*** Official *** 2012 MLB Season Thread!!

[rcpratt]

Um, no. Read here for more specifics on what they use to calculate Defensive Runs Saved (DRS):
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/fielding-bible-volume-iii-defensive-runs-saved-updated/

Which includes the 2012 added velocity of every batted ball, 28 and 54 categories of Good Plays/Bad misplays, and batted ball timer relative to Outfielder Arms metric. I think that's a little more than "3 defensive metrics".

The fact that Fangraphs, Baseball Reference, and ESPN all use BIS' (puts out the Fielding Bible every year) Defensive Runs Saved validates it.

Um, yes?

I am aware of what DRS is. I'm aware of what UZR is. I'm aware of most defensive statistics. Thanks though.

I'm not sure what the point was to linking to that - it doesn't contradict anything that I say. Yes, of course, all of the defensive metrics attempt to take into account all aspects of playing defense. Our defensive metrics are nowhere near as advanced as our offensive metrics, and defense is much harder to quantify.

ESPN doing something with regards to sabremetrics means absolutely nothing to me. Anything they have is ripped off from others (FG, BR, BP, etc.). They develop nothing.

Example: Brendan Ryan and Clint Barmes led all of baseball in shortstop UZR, at 14.7 and 14.4, respectively. Ryan has 27 DRS. Barmes has 13 DRS.

I do put much more stock in DRS than UZR or anything else, but fixating on one is a mistake. Unless you truly think that, say, Yunel Escobar is twice as good of a defender as Elvis Andrus.

 

[SP33Demon]

Um, yes?

I am aware of what DRS is. I'm aware of what UZR is. I'm aware of most defensive statistics. Thanks though.

I'm not sure what the point was to linking to that - it doesn't contradict anything that I say. Yes, of course, all of the defensive metrics attempt to take into account all aspects of playing defense. Our defensive metrics are nowhere near as advanced as our offensive metrics, and defense is much harder to quantify.

ESPN doing something with regards to sabremetrics means absolutely nothing to me. Anything they have is ripped off from others (FG, BR, BP, etc.). They develop nothing.

Example: Brendan Ryan and Clint Barmes led all of baseball in shortstop UZR, at 14.7 and 14.4, respectively. Ryan has 27 DRS. Barmes has 13 DRS.

I do put much more stock in DRS than UZR or anything else, but fixating on one is a mistake. Unless you truly think that, say, Yunel Escobar is twice as good of a defender as Elvis Andrus.

If you've studied statistics, you know that such metrics aren't to be used as "twice as good or bad" as a holistic thing. You could say that a player saved twice as many runs, however.

While yes, offensive metrics are easier to quantify, it doesn't mean that defense isn't quantifiable. As technology progresses/has progressed, it's much easier to mathematically model defensive scenarios. For example, Hunter Pence's broken-bat-triple-hit single looked like an error on the SS, but after slow-mo showed the abnormal rotation spin and how it bounced, it's ruled a hit since it was out of the range of what a SS would expect on 99% of balls hit to that area. It's now much easier to model scenarios within a certain confidence interval, and BIS has the best formula with DRS (btw they also formulated UZR).

Once they have a baseline scenario for how the league average fielder would have fielded it, it's easy to measure who is better than another fielder. For example, if a HR is hit at a certain velocity/projectory, how far would a normal outfielder have to run and how high would he have to jump to pull it back? This can all be measured mathematically. The Fielding Bible goes more into it. You can say you don't take stock in it, but it's less subjective than you may think.

UZR is inferior to DRS in my opinion because it takes less variables into account, but it's still a decent metric and it still accurately showed that Ryan was in fact better than Barmes. DRS breaks it down further.

 

[rcpratt]

If you've studied statistics, you know that such metrics aren't to be used as "twice as good or bad" as a holistic thing. You could say that a player saved twice as many runs, however.

Or you could realize that it was said sarcastically.

But since you continue to imply that I am not well-versed in defensive metrics, I am going to stop wasting my time here. I'm plenty aware of everything you said.

If you've actually studied statistics, you'd realize that your last paragraph makes no sense and is blatantly incorrect. "Breaking it down further" is a terrible description of that huge discrepancy.

 

[SP33Demon]

Or you could realize that it was said sarcastically.

But since you continue to imply that I am not well-versed in defensive metrics, I am going to stop wasting my time here. I'm plenty aware of everything you said.

If you've actually studied statistics, you'd realize that your last paragraph makes no sense and is blatantly incorrect. "Breaking it down further" is a terrible description of that huge discrepancy.

