Games » Chicago White Sox
Sep24Everett Teaford throws a fastball, a cutter, a curve, a change and the kitchen sink
Lee Judge
The Kansas City Star
Last Wednesday, pitcher Everett Teaford and I sat in the Royals dugout and talked about this start. Teef said he was going to see how far his fastball would take him during the first trip through the White Sox batting order. Teaford has a straight four-seamer that he was going to try to use to hit corners and a cutter that runs into a righty. (MLB.com was identifying a pitch as a slider, which Everett didn’t list as one of his pitches, so maybe it misidentified his cutter.)
Teaford wanted to use the cutter to tie up or back-door right handers (“back-door” is when a breaking pitch is thrown outside and it comes into the zone at the very end of its flight). Then Teef wanted to run the cutter off the plate away to lefties or throw it in, make them give up on it and catch the inside corner.
After the first trip through the order, Teaford wanted to add his overhand curve and finally his changeup. That was if everything went according to plan and he was getting people out. If things were going badly, he was going to have to give up on rationing his pitches and throw the kitchen sink at Chicago right away.
By the second inning, Teef was throwing the kitchen sink.
He fell behind 2-0 to A.J. Pierzynski, threw a fastball and gave up a lead-off single. He then fell behind to Alex Rios and gave up a two-run home run. Pay attention to what a pitcher does after he gives up a bomb, it will tell you something about his confidence. Teaford walked Adam Dunn, currently hitting .162.
Everett then fell behind Dayan Viciedo, gave up another single, walked Brent Morel, struck out Gordon Beckham and then walked Juan Pierre. If you’ve been counting, that’s one too many base runners for the number of bases you have to work with, so Adam Dunn scored. The Morel and Pierre walks had pushed Viciedo to third base, and that turned an Alexei Ramirez fly out into a sacrifice fly. The White Sox earned two runs swinging the bat, but walks got them two more.
And throwing the kitchen sink at them didn’t seem to help. Friday’s game showed us what this Royals team looks like when it’s gets pitching, Saturday’s game showed us what it looks like when it doesn’t.
Game notes
• Teaford said he was aware that he was facing the Sox in back-to-back starts. I asked whether that meant he would throw a different game against them and he said no. Establishing the fastball was what he did in his last start also. He said Jeff Francis advised him not to make an adjustment until the hitters showed him that he had to.
• The hitters showed him that he had to.
• Once again, the Royals ran on Pierre’s arm without paying the price when Melky Cabrera scored from second in the sixth inning.
At one point, Brent Morel had a big lead at second, but never took off. That reminded me of something Chris Getz told me right before the road trip: Getz said that if you’re going to steal third, you should do it right away. Do it before the pitcher gets focused on your presence. Earlier in the season, Royals first-base coach Doug Sisson told me that Eric Hosmer was drawing too much attention to himself by moving around a lot when he was at second base. Sis said the idea was to lull the pitcher to sleep and get a walking lead on your way to third.
• Chris and I agreed that putting on some kind of play right after a distraction was a good idea. If someone makes an error and is upset, take advantage of the distraction. Try to catch the defense on its heels while its focus is disturbed. In other words, steal right after a streaker hits the field.
• At one point, the Royals had their infield in, trying to cut off a run off at the plate in the eighth. That reminded me that I never answered a reader’s question about Ned Yost’s philosophy on bringing in the infield.
Ned said it all depends on the situation (stunning, huh?), and he would do it whenever he thought that run was meaningful and he wasn’t going to have a great chance to get it back. He ran through some scenarios, and one of them was to bring the defense in once the batter got to two strikes. At that point, a lot of hitters are just trying to put the ball in play, and the chance that they will really smoke a grounder between fielders goes down.
It goes back to spring training
I told Doug Sisson that the Royals seemed to be playing much better fundamental baseball than they did even two years ago. Doug gave Ned Yost credit. I’m pretty sure Sis has been around baseball since the Bronze Age, and he said the two best spring trainings he has ever seen were one run by Mike Scioscia and the other by Ned this spring.
Doug said the drills were meaningful — , not just some exercises that had to be checked off a list — and they actually accomplished something. He then invited me to come to spring training in 2012 to watch for myself.
