The argument of playing more games adding value is somewhat weak. It is similar to the accumulator argument. Don sutton played more games than Bob Gibson, does that add any credence to an argument that sutton was a better pitcher than Gibson? I don't think so. more important is the quality of each game played.
Originally posted by: craig44 The argument of playing more games adding value is somewhat weak. It is similar to the accumulator argument. Don sutton played more games than Bob Gibson, does that add any credence to an argument that sutton was a better pitcher than Gibson? I don't think so. more important is the quality of each game played.
If you can find anyone, anywhere, who agrees with you on this I will be very, very surprised.
And yes, to the degree that Don Sutton pitched more games than Gibson at better than replacement level it would add something to the argument that he was better than Gibson. Obviously, it wouldn't add nearly enough to actually win the argument, since it would be the single only argument on Sutton's side, but again, when you equate "not much" with "nothing" you are simply wrong. The Reds had Johnny Bench in their lineup for about 10 more games per year; in those corresponding games, the Mets had to play a catcher who wasn't good enough to be a starting catcher. Your argument that having Johnny Bench at his prime in your lineup has no extra value over having some random backup catcher in your lineup is amusing, but I don't think you actually believe it.
This is for you @thisistheshow - Jim Rice was actually a pretty good player.
Well, we are talking about catchers here. Over their careers, bench started on average, 96 games at catcher. piazza started 107. That number could have been higher due the games piazza lost over 2 seasons due to the strike. Bench would have lost some games in 81 for the same reason. So piazza was in the starting line-up as catcher more frequently than Bench.
You admitted that it is difficult to qualify era's in regard to difficulty to separate oneself from the average. I would agree. until there is some way to quantify that accurately (I would doubt there ever will be) we have to measure each players performance against their peers. Otherwise we move solidly into the realm of speculation as you did above.
There are very very few (if any) offensive stats that favor bench. Piazza outperformed his peers more significantly than bench did. You trying to chip away at Piazza's significant ops+lead on bench is very speculative. You have no solid formula to go on, just what amounts to a gut instinct. Therefore, you are trying to bend the numbers to fit your desired outcome. Certainly not trying to offend you, but it is what you are doing.
Originally posted by: craig44 Well, we are talking about catchers here. Over their careers, bench started on average, 96 games at catcher. piazza started 107. That number could have been higher due the games piazza lost over 2 seasons due to the strike. Bench would have lost some games in 81 for the same reason. So piazza was in the starting line-up as catcher more frequently than Bench.[/quote] You're counting seasons when Bench wasn't a catcher to get those numbers; cute, but way off point. If you want to go that route then you need to factor in how much better a third baseman Bench was than Piazza, how much better a first baseman, and how much better an outfielder. That makes a straightforward comparison of them as catchers ridiculously, and needlessly, complicated.
Originally posted by: craig44 You admitted that it is difficult to qualify era's in regard to difficulty to separate oneself from the average. I would agree. until there is some way to quantify that accurately (I would doubt there ever will be) we have to measure each players performance against their peers. Otherwise we move solidly into the realm of speculation as you did above.[/quote] No, we don't "have to" ignore what we know to be true even if we can't measure it precisely. I see an NBA player standing next to a jockey and remark how the NBA player is a lot taller. You ask how much taller and I say "I don't know, probably about 2 feet". When you tell me that I "have to" ignore their height difference because I don't know what it is exactly, and therefore I'm speculating, I'm not going to take you seriously; which is where we are now.
Originally posted by: craig44 There are very very few (if any) offensive stats that favor bench. Piazza outperformed his peers more significantly than bench did. You trying to chip away at Piazza's significant ops+lead on bench is very speculative. You have no solid formula to go on, just what amounts to a gut instinct. Therefore, you are trying to bend the numbers to fit your desired outcome. Certainly not trying to offend you, but it is what you are doing.[/quote] You can stop stating that there are few offensive stats that favor Bench - we agree on that. You should stop saying "if any" since it is clear that there are some (SB/CS and GIDP); it makes it look like you're not paying attention. And I'll say it again and you can either accept it or continue to insult me - I am not "trying" to do anything. I am laying out the facts and evidence that I see, putting them in context, and explaining why Bench was a better player than Piazza. Certainly, some of that evidence is subject to interpretation, but I have no investment in the outcome of this debate. I see overwhelming evidence that Bench was better, and not just a little bit better but a lot better; you disagree but haven't really provided me with any evidence that I've missed or misinterpreted. What you've done, repeatedly, is try to bend the numbers to fit your desired outcome.
This is for you @thisistheshow - Jim Rice was actually a pretty good player.
Bench stole 51 more bases and was thrown out 23 more times. That is not an advantage my friend, but a disadvantage. The break even point for SB to add value to a team is 75% Benches teams would have been better off had he never attempted a steal. Piazza didn't add anything to the basepaths, but knew enough to stop running and hurting the team. For those extra 51 bases Bench stole, he added 23 outs. That is a net loss as far as stolen bases. I think we can set that one to rest. Yes, Piazza grounded into 28 more DPs. Is there a difference? Yes. Is it significant, not really when divided over 15 years. Not nearly as significant as 16%for ops+ if you are really trying to add to your argument by saying Bench was 1 or 2% better on the basepaths, you must see how weak of an argument you have. Neither player was a factor on the bases. They were both station to station type players. On any given day, you probably could have inserted either player and came to the exact same outcome on the base paths. Between piazzas extra DP and the extra outs bench ran into, these two players are a wash on the bases.
When it comes to getting on base and hitting with power (the two MOST important things a hitter can do) piazza out performed his peers 16 % better than Bench did. That adds HUGE value to a team. While bench threw out a lot of runners, the net positive to his team was not 16 % Bench was 8%better than his peers at throwing out runners. Throwing out runners is not as valuable to a team than having a hitter, at the same position, out doing his peers at the two most important things a hitter can do by 42% I just don't see how you would take that bat out of the lineup for the increase in caught stealing. You said that most aspects of catching are performed nearly at the same level except for throwing.
Bench throwing out more runners just isn't more valuable than a historically good bat like Piazza.
What in the world are you talking about. It seems that when you feel like a discussion is not going in your favor, you gather up your toys and go home. Me thinks you are not used to people disagreeing with you and may be a bit sensitive.
I have enjoyed reading the posts (glad I wasn't part of the debate, for a change).
My take on the discussion would be that as a ballplayer Piazza is under rated but as a catcher he is about accurately rated. Deserving of the HOF.
Statistically speaking Mike was far superior as a hitter and while it's harder to prove, he was quite a bit below average defensively.
Baseballically, catcher is a defense first position, so I lower his value just as I would a good hitting, below average shortstop. During his career Mike was regarded as a sub par receiver.
I have read that Yogi Berra was one of the best pitch callers of his time, batters had no idea what he was going to call. Whitey Ford has said he seldom shook Yogi off even though he called "crazy" sequences of pitches. I would like to read what some of the opposing hitters thought about Piazza's skill in this area.
I would regard both Bench and Berra as far superior catchers, even though Piazza was a better hitter.
2013,14 and 15 Certificate Award Winner Harmon Killebrew Master Set and Master Topps Set
Dug up an old thread because unsettled questions nag at me forever and it finally hit me how settle this one.
Consider the fielding % for three all-time great catchers:
Bench: .990
Berra: .989
Piazza: .989
Essentially a three-way tie, and if we expanded the list to 10 or 20 catchers we'd get essentially a 20-way or 30-way tie. Fielding % is always mostly useless, but it is 100% useless in evaluating catchers. Good, bad, or in-between, they end up around .990.
Now, in this thread the claim was made, repeatedly, that Piazza was a terrible catcher, primarily because he was terrible at throwing out runners. The claim was also made that most of what a catcher is asked to do is simply catch the ball. All true, but if we combine the two claims we get something worthwhile. Catchers, for reasons known but to God, get a putout for catching a third strike, and they get so many of them that all of their other putouts and assists get buried beneath the strikeouts. But what if we took out the strikeouts and recalculated fielding %? We'd get something that, while still imperfect, would provide some useful information:
Bench: .951
Berra: .951
Piazza: .910
Other than catching third strikes, Bench and Berra made an error about once every 20 times they had to make a play. That sounds bad, but once you take out the strikeouts, the plays that catchers make are probably more difficult, on average, than the plays at any other position. Piazza, though, gets separated from the great catchers: he made an error about once every 11 times he had to make a play, nearly twice as often as Bench or Berra.
