What Should We Expect Going Forward from the Royals' Offense?
by devil_fingers on May 1, 2009 4:45 PM EDT
90 comments
With the end of the Royals' best first month of the season in recent memory, fans are understandably wondering how sustainable it is. Obviously, the pitching has been good (some young guy whose name I can't remember and some others). We know that Mr. SI probably won't have a sub-1 ERA all season, but the pitching was expected to be fairly strong, at least relative to the rest of the division. And even those expectations have been exceed to this point. But what about the offense? Is it about to awaken from its dogmatic slumbers to vault the Royals into Al Central dominance? Truthfully, who knows? After all, I have made this observation that I think you might like: They play the games on the field.
But until those games are played, what might we expect going forward, given what we thought in the offseason about the Royal's hitters?
Remember way back when we did that community projection? Well, I don't know how many people from other teams finished theirs, but while at the time the only "big" projection system that was published was CHONE, I later updated it (at least the offense wOBA numbers) by averaging with ZiPS and PECOTA. I left our own mods and playing time projections in except for guys who got cut and stuff. There isn't a huge difference. Click here and scroll over the KCA tab to see what we got.
I'm going to use wOBA here, because it's the most awesomest offensive stat out there. Why? Just read NYRoyal's helpful intro for Royals Review users which I wish I would have done but NOOOO I get stuck with replacement level. Basically, unlike just about every other individual or composite stat like BA, OBP, OPS, etc, if two guys are in the same run environment, the one with the better wOBA is the better offensive player (at least for the period in question). It's on an OBP scale, so ~.330 is about average, usually, .400 is awesome, .300 is horrible, etc.
I'm going to try not to make this needlessly complicated by discussing the importance of relative run environments, etc. at length. Some people think projections are useful, some think they aren't. That's up to you. Keep in mind they aren't certainties nor do they (usually) claim to be. Rather, they are "probability densities," as kcdc1 helpfully put it.
Keep in mind our projections assumed certain playing time for everyone, but changes (e.g. Gordon out, B. Pena gone) will modify those one way or the other.
With our playing time esimates and the averaged wOBAs of CHONE, PECOTA, and ZiPS for each player on the Royals, we projected an overall wOBA of .328.
The Royals current team wOBA as per FanGraphs this morning is .333.
Note that Sky's spreadsheet assumed a run environment with a league wOBA of .335. Last season was more like .330 (that's what I've been using). For some reason (perhaps I'm too stupid to find it), FanGraphs doesn't have year-by-year league averages posted -- looking at the leaderboards, I'm guessing that currently, it's about .337.Take that as you will. As a whole, the Royals are hitting a bit better than we and the systems projected, but then, the whole league is, too (after only a month, of course).
Readers may or may not be surprised by that, perhaps (understandably) focusing on certain hitters who are hitting much better than expected or much worse than expected. We need to remind ourselves that while it isn't early early, it's still early. The premature nature of April judgments are well-illustrated by Billy Butler, who, before the Toronto series, was mired in the mid-.200s wOBA-wise. With two godo games, he went up to the .350s. That doesn't tell us he's awesome, or that he's terrible and then got lucky. What it tells us is that one month shouldn't have changed our expectations anyway. If a player has one horrible month in the middle of the season, it's much less likely to be noticed than if he has it right at the start, since his "yearly line" doesn't look at terrible. And, of course, now Butler's April looks all right, just based on two games...
Here are most of the active hitters (tables in this editor are a pain, so you can look up MITCH and Alex yourself, although their limited PA didn't have much impact so far overall). Dan Szymborski recently stopped by with his updated ZiPS projections, but the ones listed are from before the season. I give the player's PA so you can get an idea of how much impact he's had on the offensive numers, then his current wOBA (remember it's on approximately an OBP scale, for those not familiar), then what "we" projected, then the difference. You get the idea: while some guys are doing much getter than expected, and some much worse, overall, it balances out to the team's offense being pretty much where we thought it was.
| Player | PA | wOBA | Projected | Diff |
| Coco Crisp | 99 | .368 | .321 | +.047 |
| Mark Teahen | 92 | .392 | .336 | +.056 |
| David DeJesus | 82 | .270 | .339 | -.069 |
| Mike Jacobs | 80 | .336 | .340 | -.004 |
| Mike Aviles | 80 | .226 | .321 | -.095 |
| Alberto Callaspo | 84 | .422 | .318 | +.104 |
| John Buck | 46 | .438 | .311 | +.127 |
| Miguel Olivo | 46 | .228 | .297 | -.069 |
| Willie Bloomquist | 43 | .375 | .299 | +.076 |
| Jose Guillen | 37 | .315 | .329 | -.014 |
| Billy Butler | 77 | .358 | .349 | +.09 |
There it is. Rather than make more of my own comments here, maybe that's better left for the discussion. I hope this is interesting and illuminating for someone, somehow.
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So the question is, will the 2009 Royals hitting merely perform up to the level of its projections?
