I have long thought that the word stupidity sounds, well, too smart, so that's why I came up with dumbnitude, which just sounds harsher.
Jayson Stark decided that he was going to start the conversation with his list of who's overrated and who's underrated. It's one thing to discuss the contents of these lists, but it's the methodology that really drives me nuts. Nonetheless, I'll at least post his top 10 overrated and underrated players, with my commentary on whether or not they belong on the list, and if they should be higher up or lower down. In a future post, I'll describe what I think a bit further.
OVERRATED
1) Barry Zito (maybe, but the most overrated?)
2) JD Drew (don't think so)
3) Andruw Jones (no, because I read this)
4) Juan Pierre (why doesn't he top the list?)
5) Bobby Abreu (no, wrong list, though he has had some odd struggles the last couple years)
6) Brian Giles (wrong list entirely)
7) Alfonso Soriano (he used to be the type to top the list, but now, I'm not sure he belongs on it)
8) Richie Sexson (no, don't think so)
9) Bob Wickman (yeah, he's a fat dude that gets saves. yippie)
10) Jeff Suppan (yeah, he just finds run support and defense)
UNDERRATED
1) Roy Oswalt (no, everyone knows he's good and that Houston's offense just sucks)
2) Trevor Hoffman (hell no, people overrate him now because of his past; I don't know how he still gets people out)
3) Hanley Ramirez (he won Rookie of the Year last year, try again)
4) Jake Peavy (yes, should be near the top if not at the top)
5) CC Sabathia (yes likely)
6) Carl Crawford (no, people know he's the best player on Tampa Bay)
7) Placido Polanco (wrong list actually)
8) Kevin Youkilis (yay, you got something right)
9) Joe Nathan (probably, probably in the right spot too)
10) Travis Hafner (definitely, in fact he tops the list. Why the hell hasn't he been an allstar yet?!)
So here's what I'll actually discuss:
1) Analyze what Stark says about Overrated Players
2) Analyze what Stark says about Underrated Players
3) Attempt to derive what analytical methods Stark uses
4) Create my own analytical methods
5) Create my own top 10 Overrated List
6) Create my own top 10 Underrated List
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
More Roster Fun
IN: INF Tony Abreu
OUT: P Hong-Chih Kuo
Also of note is that Tomko's next start will be skipped with the day off. This probably means that Billingsley gets a shot at the rotation, as it'll still be a few weeks before Schmidt returns. By that time, he can not only potentially take Tomko's spot, but also force Hendrickson out when the Dodgers $47 million pitcher returns. I really hope they put Billingsley in when he's in DC, because then I get to see him pitch!
But yeah, apparently LaRoche will be given platoon time with Gonzalez as well, and he and Abreu will compete for the 3rd base job, and effectively they'll compete with Ramon Martinez in a game of survivor. The burden of proof, of course, rests with LaRoche and Abreu, who still have minor league options.
OUT: P Hong-Chih Kuo
Also of note is that Tomko's next start will be skipped with the day off. This probably means that Billingsley gets a shot at the rotation, as it'll still be a few weeks before Schmidt returns. By that time, he can not only potentially take Tomko's spot, but also force Hendrickson out when the Dodgers $47 million pitcher returns. I really hope they put Billingsley in when he's in DC, because then I get to see him pitch!
But yeah, apparently LaRoche will be given platoon time with Gonzalez as well, and he and Abreu will compete for the 3rd base job, and effectively they'll compete with Ramon Martinez in a game of survivor. The burden of proof, of course, rests with LaRoche and Abreu, who still have minor league options.
Good Trade, Bad Trade
Now, we know that Ned Colletti doesn't make good trades, but that doesn't stop him from trying. He is still the general manager, after all. So I will suggest some players it would be good to trade for that would possibly be traded, and some bad ones.
Good Trades
Adam Dunn - as mentioned before, a three true outcome player, hits the ball very hard, dependable for 40 homers a year. Even though he's a free agent next year if traded, he's worth keeping on the team. Would try some sort of pitching package, maybe Beimel and Hendrickson, or something, but at most Andre Ethier.
Pat Burrell - Has another year on his contract and is still worth keeping around, hits the ball pretty hard and gets on base. Would offer Betemit and Gonzalez.
Carl Crawford - good player, power and speed type, also good defensively. Signed through 2008 with options for 2009 and 2010, and very low cost money wise. Will cost more in terms of personnel, though. Would offer Ethier/Kemp and LaRoche/Betemit.
Miguel Cabrera - good player, very young. Would be worth sending over 3b prospects as he would hold the position for years to come. Would offer LaRoche/Betemit and Ethier/Kemp and/or Kuo.