So yes, Piazza was in fact a terrible catcher.
This is for you @thisistheshow - Jim Rice was actually a pretty good player.
@dallasactuary said:
Dug up an old thread because unsettled questions nag at me forever and it finally hit me how settle this one.
Consider the fielding % for three all-time great catchers:
Bench: .990
Berra: .989
Piazza: .989
Essentially a three-way tie, and if we expanded the list to 10 or 20 catchers we'd get essentially a 20-way or 30-way tie. Fielding % is always mostly useless, but it is 100% useless in evaluating catchers. Good, bad, or in-between, they end up around .990.
Now, in this thread the claim was made, repeatedly, that Piazza was a terrible catcher, primarily because he was terrible at throwing out runners. The claim was also made that most of what a catcher is asked to do is simply catch the ball. All true, but if we combine the two claims we get something worthwhile. Catchers, for reasons known but to God, get a putout for catching a third strike, and they get so many of them that all of their other putouts and assists get buried beneath the strikeouts. But what if we took out the strikeouts and recalculated fielding %? We'd get something that, while still imperfect, would provide some useful information:
Bench: .951
Berra: .951
Piazza: .910
Other than catching third strikes, Bench and Berra made an error about once every 20 times they had to make a play. That sounds bad, but once you take out the strikeouts, the plays that catchers make are probably more difficult, on average, than the plays at any other position. Piazza, though, gets separated from the great catchers: he made an error about once every 11 times he had to make a play, nearly twice as often as Bench or Berra.
So yes, Piazza was in fact a terrible catcher.
Very interesting post.
I watch the AL most of the time, so I didn't really see Piazza play. During his career he was well known as a poor defensive player.
How about a shout out for Mickey Cochran? He was MVP twice.
2013,14 and 15 Certificate Award Winner Harmon Killebrew Master Set and Master Topps Set
Cochrane's fielding % was .985. That's lower than Bench/Berra/Piazza and lower than catchers in most other eras. But that's only because there were fewer strikeouts in Cochrane's era. Back out the strikeouts and Cochrane's fielding % drops by a lot less than the others did - to .958. Cochrane played a lot less than the others, and he was done at 32 so that probably saved his fielding % from dropping a bit more, so I'm not sure he was actually better than Bench and Berra, but he was an excellent catcher and his adjusted fielding % shows that a lot more clearly.
This is for you @thisistheshow - Jim Rice was actually a pretty good player.
@dallasactuary said:
Cochrane's fielding % was .985. That's lower than Bench/Berra/Piazza and lower than catchers in most other eras. But that's only because there were fewer strikeouts in Cochrane's era. Back out the strikeouts and Cochrane's fielding % drops by a lot less than the others did - to .958. Cochrane played a lot less than the others, and he was done at 32 so that probably saved his fielding % from dropping a bit more, so I'm not sure he was actually better than Bench and Berra, but he was an excellent catcher and his adjusted fielding % shows that a lot more clearly.
NOT better than Bench and Berra. Didn't mean that.
The author of the book "Yogi Berra: Eternal Yankee" (very nice read btw) goes into great detail using every rating system known to man and Berra and Bench come out at or near the top in most of the stats when looking at the great catchers of all time.
The advantage I would give Bench is that he came to the Majors as a great catcher, Yogi was a great hitter who developed into a great catcher with the help of Bill Dickey.
Dickey was a great one too. Looks like he was one of the best of his time at throwing out base stealers! How does he come out in your ratings?
2013,14 and 15 Certificate Award Winner Harmon Killebrew Master Set and Master Topps Set
@craig44 said:
What in the world are you talking about. It seems that when you feel like a discussion is not going in your favor, you gather up your toys and go home. Me thinks you are not used to people disagreeing with you and may be a bit sensitive.
Craig44 you are correct and bring extremely valid points to this discussion. Here are more to support your POV.
I have to wonder, if someone completely discounts what Barry Bonds did due to steroids giving him an unfair advantage over the league, then how does that make it easier for players who did not do steroids to separate themselves from the league average?
So is Piazza even better than his league average like his OPS+ already says over Bench?
is Derek Jeter actually the best SS ever when you account that the league average stats were inflated with Steroid users and Jeter suffers in his OPS+ as a result? Jeter already gets a bad rap from the awful invalid fielding measurements, which are pure junk, because the man could play defense at SS as good as any other MLB shortstop. He has some famous ridiculous plays defensively in the post season, yet somehow he has no range, lolololol. Joke. The measurements saying jeter was bad defensively are the ones saying Mazeroski was the best defender ever, even though MAZEROSKI'S replacements did just as good in his stead.
So either Barry Bonds gets full credit for his performance, or guys not implicated in steroids get more credit than what their OPS+ says. Can't have it both ways.
Craig, good points on pointing out other aspects of the catcher.
99% of defenders who are minor league and major league tested at their position do convert the routine. The pitcher is 80% or more of the defensive value.
How does Sandberg who ranges into the outfield to convert ground ball outs, and he catches everything hit, somehow not have as much range as someone like Mazeroski? Sandberg had less opportunities, not less range. He 100% had better hands than Mazeroski.
I would like to see where Sandberg was failing to convert double plays where it made him have less than Mazeroski, and go from 126 to 66 in a flash, and back to 96 in a flash. Show me.
The entire basis of making mazeroski better than Sandberg is because he had more double plays and assists. Entire. It is a mirage. A dressed up turd on a bun.
Same with Jeter. A mirage. The man could play SS at the MLB as good as anyone.
Piazza? SB/CS is a little more concrete, but receiving a pitcher has value too and that value is unknown. You pointed out a stat, and maybe it isn't entirely accurate, but it is certainly in the discussion. It shows that one cannot treat those defensive measurements as gospel and certainly not put them on par with the offensive measurements.
So it is correct to take the better offensive player in the case where players are near equal in total value, and one gets there via more from offense and the other more from defense.
@Estil said:
How do you figure he was underrated? He was the second best catcher of the 90s wasn't he?
underrated in the context of the history of baseball. Not sure I would agree he was 2nd best of the 90s. pudge was a very good defensive catcher but not in piazzas league as a hitter.
I love Piazza. Bench was the best there ever was though. I admit that I may be biased since I grew up in Oklahoma. I do agree that Piazza is underrated. He was a GREAT hitter and not a disaster behind the plate as he is often depicted. Heck, he was a starting catcher in the bigs!
For the record, my all-time favorite catcher is Munson (RIP). He had it all.
@Estil said:
How do you figure he was underrated? He was the second best catcher of the 90s wasn't he?
underrated in the context of the history of baseball. Not sure I would agree he was 2nd best of the 90s. pudge was a very good defensive catcher but not in piazzas league as a hitter.
From what I understand, Ivan was pretty much as good a hitter as Mike but was far better defensively (my grandpa really liked him saying he was TOUGH). And for the catcher position perhaps more than any of them, defense > offense.
The entire basis of making mazeroski better than Sandberg is because he had more double plays and assists. Entire. It is a mirage. A dressed up turd on a bun.
"Dressed up turd on a bun" is about as good a description of your posts, and I strongly suspect of you personally, as one could conjure; at least, I won't try to do better. Henceforth, the first word that will come to my mind when I see you have posted will be "turd"; just so you know.
That aside, your statement is false, and you are wrong, as you always are when you attempt to discuss topics, like sports, about which you know nothing. There is a mountain of baseball literature out there that explains why Mazeroski is considered, by more or less everyone who understands baseball, to have been the GOAT at 2B. Don't attempt to find it and read it because there isn't a chance in hell you'd understand any of it, but I will try to dumb it down to your level. If you still don't understand it, let me know, and I will find a small child to try to explain it to you.
Mazeroski did have a tremendous number of assists and double plays. That identifies him as busy. What identifies him as great is that he had a tremendous number of assists and double plays more than expected. The calculation of "expected" fielding events is incredibly tedious, requires volumes of data, and I'm not going to do it for a message board post to someone who wouldn't follow it anyway. But the inputs, the ones that are most relevant to a second baseman anyway, are the strikeouts by the pitchers, the number of flyball outs recorded, and the number of innings pitched by RHP and LHP. With these, and some other minor stuff, the number of assists and DPs by a second baseman can be predicted with a surprising level of accuracy. Deviations from the expected level are as strong an indicator of fielding ability as there is.