I don’t know. Kansas City is so nice that time of year.
Leftovers
• If you see an umpire point at his watch when a runner is on second and there are two outs, he’s reminding the other umpires that they now have a time play on their hands. They need to know whether the runner crosses home plate before someone else is tagged out on the bases to end the inning.
• Doug Sisson confirmed that it sometimes is difficult to read the ball when a catch is made against those brightly lit, field-level scoreboards in Kauffman Stadium. Runners sometimes have to hang up while trying to figure out whether a ball was caught.
• Mike Moustakas was looking at my list of stuff to write about and saw the mention of the scoreboards. Moose said he had no idea what Doug and I were talking about. I called him a young punk and said just wait until his eyes got old and then he would know what Doug and I were talking about.
The sacrifice bunt revisited: a term paper
(I’m not really looking to start an argument, and I don’t really want to have one, but I wrote this a few weeks ago and never posted it. I figured I ought to explain why I think what I think. It doesn’t mean you have to agree with it, and I could be wrong, but for better or worse … enough qualifiers for you? … here it is.)
After I wrote that there are times I liked the bunt as a strategy, a reader sent me some numbers. Saying that there are times you like the bunt as a strategy sends a lot of metric guys into cardiac arrest. Their usual response is, “Don’t you know that a successful sacrifice bunt actually decreases the chances of scoring a run?”
My usual response is that all situations are not the same. The people involved would have to change those odds. In some cases, the chances of scoring a run would have to be higher than average. In others cases those odds would be lower. Bunt attempts also change defensive alignments and might result in base hits in later at-bats. But I decided to devote some thought to the numbers I was given. Here’s what I came up with.
The reason some people freak if you say the sac bunt can sometimes be the right strategy is this: From 1993 to 2010, with a runner on first and nobody out, an average of 0.941 runs scored. In that same period, with a runner on second and one out, an average of 0.721 runs scored. So case closed. Sacrifice bunts actually decrease the chances of a run scoring, right?
After thinking about it until my head hurt (and it couldn’t possibly be last night’s beer), I think that’s the wrong comparison.
Games move on. This is not a casino, where you can quit while you’re ahead and cash in your 0.941 runs. Something has to happen next, and managers have to place a bet on what that will be. They can’t say, “We’re just going to leave that runner on first with nobody out, put our 0.941 runs on the board and stop playing.”
The manager’s true choice is deciding what is more likely to happen next: a runner on second with one out or two runners on with no outs or no runners on with two outs or both runners in with no outs. (If there’s some combination I’m missing, sorry, but you get my point). In this casino, you have to place another bet.
So let’s take one scenario and try to figure out some odds. Nobody out, one-run game late, Mike Moustakas is on first and Chris Getz is facing a lefty he doesn’t hit very well. OK, the odds of Chris hitting a home run are just about zero, so forget playing that bet. Let’s say the lefty is a strike-throwing machine so Chris is also unlikely to walk. So throw his on-base percentage out the window. Now your choices are Chris swinging away or bunting. (I’m leaving out steals, it’s Moose, and let’s say the guy is unpredictable about throwing a fastball in a fastball count, so you don’t want to hit and run … hey, play along for the sake of the discussion).
Now let’s say the chance of Chris getting a hit against this lefty is 18 percent. So the chances that you will wind up with runners at first and second with no outs (a situation that results in 1.556 runs on average) or first and third with no outs (1.853 runs on average) aren’t that good. (I’m leaving out extra-base hits because it’s Chris). So anyway, let Chris swing away and 18 percent of the time you’ll wind up in a much better situation than a runner on first with no outs.
Eighty-two percent of the time you’ll probably wind up in a worse situation than a runner on second, one out. Chris grounds into a double play, two outs, nobody on (0.112 runs on average). Chris forces Moose, but beats the throw, runner on first one out (0.562 runs on average) or Chris hits into a fielder’s choice, Moose advances, but then you’re right back to the same result a sacrifice bunt would give you.
So (assuming you’re not asleep at this point), the manager’s real choice is not runner on first no outs vs. runner on second one out. The manager’s real choice in this particular situation is sacrifice bunt (which with a good bunter like Getz ought to work 95% of the time) to get to that average of 0.721 runs scored, or let Chris swing away which will result in a better situation 18 percent of the time and a worse situation around 82 percent of the time.
