Why Pat Burrell Is As Good as Soriano and Lee

by Alon on Dec 5, 2006 7:16 PM EST

[Editor's note - bumped from the Diaries.]

Recently I've been hearing a bit (read, a ton) of straight up hatred geared towards our LF, Pat Burrell. Being a statistically-minded fella, I've done my best to persuade these people that Burrell is not only not bad, but is (gasp) actually pretty darn good.

You've all heard the argument. He's got a hell of an ass. And OBP. What?

But in all seriousness, compare and contrast.

Player A
Stats:
.277/.351/.560/.911
HRs: 41
BB: 67
SO: 160
ABs: 647

Player B
Stats:
.258/.388/.502/.890
HRs: 29
BB: 98
SO: 131
ABs: 462

The players? Not too challenging, I know. Pat Burrell is B. B for Burrell. Alfonso Soriano is A. A for Alfonso.

So what's the point? Well, Alfonso Soriano had only a slightly better year than Burrell did last year. Both hit home runs at just about the same rate (1 every 15.93 AB's for Pat, 1 every 15.78 AB's for Alfonso). Burrell, however, walked at a MUCH higher rate, and as an expense Burrell did strike out at a tad higher rate (1 SO every 3.53 ABs vs. Soriano's 1 SO every 4.04 ABs). Both play mediocre defense in LF. Soriano steals more, but Burrell gets on base at a far, far higher clip. We can almost call it a wash, but I'll call it a tilt for Soriano. He'll age slightly better because of his athleticism.

But wait, HOW much is Soriano being paid? Around $17 million a year for 8 years, you say? $136 million for 8 years? That's a joke, right? Burrell is only being paid $27m over the next two years, the apex of his contract.

But that's not all.
Compare these two career lines:
Player A
.258/.362/.479/.841
HRs: 188
BB: 569
SO: 1017
PAs: ~4100

Player B
.280/.325/.510/.835
HRs: 208
BB: 224
SOs: 836
PAs: ~4100

I've switched it up on you this time. Player A is Burrell, player B is Soriano. Again, a wash given the fact that the first portion of Soriano's career was at 2b, and that he steals more and has slightly higher power #s, whereas Burrell gets on base a ton more and has a better OPS.

Let's give comparison to yet another mystery player, Player C.

Player C
.286/.340/.495/.835
HRs: 221
BB: 370
SO: 653
PAs: ~4900

Looks like he's just about equal to Burrell and Soriano as well. Less SO's, slightly less power, better OBP than Soriano, far worse than Burrell. Same OPS as Soriano. The player?
Carlos Lee, 100 million dollar man. 16.66 million a year. For equality to Pat Burrell?

But what about their "clutch"ness? First and foremost, I don't believe in clutch. It's silly to think a batter that will be one of the best ever if he fails 7 out of 10 times can choose when he can hit the ball. But if it does exist, the current way people judge it is by things such as Batting with Runners in Scoring Position (RISP)

Batting w/ RISP

Player A:
.252/.316/.447/.762
HR: 35
BB: 79
SO: 195
PA: ~940
RISP w/ 2 Outs:
.224/.305/.421/.726
HR: 18
BB: 44
SO: 107
PA: ~450

Player B:
.267/.386/.466/.852
HR: 45
BB: 220
SO: 304
PA: ~1300
RISP w/ 2 Outs:
.252/.390/.481/.871
HR: 26
BB: 110
SO: 158
PA: ~600

Player C:
.297/.354/.526/.880
HR: 65
BB: 125
SO: 191
PA: ~1300
RISP w/ 2 Outs:
.264/.341/.484/.825
HR: 28
BB: 57
SO: 93
PA: ~600

The winner of this bout? Well, probably not A. An argument could be made for both B and C. B seems to rise to the occassion even more than C does with better stats with RISP and 2 outs, walking twice as much as C w/ equivalent power, whereas C seems to have the edge in RISP in general, posting a phenomenal SO/BB ratio, with sufficient OBP and excellent power. Call it a wash.

