What kind of numbers did you honestly expect from Bradley?

[chopsx9]

I wonder what the difference is in Youkilis' avg w/ RISP for his career...

 

hint - (it's not 100 points)

 

...its 89 points

 

 

I wonder what the difference is in Ortizs' avg w/ RISP for his career...

 

hint - (it's not 100 points)

 

 

its 28 points...not 100 but significant none the less

 

see... I can do that too

 

I still can't find these numbers. Youk's career difference in batting average vs. RISP batting average appears to be 50 points.

 

(I will say that I'm surprised at this, as most batters won't normally be far off their normal batting average when looking at their RISP batting average (for your career, that is)- I wonder if Youk will regress in the coming seasons)

 

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/players/7049/situational;_ylt=AnuMcFJmiPCYk5ESZJ6cdA2FCLcF?year=career&type=Batting

 

Here it is - I think you are comparing his overall average to RISP avg (the overall avg includes the RISP average) I think you want to compare it to the average with no base runners on (which still isn't 100% because you are missing the runner only on 1st situation - which you could figure out)

 

FWIW DLee is almost identical; Ramirez is much better and Soriano is much worse w/ RISP

 

But all this really does not have much to do with the original point which was there seems to be a propensity to dismiss RBI totals because they are a team stat. When in fact if you look at that numbers one player can do a much better job of driving in runs than another player despite the fact that he may have lower overall totals. Whether that's due to a player performing exactly the same in all situations or from performing better or worse in certain situations is immaterial. You can still say one player is better than another at driving in runs for which their RBI total may or may not be indicative.

 

 

RBI totals can be meaningful if you are willing to do a little research.

[chopsx9]

You're ignoring statistical variation. You're judging a player on a small fraction of one season's ABs, and saying he's no good because of that. .

No I was judging his season - I never said he was no good - actually I wasn't even doing that I was saying you could judge his season and that in fact his RBI total may actually be good. Players have bad seasons all the time - whether that is do a single seasonal variation is beside the point. If I were trying to determine if this season was an aberration - then yes but that is a completely different discussion.

 

The point of referencing career totals is to show that basing your judgment of Bradley off of his BA with RSIP over a scattered 74 ABs means virtually nothing.

Again the issue was evaluating Bradley's season; not Bradley So yes it could mean a great deal in evaluating his 2009 season. Maybe his RBI's are down because he's just not coming up w/ runners on (not actually the case - he has ever so slightly more AB's w/ risp) or maybe it's because RISP BA is down (which it is by .30 pts). If you want to say he's likely to rebound to carrer norms next season (he does have a difference, not huge 18 pts I think) that's fine, and I would probably agree with you, but that was not the discussion.

[wade]

I wonder what the difference is in Youkilis' avg w/ RISP for his career...

 

hint - (it's not 100 points)

 

...its 89 points

 

 

I wonder what the difference is in Ortizs' avg w/ RISP for his career...

 

hint - (it's not 100 points)

 

 

its 28 points...not 100 but significant none the less

 

see... I can do that too

 

I still can't find these numbers. Youk's career difference in batting average vs. RISP batting average appears to be 50 points.

 

(I will say that I'm surprised at this, as most batters won't normally be far off their normal batting average when looking at their RISP batting average (for your career, that is)- I wonder if Youk will regress in the coming seasons)

 

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/players/7049/situational;_ylt=AnuMcFJmiPCYk5ESZJ6cdA2FCLcF?year=career&type=Batting

 

Here it is - I think you are comparing his overall average to RISP avg (the overall avg includes the RISP average) I think you want to compare it to the average with no base runners on (which still isn't 100% because you are missing the runner only on 1st situation - which you could figure out)

 

FWIW DLee is almost identical; Ramirez is much better and Soriano is much worse w/ RISP

 

But all this really does not have much to do with the original point which was there seems to be a propensity to dismiss RBI totals because they are a team stat. When in fact if you look at that numbers one player can do a much better job of driving in runs than another player despite the fact that he may have lower overall totals. Whether that's due to a player performing exactly the same in all situations or from performing better or worse in certain situations is immaterial. You can still say one player is better than another at driving in runs for which their RBI total may or may not be indicative.