In Mazeroski's case, who was described as the best DP man at second base in the history of the game while he played, it came as no surprise to anyone when it turned out that eight of the top 10 seasons for DPs greater than expected were by Mazeroski. Or that Mazeroski's Win Shares per season were higher than any other 2B in history. Any dressed up turd on a bun can look up assists and DPs, even you; it takes a lot more work to identify great fielders, that work has been done, and Mazeroski came out in the top spot. His replacements, primarily Schofield, Alley, and Cash, were all excellent fielders; that makes the differences between Mazeroski and them small enough that they aren't obvious if you simply count up assists and DPs. But if you look in the right places, then no, they didn't do as well as Mazeroski.
Regarding the Sandberg questions that you keep asking, again I'm not going to attempt all the math, but I did look up the most relevant inputs for 1984 and 1989.
Sandberg made 84 more assists in 1984 than in 1989.
To explain the difference, consider:
He played 21 more innings in 1984
Cubs pitchers threw 39 more K's in 1989 (39 fewer outs for the fielders)
Cubs OF recorded 108 more outs in 1989 (more fly balls, fewer chances for the infielders)
The Cubs pitched 175 more innings by LHP in 1989 (more RH hitters => more balls hit to the left side)
21 fewer innings, 147 fewer outs to be made, and 175 more innings by LHP is going to explain most of the difference between Sandberg's assists in 1989 and 1994. The remainder, if any, will be the difference in how many plays Sandberg was able to make. If you have remaining questions, look up the data your own damn self.
And you're welcome.
This is for you @thisistheshow - Jim Rice was actually a pretty good player.
Walker Proof Digital Album Fellas, leave the tight pants to the ladies. If I can count the coins in your pockets you better use them to call a tailor. Stay thirsty my friends......
The entire basis of making mazeroski better than Sandberg is because he had more double plays and assists. Entire. It is a mirage. A dressed up turd on a bun.
"Dressed up turd on a bun" is about as good a description of your posts, and I strongly suspect of you personally, as one could conjure; at least, I won't try to do better. Henceforth, the first word that will come to my mind when I see you have posted will be "turd"; just so you know.
That aside, your statement is false, and you are wrong, as you always are when you attempt to discuss topics, like sports, about which you know nothing. There is a mountain of baseball literature out there that explains why Mazeroski is considered, by more or less everyone who understands baseball, to have been the GOAT at 2B. Don't attempt to find it and read it because there isn't a chance in hell you'd understand any of it, but I will try to dumb it down to your level. If you still don't understand it, let me know, and I will find a small child to try to explain it to you.
Mazeroski did have a tremendous number of assists and double plays. That identifies him as busy. What identifies him as great is that he had a tremendous number of assists and double plays more than expected. The calculation of "expected" fielding events is incredibly tedious, requires volumes of data, and I'm not going to do it for a message board post to someone who wouldn't follow it anyway. But the inputs, the ones that are most relevant to a second baseman anyway, are the strikeouts by the pitchers, the number of flyball outs recorded, and the number of innings pitched by RHP and LHP. With these, and some other minor stuff, the number of assists and DPs by a second baseman can be predicted with a surprising level of accuracy. Deviations from the expected level are as strong an indicator of fielding ability as there is.
In Mazeroski's case, who was described as the best DP man at second base in the history of the game while he played, it came as no surprise to anyone when it turned out that eight of the top 10 seasons for DPs greater than expected were by Mazeroski. Or that Mazeroski's Win Shares per season were higher than any other 2B in history. Any dressed up turd on a bun can look up assists and DPs, even you; it takes a lot more work to identify great fielders, that work has been done, and Mazeroski came out in the top spot. His replacements, primarily Schofield, Alley, and Cash, were all excellent fielders; that makes the differences between Mazeroski and them small enough that they aren't obvious if you simply count up assists and DPs. But if you look in the right places, then no, they didn't do as well as Mazeroski.
Regarding the Sandberg questions that you keep asking, again I'm not going to attempt all the math, but I did look up the most relevant inputs for 1984 and 1989.
Sandberg made 84 more assists in 1984 than in 1989.
To explain the difference, consider:
He played 21 more innings in 1984
Cubs pitchers threw 39 more K's in 1989 (39 fewer outs for the fielders)
Cubs OF recorded 108 more outs in 1989 (more fly balls, fewer chances for the infielders)
The Cubs pitched 175 more innings by LHP in 1989 (more RH hitters => more balls hit to the left side)
21 fewer innings, 147 fewer outs to be made, and 175 more innings by LHP is going to explain most of the difference between Sandberg's assists in 1989 and 1994. The remainder, if any, will be the difference in how many plays Sandberg was able to make. If you have remaining questions, look up the data your own damn self.
And you're welcome.
I would say that is not indeed a turd thrown on a bun. You are correct. Its a double. Extra onion and peppers. Still all the same stuff. Still all a product of simple chance. All of that stuff you said still does NOT show the direct balls hit to that position. All of that stuff still does not show how many balls were in fact hit Sandberg's way, nor does it dispel the fact that he ranged further into the outfield to make plays as far as anyone else could. None of it answers the double play question. He gets less double plays because he gets less chances.
'Expected chances' is a pure guess.
Yet you treat it as gospel.
And if mazeroski's replacements were "excellent" and he was "the best ever" they should not be doing equally. So saying they are also "excellent" is proving my point that his replacement value isn't as high as you propose...since his replacements are doing just as good....lol.
By the way, speaking of not knowing baseball(of which I know more than you both historically, physically, and technique wise), I see you belong in the segment of "who are you crapping" with your double talk below. Notice the quote about Bench from you and the double talk you need to apply the same thing to Tenace. lolol.
"The Reds had Johnny Bench in their lineup for about 10 more games per year; in those corresponding games, the Mets had to play a catcher who wasn't good enough to be a starting catcher. Your argument that having Johnny Bench at his prime in your lineup has no extra value over having some random backup catcher in your lineup is amusing, but I don't think you actually believe it.<"
This part by Dallas is true. Being able to play every day vs every type of pitching has a value that no stat has truly captured. It isn't as simple as just dividing the offensive numbers by the amount of plate appearances(like even the advanced metrics still do incorrectly). Platoon advantage plays a big role, as does playing through the nicks and pains.
Just be sure to apply it to Gene Tenace too, and when you marvel at Gene Tenace's 137 OPS+ in 1980 as a part time player and then believe it means he is a better hitter than Steve Garvey's 125 OPS+ in 1980(as a player who played every single game full time).....be sure to tack on Bill Fahey's one home run in 255 times at the plate and his .611 OPS to Tenace's value since Tenace was not playing full time and guys like Fahey were getting pressed into the lineup more often.
I would say that is not indeed a turd thrown on a bun. You are correct. Its a double. Extra onion and peppers. Still all the same stuff. Still all a product of simple chance. None of that stuff you said still does NOT show the direct balls hit to that position. None of that stuff still does not show how many balls were in fact hit Sandberg's way, nor does it dispel the fact that he ranged further into the outfield to make plays as far as anyone else could. None of it answers the double play question. He gets less double plays because he gets less chances.
You didn't understand a word I said. I will try to find a small child you can talk to.
'Expected chances' is a pure guess.
Yet you treat it as gospel.
No, it's not a "pure guess", it's an educated guess. It predicts the number of assists and DPs by the entire league almost perfectly, and it predicts the number for individual fielders remarkably well the great majority of the time. The times when it misses by the most is when the fielder in question is, by every other measure and by general consensus, a really good or a really bad fielder. Your contention, on the off chance you understand even what you are saying, is that this is the greatest coincidence in the history of the universe. I think, and everyone else who can read and understand what I have read and understood agrees with me, that the formulas for expected fielding chances are not just educated guesses, they're PhD-level educated guesses.
And if mazeroski's replacements were "excellent" and he was "the best ever" they should not be doing equally. So saying they are also "excellent" is proving my point that his replacement value isn't as high as you propose...since his replacements are doing just as good....lol.
