newest SI cover....

yeezus said:
I feel like we need power and really good hitters. Heyward provides little power and isn't a great hitter.
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Jason is a great player. We need great players. I'd rather bring Justin back, as I said, he's a great power bat, I mean he's smacked 20 dingers in San Diego. Anyone who can do that has legit power. But I think Justin is gonna really get paid. I think we'll lose out on his services for sure.
 
zitothebrave said:
Jason is a great player. We need great players. I'd rather bring Justin back, as I said, he's a great power bat, I mean he's smacked 20 dingers in San Diego. Anyone who can do that has legit power. But I think Justin is gonna really get paid. I think we'll lose out on his services for sure.
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And his two month insanely cold streaks are total killers.
 
thewupk said:
And his hot streaks will carry a team. It all works out.
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I don't agree. His two months of remarkable unproduction really, really hurt San Diego. You simply can't have that from your #4 hitter, IMO.
It's one thing to be cold, and another to be Justin Upton cold. I think it really kills a team. A .180 hitter for a two month stretch in the 4 hole is rough.
 
yeezus said:
I don't agree. His two months of remarkable unproduction really, really hurt San Diego. You simply can't have that from your #4 hitter, IMO.

It's one thing to be cold, and another to be Justin Upton cold. I think it really kills a team. A .180 hitter for a two month stretch in the 4 hole is rough.
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Sure, everybody loves consistancy. But it's not more valuable than someone with hot and cold streaks.
 
Tapate50 said:
When did baseball become such a nerd game?
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Blame fantasy league games. Nerds imagined himself to be a real life GM's. Then it got worse after they saw "Moneyball." Every fat slob, who never even played Little League, suddenly was able to identify with Jonah Hill's character.
 
Knucksie said:
Blame fantasy league games. Nerds imagined himself to be a real life GM's. Then it got worse after they saw "Moneyball." Every fat slob, who never even played Little League, suddenly was able to identify with Jonah Hill's character.
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Actually it started with Branch Rickey who is likely the brightest baseball mind of all time
 
thewupk said:
Actually it started with Branch Rickey who is likely the brightest baseball mind of all time
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Rickey hired a full-time statistician in the '40s, and developed and used early iterations of isoPower and his own version of wOBA. His (along with Bill Veeck and others) recognition of the cost-effectiveness of signing Negro League players was certainly an exploitation of a market inefficiency (albeit an unfortunate one, in that the Negro League teams weren't compensated). The use of statistics is in baseball's DNA to a far greater extent than in any other major American sport.
 
Julio3000 said:
Rickey hired a full-time statistician in the '40s, and developed and used early iterations of isoPower and his own version of wOBA. His (along with Bill Veeck and others) recognition of the cost-effectiveness of signing Negro League players was certainly an exploitation of a market inefficiency (albeit an unfortunate one, in that the Negro League teams weren't compensated). The use of statistics is in baseball's DNA to a far greater extent than in any other major American sport.
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Yeah Rickey is awesome. I've read some of the stuff he wrote about questioning batting averge and fielding % at a time when they were go to stats. Truly a revolutionary mind in baseball. Also credited with creating the first farm system as well.
 
thewupk said:
I don't think it's that far off if you look at it from an area by area basis. If you are referring to Jason as a 6 WAR player I'm guessing it's his 2012 season as that's the last (and only) time he's been at 6 WAR. Using that season as a base line Heyward was worth 9 baserunning runs that season. Which is steals and taking extra bases, etc on hits. Markakis has been been -2 for awhile now. Which shouldn't surprise anybody. Heyward is a great base runner entering his prime while Nick is slow and exiting his.

So Heyward has a 11ish run advantage there which is worth for a little over 1 win.

As we already established given Heyward was at a 120 WRC+ that season and Markakis usually in the 105 range that gives Heyward a 2.5 WAR advantage combining his hitting and base running.

And that brings us to defense. On average Jason has been around 20 runs or better than Nick in a given season. That's 3.3 runs per month between an elite right fielder and a below average one. I don't find that too impossible to believe. And 20 runs equates to 2 WAR which would give Jason that 4.5 advantage. So 6 WAR to 1.5.

