Out of the Past

Joe Carter's career makes me angry... You should check out Terry Pendleton's career line. It's magical. His MVP is the worst over the last 80 years. Pedroia was probably even worse. Pedroia fell ass backwards into it because nobody stepped up around the league for a fullseason. Bonds was clearly a more valuable player the year pendleton won. Not even close. You may be right and Pendleton was more undeserving than Pedroia but Pendeleton had a better year in '91 than Pedroia had in '08. For Pedroia to win the MVP with an OPS+ of 122 (23rd in the AL) is ridiculous.

Joe Carter's career makes me angry... You should check out Terry Pendleton's career line. It's magical. His MVP is the worst over the last 80 years. Pedroia was probably even worse.

But you're also kidding yourself if you think BABIP always matched what expected BABIP is. That is where "lucky" and "unlucky" comes in. It wont match but it should be looked at. The problem I have with the "luck" explanation is when someone automatically explains variances in babip or in other similar stats by saying it's "luck" related without looking at other relevant factors.

As a unit, our offense is 12th in the Majors with 122 runs scored which is pretty good considering we are 27th in BA (.243), 18th in HR (25), 22nd in 2B (38), 23rd in OBP (.325), 26th in SLG (.388) and 24th in OPS (.714). Somehow we are still scoring runs and have 14 wins, although not too many wins of late. We're 12th in the NL is OPS and the correlation between OPS and runs scored is so strong that if we stay 12th in OPS by the end of the year you can be very certain we'll be between 10th and 14th in runs scored and that wont get it done.

It's not a dumb question to ask you because in the past you've routinely equated babip solely with luck. It's good to see you've moved forward from that dumb position. BABip from the pitcher's perspective is highly influential of luck, the pitcher doesn't have control of the defense or the batter's swing... the batter does have control of his swing and ultimately determines the fate of the ball. The better hitters hit more line drives... line drives are harder to catch/field than GB/FB so... better hitters typically have better BABips Babip, from a pitcher's perspective, is largely dependent on the percentages of line drives he allows compared to ground balls and flyballs. Line drives have an extremely high babip while ground balls have a very low babip and flyballs have an even lower babip. I think a pitcher has control over the trajectory of the batted balls he allows so I think a pitcher has control over the babip he allows. A guy that allows a ton of line drives will have a very high babip.

Yes, it's still early (not that early though) but so far this season we're OPSing .714 with an OPS+ of 86. The OPS+ of 86 is tied for 2nd worst in franchise history with 1998. The worst was 1993 when the OPS+ was 74. So far we've gotten better than MLB average production out of C, 1B and SS. We're a bit behind in LF and 2B but I wouldn't worry abou them. Hermida should be able to stay close to the average and Uggla should eventually blow past the average based on his history. Cody is a bit of a concern but he has put up good numbers in the past so I wouldn't worry too much about it at this point. Maybe a couple of weeks from now if he's still struggling then worry. The problems are 3B and CF. I think Boni has basically done what was excpected of him. Maybin hardly ever hits the ball hard and looks overmatched. Something needs to change. I don't think Maybin is going anywhere so I think they need to do something with 3B. It's unfair to bench a guy for doing what was expected of him but this is the case with Boni. The options on the bench (Fredo, Helms and Gload) are not particulalry appealing if you're looking for more offense. They need to call-up Gabby Sanchez. 2009 OPS by Position Marlins / MLB Average / Difference ===================== C - .896 / .738 / +.158 1B - .975 / .850 / +.125 2B - .719 / .767 / -.048 SS - .793 / .681 / +.112 3B - .583 / .768 / -.185 LF - .791 / .808 / -.017 CF - .548 / .772 / -.224 RF - .635 / .785 / -.150

I just went to all 4 Wrigley games (my 1st time). Great weather and atmosphere- right there with Boston and Fenway. Anyway, I was surprised to see a few Marlins fans. My cousin and 3 friends were there yesterday in Marlins gear.

