Game 111, Mariners at Orioles
DMZ · August 8, 2007 at 3:23 pm · Filed Under Game Threads
FELIX DAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY.
4:05
Felix versus some Guthrie guy. Whatever.
No Jones in the lineup! Yeah! We get Sexson! And Ibanez! Woooo!
Have you seen this man?
Have you seen this man?
If so, please contact the Mariners immediately, as they are needed for tonight’s game.
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394 Responses to “Game 111, Mariners at Orioles”
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Vidro is not a very good DH. If he was a power hitter he would be knocking in Ichiro with every double. The problem is, Vidro doesn’t hit doubles, he hits bloop singles, and that’ll get Ichiro to third at best, most often just to second, decreasing his likelihood of scoring. RBI’s are a worthless stat, but it’s rather telling that Ichiro get’s on base more than anyone and Vidro consistently fails to drive him in on his own. It doesn’t have to happen all the time, but it should reasonable happen SOME of the time.
See why it’s a problem people?
What I would like to see is Vidro playing 1B (don’t need knees for that) Jones in LF and Ibanez DH. Whether that’s possible or not, I don’t know.
On another note, excessive penalty week is awesome.
I can’t believe people are still wasting bandwidth on Vidro weaknesses.
I agree with the Dave/USSM position that AJ should be in LF, Raul and Vidro should platoon at DH, and Ben and Richie should platoon at 1B.
If you want to put your best nine out there every day, that’s the only way it is going to happen.
Screw chemistry, and screw “veteranness.”
Well it seems like there’s 10 people who come along every week who need to be re-convinced.
Ooh, you guys. I think Broussard might not be back in the lineup for a while. From the AP’s Game Notes:
“Even when you cherry-pick the numbers, as you have here (14 RBIs in 23 games), and then you pretended that Vidro is capable of hitting like that for a full 162 games, you would still end up with only 98 or so RBIs. So even your tiny-sample-size example still shows that his RBI production is not good for a DH at all.”
My point is that Vidro is hitting very well and has been for a few weeks now. I didn’t say anything at all about him hitting like that all year. That’s your invention.
But it should be obvious to anyone with a pair of eyes that Vidro is seeing the ball well right now and driving it consistently for hits, so I don’t really care what numbers he put up in April or May or what he might do next month. When he cools off, then talk about benching him. But benching him while he’s hot is simply dumb.
#356
Gotta admit that seems fair to me and I never got the sense that you were saying Vidro could or would hit like this all year or anything like that.
“When he cools off, then talk about benching him. But benching him while he’s hot is simply dumb.”
So, I’m always curious when people say that… how do we know when he’s cooled off, exactly?
A hitless night?
Three hitless nights?
Batting Mendoza for a week?
You clearly think that Vidro is more likely to hit well tomorrow because of his hot streak… so how will we know when it’s over?
It seems to me like that’s the flip side of the “he’s due to break out” logic… put them together and you have perpetual suckiness.
“He’s due, can’t bench him now!”
“He’s hot, can’t bench him now!”
Rinse and repeat.
356: I hear you, and yes, you’re right, you didn’t say anything about him hitting like this all year. But I’m challenging the definition of “hitting very well” and saying that even if Vidro did hit like that all year, it still wouldn’t be that impressive for a DH. Fourteen RBIs in 23 games isn’t all that great, even if you think RBIs matter.
Vidro’s recent string of “good” hitting isn’t actually very good. It’s just better than the bad hitting that we’ve gotten so used to seeing. That’s what I’m trying to say.
To be honest, that WILL screw with “chemistry.” If managers bench people for reasons that don’t make sense to the players, they WILL get distracted and they WILL lose focus, as they wonder what they need to do to keep their jobs. Benching a player who is hitting well doesn’t make sense…benching a player who isn’t (ahem, Sexson) DOES.
(That said….there are all sorts of ways for Jones to get playing time that makes sense to the team and not get them wondering….management doesn’t have any excuses….)
Guys, we’ve won two in a row. Things are looking up. Raul has hit three homers in two days and Vidro is doing what he does very effectively for three weeks. Sexson still sucks, but what’s new? As we’ve seen the past two games, this is the team we are making the playoff push with with the exception of Sexson. AJ is NOT going to be a major factor this year unless we drop out of the race. As of now, he’s up to get his feet wet, but those of you hoping for him to be out there everyday will have to wait until next year. Sorry, but that’s just how this team is run for better or worse. Let’s just enjoy the playoff push, it’s fun!
