Time to switch up the batting order

[ScrapTheNickname]

1. Mauer

2. Polanco

3. Dozier

4. Sano

5. Kepler

6. Buxton

8.

9.

10

11.

12.

13. Rosario

[wsnydes]

 

I have a hard time looking at MLB rankings for pitching and offense since, when looking at pitching number we have to consider AL pitchers have to pitch to teams with a DH (instead of pitchers) and when looking at offense, we have to consider AL teams have the DH (as opposed to pitchers hitting).  11 out of 30 is a lot more impressive than 7th out of 15.

Fair point.  My main point is that the offense is middle of the pack, whereas the pitching and defense are not anywhere near that. 

[bluechipper]

 

1. Mauer

2. Polanco

3. Dozier

4. Sano

5. Kepler

6. Buxton

8.

9.

10

11.

12.

13. Rosario

That's a weird lineup. And for more than one reason.

[bluechipper]

 

see, there you go...the RBI number by itself is definitely the best way to tell who his best with RISP. :-)

 

like fielding % and errors tells us who are the best fielders and how wins tells us who the best pitchers are...

Sarcasm aside, besides fielding %, they're actually pretty good indicators.

[Mike Sixel]

 

Sarcasm aside, besides fielding %, they're actually pretty good indicators.

 

What does RBI tell me, about whether you want them batting with people on base, or someone with a different RBI total batting?

 

Is a player with 100 RBI more likely to drive in a run than a player with 90, or 80? How do you know it isn't about opportunity?

[jimmer]

 

Sarcasm aside, besides fielding %, they're actually pretty good indicators.

no

[bluechipper]

 

What does RBI tell me, about whether you want them batting with people on base, or someone with a different RBI total batting?

 

Is a player with 100 RBI more likely to drive in a run than a player with 90, or 80? How do you know it isn't about opportunity?

Joe Mauer has been healthy and he's going to struggle to get to 50 RBIs. That alone should tell you that he shouldn't be expected to produce runs in the middle of an order.

[bluechipper]

 

no

You're right. That's why the leaders in those categories are all totally random. /s

[USAFChief]

no

Yes.

[Mike Sixel]

 

You're right. That's why the leaders in those categories are all totally random. /s

 

Again, you don't think opportunity has anything to do with that? Like, a LOT to do with that?

[Mike Sixel]

 

Joe Mauer has been healthy and he's going to struggle to get to 50 RBIs. That alone should tell you that he shouldn't be expected to produce runs in the middle of an order.

 

was that that question I asked? 

[bluechipper]

 

Again, you don't think opportunity has anything to do with that? Like, a LOT to do with that?

Well they have those opportunities because they're the team's best hitters. That's why they're hitting 3rd or 4th.

[jimmer]

 

You're right. That's why the leaders in those categories are all totally random. /s

Did Colon deserve the CY Young over Santana in 2005?

 

Was Hughes better than Felix Hernandez in 2010?

 

Are Porcello and Happ the best pitchers in baseball this year?

 

If you are looking at wins, the answer to all these questions is yes, right?

 

Andruw Jones once won the RBI title with a .207/.335/.386 slash line with RISP.  I'd argue he wasn't the best RBI guy that year or even close. He did, however, have 230 PA with RISP.

 

Howard won the MVP over Pujols in large part because he had more RBI. He was a better RBI guy, it was argued.

 

Howard with RISP: .256/.426/.518

Pujols  with RISP:  .397/.535/.802.

 

But HOWARD was the better RBI guy, because of the RBI total.  Nothing to do with Pujols having 170 PA with RISP and Howard having 223 PA with RISP. And Andruw Jones was a great RBI guy the year he won the RBI title.

 

As stand alone stats, without looking any further, Wins, RBI and errors/fielding % will lead you to some bad conclusions.

 

I wish I could find a quote I found and posted here earlier this year by Keith Law in regards to this conversation.  It was awesome.

