTATES even that pitiful number because it weights SLG and OBP equally.†It does do this, but it does it for everyone in the group, and when looking at corner outfielders the difference is next to nothing.
This logic doesn’t follow because not everyone has the same slugging percentage. Also, on-base percentage is a lot more important than slugging percentage.
Hopefully in a couple weeks we can all move on from Francoeur, who will be gone. It’s probably too much to hope for, but it’s possible.
@72
As ecstatic as I was about the McLouth deal, that lineup still looks pretty weak. That is: so long as we bleed runs in the corner outfield slots this team will suffer. What does Diaz have to do to get an everyday spot?
@73: My point was that a corner outfielder is likely to have a higher proportion of his OPS come from his SLUG, relative to other players. See the table @78 for the proof of this.
@75: Mac, I have more respect for you than this, I really do… I’m not saying that corner outfielders have lower OBP, I’m saying that there OPS is proportionally made up of SLUG% at a higher rate than say a center fielder, or middle infielder (per the table it does surprise me that 2B rank as highly as they do, but then we have had an influx of power hitting 2B recently.)
Meanwhile, in the real world, Gadfly:
Here’s the list of corner OFs with 500+ PAs who had lower OPS than Jeff Francoeur in 2008:
…
Like me to run that by you again?
(Jeff’s OPS was .653. The only other corner OF within 60 points was our own Gregor Blanco.)
But you’re table at 78 provides no proof of this, and in fact, Mac’s list @ 75 provides a wealth of evidence to the contrary.
Face it, you suck at arguing even worse than Francoeur does at playing baseball.
Actually, Brian Giles’ OPS is worse. Also a DH, David Ortiz.
@81&84: I’m missing your point. Obviously they all don’t have the same slugging percentage, but on average a corner outfielder’s OPS is made up of a higher proportion… That is really besides the point, however.
The original point was to show that if you choose to discount Jeff’s OPS+ because OPS inherently overweighs SLUG relative to OBP, then the discount should be miniscule at best… especially when you’re comparing him to other RFers.
Average RF’s OPS is made up of 56.6% SLUG, and Jeff’s is made up of 56.8%… so if you’re discounting Jeff you should discount all the rest almost the same amount.
Mac, he meant from 2008. Don’t worry though, I’m thoroughly confused about what the hell we’re talking about too.
Yeah, seriously, no non-2007 statistics allowed in this discussion…
🙄
I think we’re on the same side here, Mac. Frenchy has, in fact, been scientifically proven to suck harder than every vacuum Hoover’s ever built. That we have to search so hard to find ANYONE who plays a corner spot that is worse than Frenchy this year- and that last year, there was no one at all- tells us that we need to hope there’s at least one Gadfly among the league’s other 29 general managers.
@87&89: He’s talking about ’08… and I never have defended ’08, because it isn’t possible to defend. You can defend Cox’s decision to keep sticking him out there, only because our best replacement option was Jason Perry, but I don’t think Bobby needs any defending… he’ll have his plaque soon enough.
@88: Douglass, the only thing you’re adding to this conversation is embarrassment for yourself… if you don’t understand the statistics then ask questions, don’t make claims.
How could anyone be confused? Everyone knows that if a players slugging percentage’s percentage of his OPS is only within one standard deviation of the other players at his poistions’ average then it, in fact, doesn’t mask the fact that he’s got the worst OBP in the league…everyone who knows what they’re talking about anyway… 🙄
Gadfly, if playing Franceour in 2008 (and by extension, in 2009) is indefensible… then why are you defending him?
I’d like to nominate this for worst thread of the year.
What did end up happening with the Resop person?
I think what I’m trying to tell you Gadfly is that saying that everyone having the same overvaluing of slugging percentage in their OPS isn’t logically relevant because not everyone has the same proportion of OBP + SLG in their OPS.
Yeah, I’m still wondering about Resop guy over here too.
Resop (“Poser” spelled backwards) is now with Hanshin, in Japan. He sucks there, too.