Who can tell what the future holds?
“356: I hear you, and yes, you’re right, you didn’t say anything about him hitting like this all year. But I’m challenging the definition of “hitting very well†and saying that even if Vidro did hit like that all year, it still wouldn’t be that impressive for a DH. Fourteen RBIs in 23 games isn’t all that great, even if you think RBIs matter.”
Talking about what other DHs produce is irrelevant since the M’s don’t have David Ortiz sitting on the bench to plug in as a DH. What they have is some combination of Vidro, Ibanez, or Broussard, all of whom have various strengths and weaknesses and none of whom is going to light up the AL as a DH. You can’t compare Vidro to other DH’s, you have to compare him to what the M’s can replace him with in the lineup.
I don’t think there’s any doubt that Jones would be a defensive upgrade in LF, and that means something. But there’s no guarantee whatsover that he’d be an offensive upgrade over either Ibanez or Vidro at this point in his career, and that also means something. Maybe he would, maybe he wouldn’t. He looked good in his first start, but in his second start against the Red Sox he looked very shaky in both the field and at the plate. I know that’s too small a sample to make any evaluation, but my point is that he’s an untested rookie. We simply don’t know.
Sorry, but I’m not at all convinced that taking either Vidro’s or Ibanez’s bat out of the lineup everyday, especially if Raul starts hitting like he has in the past, would justify the defensive upgrade in LF. It’s certainly not the foregone conclusion that some here seem to believe.
JeffS, again demanding that everyone discuss only the things he says are approved. Thanks, dude, but we’re gonna be all right without your guidance. We’ll enjoy things the way we do. It’s a game thread, and it’s the spot on the blog where we’re clear to talk about issues of the day.
I understand that you’re a positive guy. That’s nice. But that doesn’t preclude conversation that might (YIKES!) actually point out flaws in the team that can be fixed.
The team doing kinda well and things not completely sucking doesn’t give you carte blanche to issue an edict that all non-JeffS-approved topics are not to be discussed. Thinking critically doesn’t preclude one from enjoying his favorite baseball team.
Excepting home runs, RBIs are inherently 0% skill
Oh, they’re > 0% skill. If two players, Player A with a, say .487 SLG and Player B with a, say, .369 SLG, came up to bat an equal number of times with a man on second, you’d expect Adria…, I mean, player A to have more RBIs than Turb, er, I mean Player B. But how much of a component is that compared to the luck of having RISP coincide with hits? (and I threw in “situation” because hitting two batters behind Ichiro probably gives you more RISP at-bats than hitting two batters behind, ah, Player C (OBP .298), so that’s not just luck, that’s your manager making a choice to put you there).
I’m looking for something more granular than “mostly luck.” Maybe it’s a project for me.
AJ is NOT going to be a major factor this year unless we drop out of the race.
You may be exactly right here. Of course, not allowing AJ to be a factor will certainly increase the likelihood that the Mariners drop out of the race. I hope the smoke and mirrors continues, but there’s just no way you can run out Weaver and Ramirez for 40% of your starts and a lineup with Vidro, Sexson, Ibanez (vs LHP)/Guillen (vs RHP) at key offensive positions and keep up with the Jones (sorry, couldn’t resist). Add in Lopez and you have four easy outs in the lineup on a daily basis. I’m amazed that there are so many WORSE offenses in the American League.
I believe that’s the old can’t-project-from-minor-league performance argument. Not sure that’s a particularly good argument to be using.
And there’s the point that giving Ibanez more rest might be a CAUSE of improved hitting.
All you’re saying is that fear of the unknown is enough to deter you from trying to improve the team…which I’m not sure is a good strategy to employ with talent that’s not markedly superior. You’re dealing from a position of weakness; your approach, by necessity, HAS to be more risky.
JeffS has been added to the moderation queue. When we tell you guys to stop picking petty fights with each other, we mean it.
Seriously – the level of discussion on USSM has nosedived recently. It’s on you guys to do better. If you don’t, we’ll figure something out, even if the steps we have to take seem draconian to some of you.
Post smarter or go somewhere else. We’re not kidding.
You can’t compare Vidro to other DH’s, you have to compare him to what the M’s can replace him with in the lineup.
That’s true. I guess I just have more faith in Adam Jones’ upside than the already-proven mediocrity of Vidro. I imagine a DH platoon between Ibanez and Vidro, but I guess that’s not going to happen. *tear*
By the way…
Doesn’t HAVE to be an upgrade offensively, remember…he just has to be equivalent. Right now, that’s a .720 OPS (which is Ibanez’s OPS). Not sure if it’d be THAT hard to match that…
(Of course, if he’s on the bench, he’s not going to do it).
