C. Lee to Astros - 6 years/$100 M

[OleMissCub]

obviously he is ignorant of WARP and other sabermetric statistics. not being able to understand them when explained would suggest stupidity - although I think laziness would be a more likely cause of not comprehending.

 

I can pretty much guarantee that if you mentioned WARP or other sabermetric statistics to an actual baseball player he'd look at you like you were speaking a different language. When I played, I didn't care about my stats that much. In fact, I wasn't even aware of them most of the time. In college the only times I ever saw my stats were if I was reading an article about one of the games or if I looked up at the scoreboard during one of the games...although I was normally so "in the moment" at the plate that I didn't pay attention to the scoreboard. I learned early on that stat-watching is distracting as a player, and distractions are never ever a good thing in sports, especially in baseball where concentration is key.

 

The only stat that mattered was WINS.

So GMs and players need to know different things?

 

Ya think??

[cheapseats]

So GMs and players need to know different things?

 

I'd expand that statement to say that GM's and managers need to know different things (or more things) than players.

 

Edit: And that's why MLB playing experience shouldn't be necessary to manage.

[UK1679666180]

It seems that you're the one who missed the point. My point, at least. I'm not saying that I'm anti-stats, or whatever. Stats are a great way to tell a lot about a player. What bothers me is when people use stats, and only stats, to evaluate a player. Statistics are great, but I have no interest in looking at a stat that takes 10 pages of paper to compute. Does that make me ignorant to these "new age" stats? You bet it does, and I'm completely fine with that, as I don't need all those to evaluate a player.

 

It depends on how you look at it, if you've ever seen a scout's evaluation on a player, the meat of the report is numerical (hitting, raw power, speed, arm strength, and defense as well as for pitchers) the rest is descriptive about things that do not need to be in numerical form (body, work ethic, maturity, dedication, etc.)

[Diffusion]

arguing semantics is just stupid.

 

So you're anti-semantic?

 

Nice.

 

You know if you take out their footspeed, Carlos Lee has a career 835 OPS, so does Soriano. Lee's career EqA is .284, and Soriano's is .287*. Carlos Lee's OPS+ is 113 and Soriano's is 115. They both hit 30 or so homers a year, give or take a couple.

 

So in reality when they are standing at the plate they are pretty much unrecognizable from each other. We intend on playing Soriano in RF, so there's no reason to add value to Soriano playing a more demanding position such as center or second.

 

So in reality the only difference is Soriano's SB speed and CS outs. So we decided to give more money to Soriano for more years when he is six months older all basically because well he can run.

 

So yeah, it's definitely something that you know I decided to just bitch and moan for no reason when in fact i have every reason to speak my mind in this way. It's a pity you didn't read into it like that and thought it was just thoughtless bantering. I guess I am not the thoughtless one...

 

Your point that they're relatively similar at the plate in terms of overall rate of production is a point well made, though arguments could probably be made with reasonable conviction that Soriano's maturing as a hitter, and that there's possibly something to be read into his well-stated preference for leading off and the almost too big to be entirely co-incidence career split that his numbers accordingly exhibit (batting first -- .291/.340/.544 in 2227 PA, anywhere else -- .267/.309/.473 in 1991 PA).

 

All the same, there is absolutely no reason to disregard Soriano's athleticism and footspeed with such abandon. They are, in isolation, both assets. Assets reflected in many more things on the baseball field than those encompassed by your crude SB/CS calculation. Even if you limit yourself to looking at just baserunning, even there SB/CS is inadequate, for it doesn't take into account going from first to third on a single, scoring from first on a double, scoring from third on a groundball out or a sacrifice fly, beating out the double play, or any of the other small nuances that there are to baserunning, almost all of them intrinsically linked to two things - the right instincts, and, when it all comes down to it, the tag's been made and the umpire's made his ruling, footspeed.

 

Why limit yourself though to looking merely at baserunning? Altheticism and footspeed have sure impacts upon Soriano's ability to play defence as well. Again, in conjunction with the right instincts, the ability to read the ball off the bat, good reactions, everything else necessary to play the outfield, altheticism and footspeed have their role to play. Soriano's footspeed, all else equal, will enable him to cover more ground, his altheticism will seemingly inevitably see him laying out for spectacular catches that others mightn't attempt, his cannon for an arm will add an out or two here and there on defence, and all these small incidences come with positive run values attached, that, over the course of a full season, are equivalent of an extra few points of EqA or OPS or OPS+ or whatever other catch-all offensive metric you prefer, to the plausible extent that when you're comparing him to a Carlos Lee, statements such as "when they are standing at the plate they are pretty much unrecognizable from each other", when talking about reality, are no longer true.

