GovClintonTyree
<B>Vencer a Los Doyers</B>
Yes, and the big problem with THAT is that's exactly how people use it and exactly what it's meant to illustrate. And it does a poor job of it.
So who plays RF?
- Thread starter NinersSBChamps
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Yes, and the big problem with THAT is that's exactly how people use it and exactly what it's meant to illustrate. And it does a poor job of it.
zitothebrave
Connoisseur of Minors
But that is what WAR is telling us. You may not agree with the conclusions, you're allowed to not agree with them but that's exactly what it's saying, player X is better than player Y. Otherwise what's the purpose of having adjusted statistics?
zitothebrave
Connoisseur of Minors
Defensive side isn't that flawed. It uses the same basic components as the offensive side with a few disqualifiers involved with it. Sure they're not perfect, but they're much better than any other way of comparing a player's total contributions to the game.
50PoundHead
Hessmania Forever
Do you mean Reed "One Walk in 2014" Johnson? I really laugh at some of your suggestions. Please don't take it personally, but you're the "WAR" guy who wants to consider defense and Reed Johnson is a career negative defensive WAR. He'll be 38 in two weeks. Stick a fork in him.
I'm sure we'll put three guys in the OF come 2015.
My primary beef is that they moved Heyward before J. Upton. I didn't necessarily want them to move Heyward, but if they were going to do it, they should have waited.
If we have any of our AAA guys in the OF next season (Terdoslavich or Cunningham), we'll be in big trouble (if we aren't already).
WAR is TRYING to tell us that.
zitothebrave
Connoisseur of Minors
50 we're gonna be in big trouble anyway. We're going to trade 2 of our 3 best players before the offeseason is done and if the FO is to be believed with Gattis, 3 of our 5 best players. And we have no one behind them and no one who can replace them at their level at their cost We're not gonna find 11.3 fWAR for about 40 million. If we wanted to compete we wouldn't have traded Jason and wouldn't be shopping Justin around. Might as well see what you've got in Cunningham and Terds maybe they could surprise a few people and be repectable major leaguers? Or they'll suck. Eitherway while we're going nowhere might as well find out if they suck or not. It's not like we have a stud OF prospect in AA.
I am a WAR guy, but Reed is a nice backup. He sucked last year, but his walk rate was outlandish and his BABIP was well below his career norms. Maybe it's a downward spiral but maybe it's a blip. I'd gamble and he can hit lefties. As far as his defense goes, he never really played enough to have a healthy sample. So his defensive numbers are skewed. He can play LF well and is almost certainly below average in CF and RF. Remember, backups are backups for a reaosn, they have a critical flaw, If Reed could be a plus defender in CF or even average he would have played a lot more and made a lot more money.
I am a WAR guy, but Reed is a nice backup. He sucked last year, but his walk rate was outlandish and his BABIP was well below his career norms. Maybe it's a downward spiral but maybe it's a blip. I'd gamble and he can hit lefties. As far as his defense goes, he never really played enough to have a healthy sample. So his defensive numbers are skewed. He can play LF well and is almost certainly below average in CF and RF. Remember, backups are backups for a reaosn, they have a critical flaw, If Reed could be a plus defender in CF or even average he would have played a lot more and made a lot more money.
zitothebrave
Connoisseur of Minors
No that's what it is telling us. You may not agree with the input data, but that's what it's telling you. For example, if a player checks his swing but an umpire rings him up, you dont agree with the strikeout but that's what happened. WAR takes specific stats, normalizes them, then gives you data you can directly compare. It's built to tell you player X is better than player Y. Again you can disagree on the inputs and call it BS cause of it, but the stat's purpose is to compare players vs. a common standard which tells you player X>Player Y
Except that is nowhere near close to a comparison. A strikeout is definitive, regardless if you agree with it or not. It is an official result of an at bat. WAR is certainly not definitive nor official. It's a stat with a flawed formula made up in a cubicle somewhere, and stat heads blindly follow it.
Whether you care to admit it or not, defensive stats are flawed and are not highly accurate. Defensive positioning, recorder bias, and the performance of the rest of the league at your position, could all have very significant affects on defensive stats. And we have actually seen this to be true in several cases, where a traditionally good defensive player receives poor ratings due to one or more of these factors. And it can be enough to affect WAR by up to 1.0 or more (as in the case of Alcides Escobar in 2012).
It's entirely possible that guys like Heyward and Gordon didn't have any better of season defensively than yrs past. It could just be that most RF's and LFers sucked at defense so bad this yr that it drove their defensive numbers up.
zitothebrave
Connoisseur of Minors
Strikeout isn't definitive it's subjective at it's core. It's a definitive result, but so is a run saved in UZR. Granted there's more leg work done in the latter but it's something that has a calculable value based on results. And I don't think any "stat heads" blindly follow WAR. We use WAR because it's the best tool we have. If you have a pickaxe to break up pavement, are you gonna cry because something not yet invented (jackhammer) doesn't exist and keep using your hand and a rock, or are you gonna use the pickaxe? WAR is the best stat we have for player comparison. You can disagree with it but you choosing not to use it is your choice. You act like no one knows what goes into WAR but we do. Do you know all the data points? No you trust the stats a bit, just like you trust an official scorer to knwo when to score a hit or an error, or the umpire to know a ball from a strike, or when a runner steps on a base before the ball gets there or not.