 

 

RBI totals can be meaningful if you are willing to do a little research.

 

OK. Yes, I was comparing his total batting average. I guess I jumped in the middle of something else you were already talking about, because I was just trying to say that the stats you said they showed in the game were fairly meaningless because of the limited data.

 

I'm still interested in Youk's seemingly out of proportion difference in overall b.a. compared to RISP b.a.

[dew1679666265]

RBI totals can be meaningful if you are willing to do a little research.

 

That's the thing with using RBI totals to evaluate a player, though - it's not useful on its own merits. Stats like EqA, OPS, OPS+, even OBP and SLG, can be used on their own merit and be at least moderately useful. A stat like RBI cannot stand on its own and tell you much of anything useful or, especially, predictive.

 

For instance, if I tell you player A has 25 RBI this season, that doesn't mean a whole lot. Maybe he's only had 30 guys on base in front of him. Or maybe he's had 150 guys on in front of him. RBI alone doesn't tell us much.

 

However, if I tell you player A has an OPS of 1.105, you know for a fact he's been highly productive in some fashion. Just the same if a player has a .310 EqA, you know he's been very good. That's the issue many people have with using RBI as an evaluator. It doesn't tell you much on its own.

[Little Slide Rooter]

Milton has been one of our more consistant performers the past few weeks. The question is, is there any way that things can be mended and Milton is back on the Cubs next year? Even if he is traded, we wont get much considering every GM in baseball will be aware of the situation. The window is still open for this team, but it may not be for long and Milton can be a big part next year as long as hes not exiled.

[Geech]

If you want to say he's likely to rebound to carrer norms next season (he does have a difference, not huge 18 pts I think) that's fine, and I would probably agree with you, but that was not the discussion.

 

I don't buy it. Knowing that a given hitter did a poor job of driving in runners in a given season is pretty much worthless information. The whole point of statistics to get a sense of what a given player is actually capable of producing. Thus in order to be useful statistics must have some kind of predictive value. Looking at a small subset of a single season does not do that. It doesn't even give you a complete picture of that player's offensive value in that season, since reaching base with no one on or runners on first is still valuable.

 

Looking at a player's RBI totals in conjunction with a few other stats might tell you something about that player's season, but it doesn't tell you anything useful. It may be interesting if you have a fetish for archaic stats, but not otherwise.

[Rob]

Dave Cameron brings rational thought back to Bradley.

 

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/bradley-taking-the-fall

 

In just over 400 plate appearances, he’s been worth +1.2 wins to the Cubs, which translates to $5.4 million in salary. Factor in his expected September production, and he’ll probably end the year with a performance worth around $7 million – less than what the Cubs are paying him, but not anything close to the biggest disaster on the team.

 

Alfonso Soriano has performed below replacement this year. He earned – sorry, was paid – $16 million this year, and there’s $90 million left on the final five years of his contract. His performance suggests he owes the Cubs $3.3 million for taking 0.7 wins off their total for 2009, so Soriano has cost the Cubs almost $20 million this year. Bradley could cuss out every fan in Wrigley and still not match Soriano for disastrous results this year

[Magnetic Curses]

i would much rather get rid of all the racist fucks in the bleachers than bradley, his life is actually worth something.

 

and i don't get it, some drunken idiot hilariously soaks victorino with a beer and he's the worst fan since hitler at the '36 olympics, while a consistent group of bungholes continually heckle a steady stream of black outfielders and it's the black outfielders that are the malcontents. it's really a miracle that chicago isn't still segregated. oh wait......

[Derwood]

i would much rather get rid of all the racist [expletive] in the bleachers than bradley, his life is actually worth something.