The players? To hear a Philly fan tell it, it'd be A, no question. Or maybe I've chosen Burrell to be Player C because he hasn't been Player C yet. Actually, no, it's back to basics.
A for Alfonso
B for Burrell
C for Carlos

And what is the result? Well, for one, Burrell is no worse in the "clutch" than he is in the norm.
In fact, with RISP and 2 outs, he is... better. Than both Carlos and Alfonso. If you think watching Burrell this year with RISP was bad, just imagine what it would have been like the past 6 years of full time Soriano.

But of course, this doesn't tell the full tale. Each have advantages: Soriano steals a lot and has that bit of glamour, Carlos strikes out remarkably little for a guy of his power, while Burrell is an OBP machine, in the mold of Abreu (in that regard).

And the point?

Burrell isn't so bad. In fact, if and when he gets to FA, the argument could be (and just was) made that he might have gotten one of the 10 richest contracts in MLB history. And would have deserved it just as much as Soriano.

0 recs | Comment 21 comments

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Comments

So...

This is to make us feel better now that choosing between Burrell, Soriano, & Lee is a moot point?

Bleeding Green Nation Philadelphia Eagles Blog

by JasonB on Dec 5, 2006 8:23 PM EST 0 recs

Mostly it's just

a defense of Pat Burrell. And yeah, make us feel better that we didn't get those two guys at exorbitant amounts when we already have our own little money maker who has equal production for less.

by Alon on Dec 5, 2006 8:28 PM EST up 0 recs

should make you feel worse...

if you were one of the fans who booed Burrell to the point where management felt bad subjecting him to the incessant and unknowledgable badgering of philly fans and decided to play less-adept players instead.

by OGPhillay on Dec 5, 2006 8:30 PM EST 0 recs

absolutely

at the end of the year I almost found myself hoping we'd trade him to another team so that he could hit 40 homers for them. Which he would have if he'd gotten the same amount of PAs as Soriano.

by Alon on Dec 5, 2006 8:41 PM EST up 0 recs

Also

thanks to the editor for bringin my first diary to the front page =-)

by Alon on Dec 5, 2006 9:50 PM EST 0 recs

Interesting question

This raises an interesting question. If Burrell were on the free market this off-season, what would he have gotten?

by David S. Cohen on Dec 5, 2006 10:45 PM EST 0 recs

something better than...

two years, $27 million. The Phils have a relative bargain.

Of course, there's probably an argument to be made that free agent signings have value--or at least consequences--beyond pure baseball terms. If the Phils had signed Alfonso Soriano, that presumably would have precipitated some additional ticket sales, merchandise, etc. Familiarity breeds, if not contempt (which, sadly, seems to be what Philly's familiarity with Burrell has bred), familiarity. I'd probably rather have Burrell at his obligation than either of the guys we "lost out" on, but I would have been more excited--irrationally, I grant you--with Soriano or Lee.

Digression over. The other thing that would be interesting were Burrell on the market would be to see how potential suitors gauged his current health and prospects of staying intact for the next, say, four years. I think the market tends to undervalue risk--witness Pedro's deal with the Mets two winters ago, and arguably Lee's contract this year. He's been durable, but many think he won't age well. Would Pat's foot, wrist or other body parts (add joke here, mix, serve) scare off teams? I dunno. How about his reputed partying? It didn't seem to deter the Rangers from bringing back Padilla. (How great would it have been to be in the room with Wheeler when he heard about Vicente's deal?)

The worst of the many bad traits of the Philly media--and by extension the fanbase--is that they focus on the negative, not the positive. Thus, Burrell is an ungainly strikeout machine who can't hit in the clutch... not an on-base machine who turns mistakes in the zone into souvenirs for bleacher creatures. I'm glad we have him and I hope we hang onto him.

by dajafi on Dec 6, 2006 12:27 AM EST up 0 recs

Don't forget

Stats is not the only reason people don't like Burrell. Mostly, they don't like his attitude. They don't like when he snubs them for a curtain call, they don't like when they read that as the whole team is watching another game in the locker room during a playoff race that he leaves. They don't like the stories about him and some of the other vets running managers out of town(namely Boa). They don't like to hear that he was hanging out with Jason Michaels when he punched a cop.