Obviously, different players with different skills would change all those odds. The point of this scenario was to create a plauisible situation in which a sacrifice bunt might look like a pretty decent strategy.
And I’m now going to attempt to balance my checkbook. Wish me luck.
P.S.
When I ran these numbers by Chris Getz, just to make sure I was being accurate about his chances of getting a hit or laying a bunt down, he asked a very logical question: Did the 0.941 runs scored with a runner on first and no outs include runners who were bunted over?
I said I wouldn’t think so. How do you use that number to refute bunting as a strategy when bunting helped create the number?
My bad. That number does include runners who bunted over … and chalk one up for Getzie. He must have learned something before he dropped out of college.
(Now why do I get the feeling I’m going to be sorry that I brought this subject up?)
Cabrera
Giavotella
Wood
Obviously, the situation depends on a bunch of different things. Every number in the expected runs matrix is going to be higher than the actual expectation if you have a bad hitter at the plate. Or a great pitcher on the mound. Or slow base-runners.
Of course there are times when bunting is a plausible strategy. I am particularly interested in the game theory side of the numbers - how often you should do things that are on the face of it less than optimal so that the other team is forced to defend it.
The other obvious example for when it is correct to bunt is with pitchers in the NL. As a group, their offensive numbers are so low that they are better off just trying to get a base.
In the scenario you mention, what I'd like is not yet another sacrifice bunt, but a roster constructed so that we could bring in a solid right-handed pinch hitter so that we could cover a player's weakness. If we are having to bat Getz against a great left-handed reliever in a key situation, we've already cooked our own goose.
I'm one of those guys who doesn't like sacrifice bunts and is quick to point out that multiple studies indicate they decrease your chance of scoring runs.
You rightly point out that not all situations are correct, but my response is this: the situations where it may increase your chances are rare. If you play aggressively (such as the early 2000s Oakland As did) and don't sac bunt, over the entire course of the season you'll score more runs and likely add a win or two that you wouldn't get by giving away outs.
Hey Lee, do you know how i could go about buying one of those Bruce Chen's shirt. thanks
Wise: Unfortunately, those Bruce Chen T-shirts aren't for sale or I'd be wearing one.
I don't know how long it's been going on, but players sometimes have limited edition shirts or caps made up to be worn by teammates. The Bruce Chen shirt was one of those.
Daniel: When I go to 'views' I can see you left a comment on sacrifice bunts, but I can't see the entire post.
Unfortunately, this website can get a little glitchy with comments and the guy who fixes that won't be in until Monday. I've got an email into him and we'll get it straightened out as soon as possible.
Curtis: One of the reasons your participation on this site has been so valuable is that you understand numbers far better than I do, but remain reasonable about it.
There are others that are much more entrenched in their views and tend to take one number and think it defines all situations.
I tried to think of an example of a plausible situation where a bunt might make sense. As you correctly point out, everything depends on who is involved: an NL pitcher is at the plate, bunt, Albert Pujols, not so much.
That's why you can't say bunts are bad or good: it just depends on all the other factors involved and, if they're doing their job, nobody has a better idea of those factors than the manager.
Another element you mentioned is the effect of bunting (or steals or hit and runs) on the defense. Chris Getz said if he squares and the corners really charge hard and the bunt is not laid down, they may go to a hit and run or swinging away on the next pitch.
Spending a lot of time talking baseball with Doug Sisson has made me more aware of the effect a base-stealing team has on the quality of pitches delivered to the plate. The fact that these effects are hard to measure doesn't mean they don't exist.
And sorry I didn't conjure up Willie Mays in his prime ready to pinch hit in my Getzie bunting scenario, it would make that decision a lot easier.
One thing I would add is that Getzie is 8 for 28 in bunt attempts this year, a .286 average, so for him a bunt attempt is a higher percentage play than a swing. Problem with averaging 18 years of data down to one average is that the sample size becomes so large as to be irrelevant. When Chris bunts he gets a hit 2 of 7 times, plus when he bunts with a man on 1st and no outs, even if he doesn't get a hit there is a high probability that he advances the runner.