Or is it better than its projections? Is Crisp better than a .321 wOBA hitter? Is Callspo better than a .318 hitter? The same for Teahen, Buck and others who have significantly overperformed their projections so far. I’m not sure. Mostly I guess I’m cautiously optimistic.
The immoderate moderator
by NYRoyal on May 1, 2009 2:13 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs
The team seems to be close to average, some up and some down.
It’s just too soon too worry too much. The only person that seems totally not performing at all like last year is Aviles. He is just lost out there. I wish we could send him to AAA without having to play TPJ.
by Jeff Zimmerman (TucsonRoyal) on May 1, 2009 2:19 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
My feeling is, keep him in KC (regardless of backup)
I’ve always thought that a player doesn’t figure out how to hit major league pitching by going down to hit at the AAA level. Now, if the player has been rushed and shouldn’t have been called up to begin with, then yes send him down so that he can get the development that he should have had in the first place, but I don’t think that’s Aviles’s situation. So I think Aviles needs to stay in KC, study film, work with Seitzer, take extra BP and eventually work his way back into the groove.
The immoderate moderator
by NYRoyal on May 1, 2009 2:22 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
Great comment.
If you were thinking, you wouldn't have thought that.
by Warden11 on May 1, 2009 11:08 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Play Bloomquist as short...
…at least until Aviles starts to show something. It’s Willie’s natural position, and KC has plenty of outfielders to fill in until Gordon returns and bumps Teahen back to another spot on the field.
by CaseyRoyal on May 1, 2009 4:19 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
I don't disagree with this
Relive Royals History at royalsretro.blogspot.com
by RoyalsRetro on May 1, 2009 5:21 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
A couple things
First, Willie should only ever start vs. LHP’s or under dire need, such as multiple injuries necessitating it. Second, I don’t think Aviles gets back on track by sitting. If you start Bloomy at SS “until Aviles starts to show something,” how exactly is Aviles going to show something on the bench?
The immoderate moderator
by NYRoyal on May 1, 2009 5:24 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
It just like any good manager!
Playing the hot hand! That’s always works out! Because empirical performance over a couple games = true talent!
/sarc. ft.
Or….
PrOPS (qualficiation):
Willie: .683
Aviles: .670
and that’s in the middle of a slump
I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at Driveline Mechanics.
by devil_fingers on May 1, 2009 5:27 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
correction
those numbers are in the middle of a slump for Aviles….
and…
the hottest hitting Willie Ballgame has ever displayed in his life
Royals baseball. Where .260 would be orgasmic.
The General Theory of Royaltivity
by kabrink on May 1, 2009 6:22 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
I don't disagree with that either
Relive Royals History at royalsretro.blogspot.com
by RoyalsRetro on May 1, 2009 5:28 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
A few reasons for Aviles optimism
1. His LD% is actually up this year over last year (23.3% as compared to 20.2% last year).
2. His BABIP has been horribly low and unlucky (.241 as compared to an approx. xBABIP of .322).
3. He’s actually swinging at fewer pitches outside the strike zone this year than last year (26.9% O-swing this year as compared to 35.5% last year)
The immoderate moderator
by NYRoyal on May 1, 2009 5:33 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
My amateur, armchair scouting opinion...
tells me that he’s still been hitting the ball “hard” without necessarily “driving” it as consistently as he was last season (if that makes any sense). He’s getting his bat on a lot of balls, and on the ones he SHOULD be swinging at (referring to your #3). But, it’s like he’s confused or tentative on almost all his swings so he only gets about 60-80% of his power behind each one. Kind of like he’s saying to himself, “Yeah, I should swing at this one…right…OK, yeah,” but that slight hesitation is causing him to not drive the ball as well as he could.
"Now…put that in your [BLEEP]ing pipe and smoke it." -Hal McRae
by Sweep_the_Leg on May 1, 2009 5:45 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
He's swiniging with his arms too much
Which is basically taking what you are saying a step further…He isn’t getting a whole lot of drive from his lower half which is why his line drives aren’t being driven into gaps. He is making good contact, but he needs to get his legs working in his wing to get out of it…
BOOM! ROASTED!
by GoBabies!! on May 1, 2009 6:53 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
And again, we come back to the question...
if the Royals thought that Bloomquist can play an adequate SS (even as a backup), then why the hell is TPJ still on the roster?
"Now…put that in your [BLEEP]ing pipe and smoke it." -Hal McRae
by Sweep_the_Leg on May 1, 2009 5:33 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
I think the answers are
1) Because while Bloomy’s SS defense might be adequate, TPJ’s defense is very good.
and
2) They want Bloomy available to backup 2B, LF, RF and CF.
The immoderate moderator
by NYRoyal on May 1, 2009 5:34 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
I don't know about #2
Now that Maier is up…When DDJ is in the lineup again, he is basically back to 2B or 2B/SS backup (at least he SHOULD be)
BOOM! ROASTED!
by GoBabies!! on May 1, 2009 6:54 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Bloomy continues to play corner OF positions as the #4 OFer
…as we can see from his recent starts while DDJ has had back soreness issues.
