Wednesday, May 22, 2013
Mitchell: Pedroia, Cano and Magical Thinking
(www.huffingtonpost.com)
Pedroiadolia: The psychological phenomenon of seeing wacko images on dirty uniforms.
Read More...The narratives around the two players, however, could not be different. Pedroia is almost the prototype of the over-achieving “scrappy” player. He is a 5’8” middle infielder who does the little things well. This ignores that he was also a second round draft choice who played baseball at a top baseball school. Cano, on the other hand is bigger, more athletic and does not project scrappiness at all. Throughout ...
Reader Comments and Retorts
Go to end of page
Statements posted here are those of our readers and do not represent the BaseballThinkFactory. Names are provided by the poster and are not verified. We ask that posters follow our submission policy. Please report any inappropriate comments.
Page 2 of 4 pages
< 1 2 3 4 >What? Papelbon, Aroldis Chapman, etc etc etc etc
The Sox did try to have Papelbon start, and his shoulder couldn't take it. And the Yanks kept Rivera in the pen because he wasn't good enough to start. That's the point snapper is making.
You are almost implying that the best reliever would automatically be a worse starter than the worst pitcher who actually starts.
I think it is pretty clear the best reliever would be worse than the average starting pitcher. Are there any reliever to starter conversions that don't fail? Best case you get someone like Franklin Morales who can fill in for spot starts.
EDIT:
Coke to snapper. Should have refreshed.
Yes. WAR is a mess for relievers, because of LI. The only reason Rivera is in the same ballpark for WAR as Saberhagen or Pettitte or Appier or Santana is because Rivera gets extra credit for the innings he pitches, because he is pitching the Magical Ninth.
And at that, a 52 WAR is nothing to go ga-ga over. But people get so distracted by the narrative of Rivera which ignores the elephant in the room that he was never able to start that they go ga-ga over him.
No, he said he was much more comfortable being the closer after they spent part of spring training getting ready to convert him back to starter.
Lowe, CJ Wilson etc
Yeah, I was thinking about this some given the comparison of career WAR between Pettitte and Rivera. If I had to get three outs, I'd much rather have Rivera than Pettitte pitching. The question is at what level of starter does that change?
Wouldn't someone like Trevor Hoffman -- a changeup specialist -- be similar to a Glavine-type? Before then, there were others from Wilhelm's knuckler through Quisenberry's sidearmed sinker, that were much more akin to the 'give-up-singles-but ...' than they were to the Billy Wagner, 'throw it 100mph and strike them all out' folks.
Well, there are some. Pedro, for one. Derek Lowe. Though Pedro was originally a starter in the minors who broke in in relief. I don't know about Lowe.
The Bard experiment of last year failed miserably, turning into the Bard Experience.
The fact is, guys like Kimbrel, Street, Storen, and the like are coming out of the draft and spending their entire professional careers in relief. In the past, most closers WERE failed starters, but teams are now drafting and developing players to fill that role earlier in their careers.
Surely you don't think, "no one's ever done it, and if they did, they're stupid" to be a compelling argument to people that don't already buy it?
Do you think it's smart to take someone who could be good in 175-200 IP per season and limit them to 60 IP? The argument is compelling on its face.
You can get excellent relief pitching off the scrap heap. Why would you ever groom good arms for it, unless you thought they couldn't succeed as SP?
The Yankees did it with Righetti. It was stupid then, too.
But this doesn't tell us more than that teams at least think they can identify who won't hold up as a starter. Kimbrel was moved because the Braves didn't expect him to hold up as a ML starter, and they got busy polishing him for a role where he could make the majors.
The baseline should be something like a composite of the league's second-best relievers, since they're the real "replacement player" for the "closer."
It can be refined further, but a decent proxy would be aggregate 8th inning performance, which in the 2012 AL was a tOPS+ of 86 -- a high bar.
