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Willihammer

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Everything posted by Willihammer

  1. Willihammer
    My point is only that Deduno's fastball is nowhere near erratic as a knuckleball, as Doumit claimed. And Deduno is by far the most erratic pitcher on the staff. In general, the Twins field strikethrowers, so its a stretch to put very much of the blame for Doumit's or Mauer's lousy framing scores on the guys they are catching, I think. This is a reputation the Twins staff as a whole has had for going on 2 decades now.
  2. Willihammer
    By the way, point of clarification. The strike zone overlay baseballprospectus uses does take into account batter height: http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=14572
  3. Willihammer
    Alright, for sake of argument, let's say Deduno's fastball does move more than most. Still its nowhere near a knuckleball. http://www.brooksbaseball.net/pfxVB/cache/movement.php-pitchSel=285079&game=gid_2013_08_05_tormlb_seamlb_1&batterX=&innings=yyyyyyyyy&sp_type=1&s_type=2.gif http://cdn.fangraphs.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/RA_stroF.gif Doumit was a lousy framer in Pittsburgh, and he's a lousy framer in Minnesota. He's almost certainly worse than Thole, the guy who has to catch an actual knuckleballer.
  4. Willihammer
    Well, what BP is saying with the data, is that Mauer might not be a lot better. Something I suspect most scouts would disagree with. Because they don't trust the technology, the overlay, the sample size, or whatever.
  5. Willihammer
    Eh? The rules are very clear about the strike zone. There's nothing subjective about it. If people have qualms with the overlay that Mike Fast created, fine. But I see no reason not to trust the readings from pitchf/x.
  6. Willihammer
    Why? edit: MLB has bought and paid for these services already. Presumably, if MLB is grading umpires against the readings, then they've tested the accuracy. Why on earth people shouldn't a team take the data and run with it?
  7. Willihammer
    I don't follow. It sounds like Mauer was the constant, not the pitchers, necessarily. This has become somewhat mythical I think. Mauer sets up in the middle of the plate because Deduno has poor command, yes, but not because his movement is unpredictable. He's not throwing knuckleballs. This is ironically one of the things pitchf/x makes very clear. In addition to measuring where the ball crosses the plate, it also tells us the verticl and horizontal movement of pitches, even the axis of rotation and RPMs. BrooksBaseball.net: PITCHf/x Tool http://www.brooksbaseball.net/pfxVB/cache/movement.php-pitchSel=465679&game=gid_2013_08_02_houmlb_minmlb_1&batterX=&innings=yyyyyyyyy&sp_type=1&s_type=2.gif The other thing is, if a guy is wild and constantly throwing out of the zone, and falling behind in counts, then if anything that could make a catcher appear to be a better framer. Because in 2-0 and 3-0 that's when umpires are more likely to call borderline strikes than any other counts. Likewise, a pitcher having good command wouldn't necessarily be given more borderline strikes, particularly if he's getting ahead 01 and 02 all the time.
  8. Willihammer
    Right but all of this is ironed out by the fact that players, teams and umpires travel around all the time. Again this study in the OP, for the data running up to the week ending 7/26, is the cumulative of the 2013 season. 1.25 batters per inning, 3.8 pitches per PA, we're talking roughly 1125 batters and around 4275 pitches received by every team through the first 100 games. It doesn't long for the sample to get huge. That's why again, I'm having a hard time grasping why these concerns about individual player zones or random inaccuracies with the optics are a concern.
  9. Willihammer
    Well, MLB uses it to grade umpires. I believe umpires use it themselves also. You look at the phantom cams shooting 5000 fps now, and the 3d Matrix setup they have in Yankee stadium, optics are so good now that I am frankly surprised Sportvision isn't claiming the data isn't accurate to a few millimeters instead of a whole inch. But even if the technology is only accurate to a half-foot, that will still even out given a large enough sample. So I guess I don't even see how the accuracy or inaccuracy of it affects the validity of the findings here.
  10. Willihammer
    That makes sense intuitively but I don't think its been the case in reality. As mentioned before, we've been studying this for going on 5 years or more. A lot of guys have changed teams, pitching staffs have turned over, but these findings remain pretty consistent. Plus, think about it. If a guy is missing his spots so regularly, he's not going to be around to amplify any bias very much. In Deduno's case, he's hit his spots pretty well this year actually, thus he's still on the team and not in AAA.
