Quade goes off on Castro, Barney

[Guest]

Do I have this about right?

 

Multiple people: If a player is really good and/or the team has a lot of money invested in a player, it's probably not in their best interest to give 100% effort and risk injury for plays that have very little chance at success, like laying out for balls in the gap or sprinting down to first on a two hopper to the 2B.

 

Davearm: That's a slippery slope, pretty soon you'll have the players living in the stadium because THINK OF THE LIKELIHOOD OF A CAR ACCIDENT ON THEIR WAY HOME, and do you see how ridiculous that is?

[Little Slide Rooter]

And they all player corner IF positions.

 

Fine. Ryan Braun, Jose Bautista, and Matt Holliday dont do much of it either.

[Sammy Sofa]

And they all player corner IF positions.

 

Fine. Ryan Braun, Jose Bautista, and Matt Holliday dont do much of it either.

 

All three have gotten their share of criticism for their less than ideal defense.

[Little Slide Rooter]

And they all player corner IF positions.

 

Fine. Ryan Braun, Jose Bautista, and Matt Holliday dont do much of it either.

 

All three have gotten their share of criticism for their less than ideal defense.

 

And Im sure any manager in baseball would take any one of them over Reed Johnson, Sam Fuld, or Aaron Rowand slip and sliding all over the field to make a slightly non routine play.

[Sammy Sofa]

Well, yeah.

[davearm2]

Do I have this about right?

 

Multiple people: If a player is really good and/or the team has a lot of money invested in a player, it's probably not in their best interest to give 100% effort and risk injury for plays that have very little chance at success, like laying out for balls in the gap or sprinting down to first on a two hopper to the 2B.

 

Davearm: That's a slippery slope, pretty soon you'll have the players living in the stadium because THINK OF THE LIKELIHOOD OF A CAR ACCIDENT ON THEIR WAY HOME, and do you see how ridiculous that is?

No you don't. We're not discussing OF plays that have very little chance at success. We're discussing OF plays that have a 35% (low estimate) to 50% or better (high estimate) chance at success. And nobody I've seen has suggested sprinting down to first on a two hopper to the 2B.

[Sammy Sofa]

Other people have brought up the idea of hustle in regards to running out grounders in the thread.

 

And those percentages are hardly the focus of the discussion, nor should they be, since we pulled them out of our butts.

[davearm2]

And they all player corner IF positions.

 

Fine. Ryan Braun, Jose Bautista, and Matt Holliday dont do much of it either.

 

All three have gotten their share of criticism for their less than ideal defense.

 

And Im sure any manager in baseball would take any one of them over Reed Johnson, Sam Fuld, or Aaron Rowand slip and sliding all over the field to make a slightly non routine play.

Since it's clear you're not following the debate, the issue at hand is what (if any) added value would come from Braun/Bautista/Holliday giving the sort of effort Johnson/Fuld/Rowand do.

 

Preferring Holliday etc. to Fuld etc. is completely irrelevant.

[Guest]

Soriano isn't loafing to balls he has a 50/50 chance of getting to, that's the point. You're arguing against a strawman in which your opposition apparently is okay with Soriano casually chasing after every last ball hit his way.

[Sammy Sofa]

And they all player corner IF positions.

 

Fine. Ryan Braun, Jose Bautista, and Matt Holliday dont do much of it either.

 

All three have gotten their share of criticism for their less than ideal defense.

 

And Im sure any manager in baseball would take any one of them over Reed Johnson, Sam Fuld, or Aaron Rowand slip and sliding all over the field to make a slightly non routine play.

Since it's clear you're not following the debate, the issue at hand is what (if any) added value would come from Braun/Bautista/Holliday giving the sort of effort Johnson/Fuld/Rowand do.

 

Preferring Holliday etc. to Fuld etc. is completely irrelevant.

 

If that's the debate then it was over a long time ago. The added value of them busting their asses and leaping after balls in the OF is so negligible (since it's not an all or nothing situation and they can still play the ball well or adequately otherwise) vs. the increased injury risk and losing their bats.

[davearm2]

Soriano isn't loafing to balls he has a 50/50 chance of getting to, that's the point. You're arguing against a strawman in which your opposition apparently is okay with Soriano casually chasing after every last ball hit his way.

Actually they very much are okay with Soriano casually chasing after every last ball hit his way. They justify it by saying they don't want him to risk injury.

 

And Soriano is loafing to at least some of the balls he has a 50/50 chance of getting to. At least that's what I've seen.

[Sammy Sofa]

Because his "casual chasing" isn't typically resulting in runners taking extra bases or getting hits when they shouldn't be.

[davearm2]

All three have gotten their share of criticism for their less than ideal defense.

 

And Im sure any manager in baseball would take any one of them over Reed Johnson, Sam Fuld, or Aaron Rowand slip and sliding all over the field to make a slightly non routine play.

Since it's clear you're not following the debate, the issue at hand is what (if any) added value would come from Braun/Bautista/Holliday giving the sort of effort Johnson/Fuld/Rowand do.

 

Preferring Holliday etc. to Fuld etc. is completely irrelevant.

 

If that's the debate then it was over a long time ago. The added value of them busting their asses and leaping after balls in the OF is so negligible (since it's not an all or nothing situation and they can still play the ball well or adequately otherwise) vs. the increased injury risk and losing their bats.

