jimmer

When I think of players as insurance policy players I think of them as low-cost (not 10M) backups (usually veterans). I don't think of them as full time starters which is what he was signed to be and what he was for quite some time..

IMO, the talent level this team has doesn't warrant the amount of wins we have now. Seems very good sequencing (or luck, if you will) led us to win more than we should have and we've started falling back down. We had a losing record in Mar/Apr, and June. We're sliding towards a losing month in July. We've had one glorious month which, of course, counts for overall record, but it's not like we had a winning month in every month and the losing has just started. Our win total has exceeded our base runs and pythag. I've enjoyed it. Should we expect that to continue to the level it has the season so far? Probably not. When looking at anything, it's best to take extreme outliers with a grain of salt. They count, of course, but extremes levels of performance one way or the other may give us pause. Our May record and or June record are good examples of extreme outliers (one amazingly awesome, the other below 40% wins). Our Mar/Apr and July win totals say we are right around a .500 team. Base runs says we should probably have a 42-53 record right now. Pythag says we should be 48-47. Nothing suggests we should have 51 wins even though we do. So I'll enjoy that we do.

Or, Brock, instead of implementing your plan exactly, let's make a time machine, go back in time, and never sign Hunter to begin with (freeing up Arcia to play full time at his best OF position). Nah, that doesn't work. Without Hunter, the team wouldn't have known how to win and Hicks would still be a waste of a roster spot :-)

cool. then let's implement your plan.

Brock since all stats, traditional and metric, give us true talent level with three years of data, I'm waiting for them to decide to only give out awards every three years instead of yearly. MVP, Gold Gloves, Silver Sluggers, Hank Aaron, Cy Young, Fielding Bible awards, etc. Makes sense, no? Since all we care about it true talent level of a player as opposed to what a player did any given year. Pretty much have to stop doing the rookie of the year award completely, because it says year in it :-) Should we do that with that for the manager award too? Might be hard:-)

that makes sense. we talk a lot about earning promotions in the system around here. seeing what Arcia has done lately in AAA, does that warrant a promotion? His 86 wRC+ so far this year in the majors along with horrible D warranted the demotion for an unproven player who still has options available for sure.

FANTASTICI!!!! Great laugh early in the morning. Thank you!!!!

Would he be better at DH than Sano? Better, overall (defense and offense combined) at a corner spot than who they have there now? I'm asking what you think.

As long as Arcia didn't come up to Moltior in that situation suggesting a bunt and Molitor agreed, it would be awfully nice. (I know, not the same situation as we had two nights ago, but still. UGH!):-)

And that's fair, but he also plays horrible defense. shouldn't we need a batter much better than he's shown in his short career in order to lessen the damage done playing the field? I mean, if it's still about staying in the playoff hunt in 2015? He's at 104 wRC+ for his career, slightly above league average, and has played horrible defense by whatever measure you want to use. He's an overall minus player right now. If we say put him at DH, well Sano is there. But this season should be about giving the young guys as much time as possible to see what we have. He should be playing RF I guess.

As far as TEAM stats, using three years worth of data to determine a team's true talent level with ANY stat, traditional or newer, is worthless. Team rosters change too much year to year to do that. Does it matter what the Padres team DRS was in 2013 or 2014 if I want to know what their true talent level on defense is this year? Look how much that roster changed. Same thing with the Red Sox and so on. Prior to the 2015 season, why would I have looked at the Padres' 2012, 2013, and 2014 team DRS as a way to try and gauge what the true defensive talent level of the 2015 Padres team would be? Makes zero sense. Just like it would make no sense in 2016 to look at the Angels team OPS this year if, say, Trout and Pujols somehow were moved. Or the Tigers teams OPS if Cabrera and JD Martinez were moved in the offseason. In both situations, the true talent level for the teams would have been drastically changed. Because of the constant roster changes year to year on teams, yearly stats, traditional and new, are all you can use.. Even that gets shaky the more teams rotate their 25 man rosters in-season. Certainly most team's talent level fluctuate throughout the year, but at least the players played for the team that year. Still tells us how the team did, as a whole, that year.