The immoderate moderator
by NYRoyal on May 1, 2009 6:58 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
I understand your point, but...
How long do you stick with a cold bat? He’s had almost a month to get things going. Bloomie is getting on base, while, despite some recent, spotty success over the last few games, Aviles generally isn’t. Stick with Willie until he cools down a little, at least against Righties. If you want to get Mike some hacks, let him do it against the Lefties.
Mike’s problems seem to be with his approach at the plate. Last year, he showed some bat control, slowing his swing down on breaking pitches and laying singles into the OF. This year he’s not nearly as subtle. He looks like he’s swinging for the fences on almost every pitch, which is dropping him into 0-2 counts too often.
by CaseyRoyal on May 2, 2009 12:55 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
I'd stick with him much longer as he's actually swinging the bat well
He’s hitting more line drives than last year. He’s swinging at fewer balls outside of the strike zone than last year. He’s swinging the bat well, but balls just aren’t falling in. Bloomquist has never, ever been a good hitter. Never. In his life. I hear he was a .260 hitter in little league. It’s not smart to let one’s head get turned by one good month of part-time play. Aviles > Bloomquist and it isn’t even close. Play your best player, period.
The immoderate moderator
by NYRoyal on May 3, 2009 1:13 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Agreed...
And right now, Bloomquist is the one getting on base and manufacturing runs. If you put him on the windowsill, he’s going to cool. Let him cool on the field, then let him ride the bench and put Aviles back in once he does.
by CaseyRoyal on May 3, 2009 3:16 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
How do we know when Bloomy's hot streak is over?
How do we define “cooling?” His first 0-fer game? Two 0-fers in a row? I think the notion of hot streaks and cold streaks is wildly overrated. Aviles is swinging the bat well, period. The fact that he hasn’t gotten many hits yet isn’t because he’s “cold,” it’s because he’s had some bad luck. Look at his BABIP. Look at his batted ball data. Don’t sit him just because his OPS appears “cold.” That’s an overly simplistic way to look at it. And with regard to Bloomquist, if you want to project how a player is going to perform over the next few days, his performance in recent years is a better predictor than his performance in recent days or weeks.
In short, Aviles has a better chance to hit well Sunday, Monday and the rest of next week than Bloomquist. Aviles > Bloomquist. Now and probably forever.
The immoderate moderator
by NYRoyal on May 3, 2009 3:31 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
That's cool...
I guess we have a different way of looking at the situation. I’m new to the board and I’m enjoying hanging out with Royals fans and stat crunchers. Thanks for the good-natured debate.
by CaseyRoyal on May 3, 2009 1:19 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Thank you too
I often discuss and debate with just about anyone and everyone. When I do this, many take it personally like I’m “going after them.” But that isn’t what it’s about. I’m glad you took an honest debate the right way. Keep up the good work and I look forward to the next one. ;)
The immoderate moderator
by NYRoyal on May 3, 2009 6:35 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
If we all agreed on everything...
how much fun would the board be? ; )
by CaseyRoyal on May 3, 2009 8:36 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
I totally disagree with this.
Royals baseball. Where .260 would be orgasmic.
The General Theory of Royaltivity
by kabrink on May 3, 2009 8:49 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Good point
This is where observation and scouting (albeit amateurish on our site) comes in.
The one peson who I think will end up being MUCH surpassing a .318 projection is Callaspo. From a scouting perspective, not only can the man hit, but he hits everything hard.
I’ve watched approximately 3/4 of the Royals games on MLB.tv this year and I cannot recall a time where Callaspo did not make solid contact. When was the last time you saw him pop a ball up in the infield? I can’t recall a single instance.
Waiting for April.
by DC Royal on May 1, 2009 2:24 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
some good news
Callaspos LD% is down to 20.6%. That’s good news because while LDs are the “least unlucky” kind of hits, we also know that a guy with a LD% over, say, 25% is probably playing above his true talent. So Callaspo isn’t “simply” lucky or “simply” hitting an unsustainable amount of line drive.
Usual qualifications noted, PrOPS sees Callaspo as a “true” .303/.366/.418 hitter at the moment, and I think we’d all take that from him. Before Grudz got hurt last season, I don’t think he’d ever played regularly in the majors, so the data for him was rather scarce.
I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at Driveline Mechanics.
by devil_fingers on May 1, 2009 2:33 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Word. The best of Bert is yet to come.
"Now…put that in your [BLEEP]ing pipe and smoke it." -Hal McRae
by Sweep_the_Leg on May 1, 2009 2:41 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
but he hits everything hard
indeed
by royalsreview on May 1, 2009 3:17 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
It's interesting
You know what former Royal AC most reminds me of at the plate now?
Willie Wilson. AC obviously has nowhere near the speed, but he seems to be hitting like Willie did. Wilson also used to hit the ball hard without exhibiting any real “power” as we generally understand it, and it resulted in Willie punching a lot of base hits through the infield and a lot of extra-base hits into the gaps.
