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Baseball Primer Newsblog— The Best News Links from the Baseball Newsstand
Wednesday, July 02, 2008
The whole point is that the improvements the Rays have made are structural. Yes, it is a lot of fun when you are a team like the White Sox, and you have guys like Carlos Quentin and John Danks who break out when nobody is quite expecting it. But when that happens, you also have to hope those guys aren’t first-half flukes. The Rays do not really have parallel concerns.
The handful of transactions the Rays made this winter were not by any means overly complicated; in retrospect, they almost seem obvious. But they were moves made by a team that had the self-confidence to look in the mirror and like what it saw.
These things are tougher than you might think, as honest self-assessment is elusive to many teams in baseball. The more commonly-seen problem is for a team to overrate the amount of talent that it has, and either compromise its future for a team that needs a lot of help rather than a little (take this year’s Mariners), or fail to improve on a roster that is due to regress to the mean (this year’s Rockies). There are also teams that take too long to flip the switch and make a run at competing, but the Rays turned things on at just the right time.
These are among the things that I have liked about the Rays since the current management team took over, and Silver writes them up very well. I’m not as sanguine as is Silver about Tampa Bay’s ability to sustain their performance down the stretch - I’m not sold on the pitching depth, especially in the pen, they do have SOME guys who HAVE overachieved (Gross/Hinske definitely, and IMO Navarro) and I wouldn’t bet the ranch on Pena coming around - but it’s very hard not to like what one sees here.
Tip o’ the old green to Thomas Richard Hamilton Nugent for pointing this out.
Mike Emeigh
Posted: July 02, 2008 at 07:07 PM | 85 comment(s)
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1. Moneyball can't buy you love (Joey B.) Posted: July 02, 2008 at 07:54 PM (#2840527)Some people did indeed see it coming, and major props to them, because they sure look like they're for real.
And someone somewhere predicted that they'll take a decent step back next year, I'm also a believer in that. But they're a very nice young club.
Me too. I'm right sometimes, I'm wrong sometimes, and I've rarely been more wrong than I've been about the Rays.
Maybe they've been a little lucky with injuries, and maybe they have a few players having career years, but it's a young, talented team with a deep enough farm system to plug any holes that appear.
Apart from Kazmir blowing out his arm, I don't see how this team doesn't make the playoffs.
And someone somewhere predicted that they'll take a decent step back next year, I'm also a believer in that. But they're a very nice young club.
So 85 wins is their talent level and they'll take a step back next year? You're aware that they have a bunch of good young players and strong farm system right?
PECOTA had them at 90-72.
"PECOTA added all of this up, coupled it with the fact that the Rays’ talent core was young and still on the upswing, and concluded that the club was liable to win somewhere between 88 and 90 ballgames. Not even the Rays themselves were entirely convinced by this forecast. The team executives I spoke with this winter expected—or hoped—to go .500 this year, perhaps making a serious run at the playoffs in 2009"
Yes, it is a lot of fun when you are a team like the White Sox, and you have guys like Carlos Quentin and John Danks who break out when nobody is quite expecting it.
Whoops, yeah. Didn't RTFA (or TFE).
Considering Quentin wasn't even a starter coming out of spring training (my view from afar may be incorrect), I doubt they expected a breakout.
Yeah, Silver is usually better than that. I guess Silver would argue that both Danks and Quentin are way out performing what even the biggest fan of theirs could expect, which I think is fair. But the throwaway line makes it seem like Kenny Williams accidentally stumbled into picking up two young players with a lot of upside.
An otherwise excellent read, as usual from Silver. He alone makes the prescription worth it.
Eh, I'm starting to read it less and less. They're in danger of becoming the Pitchfork of baseball writing, if they haven't already.
The concern was that Quentin might not be ready because of injury. You're correct that the White Sox weren't handing him the left field job, but your point is actually irrelevant. This idea that a GM doesn't get credit when he acquires a player who outperforms expectations (whether those expectations are BP's, yours, or the GM's) is ridiculous. Twenty-nine major league teams could have had Quentin for essentially nothing (the guy for whom he was traded currently resides in high A ball). Only one of those twenty-nine teams went out and got him. Wouldn't that team have to be the MOST positive about Quentin's chances for a breakout?