Breaking it down further using more data/variables is... breaking it down further. It's not a huge discrepancy since both are different metrics, stop trying to relate the two. UZR is not as thorough, so obviously it's not going to report the same gap as DRS. Not sure why you are confused by this fact.

BTW, screw the Gold Gloves. The Fielding Bible awards for 2012 are out:
http://www.fieldingbible.com/the-winners.asp

Guess who won CF? Trout!

Center Field – Mike Trout, Los Angeles Angels
Can Mike Trout win every single award in his rookie season? In 1975 another rookie center fielder, Fred Lynn, won the MVP award, the Rookie of the Year award, and a Gold Glove. It was the first and last time this has ever been done. (Technically, Ichiro also won the same three awards in 2001, but he wasn’t really a rookie at age 27 having played many years of professional baseball in Japan, was he?) Mike Trout can now top that. Trout wins his first award in a possible Grand Slam of Awards with a Fielding Bible Award for his play defensively. He has incredible range, especially on balls hit deep, where he saved many a run, converting possible doubles and triples into outs. He made 23 more plays on balls hit deep than an average center fielder would have made on the identical type of batted balls. The other thing that set him apart was his four home-run saving catches in 2012. Cameron Maybin was second with three, and no one else had more than two.

 

[OBLAMA2009]

lol apparently nancy pelosi contributed to the world series victory

 

[jalaram]

Marlins fire sale again

What a mess! They've lost all excuses with the new publicly funded stadium. And now the Blue Jays look stronger in a rough AL East. Thankfully the Red Sox are rebuilding.

Meanwhile, congrats to Melvin and Davey Johnson for the manager OTY awards. Even though he didn't win, Showalter was a close and very deserved 2nd.

 

[rcpratt]

Torii Hunter 2/$26M to the Tigs.

Overpaid but I like it. Fills in several important holes/needs - RF, defense, speed, OBP, leader. Plugging him into the 2-hole sure makes the Tigers lineup look damn good...at least on paper.

CF Jackson
RF Hunter
3B Cabrera
1B Prince
DH VMart
SS Peralta
LF Dirks
C Avila
2B Infante

 

[zinfamous]

wow--I had no idea Torri Hunter was still playing

I remember him being on a sure but steady decline over 2 seasons when I was last following the game.

I haven't paid much attention to the league over the last 3 or 4 years though, tbh. :\

 

[thegimp03]

Marlins fire sale again

What a mess! They've lost all excuses with the new publicly funded stadium. And now the Blue Jays look stronger in a rough AL East. Thankfully the Red Sox are rebuilding.

Meanwhile, congrats to Melvin and Davey Johnson for the manager OTY awards. Even though he didn't win, Showalter was a close and very deserved 2nd.

I read an article earlier on USA Today which called the Marlins owners and management running a ponzi scheme by bringing in all those big names and shoveling out the money all in order to get a taxpayer-funded $600m+ stadium. Then nearly a 100 loss season and the Ozzie G. mess, and all those big salaries to pay in the next several years makes them ship out the whole lineup.

 

[raystorm]

David Price wins the AL Cy Young.


For the NL ...Robert Allen Dickey! woooo.. I'm happy for RA. I love that guy!

 

[hclarkjr]

:thumbsup:well deserved

David Price wins the AL Cy Young.


For the NL ...Robert Allen Dickey! woooo.. I'm happy for RA. I love that guy!

 

[rcpratt]

Still think JV deserved it, but oh well. Miguel is going to steal one tomorrow so I can't be too upset.

 

[jalaram]

Congrats to David Price!! Awesome season for him. Congrats to F. Rodney for coming in 5th as well.

 

[jalaram]

Cabrera and Posey for the MVPs.

 

[SP33Demon]

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/14/the-statistical-case-against-cabrera-for-m-v-p/

I like Nate Silver's take on the matter. In addition, I thought Verlander deserved Cy Young but we all know how this voting crap goes, it's like the All Star game, no quantitative analysis behind it at all.

 

[Baked]

Mike Trout got robbed. The guy can do everything offensively and defensively. I know they don't look at post season performance, but if they aren't going to use that as a measure for MVP, then why didn't they just announce the winners when the regular season is over? Why do they have to wait until way after the post season is over? If they're going to do that, they might as well take post season into account, because caberra sucked ass in the playoffs when it mattered the most, the championship games.