Joe Carter's career makes me angry... What do you think about his low babip (.265)? If his babip was about league average (.290 - .300, I think?) would his career make you less angry? Why would it? Without look at his numbers, if his babip was that low over his career, it can't really be said to be anything other than a lack of skill. He didn't hit the ball squarely enough. Babip is useful because it can help you see why players might inexplicably slump or get hot over small runs, but it tends to equalize. Given his skillset, his equalized level is lower than most, probably because he hit a lot of fly balls and not a lot of line drives, if I had to guess. But what's the point of that post? Because I bring up babip every once in a while? This is a dumb post. Joe carter's career makes me mad because h epitomizes what is wrong with traditionaly baseball analysis. It's not a dumb question to ask you because in the past you've routinely equated babip solely with luck. It's good to see you've moved forward from that dumb position.

I said all that in my last paragraph, but I was specifically responding to your notion that RBI are more important than 'younger' fans think. Maybe, but I'll take obp and slug over r and RBI if I only get two stats. Why? Because one pair is team dependent and isn't a true or complete picture of a player's skill. We agree on that.

Joe Carter's career makes me angry... What do you think about his low babip (.265)? If his babip was about league average (.290 - .300, I think?) would his career make you less angry?

They are nice to look at, but they don't tell you much about the season the player had if you don't look at them in context. Case in point, Joe Carter had two seasons where he had an OPS+ under 100 (below league average) and had 100 RBIs. He also had 7 seasons of 100 RBI and an OBP under .315. Those are not good years, despite the RBIs. The guy had a f***ing .681 OPS in 1997 with 100+ RBI because he batted 3rd or 4th 157 times that year. Are you going to argue that (taking two players from the same team, the 2004 expos) that Tony Batista (.241/.272/.455, 110 RBI) is a better hitter than Brad Wilkerson (.255/.374/.498, 67 RBI) or had a better year than him? RBI is almost (ALMOST) entirely related to opportunity. Guys that drive in 100 runs and score 100 runs generally have good seasons because they are getting on base and slugging a lot, two good things. But they also have really good hitters around them. Guys that drive in 100 runs and score 100 in the same season (Uggla's goal) are extremely likely to have a very good OPS+ and that's a good thing. Had Uggla said his goal was to have a very good OPS+ noone would complain and that's basically what he said in player's lingo. Carter and Batista didn't reach 100 runs scored in those seasons so they're not relevant to what Uggla said or to what I said in defense of what Uggla said. Runs scored are dependent on how often you get on base, how many homers you hit and how the guys hitting behind you hit. RBIs are dependent on how many homers you hit, how many guys you have on base and on how good you're at driving those guys in.

2 stats that should never be used to evaluate an individual player. I agree, but don't try to tell that to Uggla. When asked in early April (pre-game by Minervini or Forte, IIRC) what his goals were for this season, he said (and I paraphrase) "Score 100 runs and drive in 100 runs." See ball, hit ball. The thing with runs scored and RBIs is that they're not as important as the old timers think but they are far more important, particularly RBIs, than what the younger fans think. Going back to Uggla's goal, can you name players that had 100 RBIs and scored 100 runs in the same season (Uggla's goal) and had a bad season? For each guy you name I'll name 20 that did it and had good seasons.

If it gets to the point where Maybin needs to be sent down then I wouldn't mind Fredo at SS, Cody in CF and Hanley in either LF or RF with Hermida in the other. If they are going to change Hanley to another position, that is an offseason issue. A change in position is preferably an offseson issue but not necessarily as far as this FO is concerned. Think of Miguel in '03. And Hanley is a far better athlete than Miguel ever was. Wasn't Miggy brought up because our 3B at the time (and then won the GG) was injured, then moved to the OF to keep his bat in the lineup after Mikey came back? Can't see how that is even remotely comparable. But like I said before, I do agree with one point; if a move happens, it is an off season move. He was brought up to play left field for Todd Hollandsworth in May, then when Lowell went down in Sept. he played third till lowell came back and then was put back in the outfield but in right. http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/...b&year=2003 This is Miguel's '03 game log so SHU is correct. He played LF from the get go. The position switch was done in the middle of the season. Regarding OBP and SLG, the multiplier to use in ((OBP * x) + SLG) to get the best correlation with runs scored is 1.8 but this does not mean that OBP is 1.8 times more important than SLG.