Let me also say that this Silver quote:
is BS. Quentin and Danks were both very highly-rated prospects -- each was ranked #1 in their respective systems by Baseball America at some point in the past few years. Quentin has murdered AAA pitching in three stints there (1004 OPS last season), and Danks held his own as a 21-year-old in AAA in '06. And I see nothing in what they've done this year that seems flukish (or, rather, that seems any MORE flukish than what Tampa Bay's breakout guys have done).
The guy is a 23-yo former top pick who was a highly rated pitching prospect in the minors and showed some talent even while struggling in MLB this year. He was SUPPOSED to develop into a top pitcher. How is this a WTF? year for him?
Who are the Rays' unexpected breakouts? Garza and Longoria?
BA rated Danks as the 56th best prospect in baseball going into 2007. He had an 86 ERA+ in the majors in 2007, and he now has a 170 ERA+ in 2008.
Garza was rated 21st going into 2007, he had a 118 ERA+ last year, and he's at 117 this year.
Quentin peaked at 20th in the BA rankings in 2006, while Longoria had been in the top 10 each of the last 2 years. Quentin was never considered the prospect Longoria is, bit he is outhitting Longoria this year.
He has a 170 ERA+, which is higher than anyone in baseball had in 2006 or 2007. And he was never that highly rated as a prospect. From 2004 to 2007, BA rated him 80th, 59th, 59th, and 56th, respectively. It's not unexpected that he (or Quentin) has been good, it is unexpected that he's been awesome.
You shouldn't use the passive voice here. I think you mean "I expected Danks and Quentin to be good, but I didn't expect them to be awesome."
But maybe Kenny Williams expected them to be awesome.
Williams does some things better than others. Some things he does quite poorly.
However, identifying breakout candidates and then acquiring them is not something he should catch grief for.
I would add Hinske and (to a lesser extent) Navarro to that list. Hinske has the best OPS+ on the team, and is as far away from the planning/structure argument as you can get - he was a cheap pickup to round out the roster who has been better than anyone expected.
To dismiss Quentin/Danks as "unexpected" and then not even mention Hinske in comparing the teams is pretty weak.
It's a contrast of two different ways to achieve the same thing. Also, I'm probably the biggest Quentin fanboy from his days in Arizona, but not even I thought that he would recover from his labrum tear this soon and learn to lay off the down and away slider. Just because it was a good move by Williams doesn't mean that the Sox didn't also get a bit lucky.
It is, but Silver's tone ("a lot of fun") makes it seem like one was the result of a long deliberative process while the other was just dumb luck.
And they are more similar than you would imagine. What about the White Sox "team-wide re-appropriation of resources" when they traded from a strength (the rotation) to get Danks and Swisher (via Gio Gonzalez via Garcia)? What about the "fun" of picking up a guy like Hinske and his career 101 OPS+ and watching him become the best hitter on the team? What about the "fun" of simply plugging in top draft picks like Upton and Longoria because the team stunk for so long?
Navarro is actually younger than Quentin (by two years), plays a tougher position, was also a highly touted prospect, and is finally getting a chance to own a job himself. Navarro's walk rate has always been a little north of average, verging on pretty good - and now, he's no longer looking over his shoulder at Russell Martin, while staring up at whatever veteran drek LA put in front of him.
While Quentin most certainly was a top flight prospect, I don't think the sort of power we've seen from him was predicted, even by optimistic scouts. He was thought to be a very high OBP guy whom BOB/Chase might turn into a 25-30 HR guy.
Danks, meanwhile, I think is more a matter of just "arriving" sooner than expected. He's just 23 - and while I think most folks expected him to become a very solid - or better - pitcher, I'm not aware of anyone that expected him (and Gavin Floyd) to essentially become the aces of this year's White Sox staff.
A lot of folks seem to have reading comprehension problems, turning:
into:
I thought both were very good acquisitions for Williams -- but I thought Danks would take 2-3 years to "break out" and after his lost 2007, figured Quentin would need half a season to get back to where he was in 2006... not just need spring training to elevate his game beyond what he'd shown in the minors.
