Medium sized fish, tiny pond
DMZ · May 13, 2008 at 8:45 am · Filed Under Mariners
You may have noticed Jeff Clement sees a lot of pitches. It’s something he’s always done, and on its own it’s not a sign that he’s a good or a bad hitter, but it is good that despite his struggles after being called up he hasn’t become dramatically more or less patient.
The interesting thing is that Clement, seeing over four pitches an at-bat, is by a fair margin the team leader right now among anyone seeing regular playing time. If nothing else, it’s a skill that’s certainly lacking in the rest of the lineup, and welcome.
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This is certainly counterintuitive.
For what it’s worth, Jose Lopez is 131st out of 186 qualified major leaguers in Pitches/AB. T
he reason he’s been so hard to strike out this year is he’s been more selective with his swings, and is making contact at a very high rate (on pitches both in and out of the zone) when he does swing.
[no]
Whoops, sorry Mods. Wrong post! Please delete! Thanks.
Irish,
I was careful to say “one” of the reasons, not “the” reason.
Lopez is seeing about 3.68 pitches per plate appearance. That is significantly better than his 2007 average of 3.45.
That’s not even true. Richie strikes out all the time and he see a tick over 4 pitches per plate appearance. Lopez is at 3.36. Not high at all. He’s not seeing a lot of P/PA. Oh, and quit being a dick to the mods.
Even if he is kind of brutal behind the plate, if he projects so well offensively, wouldn’t it still be a better VORP for him to be a catcher than to be a DH or 1B?
Yes, it would. Since VORP doesn’t account for defense than he’d be much more valuable behind the plate offensively. Of course, they don’t play in that kind of vacuum.
[this is not a board]
Ah, I see Irish beat me to it. That’s what I get for going to lunch.
Thanks, Josh! See this is why I mearly comment on other people’s blogs and don’t have my own. =D
[ot]
Yeah, that “chirping needlessly” was out of line.
Comparison is fine, and I think it’s intelligent to look at the two players that way.
But if you’re only talking about one player, you’re not comparing anyone.
Two guys get the call-up on the same day, see about the same number of ABs and you want to limit comparison?
No one is limiting anything. If you want a post comparing Balentien and Clement than email the authors or start your own blog. If everyone talked about whatever on every thread it’d be like a frigging Gri**ey thread everyday. And no one wants that.
G,
My source on Lopez pitches per AB is MLB, and it calculates to 3.68.
JSA is correct. DMZ’s thread on Clement compares Clement to Mariner players who are playing on a regular basis. That would include Balentien and Lopez.
Uh huh. And he sees a lot more pitches than either of those guys.
It’s comment threads like this that make me reluctant to throw up short, interesting posts like pointing out that Clement’s leading the team in P/PA.
It’s a tidbit. Snack on it and enjoy, or pass. There’s no need to make a 100-word item the object of some vendetta over perceived injustice in player coverage.
Not true. Balentien sees 3.77 pitches per AB.
DMZ,
I asked a simple question, which could have been politely answered, but wasn’t.
My source on Lopez pitches per AB is MLB, and it calculates to 3.68.
That’s awesome, but by using ABs you’re eliminating walks and other ‘non-at bat’ events.
Jeff Clement is seeing exactly 4 pitches per plate appearance. Jose is seeing 3.36. That’s a significant difference. Now, I think we can put that to bed.
You’re happy with Jose’s improvement, we all are. But don’t get mad because we’re discussing Clement’s plate discipline and not praising Lopez’s.
I am not mad, and thanks for the explanation.
Here’s the thing — you’re right. From your perspective, I entirely understand what you wanted to point out, and why you did it, and from that side, I see how this all comes off as rude and whatnot.
What I’d ask, though, is that perhaps you consider the other side here, and particularly that whether you’re entirely aware of it or not, or you understand the reasons for it or not, the way in which you’re making your points and carrying forth your arguments are really rubbing me (and, obviously, others) the wrong way.
Just consider it. That’s all I’m asking.
Clement has been thrown into a tough situation. he has had to learn a new staff, learn AL batters, and dealt with playing DH. I think he is finally settling in. I love the point, Dave, that he is a patient hitter. As a ballclub, we are one of the worst in the game. We need the patience. Clement will come around, I really am not too worried about him. He has done well defensively and worked well with the staff. I’d start Clement at catcher. Don’t know if this has been posted, but pretty interesting:
Opponents hit .272 against Felix Hernandez when caught by Johjima, but only .243 when backup Jaime Burke is behind the plate or .209 when Yorvit Torrealba was catching him. Need more proof?
Jarrod Washburn: .278 with Johjima, .240 with Burke.
Miguel Batista: .283 with Johjima, .240 with Burke.
Brandon Morrow: .270 with Johjima, .161 with Burke.