No, I don't. I also don't think this means that I can conclude that anyone who disagrees with me is obviously just plain stupid. I also doubt that there's much marginal difference in value between 175 IP at 100 ERA+ and 60 innings at 250 ERA+ (or whatever crazy number Kimbrel has). That'd depend on what I had available in terms of both player resources and cash on hand.
This ignores that certainty does matter. Sure, I could sign a bunch of middling talents, and there's a decent chance one will be pretty competent, but not knowing which one it'll be means I have to use roster spots on bad pitchers, give high leverage innings to bad pitchers, and so on until I sort that out. It's certainly preferable to be able to just plug in a guy that I'm reasonably sure is very, very good.
Maybe because of the volatility of relievers? Having one reliable guy in your 'pen gives you a little more room for error the rest of the way down.
EDIT: coke to Spectral
- amusement
don't be silly
nobody has a MLB quality arm in 9th or 10th grade
most high schools, at least down here, don't have baseball
you either have guys that do the travel team thingy or you have guys who play more than 1 sport or walk on
there are plenty of times when the team has its few starters and any guy who isn't already thought of as a starter, ESPECIALLY a short or small guy, gets put straight into the bullpen and is never developed as a starter. see huston street
this happens even more frequently when you have a kid that didn't play little league or on any travel team and starts out playing later on
Is LOOGY a position?
Because when they send the closer out to the field, he takes the same... position... as a starting pitcher or as any other pitcher. He does not pitch from center field.
On the other hand, when they send Jeter and Cano out to the field, they take... different positions. Jeter goes to the left of second base, and Cano goes to the right.
See how this works?
This just seems as if people are being a contrarian for the sake of being a contrarian.
Because you don't need to have one?
A team could function perfectly well using their 6-7 RPs on a matchup/who's rested basis, and not have a designated "closer".
This just seems as if people are being a contrarian for the sake of being a contrarian.
The idea that he's one of the greatest players ever (first ballot HoFer) and was the key to the Yankees success over the last 15-20 years.
I'm not sure what the Rivera fanboys here are up in arms about. Decades of data show us that relievers are less talented, and more plentiful, than starters, and that sometimes we have trouble properly weighing playoff performance when it comes to evaluating overall ability.
This seems like people are running with the narrative for the sake of just wanting a good story.
I don't. If there's anything that we've learned from reading the Heymans of the world explain their votes, its that they made up their mind first, and found points to back up their view second, see the recent stat about Morris going 8+ innings however many times. That number isn't important for anyone else before or since Morris, and it only came out when it seemed that Morris was going to be a few votes short.
Rivera is a HoF because he just is, and look, here's something shiny that says so.
Edgar isn't a HoF because I (speaking for a sportswriter who didn't vote for him) just didn't think he was, now here's some excuse so it doesn't look like I'm just making it up as I go along.
Snapper: Are you completely discounting his post season numbers? Those are pretty impressive. Yes, they are subject to the fact that he had those opportunities and his teammates put him in the position to succeed, but he did succeed much more often than not.
He should be judged against his peers (other relievers). He was among the best for 15 years and succeeded quite a bit in the post season. It's an impressive feat and arguably worthy of the HoF.
Only because they already screwed up by inducting RP.
Rivera has about 45 career WAR depending on the source. 120 innings of sub 1 ERA in high leverage situations adds what, 5 WAR? He's still borderline on career worth.
Rivera's numbers have the WOW factor but that's because his innings were limited and he only had to throw 15-30 pitches a game and face the order one time through. The replacement level is much higher for a closer than for a starter so the numbers have to be adjusted as such. I see Rivera's postseason performance as roughly equal to Schillings, and it didn't make Schilling a first ballot HOF (even though he should have been, easily IMO once you include postseason which adds another 8 WAR to his total).
The only way you get Rivera as a clear first ballot HOF is if you consider a closer an essential and separate role and have a mandate that some closers be in the hall. I'm not sure either of those adjectives are completely justifiable.
But Goose Gossage got in with like 90 percent of the vote and Rivera's a lot better than him, so I think he gets in easily.
