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1. alkeiper Posted: October 14, 2009 at 04:34 PM (#3351841)By playing on a team that is good at putting runners on base. Next question.
Not just good at putting runners on base, but good at putting runners on base without having those runners drive themselves in.
-- MWE
Abreu: "Lay off those pitches outside the strike zone, you'll get a better pitch to hit later"
Giambi: "No sht, sherlock"
But for the Angels, he was able to help. Not that professional ballplayers hadn't heard this stuff before, but it seems the message really paid off with him being able to lead by example.
I posted a few times that I thought the Reds should try to get him after his price went down. I still think they should have.
IMO, the keys to the 2009 Angels have been Morales and Abreu, which allowed the team to lose Teixeira and deal with Vlad's decline while still getting enough runs on the board.
By having more AB with men on than anyone else on the team, as well (40 more than the runner-up).
No retired number for Abreu in this town. Whether you like it or not, the brass thinks this team went from pretender to contender when they dumped Abreu for a bag of not so magic beans. Supposedly, it freed up Rollins and Utley to be true leaders, no longer deferring to the veteran, the laid back Abreu.
Back in 1985, Tommy Herr drove in 110 runs, off of 8 HR and 80 BBs. Given the time at which it occured, it was a more impressive feat than Abreu, but was also a feat that was made possible by having a rotation of Coleman, Smith and McGee hitting in front of him.
I think that's part of it. Tex's example last year had a huge impact on Hunter, who greatly improved his "patience" as well. (Kendrick also)
The bigger piece IMO is that for the last 5 or so years, the Angels best and most highly paid players were free-swingers. Irrespective of what the coaches might say, the young-uns see the guys cashing the big checks and that's who they were emulating. When Tex came in last year- that started to change. With Abreu, and the team preaching patience to an even greater extent, it started to change some more.
The funny thing is that people are pointing to Figgins as being aided by Abreu, but Figgins' walk numbers have improved every year and their improvement this year is consistent with his previous pattern. The big change that Abreu should get some credit for is Aybar. The local announcers used to talk about how he idolized Vlad to the point that he would be teased for following him around like a puppy (per Rory Markas). Unfortunately, he followed Vlad's offensive approach as well, to his great detriment. Abreu seems to have been at least a part of Aybar's development as an offensive player- and that's very good.
IMHO, Abreu's defense looked pretty bad last year -- expanding the "no-go zone" close to the wall and ceding all of rightcenter to the centerfielder regardless of the situation. Not that much hustle, either. Not sure of the reason, but based on limited observation of Yanks v. Angles games, Abreu looks better this year.
I'd bet the poor contract outcome and abuse he took shocked him into improving his effort on and off the field.
Hockey was gone from having vitually all numbers less than 30 to having numbers all over the double digit range. Baseball hasn't.
There has been a pronounced change. If you don't want to credit Abreu, it probably makes sense to suggest an alternative reason.
This talk about Abreu has been going on most of the year, it didn't magically start Sunday afternoon, and has nothing to do with Boston. And the above would make no sense at all if Vlad had popped up to end the game after Abreu lined one off the monster to set him up.
In the last day I've seen Red Sox fans now talk about signing Lackey, Abreu, Vlad, and Figgins. Your transformation to the Yankees is now complete if you embrace the "If you can't beat em, sign em" philosophy.
Actually, I'm not a fan of either the Yankees or the Red Sox. Abreu just seems like a good short-term fit for the Red Sox rather than a lengthy, more expensive investment in Jason Bay. Now, if the team pursues Holliday, that's a different story.
Sure, if you are a hardcore Angel fan who lives and dies with the team every day and posts about them 10 times a day at BTF. But look at the byline above: this is Tyler Kepner. As we have discussed any number of times, most of the MSM looks at the playoffs after the fact, and when things change and the results are in, they ask, "What was different?" We saw this just yesterday with the "new and relaxed ARod" article. And Bobby Abreu--and beating the Red Sox--are what is different about the 2009 Angels.
