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Red Sox will start Ortiz at 1B in St. Louis. If I were Matheny, I'd say I'll take it. It means Napoli's bat is out of the lineup. Also, Napoli made several very nice picks on in-between hops on throws across the infield in Game 2. So I'm not sure Ortiz is a bigger threat overall.
If Grandstander not going to steal on AJ Burnett pitching to Rod Barajas, he's simply not going to steal.
Lou Brock and Ricky Henderson should not be HoFers. Just think of how many runs they cost their teams.
So you felt a need to come along and prove to us that you don't understand any of this?
Rickey would have been fully qualified HoF even if he had never stolen a base. Brock is a questionable HoFer despite all of his stolen bases. It is a matter of understanding on field value, of understanding what each component of baseball offense is worth, and of understanding when seeming value is actually illusion.
A statistic has been developed to isolate how much of a player's offensive contribution comes from baserunning. It is called Rbaser, short for Runs from Baserunning and it incorporates all baserunning events, stolen bases, caught stealing, bases taken on wild pitches and passed balls, extra bases advanced on the hits of others, and frequency of getting picked off. The numerical product of the equation tells us how many runs above the average players this particular player produced just with his baserunning.
Rickey has the highest Rbaser number ever...144 runs, which seems huge until you consider that it was compiled over his 25 year career and works out to 5.76 runs above average from baserunning each season. However, Rickey scored 2295 runs in his career, the most of all time, so those baserunning runs represent only .06 % of his contribution. Remove them and Rickey remains a HoFer.
Brock on the other hand did not have Rickey's skills at reaching base, having a .343 OBA to Henderson's .401. Brock's runs from baserunning for his career? 44. Over his 19 year career Brock added about 2.3 runs above average from his baserunning alone, less than half of what Henderson produced.
So while I'm sure that you posted in confidence that readers will be intimidated by the mere mention of HoF names, you chose poorly when you listed Brock. He is actually a borderline HoF candidate at best who was enshrined because the vote took place in the era before true value was being recognized via advanced explorations. And in the case of Rickey, his baserunning runs were icing on the cake, he would be in with or without them.
Last edited by Grandstander; 10-26-2013 at 08:11 AM..
Red Sox will start Ortiz at 1B in St. Louis. If I were Matheny, I'd say I'll take it. It means Napoli's bat is out of the lineup. Also, Napoli made several very nice picks on in-between hops on throws across the infield in Game 2. So I'm not sure Ortiz is a bigger threat overall.
Ortiz played just six games at first this season, only 19 total there in the last four seasons. His stats there are all negative, but they are not helpful for evaluating matters because the sampling base is so tiny. Napoli on the other hand, justifies your compliment, he was a plus defender at first, 0.4 defensive WAR in 139 games. Adjusting for defensive positives and negatives, Ortiz still comes out a bit over half a win better than Napoli, but that is a half win over 162 games, not terribly meaningful when applied to a single game.
So, from a statistical point of view, there is nothing available which would clearly indicate that one should be played rather than the other. Peavy, a right hander is starting for Boston, which means we are likely to see more of the Cardinals left handed batters, and Carlos Beltran will be batting lefty, which would mean an increased probability of plays Ortiz would have to handle. Except...the Cards are primarily a right handed team, just Carpenter and Jay are lefties among the regulars, the lefty bats off the bench are fairly puny... (Descalso, Wong, Chambers) It would be stupid to put one of those guys in the lineup under the theory that they will be capitalizing on Ortiz's iron glove and low mobility.
In offensive terms, Napoli posted an .899 OPS against lefthanded pitching and .817 against right handers. Not a huge difference when applied to the probabilites of a single game. Ortiz though murdered right handers, 1.092 OPS, while posting .733 against left handers. Kelly, a right hander, starts for St. Louis tonight.
So, I'd call it a wash, the Sox chances about the same whether it is Ortiz or Napoli, with a small edge in favor of Ortiz. Of course this is also the most dramatic move so all sorts of attention will be focused on it and if Ortiz makes a crucial error, all will be writing how foolish it was to have played him...but that will be with the benefit of hindsight.
Last edited by Grandstander; 10-26-2013 at 10:30 AM..
A statistic has been developed to isolate how much of a player's offensive contribution comes from baserunning. It is called Rbaser, short for Runs from Baserunning and it incorporates all baserunning events, stolen bases, caught stealing, bases taken on wild pitches and passed balls, extra bases advanced on the hits of others, and frequency of getting picked off. The numerical product of the equation tells us how many runs above the average players this particular player produced just with his baserunning.
Yeah, yeah. I'm familiar with the stat, which does not isolate the number of throws to first base the pitcher had to make (which essentially adds to pitch count), the changes in defensive strategy (where a SS or 2B cheats more, thus allowing more room for grounders to sneak thru the infield), the number of pitchouts (which are balls, which always favor the batter), etc. etc. etc... all ways a good basestealer can effect a game even without stealing a base.
Some things in baseball simply cannot be boiled down to a statistic.
Yeah, yeah. I'm familiar with the stat, which does not isolate the number of throws to first base the pitcher had to make (which essentially adds to pitch count), the changes in defensive strategy (where a SS or 2B cheats more, thus allowing more room for grounders to sneak thru the infield), the number of pitchouts (which are balls, which always favor the batter), etc. etc. etc... all ways a good basestealer can effect a game even without stealing a base.
Some things in baseball simply cannot be boiled down to a statistic.
Which things? Are you arguing that it is not possible to count the number of times a pitchers throws to firstbase? Are you arguing that it is not possible to keep track of performances which featured a great many throws to first and compare them to performances which did not? Seems to me that could easily be boiled down to a stat if someone thought it important enough to track. Do you have any data which reveals the impact on pitching when there are x number of throws over to first? If not, then you aren't really positioned to argue one way or the other about the impact of the move, are you? If you had the data, you would be.
Further, the appropriate way to evaluate any sort of system of measurement, is on how successful it is at measuring those things it claims to measure, not on how it fails to measure other things it isn't claiming to measure. If your complaint is that a particular metric accounts for A and B but not C, that is still a much more valuable chunk of knowledge than an opinion being offered by someone who has not measured A, B or C.
Red Sox will start Ortiz at 1B in St. Louis. If I were Matheny, I'd say I'll take it. It means Napoli's bat is out of the lineup. Also, Napoli made several very nice picks on in-between hops on throws across the infield in Game 2. So I'm not sure Ortiz is a bigger threat overall.
Ortiz generates runs but he could make mistakes at 1st for sure.....they could always pull him and put Napoli back in to get the best of both worlds.
Which things? Are you arguing that it is not possible to count the number of times a pitchers throws to firstbase? Are you arguing that it is not possible to keep track of performances which featured a great many throws to first and compare them to performances which did not? Seems to me that could easily be boiled down to a stat if someone thought it important enough to track. Do you have any data which reveals the impact on pitching when there are x number of throws over to first? If not, then you aren't really positioned to argue one way or the other about the impact of the move, are you? If you had the data, you would be.
OK, technically you got me. so I'll rephrase: "Some things cannot be explained by currently available statistics."
With the attention paid to pitch counts, I imagine # of throws to first will be among the first things measured, along with effectiveness out of the stretch vs. full windup and a bunch of other things because, well, people like you hate having people like me point out holes.
One thing that having Ortiz at first base does is create one of the great visual contrasts in baseball. Whenever the 6 ' 4" 250 pound Ortiz is standing near the 5' 8", 165 pound Pedroia , well, they don't even look like they are the same species.
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