This space for rent.
by jonfmorse on May 1, 2009 3:58 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Line drive power is a good thing, especially from a middle IFer or CFer
And I think line drive power works particularly well at the K.
The immoderate moderator
by NYRoyal on May 1, 2009 4:01 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Not as well as it did
when there was a concrete carpet. ;)
This space for rent.
by jonfmorse on May 1, 2009 4:02 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
If Buck can get a triple from a gap hit
then it still works VERY well.
Royals baseball. Where .260 would be orgasmic.
The General Theory of Royaltivity
by kabrink on May 1, 2009 4:07 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
It's never to late to change back!
I tell you what, if the Royals had a speedy RFer to go along with DDJ and Crisp, this team would be better off with Astroturf than a natural surface.
The immoderate moderator
by NYRoyal on May 1, 2009 4:41 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
well, except that DDJ and Crisp would miss about 50-80 games each with knee and back injuries
They could trade Gordon for Joey Gathright, though, for insurnace.
I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at Driveline Mechanics.
by devil_fingers on May 1, 2009 4:43 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Invest a little in some new titanium joints for them
If Moore could convince Glass to shell out the money for it, problem solved.
The immoderate moderator
by NYRoyal on May 1, 2009 4:44 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Spend the extra few bucks and go with...
adamantine! They can take the fusing process I am sure.
Go Royals!
by BabyBlues on May 4, 2009 1:02 AM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
true
but along those lines, we need to ask if, e.g., DDJ is closer to a .270 or .339 hitter. That’s what I was sort of getting at in a roundabout way with the “projections do better the larger number of players” sort of thing. While individual hitters have different amounts of variance from their projections, overall, the Royals are where we thought they would be. That’s the nature of probability, which is taken into account by projections systems by regression to the mean, age adjustments, weighted averages, etc.
Or, all things being equal, we need to be just as ready to say that “the first month shows DDJ is not as good as we thought” as we are “the first month shows that Callaspo is much better than we thought.” I’m not saying we should say either. Rather, from a simple look at the statistics, optimistic and pessimistic indicators for individual hitters balance each other out as a whole.
I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at Driveline Mechanics.
by devil_fingers on May 1, 2009 2:27 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
I agree with that in principle
Or, all things being equal, we need to be just as ready to say that "the first month shows DDJ is not as good as we thought" as we are "the first month shows that Callaspo is much better than we thought."
If you had substituted Aviles for DDJ in that sentence, then I would have agreed wholeheartedly. Aviles and Callaspo are similarly situated as young players whose projections were made from little MLB data. So they have similar degrees of “unknown.” DDJ, on the other hand, is much more of a known quantity. When a guy his age, with that much major league data has a month wildly out of line with his career numbers and projections, then it is much less likely to be the real deal than an inexperienced player with much less MLB data.
In short, I’m saying we know pretty well how good DDJ is. We know that a little less with someone like Crisp who has only been a part-time player in recent seasons and has been slowed by injuries. The question going into this season was how would he perform as an everyday player and healthy? And we know even less about how truly good someone like Callaspo, Aviles or Butler is based on their short track records.
The immoderate moderator
by NYRoyal on May 1, 2009 2:41 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Agree
Guys we should know enough about:
DDJ
Buck
Olivo
Bloomquist
Guillen
Guys who could definitely still surprise us (one way or another):
Aviles
Callaspo
Butler
Gordon
Guys who we thought we knew enought about to not surprise us, but we are slightly surprised to see that they could surprise us again:
Teahen
Crisp
Jacobs
"Now…put that in your [BLEEP]ing pipe and smoke it." -Hal McRae
by Sweep_the_Leg on May 1, 2009 2:48 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
More "variances" from CHONE
for what it’s worth, which may not be much. Here’s what Sean writes
# The second table is the percentile projections. These are created by estimating the variance in the player’s rate stats (walk percentage, strikeouts per non-walk, homeruns per contact, batting average on balls in play, etc.) and fitting them to a normal distribution. I don’t know how useful these are. The main practical use I see is using it to create a weighted average for player valuation. For a star player, you won’t see much difference between his weighted average and his 50% projection. For Carlos Pena, they are identical at 44 runs above replacement…. For Terry Evans, on the other hand, they are not. At his 50% projection, he’s less than a replacement player. But what if we’re off on our evaluation of him? He might be a bit better than that, or he might be worse. If he’s worse, then he won’t get a chance to play (at least in the majors), and will be zero runs above replacement. But if he’s better, he just might get a chance to play. This report says "he probably isn’t very good, but there’s a 10-20% chance he turns out to be an average hitter."
Butler 40
Jacobs 39
Callaspo 23
Bloomquist 22
Gordon 30
Buck 33
Olivo 20
Teahen 38
Guillen 21
Aviles 31
I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at Driveline Mechanics.
by devil_fingers on May 1, 2009 2:57 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Crisp and DDJ
of note: what one projection system says about how their projections might vary.
