A Quick Jermaine Dye Post
Mike Salk spoke with Jermaine Dye‘s agent today, who told him that his client would like to play for the Mariners, and was disappointed that the M’s never showed any interest. Dye will likely continue to be disappointed, because he’s not what this team needs.
Dye is 36, and he hasn’t aged all that well. Never a great defender, the years have taken a toll on his legs, and now he’s essentially a designated hitter. His UZRs the last four years: -22.5, -21.6, -19.4, -20.0. Four years of data with the same conclusion – he’s bad enough defensively that he simply shouldn’t play the outfield anymore. Not enjoying Milton Bradley as a left fielder? He’s way better than Dye with the glove.
But, this team needs offense, you say, and Dye can hit. Well, kind of. Dye can hit left-handed pitching. Righties, not so much. If you look at his splits page on FanGraphs, the trend is obvious: since 2002, he’s a .283/.374/.516 hitter against lefties, and .262/.322/.486 against righties. He hits for power against both sides, but RHPs don’t have many problems getting him out. A .322 on base percentage from a bat-only player is simply not acceptable. And remember, he’s spent the last five years in Chicago, one of the better parks for home run hitters in baseball. The ball flies out of there in the summer. Safeco would not treat him nearly as well.
So, at this point, Dye is a DH against left-handed pitching, or essentially, he’s Mike Sweeney without the hugging. Is he better than Sweeney? Sure, but having him at DH keeps Milton Bradley in left, and the team wouldn’t be significantly improved with that alignment over playing Byrnes against LHPs and moving Bradley to DH. Dye doesn’t really make this team better at all, and yet he still wants $3 or $4 million for the right to be a mediocre platoon player.
In reality, Dye isn’t much different than Ryan Garko at this point. The M’s had this player type for $550,000 and gave it away. They aren’t going to spend $3 or $4 million to buy it back.
Sorry Jermaine, but if you want to keep playing this game, you’ll need to be more realistic about your abilities, and find somewhere else to do it.
I was wondering when you were going to discuss that.
Are you going to go on the radio and tell Salk he’s just plain wrong?
Im sorry but with this team, even his “terribleness” against righties would look really good right about now.
Please see the previous post about confirmation bias.
No, it wouldn’t. When you take his numbers against righties, apply some regression due to aging, and then put him in Safeco Field for half of his games, you’d end up with yet another bad DH.
Dave, I know you aren’t going to like this/want to hear it, but you personally have almost as much riding on the 2010 Mariners as does Wak or Z.
Before replying, hear me out. You have been yelling about defense, UZR, and pitching for years. And to be honest, I have been reading this site reguarly for a few years now. Finally, after the mess left by the previous administration, and after years of you complaining about the underevaluation of defense, we have a team that is built around the same core principles that you have been preaching. Hence, and this isn’t entirely true, but a lot of your credibility rides on how the Mariners do this season.
It is still WAY too early to make ANY judgments, and honestly, I think the Mariners will finish with a 500+ record, probably falling just short of the playoffs. But if the Mariners crash and burn, and can’t consistently score runs throughout the season, your credibility is going to take a hit. The pitching+defense philosophy is going to be discredited, and you are going to have to back to the sidelines for another few years.
Just saying. Obviously, I am rooting for the Mariners as much as anyone. And after a few years of reading this site, I have been “brainwashed” (or enlightened) into believing in UZR, WAR, FIP, and the like. I really hope this pans out…
Anyone who thinks anyone’s credibility rests on the results of one team’s baseball season doesn’t understand how to evaluate anything.
Dave, what about Michael Saunders coming up at some point to play LF?
I completely agree that Milton needs to move to DH, seemed like an obvious move from day 1.
You missed my point. I didn’t say it was right or wrong. I didn’t even say it was fair. All I said was, to the rest of the baseball community, it is going to look bad for Sabremetrics if this team doesn’t do well.
Flowin – Um, no. This team isn’t entirely built around the kind of principles that the Mariners’ sabermetrics blogs have wanted for years. If it was, this year’s squad would have better starting pitching to follow up Felix and Cliff, catchers who can actually catch, and DHs who can actually H, for starters…
There is a reason he is unemployeed. Move on.