 

[bluechipper]

 

Did Colon deserve the CY Young over Santana in 2005?

 

Was Hughes better than Felix Hernandez in 2010?

 

Are Porcello and Happ the best pitchers in baseball this year?

 

If you are looking at wins, the answer to all these questions is yes, right?

 

Andruw Jones once won the RBI title with a .207/.335/.386 slash line with RISP.  I'd argue he wasn't the best RBI guy that year or even close. He did, however, have 230 PA with RISP.

 

Howard won the MVP over Pujols in large part because he had more RBI. He was a better RBI guy, it was argued.

 

Howard with RISP: .256/.426/.518

Pujols  with RISP:  .397/.535/.802.

 

But HOWARD was the better RBI guy, because of the RBI total.  Nothing to do with Pujols having 170 PA with RISP and Howard having 223 PA with RISP. And Andruw Jones was a great RBI guy the year he won the RBI title.

 

As stand alone stats, without looking any further, Wins, RBI and errors/fielding % will lead you to some bad conclusions.

 

I wish I could find a quote I found and posted here earlier this year by Keith Law in regards to this conversation.  It was awesome.

I didn't say it was exact, I just said it was a good indicator of success. Everyone you mentioned had really good seasons.

[jimmer]

This isn't what I was looking for from Law, but it's something:

 

BK (Mpls)

You've moved me to become a believer in advanced metrics. My only concern is that the advanced metrics seem to be based solely on individual performance. As an avid fan, I still see the importance of RBI and Wins solely because in the end, baseball is a team sport.
Klaw  (1:34 PM)

Team wins matter, but pitcher wins are useless if we're talking about how the pitcher performed. Again, just look at Felix Hernandez this year.

 

Chris (Falmouth)

Can you explain why RBI is considered an archaic stat and what are the stats that should be paid more attention too?
Klaw  (1:29 PM)

Your RBI total is a function of who hits in front of you - if you have more guys on base when you bat, you get more RBI opportunities. If you want to get a picture of an individual player's actual contribution to his team, you need to use stats that are just a function of his performance, not his teammates'. Among basic stats OBP and SLG are more useful than AVG or raw RBI totals, and there are advanced stats like wOBA and WAR (which includes fielding, but not always the same metrics) that give a more complete picture.

 

Jonathan (Wilimington)

Don't you think you've gone more or less completely overboard by saying the RBI is meaningless? It's not like saying W-L's are meaningless for a pitcher (which I agree with). RBI's are only meaningless as stats in the sense that they are susceptible to hitters having fluke years, both good and bad, and hence are not a true barometer of success. However, of course if someone like Cabrera, Pujols or Votto have a lot of RBI's it still speaks of their hitting prowess. Yes?
Klaw  (1:38 PM)

What do RBI tell us that a basic stat like SLG doesn't? I'll answer: RBI tell us that they hit behind guys who got on base a lot for them. Not useful information.

 

 

Chris (Dallas, TX)

re: RBI. I think people freak out about saying they are "meaningless" because it implies the act of driving in a run is meaningless. Of course driving in runs is important, it is just not indicitave of a particular skill. That about sum it up?
Klaw  (1:43 PM)

That's pretty good.

 

mike (woodridge)

isn't the difference that early baseball statistics, such as wins and rbi, were focused on describing the events that determined the outcome of the game, whereas modern statistics is focused on events that are best fit to predict the outcome of future games? a difference between describing the past and predicting the future?
Klaw  (1:49 PM)

I've never heard that before. Makes a lot of sense. I think the modern stats are also about isolating individual performance.

 

 

Gus (NY)

Greinke's ERA is phenomenal, but he only has 13 W's. Mo hasn't given up a run since April in many more pressure situations.
Keith Law  (1:24 PM)

You have officially failed this chat. Report to Remedial Baseball immediately. First lesson: Why Wins are the worst measure of a starter's performance.

 

[Doomtints]

 

Well, we certainly HOPE that's the case, don't we.  I know I do.