Hey guys, I didn’t bring up the 2007 discussion. If someone is going to make erroneous statements about the statistics I cite, then I’m going to correct those errors. Sometimes it takes a little longer for me to make my point clear, and for that I’m sorry.
I’m heading out for the night though, so you guys can return to making whatever unsupportable claims about 2007 that you want. I’ll be back soon with some discussion of 2009, as I said 2008 is indefensible, but 2009 actually shows some promise… more wishful thinking than promise probably, but that’s what baseball fandom is all about, right?
It’s been swell!
@96: I didn’t say playing him in ’08 was indefensible, only that calling his production anything but poor in ’08 was indefensible. Big difference. His ’07 production justifies playing him at the start of ’08, and the lack of viable options to replace him justifies playing him the rest of the season and at the start of this one.
We sold Resop to Hanshin on July 7th, 2008. He actually pitched fairly well in Richmond before he left (1.50 ERA in 18 IP, 22 Ks but 12 BBs).
And McLouth grounds out to the pitcher in his first at bat. I’d say, “He fits right in,” but that would be cruel.
@95: The only relevance of the proportion of Slugging that I ever asserted was to rebutt the claim that Francoeur’s OPS+ should be discounted because it weighs SLUG more than OBP… it does, but it clearly does this for every corner outfielder at a very similar rate. Similar enough to reduce the effect to a near negligable factor.
In no way does that fact excuse anyone’s low OBP.
@98: I’m still not sure how that factors in… I understand what you’re saying, and obviously there are probably some slight outliers (though likely not technically outliers)… but on average Jeff has about the same proportion as other corner outfielders, so when judging him against all corner outfielders there is no basis for discounting his OPS for the reason spike stated.
this is great , all i get n my radio feed is the commercials, dead air when the game is on…
ah the glide into a dp
You’re not missing anything so far, bandit.
All of the Braves first six hitters took the first pitch for a ball.
What will Francoeur do?
You don’t pencil in anyone for 20 wins a year, Chip.
If you answered Dan with “Take a ball,” correct. If you bet a dollar on it, you can now retire.
(And of course, he struck out anyway.)
The most predictable game entry ever:
Francoeur struck out swinging.
The only relevance of the proportion of Slugging that I ever asserted was to rebutt the claim that Francoeur’s OPS+ should be discounted because it weighs SLUG more than OBP… it does, but it clearly does this for every corner outfielder at a very similar rate. Similar enough to reduce the effect to a near negligable factor.
You fail at logic again.
If we multiply OBP by 1.4 and add it to slugging pct, you get a much better correlation to RS (the reason why OPS is a useful stat in the first place). Jeff’s OBP is below average postionally and for the league.
QED, If we weight his OBP at 1.4, his relative OPS – or OPS+ as we call it – will go down because the other component stays the same while his weaker component now carries a lesser value compared to his group.
At the risk of sounding like Gadfly, Braves14, I’ll point out that Frenchy has only struck out in 16 percent of his at bats this year, his lowest strikeout rate as a major leaguer.
Thus ends the lesson on the value of the strikeout.
Gallardo looks to me like what Morton could be if he wasn’t a p*ssy
Lowest strikeout rate and lowest OBP.
Is it possible that putting the ball in play a ton won’t led to about 50 extra hits like Joe Simpson says?
FWIW, he still has the most Ks on the current roster.
My guess to the trivia question is Maddux.
Didn’t Bonds sign a bigger contract than Maddux?
cecil fielder is my guess
Good call.
Why we continue to give out machine at-bats is beyond me.
You suck, Jeff.
can we trade him for Brad Penny and have Penny play RF–he’d probably have a good throwing arm
That’s a neat story, Randy Johnson’s son was the batboy last night for his 300th win.
Wait, Randy Johnson has had sex?
Mac – I wanted to know what happened to the person who had the huge blow up over Resop. Maybe I’m mis-remembering.
I have a hard time enjoying the team while Francoeur is on it.
