FanGraphs: Is Brian Dozier's Power Repeatable?

[Champuckett]

No one thought Dozier would ever hit more than 20 home runs in a season just a few years ago.

 

After Dozier hit 18 home runs, no one thought he would hit more and forget doing it at least 3 more times in consecutive seasons.

 

After doing that, no one thought Dozier would surpass 30 home runs, and forget 40, that would literally be impossible.

 

Now it will be said that it's not possible for him to ever hit 40 again. Alright.

 

I hope people continue to believe this guy will accomplish very little, so he can seemingly use this as fuel and accomplish everything he apparently is not capable of doing.

[Platoon]

I hear this.  However, if Dozier was indeed a leader in a 103-loss team, (plus the two 96-Loss teams) doesn't this mean that his "leadership" does not work?   Leadership produces team results not individual stats.  

 

Here are Dozier's splits in 2016:

With nobody on: .286/.345/.605, 30 HR, 400 PA (13.3 PA/HR);

with men on: .242/.332/.460, 12 HR, 291 PA (24.3 PA/HR).

Late and close: .177/.290/.283, 3 HR, 131 PA (43.7 PA/HR);

2 outs RISP: .191/.313/.426, 3 HR, 80 PA (26.7 PA/HR).

High leverage: .192/.288/.384, 6 HR, 146 PA (24.3 PA/HR),

Low leverage: .266/.338/.588, 15 HR. 223 PA (14.9 PA/HR)

 

 

 

In other words, Dozier was at his best when the game was not on the line and at his worst when it was.  The anti-Kirby.  That's why he is part of the problem with the Twins and needs to go...

Concur. That was my eyes only view last year, my thought about why 30 of his HR's were solo, and why I never thought he was a 3 hitter. The difference in a "clutch" hitter vs a hitter who seems not to be so isn't that the clutch hitter exceeds above his normal stats. It's that the non clutch hitter doesn't achieve his. I won't relitigate the whole Dozier trade scenarios except for this. Selling high was a good idea, and we should have. But if our goal was to trade a 42 HR guy, we were the ones who were off the mark. Remember, Dozier hitting all those dingers last year after the year was lost was akin to the guy who drains the three pointer down ten with 6 seconds left!

[Vanimal46]

No one thought Dozier would ever hit more than 20 home runs in a season just a few years ago.

 

After Dozier hit 18 home runs, no one thought he would hit more and forget doing it at least 3 more times in consecutive seasons.

 

After doing that, no one thought Dozier would surpass 30 home runs, and forget 40, that would literally be impossible.

 

Now it will be said that it's not possible for him to ever hit 40 again. Alright.

 

I hope people continue to believe this guy will accomplish very little, so he can seemingly use this as fuel and accomplish everything he apparently is not capable of doing.

Oh yeah... That's the good stuff.

 

This take could use a little more spice and heat to reach scorching level.

[Brock Beauchamp]

 

Concur. That was my eyes only view last year, my thought about why 30 of his HR's were solo, and why I never thought he was a 3 hitter. The difference in a "clutch" hitter vs a hitter who seems not to be so isn't that the clutch hitter exceeds above his normal stats. It's that the non clutch hitter doesn't achieve his.

This is a good example of why we don't use our shoddy memories to build a narrative that fits a preconception.

 

Dozier's OPS splits for the past three seasons:

 

Year -- Bases Empty -- Men On

2014 ---- .759 ---- .763

2015 ---- .733 ---- .782

2016 ---- .950 ---- .792

 

Dozier had a bad 2016 with men on base. So did the entire rest of the team.

 

Yet he overperformed with men on base the year before that.

 

The year before that, he was almost exactly neutral.

 

So does Dozier lose/gain clutch ability on a yearly basis or is sequencing just kinda random, which explains why the Twins overperformed in 2015 and underperformed in 2016?

 

I'll go with the Occam's Razor answer that sequencing is largely random.

[DocBauer]

Hard to say how good defensively the Twins will be this season, but if everyone plays the positions as it appears they will play, the entire OF, 1B, 2B and catcher should be solid to good. This leaves 3B and SS as the "only" real question marks. I don't say that to demean the obvious concern, simply to state the defense should be better and I'd rather be concerned about 2 spots than 3 or 4 or 5.

 

I do believe Dozier's power is sustainable, though probably not in the 40 range again. But I believe high 20'school or even low 30's is very possible and probably. And I find references to exit velocity and the such to be a bit humorous. As long as they go out, they go out, distance means little to me. And I like the numbers posted about his OPS the past 3 seasons with runners on vs bases empty. There will always be variance year to year in any production you look at. So I don't penalize him for a lower OPS with runners on last season when they were solid the two seasons prior.

[Brock Beauchamp]

I've always been cautiously optimistic on Dozier but it'd be hilarious if he went and jacked 50 homers in 2017.

 

I don't expect him to do it but given his career trajectory - a steady climb from 6 to 18 to 23 to 28 to 42 homers - I'm not ruling out anything when it comes to the guy.

 

Every year, I expect him to show warts and come back to earth a bit but he never does it, at least in the power department.

 

Going into 2016, I didn't believe he'd cross 30 homers and he blew right by that number.

[Pardon My Dinger]

Oh yeah... That's the good stuff.

 

This take could use a little more spice and heat to reach scorching level.

I'm feelin the burn for sure.

[Doomtints]

 

But the vast majority of what people think of as being pitching is actually pitching.

