August 5, 200719 yr A catcher with a career .850 OPS against LHP and one hell of an arm. That's not worthless. He's better than 99% of the backup catchers in the league. He'd be one of the top backup catchers in the league, but as a starter his faults shine too strongly.
August 5, 200719 yr A catcher with a career .850 OPS against LHP and one hell of an arm. That's not worthless. He's better than 99% of the backup catchers in the league. He'd be one of the top backup catchers in the league, but as a starter his faults shine too strongly. exactly
August 5, 200719 yr A catcher with a career .850 OPS against LHP and one hell of an arm. That's not worthless. He's better than 99% of the backup catchers in the league. He'd be one of the top backup catchers in the league, but as a starter his faults shine too strongly. Omg he sucks he can't do anything right you can make statistics show whatever you want Treanor is the next Johnny Bench
August 6, 200719 yr Olivo SUCKS offensively. In 2007, he's #25 among catchers in OPS (250+ plate appearances or more). In 2006, he was #15 among catchers in OPS (400+ plate appearances ore more) Meaning, he was only average offensively last year and is WELL below average this year. Plus, check out our pitchers' opposing BAs and ERAs when Olivo's catching... both Willis and Olsen have done FAR better with someone other than Olivo as a battery-mate. We need to ditch him like yesterday...
August 6, 200719 yr That's not a good job of utilizing stats and only looking skin deep. Probe farther. I was one of the bigger proponents of Treanor starting over Olivo but this is getting ridiculous.
August 6, 200719 yr Why isn't it a good job using stats? Olivo's got two full seasons under his belt and his OPS isn't very good. Thus, he's not a good offensive catcher. As for handling pitchers, I don't have the stats available to me, but DVH talked today about Olsen's splits with and without Olivo catching. A couple of days ago, I read about Willis' splits with and without Olivo catching. Certainly appears that Olivo can't call a game with those two. Not saying Treanor's anything more than a journeyman, but Olivo is not worth what he's being paid, that's for sure.
August 6, 200719 yr Catchers must be able to catch....Olivo is having trouble doing that. Treanor's ERA as catcher is more than 1/2 a run less than Olivo. Olivo has a great arm and has had quite a few clutch hits but he is not our catcher moving forward. We need a solid backstop and a guy that puts the bat on the ball.
August 6, 200719 yr I bet when that f***en elf Sampson tells Loria that he can save .10 cents.....its a done deal.
August 6, 200719 yr especially since the marlins signed former met and blue jay jason phillips to a minor league deal. why not put olivo on waivers, hope someone bites, then call up jp for the rest of the year. unfortunately, no one will likely bite.
August 6, 200719 yr That's not a good job of utilizing stats and only looking skin deep. Probe farther. I was one of the bigger proponents of Treanor starting over Olivo but this is getting ridiculous. No. DcFishFan's use of statistics are far more sound. Instead of using his stats vs. LHP (a fraction of his total ABs) as you are, he is looking at the big picture. Yes, if you do indeed look for random anomalies in the stats you can prove that Matt Treanor (or Miguel Olivo for that matter) is Johnny Bench. With proper statistical analysis and even the most untrained eye, it is not difficult to come to the conclusion that he is a terrible offensive player. Saying he hits lefties well isn't manipulating the facts. It is a fact.
August 6, 200719 yr A catcher with a career .850 OPS against LHP and one hell of an arm. That's not worthless. He's better than 99% of the backup catchers in the league. He'd be one of the top backup catchers in the league, but as a starter his faults shine too strongly. Probably, but most of his playing time has come in steady playing time. He's had a hard time enough getting the bat (and glove) on the ball with consistency, let alone only once or twice a week.
August 6, 200719 yr Lord knows why this guy was given the amount of money he was in the offseason. He was coming off a year where he had a .727 OPS, plus has a lot of physical talents (One of if not the fastest catchers, one of the strongest arms in the league). Should have taken him to arbitration, but catchers who put up a year like he did in '06 get more money then he made this year. Bingo! I think if we took it to arby he my have gotten more. But both sides were happy with the numbers and he deserved them with his work in '06. He's not having a great year now but...
August 6, 200719 yr A catcher with a career .850 OPS against LHP and one hell of an arm. That's not worthless. He's better than 99% of the backup catchers in the league. He'd be one of the top backup catchers in the league, but as a starter his faults shine too strongly. exactly I had read a couple weeks ago he was going to a little bigger glove. Seems to have worked for him. Much better behind the plate. I don't mind if a catcher blocks/drops balls as long as he keeps them in front of him. Don't know why some are. But whatever. The guy is a bull behind the plate. He has made some very nice grabs lately on errant throws to home. A bit of a free swinger, but so is most of the team. I wouldn't be surprised to see him back here next year. I haven't seen much of Baker, but what I have seen makes me wonder what some of you see in him. Not real impressed.