I had to read this one a few times to figure out the point you were trying to make, but lacked the big boy words to make properly. How good an individuals actual replacements happen to be does not affect, in any way, his "replacement value". That is, a fielder is not better because his replacement is worse, and he is not worse because his replacement is better. "Replacement value" is a constant for all fielders at a given position in a given year. You also repeated the false statement that Mazeroski's replacements performed "equally". They did not; they performed very well because they were excellent fielders, but not at an equal level with Mazeroski.
By the way, speaking of not knowing baseball(of which I know more than you both historically, physically, and technique wise), I see you belong in the segment of "who are you crapping" with your double talk below. Notice the quote about Bench from you and the double talk you need to apply the same thing to Tenace. lolol.
Uh oh; changing the subject to something completely unrelated. Pro Tip: conceding defeat at this point will always work out better than making a fool of yourself in an additional argument. But let's see how it goes.
@dallasactuary said:
"The Reds had Johnny Bench in their lineup for about 10 more games per year; in those corresponding games, the Mets had to play a catcher who wasn't good enough to be a starting catcher. Your argument that having Johnny Bench at his prime in your lineup has no extra value over having some random backup catcher in your lineup is amusing, but I don't think you actually believe it."
This part by Dallas is true. Being able to play every day vs every type of pitching has a value that no stat has truly captured. It isn't as simple as just dividing the offensive numbers by the amount of plate appearances(like even the advanced metrics still do incorrectly). Platoon advantage plays a big role, as does playing through the nicks and pains.
So far, so good...
Just be sure to apply it to Gene Tenace too, and when you marvel at Gene Tenace's 137 OPS+ in 1980 as a part time player and then believe it means he is a better hitter than Steve Garvey's 125 OPS+ in 1980(as a player who played every single game full time).....be sure to tack on Bill Fahey's one home run in 255 times at the plate and his .611 OPS to Tenace's value since Tenace was not playing full time and guys like Fahey were getting pressed into the lineup more often.
Swing and a miss! I have written approximately 1,000,000 words about Gene Tenace on this site, so if you want to quote actual words I've used it's not hard to find them. For you, maybe, but for you I imagine even simple tasks present frustrating challenges. But find a small child to help you, and I'm positive that they will report back to you that dallasactuary has never, not once in the 100 years he's been posting here, ever mentioned Gene Tenace's OPS+ in 1980. Junior will also explain that dallasactuary has, many times, talked about Tenace's short career and that Garvey gets a lot more credit than Tenace on that metric.
To recap, in this thread I made one argument that you obviously don't have enough crinkles in your brain to process. That's why your response to it was so feeble. Then, in order to drive home the depth of your ignorance, you tried to restate an argument that I had made in your own words, which is sort of like trying to build a nuclear reactor out of Lego. And since you've never actually understood any of the arguments I've made, you failed, and presented an argument that I had never made. You bridged the two by including your misunderstanding of what replacement level means in both of your otherwise unrelated arguments.
I am on the fence now. On the one hand, you don't post anything worthwhile and I've toyed with the idea of just ignoring you. On the other hand, you aren't just wrong about everything you post, you are so spectacularly wrong that it makes me laugh. I'll let you know what I decide.
This is for you @thisistheshow - Jim Rice was actually a pretty good player.
Yogi Berra may have been the toughest player to strike out in baseball history at any position. Most players today will strike out more in 3 seasons than Berra did in his career (414). If you understand baseball, it is hard to overstate how valuable that is in the confines of a lineup. It impacts the pitcher, big time, and with his offensive capabilities he was clearly doing more than not making out.
He was clutch, he had excellent and consistent power numbers and while I don’t think winning 3 MVP awards is be all end all, finishing top 5 in the voting 7 straight years is a testament to his greatness. While Mickey and Whitey were cutting it up, it was Berra who was the leader in the clubhouse who kept most of the team focused and on the straight and narrow and scolded them when they did go out with the drunks. 😂
Curious about the rare, mysterious and beautiful 1951 Wheaties Premium Photos?
Dallas, until you know how many hits went just out of the reach of the fielders, all your info means nothing. It just comes down to a matter of who gets more balls hit their way. What we do know for certain is that the balls that are hit their way, Sandberg fields them better than Mazeroski.> @dallasactuary said:
I would say that is not indeed a turd thrown on a bun. You are correct. Its a double. Extra onion and peppers. Still all the same stuff. Still all a product of simple chance. None of that stuff you said still does NOT show the direct balls hit to that position. None of that stuff still does not show how many balls were in fact hit Sandberg's way, nor does it dispel the fact that he ranged further into the outfield to make plays as far as anyone else could. None of it answers the double play question. He gets less double plays because he gets less chances.
You didn't understand a word I said. I will try to find a small child you can talk to.
'Expected chances' is a pure guess.
Yet you treat it as gospel.
No, it's not a "pure guess", it's an educated guess. It predicts the number of assists and DPs by the entire league almost perfectly, and it predicts the number for individual fielders remarkably well the great majority of the time. The times when it misses by the most is when the fielder in question is, by every other measure and by general consensus, a really good or a really bad fielder. Your contention, on the off chance you understand even what you are saying, is that this is the greatest coincidence in the history of the universe. I think, and everyone else who can read and understand what I have read and understood agrees with me, that the formulas for expected fielding chances are not just educated guesses, they're PhD-level educated guesses.
And if mazeroski's replacements were "excellent" and he was "the best ever" they should not be doing equally. So saying they are also "excellent" is proving my point that his replacement value isn't as high as you propose...since his replacements are doing just as good....lol.
I had to read this one a few times to figure out the point you were trying to make, but lacked the big boy words to make properly. How good an individuals actual replacements happen to be does not affect, in any way, his "replacement value". That is, a fielder is not better because his replacement is worse, and he is not worse because his replacement is better. "Replacement value" is a constant for all fielders at a given position in a given year. You also repeated the false statement that Mazeroski's replacements performed "equally". They did not; they performed very well because they were excellent fielders, but not at an equal level with Mazeroski.
By the way, speaking of not knowing baseball(of which I know more than you both historically, physically, and technique wise), I see you belong in the segment of "who are you crapping" with your double talk below. Notice the quote about Bench from you and the double talk you need to apply the same thing to Tenace. lolol.
Uh oh; changing the subject to something completely unrelated. Pro Tip: conceding defeat at this point will always work out better than making a fool of yourself in an additional argument. But let's see how it goes.
@dallasactuary said:
"The Reds had Johnny Bench in their lineup for about 10 more games per year; in those corresponding games, the Mets had to play a catcher who wasn't good enough to be a starting catcher. Your argument that having Johnny Bench at his prime in your lineup has no extra value over having some random backup catcher in your lineup is amusing, but I don't think you actually believe it."
This part by Dallas is true. Being able to play every day vs every type of pitching has a value that no stat has truly captured. It isn't as simple as just dividing the offensive numbers by the amount of plate appearances(like even the advanced metrics still do incorrectly). Platoon advantage plays a big role, as does playing through the nicks and pains.
So far, so good...
Just be sure to apply it to Gene Tenace too, and when you marvel at Gene Tenace's 137 OPS+ in 1980 as a part time player and then believe it means he is a better hitter than Steve Garvey's 125 OPS+ in 1980(as a player who played every single game full time).....be sure to tack on Bill Fahey's one home run in 255 times at the plate and his .611 OPS to Tenace's value since Tenace was not playing full time and guys like Fahey were getting pressed into the lineup more often.
Swing and a miss! I have written approximately 1,000,000 words about Gene Tenace on this site, so if you want to quote actual words I've used it's not hard to find them. For you, maybe, but for you I imagine even simple tasks present frustrating challenges. But find a small child to help you, and I'm positive that they will report back to you that dallasactuary has never, not once in the 100 years he's been posting here, ever mentioned Gene Tenace's OPS+ in 1980. Junior will also explain that dallasactuary has, many times, talked about Tenace's short career and that Garvey gets a lot more credit than Tenace on that metric.
