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Friday, April 30, 2010Player weather reportFile this one in the "stunningly obvious" drawer. According to Bill James Online, Robinson Cano is the hottest hitter in the majors, with a 117 degree fever. Close behind is, you guessed it, Paul Konerko at 103 degrees and, yup, Colby Rasmus at 101 degrees. Okay, some of you may be surprised about Rasmus, but the kid has batted .517 in his last nine games, with four doubles, a triple and three homers. Rasmus has a deadly combination going this season: a .429 BABIP and a 32% rate of home runs per fly ball. Both figures are near the major league lead. The fourth and fifth hottest hitters are Marcus Thames and yesterday's subject, John Jaso. John Buck's temperature jumped to 80 after his three home runs yesterday. His average temperature for the season has been 58 degrees. And That HappenedRays 11, Royals 1: The Rays are good the Royals are bad and you all know that, so there's no sense in dwelling on it here. Let's take things in a different direction: My wife and I took the kids to the Columbus Clippers-Charlotte Knights game last night, which the Clippers won 9-7. My daughter is six, and she thought it was quite hilarious and a little bit cute that there was a player with the last name of "Flowers" and a player with the first name of "Shelley" playing in the game. My son, who is 4, decided that he wanted to boo the Charlotte Knights because "they're not from around here." Later he decided to boo a couple that came in and sat down three innings into the game "for bein' late to the ballgame." I was a bit uneasy with the former booing, but strongly approved of the latter. Tigers 3, Twins 0: D-Train beats the Twins' Morneau and Mauer-free lineup, shutting them out over six innings. Given that he couldn't even get the ball over the plate this time last year I got nothin' but kudos for the guy, and would even if it was an American Legion lineup from Minnetonka. White Sox 7, Rangers 5: Paul Konerko homered twice, the second of which put the Sox' lead out of reach. That brings him up to 10 which leads the league. Great Moments in Energy Conservation: Michael Young checked his swing in the fifth, and the ball traveled so short a distance that A.J. Pierzynski was able to pick it up and tag Young before he had even left the batter's box. Yankees 4, Orioles 0: Robbie Cano had two homers and Marcus Thames had three hits, but after all these years we're used to those two legends carrying this storied franchise on their broad shoulders. Blue Jays 6, Athletics 3: John Buck was a 50% better hitter than Paul Konerko and Robbie Cano last night, blasting three bombs. The Athletics have lost seven of 10, shifting them back towards the "not for real" side of the ledger. The Jays can tell them all about it. And bad news for the Athletics as Justin Duchscherer had to leave the game with an injured hip, which appears to be serious. Reds 4, Astros 2: Four in a row for the Redlegs. Pfun Pfact, courtesy of Red Reporter: despite the fact that Bronson Arroyo and Roy Oswalt have pitched in the same division for the past 4 seasons, last night was the first time they have faced each other in nine years, back when Arroyo was with the Pirates. How they've avoided each other for so long is just one of them things, I guess. Diamondbacks 13, Cubs 5: Kelly Johnson was 4 for 5 with a homer -- his NL-leading 9th -- and three RBI. Adam LaRoche hit two homers and drove in five. We're basically one Mark DeRosa hitting streak and a Jason Marquis no-hitter away from me becoming more interested in rooting for the Braves alumni club more than I root for the Braves themselves. Cardinals 10, Braves 4: A six RBI day for David Freese as the Cardinals win easily. Again. It's bad enough that the Braves have dropped nine straight, but now they're racking up injuries to go along with their futility. Jair Jurrjens left the game with a sore hamstring. Yunel left with a strained left adductor. Bobby Cox has a blown gasket: "It was a lousy trip. It's been a horrible experience to endure," Cox said of the Bravos 0-7 road trip. Padres 9, Brewers 0: Death by a thousand cuts: the Padres had seven straight singles in the fifth inning. In fact, all 13 of the Padres hits in the game were singles, a good number of them which were chancey kind of things like the ball hitting off someone's shoe and stuff. Pirates 2, Dodgers 0: The Pirates score both of their runs when Matt Kemp O-lays what should have been a single off the bat of Ryan Doumit into a two-run "triple." It's a shame that Kemp would go from where he was a year ago to revert back to when the ball goes up in the air and you're not sure where it's going, or if it's going to get caught. Thursday, April 29, 2010Is the win a useless statistic?There's a mini-discussion going on in the Twitterverse/blogosphere surrounding the usefulness of the "win" as a statistic. Here are some of the opinions: Daily News columnist Jesse Spector: The win is accessible - a single number whose meaning is known on some level by everyone from the casual fan to the diehard. The more you