August 6, 200719 yr That's not a good job of utilizing stats and only looking skin deep. Probe farther. I was one of the bigger proponents of Treanor starting over Olivo but this is getting ridiculous. No. DcFishFan's use of statistics are far more sound. Instead of using his stats vs. LHP (a fraction of his total ABs) as you are, he is looking at the big picture. Yes, if you do indeed look for random anomalies in the stats you can prove that Matt Treanor (or Miguel Olivo for that matter) is Johnny Bench. With proper statistical analysis and even the most untrained eye, it is not difficult to come to the conclusion that he is a terrible offensive player. I NEVER said he was a good offensively player, I was never agueing if he was a good or bad offensively player. Infact the I've spent a couple of months complaining about how bad he is against RHP. He's one of the worst against RHP, I've stated this over and over again. I've yelled for months about this. He should NOT be starting, because, as I stated, his weaknesses get exploited (a.k.a. his deffense and his hitting v.s. RHP). But you can't ignore the whole package. With how he hits LHP and how strong his arm is, he makes a VERY VERY VERY valueable backup catcher. Do you understand how bad most backup catchers are? Meanwhile you have Olivo busting LHP, one of the best in the league, and although he's deffense is suffering, it won't be that exploited if he's not playing everyday and has a cannon aswell. Give your starting catcher a day off everytime your team faces a LHP SP, and start Olivo instead. Wow, he actually has VALUE like that. Your starting catcher gets rest but you still get .850+ OPS out of that position offensively. If you can't see how valuable that is... Quoting his total OPS and saying he's worthless is, well, worthless. Sorry.
August 6, 200719 yr Saying he hits lefties well isn't manipulating the facts. It is a fact. A fact that should probably be overlooked under these circumstances. In a sense it is still a half truth, since it only paints about 20 percent of the picture. It'd be the same as arguing Miguel Olivo is a valuable trade commodity because he is hitting .280 when it's close and late. I mean, why not? He only has 15 ABs less in those situations than he does against LHP. I've told you this before: statistics hold truth, but when you ignore the obvious and sampling size, they become blatant lies.I don't think you can necessarily lump lefty/righty splits with situational splits like close and late. I think differences in a hitter's performance vs. left and right-handed pitchers are more likely to be real because there is actually something different about facing a left-handed pitcher as opposed to being in a close and late situation, which is really just an arbitrary distinction. When facing a lefty, the break on curves and sliders are inverted and a hitter who chases alot of pitchers (and the stats say Olivo is one of the worst bad-pitch chasers in the league) ought to see the ball and presumably hit better when pitches are breaking inside on him (LHP) instead of out and away (RHP). Unfortunately, I can't find any better statistic than batting average splits to highlight this difference, but since Olivo is hardly an on-base machine I hope it'll do to make a point. Avg. / vs. RHP / vs. LHP Fastballs: .253 / .260 / .234 Curves: .123 / .097 / .273 Sliders: .222 / .189 / .366 Change Ups: .318 / .270 / .343 Other: .100 / .100 / -- Source: ESPN's Scouting tab on Miguel Olivo (Insider Only) These stats are comprised of Olivo's entire career, so the sample size is larger than a single season difference. If you put any creedence into these splits at all, you can find some justification for Nny's point. Against fastballs, he's statistically even while he's absolutely abysmal against curves and sliders from RHP. Now, I'm aware of some of the problems with these stats. Fastballs are the more common pitch. Therefore, more pitches = more regression to the mean, less impact of outliers. However, I don't think that you can necessarily overlook this difference either solely based on that fact because there's an undeniable difference between hitting a fastball and hitting a curve. Also, if you do some statistical analysis on Olivo LHP/RHP OBP splits this season, you find that the difference in splits are statistically significant at about a 95% confidence level. (Which means, there's about a 95% probability that something is actually different and a 5% chance that it's random variation)
August 6, 200719 yr That's not a good job of utilizing stats and only looking skin deep. Probe farther. I was one of the bigger proponents of Treanor starting over Olivo but this is getting ridiculous. No. DcFishFan's use of statistics are far more sound. Instead of using his stats vs. LHP (a fraction of his total ABs) as you are, he is looking at the big picture. Yes, if you do indeed look for random anomalies in the stats you can prove that Matt Treanor (or Miguel Olivo for that matter) is Johnny Bench. With proper statistical analysis and even the most untrained eye, it is not difficult to come to the conclusion that he is a terrible offensive player. Saying he hits lefties well isn't manipulating the facts. It is a fact. A fact that should probably be overlooked under these circumstances. In a sense it is still a half truth, since it only paints about 20 percent of the picture. It'd be the same as arguing Miguel Olivo is a valuable trade commodity because he is hitting .280 when it's close and late. I mean, why not? He only has 15 ABs less in those situations than he does against LHP. I've told you this before: statistics hold truth, but when you ignore the obvious and sampling size, they become blatant lies. He's hit lefties well every year. I'm not arguing he is a great player becaue he hits lefties well. I'm arguing that he hits lefties well.