CHONE has DDJ’s 10th percentile at -11 lwts, and his 90th at 21, a difference of 32.
Crisp’s 10th percentile is -12, his 90th is 14, for a difference of 26.
Not sure if that’s the right way to use the percentiles, but I think the narrower the differences are, the more “reliability” the system expects, given age, etc.
I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at Driveline Mechanics.
by devil_fingers on May 1, 2009 2:52 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Reliability
I’m sure a projection system’s view of “reliability” is based on the amount of data they have on the player and his age. I don’t think they take into account two things which I think are important: the nature of recent data (as in whether it has been as a full-time or part-time player over the last few years) and health. Those factors are why I think Crisp’s projection has lower reliability (to me at least) than DDJs.
The immoderate moderator
by NYRoyal on May 1, 2009 2:56 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
health and past playing time are linked
and in any case, seems like past injuries tell us something going forward. You cant just throw them out as “outlier periods,” right?
age also factors in, as well as a (limited, in CHONE’s case) batted ball profile.
Yes, Crisp had less playing time recently. From 2005-2008 he had 2108 PAs (thank you, awesome new baseball-reference features!). DDJ had 2355 in the same period. That’s less than 250 PAs difference over four seasons. Yes, the projections work off of a weighted average… but, well, I think we ‘ve stated out positions. I like Crisp, and wouldn’t be completely shocked if he had his best season since 2005, but the notion that the idea that Crisp has significantly greater probability of varying from past performance than DDJ seems to me to be overstated.
I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at Driveline Mechanics.
by devil_fingers on May 1, 2009 3:08 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
and in any case, seems like past injuries tell us something going forward. You cant just throw them out as "outlier periods," right?
Yes, I’m just talking about the issue of whether Crisp’s April performance is indicative of his “true talent” level when healthy. Past injuries mean that future injuries are more likely. But if he’s healthy, is he a good hitter? I don’t know. Maybe. How healthy will he be all season? I don’t know. My only point here with Crisp and DDJ is that I really think Crisp was more of an unknown going into this season than DDJ. Or perhaps I should say that Crisp was less of a known.
The immoderate moderator
by NYRoyal on May 1, 2009 3:20 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Marcel's reliability scores
based on the amount of regression based on three years of data. Probably one of the cooler things about Marcels, actually — even if you don’t agree with the specific projections, you can at least see how much data is available form the last three years to judge any projection from these, relative to each other, at least. Naturally, like all things Marcels, there are limitations (it’s just based on the weight of performances over the last three years weighted 5-4-3 vs. 1200 PAs of league average hitting)
DDJ .86
Crisp .83
Teahen .85
Callaspo .62
Buck .80
Miguel Olivo .80
Alex Gordon .81
Jose Gullen .85
Butler .76
Jacobs .83
Willie Bloomquist .68
Mike Aviles .65
I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at Driveline Mechanics.
by devil_fingers on May 1, 2009 3:15 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
This is where the marriage of sabermetrics and scouting
needs to happen.
We can look at the above numbers and see certain things in conjunction with the scouting eye. We’ve already discussed Callaspo above. Teahen really looks like he knows what’s going on now, and as such we should be expecting him to beat his projection. Billy looked horrible for awhile, and then he started looking really good; at first it didn’t show up because he was mashing the ball right at people.
And Aviles looks totally lost, so he’s obviously going to be below his projection.
This space for rent.
by jonfmorse on May 1, 2009 4:01 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
agreed
as would anyone
I’dm still waiting for someone was insisting that a player was “looking good” before he had a couple of monster games, and was still mired in a “cold streak,” or the other way around, if someone was saying “player x who is putting up numbers has a bad swing at the moment” before the “cold streak.”
I don’t intend that to be snarky or harsh. I just think it’s easy to say “Butler looks better than he did” after he has a two home run game.
I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at Driveline Mechanics.
by devil_fingers on May 1, 2009 4:23 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
I don't know if I mentioned it at the time
But Butler’s approach certainly looked good before he started hitting. He had been taking balls, swinging at strikes and drawing walks before he started hitting. I noticed that. I really did. Honest.
And I think many of us saw a lot of good things from Callaspo last year and our amateur scouting eyes thought he looked better than his 2009 projections even before the season began.
The immoderate moderator
by NYRoyal on May 1, 2009 4:43 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
I'm not saying they didn't
in Callaspo’s case. Although, again, he was actually rocking the ball last year during his first full stretch of full-time playing, so it’s not like people were seeing stuff that “wasn’t in the box score.” A .305 batting average isn’t exactly sneaking under the radar.
And I’m not sayong on one saw anything. ON the other hand, for a few games before this series, Butler had a little mini on-base streak that I commented on. But I didn’t see the games (and wouldn’t really be able to tell if I did). that was just from the box score.
In any case, Butler wouldn’t be quite the situation I thought Morse was describing — Butler’s actually hitting for a wOBA something practically the projections saw him doing. A case like Callaspo’s, where some think they see something that is going to allow him to outhit his projections, yes, that’s the thing to look at.