 

BTW, it's pretty well known that OBP is undervalued in OPS.  That OBP should have more value than SLG%.  It's been argued by people who do advanced stats for quite some time. Good thing OPS is slowly being replaced. wRC+ I like way more.

 

'For a long time we had a hard time figuring out which of two hitters was better. Sure, we had OPS and OPS+, but we also knew they weren’t quite good enough. For example, two players could have the same OPS but have a different combinations of the beloved “three slash”: AVG/OBP/SLG. In that case, which hitter was better? There was a (correct) sense that OBP was generally more valuable, and measures like The Hardball Times‘ GPA ({[1.8 x OBP] + SLG}/4; invented by Aaron Gleeman) did a good job of getting at that, but it never really caught on for some reason.'

 

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/avgobpslg-in-an-age-of-woba/

 

Runs Created suffers from the same problems.  SLG uses a scoring system which isn't real-world baseball stats.  RC does the same thing, it just uses different weights (more points for singles and triples, less points for doubles and home runs).  RC has some other modifiers thrown in so as to weigh other additional statistics that aren't covered by OPS.

 

OBP is a real world system.  If the batter touches a base, they get a point.   Otherwise they get 0 points.  Throw all of the events together and you get the average.  When you try to combine a real world system (OBP) with an artificial points-based system (SLG), you are going to have problems matching it all up, particularly when some event (in this case, the hit) is counted in both systems.

 

One way to fix OPS would be to remove hits from the OBP portion of the equation.  This would fix OPS, but it would devalue OBP even more in the process, at least if people start only looking at your new version of OPS and continue to ignore OBP as standalone stat.

 

An alternative way to fix the issue would be to re-weigh the SLG statistic by subtracting one for each hitting event and leave OBP alone.  Since 1 point is already gained by a hit on the OBP side, on the SLG side a single is then 0 points (as it was already counted in OBP), a double is 1, triple is 2, and HR is 3. 

 

A third possible fix would be to do OBP + extra-base-hit%.  That would be interesting and it would cover everything without going to a points-based system (though no doubt many would not like the idea of doubles being weighted the same as triples and home runs).

 

I have done the former (and generally liked the results -- try it with Mauer's and Killebrew's MVP years) but I have not tried the latter two. 

 

As an aside, both OBP and SLG are important but let's face it not every player can do both -- and teams don't need every player to do both.  We should be OK with using OBP and SLG separately to judge the strengths of players.  Teams want SLG guys in the middle of the order and OBP guys everywhere else (probably including the bench).  Taken that way, there is no doubt that OBP is underrated.  OBP and defense should be the bread and butter of a baseball team.

[jimmer]

For me, it's not really about finding a stat that is 100% flawless, it's about using the available stats that come closest to that.  Law has called OPS a junk stat. I rarely use it.  It really depends on who I'm discussing stuff with and/or if there are better stats to look at in certain situations (and if I can find them).

[Mr. Brooks]

August was Mauer's best month since May of 2013. Benching him now seems ridiculous.

 

If he is injured as you say then he needs to be on the DL. I haven't heard about him being injured, however.

Why would you DL Mauer (or anyone) in September?

[USAFChief]

Again, you don't think opportunity has anything to do with that? Like, a LOT to do with that?

So is it your contention Mauer has never had enough RBI opportunities in a season to drive in 100 runs? Batting 3rd most of his career?

 

Obviously, a hitter needs opportunities, that's part of it.

 

But not all of it. All hitters do not react to RBI chances in the same way.

 

In Mauer's case, he often chooses not to swing at pitches that present opportunity to drive the ball early in counts. That may result in more walks, but as we all knw, a walk is not as valuable as a hit. Even a single is worth more than a walk. And in Mauer's case, fewer RBI. Not to mention, when he walks in a favorable situation, say against a RH pitcher, he often leaves it up to a hitter, say Plouffe, to drive in a run, only now it's a hitter not in a favorable situation. RH hitter v RH pitcher.

