Past Due
Dave · June 7, 2011 at 7:46 pm · Filed Under Mariners
Dustin Ackley led off Tacoma’s game tonight with a home run. Off a lefty. A lefty who has a career 4.47 ERA/4.69 xFIP in the Majors. He’s drawn 10 walks against just one strikeout in the last week. His defense is better than it was a few months ago.
He has nothing left to learn in Triple-A. Call him up already.
Well, it’s a start. Mike Carp was just recalled from Tacoma, with Mike Wilson optioned back to Tacoma to make room for him. Peguero just lost his job, and he’ll likely be the one to go when Ackley is recalled in the next few days.
djw and MrZ,
Thank you for helping me procrastinate as well. Great posts.
A note about sample sizes: This article is a good read. Near the bottom it talks about when stats start to stabilize for an individual player. That list:
50 PA – swing percentage
100 PA – contact rate, response bias (both just missed at 50… the real number is probably around 70)
150 PA – K rate, line drive rate, pitches/PA
200 PA – BB rate, grounder rate, GB/FB ratio
250 PA – flyball rate
300 PA – HR rate, HR/FB
350 PA – sensitivity
400 PA – none
450 PA – none
500 PA – OBP, SLG, OPS, 1B rate, popup rate
550 PA – ISO
600 PA – none
650 PA – none
Peguero has 79 PA, so really his only stats that tell us anything about him are his swing percentage stats. As djw noted, judging him based on how often he swings, he is terrible. Using any other stat from his time in the major leagues is not reliable, since it tells us basically nothing about his true talent.
That’s an exceedingly useful and interesting piece; thanks for the link Adam.
djw/Adam-
Wow. Yep, that’s awful. When I try to analyze stats here I usually just dive for the ones I see posted the most often (UZR, xFIP, OPS+, etc.), and there are so many others to learn that discovering (much less utilizing) them is a matter of stumbling upon them as needed.
That chart (and link) Adam just posted really helps us “transitioning” guys who are trying to incorporate neo-stats with our more familiar cromagno-stats.
Like learning that in small samples swing rates are the only reliable stat is a HUGE lesson. And to learn that Peguero is possibly the worst in the league when you combine the two you offered, is an even bigger lesson.
Next time, I’ll know to look there first for SSS guys.
I really wasn’t trying to be a dickhead, or only picking stats I felt supported my argument. I was HONESTLY looking for the bad evidence, and only coming up with stuff that said “league average”, and/or “above Mariner average”.
I think I asked about 5 times for somebody to show me the stats that say “awful”, and again I wasn’t being combative I was truly interested which stats were telling you he was awful, ’cause I couldn’t find them– and I’m truly appreciative you did DJW, even if it meant putting off work! (Send me a bill.)
Again, my eyes always told me “over his head” (I often made fun of his fielding) but stats I was looking at all said “productive player”. Now I know better.
and I’m truly appreciative you did DJW, even if it meant putting off work! (Send me a bill.)
Heh. I wish I had the kind of work that resulting in billable hours. Instead it’s more like “eventually finish projects that make it less likely I’ll be fired in 5 years” sort of thing. Easy to procrastinate sometimes. I’d actually forgotten which stats site had the plate discipline and swing results stats. It actually somewhat worse than even I as a pessimist expected to find.
DJW-
Weird. I think I’m married to your boss!
Awesome. And sorry if I (and others) came off a bit harsh too. We’re pretty used to closed minds around here. Every so often somebody newly discovers baseball blogs and comes to USSM looking to argue RBIs and Wins, so people can get a bit touchy.
I don’t think you can’t throw Peguero to the wolves (Tacoma) based on that stat. For one thing, I would think that a rookie called up mid-year who had never played in the majors has to make some adjustments at first and should be judged differently on his first 50 PAs than a normal already there major league player and his first 50 PAs.
It does seem like he has made adjustments,too, he hasn’t struck out in the last four games, and he’s 8 for 17 with 2 HRs. You’re not going to give somebody like that a chance?
Yes, Peguero will make some adjustments. But so will opposing pitchers. And based on his swing tendencies, the adjustment they’ll make is not to throw him anything in the strike zone and let him get himself out. If he can’t adjust to that, then his hot start is going to go very cold. Should that happen, the right solution is to send him back to Tacoma (which is hardly “throwing him to the wolves”) to work on cutting down on those swings outside the zone. Being called up only to discover what you still need to work on is not an unusual development process for hitters.