Even the dreaded Horacio Ramirez was looking good when Johjima wasn’t the catcher. Opponents hit a whopping .350 off of him with Johjima behind the plate, but only .233 when Burke was catching. And we all know how Bedard has faired with Joh this year, not good at all.
DMZ,
I considered it many weeks ago, and up until today I haven’t had a problem.
On the other hand, there are times when some of you overreact, not to mention fanning the fire by jumping in. My guess is that relates to a few of you being close friends over the years, and therefore protective.
I guess I just expectrd more than that from USS Mariner.
In my observation with Joe’s Tracer, I feel like they just set the size of the strike zone too small. Whatever is actually locating the pitches might be doing an alright job, but it just seems like way too few pitches are ever in the strike zone according to their box, which may just be drawn too small.
Any kind of information like that needs to be accompanied with the ‘small sample-size’ disclaimer. Burke has just over one season catching the M’s for a grand total of 43.4 AdjGames.
Mat- You’re probably right.
Galaxieboi – Very true reagrding the sample size. However, it is pretty interesting. I copied it from post. I would like to see Clement given more time at catcher. He has been thrown into a tough situation and I want him to realize the team has faith in him catching. Now Kenji is obviously starting to hit, but put him at DH sometimes then, and let Clement catch.
justinh, I have to agree 100%. The M’s really need to get Clement behind the plate at least 2 times a week. Why on earth would they stunt his defensive growth at C when it is such a hard position to fill with a big bat.
Perhaps they will the further they fall out of the race, but I doubt it. Why sign Johjima to a 3 year extension and then sit him?
Twice a week. Joh can’t catch every game anyway and slip Joh in at DH once a week against a lefty and there you have it. Did’t Clement hit lefties fairly well at Tacoma?
Did’t Clement hit lefties fairly well at Tacoma?
He hit everyone well this year. I can’t remember last year (minorleaguesplits.com revamped their data base so ’07 stats are down for awhile) though.
Oh, and I believe Dave has mentioned more than once about how reverse platoon splits are really uncommon. Lefties just don’t usually consistently hit lefties better than righties.
Yeah, duh. An intelligent use of the resources that you have.
I can’t fathom the M’s addiction to pre-set roles—that sure wasn’t the hallmark of the team when it was winning regularly.
I don’t really like Joe’s tracer all that much either, but here’s some other information that may help us understand it a little better. Also I don’t say any of this to devalue the data. Just sort of interesting if nothing else…
According to the MLB Extended Gameday Pitch Logs information on this page the Gameday pitch information (location, break, end speed…) is calculated at the front of the plate.
However, the strike zone is defined as a three dimensional right angle pentagonal. The bottom starts at the hollow of the batter’s knees and the top is at a midpoint between the batter’s belt and shoulders. If any part of a pitched ball intersects any portion of this zone, the ball is in the strike zone.
A ball can register out of the strike zone in the recorded data, but actually cross through the zone later. The side of the rubber the pitcher is throwing from, arm angle, break…all of that stuff will factor into this.
I don’t know that this is the same data that Joe’s tracer is using, but I think this information may help us all in understanding the locations that tool is showing.
I wish it was easier to just ban people that are clearly here just to be irritating. When the internet makes that foolproof, the world will be a better place.
After being around here for years, I’ve noticed a pattern that I have tried to keep in mind before I act badly during a baseball argument:
The vast majority of people that are rude and accusatory in any discussion here also happen to be the people that are wrong in that discussion.
curroug… you started by being off-topic and reacted badly to people pointing that out. Then you took issue with a statement that was clearly true, and made your own statement that was false (re:Lopez)
“Why no love for Balentien?”
Off topic.
“Uh, duh.”
Rude.
“Thanks for chiming in again unnecessarily.”
Rude.
“I take issue with the statement that Clement sees more pitches than anyone else on the team by a “fair marginâ€. In fact, one of the reasons Jose Lopez is amongst the hardest to strike out in MLB is because he sees so many pitches.”
When you are corrected, you dismiss it.
Then you confuse (aggressively) plate appearances with at bats.
When you are corrected, you ignore it.
Then DMZ is overly gracious to you and you reject it. With a weak “I expected more…” tacked on.
It’s not that any of us think the owners or moderators here can do no wrong… it’s that we like the product and dislike seeing people like you jeopardize the product.
You acting out impacts me. So please do it elsewhere.
Hey cool, that’s really interesting. I bet between what Mat mentioned about the zone being too narrow and it registering at the front of the plate is why it looks off all the time to us.
I’m not talking about weeks ago. I’m talking about today, and what happened here. Just — ponder it.
I’m not sure what the first part means, so I’ll skip commenting on that.
On the other — that’s not at all the case. I don’t know why you read that into the situation, but as much as I’ve met and hung out with many of the readers at USSM events, I don’t think I’d go so far as to call them my close friends — and there, obviously, I mean no ill will towards everyone.