I'm not even saying all these stories are totally true. I'm just saying that is what's out there and shaping people's opinon on the guy.

You can post all the stats you want. They aren't why people don't like him. People really don't like him because they percieve him (rightly or wrongly) as a spoiled child and an ingrate.

Bleeding Green Nation Philadelphia Eagles Blog

by JasonB on Dec 6, 2006 9:39 AM EST up 0 recs

So people don't like him

because they're stupid?

I hate this town's sports fans.

by Shore on Dec 6, 2006 11:26 AM EST up 0 recs

Picky

I'd understand being picky about my sports star likes/dislikes if my teams had a long history of winning. But, since everyone here in Philly is desperately thirsty for some winning team, any winning team, I don't understand one bit why fans care about anything other than what the player does on the field that affects the score of the game. If the player produces, that's all that should matter to us.

by David S. Cohen on Dec 6, 2006 12:04 PM EST up 0 recs

that's one opinion

I'm really just trying to illustrate that the fans problems with Burrell stretch well beyond numbers.

They may be stupid for it, they may not... that's an argument for another time. However, there's not a doubt in my mind that they do hate hearing those stories about him and it does shape their opinion.

Bleeding Green Nation Philadelphia Eagles Blog

by JasonB on Dec 6, 2006 5:49 PM EST up 0 recs

Probably close to what JD Drew is going to get

Bleeding Green Nation Philadelphia Eagles Blog

by JasonB on Dec 6, 2006 9:33 AM EST up 0 recs

The problem is

that Burrell is not on the market this year because he was given a then-overvalued contract after his awesome 2002 season, based on his maintaining that level of production. Look at all the rate stats you want, but the only season he's had since then with numbers at that same near-elite level was in 2005, when for various reasons (mostly the emergence of Howard and Utley and to a lesser extent the nonstop Abreu-fest) Burrell's return to 2002 production was damn near invisible:

Gms ABs H HR RBI AVG
2002 586 165 37 116 .282
2003 522 109 21 64 .209
2004 448 115 24 84 .257
2005 562 158 32 117 .281
2006 462 119 29 95 .258

Further burying his resurgence the last two seasons has been the (in my view) irreparable damage Pat did to himself with that godawful 2003 season. While the numbers don't look too bad now in a vacuum and with appropriate trendlines, at the time they were absolutely 100% killing the team, and in the team's first real legitimate run at a playoff spot there was a young player with a rep for partying hard, a huge new contract, and abysmal numbers dragging down the rest of the lineup.

A line of .280-30-100 for the past five years not only would have gotten the media off of his back, and justified the contract he signed after that '02 season, but could very well have been the difference between the last-week losses and playoff spots in 2003, 2005, and 2006. While that 03 season looks more and more like an aberration, given that Pat's rate stats are almost back to where they were in '02, in many ways the damage has already been done, to his perception in Phila at least.

What makes this offseason interesting is that it seems, at least so far, that Gillick realizes this, and as the rest of the market has caught up with that deal he has wisely held on to Burrell while still appeasing the haters by looking like he (Pat G) is trying to move him (Pat B). We may never see 2002 Pat Burrell again, but Gillick realizes that 2006 Pat Burrell under 2002 Pat Burrell's contract is a better deal for this team than either 2007 Alfonso Soriano or 2007 Carlos Lee will be.

by das411 on Dec 6, 2006 2:11 AM EST 0 recs

Just a couple issues

What you say is true. His 2003 year was not good. Not as horrific as it's made to sound out (he hit nowhere near the Mendoza line, except in avg). Pat's totals outside of OBP are highly dependant on his average. If he is hitting for an especially low average, his other #s fall what seems like a disproportionate amount.