Is he supposed to chase bad pitches to try for a hit instead of taking the walk? I don't think the reason he has so many walks (3rd in the NL) is because he's getting an inordinate number of bad pitches compared to other hitters. Walks are fine but I would gladly trade-off half his walks for a couple of homers, a single and a double even if his OBP goes down by a lot with trade-off. .250/.400/.400 >>>>>>>>>> .280/.350/.450 Not debatable. Run values: ========= Walk = .30 run Single = .46 run Double = .75 run Homer = 1.40 run 2 HRs + 1 Double + 1 Single = 4.0 runs Half his walks (10.5) = 3.2 runs We agree. This is not debatable.

Is he supposed to chase bad pitches to try for a hit instead of taking the walk? I don't think the reason he has so many walks (3rd in the NL) is because he's getting an inordinate number of bad pitches compared to other hitters. Walks are fine but I would gladly trade-off half his walks for a couple of homers, a single and a double even if his OBP goes down by a lot with trade-off.

If it gets to the point where Maybin needs to be sent down then I wouldn't mind Fredo at SS, Cody in CF and Hanley in either LF or RF with Hermida in the other. If they are going to change Hanley to another position, that is an offseason issue. A change in position is preferably an offseson issue but not necessarily as far as this FO is concerned. Think of Miguel in '03. And Hanley is a far better athlete than Miguel ever was.

If it gets to the point where Maybin needs to be sent down then I wouldn't mind Fredo at SS, Cody in CF and Hanley in either LF or RF with Hermida in the other.

how many arb years does he have remaining? He gets arbitration in 2010 is eligible for free agency in the 2011 season.

I saw "Mutts" in it I decided to pass as the cheap shot made me think the post was likely a bunch on nonsence Aw, c'mon. It's not like no one here has ever made fun of the sputtering 150 million dollar Mutts. I just hate how everything in So Fla has to revolve around NY. For example the previous 790 morning guy talked about his beloved NY teams all the time. Well the new morning 790 guy hates on the NY teams all the time. The new guy is just as annoying if not more! Regarding a prediction, My guess is we'll be about a .500 team the rest of the way and we're 6 games over .500 right now so I think we'll end up with about 84 wins. So far we're 12th in OPS but are 5th in runs scored. My guess is by the end of the seaosn we'll be between 6th and 8th in both so from here on out we'll score fewer runs per game than what we've scored so far. Production from the OF will improve but the RISP will decline. So far the rotation has a 4.36 ERA which is 9th in the NL. We have two starters pitching better than expected, one pitching as expected, one pitching worse than expected and Miller pitching like Miller when not "injured". My guess is the starters will improve a bit but not much and this is if they stay healthy. So run scoring will go down and run prevention will go down but not as much as the run scoring that's why I think we'll be about a .500 team the rest of the way.

I would rather have him as a Republican being pulled to the center by his GOP affiliation than as a Democrat being pulled to the far left by his Democrat affiliation.

Cantu hands down. His RISP numbers are amazing.

Wow. Many hours have elapsed and not one of the many (extremely and incredibly good) pickers of nits here has yet surfaced. Surely someone can tear my premise to shreds. I very quickly glanced through your post before deciding whether to read it and when I saw "Mutts" in it I decided to pass as the cheap shot made me think the post was likely a bunch on nonsence. Maybe it's not but the Mutts reference made me think it was.

To write about trade deadline deals in April is ridiculous. Stark probably just needed top fill space and threw this crap in there. He's the worst of the ESPN baseball writers.

He's not good at blocking balls but has dramatically reduced his number of stolen bases allowed. If his OPS drifts downwards a bit and the stolen bases allowed skyrocket then he would become a problem. Right now he's fine.

I don't think Boni is an x factor. From the position players Hermida is the biggest x factor. Boni will be bad for a 3B so it's just a matter of the degree of badness. If he's bad enough he'll be replaced soon enough and the damage will be limited and if he's "good" he'll still be bad. Hermida is an x factor because noone would be surprised if he OPSes anywhere from the low .700s to the high .800s... big gap there.