…because he’s not what this team needs.
Griffey and Sweeney aren’t what this team needs either, but the team can’t figure that out.
I must have missed all of those posts. I can’t remember Dave, or anyone here, saying a team should be built on solely defense.
They may have recognized the front office’s ability to take advantage of what the market offered, and build pretty close to the best possible team given the resources at their disposal. But, I don’t recall anyone discounting the importance of offense.
Do you truly believe that the Mariners are the only team in baseball that uses sabermetrics to help build and maintain a baseball team?
No one will mistake this team for the Red Sox or Yankees. It’s kinda foolish to think that people will think ill of sabermetrics simply because the M’s didn’t turn into the best team in baseball overnight.
Nor I. I do remember posts complimenting Z on doing a lot with the little he had to work with, both last year and in the off-season, maximizing WAR with the few available dollars and making some very good trades that dumped salary sinks for something that didn’t leave stains on the living room carpet.
A really bad season — if that’s what this turns out to be — isn’t going to discredit sabermetrics for anyone who knows anything about statistics. It would, undoubtedly, however bring out the badly informed unable to distinguish one end of the distribution’s tail from the other. But you can’t cure stupid as Ron White is fond of saying.
“The M’s are a lot of things, but they’re not a litmus test for sabermetric theory.”
Dave in Calling For A Moratorium on February 8th, 2010
Nice post, thanks
for the splits.. I was thinking he would be a good choice instead of Sweeney so I went over his stats and was
impressed especially at his durability. But the splits don’t lie. he can’t hit righties don’t waste the money Jack Z! We need someone who can whoop RHP.
Wow I didn’t realize Dave built this roster, and is responsible for the outcome (you implied sabremetric validity was at stake) My advice is ‘use your noodle son!’
I hear they’re going to come take Dave’s house if the Mariners don’t make the playoffs.
Given how quickly serious statistical analysis has spread through MLB’s front offices, I’m pretty sure that the 2010 Ms aren’t anybody’s poster boys.
Also, if Dave had build this team, it wouldn’t have Griffey or Sweeney.
The other thing it would do is require a rethink of the analysis that seems to be often treated like gospel on this site. So much of how the Mariners are playing matches up with exactly how they would be expected to perform if you were doing “traditional” old school analysis. By that I mean for example, don’t ignore RBIs – they are not meaningless simply because the statistical sophistication is not yet there to pull out the meaning in a game as complex as baseball. There really are clutch hitters – it isn’t simply an old timey misconception.
And pitchers do pay attention to the score and if they doubt they will get any run support, they change how they pitch. I am aware of the studies which purport to show that pitchers always pitch the same, whether ahead or behind. What that tells me is that the statistical tools are still inadequate to tease out what is happening.
The wrong conclusion is that somehow old timey baseball wisdom is just wrong.
The game has been played for many years in a real time experiment we get to see what teams look like when they are successful, and what they look like when they suck.
Well, given baseball history and traditional team makeup, this team sucks. And they are playing to that level.
Oh, and I do know one end of a distribution curve from another, btw. It is why I am known as Mister Baseball.
No one argues they’re meaningless. They’re a game event. It’s that they’re not an ability.
And yet every attempt to find them returns empty handed. Weird.
And yet every attempt to find this happening comes back empty.
Yes. Clearly, if the data doesn’t support your belief, the method of study was wrong.
I remember when Peter Gammons rejected all defensive stats that showed Derek Jeter wasn’t as stunning as he believed. He came around eventually.
We’ll wait for you.
I am aware of the studies which purport to show that pitchers always pitch the same, whether ahead or behind. What that tells me is that the statistical tools are still inadequate to tease out what is happening.
What’s the opposite of confirmation bias? Maybe this?
Anyways, I’m sure your theories on
the Earth being flatclutch hitting, RBIs and pitchers will be proven any day now- they laughed at Einstein, right?Is that why? Because we were all wondering.