To me AJ playing left and batting is just more Fun To Watch than it is when Ibanez does it. The AJ FTW factor is %50 higher than that of Ibanez. That’s a stat that has to count in all this. The Broussard FTW factor is about %300 higher than Sexson’s. too.
Hey M’s…play AJ and Broussard and I’ll buy more tickets, ok? You’ll get more money! Is THAT a statistic you can understand the significance of?
“All you’re saying is that fear of the unknown is enough to deter you from trying to improve the team…which I’m not sure is a good strategy to employ with talent that’s not markedly superior. You’re dealing from a position of weakness; your approach, by necessity, HAS to be more risky.”
It’s not fear of the unknown, it’s making judgments based on what the team and players are producing right now. There’s more justification in taking risks when Vidro isn’t producing than when he’s hitting ropes all over the field.
That absolutely doesn’t mean that Jones should rot on the bench or that Vidro and Ibanez should have their lineup spots carved in stone. By all means try to find a combination that maximizes the Mariners’ chance to win, and that might well mean platooning Ibanez and Vidro at the DH and starting AJ in left. But you also have to accept that AJ may not necessarily produce better offensive numbers than the M’s would have gotten from playing both Ibanez and Vidro every day, and that’s more true if you replace Vidro while he’s hot or put Ibanez on the bench every other day just as it looks like his bat might be starting to come around.
I think I deleted six accounts today. Might have been higher.
w/r/t RBI: that’s entirely true, but both of those depend on having a runner set up for you. Any player will drive in between 0-100% of runners, right, based on their ability, luck, and so on and so forth. But they’re entirely dependent on the runners being there – the very premise of the question posits a situation out of the hitter’s control.
I understand the premise of the question, and what you want to measure. I just reject that it’s a valid premise, or a worthwhile exercise, since we already know that clutchiness doesn’t exist, and beyond that we already understand player performance well enough that it’s pointless to talk about it in the context of RBI.
Trying to convince people who aren’t listening, or smart, that they’re using the wrong tools doesn’t really interest me any more.
I was hoping Dave Sims would have waited for a bigger sample size of quality hitting from Ibañez before saying RAUL IBANEZ IS BACK! but I should’ve known better.
Last I checked, Camden Yards was a relatively neutral park, by no means a launchpad, so I have no idea aside from bad Orioles pitching- oh yeah huh.
So do McLaren’s ‘watch and learn’ comments and the Raul freakout mean that the assertion of Adam Jones platooning in LF and CF to get regular PT are no-go? Was Adam Jones Plan A scuttled that quickly?
Also, to entertain the dubious topic for a moment, RBI are purely a product of circumstance. Sure, it’s nice when X player gets a hit with RISP and knocks those runners in, but they have to get on base first, and X player has nothing to do with that.
The fact that you can make outs and still get RBI in some circumstances, or earn an RBI just by walking/getting HBP with the bases loaded illustrates that it is not a skill measure.
Re: RBIs and clutch hitting.
Pardon me for asking a stupid question, I’m new here.
Do we know for sure that clutch hitting does not exist? I was under the impression that there was a lot of debate about clutchiness still.
Ironically, chemistry is an actual science. Within the realm of sports, however, chemistry is just an immeasurable intangible that can’t be quantified by anyone.
Similarly, basic statistics such as batting average and runs batted in are inherently flawed, as those means of evaluating a given player’s production rely heavily on independent factors. In all honesty, it’s a pretty basic concept that should be understood by an individual of even mediocre intelligence.
Now, while I possess no more than a modicum of knowledge about peripheral statistics in baseball, I’m fairly well-versed concerning peripheral statistics in baseketball. As is noted in the following link, I prove that certain interior players in the NBA are unjustly undervalued due to the ignorance toward the importance of top-notch man-to-man, one-on-one low-post defense (e.g., P.J. Brown, Jason Collins, Jarron Collins, Radoslav Nesterovic, Joel Przybilla, et al.).
Smart arguments, dumb arguments, I love this place. I’m going to bed. M’s fans are lucky.
Later, y’all.
Trying to convince people who aren’t listening, or smart, that they’re using the wrong tools doesn’t really interest me any more.
