Transmogrified Tiger

Singled out. Is that better? Oh, and way to refute the points. Another person incapable of addressing the point at hand. How fitting. Either way, claiming to be singled out/targeted is rings awfully hollow considering the condescending responses you've dealt out in this thread("you Sabermetricians- who famously ignore any part of the game that cannot be quantified by some obscure methodology and formula"..."Another person incapable of addressing the point at hand. How fitting." among other incredulous rhetoricals making insinuations about the poster rather than the topic at hand), with none given by me in return. People arguing the other side of your posts doesn't mean you're being singled out, and if you're the angriest voice(why that is, I'm not sure) among those from that viewpoint, then you're the one that's going to get responded to.

40 runs is an awful lot, especially when Ibanez doesn't even OPS .900. 10 runs = 1 win? Yep. seems a little odd/arbitrary to me, but whatever. BP has gathright at 84 EqR in 839 PAs the past 3 seasons ibanez is at 311 EqR in 2042 PAs. so if you assume that each guy gets 650 PAs in full playing time, at their current level of production, gathright would produce 65 runs while ibanez produces 99. so 34 runs difference. i guess my figure was a bit high but not off by much, and i don't see how gathright is 3.4 "wins" better than ibanez in the field. Using wOBA, Ibanez projects around .345 for next year(James says .346, Marcel .344). With .328 as league average, that puts him about 10 runs above average. UZR has him around -24 in LF in '07 and -11 in '08. Moving to RF and getting a year older isn't going to help that, but let's say he's -10 to be simple and he's net zero above average. Gathright is a career +19 defender in LF, +13 in CF. We'll split the difference conservatively(since RF is between LF and CF, closer to LF, on the defensive spectrum) and say he's +15 in RF. To put him on par with Ibanez, he needs to be at worst -15 at the plate, which is a .302 wOBA. Marcel has him at .302(.264/.333/.329 slash line) and James .315(.281/.356/.321) next year. This is where I differ from Colin, since I think those projections are optimistic for Gathright, a career .293 wOBA guy who put up an awful .280 last year. I don't think he's quite on par with Ibanez or Abreu on that offense+defense basis, but it's not as far fetched as you might think from looking at them offensively. That said, the extent that you agree with the logic depends on how down you are with UZR. If you think being able to put a number on runs saved is preposterous, then it's not going to carry much weight. If you think UZR has been the leader in defensive metrics to this point, then it should at least give reason for pause, even if you don't ultimately agree.

Targeted? Really?

40 runs is an awful lot, especially when Ibanez doesn't even OPS .900. 10 runs = 1 win? Yep.

40 runs is an awful lot, especially when Ibanez doesn't even OPS .900.

That and he tore the cover off the ball last year in Boise at age 18.

I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't make sweeping generalizations, especially those with such condescending negative connotations. Because you've spent a lot of time trying to discredit the methodology and not that point. If you had made any point of your own countering what Colin said instead of going on about "guesses".

He took the middle ground between Bill James and Marcels, and rounded off his career UZR to a whole number. This isn't complicated or mincing numbers to try to prove a point, it's just simplifying.

He was talking about what to expect out of a player next year, what exactly should he have done? Why do people have such difficulty understanding the context of specific quotes? I made no argument or remark regarding what he should have done. I pointed out the fallacy that the OP had not used guesswork in his point. He, in fact, did use guesswork- regardless of how close to reality those projections tend to be, they are still projections. Hence, they are GUESSES. Educated guesses, sure. But, guesses nonetheless. Yes, and it's obvious by your previous disagreement of his point and your overuse of the word "guess" that your point is to discredit what he's saying. Everything talking about next year is a guess of some magnitude, to belabor that is beside the point. How would you go about making that evaluation of Gathright '09 v. Abreu '09?

He was talking about what to expect out of a player next year, what exactly should he have done?

If Abreu gets anywhere near 15 million dollars in 2009, I'll make SSR eat a hat.

I guess if you platoon Kosuke and Johnson, then had a 3 man grouping of Gathright/DeRosa/Fontenot, the bench works out as Gathright/Fontenot, Cedeno/other SS backup, Hoffpauir, Johnson, backup C.

The wording from various sources is unclear if Gathright would even get a major league contract, I really doubt he's getting 1-2 million. And I'm pretty sure the 3 players Colin is referring to are Ibanez, Abreu, and Bradley. Ibanez and Abreu(throw Dunn the RF in here too if you like) are the inverse of Gathright, giving away their offensive value with wretched defense. Bradley isn't much better than anyone if he can't stay healthy. Personally, I'm skeptical of Gathright's offensive projection like I mentioned earlier, but it's not like he's never hit at that level(below average instead of replacement level), and he's 28 so if he were to step up offensively now would be the time(especially going to an easier league like Colin mentioned). Also of note is that Gathright has no platoon split. .631 career OPS against both RHP and LHP.

