rluzinski

Recent Movies I've Seen: Batman Begins: Very disappointed. They took the time to actually develop the characters for once but the whole third act devolved into typical Holywood action movie crap. Driving on roofs? Great. I thought Christopher Nolan would be able to fight off the movie execs... I was wrong. Crash: Got around to seeing this and was definetely worth watching. It's about racism and how good people aren't always good and bad people aren't always one-dimensionally bad. Shawn of The Dead: FINALLY saw it and loved it. Garden State: Nice, cute and light. Sin City: Loved it. Great visuals. Closer: Heavy but intriguing. Fever Pitch:[/b Wife made me watch it and I was peasently suprised. Cute little film that doesn't take itself too seriously. Be warned, if you don't like Fallon, you are NOT going to like this movi[/b]

The only trouble I've had with Excel is the limit to the size of sample it can handle for binomial distributions.

I hope I don't come across as pretending to be a stat-authority, because I certainly am not. My only school experience with statistics are the classes I took for my engineering degree. I assure you, no software like SAS was used in those classes. I'm learning as I go, really. I use Excel for all my stats stuff... that's it. A REAL stats guy would probably laugh at that, but I'm not a real stats guy so... http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

We live in a society where a person is innocent until proven guilty. I can't see how the Hall of Fame wouldn't follow those same guidelines.

Isn't a pitcher's BABIP supposed to eventually gravitate back toward the average BABIP of the other pitchers on the staff? In other words, isn't it usually an indicator of good or bad luck? It's not completely random, like Voros' DIPS suggest, but extreme years tend to regress back to towards league average. The thing is, Wise's stuff is unique enough that I wonder if he can continue having crazy low BABIP. Knuckleballers tend to have low BABIP and LD% (% of BIP that characterised as line drives), and Wise is like a knuckballer without the knuckle ball. Wise's LD% in 2005 was 11.7%. An average pitcher has a LD% around 20%. Let's hope 2005 wasn't a sort of aberation.

Well, I had to google "sas" just to find out what it is... so no, I'm not familiar with it http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

Baseball Prospectus had this stat up today: Top 5 NL Pitchers, by Lowest Batting Average on Balls Put Into Play (BABIP)* Player Team BABIP Matt Wise MIL .190 Aaron Fultz PHI .212 Billy Wagner PHI .218 Tomokazu Ohka WAS .220 Chad Cordero WAS .224 * Minimum 50 innings pitched. He blew every other NL pitcher out of the water with the complete junk that he throws out there. Couple that with a sub 1.00 WHIP and you have to wonder if he really is THAT good. Personally, I just love to watch him work. It's amazing to watch him strike major leaguers out with his little league fast ball. Does he have what it takes to stick? Will players figure out his change up? Was last year just luck?

Anyone ever play with PBP data, like what you can get at retrosheet.org? I've downloaded an Access database that parses and loads that PBP data, but I'm not very good with Access. Just curious if anyone else has played around with the stuff.

Baseballprsopectus does just that (I doubt they were the first). LINK

My point is simply that the #4 hitter typically HAS 1 or 2 good players after him, therefore the notion that his OBP isn't as important is hogwash to me. Check any team's RBIs in the #5 and #6 slot. You'll see that those guys score a large percentage of a team's runs. The #4 spot is hardly the last chance to score these guys.

Yeh, they will never change the definition of ERA and there's already alot of different measures taking inherited runners into consideration.

I know you don't like rbi's and have put forth very good arguements for your distaste for them. Just like a leadoff guy, a middle of the order guy has a role. Driving in runs is that role so rbi are probably as useful as OPS in assessing if he was productive. Probably more useful than OBP. If you believe I counted that twice because it is covered by the other two I can see that though. The thing is, I don't think players HAVE specfic roles. As I've said in this thread, the job of all players is to maximize runs scored for a team. Your #4 hitter doesn't HAVE to score all the runs and it certainly doesn't make sense to sacrifice OBP to have him do it. If about 25% of the Brewer's runs were scored by the #5 and #6 hitters in 2005, doesn't that illustrate the importance of maximizing RBI opportunities for them too? To oversimply what I'm trying to say, Lee either scored the runners or he ended the inning. His low OBP indicates that he made ALOT of outs. The best sluggers hit alot of RBIs AND extend innings by not making outs. Lee isn't one of them.

Seems to me rbi and power are the two things defenders of him bring up all the time. His RBI's are a function of opportunity, his power and ability to make contact. They are a simply a result of his abilities, not an ability in itself. His steals has to be the single most irrelevant thing anyone brings up about him. He had 13 steals and 4 caught stealing in 2005. For his career it's 77/30. The value of that is just about ZERO.