 

[rcpratt]

Mike Trout got robbed. The guy can do everything offensively and defensively. I know they don't look at post season performance, but if they aren't going to use that as a measure for MVP, then why didn't they just announce the winners when the regular season is over? Why do they have to wait until way after the post season is over? If they're going to do that, they might as well take post season into account, because caberra sucked ass in the playoffs when it mattered the most, the championship games.

I don't disagree with the Trout part, but he "sucked ass," really? A .354 wOBA in 57 whole postseason at bats is representative of nothing. Further, even if it were, a wOBA of .354, while bad by Cabrera's standards, was comparable to names like Jones, Pujols, and Beltran in 2012.

 

[sjwaste]

Mike Trout got robbed. The guy can do everything offensively and defensively. I know they don't look at post season performance, but if they aren't going to use that as a measure for MVP, then why didn't they just announce the winners when the regular season is over? Why do they have to wait until way after the post season is over? If they're going to do that, they might as well take post season into account, because caberra sucked ass in the playoffs when it mattered the most, the championship games.

Cabrera won the triple crown. That means he was better than Trout in batting average, RBI, and home runs. He also led in OPS, which I think is the most important. His team also went to the playoffs.

Trout had a great year. He obviously has speed and better defense as dimensions to his game that Cabrera doesn't. Any other year, he wins it. But Cabrera was out of his mind, and really carried the Tigers down the stretch. They made the playoffs, the Angels didn't. Postseason performance doesn't factor, but whether the player's team makes the postseason usually does.

If I had a vote, it would have gone to Cabrera. In the end, you need to actually watch the game and not rely on statistics as the whole story.

About holding the awards, I believe the votes are cast on the last day of the regular season or the day after. They hold the awards until after the WS because the postseason games are more important than handing out individual hardware. And you might say Cabrera did poorly in the postseason, but he took his team to the postseason. Trout didn't.

FWIW, I'm a Phillies fan without any bias in this. Cabrera just had an incredible year.

 

[dabuddha]

Cabrera won the triple crown. That means he was better than Trout in batting average, RBI, and home runs. He also led in OPS, which I think is the most important. His team also went to the playoffs.

Trout had a great year. He obviously has speed and better defense as dimensions to his game that Cabrera doesn't. Any other year, he wins it. But Cabrera was out of his mind, and really carried the Tigers down the stretch. They made the playoffs, the Angels didn't. Postseason performance doesn't factor, but whether the player's team makes the postseason usually does.

If I had a vote, it would have gone to Cabrera. In the end, you need to actually watch the game and not rely on statistics as the whole story.

About holding the awards, I believe the votes are cast on the last day of the regular season or the day after. They hold the awards until after the WS because the postseason games are more important than handing out individual hardware. And you might say Cabrera did poorly in the postseason, but he took his team to the postseason. Trout didn't.

FWIW, I'm a Phillies fan without any bias in this. Cabrera just had an incredible year.

This. I hate the Tigers but I'm not a big Miggy fan but I'm glad he won because he earned it and deserved it by far

 

[SP33Demon]

Cabrera won the triple crown. That means he was better than Trout in batting average, RBI, and home runs. He also led in OPS, which I think is the most important. His team also went to the playoffs.

Trout had a great year. He obviously has speed and better defense as dimensions to his game that Cabrera doesn't. Any other year, he wins it. But Cabrera was out of his mind, and really carried the Tigers down the stretch. They made the playoffs, the Angels didn't. Postseason performance doesn't factor, but whether the player's team makes the postseason usually does.

If I had a vote, it would have gone to Cabrera. In the end, you need to actually watch the game and not rely on statistics as the whole story.

About holding the awards, I believe the votes are cast on the last day of the regular season or the day after. They hold the awards until after the WS because the postseason games are more important than handing out individual hardware. And you might say Cabrera did poorly in the postseason, but he took his team to the postseason. Trout didn't.

FWIW, I'm a Phillies fan without any bias in this. Cabrera just had an incredible year.

Trout actually beat Cabrera in OPS adjusted (OPS+). If you read Nate Silver's analysis (he used to work for Baseball Prospectus), he offers a good explanation as to why many of Cabrera's extra base hits would be outs in Anaheim. Luckily OPS+ solves the argument and Trout was better. RE24, DRS, WPA among other advanced metrics too.

 

[Perknose]

Chone Figgins finally punted by the Mariners. I hope the Phillies take a chance and jump on this. Classic low risk, high possible reward.

 

[IAteYourMother]

Carlos Ruiz failed test - took amphetamines. Then again, his career path has been a little strange, peaking at age 33 :hmm:

http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/8...hia-phillies-suspended-25-games-positive-test