There are issues with defensive stats. WE will at some day know more and have more accurate defensive stats. That being said, it's far and away the best method we have for evaluating defensive plays. Positioning plays a part, bias can play a part, but at some point, all of that will be wiped out. We will know how far a player had to travel to make a play on a ball that was travelling at a certain speed and flight trajectory. But what you're bitching about is noise, not a root cause. And players have better or worse seasons. It happens. Escobar in 2012 was not as good as he was in 2011 or 2013, he was also not as good in 2014 as those years. Players have up and down years with the glove, unless you're Andruw Jones. We saw it with Simmons this year. While last year he was a vacuum who made all the plays. This year he booted several balls or had balls slip under his glove that he made plays on last year. It happens. It's baseball. Defense is not as forgiving as offense. You strike out in one AB that's bad, if you boot a routine grounder, that's worse. SS of all positions is where defensive metrics are pretty much the most accurate as they make more plays on the ball than anyone else. Again there are some issues with any defensive metric, and the thing that statisticians do is consider all stats when evaluating a baseball player.
I'd really be interested in your evidence that defensive stats are not highly accurate. I'd love to see the extensive studies that you or a reputable peer has done. Other than OMG look at fluke seasons! Cause guess what, fluke seasons happen, with hitters and defenders. THere are things that don't calculate into stats that are noise. For example, Michael Bourn was much better with Jason Heyward and Martin Prado next to him than he was at any other point in his career. Probably because he knew he had less OF to cover and could play more aggressively. There are non-calculable factors to defensive metrics that are factored in, but that doesn't meant they're not telling a true story. There's factors to hits and walks and strikeouts that aren't calculable, but we still accept them for what they are.
Heyward indisputably recorded more outs than in any other season of his career. He had 365 putouts and 9 assists, recorded as fact results that even you wouldn't admit didn't happen. his previous high was a similar valued defensive season when he has 331 put outs and 11 assists. His high from the seasons before that was 235 putouts and 5 assists. Players have better years sometiems than others. You also make it sound like Gordon and Heyward don't consistently put up excellent defensive seasons. Now I'll give you I'm not into buying Gordon as a I am Heyward because I think LF is one of those positions where thereare some truly pathetic defenders and Gordon benefits from that. According to RZR pound for pound Gordon was better last year than this year, more OOZ and higher RZR. He just had more balls to make plays on and likely his competition was much worse (don't care to look that up)
That being said, what Gordon did compared to his peers in LF is a fact. Whether you agree with it's valuation or not.
50PoundHead
Hessmania Forever
Johnson's walk rate has always sucked. His career rate is worse than Francoeur's. Let's bring him back. I've never understood the love affair with Reed Johnson in the least, especially from guys who place a heavy stress on OBP. I'm not singling you out. There were wails from a lot of unexpected corners when the Braves decided not to re-sign him after 2013. I was never a huge Kelly Johnson guy, but if we are bringing in an extra Johnson in 2015, it should be him and not Reed.
Let me re-phrase on the AAA guys. If Terdoslavich is a regular in 2015, it will be an embarrassment. I could see Cunningham as the 4th OF, but if he were in the team's plans, he would have been up in September. He wasn't and I don't think it was because of concerns over his arbitration clock. Almonte probably goes into the season with a prominent role unless things change.
GovClintonTyree
<B>Vencer a Los Doyers</B>
The value weighting for the defensive component compared to the offensive component is wrong. It needs to count for far less than it does now, and should be adjusted for different positions.
Don't just blithely tell me I'm wrong. You and your WAR buddies say all the time that it may be flawed but it's the best we've got. I'm telling you exactly what's wrong. Don't you want a better stat? The stat is a great idea...
nsacpi arbitrarily discounted Heyward's WAR the other day. While I didn't necessarily agree with the extent to which he did it, it was a step in the right direction. It addressed the Gerardo Parra effect, which you ignore.
zitothebrave
Connoisseur of Minors
But you don't have a reason for why it's that way. If Jason Heyward saves 2 doubles that most RFs don't and hits 2 doubles isn't the output the same? Now with fieldign stats there's other noise if you would, it's not a clean number of plays someone makes type of thing, it's plays vs other guys who've made the plays. Is it perfect? No. Is there a better way? No.
I do want a better stat, and they're working all the time on improving it, but what I won't do is not use the current stat. Imagine if you would, it's 1776. Would you not use a musket because eventually you'll have a better way of killing someone with a gun? Or would you use the best tool you have while asking for more?
As far as Parra effect which I assume you're talking about players with high defensive values not being paid at the same level as players with high offensive values, that's got to do with market trends. Offense is at a premium right now. in the pitcher inflated era it's even mroe extreme than normal. Come next ride around on the yo-yo maybe it isn't that way and defensive guys are valued because offense is more abundant then pitching.
zitothebrave
Connoisseur of Minors
I like Johnson for 2 reasons. He can play the corners and he can mash lefties. He's not a starter, I would kill someone if he was our starter. I'd ratherhave Jose Constanza batting leadoff. But as a part, he has value, he doesn't walk, and he Ks way too much for how little he walks, he doesn't have much power, he's servicable at his job, and that holds value.