A local news/sports radio station used to carry Blue Jays games from the FAN 590 feed, and sometimes if I'd have to hear Cowherd for 30 seconds or so after the post-game ended and ESPN came on, before I could get to the volume button. He's one of those people that you immediately hate within a few seconds of him opening his mouth.

When he's out on a routine groundout, he's out by anywhere from 5 to 20 feet. When Jeter is out on the same routine groundout, he's out by a micro step. And sometimes Jeter even beats the throw. None of this will show up by studying advanced metrics.

reached base on error/AB, for career:

Cano 1.0%
Jeter 1.7%

So yeah, you may have something there. Not that it doesnt show up in stats though.

On the advanced baserunning, both Cano and Jeter score an excellent 45% at XB or advancing one more base than batter.

I guess % of reaching base on an error could corelate with hustle. Interesting stat, thanks for the research.

I guess % of reaching base on an error could corelate with hustle.

More likely, with hitting groundballs to SS/3B rather than 2B/1B.

I dont think so, you see a strong correlation with speedy runners. Check out all the slow guys you like and should see them all around 1% or less. Guys like Triandos, Boccabella, etc. About the highest I recall is a little bit over 2%. Clemente was near the top, I think he was ahead of Willie Mays who was awesome at everything.

Also the pt. about hitting balls to the left side has an obvious counter, right hand batters who hit balls to the left side also have longer to get to first base. I dont recall seeing any obvious lefty/righty splits in this data, but I didnt do a systematic study.

in my opinion, it seems obvious. That speedier runners are going to have more close plays at first. Doesnt that stand to reason? More close plays at first are going to result in being safe on close plays. Being safe on a close play, might be a hit, might be an error. But at least it will be a positive increase in reaching base on error. If the ball beats you by 10 steps then there's a lot more chance for the first baseman to recover on a juggling catch or a wide throw. It just seems this way to me,perhaps you have another way to look at it?

He also talks football constantly, even in the off season, which I don't want to hear.

They all do this. Right now we have march madness and baseball about to start and instead I have to listen to radio guys in DC talking about the financical penalty the Redskins took for getting around the salary cap. WHy is this in the news? Because the owners are having their annual convention in wherever and the sports writers are there looking for stories to keep us interested in football in the offseason. "Oh did you hear what the Giants owner said about the skins? Arent you outraged?"

I think the bigger issue is going to be the style of hitter. According to FanGraphs Cano has hit a ground ball 48% of the time in his career, Jeter has done so 58% of the time. I assume that a very high percentage of ROE are going to be on ground balls and Jeter hits more ground balls than Cano so the ROE/AB percentage Sunday Silence referenced in #52 is immediately going to be tilted in Jeter's favor if everything else is equal.

To throw some numbers at this I used a 600 at bat season. In such a season Jeter would reach on an error 10 times while Cano would reach 6 times. However, if you assume that all ROE (simplistic of course) are on GB then Jeter is reaching on an error in 10 of 348 chances (600*.58) for a rate of 2.9% while Cano is reaching at a rate of 2.1% (6 of 288 chances). This accounts for a bit less than half the difference if my thinking and process is right. Using at bats as the denominator Jeter reaches on an error 70% more often than Cano, using ground balls as the denominator it's about 38% more often.

Like a previous poster, I liked Kornheiser's show and hoped Cowherd would be good. Like many previous posters I hated him in a few minutes. I still remember him going on and on that Ohio State would beat Texas by 50 points, because there were no starting QBs in the NFL from the Big 12. Of course, Texas won and he was "too sick" to do the show on Monday.

The state of sports radio is sad. You have Francesa, who thinks you're wonderful if you agree with him. Steve Sommers, who makes you want to throw the radio out the window, and the Dan Patrick name-dropping festival. And they are better than the rest.

I think the bigger issue is going to be the style of hitter. According to FanGraphs Cano has hit a ground ball 48% of the time in his career, Jeter has done so 58% of the time. I assume that a very high percentage of ROE are going to be on ground balls and Jeter hits more ground balls than Cano so the ROE/AB percentage Sunday Silence referenced in #52 is immediately going to be tilted in Jeter's favor if everything else is equal.

All true, although Cano being a LHB has a half-step advantage on getting down to first which could have an impact as well.

I also wonder if you'd want to include infield singles, not just ROE.