 

Why limit yourself though to looking at performance just in terms of ratios? Altheticism arguably may have it be the case that Soriano's a whole lot less likely to get injured than a Carlos Lee as they enter their thirties. And it will almost certainly have it be the case that Soriano's a whole lot better a bet to age well and to retain his performance level and keep putting up all those ratios you were talking about before. Just because these things are difficult to quantify, to express in some sort of easy numerical catch-all measure, doesn't mean you should pay them such scant attention.

 

Like you, I'm guessing, absolutely nothing annoys me more than a general manager that ignores years upon years of telling at the plate numbers just because a player "has wheels". It's much more important that a player can hit. But being athletic, able to run and play defence, still has some value, albeit significantly less. So when a player can hit, that he's also athletic is an added bonus. Maybe it's not worth paying up for, but it's not something that can be dismissed with a crude mention of SB/CS.

[RynoRules]

Well put.

[RockTheIvy]

Book it.

[jjgman21]

very good post Diffusion. I just disagree with one point, which I have pointed out a few times

 

before his monster year leading off in 06, Soriano's stats were indistinguishable between the 1, 5, 6, and 7 hole.

[Guest]

I can pretty much guarantee that if you mentioned WARP or other sabermetric statistics to an actual baseball player he'd look at you like you were speaking a different language. When I played, I didn't care about my stats that much. In fact, I wasn't even aware of them most of the time. In college the only times I ever saw my stats were if I was reading an article about one of the games or if I looked up at the scoreboard during one of the games...although I was normally so "in the moment" at the plate that I didn't pay attention to the scoreboard. I learned early on that stat-watching is distracting as a player, and distractions are never ever a good thing in sports, especially in baseball where concentration is key.

 

I don't disagree. That's why I said you were ignorant of the statistic and not stupid. If you value wins only though, shouldn't a stat measuring wins not be pointless? As an ex-player that is.

[Guest]

also athletic players have been shown to age more slowly than lumberers.

[RockTheIvy]

Plus Soriano stole Lance Johnson's bat. That's gotta count for something.

[Guest]

Plus Soriano stole Lance Johnson's bat. That's gotta count for something.

 

not unless he has the whistle.

[Drew Doughty]

very good post Diffusion. I just disagree with one point, which I have pointed out a few times

 

before his monster year leading off in 06, Soriano's stats were indistinguishable between the 1, 5, 6, and 7 hole.

 

that's not really true though. In 2004 he was much better in the leadoff spot. In 2003 he was better in the leadoff spot.

 

His numbers dropped considerably when he stopped being a full-time leadoff hitter.

[OleMissCub]

I don't disagree. That's why I said you were ignorant of the statistic and not stupid. If you value wins only though, shouldn't a stat measuring wins not be pointless? As an ex-player that is.

 

But it measures wins in some odd mathematical formula. I'm just not a big stat person, but i'm not going to be critical of those who are.

[Rob]

You know if you take out their footspeed, Carlos Lee has a career 835 OPS, so does Soriano. Lee's career EqA is .284, and Soriano's is .287*. Carlos Lee's OPS+ is 113 and Soriano's is 115. They both hit 30 or so homers a year, give or take a couple.

 

So in reality when they are standing at the plate they are pretty much unrecognizable from each other. We intend on playing Soriano in RF, so there's no reason to add value to Soriano playing a more demanding position such as center or second.

 

So in reality the only difference is Soriano's SB speed and CS outs. So we decided to give more money to Soriano for more years when he is six months older all basically because well he can run.

 

So yeah, it's definitely something that you know I decided to just bitch and moan for no reason when in fact i have every reason to speak my mind in this way. It's a pity you didn't read into it like that and thought it was just thoughtless bantering. I guess I am not the thoughtless one...

 

Your point that they're relatively similar at the plate in terms of overall rate of production is a point well made, though arguments could probably be made with reasonable conviction that Soriano's maturing as a hitter, and that there's possibly something to be read into his well-stated preference for leading off and the almost too big to be entirely co-incidence career split that his numbers accordingly exhibit (batting first -- .291/.340/.544 in 2227 PA, anywhere else -- .267/.309/.473 in 1991 PA).