Regardless, I don't think the #s you set up would have justified his contract. Average is an OK stat, but HR and RBI are just glamour stats (too far dependant on a whole ton of other things, be it pitcher's propensity to give up HRs or a simple lack of production out of other lineup slots)

Burrell's RBI totals are silly to judge him on. He hit extremely well in RISP as the above stats show. He has had just 2 seasons w/ poor RISP stats, that 2003 season and this season being one of them. But as a whole (which you have to take RISP #s as -- a career whole -- because otherwise the sample size is straight up too small), BUrrell has excelled when there are runners on. I do think RISP is a bullshit stat unless taken as a whole career with at least 1 season's worth of stats to compare to many more seasons of normal rate stats. Preferably far more than one.

I would argue that 2002 was as much an aberration as 2003. The real Pat Burrell doesn't need a .280 average to be highly successful, but he does need above around ~.240. His eye takes care of the rest.

I'm not really arguing with you on this, but I just feel that the media would have jumped on Pat regardless of his 2003-and-after seasons, just like Philly's media tends to jump on MOST players who aren't seen as blue collar hard workers. That's just the way it is. Even if they do work hard, if the perception is there that they slack, they are not given slack.

For a winning attitude, you need to win. To win, you need production. Pat Burrell produces. He isn't part of the problem. I don't say that to you as much as I do in general.

by Alon on Dec 6, 2006 7:03 PM EST up 0 recs

And the flip side of that argument goes,

if Pat Burrell produces in 2003, 2005, or 2006, then the Phillies win.

by das411 on Dec 7, 2006 3:32 AM EST 0 recs

Huh?

What are you talking about?

by jonk on Dec 7, 2006 6:28 AM EST up 0 recs

From the previous post

"For a winning attitude, you need to win. To win, you need production. Pat Burrell produces. He isn't part of the problem."

If Burrell had put up his 2002 numbers in 2003, I don't think there is any question they win the Wild Card that year and therefore, according to Alon, become "winners". Same thing happened in 05 and 06. Do you even watch the games?

by das411 on Dec 7, 2006 11:25 AM EST 0 recs

Nope

Never seen a game in my life. Not even a Phillies fan. I don't even know who their GM is.

Have YOU ever seen a Trenton Thunder game?

To clarify, yes I've seen the Phillies and their Gillick-led team this past year. And years before. And every year for the great majority of my life. Trenton Thunder question comes from basically your argument entirely being made up of bullshit.

If, if if. Pat Burrell still did not give negative production in any of those years. Therefore, he did not hurt the Phillies. He produced even in 2003 better than any replacement player would have. So, according to you, he should have produced more. Fair enough. But that doesn't mean no one else produced either. Why blame Pat? Because you only watch the media news reports? Why am I coming at you like this? I have no idea what you watch or where you get your opinion, nor do I care. But to accuse me of ignorance by the blanket, ignorant, and straight up rude statement "do you even watch games" does not strike me as an answer deserving a legitimate, fact based, extensive response.

by Alon on Dec 7, 2006 7:07 PM EST up 0 recs

What does...

watching the games do for you? Give you a subjective view that has no valid basis whatsoever? See, watching the games makes you look for exactly what you want to see. When Pat succeeds, it is a "about time", but when he fails, it is a "that's Pat doing his thing". If you never mention "watch the games" in your life again, you will have done yourself and everyone you talk to justice.

by jonk on Dec 10, 2006 1:36 AM EST up 0 recs

I disagree

When you trust the box score above what you see on the field is when you lose touch with the real game.

Not that stats aren't important, especially in a sport like baseball, but they don't tell the whole story. I don't think it's right to criticize someone for telling you what they saw with their own 2 eyes.

Bleeding Green Nation Philadelphia Eagles Blog

by JasonB on Dec 10, 2006 11:02 PM EST up 0 recs