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What do these Players have in Common?
markj111
Posts: 2,921 ✭✭✭
in Sports Talk
Leon Roberts
Doug Decinces
Gary Alexander
Butch Hobson
Lamar Johnson
Taylor Duncan
Pete LaCo*k
They are among the many AL players who drove in a higher % of runners from 2nd base in 1978 than did Jim Rice (min 300 PAs).
Doug Decinces
Gary Alexander
Butch Hobson
Lamar Johnson
Taylor Duncan
Pete LaCo*k
They are among the many AL players who drove in a higher % of runners from 2nd base in 1978 than did Jim Rice (min 300 PAs).
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His personality doesn't win any points either.---- Sonny
Rice was a stud and I hated Boston.
<< <i>For a player you do not consider HOF worthy you sure do spend a good portion of your life studying him and his statistics. Do you think the HOF voters are gonna read your rants and reverse the vote? >>
As a matter of fact, Selig called me yesterday. Rice is on his way out.
<< <i>
<< <i>For a player you do not consider HOF worthy you sure do spend a good portion of your life studying him and his statistics. Do you think the HOF voters are gonna read your rants and reverse the vote? >>
As a matter of fact, Selig called me yesterday. Rice is on his way out. >>
brian
Collecting 1970s Topps baseball wax, rack and cello packs, as well as PCGS graded Half Cents, Large Cents, Two Cent pieces and Three Cent Silver pieces.
<< <i>Pete La*ock couldn't wear Rice's jock strap.
Rice was a stud and I hated Boston. >>
Mickey, compared to you or I...or to the average human, Rice was INDEED a stud player.
Compared to the average MLB player he was very good.
Compared to the elite players of his time....he was below par.
And, I LIKED BOSTON!
Please understand, AND I LIKED BOSTON!
If indeed he was hitting a lot of rising line drives off the monster, costing him all these home runs, then what would those balls be going as? They wouldn't be outs. They would either become a double or the occasional single.
Batted outs are balls put into play as an out.
.........................Home.......ROad
Batted outs......2,080........2,270.......9.1% decrease
Total Hits............1,304........1,148
Singles................845...........773.......9.3% increase
Doubles..............207............166......24.6% increase
Triples.................44...............35......25.7% increase
Home Runs.........208............174.....19.5% increase
Just using common sense here, if he truly were getting robbed of all these line drive home runs by the monster, wouldn't that materialize in the form of a boat load increase in doubles and singles then, as compared to what he did on the road?
If he truly never did take advantage of the fly balls that turned into doubles and home runs, then why was he making more batted ball outs on the road?
His percentage of increases are right in line in what Fenway produced in that era...and actually his home run rate increase looks a little higher than what Fenway normally produced....as Fenway was more a producer of Doubles and triples to the extreme.
I guess if someone really wanted to discard common sesne, and ignore the 5,000 road plate appearances, they can look at those numbers and say, "see, I was right, his home runs increased at a lower rate than doubles, so they were taking away home runs."
But then how do you exaplain the decrease in batted ball outs?
There is play by play data for every play of his...you can go to retrosheet.org and download it and search every play. In the end, you are going to come back to the same conclusions the ballpark stuff comes to, because that is where it comes from.
Accordiing to BaseballReference here are his total doubles location breakdwon...
Pulled 135
Middle 84
unknown 83
Opposite field 71
That is for road and home. So you can see it will be about 75 home doubles that were pulled, and then whatever of the unknown location of the 83 total(home/road) doubles that were pulled at HOME. Of those unknown, you can estimate that about a little more than half occured at home, and that 20 of those were probably pulled.
So you are left with about 100 home doubles that would have ANY possibility of being the type of rising line drive you guys are talking about. That is a far cry from the amounts you guys speak of.
Of those 100 home doubles that were pulled, how many were pulled on the ground past the third baseman, or pulled on a low line drive down the left field line(as both of those hits are the most commmon type of hits that are doubles). One can estimate that at least half were of that variety, leaving....
50 Possible doubles that are in question.
Now, of those 50 possible doubles in question, how many were rising line drives that we are talking about, how many were fly balls that fenway turned an out into a double....and how many were the low line drive that hit the wall and would not have been a home run anywhere??
Do you see where this is heading??? The rising line drive off the top of hte wall I am sure it has happened, but the extent that which it happened is waaaaay overblown.
What we are left with is that he probably had an equal amount of home runs turned into doubles, as he had fly ball outs turned into doubles AND Home Runs. Which goes back to the value of each of those two outcomes. It is of greater benefit to have a fly ball out turned into a double, than it is a cost to have a home run turned into a double.