Would you say this about any player? If Orlando Cabrera had a 150 OPS+ this year, would you be arguing that the White Sox must have know, which is why they acquired him. Some players are simply more likely to have an awesome season than others, and I don't think it's an insult to anyone to say so.
I know White Sox fans are martyrs and all, but who is giving Williams any type of grief in the least? No one is saying Williams acquiring those guys were anything less than good moves, and no one is saying he shouldn't get credit for identifying breakout candidates. But, as another poster said, if Williams expected Quentin to be this good, he would have given him the LF job to start the year.
If Williams trades for an averagish player, and that player has a terrible season for the White Sox, would you say Williams expected the player to be terrible? Or would you say he was unexpectedly bad?
Navarro is already starting to come back to earth:
April OPS: .905
May OPS: .802
June OPS: .764
July OPS: .661
Navarro basically made his prospect reputation with a big year in 2003 in A+/AA and he's done virtually nothing since then.
I don't see how anyone could've expected 2008 to be a breakout season for Navarro. I still don't expect 2008 to be a breakout season for him.
The perspective gap is that people are talking like their own well of knowledge or PECOTA's metric is the know-all end-all of performance prediction. Certainly some players are more likely to have an awesome season, but depending on their skill set, Kenny Williams is far more likely to identify them than any of us.
Williams uses PECOTA (or at least has someone integrating it into the team's analysis), but also has a team with tools of analysis that you, I or Nate Silver do not have. Sometimes his analysis will be better than each of ours, and sometimes it'll be worse.
Just because you have never heard of germs doesn't mean that Louis is somehow magical and lucky.
The current Sabermetrics is excellent at concretely evaluating a player's actual performance and contribution to a team minus a few minor areas. It's relatively good at guessing at future performance. But there are a lot more variables at stake that we cannot measure in that process and a smart person who actually has access to the players is likely to be better in some situations.
Between 88 and 90 wins? In other words 89 wins?
I know PECOTA did one set of predictions, then kept revising a few times. I don't think they said 89 wins any time before the season started. MGL last month took a look at a bunch of preseason predictions and compared to the standings. PECOTA had the Rays at 85.
There was somebody who said 89 wins though.
At age 19.
His follow-up season wasn't nearly so impressive, but he was splitting time between AA and AAA as a 20 y.o. switch-hitting catcher, and he was hardly overmatched.
He's basically been in the majors for good since age 22.
I'm not saying he's the second coming of Jason Kendall - but he's younger than Geo Soto and the same age as Brian McCann (McCann is actually 1 day younger), and we've come to accept their "breakoutedness".
virtually nothing =
.285/.340/.475 in 179 post all start break at bats in 2007, and
.312/.366/.433 in 215 pre-all star at bats in 2008.
That's a year, out of a 23/24 year old catcher in the majors.
basically aside from an inexplicably horrible first half of 2007, considering his age, league and position he's been continuously above average since 2003.
You need to look at fantasy pubs, Navarro was a popular breakout pick...
but then again so was Melky Cabrera...
I would just say that he's bad, and that's Williams's fault. Expectations -- mine, the GM's, BP's, yours -- don't matter. I'm not interested in that particular circle jerk, especially since it's so misused. No one talks about how David Ortiz totally outperformed what Theo or anyone else thought he'd do, for good reason -- it's irrelevant. David Ortiz has been a great player, and Theo deserves all the credit in the world for that signing. Just like Williams deserves all the credit in the world for getting Quentin and Danks, and just like Williams deserves all the blame in the world for acquiring the load of crap known as Mike McDougal (or Andrew Sisco).
Treating all GMs the same on a transaction-by-transaction basis isn't really that tough to do, is it?
CONCUR.
I want to add that people shouldn't treat sabermetric predictions like they're some immutable law of physics. I think it's helpful to assign responsibility to them, like you would to a GM: you should say PECOTA (or whatever) didn't predict Carlos Quentin would be this good, just like you'd say Omar Minaya was wrong to think Carlos Deglado had much left. That's more sensible and responsible than saying "it is unexpected that Quentin would be this good."
I've never heard anyone say PECOTA (or MGL or any other system) got lucky on a projection.