Dear DMZ –
Do you believe that it makes any difference what a pitcher throws in any situation? If you think the Balls/Strikes count influences what a pitcher throws, why is it so hard to believe that a pitcher will pitch differently if he believes that his team will likely lose if the opposing team scores at all?? But because some folks were unable to tease out this in the statistical tools that they know to use, you assume that the assumption is wrong rather than admit the model you are trying to use to reflect reality is wrong.
A bit of common sense and observation of the obvious along with statistical analysis is helpful. Statistics are a tool to try to examine and explain the world – they are not the world.
And if you look at the real world, things like considering fielding stats to be equal to offensive stats in predicting successful baseball teams is silly.
The old adage about Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics is still true – not much has changed in that regard. Maybe a slick fielding Mariners team which still ends up in the toilet will expose nonsense for what it is.
A slick fielding team that has some sort of offense and good starting pitching? That sounds like a way to reach the playoffs. A slick fielding team with an okay pitching staff and an anemic “last in the league” offense? Games in July will already be meaningless.
The fundementals of how to build winning teams has been forgotten with this team, and decisions have been made time after time in building this team which were bad ones based upon those faulty assumption – for example, Casey Kotchman has been and should be a backup player. No consistant power anywhere in the lineup is a mistake.
Instead we have a great UZR. Wow. Watch that UZR climb up the standinfgs, will ya?
What an exciting and fresh new viewpoint you are bringing to this site!
I don’t think that anyone has ever advanced ideals like yours here, before. Do you perhaps have a newsletter I can subscribe to?
Mister Baseball. All you seem to be doing is making a conjecture and saying that one cannot conclude whether it is true or not based on the statistical metrics used on emperical data because the metrics may be flawed. Unless you can provide another metric, that argument is vacuous.
If we are going to go into panic mode and pick up another hitter for 3-4m, then Mike Lowell would be my choice. He looks to be healthy, hits RH and LH pitching, and can play 3rd and 1st. Needless to say Lowell is not risk free, he’s declined some in the last couple of years, but a lot of that may be due to his hip injury which he had surgery before the 2009 season. Last season he had an .811ops, .784 vs RH pitching, despite a thumb problem and coming back from the hip surgery. I think he’d be a great compliment to Kotchman, and back up to Lopez at 3rd as well as filling Sweeney’s part time DH/PH role. He’s on Boston’s bench right now, but he’s gotten even less playing time than Sweeney has and it’s no secret Boston would like to trade him for whatever they can get (Garret Olsen), and pick up most of his salary to boot. Boston could also use his roster spot for another infielder, right now Bill Hall is their backup SS/2B and 5th outfielder.
Mister Baseball,
It’s not what you “know”, it’s what you can prove. I would suggest reading this recent piece by
Joe Posnanski.
Jeff Nye –
Might I suggest that you coud read a bit about championship baseball teams?
Dang –
Take the smallest thing you KNOW to be true about baseball – whatever that is. Now come up with a statistic to accurately measure it and try to make a supportable statement about what it means. If you are honest about it, your stat is entirely accurate only as a measure exactly itself, but becomes mostly meaningless as a conclusion.
For example, suppose I suggest that players who have good vision and discipline at the plate get more walks? So I study rate of walks and low and behold, I find that the some of the guys who get the most strikeouts also get the most walks. Huh? How do I explain that? More strikeouts means poorer plate discipline, but more walks means better plate discipline. In fact you will discover that it is rather common for the same player to lead the league in both walks and strikeouts (sometimes even in the same year) at some point in his career – Jim Thome, Adam Dunn, Jack Cust, Mike Schmidt, and others. Of the career leaders in BB, only two – Rickey Henderson and Joe Morgan – would appear to be the typical lead off/high OBP type player – all the rest were much more known for their HR power.
Conclusion? In order to consistantly draw BBs, you need to hit a lot of homers. No…that doesn’t seem right. In order to hit a lot of homers you need to draw a lot of walks? No wait – in order to get lots of walks you need to strike out often!! No wait……
A simple stat like walks, when examined, does not really reflect what you think you know about baseball. Therefore, a statistical study of something as complex as whether a pitcher pitches different when he expects little to no run support is not likely to produce anything like a clean, clear signal one way or the other. Because you cannot detect the signal in the data does not mean it is not there.