I'm not discounting them, I'm just saying they're not enough to make me think he's an all-time great player.
I think his post-season stats pale before Gibson or Koufax's. Even Curt Schilling's post-season stats impress me more.
Rivera excelled at a very easy role, and doesn't deserve to be ranked with the all-time greats. That's the sum of my position.
Basically, to me, no RP (with the possible exception of Wilhelm) deserves to be ranked anywhere above the HoVG.
Edit: partial Coke to viva!
I tend to lean towards measuring players against their peers at their respective positions, which is why I would also vote Edgar in.
I tend to lean towards measuring players against their peers at their respective positions, which is why I would also vote Edgar in.
I also favor a much harsher DH penalty (treat them like very bad defensive 1B), so at least I'm consistent :-)
What? Papelbon, Aroldis Chapman, etc etc etc etc
I'd just like to point out that Chapman so thoroughly dominated as a closer last year that the Reds decided to put him in the rotation. So they clearly think he'd be more valuable there.
Edgar also has ~65 career WAR, so he's worthy even if you don't adjust for position. But that's the whole point is it? Is a closer a position or a role? It's probably somewhere in between, but I'm not gonna give anywhere to close to the catcher discount to a closer.
Well it's the GS stat specifically, right?
Doesn't WAR do this? It assumes the DH is a -10 run first baseman, but then gives back 5 runs because of the effect DH has on offense.
Obviously there's a lot open to interpretation there, but to me, I'm inclined to say that "playing ability" is an area by which Rivera scores exceptionally, well above what's measured by a simple check of WAR.
That aside, I think WAR is an awful measurement of HoF worthiness; if we're going to use a single number, I'm more inclined to stand by WAA. I prefer rewarding excellence to sustained decency.
No. It's the fact that they limited run scoring so well while throwing 100+ pitches, going through the lineup 3 or 4 times.
That's going to hurt Rivera more ;)
I think WAR is a very good proxy for "playing ability". bWAR boils down to performance (RA) measured against the performance of a shitty player in the same context. That Rivera's WAR is lower than you think it should be means that his context was easier than you think it was.
The gap is 5 runs in positional adjustment (-15 for DH, -10 for 1B).
A really bad 1B is -15 or worse, to my mind. I'd make the DH -25 positional adj.
The hitting penalty is, I think, mostly an artifact of injured guys getting DHed rather than DL'd.
The writers thought he was so valuable that they never gave him an MVP award. His highest finish was 9th (twice), and he grades out at #428 in MVP shares.
He does better on Cy Youngs, with five top-5 finishes, including a #2, and 52nd in Cy Young shares. But only a bridesmaid; never a bride.
But the lack of shares of MVP awards is something I just noticed, and actually found pretty stunning given the felating that does go on.
I'm just quibbling, but those aren't their stats. I understand thinking that Rivera's postseasons aren't as impressive as Koufax' and Gibson's because of difficulty and context etc, but that doesn't mean that his "postseason stats" pale in comparison.
Ben Zobrist wants you to only compare him to other utility players when his name shows up on the ballot. When talent can heavily overlap two "positions" like SP and RP, and we have a very good grasp on how perceived talent changes when moved from one "position" to the other, we should use that information.
I'm not sure if that's true, I haven't looked, but if it does I'm fine with it. My goal isn't to seek out some metric that fits what I'd like to believe about the world, it's to have some sort of consistent, objective measurement.
I think WAR's very good for many purposes, particularly when analyzing roster moves, since average players aren't freely available at all. I don't think it's good for the Hall of Fame, because I wouldn't consider a player that played 30 years at an average level to be a Hall of Famer, even though they'd compile a crapton of WAR. This is subjective, but I'd prefer a burst of excellence to an extended period of averageness.
I don't know if this is intended to reply to something I said, but I've never suggested that his WAR "should" be higher.
He makes up for it in AS appearances.
Page 2 of 4 pages
< 1 2 3 4 >You must be Registered and Logged In to post comments.