Does it mean they're 100% wrong? No. ARod may well be more relaxed, and I even said that I think Abreu probably has helped Aybar. But, like the value of Darin Erstad's intensity and professionalism, I do think such things are overstated when a team has post-season success.
But he didn't. That's part of the point.
If that comes with 26 World Championships in my lifetime I'm cool with that.
The Sox are now focused on off-season moves in anticipation of 2010 since there are no more games to be played in 2009 and it's not like we're just picking off random guys (geez, I sure hope the Sox can aquire Lincecum!), everyone you mentioned is a free agent (for what it's worth, who is talking about Vlad? We've already got a declining DH of our own.)
| year_ID | BB | PA | BB_rate | pitches_per_pa |+---------+------+------+---------+----------------+
| 2000 | 608 | 6373 | 9.5 | 3.73 |
| 2001 | 494 | 6226 | 7.9 | 3.74 |
| 2002 | 462 | 6327 | 7.3 | 3.58 |
| 2003 | 476 | 6119 | 7.8 | 3.64 |
| 2004 | 450 | 6296 | 7.1 | 3.65 |
| 2005 | 447 | 6186 | 7.2 | 3.65 |
| 2006 | 486 | 6221 | 7.8 | 3.65 |
| 2007 | 507 | 6198 | 8.2 | 3.65 |
| 2008 | 481 | 6155 | 7.8 | 3.65 |
| 2009 | 453 | 5638 | 8.0 | 3.84 |
Here is the Angels non-Abreu walk rate and pitches/pa over the last ten years. I'm not seeing a big influence here. The pitches/PA is significant, but it didn't translate into more walks. The majors as a whole went up .2% from 2008 to 2009, so the Angels were the exact same in walks relative to the league. Relative to the league they are seeing .16 more pitches per PA, so maybe that is something.
To answer that question, I looked up Bobby's PA logs on B-ref. He had 36 FBI for the season.
Is this even more impressive than Gagne's 3 years of 82.3 IP?
Edit: I see that Dunn only made it to 38 HR this year.
He's showing the Angels non-Abreu walk rate -- he took out Abreu's #s for 2009.
I don't think it was supposed to. The point was to stop swinging at bad pitches and giving the pitchers easy outs. Walks are great if they come, but they're not the purpose of an AB. At least not in Anaheim.
EDITED to add that one of the other 4 hi-OBP guys from 2008 was Mike Napoli, who (due to injury & other less legitimate reasons) played 2nd fiddle to Mike Mathis for most of the year.
Since the Astros let him go in the expansion draft and the Devil Rays traded him for Kevin Stocker, I'd say he was criminally underrated well before he arrived in Philadelphia.
nahh, there are lots of balls that need to be caught in Fenway's LF warning track, and thats where Bobby A supposedly gets queasy.
| year_ID | BB | PA | BB_rate | pitches_per_pa | swing_perc |+---------+------+------+---------+----------------+------------+
| 2000 | 608 | 6373 | 9.5 | 3.73 | 46.1 |
| 2001 | 494 | 6226 | 7.9 | 3.74 | 45.8 |
| 2002 | 462 | 6327 | 7.3 | 3.58 | 46.7 |
| 2003 | 476 | 6119 | 7.8 | 3.64 | 46.8 |
| 2004 | 450 | 6296 | 7.1 | 3.65 | 47.6 |
| 2005 | 447 | 6186 | 7.2 | 3.65 | 46.7 |
| 2006 | 486 | 6221 | 7.8 | 3.65 | 47.0 |
| 2007 | 507 | 6198 | 8.2 | 3.65 | 46.1 |
| 2008 | 481 | 6155 | 7.8 | 3.65 | 46.7 |
| 2009 | 453 | 5638 | 8.0 | 3.84 | 44.9 |
non-Abreu's with swing perc added (strikes_swinging, fouls, inplay)/pitches
Only players with 300+ PA's to emulate the top 9 batters.