Lee: The trouble with averages is that sometimes you have to do better than average and sometimes worst than average. The manager uses the situation at hand to try and get better than average results. This being said the players also have to execute when called upon. I am a simple man and like to keep things simple. If metrics are so great why do we bother playing the games, oh yah, the numbers at the beginning of the year had Chicago playing for the Division Crown, fighting Minnesota. Lets see, Cleveland and Kansas City would be fighting for 5th place. Numbers are a tool and only one of many tools that make this game great. If we took numbers too serious we would not even play this game, where if you fail 7 out of 10 times at the plate you are great. That is, of course, if your average over your career is 7 failures out of 10.
Hi Lee,
The statistics implemented in the sacrifice bunt scenario have a fatal flaw.
The sabermetric argument against the sac bunt can probably be reduced to the following logic: Most teams average 4 to 5 runs scored per game. Therfore, to win an "average game," (of course, the "average" game is nonexistant--like chess, each game has infinite permutations) a team must score 5 runs. The goal of a sacrifice bunt is to plate one run in that inning. Because multiple runs are typically required to win a game, and given the fact that there is a finite number of outs, opponents of the sac bunt argue that the benefit of having a runner at second base instead of first base is not worth the downside of losing almost 4 per cent of your available outs. Put another way, the sac bunt significantly diminishes the chance of the "big innning" where multiple runs are scored. A multiple run inning is more likely to result in a W as opposed to a single run inning.
Although sabermetric statistics generally back up that argument, proponents of the sac bunt argue that a sac bunt is nonetheless a viable strategy in highly leveraged innings when scoring a single run has added importance in the game's outcome, for example, when that single run will constitute the tying or go-ahead run in late inning situations. (another example where the sac bunt makes sense is when the pitcher who is batting is adept at bunting but overall has a miserable batting average--here a strikeout or double play is very likely, and having a runner at second base with one out is obviously preferable to having a runner at first base after a strikeout, or having no runners on base with two outs after a double play).
Consequently, the sac bunt has merit--if it has any merit at all--when the strategy and goal is to score a single run in that inning.
With that in mind, the sabermetic statistics cited simply have no application ("with a runner on first and nobody out, an average of 0.941 runs scored. In that same period, with a runner on second and one out, an average of 0.721 runs scored." ) The important stat is not the average number of runs scored in that situation--which is entirely irrelevant as the strategy is not to score runs but instead is to score a single run—but instead the probability of a single run scoring. Simply put, the specific stats used must be congruent with the desired outcome.
I am not arguing with you. You are absolutely right. “[A]ll situations are not the same.” And herein lies the profound shortcoming of sabermetrics. The average game does not exist. Each at-bat is unique, and therefore using stats based on “averages” doesn’t necessarily translate to unique circumstances. There are too many variables at play, for example, the ball park, the location in the order (i.e., is the heart of the order batting or are your 6-7-8, 7-8-9 or 8-9-1, etc batters due up). Does the opposing team have a shut-down closer? What inning are you in. Is your team a “high scoring” team. Is the other team a high scoring team. What are the relevant pitching and batting splits. The speed of the baserunner. Etc., etc., etc. .
Perhaps that is why owners hire older guys with years of baseball experience instead of the proverbial geeky sabermetrician. Sabermetrics is merely one tool in baseball, and is not an end all solution for winning games.
As a aside, I have a question. Does any major league team employ a coach—here the bench coach position would be the most likely candidate—who is very well versed in the art of the sabermetrics. (And I used the word “art” as opposed to “science” intentionally).
By the way (and I should've pointed this out at the beginning) I don't find what I think about steals or bunts or small ball to be particularly important. I tell you what I think so you know where I'm coming from, but so what?
I've never played at a high level and only managed in a men's amateur league: what I think of baseball strategy is marginally significant at best.
What IS important is what the Royals and Ned Yost think about the bunt, the steal and small ball. And they think the bunt is worthwhile strategy at times. (About 46 times this season if I'm reading Kevin Seitzer's stats correctly.)
As I've pointed out many times, I'm making this website up as I go. It's changing and evolving as we go along.
But what's different about this site is the access I've been given to players and coaches. It didn't happen right away, but, by being there for every home game, the players and coaches have come to trust what I'm trying to do and shared their incredible knowledge of the game.