 

And in Mauer's case, when he does put the ball in play, It's often softly, and in front of outfielders, which limits the number of bases runners can advance. It's often to LF, which again limits the bases runners can advance. As noted above, hes often taking strikes early in counts, forcing him to hit behind in the count, which is again a source of soft contact, and fewer RBI. And he rarely drives himself in, further limiting his RBI.

 

Now, if none of that means anything to you, fine. I disagree, but fine.

 

But that's not the same as saying RBI depend entirely on opportunity. Because that's not the case.

[TheTruth]

In a perfect world Buxton would be leading off. Stealing 30 bases and scoring 100+ runs. Right now? Don't change a thing. Let him continue with the success he is having. He doesn't need the added pressure of leading off. Let him have all winter basking in his new found confidence.

 

Next spring is the time to up the ante

 

...and please let me see Vargas batting 5 the rest of the year. Get him as many bats as possible.

[Mike Sixel]

 

So is it your contention Mauer has never had enough RBI opportunities in a season to drive in 100 runs? Batting 3rd most of his career?

Obviously, a hitter needs opportunities, that's part of it.

But not all of it. All hitters do not react to RBI chances in the same way.

In Mauer's case, he often chooses not to swing at pitches that present opportunity to drive the ball early in counts. That may result in more walks, but as we all knw, a walk is not as valuable as a hit. Even a single is worth more than a walk. And in Mauer's case, fewer RBI. Not to mention, when he walks in a favorable situation, say against a RH pitcher, he often leaves it up to a hitter, say Plouffe, to drive in a run, only now it's a hitter not in a favorable situation. RH hitter v RH pitcher.

And in Mauer's case, when he does put the ball in play, It's often softly, and in front of outfielders, which limits the number of bases runners can advance. It's often to LF, which again limits the bases runners can advance. As noted above, hes often taking strikes early in counts, forcing him to hit behind in the count, which is again a source of soft contact, and fewer RBI. And he rarely drives himself in, further limiting his RBI.

Now, if none of that means anything to you, fine. I disagree, but fine.

But that's not the same as saying RBI depend entirely on opportunity. Because that's not the case.

 

I never said it was entirely about opportunity....I will also say I have no idea how this became about Mauer. We were discussing whether or not RBI was a good indicator of whether or not 1 hitter was better than another hitter. I would argue that it is a weak indicator. Mauer is a great hitter, but I agree, he does have some weaknesses (which are much smaller than most hitters').

[DocBauer]

First, we know pitching is a huge issue, but this thread is about the lineup and offense. Second, while I don't dismiss varying statistics or their relevance, if you look long and hard enough, you can find stats that can support almost any argument.

 

A guy can hit well with RISP but have little power or few runners OB in front of him, but another guy can have a lower RISP AVG but be a big RBI producer due to power and actual RISP. Sometimes it's the chicken and egg theory. A lineup has to be about the makeup of your team, do certain guys just appear more comfortable in certain spots for whatever reason, etc. I think sometimes it can be a "feel" thing and less analytical.

 

Ideally, this team should thrive better offensively when Buxton can bring his considerable talents to the leadoff spot. Even if he's just beginning to fulfill his potential. (*note, I think Polanco is a solid secondary option here).

 

I like Mauer in the 2 spot due to contact and OB...for as long as he's on the team and in the lineup. I believe Kepler has the ability to be the team's best overall hitter, AVG, OB, power and speed, so I think he's your future 3 hitter.

 

Those first 3 should provide Sano and Dozier many RBI opportunities as well as provide OB opportunities for the hitters behind them. Vargas, if he continues his development, has power and solid OB ability behind those two. Rosario and whoever is at catcher, actually have a chance to hit in the lower third of the lineup with runners often OB. Then you have Polanco turning the lineup over again for the top of the order

[DaveW]

A Mauer RBIs debate eh?

 

Good lord, this has been a long season!