+---------+---------+------+------+---------+----------------+------------+| year_ID | players | BB | PA | BB_rate | pitches_per_pa | swing_perc |
+---------+---------+------+------+---------+----------------+------------+
| 2000 | 9 | 504 | 5340 | 9.4 | 3.72 | 46.6 |
| 2001 | 8 | 412 | 4763 | 8.7 | 3.76 | 45.0 |
| 2002 | 10 | 424 | 5600 | 7.6 | 3.58 | 46.0 |
| 2003 | 9 | 360 | 4381 | 8.2 | 3.64 | 46.1 |
| 2004 | 9 | 351 | 4827 | 7.3 | 3.65 | 47.3 |
| 2005 | 9 | 338 | 4896 | 6.9 | 3.61 | 46.9 |
| 2006 | 8 | 365 | 4332 | 8.4 | 3.65 | 46.3 |
| 2007 | 9 | 412 | 4646 | 8.9 | 3.64 | 45.1 |
| 2008 | 10 | 337 | 4581 | 7.4 | 3.56 | 47.5 |
| 2009 | 10 | 414 | 5021 | 8.2 | 3.84 | 44.7 |
+---------+---------+------+------+---------+----------------+------------+
Trying to tease this out a bit more. Here are the 7 players who were on the Angels in 2008 and 2009.
| year_ID | players | BB | PA | BB_rate | pitches_per_pa | swing_perc |+---------+---------+------+------+---------+----------------+------------+
| 2000 | 2 | 76 | 999 | 7.6 | 3.30 | 56.3 |
| 2001 | 3 | 187 | 2048 | 9.1 | 3.61 | 48.6 |
| 2002 | 3 | 205 | 2108 | 9.7 | 3.54 | 48.2 |
| 2003 | 3 | 190 | 1963 | 9.7 | 3.59 | 46.9 |
| 2004 | 4 | 174 | 2204 | 7.9 | 3.58 | 49.3 |
| 2005 | 4 | 206 | 2256 | 9.1 | 3.63 | 46.1 |
| 2006 | 5 | 256 | 3048 | 8.4 | 3.63 | 46.8 |
| 2007 | 6 | 259 | 3119 | 8.3 | 3.52 | 47.9 |
| 2008 | 7 | 260 | 3262 | 8.0 | 3.60 | 47.3 |
| 2009 | 7 | 292 | 3395 | 8.6 | 3.80 | 44.7 |
Actually, looking at it that way, those are pretty significant changes. The difference between the lowest and league average.
Perhaps, but I'd have more faith in this statement if it didn't come from someone who has bought a used mattress.
Then again, if he finds the thought of used mattresses to be disgusting, that would worsen his wall issues.
It would look better than it does now covered w/ CVS and WB Mason ads and scores for some supposed "national" league. it might smell worse, though.
Mix in spring-mattresses with memory foam and drive visiting LF's nuts on wallballs.
So, IMO, the Abreu approach to pitch selection is only half right. He avoids swinging at bad pitches, but this tendency causes him to take too many strikes. The best current hitter at balancing both factors is Chipper Jones.
The 2009 Angels walked 66 more times than the 2008 Angels. Between 2008 and 2009, the Angels replaced Garret Anderson (29 walks in 145 games) with Bobby Abreu (94 walks in 152 games).
The difference between the two players is 65 walks.
Do we really need to look at "chemistry" and "influences" here?
Just saying.
Just on the recent Yankees, Hideki Matsui isn't really a top player but wears number 55. Bernie used to be 51.
Matsui also wears that high number for a specific reason - 55 is the Japanese single-season home run record. Matsui has worn that number since his rookie season with the Yomiuri Giants.
Randy Johnson and Ichiro have worn #51 for the Mariners for most of the past two decades...
9 times out of 10 it is complete and utter horseshvt.
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