Out of the Past

No. Let him hit 2nd. Hermida Hanley Cantu Baker Uggla Ross Maybin Pitcher Coghlan

Thank you. http://blog.nola.com/tpsports/2009/05/new_..._round_r_3.html The Zephyrs' Chris Coghlan, who drove home six runs Wednesday in a 7-3 victory, was in the lineup as the left fielder and will be heading to the majors Friday. Dan Jennings, the Marlins' vice president of player personnel/assistant general manager, said Coghlan will join the Marlins in Denver and will take the roster spot of pitcher Anibal Sanchez, who left Florida's game Thursday with a shoulder injury and will be shut down. "He's going to play some in the outfield and some at second base,'' Jennings said of Coghlan. "He's one of those kids who has always had the knack to get the barrel to the ball, from high school to Ole Miss all the way through the system.'' Entering play Thursday, Coghlan, 23, who is in his first Triple A season, was batting .348, the eighth best average in the PCL,with three homers and 22 RBIs. In his last 10 games, he was 20-for-36 (.556) with 16 RBIs, three homers and 12 runs scored. In the field, he played only second base and third base before Thursday. "It's everything I've worked for since I was a little kid,'' Coghlan said. "I'm excited for the opportunity. I'm looking forward to it.'' Said Jennings: "It's his just due. The kid has hit his way all the way to the major leagues.''

Starting pitching and hitting are the problems. Yes, 60% of the rotation has stunk but 50% of the lineup has stunk. I hope Maybin and Boni are not in the lineup tomorrow with Maybin in AA.

The starting pitching, for the most part, has been good enough. The starter's ERA is 13th in the NL and that's not good enough.

The question I posed had to do with living up to their potential. I think this is a make or break for Hermida. I think he's been playing well I just think Borchard was such a talent that Hermida is and never made it. At times I start to worry about Hermida. He needs to adjust to start hitting those changeups. He's not a Borchard but he's not a Giles or Drew either like some around here think. He could be a Damon as far as BA, OBP and SLG but Jeremy Ks a lot more and Damon is a good base runner while Jeremy is horrible on the bases.

Don't like it just because we'd have no LOOGY in the pen. How bout Badenhop given a start? Then we have an all-righty rotation Who cares if we have an all righty rotation. Someone's gotta replace Taylor. Thompson, maybe? Fredi would care. He shouldn't but he would.

Is "Zone %" the % of pitches that are in the strike zone? If yes, Maybin has the highest % of strikes on the team among starters so the theory that he has stuggled because he's hitting 8th and getting nothing to hit wouldn't fly.

Contact rate: % of balls swung out: % of balls outside of strike zone swung at: Where does one find that stuff?

Just because someone Ks a lot doesn't mean he's a free swinger.

I was hoping: Hermida Baker Hanley Cantu

Sadly I never followed baseball until 2006 which isn't suprising considering how much of a minority sport it is here. I was in country during the '97 WS. Game 7 was incredibly stressful because I had an early morning flight and one more inning and I probably would have had to stop watching.

How, exactly, does one "teach" situational hitting? The Twins are known for this. They take BP before every game with a coach standing behind the cage giving the hitter the situation and the hitter will try to hit the ball in the necessary spot. Example, the coach will say 'runner on 2nd, nobody out, bottom of the ninth, tied game'. The hitter's objective is to hit the ball on the ground to the right side so the runner can be advanced to third. baseball-reference has this productive outs stat. Last year the Twins had productive outs 38% of the productive outs opportunities compared to 26% for us. This year it's them 34%, us 33%.

To just go by some OBP x whatever plus SLG because everyone says so although there's better ways of analyzing things is not particularly smart. Reminds me of the old timers that live and die by BA, HRs and RBIs. I agree. It's why I barely use OPS, which is just OBP*1 + SLG. Talk about flawed. OBP * SLG works better.. without any multipliers for either.. try it sometime.