Just wanted to link a "By The Numbers" newletter with an article on this subject. It puts the value of an OBP point relative to SLG at 1.2. It's the last article in the newsletter and the newsletter is in PDF form: Is OBP Really Worth Three Times as Much as SLG?

I have to agree with that. There are plenty of guys who flame out between AA and AAA as well. It's just aother step that many players never make.

I think Lee's value depends on what the team is looking for. For instance, the Brewers need a slugger, preferably RH, and someone whose sole job is to drive in runs. I've said if before and I'll say it again. The job of EVERY offense player is to maximize runs scored for the whole TEAM, not just individual RBIs. People here talk like the inning is over after Lee bats. 173 of the 726 total runs were scored by the #5 and #6 Brewer hitters; that's almost 25% of all the runs! Yet I'm supposed to ignore Lee's or any "run producer's" OBP because that's not his job? Please. end, you suggest he's a $5-6M player. I don't quite see how. Someone Lee's age, with Lee's track record, on the free agent market, w/30+ HRs & 110+ RBIs in his contract year, will pull down $9-12M on the FA market. That's the point; end doesn't think he's worth that much and I agree.

... and like I've said, I think Lee is a good player and worth keeping around. Now if a team, based on his HRs and RBIs, thinks he's a GREAT player, I would have no trouble getting a GREAT return for him. Otherwise, just let him walk after 2006.

Almost 20 more wins in one season. It's the only stat that counts or means anything. Carlos Lee was a (if not the) major factor in this turn around. That's really bad analysis to attribute Carlos Lee as the major factor of the Brewer's success in 2005, relative to 2004. There were MANY factors to the improvement and Carlos Lee is only a small part of it: -------------------- 2004 ------------------- -------------------- 2005 ------------------- Pos Player BA OBP SLG OPS+ Pos Player BA OBP SLG OPS+ DIFF C Chad Moeller .208 .265 .303 50 C Damian Miller .273 .340 .413 97 +47 1B Lyle Overbay .301 .385 .478 127 1B Lyle Overbay .276 .367 .449 113 -14 2B Junior Spivey .272 .359 .421 106 2B Rickie Weeks .239 .333 .394 90 -16 3B Wes Helms .263 .331 .361 84 3B Russ Branyan .257 .378 .490 126 +42 SS Craig Counsell .241 .330 .315 72 SS J.J. Hardy .247 .327 .384 86 +14 LF Geoff Jenkins .264 .325 .473 108 RF Geoff Jenkins .292 .375 .513 131 +22 CF Scott Podsednik .244 .313 .364 79 LF Carlos Lee .265 .324 .487 110 +31 RF Brady Clark .280 .385 .397 108 CF Brady Clark .306 .372 .426 109 + 1 BE Bill Hall .238 .276 .374 70 BE Bill Hall .291 .342 .495 117 BE Keith Ginter .262 .333 .479 112 BE Chad Moeller .206 .257 .367 62 BE Ben Grieve .261 .364 .415 106 BE Jeff Cirillo .281 .373 .427 110 BE Gary Bennett .224 .297 .329 66 BE Junior Spivey .236 .308 .374 78 BE Russ Branyan .234 .324 .525 120 BE Wes Helms .298 .356 .458 112 TOTAL RUNS SCORED: 634 TOTAL RUNS SCORED: 726 TOTAL RUNS AGAINST: 757 TOTAL RUNS AGAINST: 697 The 2005 Brewers scored 92 more runs and gave up 60 less runs. Right off the bat, 40% of the improvement was on the pitching side. I don't recall Lee pitching much in 2005. As for the offense, there was alot of areas of improvement. Lee essentially replaced Pods (with Clark moving over), which certainly was a huge improvement. The thing is, just about ANY corner OF would have been an improvement over the Black hole Pods was in 2004. The improvments at C and 3B were actually bigger than that, however. The difference between 04 and 05 Jenkins was a big difference as well. The addition to Lee was a huge boost in 2005, but it was only a small part of the team's improvement.

Why would these guys even be options to play LF IN MILWAUKEE in 2006? Exactly! I'd rather have Matt Stairs than EITHER of those two!

Obviously the inherant nature and importance of the # 4 spot in the lineup has a piece of this, but after doing a little research on Derrick Lee, Andruw Jones, and David Ortiz, Carlos Lee's inverse relationship of rbi's to victory percentage is much, much higher than the few other RBI leaders I have looked at. As a #4 hitter and looking at the way he plays, it's not suprising that Lee can make or break the Brewer's offense. With a very low OBP but a very high SLG, Lee might rack up RBI's but may do so at the detriment of future runs scored. 10% of his RBI's came as a result of making an out, for instance (SF). The relationship between Lee's RBI's and winning isn't necessarily a positive one for Lee. Could you present your research here, please?