 

and i don't get it, some drunken idiot hilariously soaks victorino with a beer and he's the worst fan since hitler at the '36 olympics, while a consistent group of bungholes continually heckle a steady stream of black outfielders and it's the black outfielders that are the malcontents. it's really a miracle that chicago isn't still segregated. oh wait......

 

it's because black and hispanic players are lazy and don't hustle while white players (and Hawaiian's, I guess) are gritty, lunch pail, hard nosed guys who play the game the right way (by not being black or hispanic, apparently)

[Roast]

i would much rather get rid of all the racist [expletive] in the bleachers than bradley, his life is actually worth something.

 

and i don't get it, some drunken idiot hilariously soaks victorino with a beer and he's the worst fan since hitler at the '36 olympics, while a consistent group of bungholes continually heckle a steady stream of black outfielders and it's the black outfielders that are the malcontents. it's really a miracle that chicago isn't still segregated. oh wait......

+ eleventy billion.

 

Well, i wouldnt exactly call the victorino thing hilarious; but I agree just the same.

[Roast]

Dave Cameron brings rational thought back to Bradley.

 

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/bradley-taking-the-fall

 

In just over 400 plate appearances, he’s been worth +1.2 wins to the Cubs, which translates to $5.4 million in salary. Factor in his expected September production, and he’ll probably end the year with a performance worth around $7 million – less than what the Cubs are paying him, but not anything close to the biggest disaster on the team.

 

Alfonso Soriano has performed below replacement this year. He earned – sorry, was paid – $16 million this year, and there’s $90 million left on the final five years of his contract. His performance suggests he owes the Cubs $3.3 million for taking 0.7 wins off their total for 2009, so Soriano has cost the Cubs almost $20 million this year. Bradley could cuss out every fan in Wrigley and still not match Soriano for disastrous results this year

Posted this in another thread, so - so true.

[soapy]

How has Soriano "owned it" to having a terrible season and Bradley has not?

 

And the whole "desperatley need to get left handed" was an idiotic fallacy from the start.

 

1. soriano has stated that he knows he's not playing well and hasn't gone blaming the fans for booing him for any other reason than he wasn't playing well. alfonso gets it. bradley on the other hand seems to want to be as antagonistic to the media as he can get. if he didn't want all this media attention, he never should have signed with a team in the third largest media market in the country on a team that is either the first, second, or third most popular in the country that is broadcast nationally almost every day to that high a deal. sure at the beginning he has said that he never starts out that slowly, but lately going around saying that waiters were talking bad about him behind his back in restaurants or that he hopes the game only goes 9 to be out there the least amount of time because of the fans is getting dangerously close to todd hundley territory imo. the difference being at least milton is hitting, which is why i don't think the fans are all over him. you were the $10 million man in the offseason, and guess what, the media is going to come to you more often than not. you can't just show up, do your job, and go home, not in that town on that team. if he didn't expect that kind of attention, he's the idiot for not doing his research, or he should have signed a deal for less. i can guarantee that if he hit more home runs or had knocked in more runs (like twice as many in both categories) he wouldn't be getting all that negative attention.

 

like i said, it may not be fair, but my disapointment is based on the contract he signed against what he has done this year. and i'm not one of those fans blaming him on this horrible season, it's been a collective FAIL all around except from the starters. we are leading the majors in quality starts this year but are hanging around .500. starting pitching has not been the problem, but the offense and pen have been atrocious. if both were better and we were 10 games up i'd still be on his case for being massively overpaid for what he is doing on the field.

 

2. i know, that's why i was against the offseason moves. good pitching beats good hitting and trying to get more left handed was a horrible cya excuse.

 

Seriously, I just wish Bradley would come out and admit when he's played bad (you know, "own it"). Maybe something like:

"I didn't come here to suck. I know I've sucked so far..."

 

Oh...wait. He did say exactly that.

 

Having said that, he did finish that thought with this:

"...but give me some love, you know what I'm saying? I am a Cub."

Is that asking too much? Maybe, but this was back in late April (I believe) when he was asked by a reporter about being booed.