The thing with Jason is that he does everything well. And that all has value and adds up. Most players generally have something that brings them down. Great hitters usually aren't good defenders. Good defenders that can run generally are average hitters. There just aren't many players that are consistantly good or better at those 3 facets of the game. And I feel that they can sometimes be undervalued when just viewing them on a daily basis.
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This is a pretty good breakdown. Thanks.

I'd love to see a thread about the merits of WAR with more focus on explaining how the numbers are derived. I think it'd help me and many others from being so quick to discredit it.
 
Julio3000 said:
Rickey hired a full-time statistician in the '40s, and developed and used early iterations of isoPower and his own version of wOBA. His (along with Bill Veeck and others) recognition of the cost-effectiveness of signing Negro League players was certainly an exploitation of a market inefficiency (albeit an unfortunate one, in that the Negro League teams weren't compensated). The use of statistics is in baseball's DNA to a far greater extent than in any other major American sport.
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Its a team game with individual play so it's likely far easier to use statistics. Plus, I would assume that they are more accurate.
 
yeezus said:
I don't agree. His two months of remarkable unproduction really, really hurt San Diego. You simply can't have that from your #4 hitter, IMO.
It's one thing to be cold, and another to be Justin Upton cold. I think it really kills a team. A .180 hitter for a two month stretch in the 4 hole is rough.
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Yep, and they killed us when he was here as well. All hitters in some form or another have spells when they are on fire and not so much, but Justin goes through such extremes one way or another for such prolonged periods of time, it is bizarre and hard to figure. It's fine, you can't expect everyone to be on top of their game all the time, but you still have to help the team win when you're not...and when Justin isn't he isn't doing anything else. He's not a good defensive outfielder, and he's unwilling to sacrafice numbers for trying to punch the ball in those instances and get an important runner in scoring position. It was baffling when he was cold how many times a pitcher would throw a meatball fastball down the middle of the plate and he would swing and wiff time after time when he isn't going good.
 
If it weren't for Justin's torrid August and April in 2013 we don't win the division. He carried us when we started 14-1 or whatever it was that year.
 
Millwood1Hitter said:
Yep, and they killed us when he was here as well. All hitters in some form or another have spells when they are on fire and not so much, but Justin goes through such extremes one way or another for such prolonged periods of time, it is bizarre and hard to figure. It's fine, you can't expect everyone to be on top of their game all the time, but you still have to help the team win when you're not...and when Justin isn't he isn't doing anything else. He's not a good defensive outfielder, and he's unwilling to sacrafice numbers for trying to punch the ball in those instances and get an important runner in scoring position. It was baffling when he was cold how many times a pitcher would throw a meatball fastball down the middle of the plate and he would swing and wiff time after time when he isn't going good.
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I call his cold streaks remarkably unproductive. It is remarkable how terrible he is, and how completely poor his ABs are when he's cold. Again: it's one thing to be cold or have things not go your way. It's another to become one of the worst hitters in the league for months at a time.
 
The Don said:
If it weren't for Justin's torrid August and April in 2013 we don't win the division. He carried us when we started 14-1 or whatever it was that year.
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and if it weren't for his downright awful two months this year, maybe the Padres are above .500.
 
Millwood1Hitter said:
Yep, and they killed us when he was here as well. All hitters in some form or another have spells when they are on fire and not so much, but Justin goes through such extremes one way or another for such prolonged periods of time, it is bizarre and hard to figure. It's fine, you can't expect everyone to be on top of their game all the time, but you still have to help the team win when you're not...and when Justin isn't he isn't doing anything else. He's not a good defensive outfielder, and he's unwilling to sacrafice numbers for trying to punch the ball in those instances and get an important runner in scoring position. It was baffling when he was cold how many times a pitcher would throw a meatball fastball down the middle of the plate and he would swing and wiff time after time when he isn't going good.
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OTOH, he's one of the few hitters that can carry a team for a full month on his own.
 
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