The weird thing is that my opinion about Mike Jacobs as a baseball player has not changed at all. As a baseball evaluator, I still see all his weaknesses outweighing his strengths. As a GM, I would not have traded for him. But as a baseball fan … I just enjoy the heck out of watching him step to the plate, kill or be killed. The other day, he faced Cleveland’s Jensen Lewis, and he took a high fastball for a ball, and then watched a 90-mph fastball go by that was right in his wheelhouse, I mean the perfect Mike Jacobs pitch — 90 mph, just above the knees, outside but caught too much of the plate. That’s the sort of pitch you only get once, and you could see Jacobs grimace for a second as if to say, "Man, that was it." ....Two pitches later, stunningly, Jensen Lewis threw that exact pitch again. This time it was 87 mph. And this time Jacobs did swing. He jumped out of his shoes to swing. And he hit it 700 miles to center field. It clanked off the railing out there, bounced behind a wall, an absolute mammoth shot. Will he do that enough to make himself a valuable player? Maybe not. But, yeah, it will be fun every time he does it.
almost 3 years ago
Matt Klaassen
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But for me, as an aesthetic thing, power hitters don’t jazz me that much. So mixing in the HR’s with a bunch of strikeouts and not enough walks (if he ends up doing that, which he probably will) isn’t fun for me to watch. Again, I’m talking about aesthetics, not analysis. The thing that is fun for me to watch in a baseball game that really isn’t very good is small ball. I hate small ball as a strategy. It is usually stupid and maximizes outs and minimizes runs. And yet, I loved watching Joey Gathright try to beat out bunt singles. I find the little things (like bunts, stolen bases and stuff like that) more fun than the big things. I guess we all have our guilty pleasures.
The immoderate moderator
Its fun to watch
Small ball tends to have more action associated with it. The runners run, the fielders move and throw. Close plays, tags, run downs. All fast and exciting to watch, even if it sucks as a strategy.
HR’s, the guy swings and that is pretty much it. Everyone else stands around looking at their glove.
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And we're bad at it
Witness DDJ doing almost anything on the base paths. I think we should mostly stick to occasionally stretching hits to doubles and triples. Most of our steal attempts end fairly embarrassingly, at least the ones I’ve seen.
The General Theory of Royaltivity
DDJ is a perfect example of what a good leadoff hitter should be
he isn’t a good basestealer, but in front of your best hitters, you don’t need one. He is a good baserunner, and hits a decent amounts of doubles and triples, which is also good. Combined with a good OBP, he’s the best leadoff man vs. RHP for the Royals.
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by Matt Klaassen on Apr 18, 2009 5:26 PM EDT up reply actions
Good baserunner?
Is this the same DDJ who gets picked off about a half a dozen times per year. Good baserunner when the ball is in motion, bad when standing and watching a pitcher.
I like home run hitters but I prefer the Tony Gwynn/Joe Mauer types. Alot of people believe that a hitter has little control over the balls they hit but watching someone like Tony Gwynn always makes me doubt that a tad. Also watching Greg Maddux in his prime was magnificent.
I don't know how to put this but I'm kind of a big deal.
I include POs in the "bad basestealer" part of the equation
so I agree with you
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by Matt Klaassen on Apr 18, 2009 5:52 PM EDT up reply actions
what makes you say he's a good baserunner?
…because he’s fast enough to score from 2nd on a single? or that he can occasionally hit a triple? What else is left if you’re calling leadoffs a part of stealing?
i seem to remember him being involved in more baserunning blunders (non-Butler division) of anyone on the team in the last few years. This includes a game where he made the final out of the game in a one-run loss after a dubious decision to try and advance to second after he reached on a throwing error.
by Fernando Vina School of Linguistics on Apr 18, 2009 6:41 PM EDT up reply actions
But he's always smiling and looks like he's having FUN!!
Plus he gets his uniform dirty, too. So you’ve got the grit factor. Super happy gritty fun guy!!
"Now…put that in your [BLEEP]ing pipe and smoke it." -Hal McRae
by Sweep_the_Leg on Apr 18, 2009 7:09 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
"made up statistics"
Simplest: If you go to his new baseball reference page for specific batting statistics, just go to the baserunning section. You can see that, indeed, he sucks at stealing bases. But look at the “XBT%” section – that’s extra bases taken, that is, the percentage of times a baserunner has taken more than one base on a single, or more than two bases on a double. For DDJ’s career, the MLB average for that is 40%. HIs rate is 50%.
What’s that worth? WEll, for some reason, with BaseBall Prospectus bought EqBRR from Dan Fox (another guy who makes up statistics - now for the Pirates), they only had him to 2007. I know he did more than that, since he used to post them on his blog. Anyway, it includes SB/CS, but breaks it down by component. For my lineup optimization post, I wanted to separate out steals from good baserunning, since they are in tension with each other when the same guy is good at both (to leverage a good good baserunner, you put him in front of good [=contact] hitters who can move them over; to leverage a good basestealer you put in front of crappy who have trouble moving him over).
Anyway, yes, DDJ had a relatively bad year in 2008, including some memorably bad plays. But we aren’t stupid enough to fall for "clutch hitting "nonsense, so why should we for baserunning. Taking out steals, EQBRR find that DDJ was .49 runs above average in baserunning when he had a bad year for him on the bases. No, it’s not much, but when the standard deviation is less than 1.5 runs, it’s not bad, and as the number indicates, above average.