Just because your radar is not sophisticated enough to pick out the stealth bomber on it’s way in to you, that does not mean that you can definitively say that there will be no bombs falling tonight. Only, that you have not detected them, up to that point.
Yes yes, you’re on the Bill James “it’s too foggy to see” side. We get it. There’s an invisible dragon under the bed but we can’t see it because it’s invisible but that doesn’t mean it’s not there and we can’t prove it’s not there.
We’ve had this argument for seven years here and since the dawn of time before that. We’re not going to resolve it now. But the burden of proof is on the assertion, and when you say pitchers pitch to the score, or there’s such a thing as clutch hitting and it’s important, when there’s no evidence to this and many people far smarter than either of us have looked for it, well, either you’re right and you can prove it and become the greatest baseball research hero of a generation, or we have to acknowledge that if an effect exists it’s too small to measure and thus too small to be a big deal.
That’s all.
Because you cannot detect the signal in the data does not mean it is not there.
Great, except I then go “null hypothesis“, and then, guess what? Everything YOU say about RBIs, pitching to score or whatever, applies equally to you- just because YOU, or any number of people spouting baseball cliches, assert something exists does not mean it exists.
Just because you think there’s signal in the noise doesn’t mean it exists, either.
I don’t know what you guys are talking about.
People call him Mister Baseball, and that’s good enough for me. I’m done listening to you nerds.
“Anyone who thinks anyone’s credibility rests on the results of one team’s baseball season doesn’t understand how to evaluate anything.”
I’d like to back Dave up one more time on this. Say the Mariners were theoretically a 0.550 team. That’s 89 wins, and definitely a shot to make the playoffs in the West. Within one standard deviation (a few too many bloop RBI singles against, bad HR/FB for pitchers, etc, etc)exists a very possible 83-79 season. Basically even if we are a solid 55% winning team, there’s about a 15-20% chance that random shtuff could push the Ms down to .500 ball. The Ms saw the better part of randomness last year, but despite having a better team this year, randomness is by definition unpredictable. So expecting that same treatment this year would be highly optimistic. The point is, one season is not enough to scrap a theory, or take stabs at one’s credibility.
Mr. Baseball: cherry picking data is no way to prove anything. Your example on walks suffers from an extreme small sample size (league leaders only? Really?). There’s no way to uncover trends in such limited data. Any conclusions made based on that data would be irresponsible and likely wrong. By the way, the prevailing theory is that drawing walks is a skill that’s independent of other hitting skills like power or bat control. Your example does not disprove that theory.
Do yourself a favor. Read up on the scientific method before you criticize those who use it.
The fundementals of how to build winning teams has been forgotten with this team, and decisions have been made time after time in building this team which were bad ones based upon those faulty assumption – for example, Casey Kotchman has been and should be a backup player. No consistant power anywhere in the lineup is a mistake.
I think, Mister Baseball, that you have somewhat missed the point. No one is arguing that Casey Kotchman is a lights-out first baseman. But when the Mariners were trying to figure out how to spend their money, they realized that the baseball market does not appreciate good defensive players. So they save a little money by grabbing a guy like Kotchman. He has upside offensively, but they don’t have to pay much for that upside because he hasn’t hit well recently. And they get an above-average defensive first basemen for not a ton of money. Now they get to sign Cliff Lee, and keep Felix on board for 5 more seasons. No, Kotchman is not going to blow away opposing pitching, but his role is not to do that. His role is to “try really hard to hit, field well, and don’t cost a lot so we can keep putting good pitching out there,…and some short Japanese guy who apparently can hit.”
That being said, this is a ball park where good defense can be utilized more efficiently because more balls will stay in play. According to ESPN’s ball park factors, Safeco cuts down home runs by more than 10%. So with a ball park that requires better defense, in a market that undervalues better defense, doesn’t it seem privy to buy better defense whenever possible, and save money for guys like Ichiro, Felix and Lee?