I like amateur scouting, I’m not poo-pooing it. On the contrary.
Here’s what I"d like: an amateur hitting scouting project at Royals Review, where a group of people who nornally watch a lot of games agree to a group of hitters. For each week, people give their impressions on if the hitter is swinging the bat well, regardless of statistics. We also keep track of the stats week-by-week. It would be hard, but it would actually be better to have someone get the week-by-week stats at the end of the year, anyway, so we don’t know ’exactly" how people are doing.
Then we see how well people managed to “predict” if a player was getting ready to get hot or cold. Again, the most interseting part for me wouldn’t be saying that “Billy’s swinging the bat well!” when he’s in the middle of a hot streak, or “Billy needs to go to Omaha!” after not getting a hit for 5 days, but to see if people were saying his swing was good/bad during the times when he wasn’t getting on, and then to see what happened in the period (it doesn’t have to be weeks) after that.
I’m not sure if people should be “allowed” (honor system) to look at things like )-Swing5 or not…
I would just be curious to see what would happen. I’d love to do it with pro scouts, too, but I don’ t think they’d volunteer.
I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at Driveline Mechanics.
by devil_fingers on May 1, 2009 4:55 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
in Callaspo’s case. Although, again, he was actually rocking the ball last year during his first full stretch of full-time playing, so it’s not like people were seeing stuff that "wasn’t in the box score." A .305 batting average isn’t exactly sneaking under the radar.
I hear you, but there’s the issue of whether that’s just a nice set of numbers in a small sample size that isn’t meaningful, or is he really showing skills which should bode well for the future. Again, my point is that there are tools there (which we have seen throughout his tenure with the Royals) which should lead one to conclude that he’ll hit better than his projection which was based on very little MLB data.
In any case, Butler wouldn’t be quite the situation I thought Morse was describing — Butler’s actually hitting for a wOBA something practically the projections saw him doing.
He is now. He wasn’t three days ago. His wOBA has skyrocketed in recent days from genuinely bad to pretty good.
I like your idea. I’m not sure exactly how it would work. If someone (or a consensus) says that Player X, who is not currently putting up good numbers, actually looks pretty good at the plate (swing, pitch recognition, patience, etc.), at what point are they proven right or wrong? Based on how well he hits over the next week, the next month or for the remainder of the season? I’m not being critical of the idea; I just wonder how this should be done.
The immoderate moderator
by NYRoyal on May 1, 2009 5:05 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
the simplest way
For each week, people turn in their scouting reports. We record them, date, them, etc. Maybe have peopel “grade” a players swing or whatever.
Then we do a RetroSheet query after the season that charts a player’s week-to-week performance.
I’m not sure how we do the last part… but it’s not too big a deal. We could create a “trendlinen” for the players overall wOBA/ISO/SLG/OBP whatever, then compare that with both individual andn compsoite grades. I’m most interested to see if people are saying someone is good/bad at the time when their numbers say the opposite, and to see what happens in the time after that, whether the trend goes up or down.
I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at Driveline Mechanics.
by devil_fingers on May 1, 2009 5:13 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
My thought
Given the small sample of data (and therefore the wide swings that can occur over that small sample based on luck and other things that have nothing to do with the player’s talent/tools/skills) that any given week represents, I don’t know that it can be said to meaningfully correlate to anything. In short, a player could really be swinging the bat well (or poorly) and then have stats over the coming seven days which are very different from that just because of the way the ball happened to bounce over that period, so to speak.
The immoderate moderator
by NYRoyal on May 1, 2009 5:20 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
the scouting happens over a week
and then we see if the player starts getting “luckier” after that. WE can even set the intervals differentlly to see what sort of different results we have.
I mean, Im’ confused about how else we would test a scouting report of any kind? The whole point of the discussion is that scouting of somem sort can detect things in small sample sizes that projection systems can’lt. We can easily check projection systems against the performance. If that’s ruled out for scouting, then what good is it to anyone?
I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at Driveline Mechanics.
by devil_fingers on May 1, 2009 5:30 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
I mean, Im’ confused about how else we would test a scouting report of any kind?
I don’t mean to be too critical, but I’m just skeptical of any kind of microanalysis over short periods of time. It’s kind of like when a player tweaks his stance of swing and then hits well or poorly over the following week. One might conclude that sample sample correlation proves causation, but I think that would be a faulty assumption.
If that’s ruled out for scouting, then what good is it to anyone?
I don’t think one week of stats is good for evaluating anything. If projections say that a player is likely a .280/.330/.400 hitter and then over a week he hits .200/.250/.300, I don’t think that disproves or even argues against the value of the projection system.
The immoderate moderator
by NYRoyal on May 1, 2009 5:38 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
right, that's why we track the players ensueing performance over different time periods
If a scout says that a player’s swing is bad and that he’s just getting lucky during a hot streak, and then, over the rest of the season, the player bombs, then we can say that the scout saw something.