 

I will let Bill James know that you know more than he does.

[snepp]

 

I will let Bill James know that you know more than he does.

 

Are you inferring that Bill James believes that pitchers are less important to pitching than the fielders behind them?

 

If not, you may need to expand upon what you're saying, with some James references.

[Dantes929]

 

Sequencing is largely a form of luck. If it was competence, explain why the Cubs actually underperformed their sequencing last season and not by a little bit. It was a significant number (-4 wins IIRC).

 

And if you think the 103 losses were due to anything other than the pitching staff, I question whether you watched this team last season. They weren't 15th in the AL by a small margin; by many metrics there was a smaller gap between 10th and 14th place than there was between 14th and 15th place.

 

The Twins' pitching staff was historically awful last season. Not just "last in the league" bad but "one of the worst teams of the past decade" bad.

First two months of the season the Twins averaged 3.75 runs a game.   It was definitely both sides of the ball that contributed to 103 losses and sequencing as it applies to runs also since their run differential says they should have won 7 more games.   Runs given up more to blame of course but the offense under performed badly in the first 75 games which resulted in   under performed for the whole season.

[Doomtints]

 

Are you inferring that Bill James believes that pitchers are less important to pitching than the fielders behind them?

 

If not, you may need to expand upon what you're saying, with some James references.

 

I'm supposed to flip to this chapter from Bill James's books and spoon feed it to you now?

I'll get on that right away.

[USAFChief]

I'm supposed to flip to this chapter from Bill James's books and spoon feed it to you now?

I'll get on that right away.

I'm supposed to just take your word for it?

[TheLeviathan]

 

I'm supposed to flip to this chapter from Bill James's books and spoon feed it to you now?

I'll get on that right away.

 

Well, sourcing your reference would be helpful.  That's not spoon feeding, that's just providing context.

[Doomtints]

 

I'm supposed to just take your word for it?

 

Definitely not. His books are available. I will even mail you one.

[TheLeviathan]

 

Definitely not. His books are available. I will even mail you one.

 

Save the trouble, just give us a paragraph where he asserts what you are suggesting.  Or give us the page number.

 

Otherwise, it feels like you're Trumpifying your argument here.

[ashbury]

Definitely not. His books are available. I will even mail you one.

It's a fair quote from BJ. Easy enough to find references to it, e.g. http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:XzegrdxfwVQJ:www.scout.com/mlb/tigers/story/812138-tigstown-analysis-minor-league-starters-fip+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

Which is good enough for me.

 

Still, the context of what he said was in thinking about BABIP. If most of pitching were really defense, you'd have teams with the best defenders result in pitching staffs with similar ERAs (or FIPs) to each other.

 

Instead, not every LA Dodger is a Clayton Kershaw clone.

 

James's "Much" is not nearly "Half".

[Doomtints]

 

Save the trouble, just give us a paragraph where he asserts what you are suggesting.  Or give us the page number.

 

Otherwise, it feels like you're Trumpifying your argument here.

 

Sure. Look at the Padres segment in the 1988 Abstract where he talked about the most relevant things he has learned from baseball research. In SABR circles they worship this chapter as if it were the ten commandments, so I would call it essential reading for all baseball fans.

 

The book is out of print but used copies are floating around.

[Oldgoat_MN]

 

I'm feelin the burn for sure.

 

You should get that looked at.

[Doomtints]

 

 

Still, the context of what he said was in thinking about BABIP..

 

That's not what he wrote. That's not what your link says he wrote, either.

[Doomtints]

 

Instead, not every LA Dodger is a Clayton Kershaw clone.

 

 

James, in the same chapter, talks about the difference between power and finesse pitchers.

I think you should find this book and read it rather than guessing at the meaning. There's a reason Bill James is so famous.

[Doomtints]

As an aside (yes I know I'm digressing), Bill James wrote at the end of this edition that he was done with baseball metrics. He felt nobody was paying attention. He felt he was coming up with great algorithms and theories and yet he was constantly seeing ignorance. He wrote that the whole process was depressing, that people would argue with him even though he had the data and they didn't. He was also upset that the NL MVP in 1987 did not deserve the title and, to him, this confirmed that he was wasting his time. He felt he kept being called on to defend himself v. fans and journalists who were not doing any research.

 

He closed the book off saying that all of his algorithms and theories were from that point on free for anyone to use (or make money off of).

 

Today we owe a lot to James. Without this gesture, fangraphs would not exist. B-R might exist, but it many of the metrics on it now wouldn't be there. Keeping real -- the reason he wrote this is still very much with us as this thread just proved. I'm not calling out TD in particular because this is the entire community for every team. We are a strange group of know-it-alls when few of us do any research or even make much of an effort to understand the metrics we see on websites.

In any case, this book is essential reading as he poured everything he knew at the time into it. Go get it.

[TheLeviathan]

 

Sure. Look at the Padres segment in the 1988 Abstract where he talked about the most relevant things he has learned from baseball research. In SABR circles they worship this chapter as if it were the ten commandments, so I would call it essential reading for all baseball fans.

 

The book is out of print but used copies are floating around.

 

The lengths you're going to in order to not share what you are referring to tells me you don't believe your interpretation will hold once you reveal it.  If you don't even have that much confidence in your interpretation, I'm not sure why anyone should give it any credence.

[Linus]

I'm supposed to flip to this chapter from Bill James's books and spoon feed it to you now?

 

I'll get on that right away.

Not cool dude.