know, the less it tells you, and like everything else, wins must be taken in the context of their era. But as one of the statistical cornerstones of a game whose beauty is in its towering history, the win cannot simply be dismissed as useless. Keith Law: I just don't see the utility. They're incredibly imperfect. You can "earn" a win or a save despite horrible results...Then our job is to educate the casual fans. Pretending W/SV/RBI are still useful does them a disservice. Colin Wyers: Whenever a manager holds his best reliever for a "save" spot rather than using him in a tight spot, he puts indiv. above team...Pitcher "wins" and saves are not simply benignly "useless," they actively encourage bad decisions. Fangraphs' Jack Moore: I'm fine with "why does player X have Y wins?" analysis.But saying "X is good because of Y wins" is unacceptable at this point Baseball Analysts' Pat Sullivan: But wins / saves are only important if we continue to assign value to them. Why not a more meaningful stat be the "baseline"? I'm on board with almost everyone in some sense, but mostly with Colin and Keith. Look, talking to casual fans about advanced stats and getting them interested in fantastic. I'm all for it. However, we shouldn't give them an imaginary carrot to chase in the form of "yeah, wins can be useful, but have you seen this stat...", when we know that wins are simply nonsense. They are arbitrary measurements of basically no relevance. If we want to attract casual fans to sabermetrics, then instead explain why wins are useless! I mean, isn't this one of the purposes of advanced analysis, to put to bed illogical analysis in favor of intelligent, reason-based analysis? Pretending that wins have meaning actively harms the objective nature of sabermetrics, and I won't sacrifice that to win over some casual fans who will be learning misinformation. BABIP leaders and trailers so farWe know that BABIP for hitters is a combination of a whole bunch of things, but I just wanted to take a quick look at the polar ends of the category thus far in 2010: Leaders: 1) Austin Jackson (.491) 2) Scott Podsednik (.422) 3) Michael Bourn (.420) 4) Franklin Gutierrez (.415) 5) Shin-Soo Choo (.415) 6) David Freese (.409) 7) Martin Prado (.408) 8) Evan Longoria (.407) 9) Carlos Gonzalez (.407) 10) Chase Headley (.403) Trailers: 1) Travis Snider (.133) 2) Mark Teixeira (.145) 3) Carlos Quentin (.164) 4) Aramis Ramirez (.167) 5) A.J. Pierzynski (.182) 6) Nick Johnson (.200) 7) Paul Konerko (.204) 8) Garrett Jones (.207) 9) Lyle Overbay (.212) 10) Carlos Lee (.213) Surprising? Not really. The leaders are mostly speedy outfielders and the trailers are mostly slow firstbaseman (if Austin Jackson finishes the year with a BABIP > .490, I will eat a Curtis Granderson jersey live online). However, for context, here are the top and bottom five from 2009: Leaders: 1) David Wright (.394) 2) Ichiro Suzuki (.384) 3) Hanley Ramirez (.379) 4) Joe Mauer (.373) 5) Joey Votto (.372) Trailers: 1) Ian Kinsler (.241) 2) Carlos Pena (.250) 3) Jimmy Rollins (.251) 4) Yuniesky Betancourt (.256) 5) Aubrey Huff (.260) A little difference here, as some of the relatively quicker guys (Rollins, Betancourt) are sprinkled in at the bottom, whereas some of the relatively slower guys (Votto, Mauer) are at the top. Speed is definitely not the key component of a hitter's BABIP, but in the small sample size thus far in 2010, it sure has been. The hottest hitter in baseballBill James likes to keep a tally of hot hitters at Bill James Online. It's a simple system, based on a running tally of the run value of hits in a player's most recent string of plate appearances. Players tend to average around 72 degrees; sometimes they drop to 50 degrees and other times jump over 100. Guess who the hottest hitter in baseball is right now (tied with Robinson Cano and Ryan Hanigan. Yes, Ryan Hanigan). It's Tampa Bay catcher John Jaso. I'm ashamed to admit that this is the first time I've heard of John Jaso. Jaso, who was ranked the sixth-highest catcher in the Tampa Bay system during the offseason, was slated for Triple-A this year but took advantage of an injury to Dioner Navarro and is hitting .500 in 24 at bats for the Rays. I looked him up in THT Forecasts, where Cork Gaines had this to say in the offseason: Like Jose Lobaton, Jaso has an outside chance to make an impact at the big league level in 2010. With Kelly Shoppach and Dioner Navarro, the Rays have two catchers that can't hit righties. In the minors, Jaso has a career .847 OPS versus right-handers. The only thing holding Jaso back now is his defense. While his overall defensive game has made strides, he only threw out 17 percent of would-be base stealers in triple-A in 2009. That needs to improve as his bat isn't good enough to play first base or a corner outfield spot.The Free John Jaso movement has already started. THT Forecasts thinks he'll post a .344 wOBA the rest of the year, which ain't chopped liver. Add in the fact that his defense is supposedly improving and we may have more than just a story about a hot hitter. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||