Yeah, it gets frustrating. Though i did pose it as a tool to use in ridding the superstitious of their afliction, I was really thinking of it more as an exercise in understanding how the numbers break down, not just for RBIs, but for other stats as well. Maybe there’s some special insight to be had. I don’t know, might just be a lot of wasted Excel cycles too. But the “runs” stats really have a hold on old-guard folks all out of proportion to their real value.
I was reading a management (business management) book tonight, and it pointed out that poor (business) managers tend to only pay attention to financial data and make decisions based on just that data. But, financial data often has little direct relevance to the things the managers are trying to control. It’s too far removed from the actual operational productivity, and attempting to control operations based on financial data frequently just doesn’t work. Runs are the currency of baseball, and I think the effect is the same. ERA and RBIs are sacred cows because of the “R” component. The really funny thing was reading the list of systemic errors managers make when they don’t understand the difference between common cause and special cause variation:
-see trends were there are no trends
-fail to see trends where there are trends
-give credit to individuals for making improvements in performance when the individual had no control over the improvement
-doesn’t understand past performance and is not able to predict future performance
-does not understand the current system, it’s vulnerabilities, capabilities, or whether the system needs to be improved or replaced.
-having only an illusion of knowledge, they develop the equivalent of superstitions to guide their actions
Who knew Edward Deming and Bill James had so much in common?
BTW, speaking of common cause variation and Jose Vidro, his ISO before and after the ASB has been about the same (0.082 after, 0.076 before – now who was the fool that called that a power surge a few days ago? Oh, yeah, right. Me. anyway…). His OPS is like .140 points higher, but that is almost completely the result of a significant increase in BBs (accompanied by an ever bigger increase in K’s) and a spike in his BABIP. Here’s Vidro pre and post ASB:
(BB% / SO% / ISO / BABIP )
Pre: 8.1% / 7.7% / 0.076 / .308
Post: 11.0 % / 11.8% / 0.082 / .396
Vidro’s career BABIP is .315. His recent uptick in offensive production is almost completely the result of a BABIP 25% above his career average.
Do we know for sure that clutch hitting does not exist? I was under the impression that there was a lot of debate about clutchiness still.
Here’s the thing: “clutch” is a perception. People create clutch moments in their minds based on what they view as a tense or important situation in the game. Sure, one can say that a situation with a runners on second and third, two outs, and the bottom of the ninth and your team is behind by one is a “clutch” situation. I think it’s fairly obvious that if you came up with a hit there to drive in both runs, it would be viewed by just about everybody as a “clutch” hit.
The problem is those other situations when players contribute to the overall winning probability of the team. Are those situations clutch? Why or why not? A home run in the first inning that proves to be the only run scored in the game. Was it clutch? It won the game. Why isn’t it clutch? In those times, we would say that the pitcher was the one with the clutch performance because he pitched a shutout.
Too often “clutch” gets used as a way of creating sexiness, or artificially determining the most important outcomes of a game. In my first scenario, yeah, that’s the most important outcome of the game if you get a hit. But if you don’t, what about the other 26 out making chumps before you who didn’t come through in the clutch either? Should we dog the one guy because he came up in a tense situation, or did the entire team suck for allowing themselves to be beaten by one run?
I think clutch is one of those terms that needs to go out the window. I think it’s just better to stick to WPA and determine who was the biggest contributer and who was the biggest suckfest.
I think clutch hitting exists, just not in the way the mainstream media portrays it, I don’t think that the human element can be discounted. I also believe that the best clutch hitters are almost always the player we think are best hitters anyway. Just a hypothesis, no data.
The big thing about Ibanez that made people lose sight of why he still shouldn’t be in left field was his HR. Obviously there is no possible way to know if Adam Jones catches the ball for the 3rd out and Orioles are still at 1 run. But you could tell Ral took a bad route and was to slow to get to it. That fielding blunder caused 2 runs to score that should not have and his AB’s only created 1 run, simple math.
To put my two cents in on the clutch debate. If you look at it in a purely statistical way then there probably is no clutch, (380 Typical Idiot Fan) has it right when any pitch/hit is just as important then the next during a win/loss. But when Joe Carter hit that homerun in the WS it sure felt like a pressure situation and I could watch that clip over and over again. So my point is clutchiness is not a stat you can measure accurately but I love watching “clutch” moments in baseball history more then anything.
True every hit contributes equally to a win or a loss, but that can’t account for the large disparity between some batters BA and BA with runners in scoring position. Perhaps a small sample size can? I don’t know, but that disparity is the origin of the clutch debate.