I can’t get PTV on cable, and I am stuck flipping between a College baseball game and MLB Network highlights. Did Jeff fly out on the first pitch?
Frenchy SUCKS!!!
Oh c’mon, Drewdat. He’s only ugly now instead of hideous, like he was back in the ’90s.
2nd pitch
Yunel needs a lobotomy.
I think Yunel and Jeff share a brain.
There was someone who just totally loved Resop, you’re right. But I don’t know how to look them up.
@ 103,
To be fair, he did make contact. Not a perfect fit there.
Mac, to make the obvious joke… perchance he’s already had one.
Oh my goodness…
Dammit Yunel.
WHAT”S WRONG WITH OUR DEFENSE TONGIHT?!?!?!!
Prado (6)
Now, that was an unearned run.
The first pitch was hardly a pitch, though. It was more of a joke among the Milwaukee team. I think they all took bets before hand. Everyone except Gallardo and Kendall put 100$ in the pot and drew a “swing” or “no swing” card from a hat and instructed Gallardo to throw a breaking ball at least 2 feet in front of the plate. I’m shocked that the no swing card won.
This sucks.
Ive said it and I will say it again .. we panicked or Wren panicked and signed Kawakami and wasted 7 mil a year we could have used for another Right handed hitting bat …
Yunel is so maddening.
Should still be only 2-0, now at least 4-0. Thanks Escobar.
A Whitesox announcer had a great homerun call for DeRosa tonight. I hope everyone gets to hear it on MLB Network or Baseball Tonight.
I don’t think I want to know what Yunel screwed up.
The Braves appear completely uninterested tonight.
Someone needs to shove Yunel’s head into a bowl of brown dye and get rid of the freaking blonde tips. On a night like tonight he just looks extra ridiculous.
I agree, the frost tips have to go.
Did a search of the last couple threads and I haven’t seen this linked:
LaRoche reaction to McLouth trade
“There ain’t a guy in here who ain’t [ticked] off about it,” said first baseman Adam LaRoche, according to the report. “It’s kind of like being with your platoon in a battle, and guys keep dropping around you. You keep hanging on, hanging on, and you’ve got to figure: How much longer till you sink?
“It’s fine. Heck with it. We’re not the GM. We don’t run the team. If they feel like it’s the best move for three or four years from now, great,” LaRoche said, according to the report. “Unfortunately, that does me no good. I’ve still got to be in here telling guys it’s going to be fine with Nate gone. Well, you can only do that for so long until guys just kind of … well, they know.”
Wow. Maybe others noticed this already, but I just saw it. Our pal Francoeur pulled a grand total of ONE walk in May. Which tied him for the month with teammates Derek Lowe, Jair Jurrjens, and Jo-Jo Reyes.
Utterly hack-tacular.
Quite the medley there, “Love Boat” and “Love Lift Us Up Where We Belong”.
Is it just me, or have the Braves had a lot of these games in the last couple weeks where no one wanted to show up for work? (We’ve had a lot of them over the last three years, but the last fortnight seems to have an unusual concentration.)
@152: It’s not just you. If we keep being held down, this will be eight of the last 14 games with two runs or less.
I thought the McCann double was a sign of life. But Anderson and Frenchy kill more rallies than the Chinese Army.
The back half of the order is better with Prado there, but it generally remains rubbish.
heyooooo! @154
Nice to see we are raking it again tonight.
Medlen in the 9th?
Idle thoughts while watching our idle bats: In the graphic for the Civil Rights Game (on Gameday), which race will come in with the dreaded “eagle claws”?
3-21 when we score three or less. Soon to be 3-22…
Ugh
I wasn’t talking about Resop himself. I was asking about that douche that showed up here at the beginning of last season and had all the meltdowns whenever we talked about how much Resop sucked. What happened to that guy? What was his login? links?
Nate, since you’re new here and you’re no doubt wondering, it does get better than this. Not often, but it does.
Recap is up. Francoeur delenda est.