I was saying Navarro did virtually nothing prior to this year.
Yes, he has some pretty decent numbers this year, but nearly all of that improvement is due to a BABIP that is 50 points higher than his career BABIP. Whether or not that's sustainable, Navarro is still showing poor walk rates and minimal power.
I think there's a good chance he'll have a long career as an average major league catcher, but he still has a lot of warts.
I completely agree with all of this. A GM should be judged based on the outcomes of the moves he makes, given the resources available to him.
I just don't think saying that a certain player has played above expectations is a slap at the GM that acquired him. Just like some players (MacDougal and Sisco, apparently) play worse than the GM expected them to, some players are going to play better than the GM expected them to. But the GM should be evaluated based on how the moves all work out in the end.
I don't understand why you're turning this into a holy war about PECOTA. Every projection of a player's future performance--regardless of who makes it or what criteria they use--is going to be off a lot of the time. Some players are going to tank, while others are going to break out. This is not specific to PECOTA, BA, or major league GMs.
You seem to be arguing that we should simply assume that a player plays exactly as well as Kenny Williams expected him to play. But you know that players have played worse than he expected them to--so why wouldn't you accept that some players play better than he expected them to.
Silver's point wasn't that Williams got lucky--he doesn't say or imply anything about Williams. He's saying that some players are less likely to repeat their great first halves than other players are. Does anyone think John Danks is going to put up a 170 ERA+ for the rest of the season. Do you expect him to do so?
Only slightly less likely than the Rays winning 100.
They took a huge step towards the playoffs with the sweep. September could be really exciting in the AL even with the WC, if the Yankees get closer, and I think they will.
2008 so far indicates how hard it is to make predictions in baseball and how fast things can change. In the off-season, many people totally wrote off the Twins and White Sox while assuming a Tigers/Inidans race. I also read a bunch of stuff about how tough the NL West would be. As of today, all five teams are under .500.
If he had just said that, it would be one thing, but he specifically contrasted the moves with the Rays "system." In fact, the only reason Quentin/Danks are even relevant to the thesis of the article is specifically to say "see, these guys are just flukes, not like the Rays." I can't believe you don't get the subtext of this quote:
Hell, it's not even subtext. He calls Quentin a possible fluke, but nothing on Hinske.
Again, I would say Hinske definitely qualifies as a "parallel" concern. As are Longoria and Navarro, who are both legit prospects, but who are also outperforming their ZiPS (and I would assume PECOTA) projections by a good margin.
Quentin: 770 vs. 911
Navarro: 678 vs. 799
Longoria: 786 vs. 870
Hinske: 772 vs. 875
So Quentin is outperforming his ZiPS by 18%, and three players in the Rays starting lineup are outperforming their ZiPS by a combined 14%.
But one is called luck and the other the residue of design?
I like him very much. But he doesn't help me hit the curveball.
no, you said:
:-)
He also hit .273/.354/.375- OPS+ of 94 as a 21 year old in the majors.
Year to year the average catcher has an 88-95 OPS+
Quentin was obviously hurt when playing for the D-Backs last year- and it hurt his performance- and since that 2007 performance, prior to this year, constituted the majority of his MLB time- I think it unduly effected perceptions of how good a hitter he was likely to be. IMHO Quentin's 2007 should probably be thrown out when predicting Quentin's future performance- it simply does not reflect his "true talent level"
I have less evidence for this, but Navarro's first half of 2007 was so absurdly bad, I think it has no predictive value either- he was hurt or something, and his ist half 2007 has/had no relationship to his "true talent". Throw out the first half of 2007 and he's at .280/.347/.405 in 950 MLB PAs.
And he's 24
Do I, no.
1: His k/ip and k/bb are very good, but not 170 ERA+ good
2: He's given up HRs at a rate far less than his prior MLB and minor league career- I'd need to see more than 1/2 a season he's made a permanent adjustment.
3: Last 10 years these are the only pitchers to throw 162+ip with an ERA+ of 162 or higher:
Pedro Martinez
Roger Clemens
Randy Johnson
Greg Maddux
Johan Santana
Jason Schmidt
Mark Prior
Andy Pettitte
Derek Lowe
Jake Peavy
Jeff D'Amico [WTF???]