Ryan Church - gets on base, hits for a bit of power - would probably see more outside DC. Will not be a free agent for a while. Would offer Tomko, Hendrickson, and Luis Gonzalez with money.
Jason Bay - underpaid 5 tool lf guy, could play rf. Would require a lot in terms of personnel (see LaRoche, Andy and Ethier, Andre or Kemp, Matt), but Pittsburgh might like the gimmick of having both LaRoche brothers. Would offer LaRoche and Ethier/Kemp.
Alex Rios - power developing, young player, not a free agent for two more years. Would offer Ethier/Kemp and Randy Wolf, or just Brad Penny if they throw someone else in.
Torii Hunter - 30 hr power, good CF defense, worth keeping for a few more years, worth arbitration at least. Would offer Ethier and Betemit.
Bad Trades
Scott Rolen - offers no improvement at a position with two ML possibilities already, and will cost $12 million a year. No way.
Troy Glaus? Mike Lowell? - No no no. Glaus will be nice until he hurts himself again. Lowell won't help at all.
Anyone at third that isn't meant to be there for a long time and really good.
Anyone who will be a rental player you wouldn't offer arbitration to.
Ken Griffey Jr. - see Glaus, Troy
Jay Payton
Jeff Conine
Jay Gibbons
Corey Patterson
Anything that displaces Ethier and not Gonzalez or Pierre
That being said, we'll see what happens. Hopefully something good, but you never know.
Good Trades
Adam Dunn - as mentioned before, a three true outcome player, hits the ball very hard, dependable for 40 homers a year. Even though he's a free agent next year if traded, he's worth keeping on the team. Would try some sort of pitching package, maybe Beimel and Hendrickson, or something, but at most Andre Ethier.
Pat Burrell - Has another year on his contract and is still worth keeping around, hits the ball pretty hard and gets on base. Would offer Betemit and Gonzalez.
Carl Crawford - good player, power and speed type, also good defensively. Signed through 2008 with options for 2009 and 2010, and very low cost money wise. Will cost more in terms of personnel, though. Would offer Ethier/Kemp and LaRoche/Betemit.
Miguel Cabrera - good player, very young. Would be worth sending over 3b prospects as he would hold the position for years to come. Would offer LaRoche/Betemit and Ethier/Kemp and/or Kuo.
Ryan Church - gets on base, hits for a bit of power - would probably see more outside DC. Will not be a free agent for a while. Would offer Tomko, Hendrickson, and Luis Gonzalez with money.
Jason Bay - underpaid 5 tool lf guy, could play rf. Would require a lot in terms of personnel (see LaRoche, Andy and Ethier, Andre or Kemp, Matt), but Pittsburgh might like the gimmick of having both LaRoche brothers. Would offer LaRoche and Ethier/Kemp.
Alex Rios - power developing, young player, not a free agent for two more years. Would offer Ethier/Kemp and Randy Wolf, or just Brad Penny if they throw someone else in.
Torii Hunter - 30 hr power, good CF defense, worth keeping for a few more years, worth arbitration at least. Would offer Ethier and Betemit.
Bad Trades
Scott Rolen - offers no improvement at a position with two ML possibilities already, and will cost $12 million a year. No way.
Troy Glaus? Mike Lowell? - No no no. Glaus will be nice until he hurts himself again. Lowell won't help at all.
Anyone at third that isn't meant to be there for a long time and really good.
Anyone who will be a rental player you wouldn't offer arbitration to.
Ken Griffey Jr. - see Glaus, Troy
Jay Payton
Jeff Conine
Jay Gibbons
Corey Patterson
Anything that displaces Ethier and not Gonzalez or Pierre
That being said, we'll see what happens. Hopefully something good, but you never know.
Sunday, May 20, 2007
Juan Pierre Update
I don't know if anyone reads this, but I really should update this blog more often. I would probably do a lot better if I wasn't so aware that nobody read the darn thing (or if I sent the link to someone else).
But anyway . . .
Juan Pierre has been off to a horrendously slow start. Well, by his standards no. He's not going to be wrecking anyone's fantasy team in a 5x5 roto league. But he's a little under his average level of performance, and that makes him really really bad. Consider his line:
.277/.305/.314, 15 SB, 5 CS, 5 2B, 1 3B, 27 R, 10 RBI, 1 SF, 6 S, 203 TPA
You could look at it this way, and get a different picture
.277 BA, 15 SB, 27 R
And from a fantasy perspective he's ok, and he'd probably pick up the average a bit. But what is bogging the average down though? Pierre isn't good, but he has been better than this before. Well, look at fangraphs, and let's break down what he's been doing.