Carlos always tends to stay healthy This is certainly worth alot. Agreed. he steals more bases than you'd expect A handful o steals, many which are 3B, just isn't worth very much. Apparently you don't think CS are bad at all? He had 4 of them afterall. USing the 2:1 rule, that's 5 net steals. Not even worth mentioning. he hits lots of homers 32 is nice, but it's not exceptional either. and is consistently among the top 10-20 in the majors at driving in runs. Geno, this is the HEART of your argument for Lee's being much better than average. He's a "run producer" you say. Did you LOOK at his RBI opportunities? While I don't always agree with your arguments they are almost always reasonable. You are proving to be very stubborn on your insistance that RBIs can be used as a good individual measure of hitting prowess. Looking at all of MLB, Carlos Lee had the 7th most baserunners and the 4th most runners in scoring positon. Let's look at Jenkins and Overbay's RBI opportunities, relative to Lee's: Runners RISP Lee woulda had... C. Lee 483 252 --- Jenkins 388 199 98 Overbay 366 194 94 Assuming Lee had hit the same of % of his base runners in, but only had as many base runners as Jenkins or Overbay, he wouldn't had even had 100 RBIs. Would you still have considered him a proven run producer then? Lee is a nice hitter, no doubt. I was happy when they traded for him and I was happy when they picked up his option. I won't be happy if they sign him to a long term deal, however. He's not talented enough to justify what he'll probably get as a free agent.

The below table shows the aggregates at LF for each team in the MLB: http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a345/rluzinski/LF2005.gif If you are worried about averages being distorted by extremes at either end, just look at the mode (SLG is a good example). As you can see, the only area that Lee really disinguishes himself from the average LFer is RBIs. He certainly has above average power, but it's barely outside 1 standard deviation. Considering he's being compared to ANYONE who's played LF in 2005, that's not particularily impressive. While many point to Lee's RBIs as proof of his elite status , a little digging shows that they aren't much of a reflection of his actual abilities. Let's look at the top 10 LF, ranked by RBIs: http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a345/rluzinski/RBILF.gif 1st: Total number of runners at first during player's PAs 2nd: Total number of runners at second during player's PAs 3rd: Total number of runners at third during player's PAs NHRBI: RBIs - HRs (number of base runners scored by player) Run: Total base runners during player's PAs RISP: Total base runners in scoring position run/RBI: runners needed for each NHRBI Lee is 5th in RBIs but look at how many RBI opportunities he had. He was 5th in total runners and had the 2ND most number of runners in scoring position. Comparing him with any position, he was 7th in total runners and 4th in runners in scoring position. The Brewers gave Carlos a TON of RBI opportunities. Comparing Lee to any MLB LF with more than 450 PA (He should be compared to fellow starters IMO), he certainly doesn't look like anything special at all: MLB LF w/450+ PA People just get excited because of his HRs and RBIs. The HRs are nice but that alone doesn't make him elite by any stretch. RBI Opportunites Team Aggregates, LF

I think we'd all agree there's quite a bit of difference between a .250/.350/.400 hitter and a .333/.350/.400 hitter. Well, let's look at what those two players might look like over a season: http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a345/rluzinski/hitsvswalks.gif Player A is obviously the slugging walker and Player B is the slap hitter. While player B has the higher batting average, player A has more power (ISO = SLG - BA). Because B has more AB, it's "runs created" (AB x OBP x SLG) is higher. The problem is RC over-values singles with respect to walks. ... more later

i think geno was pointing more towards a concern with jenkins' plate approach changing significantly if he feels he's the only true slugger in the lineup I understood what he meant. I just don't really agree with it. Jenkins get's scared if he's expected to be the top run producer? This is the guy, when marred in a HORRIBLE slump, which prompted people to say he was done (me included) said, "Naaaaaaaa, I'll be fine." I've never seen him put stress on himself at all. He's always sounded as confident as ever. Jenkins scored almost the same percentage of his base runners that Lee did. If Lee hadn't been there he probably would have done the same. Jenkins has been a star his whole life. I'm sure he can handle it. Why is everyone obsessed with finding direct cause-effect relationships for everything? Things aren't that simple in the real world.

In turn, Jenkins goes from a secure, insulated .292-25-86 back to only-slugger-in-the-lineup 2004 form: .267-22-70. I have a hard time believing that Lee "protected" Jenkins, allowing him to have a good season. Why so quick to believe the cause/effect relationship? Without Lee in the lineup, Jenkins would have had more RBI opportunities and more RBI's as a result. Why does it matter WHO bats before him?