Al Leiter
Kevin Brown
Tom Glavine
Kevin Millwood
Brandon Webb
Tim Hudson
Tim Wakefield
Ben Sheets
That's over 10 years- it's obviously doable- just not likely
The average 162 ERA+ season?
9.36 k/9
Danks: 6.88
4.15 k/bb
Danks 2.66
HR/9 0.66
Danks 0.63 (and judging by track record- least likely for Danks to sustain)
I think Danks is a very good pitcher, I don't think he's 170 good
Quentin on the other hand is a 25 year old, has power, has good on base skills, hit for average in the minors, .348/.430/.574 his last go around in AAA, 115 OPS+ in his first 1/3 MLB season, 139 OPS+? maybe- that's also a lot reachable than a full year of ERA+ 170.
Are you saying Jesus Christ couldn't hit a cuveball?
Also Hinske can't hit lefties (.223/.297/.372 for his career), but he hadn't really been platooned before 2006 (when he hit 114) (in 2007 he didn't hit anyone)
this year only 16.5% of his PAs are against Lefties.
Aside from that, I think Hinske may be the most likely of those we've been talking about to come to earth- he's 30 and he's proven over 3000 MLB PAs that he's not a 135 hitter.
But one is called luck and the other the residue of design?
No, one is a "break out when nobody is quite expecting it" from two players just brought into the organization seemingly on its way down, and the other is, as you said, the residue of design born from years of savvy high-round drafting and 1 blissful offseason where the front office of an up-and-coming team addressed immediate concerns. Slanting this as some sort of CHW slam (because of the "subtext") is just a projection of your own biases and picking a fight where there is none. And I know this is an internet message board & all, but come on, try bucking the stereotype.
What?
If you mean the stereotype of "Phillies fan who has little to no personal interest in either the White Sox or Rays outside of a general interest in baseball and loves reading Silver on Five Thirty Eight" then, sure, I'll do my best to get out of that rut ;-)
Edit - As for "picking a fight," ask yourself this: what purpose does mentioning Danks and Quentin serve in supporting the argument that "the Rays did a good job"?
I don't know why you bothered to post his July OPS when that encompasses a grand total of two games. His April OPS was obviously too high since he hit .400 for the month, not hard to predict that he wouldn't continue to do that (or the .380ish he was hitting for a while). However, he is a high contact (11.6% K%) and line drive (22.6% LD%) hitter which means he should have a BABIP of roughly .330-340, maybe a little lower since as a catcher infield hits are pretty rare for him. His season BABIP is .339, even if you knock that down a bit to .325 he's still a .300 hitter. He didn't walk much early but has been doing so more often lately (8 BB in April+May, 9 in June alone) which is consistent with his past tendencies. The early BA was unsustainable and regression has hit that but he still seems capable of being a .290/.350/.430 or so hitter, pretty nice for a young catcher with good defense.
As for the team as a whole, it's important to note that they currently have the best record in baseball despite playing a harder schedule than anyone. Just 15 of their first 84 games were against teams that are currently below .500. That's brutal yet it hasn't stopped them at all.
You know... I'm having a hard time remembering a young team that sort of went through this linear "sucks -> not good, but doesn't suck -> .500 -> .500+ -> contender" progression.
Last year's Brewers... the 2003 Cubs... The Indians of the 90s...
It seems we always get surprised by talented young teams that jump from 70-92 to 90-72, but that seems to happen more often than not.
The whole reason that I think Quentin DOES qualify as a big surprise to break out this year is NOT because I don't buy his pedigree -- I certainly do.
This is my own personal argument - not what Nate wrote, but I thought Quentin would need a good half year to get his groove back.
That shoulder problem not only cost him virtually his entire 2007 - but I think it really mucked up his swing, too. If you watched him at all in 2007 - you could see that not only was he hurt, but what was once a pretty damn good swing got just hacked to pieces by him attempting to compensate. He looked utterly lost.
I figured he'd be "back" -- but maybe more like 'back' in the second half of 2008 or more likely, in 2009.
He basically started hitting right out of the box and hasn't stopped.