And that’s a down year for him, and he’s still in the top quarter of the league. And since we don’t work for the Royals front office, I’m guessing we’re allowed to look at more than one years stats. So we look at 2007, where DDJ added about 3 runs on the bases (not including SB/CS) — that puts him more than two standard deviations above average, in the top 3% of the league, actually.
No, it’s not much — baserunning, even including basestealing, like outfield arms, aren’t really worth that many runs compared to hitting home runs, walking, doubles, having good range, etc. It certainly doesn’t seem like much compared to how exciting a stolen base or a thrown out baserunner is, but it’s worth something. The numbers say he’s a good baserunner, no matter how pissed off the pickoffs make us.
One final example. Again, we know that DDJ is a bad basestealer. For his career, he’s only 56%. So he’s cost his team runs when he’s tried to steal bases. They should almost never let him do it/tell him to do it. So let’s look at his overall career line, then, at Sean/CHONE “Rally” Smith’s WAR pages. The column for “BsR” is for baserunning. For DDJ, the career total is 0. But keep in mind that includes both baserunning and basestealing. He’s at 0. Given that he’s been a negative basestealer by far for his career, then can know he’s been positive as a baserunner.
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by Matt Klaassen on Apr 19, 2009 12:23 AM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
i appreciate the effort...
but you lost me about one paragraph in. I have no doubt that he can run fairly well and take extra bases and all that jazz. But he’s made numerous bone-headed plays on pick-offs (when he’s not trying to steal), oversliding bases, etc—-which are base-running decision making skills that don’t necessarily show up in a box score. And the play I was referencing wasn’t a 2008 play—-this isn’t just a one-year trend.
by Fernando Vina School of Linguistics on Apr 19, 2009 1:54 AM EDT up reply actions
exactly
Hey, I like DDJ, don’t get me wrong. But, the area of his game that is bad is baserunning. He doesn’t steal well, but he also seems to make poor decisions as to when to try to stretch a hit and when not to, and seems to get picked off easily. It just seems I’ve seen many instances when he decided to stretch a hit and he’s out by a mile or just has a really stupid pickoff.
The General Theory of Royaltivity
Fernando and kabrink
how do these events that DDJ messes up not show up on retrosheet or whomever’s scoresheet or play-by-play, which are publcly available for ever season since at least the late 1950s?
seriously, what kind of events are these? I’m willing to admit I’m wrongif I am — what am I missing? Remember DDJ getting thrown out on the wild pitch, the only specific event I think you’ve cited so far? Stuff like that is part of EqBRR.
Sorry if I’m not clear, but your “feeling” about his baserunning doesn’t outweigh the evidence I’ve seen. I’m hardly citing esoteric things — peruse the sources I refer to and tell me if I’m misunderstood them.
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by Matt Klaassen on Apr 19, 2009 5:21 PM EDT up reply actions
I think DDJ is a very good base runner
He’s a poor base stealer (which includes PO’s). But he does a good job of taking the extra base, reading fly balls to see whether he can go or if he needs to tag up. And he’s got good speed (not great speed) which helps him get from point A to point B expeditiously. And the stats back this up.
The immoderate moderator
by Scott McKinney on Apr 19, 2009 2:42 AM EDT up reply actions
The idea that base-stealing is not a factor in base-running
seems rather silly to me. It’s a part of how effective you are at taking extra bases without making outs. If you suck at stealing, you’re a better base-runner if you never attempt to steal. DDJ occasionally does, and it hurts his value as a base-runner.
it's semantics
and I’m sorry if my poor writing made you think that it was an important distinction. If I had said, “he’s a good baserunner, apart form his basestealing,” I would be saying the same thing you are. Unless you think there’s no difference between, e.g., a player’s skill at taking an extra base on a single on a single and stealing a base. I think it’s demonstrably true from cases like DDJ that one can be good at one without being good at the other. We can call it whatever you want.
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by Matt Klaassen on Apr 19, 2009 5:18 PM EDT up reply actions
Also
a sharp 5-4-3 Double play is something I like a lot, from an aesthetic point of view. I miss Grudz and his turning skills.
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Really? Your projections don't rate the current year and following years
100-.8-.6.-.4?
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by Matt Klaassen on Apr 18, 2009 5:43 PM EDT up reply actions
No, I'm old school.
It goes more like 10-over 9000!!!!!!-8-5
"Do they have people that tall in Mexico?"
he's not very good if you think of him as a 1B and you care about defense
but he’s pretty good if he’s your DH. and he’s a great bargain if he’s only getting paid 4 million
HR's are cool but there's that 'show stopper' feeling of 'what can top that' when its done . Hope is gone. Post coitus.
The bases are empty and its a bit Sisyphean to start it all over again. I like the extended rally with singles and doubles and walks with someone always in scoring position. There’s relay throws and plays at the bases and defensive drama. I’d rather watch a hitter who ends the season with 200 hits, 90 walks, 50 doubles, 10 triples, and maybe only 8 HRs than Jacobs, even if he hits 32 again. I’ll take both, but the sheer joy of watching the former is my cup of tea.
Great piece by JoPo
It helps put things in perspective. And we did need his power—-even if his weaknesses sometimes overshadow the good things.
So Jacobs gives us power, grit, and a Jordanesque love-of-the-game thing. That’s not so bad. – TL
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