THe list is their best seasons, all the way down to their worst...stacked up next to each other.
Singleton vs Rice
165.............157
155.............154
153.............147
152.............141
148.............136
142.............130
135.............127
132.............123
131.............122
120.............120
119.............116
110.............112
101.............102
99...............101
62...............70
Singletons best beats Rice's best almost every year! Even if you assign a margin of error for the measurement, to think it is silly to compare the two??? Are you kidding?
Sorry for the double posts.
And then start a new thread -- "The Atlanta Braves -- A Celebration of Regular Season Excellence"
<< <i>Leon Roberts
Doug Decinces
Gary Alexander
Butch Hobson
Lamar Johnson
Taylor Duncan
Pete LaCo*k
They are among the many AL players who drove in a higher % of runners from 2nd base in 1978 than did Jim Rice (min 300 PAs). >>
OK, I will give a serious answer.
Leon Roberts
Doug Decinces
Gary Alexander
Butch Hobson
Lamar Johnson
Taylor Duncan
Pete LaCo*k
And
Ken Singleton -I'm adding in.....They Are all players who didn't even come close to sniffing the HOF.
Then you got Jim Rice.....The last I checked is a current HOF player.
Nothing like living your life around finding misc stats that don't tell the whole story and don't hold water.
Need I say more?
Brian
OPS+ isn't some miscellaneous stat that doesnt tell whole story and doesn't hold water. You can save that definition for RBI, or runs scored, or batting average, or for ignoring the Fenway factor...the things that are typically spewed on this board and out of the mouths of ignorant fans and writers alike.
No duh that Rice is in the Hall, and Singleton is not. THat isn't the point.
THe fact that singleton was at least as good as Rice and yet did not receive a lick of support....while Rice somehow gets enshrined...shows the ignorance of everybody who voted for Rice, and everyone who supports him over players like Singleton(and others who are not in from the SAME era), who are as good or better.
Credit needs to go where it is due.
I know it is a losing battle because there are just too many...but the fight against the morons of the sports world will continue.
P.S. and if somebody wants their life to revolve around getting credit for players who deserve it, why would that be scoffed at anymore than some guy creating fantasy baseball cards of players(while stealing somebody else's copyright design in the process)?
Totally off a bit....When Ted Williams was in his prime I've heard he wasn't the biggest fan favorite. He would not tip his cap to the fans and they never won the big one. He is well received now. What I'm getting at: in big series' he used to take tons of walks and the fans used to get pissed because his team needed him to drive in runs not take 1st. I've heard this many times and have read this also. When a runner is on 2nd walking a great hitter is not a big accomplishment for the hitter...it's practically a given.
In my world the best hitter has the best average and the best pitcher has the best era.
<< <i>bman,
OPS+ isn't some miscellaneous stat that doesnt tell whole story and doesn't hold water. You can save that definition for RBI, or runs scored, or batting average, or for ignoring the Fenway factor...the things that are typically spewed on this board and out of the mouths of ignorant fans and writers alike.
No duh that Rice is in the Hall, and Singleton is not. THat isn't the point.
THe fact that singleton was at least as good as Rice and yet did not receive a lick of support....while Rice somehow gets enshrined...shows the ignorance of everybody who voted for Rice, and everyone who supports him over players like Singleton(and others who are not in from the SAME era), who are as good or better.
Credit needs to go where it is due.
I know it is a losing battle because there are just too many...but the fight against the morons of the sports world will continue.
P.S. and if somebody wants their life to revolve around getting credit for players who deserve it, why would that be scoffed at anymore than some guy creating fantasy baseball cards of players(while stealing somebody else's copyright design in the process)? >>
What I'm saying is why waste your time comparing guys that will never make the HOF against a HOF with a single stat? The last I checked, OPS is just one of many stats.
Lastly, Saberman's arguments look very familiar, but he's been a member since this year. Can someone say, Alt!!!!!
brian
In my world the best hitter has the best average and the best pitcher has the best era. >>
Finally you said something I agree with. Remember though, that the games are not played in your world. They are played in the real world, where people realize that batting average is not even close to the best measure of a hitter.
Mickey71,
There is a tiny bit of validity in the value of a guy who is able to maintain a high hit rate in those situations going after pitcher's pitches, instead of taking a walk. But what happens is that they make a lot of outs, STRANDING those guys there, because they chase a pitchers's pitch.
But guys who don't walk, don't walk anytime, even if it would be an opportune time to take a walk, and that is one area where your assertions are invalid.