To recap, in this thread I made one argument that you obviously don't have enough crinkles in your brain to process. That's why your response to it was so feeble. Then, in order to drive home the depth of your ignorance, you tried to restate an argument that I had made in your own words, which is sort of like trying to build a nuclear reactor out of Lego. And since you've never actually understood any of the arguments I've made, you failed, and presented an argument that I had never made. You bridged the two by including your misunderstanding of what replacement level means in both of your otherwise unrelated arguments.
I am on the fence now. On the one hand, you don't post anything worthwhile and I've toyed with the idea of just ignoring you. On the other hand, you aren't just wrong about everything you post, you are so spectacularly wrong that it makes me laugh. I'll let you know what I decide.
Dallas, until you know how many hits went just out of the reach of the fielders, all your info means nothing. It is pure guess work. NOT truth as you suggest. It just comes down to a matter of simply who gets more balls hit their way.
What we do know for certain is that the balls that are hit their way, Sandberg fields them better than Mazeroski.
I would say that is not indeed a turd thrown on a bun. You are correct. Its a double. Extra onion and peppers. Still all the same stuff. Still all a product of simple chance. None of that stuff you said still does NOT show the direct balls hit to that position. None of that stuff still does not show how many balls were in fact hit Sandberg's way, nor does it dispel the fact that he ranged further into the outfield to make plays as far as anyone else could. None of it answers the double play question. He gets less double plays because he gets less chances.
You didn't understand a word I said. I will try to find a small child you can talk to.
'Expected chances' is a pure guess.
Yet you treat it as gospel.
No, it's not a "pure guess", it's an educated guess. It predicts the number of assists and DPs by the entire league almost perfectly, and it predicts the number for individual fielders remarkably well the great majority of the time. The times when it misses by the most is when the fielder in question is, by every other measure and by general consensus, a really good or a really bad fielder. Your contention, on the off chance you understand even what you are saying, is that this is the greatest coincidence in the history of the universe. I think, and everyone else who can read and understand what I have read and understood agrees with me, that the formulas for expected fielding chances are not just educated guesses, they're PhD-level educated guesses.
And if mazeroski's replacements were "excellent" and he was "the best ever" they should not be doing equally. So saying they are also "excellent" is proving my point that his replacement value isn't as high as you propose...since his replacements are doing just as good....lol.
I had to read this one a few times to figure out the point you were trying to make, but lacked the big boy words to make properly. How good an individuals actual replacements happen to be does not affect, in any way, his "replacement value". That is, a fielder is not better because his replacement is worse, and he is not worse because his replacement is better. "Replacement value" is a constant for all fielders at a given position in a given year. You also repeated the false statement that Mazeroski's replacements performed "equally". They did not; they performed very well because they were excellent fielders, but not at an equal level with Mazeroski.
By the way, speaking of not knowing baseball(of which I know more than you both historically, physically, and technique wise), I see you belong in the segment of "who are you crapping" with your double talk below. Notice the quote about Bench from you and the double talk you need to apply the same thing to Tenace. lolol.
Uh oh; changing the subject to something completely unrelated. Pro Tip: conceding defeat at this point will always work out better than making a fool of yourself in an additional argument. But let's see how it goes.
@dallasactuary said:
"The Reds had Johnny Bench in their lineup for about 10 more games per year; in those corresponding games, the Mets had to play a catcher who wasn't good enough to be a starting catcher. Your argument that having Johnny Bench at his prime in your lineup has no extra value over having some random backup catcher in your lineup is amusing, but I don't think you actually believe it."
This part by Dallas is true. Being able to play every day vs every type of pitching has a value that no stat has truly captured. It isn't as simple as just dividing the offensive numbers by the amount of plate appearances(like even the advanced metrics still do incorrectly). Platoon advantage plays a big role, as does playing through the nicks and pains.
So far, so good...
Just be sure to apply it to Gene Tenace too, and when you marvel at Gene Tenace's 137 OPS+ in 1980 as a part time player and then believe it means he is a better hitter than Steve Garvey's 125 OPS+ in 1980(as a player who played every single game full time).....be sure to tack on Bill Fahey's one home run in 255 times at the plate and his .611 OPS to Tenace's value since Tenace was not playing full time and guys like Fahey were getting pressed into the lineup more often.
Swing and a miss! I have written approximately 1,000,000 words about Gene Tenace on this site, so if you want to quote actual words I've used it's not hard to find them. For you, maybe, but for you I imagine even simple tasks present frustrating challenges. But find a small child to help you, and I'm positive that they will report back to you that dallasactuary has never, not once in the 100 years he's been posting here, ever mentioned Gene Tenace's OPS+ in 1980. Junior will also explain that dallasactuary has, many times, talked about Tenace's short career and that Garvey gets a lot more credit than Tenace on that metric.
To recap, in this thread I made one argument that you obviously don't have enough crinkles in your brain to process. That's why your response to it was so feeble. Then, in order to drive home the depth of your ignorance, you tried to restate an argument that I had made in your own words, which is sort of like trying to build a nuclear reactor out of Lego. And since you've never actually understood any of the arguments I've made, you failed, and presented an argument that I had never made. You bridged the two by including your misunderstanding of what replacement level means in both of your otherwise unrelated arguments.
I am on the fence now. On the one hand, you don't post anything worthwhile and I've toyed with the idea of just ignoring you. On the other hand, you aren't just wrong about everything you post, you are so spectacularly wrong that it makes me laugh. I'll let you know what I decide.
Or I just may be a recovering sabermetrician who doesn't want to be a part of the arrogance that comes with their faulty work that they treat as gospel, and then condemn anyone who disagrees. See how easy it was for you to go down that path?
Add a few dashes of 'meatheadness' to your methods, because those points of view come from a position of merit as well. You just have to look past your stat bias to find the value that 'average Jo'e is coming from as there most certainly is merit there.
Sabermetrics don't know how to treat the Ken phelps factor. Still don't after all these years. You don't know how to factor it in either. You try, but aren't there yet. I'm not fully there either.
The defensive measurements are Garbage. You yourself proclaim WAR as garbage...hmm. So the only things that are NOT garbage is what you believe in? Patchwork guessing.
Your backwardation method on defense of trying to fill it in is very faulty, even if it does 'measure up' to a degree. Only a small amount of common sense can see that. Unless you know exactly how many balls were hit and how fast they were hit, 15 feet to Sandberg's right and 15 feet to Mazeroskis right, you don't know anything about their true defensive ability as it still boils down to simply counting their assist totals and DP totals, and then adding the guess work in.
The ballpark factors, in which they paint one broad brush on everyone is terrible.
Their positional factors are guesses.
Their replacement value is a guess.
Yet they treat their 'numbers' and 'math' as if it is a supreme law.. It isn't. There is a lot of wiggle room in all of your lists.
The best offensive measurements are about 90 percent accurate. The best defensive about 50%. So take it easy on the people that don't agree with you, and I don't mean what you say to me. I have bigger fish to fry. This is my amusement. You are not as accurate as you portray. There is still a lot of room to grow.
The entire basis of making mazeroski better than Sandberg is because he had more double plays and assists. Entire. It is a mirage. A dressed up turd on a bun.
"Dressed up turd on a bun" is about as good a description of your posts, and I strongly suspect of you personally, as one could conjure; at least, I won't try to do better. Henceforth, the first word that will come to my mind when I see you have posted will be "turd"; just so you know.
I really don't understand the personal insults. Its great to debate and get fired up, but come on man. I love to debate and I get as fired up as anyone, but you just take it a notch above.
I honestly can't think of a more condescending poster on these boards. If someone disagrees with you, you for some reason feel the need to belittle and insult in a passive-aggressive way.
everyone on here likes to debate and disagree and all that, but you really dont need to try to assert your superintelligence by veiled insults and belittling others. Good Grief.
@craig44 said:
I really don't understand the personal insults. Its great to debate and get fired up, but come on man. I love to debate and I get as fired up as anyone, but you just take it a notch above.
I honestly can't think of a more condescending poster on these boards. If someone disagrees with you, you for some reason feel the need to belittle and insult in a passive-aggressive way.
There's nothing I can do about the condescension, that's just who I am. But I agree I took the insults too far in this case. I'll tone it down.
This is for you @thisistheshow - Jim Rice was actually a pretty good player.
@craig44 said:
I really don't understand the personal insults. Its great to debate and get fired up, but come on man. I love to debate and I get as fired up as anyone, but you just take it a notch above.