First of all, he's striking out more and walking less than normal; normally Pierre's strikeouts and walks are about even, but that ratio is about 2 to 1 this year. Pierre will usually walk in 5.8% of his PAs, but now it's only 4.2%. His strikeouts are at about 9.2% of plate appearances this year, compared with a career rate of just 6.2%. Also worth considering are that Pierre's fly ball rate is way up - this year it's at 32.5%, compared to a career rate of 21.9%! As we all know, Pierre doesn't hit those fly balls for home runs very often, so it doesn't help him that he's hitting so many; his ground balls are down to 47% from 56.4% career. Pierre is also not bunting his way on base nearly as much as he used to: only 17.7% of his bunts are becoming hits, down from 37.7%; this number was 42.9% last year!
So Pierre needs to hit more grounders, fewer popups, and bunt better in order to be successful. Striking out less would be nice.
But anyway . . .
Juan Pierre has been off to a horrendously slow start. Well, by his standards no. He's not going to be wrecking anyone's fantasy team in a 5x5 roto league. But he's a little under his average level of performance, and that makes him really really bad. Consider his line:
.277/.305/.314, 15 SB, 5 CS, 5 2B, 1 3B, 27 R, 10 RBI, 1 SF, 6 S, 203 TPA
You could look at it this way, and get a different picture
.277 BA, 15 SB, 27 R
And from a fantasy perspective he's ok, and he'd probably pick up the average a bit. But what is bogging the average down though? Pierre isn't good, but he has been better than this before. Well, look at fangraphs, and let's break down what he's been doing.
First of all, he's striking out more and walking less than normal; normally Pierre's strikeouts and walks are about even, but that ratio is about 2 to 1 this year. Pierre will usually walk in 5.8% of his PAs, but now it's only 4.2%. His strikeouts are at about 9.2% of plate appearances this year, compared with a career rate of just 6.2%. Also worth considering are that Pierre's fly ball rate is way up - this year it's at 32.5%, compared to a career rate of 21.9%! As we all know, Pierre doesn't hit those fly balls for home runs very often, so it doesn't help him that he's hitting so many; his ground balls are down to 47% from 56.4% career. Pierre is also not bunting his way on base nearly as much as he used to: only 17.7% of his bunts are becoming hits, down from 37.7%; this number was 42.9% last year!
So Pierre needs to hit more grounders, fewer popups, and bunt better in order to be successful. Striking out less would be nice.
Sunday, May 13, 2007
Bill Plaschke is Dumb. Really Dumb.
We all know DUI is bad, all except for MLB, according to Plaschke.
Plaschke makes a huge point here that the greatest demon in MLB is giving players free alcohol in the clubhouse. Now, if anything, this seems really to be quite pointless. Why would it matter if a player has to pay for a beer when his minimum wage is $400,000 a year? Is this really supposed to make a difference? Are we to believe now that if we forced players to leave the clubhouse that all DUI would be eliminated? After all, Tony LaRussa (who Plaschke mentions) got drunk away from the clubhouse, at a restaraunt. Should restaraunts not serve alcohol to such folks? We still haven't gotten to how one is innocent until proven guilty, but the argument here is weak enough.
But there is something more bizarre about this. Plaschke cites the death toll from drunk driving anually:
At last count, the annual ratio was about 12,000 to 1.
So 12,000 people a year die from DUI. You know what that means? There are 750 MLB players but 12,000 people a year die from DUI, so each MLB player is responsible for the death of 16 people a year. By comparison, the two Columbine killers killed 15 people including themselves, only 7.5 people per year. That is, of course, if Bill Plaschke is right and all sports-related DUI is caused by players.
We know of course, this is worthless drivel. The fact of the matter is that if anyone is responsible, it's the sports fans who do it, particularly in football. Football tailgaters will show up early enough to get drunk before the game even starts. At all kinds of sports games, you can just keep buying beers to stay intoxicated all game. If we really wanted to stop DUI at sporting events, why not ban alcohol for sale to the public? If you're serious about stopping DUI, don't be cheap.
But that's just it; people will spend a lot of money to get drunk while watching the game. At upwards of $6-7 per beer, people still managed to get smashed during a baseball game. When you have that going on, why would it matter that players can get free beer in the clubhouse. Can't intoxicated fans also potentially drive drunk, and doesn't the crowd of 20,000-50,000 matter more than a few?
Of course, maybe instead of alcohol prohibition (which America already tried), people should just look for ways to control themselves, and be more responsible. Maybe increase punishments for DUI. But look, 12,000 people a year are not dying because of MLB.
