Game 125, Mariners at Rangers
Weaver vs Loe, 5:35 pm.
Thanks to a brutal travel schedule that has the M’s playing 44 games in 45 days, which began last weekend with the White Sox series and has already included three games on the notoriously tough Metrodome turf and a couple of flights as the M’s head into the sweltering heat of Texas in August, John McLaren mentioned that this road trip would be a good time to use his bench to keep everyone fresh. Which explains tonight’s line-up. Wait, that’s the standard line-up? Oh.
Moving on to a topic that doesn’t make me want to run a cheese grinder across my forehead, the Mariners face Kameron Loe tonight. For my money, Loe is one of the more underrated pitchers in baseball. Over the last three years, he’s established himself as a heavy groundball guy who throws enough strikes and misses enough bats to be effective. However, he’s played in front of some lousy defenses in a park that isn’t exactly friendly to contact pitchers, so people haven’t caught on yet, but he’s got a similar skillset to Jake Westbrook, and I wouldn’t be surprised if things started clicking for him sooner rather than later.
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Tonight’s Sabermetric Anti-Hero of the Game…
JOSE VIDRO!!!
Let me try that again:
Weaver’s run distribution:
Games with 6 or more runs allowed: 7
Games with 3 or fewer runs allowed: 12
Games with 4 or 5 runs allowed: zero
I love to see the Angel’s aggresive baserunning come back to bite them in the ass.
#252
That…is bizarre. When you’re hot you’re hot…when you’re not, you’re not…
I want a thread to gush on and on about why Ichiro should be the MVP instead of Mr. “It’s not about the money.” Realistically, does he have any chance when A-Rod is putting up the high profile numbers (HR, RBI) and plays in New York? Would the M’s have to wind up with the best record in baseball? (Psst…they’re only three games back!)
One run, bottom of the 9th. Please hold on to this one, Jays…
Yay, Angels lead cut to 1
ONE Game back!
Ladies and Gentlemen, this is the beginning of the ascent of the Mariners to a World Championship. First the Angels, then the Red Sox, and, after that, Bob Melvin’s D’backs will all go down in front of the Mariner juggernaut. Get your tickets to the Fall Classic now. It is going to happen this year!
Mmmm let’s not get ahead of ourselves, winning the division is good enough for now.
One thing is for sure, LA fans are sweating bullets right now.
259 (JIMINEDMONDS)- It appears as if that was a prediction in chronological order. Unfortunately, due to stupid baseball rules, teams from the same division are disallowed from playing each other in the “Division Series.”
Maybe you just meant we are taking them down next week. But, anyway..
252-
It’s not really that strange, 5 of those 7 terrible starts were before his stint on the DL, while 11 out of those 13 good ones are after. He must’ve really been hurt somehow.
I noticed that Ichiro is one percentage point behind Ordonez for the AL batting avg. lead. I was wondering if there’s a lot of precedence for Ichiro’s dominance of the batting avg. charts over the last six years relative to his high number of at-bats. My point being, I would tend to think it’s harder to hit for average the more at-bats you have, and Ichiro generally has more at-bats than just about anybody. Is this common amongst BA leaders over history? This year, he has about 50 to 150 more at-bats than anyone around him. Is that a stupid question?
P.S. My overarching theory here being, Ichiro is totally f#*ckin’ awesome.
#261–Let me clarify: first,we pass the Angels; second, we beat Cleveland in the ALDS; third, we beat Boston in the ALCS; and, fourth, we vanquish the D’backs in the World Series, as the 85-1 Mariners come home a winner. My enthusiasm got the best of me when I overlooked the first round of playoffs.
Ichiro has more at bats because a) he leads off and b) he doesn’t take any days off c) he’s never hurt and d) he doesn’t walk much, thereby causing the vast majority of his plate appearances to at bats.
Compared to Ordonez, the numbers say it’s mostly because he leads off.
Player G AB H BB PA(~AB+BB)
Ichiro 124 521 182 39 560
Ordonez 123 466 164 60 526
Ordonez is earning his place on AVG leader board – that’s not that many fewer PAs.
But your point that Ichiro! is always there is a good one. While some guy can have a freak season and beat him out for the batting title, it’s rarely the same guy.
I know *why* Ichiro has more at-bats than most folks, I’m just wondering if it’s common for someone who is consistently at the top of the at-bat charts to also be so consistently at the top of the BA charts, because I would think that the law of averages would work against you and put you at a disadvantage when you have so many more ABs than most of your fellow BA leaders.
Never mind. I just looked at the actual numbers and A-Rod is running away with MVP this year. The only way anyone else will be considered at all is if the Yankees miss the playoffs somehow. Go Detroit! (As long as Ordonez doesn’t hit well enough to top Ichiro for the batting title.)
If a guy gets a hit 35% of the time, he’s going to bat .350 whether he has 500 AB’s or 700 AB’s. Or am I missing something?
No, not necessarily, I’m just wondering if it’s harder to get a hit 35% percent of the time the more at-bats you get.
P.S. I admitted from the start it might be a stupid question.