If the argument is that “clutch” hitting depends somewhat on factors beyond the hitters control then discounting clutch hitting makes some sense. But if the argument is that there aren’t hitters who perform consistently better under pressure than others then it’s counterintuitive to what we know about human nature and how certain players perform (or don’t perform) under pressure in other sports.
When a guy like A-Rod, who’s probably the most talented hitter on the planet, consistently underperforms in the playoffs then at some point don’t you have to make a judgment about his ability to perform in the clutch, at least during the ramped up pressure of the post-season?
Small sample size.
384 – It’s perception and small sample sizes. This urban legend of arod CONSISTENTLY underperforming in the playoffs is bunk. He’s a career .280/.362/.485 hitter in the playoffs, which includes his last two postseason series (2 for 15 and 1 for 14, although he walked 6 times in 2005….so he had a .380 OBP). A few more series, his sample size will increase, and most likely his statistics as well.
The most overhyped clutch hitter, Jeter, is .314/.384/.479 in the playoffs (vs. .317/.389/.463 in the regular season), basically identical to his regular season stats.
He also has a larger sample size that can overcome his underperformances (like his .200/.333/.233 in the 2005 ALCS against Boston….funny how we NEVER hear about that).
385 – you beat me to the punch
Alright, so set me straight about what the argument being made is here then. Is it really being argued that, unlike every other sport or human activity, pressure has no impact on how baseball players perform and is merely a number crunching exercise provided the sample size is large enough?
.
Given that you’re starting off from the wrong premises, I’m not sure that we can answer you.
But if the argument is that there aren’t hitters who perform consistently better under pressure than others then it’s counterintuitive to what we know about human nature and how certain players perform (or don’t perform) under pressure in other sports
I said this a while back, but every ML player is “clutch” as we mere mortals understand the term. Every ML at bat is a pressure situation. Guys who respond poorly to pressure do not make it to the majors. A guy who would fold under the pressure of Game 7 will fold under the pressure of fighting for his job in Spring Training. You can’t extrapolate what you know about high school ball to MLB.
“I said this a while back, but every ML player is “clutch†as we mere mortals understand the term. Every ML at bat is a pressure situation. Guys who respond poorly to pressure do not make it to the majors. A guy who would fold under the pressure of Game 7 will fold under the pressure of fighting for his job in Spring Training. You can’t extrapolate what you know about high school ball to MLB.”
I’m not extrapolating anything. The difference in the ability to perform under pressure may diminish at the higher levels but it never disappears completely.
Even at the elite levels, some athletes are able to focus more intensely the higher the stakes while others tend to tighten up. That doesn’t mean that one player will always succeed while the other always fails, but their ability to perform will increase or decrease depending on how well they handle pressure. To say that this doesn’t exist at the major league level is counterintuitive to human nature.
Are they really able to focus more intently? Or are you working from a small sample size and it is only your perception from the limited amount of information you have in those situations which makes it seem that way?
A players batting average for a year is accrued over the course of (more than likely) over 400 at bats. Most of those at bats do not happen in so called “clutch” situations. If someone, by chance, happens to get a hit in a vitally important situation they are labeled as good under pressure, while if someone fails to get a hit in the same situation they are labeled as chokers. But if each of these people had 400 at bats in important situations, you’d probably see the same averages in performance you always see from them. A players overall talent is more accurately measured by every additional AB they have, the smaller the sample size the less accurate it is going to be.
Here’s the link to Cramer’s “Do Clutch Hitter’s Exist” article. It’s probably the best starting place.
chi sf in 386 said: 384 – It’s perception and small sample sizes. This urban legend of arod CONSISTENTLY underperforming in the playoffs is bunk. He’s a career .280/.362/.485 hitter in the playoffs, which includes his last two postseason series (2 for 15 and 1 for 14, although he walked 6 times in 2005….so he had a .380 OBP). A few more series, his sample size will increase, and most likely his statistics as well.
This is currently under discussion at a Red Sox message board. Another poster wanted to dismiss ARod’s stats b/c of the “small sample size” argument. I pointed out that for 90% of current players who have postseason stats, you’ll find nothing BUT a small sample size — the exceptions are lifers from the Yankees and the Braves.
So, you either go with what you got, or you don’t get into the argument in the first place… 😀
And my favorite way of looking at ARod’s postseason stats is this:
Before joining the Yankees (i.e., as a Mariner): .340/.375/.679
After joining the Yankees: .241/.354/.544