I honestly can't think of a more condescending poster on these boards. If someone disagrees with you, you for some reason feel the need to belittle and insult in a passive-aggressive way.
There's nothing I can do about the condescension, that's just who I am. But I agree I took the insults too far in this case. I'll tone it down.
If you can find the info on how many balls were hit 15 feet to the left and right of both Sandberg and Mazeroski, and how many they did or did not come up with, and do the same along that whole ground ball./pop fly spectrum....then condescend all you want, it would be worth it.
Pudge is, of course, tainted by steroids but he was an amazing player.
The Tigers signing him as a free agent in 2004 turned around the franchise. He joined, Carlos Guillen joined, and suddenly guys like Magglio Ordonez wanted to come to Detroit. They went from 119 losses in 2003 to the World Series in 2006.
Comments
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
The argument of playing more games adding value is somewhat weak. It is similar to the accumulator argument. Don sutton played more games than Bob Gibson, does that add any credence to an argument that sutton was a better pitcher than Gibson? I don't think so. more important is the quality of each game played.
If you can find anyone, anywhere, who agrees with you on this I will be very, very surprised.
And yes, to the degree that Don Sutton pitched more games than Gibson at better than replacement level it would add something to the argument that he was better than Gibson. Obviously, it wouldn't add nearly enough to actually win the argument, since it would be the single only argument on Sutton's side, but again, when you equate "not much" with "nothing" you are simply wrong. The Reds had Johnny Bench in their lineup for about 10 more games per year; in those corresponding games, the Mets had to play a catcher who wasn't good enough to be a starting catcher. Your argument that having Johnny Bench at his prime in your lineup has no extra value over having some random backup catcher in your lineup is amusing, but I don't think you actually believe it.
You admitted that it is difficult to qualify era's in regard to difficulty to separate oneself from the average. I would agree. until there is some way to quantify that accurately (I would doubt there ever will be) we have to measure each players performance against their peers. Otherwise we move solidly into the realm of speculation as you did above.
There are very very few (if any) offensive stats that favor bench. Piazza outperformed his peers more significantly than bench did. You trying to chip away at Piazza's significant ops+lead on bench is very speculative. You have no solid formula to go on, just what amounts to a gut instinct. Therefore, you are trying to bend the numbers to fit your desired outcome. Certainly not trying to offend you, but it is what you are doing.
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
Well, we are talking about catchers here. Over their careers, bench started on average, 96 games at catcher. piazza started 107. That number could have been higher due the games piazza lost over 2 seasons due to the strike. Bench would have lost some games in 81 for the same reason. So piazza was in the starting line-up as catcher more frequently than Bench.[/quote]
You're counting seasons when Bench wasn't a catcher to get those numbers; cute, but way off point. If you want to go that route then you need to factor in how much better a third baseman Bench was than Piazza, how much better a first baseman, and how much better an outfielder. That makes a straightforward comparison of them as catchers ridiculously, and needlessly, complicated.
You admitted that it is difficult to qualify era's in regard to difficulty to separate oneself from the average. I would agree. until there is some way to quantify that accurately (I would doubt there ever will be) we have to measure each players performance against their peers. Otherwise we move solidly into the realm of speculation as you did above.[/quote]
No, we don't "have to" ignore what we know to be true even if we can't measure it precisely. I see an NBA player standing next to a jockey and remark how the NBA player is a lot taller. You ask how much taller and I say "I don't know, probably about 2 feet". When you tell me that I "have to" ignore their height difference because I don't know what it is exactly, and therefore I'm speculating, I'm not going to take you seriously; which is where we are now.
There are very very few (if any) offensive stats that favor bench. Piazza outperformed his peers more significantly than bench did. You trying to chip away at Piazza's significant ops+lead on bench is very speculative. You have no solid formula to go on, just what amounts to a gut instinct. Therefore, you are trying to bend the numbers to fit your desired outcome. Certainly not trying to offend you, but it is what you are doing.[/quote]
You can stop stating that there are few offensive stats that favor Bench - we agree on that. You should stop saying "if any" since it is clear that there are some (SB/CS and GIDP); it makes it look like you're not paying attention. And I'll say it again and you can either accept it or continue to insult me - I am not "trying" to do anything. I am laying out the facts and evidence that I see, putting them in context, and explaining why Bench was a better player than Piazza. Certainly, some of that evidence is subject to interpretation, but I have no investment in the outcome of this debate. I see overwhelming evidence that Bench was better, and not just a little bit better but a lot better; you disagree but haven't really provided me with any evidence that I've missed or misinterpreted. What you've done, repeatedly, is try to bend the numbers to fit your desired outcome.
When it comes to getting on base and hitting with power (the two MOST important things a hitter can do) piazza out performed his peers 16 % better than Bench did. That adds HUGE value to a team. While bench threw out a lot of runners, the net positive to his team was not 16 % Bench was 8%better than his peers at throwing out runners. Throwing out runners is not as valuable to a team than having a hitter, at the same position, out doing his peers at the two most important things a hitter can do by 42% I just don't see how you would take that bat out of the lineup for the increase in caught stealing. You said that most aspects of catching are performed nearly at the same level except for throwing.
Bench throwing out more runners just isn't more valuable than a historically good bat like Piazza.
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
You're not even pretending to listen to what I'm saying, so I'm going to stop talking.
Hopefully, someone else out there got something out of this.
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
My take on the discussion would be that as a ballplayer Piazza is under rated but as a catcher he is about accurately rated. Deserving of the HOF.
Statistically speaking Mike was far superior as a hitter and while it's harder to prove, he was quite a bit below average defensively.
Baseballically, catcher is a defense first position, so I lower his value just as I would a good hitting, below average shortstop. During his career Mike was regarded as a sub par receiver.
I have read that Yogi Berra was one of the best pitch callers of his time, batters had no idea what he was going to call. Whitey Ford has said he seldom shook Yogi off even though he called "crazy" sequences of pitches. I would like to read what some of the opposing hitters thought about Piazza's skill in this area.
I would regard both Bench and Berra as far superior catchers, even though Piazza was a better hitter.
Dug up an old thread because unsettled questions nag at me forever and it finally hit me how settle this one.
Consider the fielding % for three all-time great catchers:
Bench: .990
Berra: .989
Piazza: .989
Essentially a three-way tie, and if we expanded the list to 10 or 20 catchers we'd get essentially a 20-way or 30-way tie. Fielding % is always mostly useless, but it is 100% useless in evaluating catchers. Good, bad, or in-between, they end up around .990.
Now, in this thread the claim was made, repeatedly, that Piazza was a terrible catcher, primarily because he was terrible at throwing out runners. The claim was also made that most of what a catcher is asked to do is simply catch the ball. All true, but if we combine the two claims we get something worthwhile. Catchers, for reasons known but to God, get a putout for catching a third strike, and they get so many of them that all of their other putouts and assists get buried beneath the strikeouts. But what if we took out the strikeouts and recalculated fielding %? We'd get something that, while still imperfect, would provide some useful information:
Bench: .951
Berra: .951
Piazza: .910
Other than catching third strikes, Bench and Berra made an error about once every 20 times they had to make a play. That sounds bad, but once you take out the strikeouts, the plays that catchers make are probably more difficult, on average, than the plays at any other position. Piazza, though, gets separated from the great catchers: he made an error about once every 11 times he had to make a play, nearly twice as often as Bench or Berra.
So yes, Piazza was in fact a terrible catcher.
Very interesting post.
I watch the AL most of the time, so I didn't really see Piazza play. During his career he was well known as a poor defensive player.
How about a shout out for Mickey Cochran? He was MVP twice.
Cochrane's fielding % was .985. That's lower than Bench/Berra/Piazza and lower than catchers in most other eras. But that's only because there were fewer strikeouts in Cochrane's era. Back out the strikeouts and Cochrane's fielding % drops by a lot less than the others did - to .958. Cochrane played a lot less than the others, and he was done at 32 so that probably saved his fielding % from dropping a bit more, so I'm not sure he was actually better than Bench and Berra, but he was an excellent catcher and his adjusted fielding % shows that a lot more clearly.
NOT better than Bench and Berra. Didn't mean that.