 

All the same, there is absolutely no reason to disregard Soriano's athleticism and footspeed with such abandon. They are, in isolation, both assets. Assets reflected in many more things on the baseball field than those encompassed by your crude SB/CS calculation. Even if you limit yourself to looking at just baserunning, even there SB/CS is inadequate, for it doesn't take into account going from first to third on a single, scoring from first on a double, scoring from third on a groundball out or a sacrifice fly, beating out the double play, or any of the other small nuances that there are to baserunning, almost all of them intrinsically linked to two things - the right instincts, and, when it all comes down to it, the tag's been made and the umpire's made his ruling, footspeed.

 

Why limit yourself though to looking merely at baserunning? Altheticism and footspeed have sure impacts upon Soriano's ability to play defence as well. Again, in conjunction with the right instincts, the ability to read the ball off the bat, good reactions, everything else necessary to play the outfield, altheticism and footspeed have their role to play. Soriano's footspeed, all else equal, will enable him to cover more ground, his altheticism will seemingly inevitably see him laying out for spectacular catches that others mightn't attempt, his cannon for an arm will add an out or two here and there on defence, and all these small incidences come with positive run values attached, that, over the course of a full season, are equivalent of an extra few points of EqA or OPS or OPS+ or whatever other catch-all offensive metric you prefer, to the plausible extent that when you're comparing him to a Carlos Lee, statements such as "when they are standing at the plate they are pretty much unrecognizable from each other", when talking about reality, are no longer true.

 

Why limit yourself though to looking at performance just in terms of ratios? Altheticism arguably may have it be the case that Soriano's a whole lot less likely to get injured than a Carlos Lee as they enter their thirties. And it will almost certainly have it be the case that Soriano's a whole lot better a bet to age well and to retain his performance level and keep putting up all those ratios you were talking about before. Just because these things are difficult to quantify, to express in some sort of easy numerical catch-all measure, doesn't mean you should pay them such scant attention.

 

Like you, I'm guessing, absolutely nothing annoys me more than a general manager that ignores years upon years of telling at the plate numbers just because a player "has wheels". It's much more important that a player can hit. But being athletic, able to run and play defence, still has some value, albeit significantly less. So when a player can hit, that he's also athletic is an added bonus. Maybe it's not worth paying up for, but it's not something that can be dismissed with a crude mention of SB/CS.

 

I posted this in the Brad Hawpe thread. I thought it might be pertinent to your argument that Soriano is a good baserunner.

 

Those statistics aren't very important at all, especially RBI and R which are almost completely worthless. SB has some value, but Soriano gets himself out on the bases so much that he doesn't exactly provide a ton of value with his baserunning.

 

That's the truth.

 

I can't find his baserunning totals for 2006, but his 2005 totals are as follows.

 

EqGAR (Ground Advancement Runs) is -0.08

EqAAR (Air Advancement Runs) is -0.07

EqSBR (Stolen Base Runs) is 4.92

EqHAR (Hit Advancement Runs) is 1.10

 

He's a little below average advancing on outs on the ground or in the air. He was an exceptional basestealer in 2005. And he's worth about an extra run per season when he gets an opportunity to advance on a hit.

 

That was 2005. I don't have the numbers for 2006 handy, but his stolen base rate dropped off significantly (30 SB 2 CS in 2005, 41 SB 17 CS in 2006). That drop brings his SB% to right around the breakeven point. You drop his EqSBR to 0.00, and he's worth approximately one run all season long on the basepaths compared to your league average joe. And that's assuming his sudden loss of a step didn't affect any other aspect of his running game.

 

Obviously, he's probably at stealing bases than he showed in 2006, but for a 30 year old to regain career-year form is something I sincerely doubt will happen. Figure he settles in around 2.50 runs per season for the next few when attempting to steal. Figure he keeps everything else the same.

 

3-4 runs per season after taking all the times he was successful and all the times he failed into consideration, compared to what you'd expect by looking at the rest of the league.

 

3-4 runs isn't insignificant, but I always fume a little bit when people try to tell me Soriano is worth a ton on the basepath. He quite simply is not.

[CuseCubFan69]

Who are the top guys on the basepath Rob?

[Rob]

Who are the top guys on the basepath Rob?

 

Again, all the data I've got right now is 2005 and back, but...

 

2005: (Name and Total Baserunning Runs)

 

Chone Figgins - 8.29

Jose Reyes - 6.81

Juan Pierre - 6.52

Alfonso Soriano - 5.86

Jason Bay - 5.63

Marcus Giles - 5.49

Johnny Damon - 5.20

Carlos Beltran - 5.07

Rafael Furcal - 4.90

Ichiro Suzuki - 4.61

 

 

 

Remember though, that 4.92 of Soriano's 5.86 total came from EqSBR... a figure that has most certainly dropped from 2005 (30 SB, 2 CS vs 41 SB 17 CS)