So in the future I'll probably tell you less about what I think and more about what the pros think. Nobody should be coming to this site to hear my thoughts on the game, I'm an amateur.
I'll do my best to bring you what the professionals think about the game, because that's what's really important.
(Y'know, what I really like about me is how humble I am.)
Jim: When I asked Kevin Seitzer how often a good bunter should be able to get down a sacrifice bunt, he said 95% of the time.
Seitzer then gave me Getz's sacrifice bunt stats which showed Chris getting the bunt down 7 out of 7 times with a runner on 1st and 0 outs. Chris missed or fouled off a pitch in those situations twice.
Chris was asked to bunt with a runner on 2nd and 0 outs once and got that bunt down. He's been asked to bunt with a runner on 1st and 2nd and 0 outs five times and got all those down, missing or fouling off a pitch once.
Thanks for throwing in what he does when he bunts for a hit, which makes the bunt an even more appealing choice in his case.
I've suggested that Chris is a much better offensive player when he doesn't hit the ball ALL the way to a defender, but he's resisted my idea of using a bat that's all handle.
Lee, we are all amateurs on this site when it comes to baseball strategy, and I for one enjoy your insights as well as your openness to other points of view. I hope Bob could hear me stand up and cheer for his post - he is so right on!!! We can all have a point of view and be an "expert" to a greater or lesser degree, but what it all comes down to is that there is a reason that the guys coaching and managing are where they are and we are where we are.
Larry: I've never met a baseball guy who dismissed numbers, but they all have much the same attitude you do: numbers are A tool, not THE tool.
Otherwise, let a computer manage the game. The problem is that there are so many factors in any given situation you could never take them all into account as fast as a human with experience can do it.
And anyone who scoffs at 'gut instinct' should read Malcolm Gladwell's book "Blink" a study of how the subconscious works and how effective it can be in sorting out complex problems.
Bob: I think you hit the nail on the head and may have said it better than I did: there are no 'average' games and applying the same average to each and every unique situation is a mistake.
The players, coaches and managers are employed partially because they know what's unique about the current situation on the field and what the appropriate strategy might be.
And, yes, teams do employ people versed in sabermetrics. Bill James is employed by the Red Sox and I've heard of several other examples. I've also heard of situations where their advice was followed and turned out to be helpful and I've heard of situations where their advice was followed and turned out to be not so helpful.
I've been told the Royals have a couple guys who help them with statistical analysis. The coaches can ask for certain stats of interest to be kept, like Bob McClure wanted to know what his pitchers did in even counts 0-0, 1-1, 2-2 because that's where the at-bat was going tilt in favor of the pitcher or the hitter.
Like I said, I don't know of any coach who dismisses numbers. They may be interested in different numbers than your average sabermetrics guy, but they're all interested in numbers.
I've been shown some of the stats they keep and then asked not to reveal what they were. (Why let the other team know what you know?) But they all keep numbers.
Joel: Thanks, although all my insight come from others. I was very lucky: when I decided I wanted to know more about baseball, my teachers were people like Clint Hurdle, Russ Morman, Danny Jackson and Dan Quisenberry just to name a few.
My point of view is a reflection of what they taught me.
It's just very cool that we all get to hear from professionals and I just want to make sure I don't let my ego get in the way. (OK, my ego will still get in the way, but I'll try to keep it to a minimum.)
Lee,
It is not my intent to be contrary or combative. After all, you are the baseball columnist (and an exceptional one, at that). I am a mere fan.
Nonetheless, I think the point you are making is that the secrets are not the stats themselves. With the explosion of sabermetrics and the internet just about every conceivably relevant baseball stat is in the public domain. Therefore, when you write “[w]hy let the other team know what you know,” I think you probably mean “why let the other team know what you are thinking.”
Hope I am not being too presumptuous.
Bob, it is my understanding that the information from the Royals' new "fielding fx" cameras will not be made publicly available. The cameras are used to chart vectors and velocities of balls hit, which allows judgements of fielding ability and also of the pitchers, allowing the team to see whether a pitcher with a supposedly bad FIP is better than the number suggests because balls in play are in play weakly, not squared up. Sabermetrics can identify ground balls, flys, and liners, but can't make the distinction between a screaming one hopper down the line and a rolled over two bouncer to the second baseman. I've seen other bloggers complain that they won't have access to this information, said information attempting to "see" what GMDM sees when he re-signs the baffling Master Chen who outperforms what the stats predict, his outperformance a result of the fact that he is so difficult for a batter to square up and drive.
