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Otto von Ballpark

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Everything posted by Otto von Ballpark

  1. Otto von Ballpark
    This story makes me root for Boyer a little bit: http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2015/03/blaine-boyer-and-his-personal-entourage.html I'd probably root for him more if Stauffer wasn't already guaranteed a spot, though...
  2. Otto von Ballpark
    The guys that Gibson beat were not making a combined $8 million, though...
  3. Otto von Ballpark
    I think the playing time thus far makes it all but definitive.
  4. Otto von Ballpark
    Arcia has had two years with Brunansky as hitting coach.
  5. Otto von Ballpark
    Thanks for the info, Thrylos. I look forward to digging into the new metric. I quibble with this conclusion from this metric and with Jack Goin's agreement with it. Why? You don't need any advanced stats/metrics to see that the pitching staff has improved at certain points (April 2014, hopefully April 2015), because the staff at the points of comparison (April 2013, April 2012) was so bad. Essentially, you are giving them credit for getting rid of Diamond, Correia, Deduno, Swarzak, etc., when the same decision-makers are the ones who acquired those guys and relied on them in the first place. Rebuilding or not, the SP talent AND depth entering 2012 and 2013 was almost criminally thin. If you are calling on AAAA also-rans by May, multiple years in a row… AND you've got Correia/Pelfrey anchoring the top of the rotation… that's not good, even for a rebuilding team. Are they learning from their mistakes? Maybe slowly. Are they never going to sign a middling Correia type and guarantee them a rotation spot for multiple seasons again? Perhaps, but they just guaranteed significantly more to a couple guys (Nolasco, Santana) that probably project to be near Correia 2013-2014 level performance soon. And they have done precious little about outfield defense yet, so it's hard to think they are really big believers in any DIPS based metric.
  6. Otto von Ballpark
    I am surprised at the Boyer love. He turns 34 in July and has a career 6.3 K/9 and 90 ERA+ out of the pen. And he is 102 days short of full free agency, so if he spends 3.5 months with the Twins this year, we will almost certainly lose him for nothing after the season (or have to re-sign/extend him at market rates). Given his closeness to FA, it is doubtful that you will be able to trade him for much, even if performs well. And once he's on the team, I don't think you can send him to minors without his permission -- the only way to separate from him would be trade or release. Wouldn't we rather see if Oliveros, Achter, Tonkin, etc. can be cheap, valuable parts in our bullpen, both this year and 2016-2021? Or at least let them learn/work extensively with our MLB pitchers and staff? Those guys have options too, so they can easily be swapped between MLB and AAA as needed.
  7. Otto von Ballpark
    During the play, it is probably a very small effect, and mostly something we want to include in UZR (i.e. credit a player for not screwing up the catch while anticipating the throw after). The bigger effect would be positioning. The Braves OF shouldn't lose much for letting Gene Larkin's hit drop safely deep at the end of the 1991 series. Although those plays are probably sufficiently rare, and if UZR ignores the results of plays with extreme or rare shifts, it might not hurt them anyway. Another example would be infielders guarding the line, or a deep "no doubles" outfield. It would be interesting to know how often those impact defensive opportunities and if/how metrics deal with them.
  8. Otto von Ballpark
    According to B-Ref, Escobar has not appeared in the outfield either this spring. Just Nunez among infielders (and only once so far).
  9. Otto von Ballpark
    I'd rather not waste another season at the position, as we already wasted one, arguably two. And if Buxton hits another stumbling block again this year, wasting 2015 makes it more likely you will be wasting the spot again in 2016. No one is suggesting a megatrade or huge FA signing. And whatever decent solution you find for CF could still have value post-Buxton, in a corner or by trade (kinda the value we all still hope Hicks achieves).
  10. Otto von Ballpark
    And B-Ref does the same thing with their Rdrs/yr stat. And if someone assumes those are terribly meaningful over a small sample, it's really no different than someone doing the same for any rate stat over a small sample (remember Chris Parmelee's 2011 OPS?). I really don't think that every online stats resource is doing some great disservice to the community by continuing to publish rate stats for small sample seasons. Focus your rage on the stat abusers, not the providers.
