seanimal

5 and a half years here. Then what is a reliable way to evaluate defense? Scouting? Scouting via play by play data. ok so my question is does one need a hawaiian shirt and binoculars to scout the play by play data? jk i just hate baseball but no seriously man, do you really believe that the existing information captured by play-by-play data tells us as much as we need to know about a defensive player's abilities and execution on the field?

sure, the possibility exists, but given what we do know, particularly that his rate of assists per innings played is basically identical, it is unlikely. you give baseball players, and the wavin' wendell's of the world too much credit. not only is that inference unlikely given the data and absence of any observed accounts supporting it, it's impossible to quantify and therefore wouldn't factor into ARM anyway. you know, if it was actually trying to account for such things. not necessarily. we can easily conceive of a situation where an outfielder could become more efficient at creating throwing outs yet still not become more valuable because of it. this is because not all throwing outs are created equal. throwing out ryan theriot at second base with two outs is not the same as throwing out carl crawford at home with no outs. run probability matters. there's also a difference between intelligent, skilled baserunners choosing to challenge the arm of an outfielder who has previously been in the infield his entire professional career, and some grindy, low-efficiency baserunner who tries to squeeze an extra base because he "plays the game the right way." skill level matters. but not to ARM... aside from failing to account for the situational run probability as well as the skill level of the baserunner, it also fails to account for the most important piece of the puzzle: the fielder! particularly, where they are standing at the time the ball is hit. this can be as intricate as using the pitch f/x system to also pay attention to the activity of the fielders (which, as far as i know, it doesn't, and is probably the biggest flaw to the system), but even accounting for the defensive field the player is in would be a great start. preventing a runner from advancing to third is easier, all things being equal, when you're on the left side of the field. oh but hey it accounts for park factors and the amount of blue cotton candy sold that day so, there's that.

Tell me what you don't like about MacKanin other than 'he's old' (60) He'd be ok I guess. Just doesn't seem like a home run of a hire. hiring a mgr isn't a pr move. this team doesn't need to make a "splash" or "hit a home run". all this hand-wringing is silly. mike maddux interviewed a week ago today. the interview process wasn't even wrapped up until this weekend. this isn't mcdonalds, hiring a manager who is currently employed takes more than 3 minutes. all this "mike maddux needs to make up his mind" or "we're going to get francona" babble is clearly ignoring what the individuals involved have said. theo specifically discussed the challenge they're faced with hiring a first-time manager during the season ticket-holder q&a, after answering a question days earlier from a reporter regarding francona by saying something along the lines of "we don't think it's the right fit". after maddux turned down the opportunity to interview for the red sox, he stated specifically that he was going to talk to his family about the cubs job before he interviewed last week. if he interviewed, we can logically infer that family isn't going to stand in the way.

I may be reading this wrong, but doesn't it have Soriano's arm worth a win and a half in '07? uzr is saber's leprechaun in the hood Soriano: (games/putouts/assists/arm) 2006: 158/326/22/4.9 2007: 134/273/19/14.4 lol go [expletive] yourself, uzr. no seriously though, it's useless. fangraphs admits as much: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/the-fangraphs-uzr-primer/#16 so lemme get this straight: uzr is not what happened on the field. k. uzr is not true talent level. k. but that's why we regress. k. but even after we regress, we still don't know that uzr is at all indicative of what the player actually did or his talent level when he may or may not have done it. wait what? but that's the best we can do so long as we don't know anything else about a player. rofl holy [expletive] that's [expletive] well, i DO know other stuff about the player, and based on that i know that alfonso soriano's right arm did not become close to 3x more valuable by participating in less games and actually converting less opportunities for assists. so yeah, sori's arm was worth 1.5 wins in 2007. and this is a leprechaun: http://3432-stoollala.voxcdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/leprechaun_sketch.jpg

yeah, i find it hard to like someone who thinks that being stoic is some sort of positive quality worth having

yeah but there's no way to even out the leagues and divisions without someone getting the short end of the time zone stick. might as well be houston.

The goal is not to let guys go the minute they pass their prime. He was still quite productive and valuable after his peak. i wasn't suggesting the former, and i've definitely acknowledged the latter.

plus, if vlad is an accurate comparison, then letting him walk after 29 makes some sense. that was his peak. he didn't fall off a cliff thereafter by any stretch of the imagination, but he never put up an 1.000 ops after he left montreal, and he most certainly started to slow down. man, vlad was amazing in '02. he was definitely the mvp of the nl in the not-barry bonds division.

if he gets the 11-year ssr special than this is all moot anyway. in an 8-year contract that brings him through his year 29 season, after which he hits free agency, there are a few scenarios: - he has sizemore'd and we let him walk - he signs a club-friendly 3-4 year deal for big money but not a lot of potentially regrettable years (unlikely unless we're talking extension before the termination of the contract) - he signs one last big deal with the cubs or, most likely, another team willing to commit to 6-8 years/big money to get a superstar infielder in his prime and eat the risk of overpaying for his less productive years if he'd be willing to do the second option, then of course you keep him. but more than likely, we'd be looking at the third scenario, in which case what i said before is true.