Typically though, and I don't like to get too much into such things, but I'd bet that the guy with the higher OBP typically has a higher P/PA, a very subtle value that I'd prefer. So, if they're equal, I'd take the dood that sees more pitches. You're completely missing his point. And runs created isn't a "en vouge" thing. I'm not missing his point, Mike Jacobs wasn't super terrible like everyone likes to think, surprise surprise he was an average player. OBP isn't the end-all-be-all of all statistics, that's fine and dandy, but when push comes to shove, the OBP guy is the underrated guy vs a Mike Jacobs and his uber-slugging, which was originally MY point. You're confused. On this board the OBP guy is overrated and the SLG guy in underrated. The Mike Jacobs trashing is a good example. I thought you were one of the worst abusers of the importance of OBP with Jacobs but I wasn't sure. I don't think one should be an OBP guy or a SLG guy. I think one should be a runs created guy (not in the RS + RBI sense). To just go by some OBP x whatever plus SLG because everyone says so although there's better ways of analyzing things is not particularly smart. Reminds me of the old timers that live and die by BA, HRs and RBIs.

Typically though, and I don't like to get too much into such things, but I'd bet that the guy with the higher OBP typically has a higher P/PA, a very subtle value that I'd prefer. So, if they're equal, I'd take the dood that sees more pitches. Typically you like to get into that "one point of OBP is worth 2 or 3 or 4 or whatever points of SLG" thing and that's what this is about. It's about it because of how OBP touts misuse it. I'm curious, about how many times have you bashed Mike Jacob's 2008 season because of his OBP?

I agree it measures what it says it measures so there's no flaw in that. I guess the flaw is on how the OBP touts misuse all the time but that's not OBP's fault. One example. You have two guys with the following stats: PAs - 519 / 519 ABs - 482 / 437 BBs - 37 / 87 1B - 57 /57 2B - 27 / 27 3B - 2 / 2 HR - 32 / 15 Outs - 364 / 329 Basically everything is the same except Guy 1 had 50 more walks, 15 fewer homers and 35 fewer outs than Guy 2. Guy 1 had a .366 OBP and a .428 SLG. Guy 2 had a .299 OBP and a .508 SLG. Who had the better year? The OBP touts like you will say that Guy 1 had hands down the better year and that Guy 2 was a loser because of his low OBP. Well, Guy 2 created 1.5 more runs than guy 1 using the values from the "Extrapolated Runs" formula which is supposed to be the best run estimator. That's subject to opinion and you know it. "Extrapolated Runs" is only as "valuable" as someone who lauds it would want it to be. One could also equally argue that wOPS would probably say player 1 had a better season. I'm a wOPS guy. http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/...for-the-masses/ In that article they compared various run estimators and Extrapolated Runs was the best... Weighted OPS came in 5th and was virtually the same as the very simple RC (OBP * SLG). I'll use the best estimator. I guess you can use whatever you want.

You said that OBP is flawed because it doesn't weigh XBH (or hits in general) but that's not what it measures, how is it flawed if you're expecting it to measure something it's not designed to. I agree it measures what it says it measures so there's no flaw in that. I guess the flaw is on how the OBP touts misuse all the time but that's not OBP's fault. One example. You have two guys with the following stats: PAs - 519 / 519 ABs - 482 / 437 BBs - 37 / 87 1B - 57 /57 2B - 27 / 27 3B - 2 / 2 HR - 32 / 15 Outs - 364 / 329 Basically everything is the same except Guy 1 had 50 more walks, 15 fewer homers and 35 fewer outs than Guy 2. Guy 1 had a .366 OBP and a .428 SLG. Guy 2 had a .299 OBP and a .508 SLG. Who had the better year? The OBP touts like you will say that Guy 1 had hands down the better year and that Guy 2 was a loser because of his low OBP. Well, Guy 2 created 1.5 more runs than guy 1 using the values from the "Extrapolated Runs" formula which is supposed to be the best run estimator.