As both the Cubs and Sox -- both relatively hot, first-place teams -- found out when they stopped into Tampa Bay. We both got our asses handed to us by the Rays.
I'm a believer. They're a good team.
That's when you have to look at minor league stats- he did get his swing back- but no one noticed because it was in Tucson- I suspect he got it back when his shoulder stopped hurting.
I think the 2008 Rays are looking like a good fit for Bill James old "miracle team" formula.
[warning- working off memory]
the key(s) were:
2-3 good young players take big steps forward- one being a pitcher (The 69 Mets had Seaver go from good to elite, Agee and Jones took big steps forward)
1-2 new players provide significant perfomance boosts over whatever dreck they replaced.
a bunch of little things go right.... (probably true of all champion teams not juts "miracle ones"
As both the Cubs and Sox -- both relatively hot, first-place teams -- found out when they stopped into Tampa Bay. We both got our asses handed to us by the Rays.
I'm a believer. They're a good team.
AFAIC, the only thing remaining barrier between acceptance that the Rays are a contender is their history. There is really no good reason left to doubt they'll be in the race until the end.
Saying a player is playing above his abilities is, again, not a slap at his GM. Saying Justin Duchscherer isn't going to have an ERA under 2.00 for the rest of the year is not a swipe at Beane.
It's really strange that people seem to arguing that we should accept a player's half season of performance as his true talent while ignoring everything else, or else we're insulting that player's GM.
And it's strange that you can't seem to grasp their objections go deeper than Kenny Williams' reputation or Danks' regression chances. Silver is suggesting that the White Sox's first half performance is flukish, unlike the Rays. As evidence, he points to two guys who have performed above expectations as driving the success (and hinting that the team may be more prone to a second-half collapse because of it), while ignoring those who have underperformed (Swisher, Thome and Konerko, to name three) on the club. I see no real reason why the White Sox are more likely to collapse in 08 than the Rays, and I imagine White Sox fans do too.
In the AL East, folks have been predicting the Yankee demise for years, and the BoSox have any number of key players that are hitting fall apart age/brittle age.
I kind of wonder if Silver/some folks are having their perceptions colored not so much by what the Sox will or can be expected to do -- but lingering surprise at how... not good... the Indians and Tigers have been.
In any event, maybe Silver does see a reason why the White Sox are more likely to collapse. He's the guy with the brilliant model. Frankly, if he thinks it's going to happen, I give more weight to his opinion than I give to yours or to those of White Sox fans.
Danny, I think you may be conflating two arguments. In the quote of mine you reference above, I'm just arguing that Silver is ignoring obvious examples of flukes on the Rays, and that picking out two players from another team as "flukes" while saying zip about Hinske is a a flaw in his analysis.
Eraser-X is claiming (as I read it) that this speaks to a larger problem with BPro and here with regards to Williams. He may be right about this (I don't have the history here to argue either way), but my points were not at all related to this. Failing to include Hinske, and to a lesser extent Navarro and Longoria, is just a problem with the article; I don't care (or say) a whit about it being "a slap" at a particular GM.
And if he gave a reason beyond the simplistic "Danks and Quentin have overperformed, the Rays don't have anybody like that," then maybe White Sox fans would be more tolerant (maybe not, though, due to their lingering feelings about BP's consistent underselling of their team).
He also didn't mention that their bullpen isn't going to have a 2.71 ERA in the second half of the season. This article wasn't a full analysis of the White Sox.
A lot of the same White Sox fans complaining about bias in this piece were also complaining about bias when PECOTA projected them to go 72-90 last year after having won 90 games in 2006.
I thought you were responding to the "slap at the GM" argument because that's what you quoted in your response.
Well, we were also complaining of bias when BP projected them to win 80 games and they won 110 (2005), and when BP projected them to win 82 games and they won 90 (2006).
And do you always include postseason wins to make a projection for regular season wins look worse than it actually was, or do you just do that with BP?
So you don't really care whether it's reasonable or not, you just care that it's about the White Sox?