oh [expletive] really? shocking that it is more likely to see production at that level when you have five positions to do it with versus one. or maybe it has something to do with the fact that the most offensively productive shortstops often get moved to other positions as they get older and more powerful with the bat. all things being equal, you're no more likely to develop a shortstop with that production than you are any other position, save maybe 1st base. the main reason why ss tends to be a less offensively productive position is selection bias by traditional baseball guys that continue to perpetrate the myth that ss is a position whose value is derived from defense more than offense. i'm willing to be wrong here, mostly because it ultimately doesn't matter. it's beside the point. regardless of the semantics debate, you don't necessarily need to replace castro's hypothetical age 29 production using one player at one position. if we're a healthy franchise, the loss of offensive production at the ss position is partially replaced by his replacement, partially replaced by improvements of existing players yet to reach their peak, as well as whatever holes can be filled with the money saved by not signing him and paying for past production.

umm, i didn't but isn't it just as likely as the other 7 positions?

i guess at this point, given our accumulation of points, i'm willing to ignore losses at calgary, edmonton, and la if it means we beat and or tied san jose and anaheim in addition to making vancouver fans throw garbage on their home ice

my 'we don't resign castro after this hypothetical 6-8 yr contract' situation relies upon the assumption that the return on investment of 29 y/o+ castro at the going price/years would be less than the another, younger, preferably homegrown option.

that list sucks except for the top part

a vlad doesn't go for that cheap in today's free agency anyway. i should correct myself regardless, as i didn't mean to say arte moreno is stupid and the signing was bad. i was trying to suggest that the hypothetical big splash castro signing at the end of my hypothetical dream castro contract would be dumb. not because he wouldn't produce, but because the person would likely overpay for his production based on his peak physical years. vlad was a landmark signing for arte as a young owner, so that was a parallel that fit given the vlad comparison.

When he's 28?? That Vlad contract was a very good deal for Anaheim. not as good as what montreal was getting for its dollar

he's vladimir guerrero, of course you pay him now and get his prime for cheap and let some stupid artie moreno-like owner make him his 'big splash' 6-8 years from now

probably? make up your mind theo, with your woman-like tendency to try to find the best value while serving the needs guiding your purchase. i mean really, who has enough patience and consideration to just blow it on some minor decision like this?

this sucks

and all i'm saying is that a team that is not hurt by the wind blowing in totally [expletive] sucks. and if you agree with me, why are you arguing with me ffs

well, the opposition could be built better to win with the wind blowing in well then they probably suck and we'll beat them the next day when the sun is shining and the wind is blowing out. so if they have, for instance, better line drive hitters and efficient base stealers while the cubs maybe have a bunch of guys who thrive off wind blown fly balls, the opposing team probably sucks? i left out the part about you being awesome and me being maybe not as awesome. are you suggesting that a team could hit deep pop flies as some sort of collective skill set, to the point that they live or die by the direction of the wind? i took your statement that a team better built to win with the win blowing in means that the same team wouldn't benefit from the wind blowing out. a team that hits line drives is going to manage success with the wind blowing in, but they'll be more successful with the wind blowing out. efficient base-stealing is wind-neutral. we're talking about wind right?

wrigley field actually does have an easily exploitable eccentricity, it's far and away a hitters park. so like, get some good pitchers with low whips and a good ground-to-fly ratio and a bunch of hitters that work the count, get on base, and hit with power. kind of like most other teams that want to win.

well, the opposition could be built better to win with the wind blowing in well then they probably suck and we'll beat them the next day when the sun is shining and the wind is blowing out. it's an idiotic way to think about building a team.

umm and can we ban this "CTC" guy? he's clearly just a bot posting about his stupid tickets without contributing anything to the discussion.

Sounds like a mentality of removing the reliance on pitch counts as well. There is a difference between being cognizant of pitch counts and being ruled by them. Yeah, it's probably more about the coaches realizing where they are, but not telling the pitcher you will be coming out at 85 pitches, or 105 pitches, or 125 pitches. The coaches know, and obviously do not overextend their pitchers (unlike Dusty who let young guys throw 130+ with regularity). It's also about being smart. There's no reason a guy should throw +110 pitches in April-Sept if: The team has a huge lead The bullpen is fresh He's already had a few +100 pitch games in a row He's had high pitch count innings His mechanics are breaking down but he's still getting good results He doesn't have a history of high pitch count games Innings and pitches per inning do matter in the long haul for most pitchers. pitch counts matter in an inadequate training and conditioning regimen for instance, why do we count in-game pitches when the amount of warm-up pitches a pitcher may throw before the game is usually unregulated? how are they different? why is one counted and the other not? granted, we're not talking about a perfect apples-to-apples conversion here, but average japanese pitch counts are WAY higher than their american counterparts. japanese pitchers often toss between innings to keep warm. and even though they only pitch once a week, they also throw up to 300 pitches on days between games. in the context of a training and conditioning regimen where pitchers are building and maintaining arm strength daily through high throw volumes versus towel drills and "side sessions" is going to render the danger of high pitch counts moot. with the strength to go the distance, a pitcher is less likely to compensate for fatigue with poor mechanics. additionally, poor mechanics are going to be weeded out before they even become an issue, as the training regimen wouldn't allow a mechanically poor pitcher to survive. http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/pitch-counts/ http://www.training-conditioning.com/2007/04/striking_out_conventional_pitc.html http://www.npbtracker.com/2009/08/the-nature-of-pitch-counts/#content