The author of the book "Yogi Berra: Eternal Yankee" (very nice read btw) goes into great detail using every rating system known to man and Berra and Bench come out at or near the top in most of the stats when looking at the great catchers of all time.
The advantage I would give Bench is that he came to the Majors as a great catcher, Yogi was a great hitter who developed into a great catcher with the help of Bill Dickey.
Dickey was a great one too. Looks like he was one of the best of his time at throwing out base stealers! How does he come out in your ratings?
Dickey starts at .988, and drops to to .962 after adjusting for strikeouts. Those are great numbers!
Thank you!^
Craig44 you are correct and bring extremely valid points to this discussion. Here are more to support your POV.
I have to wonder, if someone completely discounts what Barry Bonds did due to steroids giving him an unfair advantage over the league, then how does that make it easier for players who did not do steroids to separate themselves from the league average?
So is Piazza even better than his league average like his OPS+ already says over Bench?
is Derek Jeter actually the best SS ever when you account that the league average stats were inflated with Steroid users and Jeter suffers in his OPS+ as a result? Jeter already gets a bad rap from the awful invalid fielding measurements, which are pure junk, because the man could play defense at SS as good as any other MLB shortstop. He has some famous ridiculous plays defensively in the post season, yet somehow he has no range, lolololol. Joke. The measurements saying jeter was bad defensively are the ones saying Mazeroski was the best defender ever, even though MAZEROSKI'S replacements did just as good in his stead.
So either Barry Bonds gets full credit for his performance, or guys not implicated in steroids get more credit than what their OPS+ says. Can't have it both ways.
Craig, good points on pointing out other aspects of the catcher.
99% of defenders who are minor league and major league tested at their position do convert the routine. The pitcher is 80% or more of the defensive value.
How does Sandberg who ranges into the outfield to convert ground ball outs, and he catches everything hit, somehow not have as much range as someone like Mazeroski? Sandberg had less opportunities, not less range. He 100% had better hands than Mazeroski.
I would like to see where Sandberg was failing to convert double plays where it made him have less than Mazeroski, and go from 126 to 66 in a flash, and back to 96 in a flash. Show me.
The entire basis of making mazeroski better than Sandberg is because he had more double plays and assists. Entire. It is a mirage. A dressed up turd on a bun.
Same with Jeter. A mirage. The man could play SS at the MLB as good as anyone.
Piazza? SB/CS is a little more concrete, but receiving a pitcher has value too and that value is unknown. You pointed out a stat, and maybe it isn't entirely accurate, but it is certainly in the discussion. It shows that one cannot treat those defensive measurements as gospel and certainly not put them on par with the offensive measurements.
So it is correct to take the better offensive player in the case where players are near equal in total value, and one gets there via more from offense and the other more from defense.
How do you figure he was underrated? He was the second best catcher of the 90s wasn't he?
D's: 54S,53P,50P,49S,45D+S,44S,43D,41S,40D+S,39D+S,38D+S,37D+S,36S,35D+S,all 16-34's
Q's: 52S,47S,46S,40S,39S,38S,37D+S,36D+S,35D,34D,32D+S
74T: 37,38,47,151,193,241,435,570,610,654,655 97 Finest silver: 115,135,139,145,310
73T:31,55,61,62,63,64,65,66,67,68,80,152,165,189,213,235,237,257,341,344,377,379,390,422,433,453,480,497,545,554,563,580,606,613,630
95 Ultra GM Sets: Golden Prospects,HR Kings,On-Base Leaders,Power Plus,RBI Kings,Rising Stars
underrated in the context of the history of baseball. Not sure I would agree he was 2nd best of the 90s. pudge was a very good defensive catcher but not in piazzas league as a hitter.
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
I love Piazza. Bench was the best there ever was though. I admit that I may be biased since I grew up in Oklahoma.
I do agree that Piazza is underrated. He was a GREAT hitter and not a disaster behind the plate as he is often depicted. Heck, he was a starting catcher in the bigs!
For the record, my all-time favorite catcher is Munson (RIP). He had it all.
From what I understand, Ivan was pretty much as good a hitter as Mike but was far better defensively (my grandpa really liked him saying he was TOUGH). And for the catcher position perhaps more than any of them, defense > offense.
D's: 54S,53P,50P,49S,45D+S,44S,43D,41S,40D+S,39D+S,38D+S,37D+S,36S,35D+S,all 16-34's
Q's: 52S,47S,46S,40S,39S,38S,37D+S,36D+S,35D,34D,32D+S
74T: 37,38,47,151,193,241,435,570,610,654,655 97 Finest silver: 115,135,139,145,310
73T:31,55,61,62,63,64,65,66,67,68,80,152,165,189,213,235,237,257,341,344,377,379,390,422,433,453,480,497,545,554,563,580,606,613,630
95 Ultra GM Sets: Golden Prospects,HR Kings,On-Base Leaders,Power Plus,RBI Kings,Rising Stars
"Dressed up turd on a bun" is about as good a description of your posts, and I strongly suspect of you personally, as one could conjure; at least, I won't try to do better. Henceforth, the first word that will come to my mind when I see you have posted will be "turd"; just so you know.
That aside, your statement is false, and you are wrong, as you always are when you attempt to discuss topics, like sports, about which you know nothing. There is a mountain of baseball literature out there that explains why Mazeroski is considered, by more or less everyone who understands baseball, to have been the GOAT at 2B. Don't attempt to find it and read it because there isn't a chance in hell you'd understand any of it, but I will try to dumb it down to your level. If you still don't understand it, let me know, and I will find a small child to try to explain it to you.
Mazeroski did have a tremendous number of assists and double plays. That identifies him as busy. What identifies him as great is that he had a tremendous number of assists and double plays more than expected. The calculation of "expected" fielding events is incredibly tedious, requires volumes of data, and I'm not going to do it for a message board post to someone who wouldn't follow it anyway. But the inputs, the ones that are most relevant to a second baseman anyway, are the strikeouts by the pitchers, the number of flyball outs recorded, and the number of innings pitched by RHP and LHP. With these, and some other minor stuff, the number of assists and DPs by a second baseman can be predicted with a surprising level of accuracy. Deviations from the expected level are as strong an indicator of fielding ability as there is.
In Mazeroski's case, who was described as the best DP man at second base in the history of the game while he played, it came as no surprise to anyone when it turned out that eight of the top 10 seasons for DPs greater than expected were by Mazeroski. Or that Mazeroski's Win Shares per season were higher than any other 2B in history. Any dressed up turd on a bun can look up assists and DPs, even you; it takes a lot more work to identify great fielders, that work has been done, and Mazeroski came out in the top spot. His replacements, primarily Schofield, Alley, and Cash, were all excellent fielders; that makes the differences between Mazeroski and them small enough that they aren't obvious if you simply count up assists and DPs. But if you look in the right places, then no, they didn't do as well as Mazeroski.
Regarding the Sandberg questions that you keep asking, again I'm not going to attempt all the math, but I did look up the most relevant inputs for 1984 and 1989.
Sandberg made 84 more assists in 1984 than in 1989.
To explain the difference, consider:
He played 21 more innings in 1984
Cubs pitchers threw 39 more K's in 1989 (39 fewer outs for the fielders)
Cubs OF recorded 108 more outs in 1989 (more fly balls, fewer chances for the infielders)
The Cubs pitched 175 more innings by LHP in 1989 (more RH hitters => more balls hit to the left side)
21 fewer innings, 147 fewer outs to be made, and 175 more innings by LHP is going to explain most of the difference between Sandberg's assists in 1989 and 1994. The remainder, if any, will be the difference in how many plays Sandberg was able to make. If you have remaining questions, look up the data your own damn self.
And you're welcome.
Fellas, leave the tight pants to the ladies. If I can count the coins in your pockets you better use them to call a tailor. Stay thirsty my friends......
I would say that is not indeed a turd thrown on a bun. You are correct. Its a double. Extra onion and peppers. Still all the same stuff. Still all a product of simple chance. All of that stuff you said still does NOT show the direct balls hit to that position. All of that stuff still does not show how many balls were in fact hit Sandberg's way, nor does it dispel the fact that he ranged further into the outfield to make plays as far as anyone else could. None of it answers the double play question. He gets less double plays because he gets less chances.
'Expected chances' is a pure guess.
Yet you treat it as gospel.