This post is about using stats of all kinds to tell us a player's true talent level versus telling us what a player did in a single year. Lets start with a traditional stat and let's use 3 seasons Hypothetical Joe Smith played for the same team from 2012 to 2014 and will continue to play for that team in 2015. He posted an OPS of .840 in 2012, .719 in 2013, and .855 in 2014. We'd look at that and say Joe Smith is probably a .830-.840 OPS guy more or less right? That's probably his true talent level, roughly. But does that mean they .719 year didn't happen? Does that mean that in 2013 he didn't actually have a .719 OPS? When our goal is to look at how Joe Smith played in 2013 compared to his peers, do we care about his true talent level in that discussion? Let's take hypothetical pitcher Jim Johnson,. Same years, same team situation. He posts an ERA of 3.25, then 4.37, then 3.18. His true talent level is probably around 3.25-.3.35 ERA. But if we talk about the year he had a 4.37 ERA, regardless of whether or not his true talent level is 4.37 or not, it still happened. That's still what he did that year. We've known this for a long time how to figure out what the true talent level is in these kind of stats but we also clearly accepted that the year to year data told us what the player did that year regardless of whether or not he was really that good or that bad. Now, just because the SABR community reminded us of what we know when just traditional stats were around, that stats are best used with more info to determine a players true talent, that doesn't mean we don't do the same thing with new metrics that we did with traditional stats in the above two scenarios. That doesn't mean we can't use stats compiled in a year, traditional and newer, when talking about how a player did in that year compared to others regardless of whether or not it's his true talent level. His true talent level isn't relevant when discussing how a player did in one individual year. So, if a guy had a WAR of 5.0 in 2012, 2.7 in 2013, and 5.1 in 2014, his true talent is around probably around 5.0, but in 2013 he WAS a 2.7. That still happened. He under-performed his true talent level in 2013. Same thing if someone had a 6.5 UZR, a 1.7 UZR and a 6.2 UZR. He's probably a 6.1 or so UZR guy but that one year, he WAS a 1.7. If the conversation is about what kind of talent does this player really have, look at the last three year with more emphasis on the more recent seasons (do that with traditional stats as well as newer stats), but if asking how a player performed during a single year, you can look at the stats for that year (traditional and newer stats) and say, regardless of true talent level, THIS is what he did that year.

This post is about using stats of all kinds to tell us a player's true talent level versus telling us what a player did in a single year. Lets start with a traditional stat and let's use 3 seasons Hypothetical Joe Smith played for the same team from 2012 to 2014 and will continue to play for that team in 2015. He posted an OPS of .840 in 2012, .719 in 2013, and .855 in 2014. We'd look at that and say Joe Smith is probably a .830-.840 OPS guy more or less right? That's probably his true talent level, roughly. But does that mean they .719 year didn't happen? Does that mean that in 2013 he didn't actually have a .719 OPS? When our goal is to look at how Joe Smith played in 2013 compared to his peers, do we care about his true talent level in that discussion?If Let's take hypothetical pitcher Jim Johnson,. Same years, same team situation. He posts an ERA of 3.25, then 4.37, then 3.18. His true talent level is probably around 3.25-.3.35 ERA. But if we talk about the year he had a 4.37 ERA, regardless of whether or not his true talent level is 4.37 or not, it still happened. That's still what he did that year. We've known this for a long time how to figure out what the true talent level is in these kind of stats but we also clearly accepted that the year to year data told us what the player did that year regardless of whether or not he was really that good or that bad. Now, just because the SABR community reminded us that stats are best used with more info to determine a players true talent when they explain the new stats, that doesn't mean we don't do the same thing with new metrics that we did with traditional stats above. Yearly stats still count when talking about how a player did that year compared to others regardless of whether or not it's his true talent level.

I already explained why. Because it uses the abilities of more current players not players who may have retired, only played one season, have since left the game, moved to other positions, etc. And I explained why I think that is better. I want to know how a player is doing against players who are more likely still playing the same position. I'm not going to be involved in derailing another post on the validity or application of metrics. Most moderators have made it clear not to do that, no matter how many times a trolling post tries to turn the discussion that way. I pointed out Oakland's DRS rating because people were saying how bad Oakland's defense was and I showed one stat that we may use to say maybe not so much. Then I tried to explain why sometimes there's a difference between UZR and DRS. That's it. People can take it or leave it, doesn't matter to me. Said my piece and now their debate can continue. But they have to be basing their belief Oakland's defense has been horrendous on something.