Really? Because of the four offseason RF targets the Cubs had going into the winter meetings, Gathright is better than 2-3 of them (depending on how many games you think Bradley will last in the outfield). And that's BEFORE you take contract value into account. I know projections put him at about a .305 w/OBA, but I'm skeptical of him reaching a level he's only met once in 4+ seasons. Still, getting another Pie with less upside isn't bad at all if you're going to trade the original.

A major league contract? Irritating. A minor league contract? Pretty good Iowa fodder.

Dunn is a completely different hitter in that he approaches at bats a completely different way. Dunn strikes out a ton and walks a ton, both byproducts of him taking pitches to get deep into counts. He looks for a pitch he can drive, and if he doesn't get it early in the count, he doesn't swing. When he gets deep into counts, he still looks to drive the ball, and remains selective. This leads to the walks, the K's(swinging and looking), and the extra base hits(reflected by his obscene IsoP). Soriano on the other hand, approaches hitting not unlike a trained labradoodle. He sees the pitch, if he can hit it, he swings at it indiscriminately, and as hard as he can. This leads to the extra base hits, the strikeouts(swinging but rarely looking), but not the walks. When they're at the plate, Dunn is playing chess while Soriano is coloring outside the lines in a book of crossword puzzles.

I'm sorry, I have an extremely difficult time describing someone as a very good hitter when their career batting average is .247, they average 160+ strikeouts a year, and his career RISP is .241 (.208 with RISP and 2 outs.) Sometimes, the situation demands a player step up to the plate and drive in a run, and he can't deliver that. His career numbers prove it. These SHOULD matter. Listen, OBP and SLG are great numbers to have...I know. But Dunn is basically another Soriano, only with the ability to take a walk and not steal a base. Most people here hate Soriano, yet praise Dunn profusely. He's a valuable offensive piece overall that just doesn't make sense for this team based on our needs. Batting average should never be the metric to determine how valuable someone is in a given situation. Ever. His OPS w/ RISP is .890(he also strikes out less than his career rate). .883 w/ RISP and 2 outs(and an even lower K rate). .911 in Tie games, 1.371 in extra innings, .942 w/ man on 3rd < 2 outs, you could go on forever, and in all of those he has a better K rate than his average, not that it particularly matters. People don't hate Soriano and praise Dunn profusely. And Dunn and Soriano are not comparable players in the slightest.

The happy medium with Dunn is that he's a very good hitter who gives back a good bit of that offense with his defense(even moreso in RF). The reasoning for signing or not signing him should not include how he performs "when it matters" or other such arbitrary situations that Dunn actually doesn't suck at.

And won more games than the previous year?

Lowell is 35 and was pretty abysmal for a corner IF offensively last year.

Holy moly, Pomeroy has Mizzou going 14-2 in the conference right now, losing 2 point games @Texas and @Kansas. It also gives UNC a 12% chance to run the table.

Do we know that Bradley will be that much better? He hasn't played 100 games in the field since 2004 and played a whole 20 last year. I realize most of it is because he'll hurt himself if he stands in the outfield, but is a player who will be injured if he plays the outfield any better than a poor defender? Yes. Everything I've seen points to Bradley being at least capable, if not above average defensively. With Dunn, we're talking about giving away a substantial portion of the offense he provides with his defense, especially in RF. But that was two years ago, at best, for Bradley. The sample size defensively for him is very small unless you go back to 2006. Defensive metrics are highly questionable at best with a large sample size. If you have to go back to when Bradley was 27 to have any sort of real sample size, are the metrics reliable enough to tell you how he'll be today when he's 31 and has a pitiful health record? For me I need more than "he's had injuries" to deduce that he's become a worse outfielder. And besides, even if he's been sapped of range by his injuries, he's still highly likely to be orders of magnitude better than Dunn in the OF.

Do we know that Bradley will be that much better? He hasn't played 100 games in the field since 2004 and played a whole 20 last year. I realize most of it is because he'll hurt himself if he stands in the outfield, but is a player who will be injured if he plays the outfield any better than a poor defender? Yes. Everything I've seen points to Bradley being at least capable, if not above average defensively. With Dunn, we're talking about giving away a substantial portion of the offense he provides with his defense, especially in RF.

Dunn would probably be the worst defensive right fielder in the history of baseball.

I think signing Bradley would amount to paying extra money to have Reed Johnson or Fukudome play right field for 60-70 games. So yeah, I'd prefer either of those options. It's more playing time for Fontenot, not Kosuke or Johnson.