If our pool of amateur scouts say that a guy’s swing is good despite his current numbers, and then we look and see that over the rest of the season following those groups of reports, he did much better, then they were on to something.
those are the phenomena I’m interested. As I said above, the one I really want to know about is whether people are saying that a guys swing looks good before he goes on a hot streak, or if they “discerned” this right int he middle of one with their “scouting eye.” And, of course, the other way, too.
I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at Driveline Mechanics.
by devil_fingers on May 1, 2009 5:45 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
I say give it a shot
I think looking at larger samples of data (a month, multiple months) will probably work better, but when we crunch the numbers, we should look at a variety of samples just to see what we see. Let’s see what happens. And in the end, let’s not draw too many conclusions from the results. Ok, you’re honchoing this effort (if I may use some decades old slang). You lead, I’ll follow.
The immoderate moderator
by NYRoyal on May 1, 2009 5:49 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
uuuuuuhhhh
I spent too much time thinking about it already. Someone else just needs to organize the “scouts” and the reports. I’m too lazy/busy to do that. We don’t have to worry about the game logs until after the season.
Anyone?
I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at Driveline Mechanics.
by devil_fingers on May 1, 2009 5:50 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Actually sounds pretty interesting,
I’ll catch a vast majority of the games this season and will volunteer.
Need to come up with a way to record everything.
Plus/Minus per at bat?
Solid Contact/Weak Contact?
Swinging at strikes/swinging at shit? (that’s after seeing a lot of guys swinging at chest high fastballs tonight)
If you were thinking, you wouldn't have thought that.
by Warden11 on May 1, 2009 11:24 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
I dunno
something closer to how a scout would look at it, I don’t know what that would be. Could be as simple as a 1-10 scale each weak for “swinging good” or “swinging bad” or whatever.
I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at Driveline Mechanics.
by devil_fingers on May 1, 2009 11:27 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
How is advance scouting done?
I assume that those guys are feeding the team info on pitchers and hitters based on seeing them for a few games or a series or something. From that small sample, they must try to predict trends/performance, things to look for, how to trip up a guy, etc to the team. This would be similar.
Royals baseball. Where .260 would be orgasmic.
The General Theory of Royaltivity
by kabrink on May 1, 2009 6:30 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Yes, advance scouts evaluate and describe players’ tools, strengths, weaknesses, etc. based on what they’ve seen. But my point is that the numbers that a player puts up for 7 days following a scouting evaluating that player does not prove or disprove the quality of the scout’s evaluation.
The immoderate moderator
by NYRoyal on May 1, 2009 6:35 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Wouldn't be too hard
Just chart their at-bats. Biggest things to look for would be (a) good swings at balls which tail at the last second, (b) good at-bats in general as to pitch count/pitch selection (remembering that you can have a “good at-bat” even if it’s only one pitch, depending on that pitch) and © balls hit hard right at people.
(b) would be tricky, though, because you have to know what a good pitch is for each individual hitter to be able to judge that. That’s really one area where professional scouting has our asses kicked. I mean, I know I can’t say for certain that “Joe Bob’s hitting zone is more to the outside part of the plate, so on pitches on the inside corner, he should settle for protecting the plate by fouling it off.”
This space for rent.
by jonfmorse on May 1, 2009 5:48 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
I think Joe Bob is more of a pull hitter
I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at Driveline Mechanics.
by devil_fingers on May 1, 2009 5:51 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
The last game thread I was around for
I actually mentioned he was hitting the ball hard right at people.
This space for rent.
by jonfmorse on May 1, 2009 5:41 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
And I'm predicting an Aviles breakout very soon
He’s hitting line drives like crazy and his BABIP back luck is epic. I like how he’s making contact and not swinging at too much crap. I think he starts get a lot more hits soon
The immoderate moderator
by NYRoyal on May 1, 2009 5:44 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
I bet he'll be better soon, too
I’m looking for people not looking at those numbers, but talking about his mechanics, his “tentativeness,” etc.
If you can just look at the batted ball data, that isn’t “scouting” the way I understand it. If I can look it up on the internet and see numbers, a scout isn’t required.
To repeat; I’m not denigrating scouts, professional or amateurs. I just want to see how well they do at sensing things that "aren’ t in the numbers.
I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at Driveline Mechanics.
by devil_fingers on May 1, 2009 5:48 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
You're asking a robot to sense things that aren't in the numbers
You might as well ask a bird not to fly Jose Guillen not to swing at every pitch.
But seriously folks, I know what you’re looking for in your experiment. And in my participation, I’ll try to go with my amateur scouting eye, not batted ball data.
The immoderate moderator
by NYRoyal on May 1, 2009 5:51 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Well...
there ARE things which CAN show up in batted ball data which are essentially what people are reporting with their eye — and, in fact, what we SEE is more convincing than the data even though the data agrees with observation.
For instance, let’s say someone’s been hitting a lot of fly balls which would be home runs… in Williamsport. That’s going to show up in their FB numbers, but continually watching outfielders camping out waiting for the ball to come down sticks in our heads much better than looking at a stat report.