August 6, 200719 yr Either way you look at it, we need a new catcher. Treanor will always be a backup and I cry when Olivo is up to bat with runners on.
August 6, 200719 yr He might have a little bit of value if he were to start against LHP, but as rferry states, there is no telling how he would perform with no consistent ABs. I'm not going to bother with the rest because it doesn't matter what I say, it's a matter of opinion and we both already have ours, so I'm not going to waste my time since I know neither will change. However. 2002- 8 PA, .821 OPS, 21 total PA 2003- 91 PA, .862 OPS, 346 total PA, 59% of teams ABs at C 2004- 96 PA, .877 OPS, 325 total PA, 58% with CHW (152 PA), 52% with SEA (173) 2005- 77 PA, .894 OPS, 281 total PA, 43% with SEA (157 PA), 46% with SD (124) If Olivo played only against LHP, I'd believe he'd make around ~30% of the team's PAs. So, I think that's fine, yeah. From 2003-2005 he was basically in platoon situations with other players, didn't get consistent playing time.
August 6, 200719 yr To those saying he would of got more $$ if we had taken him to arbitration, I disagree. In fact, I think he would of got far less.
August 7, 200719 yr He might have a little bit of value if he were to start against LHP, but as rferry states, there is no telling how he would perform with no consistent ABs. I'm not going to bother with the rest because it doesn't matter what I say, it's a matter of opinion and we both already have ours, so I'm not going to waste my time since I know neither will change. However. 2002- 8 PA, .821 OPS, 21 total PA 2003- 91 PA, .862 OPS, 346 total PA, 59% of teams ABs at C 2004- 96 PA, .877 OPS, 325 total PA, 58% with CHW (152 PA), 52% with SEA (173) 2005- 77 PA, .894 OPS, 281 total PA, 43% with SEA (157 PA), 46% with SD (124) If Olivo played only against LHP, I'd believe he'd make around ~30% of the team's PAs. So, I think that's fine, yeah. From 2003-2005 he was basically in platoon situations with other players, didn't get consistent playing time. For a catcher, 60% or above is not a platoon role, but a starting role. A closer examination of his splits and game logs shows that in 2003-05, he wasn't platooned, but rather replaced (see his splits with Alomar, they had roughly similar opportunities against southpaws.). He possesses exciting skills and was granted playing time, only to lose it with poor performance. The Marlins just happened to be another sucker. I grant you that the Marlins should try to salvage something out of their investment. MAYBE he'd make a great platoon player, but it's far from certain. Although with Treanor, part of the organization and its pitching philosophies for years, able to hit lefties adequately, why bother? It's a spot at the bottom of the lineup and a few defensive opportunities in 25-35% of your games. It's hardly worth $2M per year. It's hardly worth intense consideration.
August 7, 200719 yr My argument at the time was that it really wouldn't hurt to have the arbitrators decide how much money he would receive. Instead of senselessly throwing cash at him, the Marlins could have been placed in a favorable situation where they could have saved money or would not have lost anything if ruled against their favor. It angers me that the Marlins threw away money at poor talent like Olivo and Julio and rewarded BK's good performance by shipping him off to save money. Like I said before, don't feel bad for Kim. He's with his old club and in a pennant race. And while we didn't receive any one back, we saved some money, opened up some innings for developing players and showed the franchise treats players right (which, believe it or not, includes doing things besides simply paying them)
August 7, 200719 yr My argument at the time was that it really wouldn't hurt to have the arbitrators decide how much money he would receive. Instead of senselessly throwing cash at him, the Marlins could have been placed in a favorable situation where they could have saved money or would not have lost anything if ruled against their favor. It angers me that the Marlins threw away money at poor talent like Olivo and Julio and rewarded BK's good performance by shipping him off to save money. Like I said before, don't feel bad for Kim. He's with his old club and in a pennant race. And while we didn't receive any one back, we saved some money, opened up some innings for developing players and showed the franchise treats players right (which, believe it or not, includes doing things besides simply paying them) There seems to be the conclusion that the "secret" deal allowed Arizona to pick up Kim. What if Tampa Bay claimed Kim? Would we have pulled him off waivers to treat him right or still let him go and what would that have showed about our franchise. I just do not see management being all that warm and fuzzy regarding doing Kim a big favor.
August 7, 200719 yr My argument at the time was that it really wouldn't hurt to have the arbitrators decide how much money he would receive. Instead of senselessly throwing cash at him, the Marlins could have been placed in a favorable situation where they could have saved money or would not have lost anything if ruled against their favor. It angers me that the Marlins threw away money at poor talent like Olivo and Julio and rewarded BK's good performance by shipping him off to save money. Like I said before, don't feel bad for Kim. He's with his old club and in a pennant race. And while we didn't receive any one back, we saved some money, opened up some innings for developing players and showed the franchise treats players right (which, believe it or not, includes doing things besides simply paying them) Aren't you the same person who says that it's about the team not the players? For shame. Who gives a crap about aiding a transition player. It has to be of unquestioned benefit to the team.
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