So again, here’s my ask: step away from seeing this from your view for a second. Can you see, in any way, that perhaps the way in which your comments have come across has precipitated what you see as “closing of ranks”?
And, while I’m at it, do you see where perhaps a statement like this comes across badly?
What would you have liked to have seen, to return to the issue?
A cogent reflection by one of the authors on why this post on Clement went up while we haven’t talked about Wlad?
Do you think it’s reasonable to expect that an author would offer that kind of response to every similar request to every post?
If so, how?
If not, in what way should we respond to requests like yours that would defuse these situations in a more friendly fashion in the future?
To add just a little bit onto Derek’s post:
I said the same thing I’d say to anyone who posts in a thread about player X, “hey, what about player Y?”
“If you think we should talk about player Y, suggest it to the authors; in the meantime, let’s talk about player X, since that is the topic that the authors chose for this post.”
Honestly? I could’ve just deleted the post as off-topic. That I didn’t do so was me trying to provide a little more productive feedback than that.
Personally, I wouldn’t mind seeing a post evaluating Balentien as a major leaguer once he’s got some more playing time in the majors under his belt; but the way to get that done isn’t by attempting to hijack a thread about Jeff Clement.
DMZ, Jeff,
I respect that you are both bending over backward to be inclusive and not be discouraging of folks sharing their opinions, but at some point you have to say “enough is enough.” I would have given currcoug the axe long ago as he has a pattern of behavior that has dragged many a discussion down. You undoubtably have better things to do with your time. But I’m not a very nice person so take my advice with a grain of salt.
There’s a sense in which Derek operates on faith in the potential for commenters to improve what they bring to the discussion. It’s curiously similar to his faith in the potential for the Mariners to somehow, someway fix their institutional hangups and actually put a well-constructed competitive team out on the field. So we end up dealing with the Willie Bloomquists of commenting, who add only limited value to the team and can be actively harmful if over-exposed, but still believe in their hearts they should be regulars.
DMZ,
Thanks for being so classy, and not just dismissing my thoughts out of hand. I certainly didn’t intend to offend you, and I am sorry if I did. The best way to defuse the situation is for the author to make one attempt to answer the question. That would have been the end of it for me. If you don’t have time to answer such a question, just post that. In this case, someone other than the author jumped in. Responding with “…it is a Clement thread†does not help.
Jeff,
Thanks for continuing to let me discuss this issue. I did not consciously set out to hijack a thread. I should have let Galax’s comment go, and my response was sophomoric (sorry Galax). The irony here is that I strongly advocated Clement’s early call up (when many opposed it), and I continue to advocate patience while Clement gets used to MLB pitching.
Mike,
Wow. Compared to Bloomy. That does hurt. I don’t consider myself anything more than a layman compared to the professionals here. That does not mean, however, that USS Mariner hasn’t been wrong, and won’t be wrong again; despite all their knowledge and experience.
LA,
Galax straightened me out on that issue, and I thanked him for it. How on earth could I jeopardize the product of USS Mariner?
azfred,
I don’t post here all that often, so I don’t see how I could have dragged down “many a discussion”. Pattern of behavior? How do I put it politely? Sometimes the comments to USS Mariner threads read more like love fests, than discussions (it’s just my opinion, not an attempt to insult anybody).
To state the obvious, amateurs like me only make pros like DMZ and Jeff look all that better to you, especially when they are right.
Sorry, but this is part of what we volunteer mods have been tasked with, “jumping in” when someone tries to take a thread off-topic.
It’s not something that it’s appropriate for you to decide that only the original author of the post should be doing.
As I said, I could’ve simply removed the post entirely for being off-topic; I tried to offer you an alternative way to ask for what you want, which is a discussion of Balentien’s merits as a major leaguer.
But (as I understand it) part of the reason the volunteer mods were brought on in the first place is to reduce the amount of time that Dave and Derek had to spend on moderation in order to free them up to create more content, so we won’t be adopting a policy where your posts get special handling and only authors can call you out for being off topic.
For that matter, by allowing anyone to comment, the authors are inherently unable to prevent people from jumping in. So anyone who expects this to be prevented, or requires a certain form of response from the authors and no one else, will inevitably be disappointed.
Jeff, Snow,
I was trying to answer DMZ’s question of how to prevent these situations, not making a demand.
Seen from a volunteer moderator’s light, I guess I can understand your frustration Jeff (although, I was talking about Galax jumping in).
Your suggestion was a good one, but both times I have e-mailed the authors, there has been no response. I just wish you had said initially that you thought a Balentien thread was a good idea.
To close, I didn’t know time was such a factor for the authors and moderators. I will keep that in mind, rather than taking terse comments personally.
Sorry, it’s probably not my business to tell anyone what they can and can’t ask during a thread. In the future I shall leave such things up to our mods.