Games » Oakland Athletics
Aug4Lee Judge
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“Control what you can, let the rest go.” That’s Joe Torre giving sound advice on baseball and life. In life, it means quit trying to control others and do something about your online porn addiction or your tendency to overeat (and I’ve got a half-gallon of Rocky Road in my freezer that won’t survive the weekend).
But what’s it mean in baseball?
Quit worrying about the other team and focus on what you control. You control throwing strikes, you control errors, you control the pitches you choose to swing at, and you control your baserunning. Lose focus, spend a lot of time worrying about things beyond your power and you control nothing.
(OK, Deepak, could we get back to the Royals?)
Why, yes. Of the four Oakland runs, one got on by walk (something the Royals should be able to control, but didn’t) and one got on by error (another thing the Royals should be able to control, but didn’t).
The Royals lead the league in errors. The majority of errors are caused by rushing (OK, I actually have no clue if it’s a majority, but it’s a whole bunch). Worrying too much about what the baserunner is doing and not enough about throwing mechanics. Worrying about getting two outs before you get one. Trying to control the future without controlling the present.
Until the Royals control what they can, their fate is out of control.
Betancourt…
Yuniesky picked up outstanding defensive play points for handling a ball in the sun, a play throwing on the run and stabbing a line drive off the bat of Kevin Kouzmanoff in the fourth. (Wow, I wrote about losing focus and I wasn’t talking about Betancourt…what are the odds?)
Heads-up baserunning…
In the first inning with nobody out, Mike Aviles went back to second to tag up on Billy Butler’s line drive to center. This is right out of the textbook. With no outs, a runner on second tags up on a questionable catch in the outfield. If the ball drops, the runner gets to third and you’ve got runners on the corners with nobody down. If it’s caught, you should have a runner on third with one down.
With one out, the runner goes halfway (halfway is actually inaccurate…the runner takes as much lead as the fly ball allows…deep, a lot of lead, shallow, not so much).
With two outs, the runner takes off like a bat out of heck (hey, c’mon, kids might be reading this).
Because Mike made the right decision on Butler’s fly ball, he was at third when Jose Guillen hit a grounder. Aviles then made it home with a nice slide, avoiding the tag.
No points deducted…
The box score says Mitch Maier was picked off, but Mitch was going on “first movement.” When a base-stealer has trouble reading a lefty’s move, he often breaks on the first movement after the set position. This is a calculated gamble, not falling asleep on the bases, so no minus points for getting picked off.
Game-winning hits…
In the previous game, Gregor Blanco got points for a game-winning hit but didn’t actually get a hit. When I asked Ron Polk how he wanted this category scored, he said it was for the hit in the last offensive half-inning that put your team ahead.
Blanco drove in the run while making an out, but I thought it fit the definition of what Ron Polk wanted to reward: clutch hitting. If you look at Ron’s system closely, you’ll see Coach Polk has slightly weighted the system to reward performance under pressure. A couple of sabermetric guys criticized the system because it wasn’t mathematically logical: why was a save worth as many points as a win?
If you’ve ever played the game, you know those last three outs are the hardest outs of the ballgame. Anyone who can perform under pressure in that situation is worth his weight in gold, and the system rewards that. Same with clutch hitting: Blanco did what he needed to do to drive in the winning run, and that ought to be rewarded.
Betancourt
Aviles
Getz
points for catching a ball in the sun as an outstanding defensive play? what a joke. some balls in the sun are harder than others, but Betancourt is notoriously bad at these kind of routine plays. do not let his history of making these plays difficult skew the scoring in this already bad set up. the face that Betancourt leads the team in "points" should show how flawed this system is. it arbitrarily gives points to shortstops and catchers just because they handle the ball more, not whether or not they are any better than anyone else. that is only one of the million or so things wrong with Coach Polk's system.
Pat:
I find it interesting that every professional or ex-professional ballplayer that looked at this system liked it and thought it offered valuable insights. I also find it interesting that every critic (so far)has been a non-player.
But maybe I'm being unfair, if you've played professionally or even at a high college level, it would make your complaints more credible. If you have that kind of experience, I'd like to hear about it.
If you haven't played at a high level, I'd be interested in learning how you know more baseball than Ron Polk. Ron has taken eight teams to the College World Series, coached the U.S. Olympic team twice, won more games than any coach in the history of the SEC and is in the College Baseball Hall of Fame.
This background is precisely why the players I talked to liked the system. They thought Ron had done an excellent job of picking categories that matter. They especially liked his recognition of defense and it's importance.
I really don't see how rewarding the players that handle the ball the most is arbitrary...they handle the ball the most. That's important and Ron Polk's system recognizes that.
Several (OK, all) of your comments are revealing.
You seem to feel that you know more baseball than Ron Polk. (Maybe, but I kind of doubt that.)
You feel pop flies in the sun are routine. (All I can say is every pro baseball player would like to know your secret, because none of them think sun balls are routine. You wouldn't see them dropped on a regular basis if they were.)
You feel it's a joke to reward Yuniesky Betancourt for making this difficult play because he's notoriously bad at them. (So because he's inconsistent...and I've said that just about every way I can think of over and over again...when he makes a good play he shouldn't get credit?)
Look, the point of the system is to evaluate players and help the observer come to some conclusions about the way they play. It sounds like you've decided that Yuniesky Betancourt is a bad player and any system that doesn't agree with your opinion must be flawed.
Going into this season I felt the same way: I didn't think much of Betancourt. Nobody has been more surprised than me by how well he's done. But rather than condemn the system set up by a coach with a lot of credibility, I decided to examine my own assumptions.
The conclusion I reached (in a long and detailed article posted recently) is that Yuniesky is better than I thought, but still remains so inconsistent it's hard to imagine him being a shortstop you'd want on a playoff team.
Finally, your comment about the system not showing whether a player is better or worse than another player at his position probably means you have a fantasy team.
When I started this project I was mystified by all the questions regarding comparisons to other players at the same position.
It took me awhile to figure it out: these were guys with fantasy teams who wanted to use the system in their imaginary drafts. When they found out the system wouldn't help them they got frustrated.
Ron Polk didn't set this thing up as an aid to fantasy baseball. He wanted to evaluate and motivate his players. He wanted to measure their play on offense and defense, their baserunning, their mental mistakes, their positives and their negatives.
A whole lot of good ballplayers think he did a good job and I'm with them.
I find this is similar to football in that good teams have very good front lines on offense and defense, but grunts up front don't get much acclaim.
It seems this system shows how important the center of the field is.
It is interesting for me to note that since Yuni has the most points of any player on the Royals, this says a lot about the Royals consistency of all of their individual players. Yuni is the only player other than Billy currently in the field that has played an entire year without moving around or being hurt or traded. It shows why we are still going into rebuild mode again.
Another point I should've made is that while the players in the center of the defense have the most opportunities to make plays, they also have the most opportunites to lose points through errors or mental mistakes.
Kendall and Betancourt are near the top in errors and Betancourt and Butler are near the top in mental mistakes.
First basemen handle the ball more than anybody but the catcher. They don't have the same throwing issues facing the other positions, but they are expected to be good with their gloves.
Some of Billy's mental mistakes happened because he made bad decisions about when to leave the bag for the ball, etc. and even though these players result in errors for other fielders, Ron Polk's system allows you to take those mistakes into account.