Friday, August 03, 2007
Remember when .....
Yuniskey Betancourt was an all defensive too weak to hit shortstop and Jeremy Reed was going to be the all everything offensive player. Sometimes numbers aren't the answer. Instead what mattered was that no matter how bad his pitch selection was when Betancourt hits the ball the bat wins the battle and when Reed hits the ball the ball beats the bat.
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8 comments:
Too funny. I remember you saying that Yuni was going to be just fine (and that Reed seemed suspect) based on the way the ball came off their bats years ago.
Too funny. I remember you saying that Yuni was going to be just fine (and that Reed seemed suspect) based on the way the ball came off their bats years ago.
I wouldn't count Jeremy Reed out just yet. He is having a very fine year in AAA (and remeber his home stats are deflated by the cavernous Cheany Park).
His only problem right now is that there are at least 2 OF ahead of him on the call up list. Really the best possible thing that could happen to him is to be traded to a team that needs a center fielder.
Locke, how is YuBet's bat considered acceptable?
For his career he has an OPS+ of 87 in 1135 ABs, and WPA of -3.23
Reed has an 83 OPS+ in 758 ABs and a WPA of -2.70
one is a guy who swings too often can't walk, but has a tiny bit of power. The other is a guy that doesn't swing much, can walk and has only doubles power.
Neither are putting up offensive numbers that should be considered acceptable on a playoff caliber team.
Talk about a load of arbitrary rubbish. You are not a sports analyst (nor should you be a columnist) if you are blabbering about how the ball and bat battle it out and that's how you know how good a player will be.
By the way, your favorite whipping boy Ichiro is now leading the AL in win shares. You're probably not interested since this is based on actual analysis and statistics and therefor is more truth than rubbish, but just in case:
http://www.hardballtimes.com/thtstats/main/?view=winshares&league_filter[]=AL
Once again anonymous people are able to rip. Win shares is a great stat and Hardball does a really good job with. I like VORP better but win shares is easier to understand. I will try to post league leaders when I have a moment.
Locke, I know why you like VORP, as it puts everything in, defense and offense, and has nice easily sortable functionality at BaseballProspectus. I just find that there are enough flaws with their defensive measures and with what they call "replacement" level that VORP tends to overvalue players.
If linear weights were more readily available it would be best to combine that with mgl's UZR, a playbyplay based defensive measure. Right now though I tend to like FanGraphs.com and a combination of WPA, WPA/LI and BRAA. Those numbers together give a more than adequete look at a player's offensive contribution. For defense I just look at as much data as possible.
What has become apparent to me is that YuBet's bat isn't developing with the average Major League player curve, but is rather level. He's just a slightly higher than average contact hitter with no zone judgement and little to no power.
Reed on the other hand has displayed the same skillset but with strikezone judgement.
On offense Reed is still likely to have a better career, where as YuBet's defensive wizardry will make up for his some time errant throws.
This is still a push, at least until Reed gets another look in a Major League uniform or Betancourt does something that he hasn't shown yet.
Its pretty simple when you talk in Value Over Replacement Player. Yuni is a SS, Reed is an OF, Yuni is more valuable all things being the same. VORP is just an offensive stat except for pitchers, it just makes position adjustments.
But I'd be happy if we were even more basic on offense, at least it would be real. Why are we talking about this supernatural ball vs. bat thing? Why aren't we talking about real stuff like OBP?
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