  11. Willihammer
    In the case of baseballprospectus: BrooksBaseball.net: PITCHf/x Tool | Strikezone Maps So to answer your question, yes, Dustin Pedroia is given the same zone as Big Papi, rightly or wrongly. actually that's a bad example since Pedroia's RHH and Ortiz is a LHH, but you get the idea.
  12. Willihammer
    Just to split hairs, Johan's slider was a very good pitch for him back in the day. And I don't believe a changeup gets you as far as it used to, now that teams have learned to reverse-platoon in order to neuter it when guys can't offer a very good 3rd selection.
  13. Willihammer
    From http://www.sportvision.com/baseball/pitchfx:
  14. Willihammer
    There are other factors, including a respect factor. Hitters have a respect factor too (Mauer gets a lot of respect as a hitter from umpires). All those other things are lumped in obviously. But we can compare some of the names on this same study from 2011, when Martin was a Yankee, Doumit was a Pirate, and Molina was a Blue Jay, and most of these names are still in the same spot 2 years later. Which leads me to believe that, after a few thousand pitches (probably less), all those other things more or less even out and what you're left looking at, primarily, is the catcher's framing skill. The year to year correlations, even the week to week correlations, are pretty good. Look at the leaderboards after less than 4 weeks worth of games (here:Baseball Prospectus | Overthinking It: This Week in Catcher Framing, 4/19) and again, the names and places are almost unchanged from the bigger studies that look at tens of thousands of pitches.
  15. Willihammer
    Simple look at the difference between total called strikes and pitchf/x strikes by team - the Twins are 2nd to worst.
  16. Willihammer
    Due to the speed that these balls are thrown, the human brain is force to do a little guesswork on the final few feet of the trajectory. It would be almost impossible to not be influenced by catcher movements and glove placement, I think. There are other factors that influence an umpire though. Count, platoon, and pitch type. This article speaks to that: More on Called Strikes on the Edge | FanGraphs Baseball
  17. Willihammer
    I was suprised to see the latest catcher framing leaderboard on baseball prospectus has one Joe Mauer among the league's worst. According to pitchf/x, he has stolen 192 out of zone strikes while bungling 340 inzone pitches for balls for the season. Baseball Prospectus | Overthinking It: This Week in Catcher Framing, 7/26 Earlier this year Parker noted how Mauer is below average at getting low strikes calls but above average at getting high strike calls: Joe Mauer and catcher framing - Blogs - Minnesota Twins News & Rumors Forum I wonder if this is a case of the staff throwing a lot of pitches low in the zone, instead of high, as Anderson and the coaches always preach, thus negating Mauer's strength as a framer (getting the high strike).
  18. Willihammer
    Will be interesting to see how these guys do against Appel on Tuesday
  19. Willihammer
    I thought you were going to say, with all these crummy starts the silver lining is he won't be approaching an innings limit any time soon
  20. Willihammer
    Arcia certainly commands my attention when he steps to the plate. I love his approach, he's aggressive!
  21. Willihammer
    One theory: I know Justin is on some newfangled gluten free and maybe also a vegan(?) diet. Maybe he struggles to find the right sort of foods on the road?
  22. Willihammer
    A 3-2 game in the 7th? No way. Every team guns for an insurance run in that scenario. The fact that the As got it is part of the reason they're in 1st place, I imagine.
  23. Willihammer
    I wonder if, after learning the CF trade market last offseason, Terry Ryan decided to take advantage of AH's hot spring training and turn the 2013 season into the Aaron Hicks Tour. Maybe there was a third team, Mariners or even Braves, who kept the communication lines open into the season. And so he waited, and waited, for Hicks to turn the year around until finally the trade deadline came and went and nobody wanted him anymore or wasn't willing to part with a particular pitcher the Twins liked.
  24. Willihammer
    Tanner was pulled after 2 innings against the Bluefield Blue Jays yesterday. surrendering 8 runs (5 earned), 5 hits, 3 walks, 2 strikeouts and a HR off the bat of Dawel Lugo. The HR was Lugo's 6th in 41 games in the Appalachian League.
  25. Willihammer
    Dude I'm so stoned right now
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