  11. Otto von Ballpark
    Just checked -- the issue is that UZR isn't available until 2002. And you used his total career innings from 1998. (It's confusing, because the career total innings are still listed under the Fangraphs "Advanced Fielding" table, but that table only begins in 2002.) If you do the math with just the innings starting in 2002 (15054.2 innings), it works out exactly as represented (-1.3 UZR per 1350 innings or 150 games). I'm all for being critical (sorry for the on this thread ), but let's give the Fangraphs guys some credit here -- they're not complete morons to equally weigh a 10 game season and a 150 game season when presenting a career rate stat.
  12. Otto von Ballpark
    Nope. TK carried only 10 pitchers in 1991. Still only had 11 when he retired in 2001. Never had 12, at least not for any extended period.
  13. Otto von Ballpark
    Don't have a chance to look at it too closely at the moment, but I don't think UZR exists for Hunter's entire career. That could be skewing your calculations here.
  14. Otto von Ballpark
    Who would DH?
  15. Otto von Ballpark
    Career UZR/150 isn't multiplying anything, I don't think. It's career UZR scaled to 150 games.
  16. Otto von Ballpark
    I want to see a composite disreputable prospect list. Rosario could be the Twins #1 due to his suspension, right?
  17. Otto von Ballpark
    It is not multiplying it if you look at career UZR/150. It's dividing it. It's like Rdrs/yr at B-Ref -- those are great career numbers, because then I don't have to get out my calculator to do a rough comparison of a guy with a 5 year career vs a guy with a 9 year career. Puts them both on a rough "seasonal" scale. If someone is relying on a quarter-season's UZR sample for anything too great, hiding UZR/150 isn't going to deter that person from misusing statistics.
  18. Otto von Ballpark
    But his UZR punishment will be, what, 0.8 runs? That's really not that insurmountable. It's less than 9% of 1 WAR. An isolated play like that wouldn't be responsible for wild swings in UZR. And if that play isn't isolated, if Revere's positioning is causing him to miss multiple plays in that zone, and if it's not helping him convert opportunities elsewhere (deep left center?) into outs, then he and by extension his team should be punished in an estimate of defensive performance. That's a feature of UZR, not a bug.
  19. Otto von Ballpark
    Is it that bad? It's a great way to scale a larger sample to a season size for comparison purposes. Again, some folks will use it to scale a too small sample but just call them out or ignore them if they do that. I'd rather have more of that information easily available and just tune out the misusers, personally.
  20. Otto von Ballpark
    Interesting that 2006 was Hunter's first year without Jacque Jones and with Michael Cuddyer next to him. And 2008 was his first year in LA. And 2013-2014 were obviously his only two years in Detroit. Small sample, not precise, just another input in an overall evaluation -- but I like having that data. And I look forward to more data on Hunter this year.
  21. Otto von Ballpark
    I am definitely not well versed in Inside Edge numbers, but if you lower the qualifying bar a hair to 800 innings, Arcia is only a few plays off the leaders too. Basically everybody in baseball is within a few plays of each other. Would be interested to read more about Inside Edge. If is too scouting-heavy, it might easily exceed UZR in subjectivity.
  22. Otto von Ballpark
    It would be interesting to see the UZR breakdown on that. However, the ball was reasonably shallow and not very high. Those are factors considered by UZR too, not just the zone. And if Revere is playing way out of normal position, presumably it is because he or the Phillies think that is going to help him or his teammates convert other opportunities into outs. Revere may only get modest credit for a play like this, but in theory he should be gaining credit in left center, .possibly a lot of credit. And if his unusual positioning doesn't lead to more outs for him (or his teammates), then I think it would be fair to ding them in the UZR department.
  23. Otto von Ballpark
    I would be surprised if the Twins or any team skipped the 5th starter much anymore.
  24. Otto von Ballpark
    That is Win Probability Added, which already exists for hitters and pitchers but is very hard to calculate for defenders. And while that might help balance a ledger, it is worse at evaluating skill and performance (see the numerous criticisms of WPA for evaluating hitters/pitchers already).
  25. Otto von Ballpark
    Definitely agreed it should be tempered. Personally, if I want to estimate a player's defense, I look at multiple metrics, try to discount outliers a bit, apply a + or - 10 runs, check it against scouting reports, etc. To your latter point, I find it an understandable annoyance than a problem that a detailed accounting of every player's UZR isn't published. To be useful, it would have to show the low level data collected, which isn't free and thus can't be shared freely. MLB was awesome to release PitchFX data, but I have a feeling they may not be so generous with the fielding equivalent. So the problems of transparency might get worse before they get better.
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