That's fine. As I went on to say, almost every acceptable traditional stat says the same thing as WAR ends up saying in regards to him. He's been horrible this year on offense and defense.

Defensive Runs Saved uses a rolling one-year basis for the Plus/Minus system, while UZR uses several years of data to determine each play’s difficulty level. So DRS uses the most current level of defensive talent at positions to set the plus/minus level and UZR takes into account the talent level over several years to include players who may have retired (or switched positions or are no longer in the game). It's why I like DRS better. Why compare a current players defense to a guy who retired two years ago at age 38 who was bringing down the average talent level?

DJSim22, I used WAR because it takes into account the players overall contribution. By your post, it seems your issue with WAR as an indicator of his ranking among his peers centers around the idea it doesn't it fully evaluate certain parts of his defense. Rest assured, whatever flaw it has it is applied among all players at his position in the same way. But let's discount the defense part of his WAR. Not sure it helps the argument for Suzuki, since it's the part of his game that is seriously helping his WAR. We could simplify it a bit more I guess. Use more acceptable forms of evaluation. How is Suzuki's offense (and I use that term loosely) helping the team win? What with his OBP under.290 and his sub .590 OPS. Or his 19% CS rate (league average 32%) which allowed 64 SB so far.?

I read the same article. I'm not sure anyone discounts mentorship. I think most people get that, in the end, it's way more about the talent and the players' ability along with the dedication to apply all forms of coaching(whether it's from a vet or a coach) and the dedication and hard work to implement those things. These articles make it seem Hunter was a major contributor to success of these guys and it discounts all the other contributors to the players' success throughout his professional career,and before, by focusing just on one mentor. Think about how many contribute the success of players in their careers.The same kind of over-praising has happened with many mentors throughout the game. Too much credit given to one guy minimizing the work of all the others who have contributed and the player's actual ability to apply what they learn from all those mentors.

Athletics are tied for 11th in DRS (5th in AL) with 11 DRS. We are tied for 25th (tied for 12th in AL) with -16 DRS

He has improved a lot and yet he's still below average. I'm sure it's helped the staff some, but is it sustainable? 26 catchers have caught 3500 or more innings this year, he sits at 17th for framing.And, like you said, given his offense it doesn't matter. 18 catchers have had 250 or more PAs, he's 17th in WAR. 26 catcher have 200 or more PA, he's 25th in WAR. We can replace him without too much worry.

Torii Hunter magic spreads far and wide. Trout wouldn't be a great player without him, Hicks is getting better now because of Torii. Thanks goodness for Torii.

Suzuki IS the same catcher that caught our staff last year right? When we had pretty much the worst rotation in the game? Do we believe it's Suzuki or perhaps Allen who has helped the team improve a bit? Or maybe just having May in the rotation helped considering he has very close to a 1/3 of the WAR our rotation has? Last year, the narrative was Suzuki had finely turned around his offense...predictably went back to his normal self in the 2nd half and this year. Now he's magically better with the rotation is doing comparatively well? Hogwash. I doubt Suzuki losing his job would hurt us at all. It could really help though.

I'm not at all a Gardy defender, but TR didn't leave him a lot of options, did he? And since both he and Escobar were producing at the plate... Based on the options available, are we saying Escobar should have been in CF instead with Santana at shortstop?

'Today, the Houston Astros officially decided to go for it, acquiring Scott Kazmir from the A’s in exchange for for A-Ball prospects RHP Daniel Mengden and C Jacob Nottingham. Both were late cuts from my preseason prospect list list, which by Opening Day, with the Evan Gattis trade and losing Delino DeShields in the Rule 5 draft, included 22 players. Both players were among the group of six given 35+ FV grades, so they were both in the 23-28 range in Houston’s system entering the year.....given Nottingham’s breakout season, they did indeed land a guy who would have ranked in the Astros top 10 if the list was re-done today.'-Kiley from Fangraphs

Sporting News has Story in their top 50 prospects as of last month and some of the ones ahead have been promoted already. But I seriously doubt he stays at shortstop. He may be brought up to play there like Dozier and Plouffe, but from what I've seen, I think he's a 2B.