Lee: Thanks for starting these stimulating and civil discussions and providing a place for them.
Joel, I am flattered by your compliment, especially coming from a highly educated, mature person. The major short coming of the garden variety sabermetrics fan--typically young, educated, proficient at math and computers, and at least slightly arrogant--is that they are lacking in one very crucial aspect: no experience of years.
Perhaps the most valuable attribute about life is not education or intellect, but experience of years. As I grow old I have discovered that the most important part of my education is not what I know, but instead, when that education is combined with the maturity of advanced age, what I don't know. The realization of what we don't know and don't have an answer for is far more important and significant than what we do know. In this regard, perhaps it is appropriate to suggest that experience trumps knowledge.
The best example of this may be Albert Einstein. His magnum opus—the Theory of General Relativity—46 pages, labored over between November 1915 and its publication in May 1916 when Einstein was 37—was THE stepping stone for most of the remaining 39 years of his life, which were primarily (and unsuccessfully) devoted to discovering the elusive “cosmological constant.” Shortly before his death Einstein acknowledged that his most significant blunder was the idea that such a constant actually existed.
Jim, Thanks for your post and the information provided therein. I stand corrected.
P.S. I owe Lee an apology. Obviously, I didn't follow my own advice, i.e, "the realization of what we don't know and don't have an answer for is far more important and significant than what we do know, [or what we or falsely presume to know.]
Bob, Jim, Larry and everybody else posting this morning: This is what I hoped the website could be, a place where reasonable people could share information.
And ,Bob, you're exactly right: realizing how much you don't know and how much there is to learn is key. Every professional baseball guy I've ever met has pretty much the same attitude: there's always something more to learn.
The magic formula we kind of stumbled upon here at the site is having me wander around the park with no particular agenda, talking to people who know more than I do (which includes just about everybody).
And at times I have been given information that's been developed specifically for the Royals that may not be known by other teams.
My apologies for beating a dead horse, but back to the scenario cited by Lee in his column. Runner on first. No out. Assuming you’re playing for one run, do you bunt or hit away? According to the run expectancy matrix (http://www.tangotiger.net/re24.html), the probability of scoring a run with no outs and a runner on first is 0.441, while the probability of scoring a run with a runner on second and one out is 0.418. Translated into percentages, and with accepted rounding principles, it’s 44% vs. 42%. I am not a trained statistician, but based on a single college course in statistics and a gut feeling, I surmise that the margin of error is plus or minus five percent or so. To put purely in lay terms, it’s a toss-up. That’s why there are no geeks managing major league teams. Assuming a sabermetrician even acknowledges there are circumstances where the best strategy is to play for one run, he will always hit away, given the 2% mathematical advantage. On the other hand, a major league caliber manager will base his decision on the myriad of circumstances presented taking into consideration his his decades of professional baseball experience.
Ironically, in this scenario sabermetrics does apply. What does it tell us? The raw percentages mean nothing. The unique circumstances that only a experienced major league manager can fathom and sort though mean everything.
One last punch at the horse. Is the saber geek sophisticated enough to consider the downside of hitting away? The worst possible outcome when hitting away is the double play. And the second worst outcome would be a strikeout, fly out with the runner not advancing or a fielders choice at second.
The two worst possible outcomes--none on and two out or runner on first and one out—are far likely to produce the needed run than runner on second and one out.
I doubt our typical saber geek ever played baseball beyond the little league level, and even then, he was probably a late-inning right field substitution (Based on my little league experience, the worst player among the starting nine was exiled to right field, and the worst “benchie” replaced him in the fourth or fifth inning).
correction: "far less likely"
Lee, if you come to Spring Training, you can stay at our house in Surprise. Golf included. BYOB, tho.
I am an advocate of small ball. I don't need the numbers. Bunting helps a team. It's easy to use hindsight in a given situation. As inconsistent as the second half of KC's lineup is, bunting HAS to be an option to manufacture runs. Teams also have to manufacture runs in the late innings and especially the post season...this means BUNTING.