Could you provide some quotes? I certainly wasn't expecting much out of them last year, but I thought that the way that Williams retooled this year (filling the major holes with slightly above average players) was similar to 2005. I don't remember too many people running down last year's prediction, but I could be wrong. However, either way, we have certainly been more right than BP on more occasions when it comes to the White Sox whether it be their overall record or the constant devaluation of Buerhle. Considering we're just some working class stiffs and not brainiacs with awesome computer models (said with complete seriousness, not sarcasm) that's not a good sign.
I think that's a borderline case. I mean the 11-1 against playoff teams is certainly part of the total record that year, and them not making the playoffs is part of what BP got wrong, but I also understand that playoff wins aren't part of what BP claims to predict.
No, I'm just saying that it's less likely to happen because--for whatever reason--when they interpret their data, they tend to make irrational guesses that are more often wrong than right and those irrational guesses tend to be affected by the assumption that Williams doesn't know what he's doing and Beane does.
That's just based on my flawed opinion and reading them constantly for a few years, quitting when they went to the pay structure and just catching snippets since then.
Obviously, Nate doesn't share a brain with Sheehan or the interns, and so it's not entirely fair to tar him with the same brush.
But it's hard to forget the love affair with the gambler's fallacy that BP had during 2005 where they predicted that the Sox would lose almost all of their remaining games to make up for being so lucky early in the season.
Or Sheehan's multiple columns of unapologies about missing the Sox's predictions again and again so badly.
As I've said before, what I find most ironic is that in this obstinate perspective error, then miss the best story--not the contrasts between Williams and Beane but their obvious similarities...
I always count postseason wins. Perhaps, as an A's fan, you are unfamiliar with how many additional wins can be obtained in the postseason?
No, I was just remarking on your rank dishonesty.
As an A's fan, I'm much more familiar with postseason wins than a fan of a team that has reached the postseason 4 times in the last 45 years. And the A's have more postseason wins this decade than the Sox, of course.
BP's open letter to the White Sox last year was the height of their pomposity.
But I don't think their PECOTA projections are "errors in interpreting the data" as Eraser infers in #78. Their projections were wrong, it wasn't their bias. They have shown a bias, but I don't think that is proof of it.
What I mean by "errors in interpreting the data" is when they look mid-season at what is going on and then make some #### up. Or when they look back at where their projections missed something and have wave a bit and call it "luck".
Their work on the Sox's ability to avoid injury or Ozzie's bullpen allocation attempted to address this to some degree, but when you look at the overall picture there's a lot of fuzzy logic accompanied by excuse making that has little to do with sabermetrics.
Rank dishonesty -- that's rich. So the White Sox didn't win those 11 post-season games? They didn't count? As an A's fan, I'm sure you'd like to believe the post-season doesn't count, but guess what? It does.
And, of course, BP also believes that the post-season counts (in OTHER cases, at least). Hence their book on the Red Sox winning the World Series, which of course wouldn't have been written if the Red Sox had made the playoffs and then been swept in the first round.
But perhaps BP wouldn't count the White Sox win in 2005 since, when the '05 regular season ended, they announced that the best team in baseball was... the Cleveland Indians. Yep, the team that finished 6 games BEHIND the White Sox and went 5-14 against Chicago during the regular season.
that was after two games
up to date 7/28/08:
April OPS: .905
May OPS: .802
June OPS: .764
July OPS: .784
Carlos Pena June: .304/.393/.565
July: .282/.383/.551
Now if Bartlet and Crawford could just hit their career averages...
It's starting to look like a complete certainty that Tampa will have their first .500+ season... I wouldn't be surprised if this isn't the start of a run like Cleveland had from 94-01
That breaks down to a .322/.394/.390 line, which is another BABIP-heavy line (.365 BABIP) with decent BBs and zero power.
His BABIP for the year is up to .342.
Since 2005, the following major leaguers have sustained BABIPs of .340 or higher:
Derek Jeter
Matt Holliday
Miguel Cabrera
Michael Young
Ichiro Suzuki
Hanley Ramirez
Derrek Lee
Chipper Jones
Curtis Granderson
Magglio Ordonez
David Wright
A combination of speedsters and the best hitters in the game. I'll stick to my guns that Navarro is hitting over his head. I'm guessing his true talent lies somewhere between 2007 and 2008, which could still be quite good for a catcher.
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