#55 Tom Ruane has aa research paper on the subject. Here's the guys who topped the list (1960-2004)





And the lowest:



Tom did take it further. finding that park and base/out situation had provable impacts. He also eliminated the "fielder's choice, no out recorded"

At the end of it he was left with Gene Tenace, Bob Horner, Glenn Hubbard, Rusty Greer, Wil Cordero, Rondell White, Reggie Sanders, Otis Nixon, Jimmy Wynn, Alex Rodriguez, Robbie Thompson and Greg Vaughn topping the list for reaching on error.

And Tim Foli, Mo Vaughn, Larry Herndon and Dick Groat as the least likely to reach on error.

He did demonstrate that speed mattered, but it's pretty clear the single most important factor is being right-handed. IOW it's completely predictable that Jeter would reach on error more frequently than Cano. He's faster, but more important he's right-handed.

The state of sports radio is sad. You have Francesa, who thinks you're wonderful if you agree with him. Steve Sommers, who makes you want to throw the radio out the window, and the Dan Patrick name-dropping festival. And they are better than the rest.

As I've noted before, the audio on my car stereo went out in late September when a guy gave me a jump-start but initially cross-connected the cables. (I'm lucky that's all that happened; the guy at the car parts place where I went after that to get a new battery told me that there was every good chance the other guy had fried his alternator.) I haven't listened to 5 minutes of sports (or any other) radio since, & while that can be inconvenient at times, I think overall my quality of life has improved considerably. Throw in the fact that I also don't get cable or the local newspaper (they fired me as metro editor, so I'm not about to give them 1 red cent of my money), & it's almost like I'm living in a noise-free zone.

Which I sometimes think is why I come to BTF -- for the noise.

He did demonstrate that speed mattered, but it's pretty clear the single most important factor is being right-handed. IOW it's completely predictable that Jeter would reach on error more frequently than Cano. He's faster, but more important he's right-handed.

The flip side to the righthanders' edge in ROE is they also tend to compile more GIDP. Jeter, for instance, is 20th all-time in GIDP with 269.

Cano, however, hits into a lot of double plays as well, with more than 3X as many GIDP as he has ROE.

Their teammate, Ichiro, was one of the types who combined the best of both worlds, with far more ROE (112) than GIDP (69). However, the numbers indicate he's lost a step, as he's grounded into 22 DP while only reaching on error 14 times in the last two seasons, removing him from the rarified group of players with a ROE:GIDP ratio that exceeded 2:1 (I don't know how many others beside Brett Butler populate this club. I don't know how many other people besides me are aware of its existence).

It's easy and correct to trash Cowherd. How anyone can listen to him for 5 minutes and not realize that he is the master of extreme views designed to elicit a response is beyond me. But I'd rather light a candle than curse the darkness.

ESPN's weekend late night guy Bob Valvano is, to my ears, the best national sports radio host. Insightful, incisive and fairhanded, he doesn't need to resort to the cheap gimmicks used by Cowherd and his ilk. I don't recall him ever taking a cheap shot. Plus, his show is fun. I wish he did "straight" talk radio.

I knew a guy in elementary and high school named Colin cowherd back in early 80's north east Atlanta. We both had a crush on the Same girl who's last name was Aldendorfer. I always thought I had a better shot as my last name was not cowherd. Never worked out too well though.

Which I sometimes think is why I come to BTF -- for the noise.

You're welcome.

They all do this. Right now we have march madness and baseball about to start and instead I have to listen to radio guys in DC talking about the financical penalty the Redskins took for getting around the salary cap.

Yesterday afternoon the DC sports station, at 5:00 in the afternoon, spent a good 30-45 minutes discussing possible ways to fix the Pro Bowl. The Pro Bowl!

Andruw's demise could only have been one of a couple of things. 1) He ate himself out of playing shape, 2) He refused to believe his critics when his play started deteriorating, 3) He didn't care that he was getting worse, 4) He was 2-4 years older when he broke in, (putting his collapse after 30 and giving his career arc an entire new perspective)

How about 5) His body could only take playing 150+ games a year, regardless of health, for ten years and, in the eleventh, all that playing hurt caught up with him.

Cowhead has proclaimed more than once that he's not particularly interested in baseball and doesn't care about it, which is more than enough for me not to listen to him, even before we get to the idiocy and latent racism.