Well the larger the sample size the truer it is to a players ability. So if Ichiro is hitting .350 and thereabouts consistently each year you can make an argument that he really is that skilled and it can’t be attributed to a small sample size, like you might be able to claim for Ordonez.
Sure, but at the end of the season, who wins more BA titles? The Ichiros or the Ordonezes?
And why does coolstandings favor the yankees playoff chances so much more than the M’s still (64% to 47%), when the M’s have a 3 game lead in the loss column and a much worse chance at the division?
I mean, the Yanks have a much worse chance at the division. Did I mention that I am a sad, baseball dilletante?
All I have to say is this is a fun team to follow, and I hope they continue playing this well through October. đ
It is true, statistically speaking, that the more AB’s you have, the more difficult it is to have a high BA – because a high BA is based in some small part on luck going in your favor — the more AB’s a batter has, the lower the probability that their luck will last long enough to work in their favor (regression to their true skill level will occur) — thus Ichiro’s high BA’s over the years with such a high number of AB’s is a testimony to his very high skill level
why does coolstandings favor the yankees playoff chances so much more than the MââŹâ˘s
Because they have more talent, and an easier schedule?
And they have outscored opponents by like 150 runs and M’s have outscored their opponents by about 25.
Smoke and mirrors are fun for fans, not so much for probabilists or betting men….
#247, DizzleChizzle:
“. . . Chone Figgins injury is going to hurt the Angels a lot. ItââŹâ˘s a wrist injury so itââŹâ˘ll be hard for it to completely heal without reaggravating it.”
That’s what they said about Ken Griffey Jr. in ’95. We all know how that prediction turned out.
It’s easier to get extreme batting average vlues with smaller numbers of at-bats because of the high level of statistical noise in batting average.
Which means, since Ichiro has lots of at-bats every year, and generally hits about .330, we can reasonably expect him to hit around .330 every year because that’s probably his natural talent level. Hitting .400 (or .260) for Ichiro would be easier with fewer at-bats, because the smaller sample size would increase the unexplained variance (luck, good or bad).
So, if Ichiro has the highest natural batting average in the league, he’s more likely to be beaten for the batting title by a guy with fewer at-bats, ecause that guy has a greater chance of hitting above his natural talent level than a guy with more at-bats.
Notor, Doc Baseball, Evan, you’re all right about Ichiro and his chances for a batting title. He’s obviously very good at hitting for average, so he’s got a good chance to win every year. But every year, there are going to be players that have many fewer at bats than him that have perhaps gotten the benefit of random occurence, and may end up with a higher batting average.
That’s baseball.
Optioned?
278 – yep, it resulted in the team having fewer total wins down the stretch than they probably would have had with Junior in the lineup, meaning that instead of winning the division outright they had to go to a one game playoff.
the more ABââŹâ˘s you have, the more difficult it is to have a high BA – because a high BA is based in some small part on luck going in your favor ââŹâ the more ABââŹâ˘s a batter has, the lower the probability that their luck will last long enough to work in their favor (regression to their true skill level will occur) ââŹâ thus IchiroââŹâ˘s high BAââŹâ˘s over the years with such a high number of ABââŹâ˘s is a testimony to his very high skill level
Actually the first part, which is correct, somewhat contradicts the second part. Ichiro’s true skill level appears to be .325 to .330; by season in ascending order his averages are .303, .312, .321, .322, .350 (YTD), .352, .370. So being a .330 hitter is a demonstration of skill — perhaps that’s all you meant — but hitting .350 or .370 suggests he’s been lucky.
To the original question, the Ordonez’s of the world win more batting titles simply because there are so many of them. Of the 10-20 hitters who are legitimate .300-320 hitters, one of them is bound to get lucky and given year and hit .340-.350. Ichiro might be the best hitter for average in the AL, but his gap between the rest of the field isn’t so large that random variance can’t overcome it on a regular basis.
I agree with docbaseball and others. Ichiro’s AB’s mean he’s perhaps less selective, (perhaps?) and in taking less walks, maybe is hitting ‘his pitch’ less often. Of course, then that shows how ridiculously talented he is by racking up those AB’s and batting average. Most of your batting champions are lauded for having a ‘good eye’, and being able to ‘hit their pitch’…see Tony Gwynn, for one. Ichiro has a good eye, as in phenomenal hand-eye coordination. Every pitch looks great because he can hit everything! While it’s good for his hit totals, it may not bode well for his OBP or is batting average. By taking so many cracks at it, he may be removing the high end of his statistical fluctuations…
#282, mr smartypants
“yep, it resulted in the team having fewer total wins down the stretch than they probably would have had with Junior in the lineup, meaning that instead of winning the division outright they had to go to a one game playoff.”
Can’t see the forest for the trees, eh?
I have to admit the thought crossed my mind, mostly because it would be two ‘overachieving’ teams that the networks would hate đ
#286, msb:
“I have to admit the thought crossed my mind, mostly because it would be two ââŹËoverachievingââŹâ˘ teams that the networks would hate :)”
They’d hate it ratings-wise, but if Jeff Rickard and Freddy Coleman on ESPN Radio’s GameNight last night are any indication, the people themselves would love to see that matchup. They were pretty giddy over that very possibility.