And if mazeroski's replacements were "excellent" and he was "the best ever" they should not be doing equally. So saying they are also "excellent" is proving my point that his replacement value isn't as high as you propose...since his replacements are doing just as good....lol.
By the way, speaking of not knowing baseball(of which I know more than you both historically, physically, and technique wise), I see you belong in the segment of "who are you crapping" with your double talk below. Notice the quote about Bench from you and the double talk you need to apply the same thing to Tenace. lolol.
"The Reds had Johnny Bench in their lineup for about 10 more games per year; in those corresponding games, the Mets had to play a catcher who wasn't good enough to be a starting catcher. Your argument that having Johnny Bench at his prime in your lineup has no extra value over having some random backup catcher in your lineup is amusing, but I don't think you actually believe it.<"
This part by Dallas is true. Being able to play every day vs every type of pitching has a value that no stat has truly captured. It isn't as simple as just dividing the offensive numbers by the amount of plate appearances(like even the advanced metrics still do incorrectly). Platoon advantage plays a big role, as does playing through the nicks and pains.
Just be sure to apply it to Gene Tenace too, and when you marvel at Gene Tenace's 137 OPS+ in 1980 as a part time player and then believe it means he is a better hitter than Steve Garvey's 125 OPS+ in 1980(as a player who played every single game full time).....be sure to tack on Bill Fahey's one home run in 255 times at the plate and his .611 OPS to Tenace's value since Tenace was not playing full time and guys like Fahey were getting pressed into the lineup more often.
You didn't understand a word I said. I will try to find a small child you can talk to.
No, it's not a "pure guess", it's an educated guess. It predicts the number of assists and DPs by the entire league almost perfectly, and it predicts the number for individual fielders remarkably well the great majority of the time. The times when it misses by the most is when the fielder in question is, by every other measure and by general consensus, a really good or a really bad fielder. Your contention, on the off chance you understand even what you are saying, is that this is the greatest coincidence in the history of the universe. I think, and everyone else who can read and understand what I have read and understood agrees with me, that the formulas for expected fielding chances are not just educated guesses, they're PhD-level educated guesses.
I had to read this one a few times to figure out the point you were trying to make, but lacked the big boy words to make properly. How good an individuals actual replacements happen to be does not affect, in any way, his "replacement value". That is, a fielder is not better because his replacement is worse, and he is not worse because his replacement is better. "Replacement value" is a constant for all fielders at a given position in a given year. You also repeated the false statement that Mazeroski's replacements performed "equally". They did not; they performed very well because they were excellent fielders, but not at an equal level with Mazeroski.
Uh oh; changing the subject to something completely unrelated. Pro Tip: conceding defeat at this point will always work out better than making a fool of yourself in an additional argument. But let's see how it goes.
So far, so good...
Swing and a miss! I have written approximately 1,000,000 words about Gene Tenace on this site, so if you want to quote actual words I've used it's not hard to find them. For you, maybe, but for you I imagine even simple tasks present frustrating challenges. But find a small child to help you, and I'm positive that they will report back to you that dallasactuary has never, not once in the 100 years he's been posting here, ever mentioned Gene Tenace's OPS+ in 1980. Junior will also explain that dallasactuary has, many times, talked about Tenace's short career and that Garvey gets a lot more credit than Tenace on that metric.
To recap, in this thread I made one argument that you obviously don't have enough crinkles in your brain to process. That's why your response to it was so feeble. Then, in order to drive home the depth of your ignorance, you tried to restate an argument that I had made in your own words, which is sort of like trying to build a nuclear reactor out of Lego. And since you've never actually understood any of the arguments I've made, you failed, and presented an argument that I had never made. You bridged the two by including your misunderstanding of what replacement level means in both of your otherwise unrelated arguments.
I am on the fence now. On the one hand, you don't post anything worthwhile and I've toyed with the idea of just ignoring you. On the other hand, you aren't just wrong about everything you post, you are so spectacularly wrong that it makes me laugh. I'll let you know what I decide.
Going to read the thread after posting this:
Berra
Bench
Cochrane
Campanella
Pudge
Off the top of my head, I’d take the ‘total game’ of these guys over Mike.
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Yogi Berra may have been the toughest player to strike out in baseball history at any position. Most players today will strike out more in 3 seasons than Berra did in his career (414). If you understand baseball, it is hard to overstate how valuable that is in the confines of a lineup. It impacts the pitcher, big time, and with his offensive capabilities he was clearly doing more than not making out.
He was clutch, he had excellent and consistent power numbers and while I don’t think winning 3 MVP awards is be all end all, finishing top 5 in the voting 7 straight years is a testament to his greatness. While Mickey and Whitey were cutting it up, it was Berra who was the leader in the clubhouse who kept most of the team focused and on the straight and narrow and scolded them when they did go out with the drunks. 😂
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Gene tenace
Dallas, until you know how many hits went just out of the reach of the fielders, all your info means nothing. It just comes down to a matter of who gets more balls hit their way. What we do know for certain is that the balls that are hit their way, Sandberg fields them better than Mazeroski.> @dallasactuary said:
Dallas, until you know how many hits went just out of the reach of the fielders, all your info means nothing. It is pure guess work. NOT truth as you suggest. It just comes down to a matter of simply who gets more balls hit their way.
What we do know for certain is that the balls that are hit their way, Sandberg fields them better than Mazeroski.
Or I just may be a recovering sabermetrician who doesn't want to be a part of the arrogance that comes with their faulty work that they treat as gospel, and then condemn anyone who disagrees. See how easy it was for you to go down that path?
Add a few dashes of 'meatheadness' to your methods, because those points of view come from a position of merit as well. You just have to look past your stat bias to find the value that 'average Jo'e is coming from as there most certainly is merit there.
Sabermetrics don't know how to treat the Ken phelps factor. Still don't after all these years. You don't know how to factor it in either. You try, but aren't there yet. I'm not fully there either.
The defensive measurements are Garbage. You yourself proclaim WAR as garbage...hmm. So the only things that are NOT garbage is what you believe in? Patchwork guessing.
Your backwardation method on defense of trying to fill it in is very faulty, even if it does 'measure up' to a degree. Only a small amount of common sense can see that. Unless you know exactly how many balls were hit and how fast they were hit, 15 feet to Sandberg's right and 15 feet to Mazeroskis right, you don't know anything about their true defensive ability as it still boils down to simply counting their assist totals and DP totals, and then adding the guess work in.
The ballpark factors, in which they paint one broad brush on everyone is terrible.
Their positional factors are guesses.
Their replacement value is a guess.
Yet they treat their 'numbers' and 'math' as if it is a supreme law.. It isn't. There is a lot of wiggle room in all of your lists.
The best offensive measurements are about 90 percent accurate. The best defensive about 50%. So take it easy on the people that don't agree with you, and I don't mean what you say to me. I have bigger fish to fry. This is my amusement. You are not as accurate as you portray. There is still a lot of room to grow.
I really don't understand the personal insults. Its great to debate and get fired up, but come on man. I love to debate and I get as fired up as anyone, but you just take it a notch above.
I honestly can't think of a more condescending poster on these boards. If someone disagrees with you, you for some reason feel the need to belittle and insult in a passive-aggressive way.
everyone on here likes to debate and disagree and all that, but you really dont need to try to assert your superintelligence by veiled insults and belittling others. Good Grief.
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
There's nothing I can do about the condescension, that's just who I am. But I agree I took the insults too far in this case. I'll tone it down.
If you can find the info on how many balls were hit 15 feet to the left and right of both Sandberg and Mazeroski, and how many they did or did not come up with, and do the same along that whole ground ball./pop fly spectrum....then condescend all you want, it would be worth it.
Good list. Any room for Bill Dickey?
I think his name certainly warrants mentioning. I think Piazza’s offense starts to get to be too big too ignore past Pudge on that list.
Just my humble opinion.
Side note - Pudge seems forgottbut he was a BEAST.
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Yes he was.
Pudge is, of course, tainted by steroids but he was an amazing player.
The Tigers signing him as a free agent in 2004 turned around the franchise. He joined, Carlos Guillen joined, and suddenly guys like Magglio Ordonez wanted to come to Detroit. They went from 119 losses in 2003 to the World Series in 2006.