The sort of thing you’re looking for isn’t a concern; when we get sick of Ross Gload and his interminable F9s, you hear about it. We generally don’t even see the actual data reported here until/unless someone either tries to refute the point or prove it after someone’s already commented on their perception.
It’s sort of like last season, when I was arguing that Aviles actually looked pretty good out there; we didn’t start looking at numbers until that discussion had already gone around the track a couple of times. (I think NYR will agree that I was, in fact, seeing something for which the numbers — in that case — weren’t even functionally useful yet.) Same thing for Butler’s defense at 1B this season; people were talking about how competent he looked well before anyone started throwing numbers. And early in the year, I started talking about how Jacobs appeared to be putting together good at-bats — even if they weren’t resulting in walks or hits, he seemed to be protecting the plate fairly well, and was definitely running up higher pitch counts than we’d expect from someone with his skill set and track record. These are the sort of things we’re probably looking for, in the end.
In fact, having said all this, I’m not sure we need a new “study” — we just need someone to monitor the game threads and note when people mention (in amateur scouting terms, not “results” terms) trends which they think they’re seeing.
This space for rent.
by jonfmorse on May 1, 2009 6:03 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
They are what we thought they were
If you want to crown their ass, crown it!
Relive Royals History at royalsretro.blogspot.com
by RoyalsRetro on May 1, 2009 2:55 PM EDT reply actions 1 recs
You can't use that, it is trademarked:
by Jeff Zimmerman (TucsonRoyal) on May 1, 2009 3:12 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Might as well make as much money as you can off it...
since it doesn’t look like you’ll be coaching much anymore.
"Now…put that in your [BLEEP]ing pipe and smoke it." -Hal McRae
by Sweep_the_Leg on May 1, 2009 3:13 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
I don't know how to put this but I'm kind of a big deal.
by kcscoliny on May 1, 2009 3:44 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
THE SPORK
is the single greatest signing possibly in the history of the Royals. His grittiness is even rubbing off on Jose “happy go lucky smashing shaving creme in the face” Guillen.
I don't know how to put this but I'm kind of a big deal.
by kcscoliny on May 1, 2009 3:43 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs
On tangential interest
A discussion from a couple of years ago about PECOTA’s percentiles, reliability scores, etc. Nate Silver actually drops by.
Here’s a quote from a contemporaneous chat Nate did in the comments:
Basically, every study I’ve seen, whether its ours or someone else’s, has shown PECOTA at the top of the heap.
Yes, it has been a couple of years of change, indeed.
I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at Driveline Mechanics.
by devil_fingers on May 1, 2009 4:42 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs
This is what happens when you start focusing on politics and neglect your PECOTA baby
The immoderate moderator
by NYRoyal on May 1, 2009 4:45 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
someone needs to tell Nate
that accurate forecasting of baseball players is much more impressive than predicting an election
seroiusly
I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at Driveline Mechanics.
by devil_fingers on May 1, 2009 4:55 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Yeah, predicting baseball really is much more difficult
Basically Silver did a really good job of weighting and averaging pre-election polls. That’s a cake walk compared to predicting baseball performance.
The immoderate moderator
by NYRoyal on May 1, 2009 5:06 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Here's another awesome forecast
Michelle Obama will continue to be on a lot of magazine covers
’okay, where the hell is my multi-million dollar book deal?
[this is not a political comment, by the way. I just always get a kick out of all the B.S. the First Lady Partner has to put up with, and given her “coolness,” youth, etc., Michelle Obama seems to have to do a lot of photoshoots. I notice, and I don’t even follow that stuff. I really wonder if she hates it or whatever. Don’t even get me going on wishing that Bill Clinton could be the First Partner — whatever you think of him as President, we can all agree he would be an awesome celebrity. ]
I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at Driveline Mechanics.
by devil_fingers on May 1, 2009 5:16 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
First ladies are so boring
I don’t know why anyone cares. Apparently if you are married to the president and merely act like a decent human being who is even minimally likable, you become a very popular first lady.
The immoderate moderator
by NYRoyal on May 1, 2009 5:22 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
I'm curious to see if my "deadly accurate" forecast turns out
I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at Driveline Mechanics.
by devil_fingers on May 1, 2009 5:28 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
That's not true
They take on very controversial issues like adult illiteracy and puppy mills. These are highly divisive issues to which we look at our First Ladies to show us our moral compass.
Relive Royals History at royalsretro.blogspot.com
by RoyalsRetro on May 1, 2009 5:29 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
When it comes to America's perception and expectation of first ladies
…we really are still stuck in the 1950’s. Be a good hostess, look nice, be friendly, support your husband, and don’t rock the boat.
The immoderate moderator
by NYRoyal on May 1, 2009 5:39 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
and profanity on record albums
“gasp!”
Thanks Tipper (Second Lady)
Royals baseball. Where .260 would be orgasmic.
The General Theory of Royaltivity
by kabrink on May 1, 2009 6:40 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
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