Here are RIce and Singleton's OB% in base situations where a walk is either as good as a single, or moves runners along and is quite benificial;
.......................Singleton...........Rice
Nobody on..........377...............344.
Man on 1st.........383................342
1st and 2nd.......369.................337
Loaded..............374.................299
In other words, players don't save their ability to walk for when it can move runners up, and neglect it for when they want to drive runners in.
With 2nd and 3rd, Rice's OB% was .477. You can pretty much guess that the pitcher took care of if he was going to walk or not...probably most of those were with a lefty on the hill.
But there are a few problems, and the play by play data disagrees with your notions. Did you comb over the millions of play by play info to see EXACTLY how often it benefits to take a walk?
Taking a walk to make it 1st and 2nd will increase your team's chance of scoring, and scoring more. In the case of guys like Rice who batted in the middle of the lineup, they had well above MLB hitters batting behind them. Now if Rice had the pitcher batting behind him, then I think you could make a case for pulling a 'kelly leake' and trying to put the ball into play at all costs.
If Ken Singleton were good at taking walks, and took them with 2nd and 3rd....with Eddie Murray batting after him, how is that bad? If the pitcher were behind him, he wouldn't even have a choice in the matter.
It is all about how runs are constructed at the MLB level. THe millions of play by play data that has been combed over gives you the answers you need.
There is no denying the play by play data, and there is no way your guess could contradict what it says.
NOW, if a team is foolish enough to bat a guy with a high OB% sixth in the lineup, that doesn't lessen the ability or value of the batter...it just tells you the ignorance of the manager.
If a team is foolish enough not to get MLB quality hitters to bat 5th and 6th, that doesn't lessen the value of the batter, nor can it be held against a high OB% guy if his GM does not know what he is doing.
You mentioned something before about each team's situation. You are correct, there may be a certain situation where a type set of a hitter could be more beneficial, but that doesn't measure the player....that measures the situation. If you go to EVERY TEAM in the league to see how the player would fit and benefit the team, then you are going to come to the same conclusions as OPS+, and the play by play data. It is measuring the players on a neutral MLB environment.
Do you know how often, and how much a team's chance of scoring increases from the state of a man on 2nd, and when it now becomes a man on 1st and 2nd??
This isn't about perception...we already know where that gets us.
And I know where your rant against OB% is coming from...it is because Ichiro is your favorite player, so by trying to downgrade that important measurement, you are in essence trying to elevate Ichiro's status.
Why would you even say that?
Back to the questions at hand posed above.
For guys like Singleton and RIce. These are example players since they exemplify the topic.
Do you think taking a walk in front of Eddie Murray or Dewey Evans is a good thing?
How about walking with nobody on base?
Would you accept an uninentional/intentional walk with the pitcher on deck....or would you chase one of those pitches out of the zone for the sake of trying to drive in the run yourself?
I gave specific questions for the players involved, and I am sure I know how 95% of the people would answer those questions.
Guys who don't take walks, don't take them in any situations, even if they are of the same value of a single...I asked that in previous posts though.
If you knew what percentage of times a MLB walk from a number three hitter, leads to a run(and the number of total runs for the inning), then you would know the value of that event(and the player). What would it matter when evaluating that player if some teams would not be equiped to drive in that walk, while other teams would drive it in at a high rate? You don't judge the player based on what the rest of the lineup does with the walk. You judge him based on what he does, and that is his value.
The play by play data shows what the average team WILL do, AND DID DO, with that walk.
There are some situations where a walk is worth more or less, same for every single, double, triple, and home run. Same for every out. Making an out with a man on second is a bad thing. But that stuff is already known and looked at with the use of play by play data, and this is the understanding on the building of runs.
YEar.....AB...........BA.........OB%..........SLG%......OPS+.......RBI.........BA w/RISP.........BA w/men on base
1979.....591......284.........319...........437............97..........66............272..................298
1986.....621......267.........311...........427............97..........102..........242..................276
1979 was with the Cubs, and '86 with the Red Sox. Coincidentally both were the top two hitter parks in the league(but this isn't about the parks, though that helps to take out a step).
Really, the only noticeable difference is the RBI total, which is VASTLY different. He did not achieve more RBI in 1986 because he hit better with men on base...he actually hit WORSE with men on base. He simply got the extra RBI because of a boatload more opportunities.
So was Buckner a better player in 1986? Hardly. He didn't do anything different...his environement changed. In this case it was from an entirely new lineup. Some guys get the advantae of a great lineup AND a great home park(like Rice).
So when evaluating Buckner, are you looking to evaluate him, or the lineup?
post of the week!