Lee- Just got done seeing Moneyball! Great baseball movie. My question is how closely do the Royals upper-management- Dayton and the gang, follow the rules set forth by Billy Beane, Theo Epstein, Mark Shapiro, etc...?????
Also- what an AMAZING year by our outfield! My question how does this year's trio stats compare to 2000 with Damon, Beltran, and Dye??? Interesting to see, because I thought I'd never seen a KC outfield come close!
Bob: While I've certainly had my differences with some who consider themselves part of the sabermetric community and at times made a joke at their expense, I've decided that purposely antagonizing them is counterproductive.
(Although I'm sure I'll still unintentionally antagonize them on occasion.)
I've got no desire, time or energy to conduct a feud with anyone and it seems a bit like a boxing match between hairdressers: lots of emotion, but not much changes. (Now watch a hairdresser kick my ass.)
As I said above, what an amateur with a website believes isn't that important. What the Kansas City Royals believe is.
Zack: Thanks for the Spring Training invite, although I believe the Star rents a condo for the writers and photographers that are sent to Surprise.
But don't hesitate to approach me if you spot me hanging out down there. It's always fun to talk to another Royals fan.
Jeff: No idea how this outfield compares to Damon, Beltran and Dye (those numbers should be available on numerous baseball websites, this just isn't one of them), but I do know we're watching a very good outfield. (Pretty deep analysis, hmm?)
As for how seriously the Royals take sabermetrics, I couldn't tell you for sure. I don't think anyone totally dismisses them, but I don't think they're seen as gospel either.
By the way, I saw 'Moneyball' over the weekend and found it very entertaining also.
I read the book when it came out, but I wasn't there, so I don't know what went on in Oakland. There were scenes in the movie that made me wonder how much the story got changed by Hollywood.
I've been in a lot of clubhouses and never seen anyone dancing on a table after a loss OR a win. I've never seen Dayton Moore in the clubhouse at all, much less advising players on how to approach the game (maybe Billy Beane did that, I don't know). And funny that the pitching of Hudson, Mulder and Zito never came up as one of the reasons the A's succeeded.
But it's still a very entertaining movie and I think most baseball fans would enjoy it.
Great discussion today. Lee, I hope you are taking the appropriate pride in what you have wrought.
Joel: Thanks. As always, I think the credit goes to the people who play the game professionally and have been so unselfish with their knowledge and their time.
Although I still need to find a way to get back at Frenchy for giving me a giant bruise on my right bicep.
As mentioned above, there are a couple of interesting matrices - google run expectancy matrix and you will find them. And as Bob mentioned above, sacrificing with a runner on first and none out reduces the probability of scoring in an inning even if it is successful.
Of course statistical analysis can only take you so far. Among other things, it can't tell me who fouled a ball off his shin the night before and is running at 80%. It can't tell me who had a baby three weeks ago and maybe needs a day off mentally. And so on and so on.
But the numbers do help us understand the game a whole lot better than just watching with our eyes. That doesn't mean we should pluck our eyes out. And it doesn't mean that we should disregard the skills that go into being a baseball player at the highest level.
My interest in SABR came from my baseball playing days. I ended up a mediocre utility player in D-III. In other words, I sucked. But I could do all of the little things, but even in doing so, it was clear that they were the little things. It is important to throw the ball to the right base, and it is important to handle the bat and advance runners. But it is more important not to make outs on offense, and to hit for some power. There is a reason they call the little things "little things". They are nice, but they aren't the big things.
Lee, your last comment is well-taken. In retrospect, I should have buttoned my mouth, especially on your turf, as it is one of the few message boards around that does not explode from time-to-time with petty personal attacks amongst posters.
I am not well-versed in Sabermetrics. And while I concede that numbers are always useful, I radically depart from your typical saber fan in that I view the numbers as merely one of many tools instead of an end-all solution.
Bob: No problem. I would like to keep things civil though, even when we disagree. Disagreeing doen't have to mean someone's wrong.
I can ask two guys on the Royals about a play and get every different answers and they both know what they're talking about. They've just come to different conclusions.
I'd like to mirror that behavior here.