OBP measures exactly what the name implies (a rarity these days) but just because it measures what the name says it measures it doesn't mean it doesn't have flaws. Using your logic then ERA and BA are flawless stats because they measure what the name implies.

just to echo Lou's "unlucky" point, check out baseball prospectus article today. It's fantasy-league related but regarding underperforming pitchers that fantasy owners should look into: Ricky Nolasco may be the unluckiest pitcher out there this season. Unlike Baker or Blanton, Nolasco's home-run rate is normal, meaning that his ERA is even more of a small-sample aberration. The Marlins defense has not done him any favors, as he owns a .381 BABIP, and has stranded just 55 percent of baserunners (the league average this year is closer to 71 percent). That's strange since Florida's defense has been around the average this year; they rank 18th in the majors in Defensive Efficiency, though 11th in the NL. Those of you who were already getting fed up with his inability to deliver on last year's promise should not fret one bit, as more time will heal this rift between his QERA and ERA. (QERA adjusts ERA by taking into account K rate, BB rate, and groundball rate since those tend to stabilize pretty quickly in a season, as opposed to ERA which can still fluctuate wildly early on.) It looks like the guy who wrote the article has no idea that Nolasco leads the league in line drives allowed or that line drives allowed end up as hits some 70%+ of the time or that the OPS allawed per line drive is almost 2.000.

See, you're missing the fact that walks are the single most underrated result a batter can pull, and I can't even figure out why, to this day, it still is. Why are walks underrated? What makes you say this? If anything I think walks are overrated because in the OBP calculation walks are valued the same as singles, doubles, triples and home runs but in reality walks are not nearly as valuable as these other things. So in the OBP calcualtion walks are overvalued. Where are they undervalued? For the posters with reading comprehension issues, note that I did not walks are a bad thing. Walks are a good thing. I'm just saying they're overrated. There's a differerence. So really...what you are saying is that .OBP is overrated? Also, a walk is just as valuable as a single. They both get you to the same base. I'm pretty sure that wasn't what you intended to write, just sayin'... I think OBP is useful but I think it has major flaws in it as mentioned earlier. I also think it's overrated and misused. But I can't blame the stat for others misusing it. There are several run estimators that assign values to each event and most of them value a single at about 0.50 run and a walk at about 0.32 run so yes I think a single is more valuable than a walk. If bases are empty I guess I would take either a walk or a single but with runners on I'll take the single because of the value in moving runners over or in.

who gives a crap ?? We're 15-11 and in 1st place. Frankly, our bad offensive numbers makes this 15-11 record look even more impressive. GO MARLINS ! I do because although we're scoring 4.8 runs per game so far this season (which is good) that number will undoubtedly come down by a lot if our OPS stays where it is. In simpler terms.. if we keep hitting like we're hitting we're screwed. That's not very likely though If the roster and lineup stays as it is now my prediction is our OPS would increase about .030 which would put us about 8th in OPS. Basically the same as the NL average. Not good enough. There should be improvements in 2B, SS and RF partailly offset by decreased production in Catcher and 1B. 3B likely would remain where it is now and CF would probably go up to the mid .600s because Maybin is enough of an athlete that he can't be this bad.

You've narrowed the problem down to two rookies, and the solution is to replace them with another one? Not that I disagree about calling up Gaby mind you, but I doubt he'll have immediate success either. Maybin and Bonifacio are basically rookies, early struggles are not unexpected. Just because two rookies have struggled doesn't mean a third would. Gaby has put up better numbers in the minors than Boni or Maybin. Last year he was Maybin's teammate and outhit him by a wide margin.

See, you're missing the fact that walks are the single most underrated result a batter can pull, and I can't even figure out why, to this day, it still is. Why are walks underrated? What makes you say this? If anything I think walks are overrated because in the OBP calculation walks are valued the same as singles, doubles, triples and home runs but in reality walks are not nearly as valuable as these other things. So in the OBP calcualtion walks are overvalued. Where are they undervalued? For the posters with reading comprehension issues, note that I did not walks are a bad thing. Walks are a good thing. I'm just saying they're overrated. There's a differerence.

who gives a crap ?? We're 15-11 and in 1st place. Frankly, our bad offensive numbers makes this 15-11 record look even more impressive. GO MARLINS ! I do because although we're scoring 4.8 runs per game so far this season (which is good) that number will undoubtedly come down by a lot if our OPS stays where it is. In simpler terms.. if we keep hitting like we're hitting we're screwed.

CF isn't a downgrade. Marlins 2008 CF OPS - .750 Marlins 2009 CF OPS - .547