Yeah, MADD is mad, and I don't blame it. Baseball struts around the national stage fighting steroids, then slips into the shadowy wings to embrace alcohol. Baseball will suspend a player for 50 games if he plays while juiced, yet zero games if he drives while drunk. Baseball has rid the clubhouse of all performance-enhancing drugs, yet continues to serve its players beer.What's really awesome about Google's Blogger is that I copied 4 1-sentence paragraphs, and it automatically corrected that and turned it into one paragraph. Another thing I noticed is that Plaschke apparently doesn't seem to think that PED's matter with regard to cheating and the integrity of the game; the way the article is written, he seems to imply that we regulate against steroids to protect kids from destroying themselves. But I digress.
Plaschke makes a huge point here that the greatest demon in MLB is giving players free alcohol in the clubhouse. Now, if anything, this seems really to be quite pointless. Why would it matter if a player has to pay for a beer when his minimum wage is $400,000 a year? Is this really supposed to make a difference? Are we to believe now that if we forced players to leave the clubhouse that all DUI would be eliminated? After all, Tony LaRussa (who Plaschke mentions) got drunk away from the clubhouse, at a restaraunt. Should restaraunts not serve alcohol to such folks? We still haven't gotten to how one is innocent until proven guilty, but the argument here is weak enough.
But there is something more bizarre about this. Plaschke cites the death toll from drunk driving anually:
At last count, the annual ratio was about 12,000 to 1.
So 12,000 people a year die from DUI. You know what that means? There are 750 MLB players but 12,000 people a year die from DUI, so each MLB player is responsible for the death of 16 people a year. By comparison, the two Columbine killers killed 15 people including themselves, only 7.5 people per year. That is, of course, if Bill Plaschke is right and all sports-related DUI is caused by players.
We know of course, this is worthless drivel. The fact of the matter is that if anyone is responsible, it's the sports fans who do it, particularly in football. Football tailgaters will show up early enough to get drunk before the game even starts. At all kinds of sports games, you can just keep buying beers to stay intoxicated all game. If we really wanted to stop DUI at sporting events, why not ban alcohol for sale to the public? If you're serious about stopping DUI, don't be cheap.
But that's just it; people will spend a lot of money to get drunk while watching the game. At upwards of $6-7 per beer, people still managed to get smashed during a baseball game. When you have that going on, why would it matter that players can get free beer in the clubhouse. Can't intoxicated fans also potentially drive drunk, and doesn't the crowd of 20,000-50,000 matter more than a few?
Of course, maybe instead of alcohol prohibition (which America already tried), people should just look for ways to control themselves, and be more responsible. Maybe increase punishments for DUI. But look, 12,000 people a year are not dying because of MLB.
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
April Report
Time for a bunch of useless summary statistics, including tonight's game since the season started April 2.
Overall Record
16-11
Record with 3 or fewer runs scored:
4-8
Record with 3 or fewer runs allowed:
11-1
Record with 3 0r fewer runs scored by both teams:
4-1
Record in 1 run games
6-3
Extra Innings Record
2-0
Double digit run games, allowed:
2, 0
Shutouts
1
Times Shut out
0
Wins
Average Game Score: 58.8
Minimum: 36
Median: 61.5
Maximum: 76
Average IP: 6.15
Average Runs Scored: 5.81
Average Runs Allowed: 2.25
Losses
Average Game Score: 37.7
Minimum: 20
Median: 45
Maximum: 50
Average IP: 5.24
Average Runs Scored: 2.73
Average Runs Allowed: 6
Pitchers by Mean Game Score
Hendrickson (2 starts): 58.5
Penny (6 starts): 57.5
Tomko (4 starts): 51.5
Wolf (6 starts): 49.7
Lowe (6 starts): 45
Schmidt (3 starts): 39.7
Overall Record
16-11
Record with 3 or fewer runs scored:
4-8
Record with 3 or fewer runs allowed:
11-1
Record with 3 0r fewer runs scored by both teams:
4-1
Record in 1 run games
6-3
Extra Innings Record
2-0
Double digit run games, allowed:
2, 0
Shutouts
1
Times Shut out
0
Wins
Average Game Score: 58.8
Minimum: 36
Median: 61.5
Maximum: 76
Average IP: 6.15
Average Runs Scored: 5.81
Average Runs Allowed: 2.25
Losses
Average Game Score: 37.7
Minimum: 20
Median: 45
Maximum: 50
Average IP: 5.24
Average Runs Scored: 2.73
Average Runs Allowed: 6
Pitchers by Mean Game Score
Hendrickson (2 starts): 58.5
Penny (6 starts): 57.5
Tomko (4 starts): 51.5
Wolf (6 starts): 49.7
Lowe (6 starts): 45
Schmidt (3 starts): 39.7
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