GDT: Braves @ Reds 4/26 (No Camargo)

Watching Ender hit is painful. His hits look like accidents off the end of the bat, and he swings like he gets fined for taking a walk.
 
Folks clamor for the next Andrew Miller. Newk can either be a 150 IP "stuff" #4 that struggles with command forever, or he can likely be similar to Miller.

Not a bad comp. I'm just surprised how Newcomb's command just vanishes.

Does Culberson's average have to fall below .100 before he gets let go?
 
Guys I am having an argument with my friend Paul Sporer (from Fangraphs) on twitter about speed. So I have a question for guys like wupk, nsacpi and Enscheff: How much can you infer about a player's speed based off of one single event? Can we infer that Acuna has elite grade speed based off of last night's time of 30.3 ft/sec or is it too small of a sample to learn anything? I was arguing that speed is a more repeatable skill than something like power or hit tool, so if Acuna can run 30.3 ft/sec then that puts him pretty close to the top of the league in sprint speed. He is arguing that we basically learned nothing from that event. I admittedly know very little about speed and how it should be graded and how much sample matters so I could be wrong. Paul is a very smart baseball guy.

Speed is one of those things you can grade with few data points (though almost certainly not N = 1). Same with arm strength and pitch velocity. For all we know, 30.3 could be the fastest Acuna ever runs in his entire career, and every other measurement will be lower. That's why Baseball Savant defaults to a minimum of 10 sprint events before they post an average. Waiting for 10 events is still very small amount of data needed compared to other stats with much more noise in them.

The legit issue I see folks have with sprint speed measurements is that it reports the fastest moment at top speed, and does not take into account acceleration.
 
You obviously want more data because more data is obviously better. But you can't luck into running fast. You do need more data to see what his average sprint speed is. One event could either be a top end or low end for example. But Acuna is fast, clearly.

Yeah that is kinda what I was thinking. I was basing it off of Paul's own website giving him a 60/55 grade. I just don't know how often a 60 grade runner breaks the 30 mark. I haven't seen the data, but in my mind it seems like it wouldn't happen that often at all.
 
The eyes aren’t trivial, but this is the problem with you premising so much on your watching experience: it clouds your judgment. You just aesthetically prefer watching Newcomb, even when he’s failing, to watching Foltynewicz, even when he’s succeeding. The end result is you won’t see Newcomb’s warts, and always blame outside circumstances for his failures, while you exaggerate and over-stress Foltynewicz’s shortcomings, and always account for his successes as luck.

There can definitely be some sort of bias in these things. My bias tends to be in the opposite direction in the great Newk/Folty debate.
 
Dansby is on pace for 7 errors this season. If he can settle in at .260/.330/.400 hitter and continue playing strong defense then I'll be more than happy with that. I think that's pretty doable for him.
 
Guys I am having an argument with my friend Paul Sporer (from Fangraphs) on twitter about speed. So I have a question for guys like wupk, nsacpi and Enscheff: How much can you infer about a player's speed based off of one single event? Can we infer that Acuna has elite grade speed based off of last night's time of 30.3 ft/sec or is it too small of a sample to learn anything? I was arguing that speed is a more repeatable skill than something like power or hit tool, so if Acuna can run 30.3 ft/sec then that puts him pretty close to the top of the league in sprint speed. He is arguing that we basically learned nothing from that event. I admittedly know very little about speed and how it should be graded and how much sample matters so I could be wrong. Paul is a very smart baseball guy.

I haven't looked at the data, but I suspect speed shows a lot less variance than something like exit velocity for a hitter. It is more like fastball velocity for a pitcher. If a guy hits 95 on his first pitch, I think that says something.
 
Speed is an independent event relying solely on the individual. Top speed will be relatively consistent each time out.
 
There can definitely be some sort of bias in these things. My bias tends to be in the opposite direction in the great Newk/Folty debate.

Same. But I can also admit they both have some real warts and room for improvement. I just think Foltynewicz is closer to being a successful member of the rotation.
 
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