The added value is not negligible. Even by your conservative estimate, it would be successful more than 1 in 3 times.

 

Regardless, you have isolated this particular risk and declared it unwarranted, yet somehow are okay with many other similarly risky actions where the marginal benefit is also small. It's just a very strange and confusing line in the sand, IMO.

[Sammy Sofa]

Regardless, you have isolated this particular risk and declared it unwarranted, yet somehow are okay with many other similarly risky actions where the marginal benefit is also small. It's just a very strange and confusing line in the sand, IMO.

 

No, it's really not. You've yet to show how sliding to avoid a tag or breaking up a double play is a similar risk/reward situation. If you don't slide when you can avoid the tag you're out and your value as a runner and ability to score as a result of that PA gone. If an OF doesn't choose to try to make a diving catch they can still play it and keep the runner to a single or a double instead of more.

Edited July 22, 2011 by Sammy Sofa

[davearm2]

Because his "casual chasing" isn't typically resulting in runners taking extra bases or getting hits when they shouldn't be.

Not typically, no, but it definitely happens. You can be comfortable with the number of extra bases surrendered and outs foregone by Soriano's injury prevention outfield protocol, but not everyone is.

[Sammy Sofa]

It doesn't happen nearly enough to justify the added injury risk. Like you said yourself, most people know not to test his arm.

[davearm2]

Regardless, you have isolated this particular risk and declared it unwarranted, yet somehow are okay with many other similarly risky actions where the marginal benefit is also small. It's just a very strange and confusing line in the sand, IMO.

 

No, it's really not. You've yet to show how sliding to avoid a tag or breaking up a double play is a similar risk/reward situation. If you don't slide when you can avoid the tag you're out and your value as a runner and ability to score as a result of that PA gone. If an OF doesn't choose to try to make a diving catch they can still play it and keep the runner to a single or a double instead of more.

Seriously? An OF playing a ball they could have caught (with 50% probability) on a hop for a double has virtually the same cost to the team as a runner being tagged out at 2B when he could have been safe (again with 50% probability) by sliding. In both cases, the stakes are a runner on 2B versus an out.

[Sammy Sofa]

Stop using these made up probabilities; they just make you look ridiculous. You just posted without thinking twice that you think someone is likely to end up with a double on a ball that an OF played as a hit off of a hop that they had a 50% chance of catching. Read that again and think about what an insane scenario you've created, since apparently the OF has an arm even weaker than Juan Pierre.

 

And your whole comparison is totally arbitrary and makes zero sense because it has no basis in anything except what you've made up to back up your point.

[TruffleShuffle]

Do I have this about right?

 

Multiple people: If a player is really good and/or the team has a lot of money invested in a player, it's probably not in their best interest to give 100% effort and risk injury for plays that have very little chance at success, like laying out for balls in the gap or sprinting down to first on a two hopper to the 2B.

 

Davearm: That's a slippery slope, pretty soon you'll have the players living in the stadium because THINK OF THE LIKELIHOOD OF A CAR ACCIDENT ON THEIR WAY HOME, and do you see how ridiculous that is?

 

also other players will see soriano or ramirez loafing so they'll all stop trying too.

[Guest]

Unless I missed it, I can't believe we made it 10 pages in this thread without somebody saying FDB.

 

I'm pretty disappointed.

[Tryptamine]

Seriously dealing with Dave is like dealing with a kid who keeps asking "why?" over and over again. They don't really care why, they just get enjoyment out of irritating the hell out of everyone. Even so, this entire topic comes down to risk vs. reward. The risk of Sori face planting in the wall or hurting himself diving far exceeds the reward of making a spectacular catch. If we're talking the playoffs then things change. You can't eliminate all risk(at bats), but you limit the risk that you can control(diving).

[SouthSideRyan]

Do I have this about right?

 

Multiple people: If a player is really good and/or the team has a lot of money invested in a player, it's probably not in their best interest to give 100% effort and risk injury for plays that have very little chance at success, like laying out for balls in the gap or sprinting down to first on a two hopper to the 2B.

 

Davearm: That's a slippery slope, pretty soon you'll have the players living in the stadium because THINK OF THE LIKELIHOOD OF A CAR ACCIDENT ON THEIR WAY HOME, and do you see how ridiculous that is?

 

also other players will see soriano or ramirez loafing so they'll all stop trying too.

 

Plus they'll stop bunting.

[Sammy Sofa]

Seriously dealing with Dave is like dealing with a kid who keeps asking "why?" over and over again. They don't really care why, they just get enjoyment out of irritating the hell out of everyone. Even so, this entire topic comes down to risk vs. reward. The risk of Sori face planting in the wall or hurting himself diving far exceeds the reward of making a spectacular catch. If we're talking the playoffs then things change. You can't eliminate all risk(at bats), but you limit the risk that you can control(diving).

 

$5 says he brings up sliding again in response to this.

[sneakypower]

http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=lf&stats=fld&lg=nl&qual=500&type=1&season=2011&month=0&season1=2008&ind=0

 

his defense is more than fine; stop being such a dumbass, davearm

[TruffleShuffle]

http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=lf&stats=fld&lg=nl&qual=500&type=1&season=2011&month=0&season1=2008&ind=0

 

his defense is more than fine; stop being such a dumbass, davearm

 

Defensive metrics? You really think he's the second-best leftfielder in the national league? LOL. You seriously are pathetic.