Firstplaceapaloozalinks for you, September 8, 2010: Boob job, A Lidge'l stiff, It's WAR!
by Wet Luzinski on Sep 8, 2010 7:18 AM EDT
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PrintPhillies grab first place as fan grabs second base: Fightins.com
This tableau of Ashburn Alley groundlings from last night's game does evoke this morning's mood rather nicely.As best we can determine, it wasn't any of our blog lords either, not even one of the new guys. Anyways, you stay classy, Phillies fans!
The Braves’ lead has been squandered. What happens now? - Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Rick Ankiel has done nothing. Nate McLouth continues to do nothing. Derrek Lee has done next to nothing. Troy Glaus hasn’t done much since June. Those four men staff two fairly key positions, and at this late date you have to wonder: Would moving Melky Cabrera to center and the kid Freddie Freeman into a starting role at first base have a deleterious effect on a team that can’t score to begin with?
This is exactly the kind of thinking that now struts through the fantasy clubhouse of Team WL.
Call the Hall: Hoffman gets 600th save: mlb.com
On a night when Madson blew a save FTW, we hereby salute Trevor Hoffman (check the video of him hugging his three boys and dare yourself not to feel!) and call to question what this milestone means in the midst of the Lively Save Era.
Chat with Joe Morgan: ESPN.com
O.K., which one of you jokers is Conshy Matt? You get a b-slap for provoking Joe into saying what he did. OTOH, Tito from Brooklyn, I thank you once again for asking the obvious about Cousin Nyjer. I wept. September 22 can't come soon enough.
Johnson leads WAR at Labor Day: Fangraphs.com
If Halladay's potential zOMG PLAYOFF WINZ! carry the old guard Cy Young ballots, Josh Johnson's wonderful flower of a season will likely be destined to bloom unseen on the humid turf of ProPlaya. Yet if you read the comments, even the propeller-headed stats set is tearing each other apart! A lively debate is upon us.
hello thar, 2nd place! Braves impotent against Pirates, fail miserably 5-0, lose NL East lead: Talking Chop
Tim Hudson was really good until the seventh, when NL Central Cellar Karma struck again. Ise not sorry.
Mathieson, Brown win top honors: Reading Eagle
A roundup of Phillies prospect 2010 honorifics. Interesting side note: Dom Brown, Matt Rizzotti, and Tagg Bozied were all Eastern League batting leaders at either their point of call up or at the end of the season.
Future Shock: Tuesday Ten Pack: Baseball Prospectus
(sub. req'd). Kevin Goldstein has some nice things to say about Lakewood's Julio Rodriguez. To answer PhillyFriar's question yesterday, Rodriguez is now throwing in the low-90s. No subscription? Then read more:
Julio Rodriguez will help BlueClaws attempt championship defense
Go BlueClaws! I must, however, invite you all to join my fan backlash against nicknaming any player whose last name is Rodriguez with the "_-Rod" format. As an homage to the Mets third-base coach, I'd much prefer "Razor Rodriguez." He'll cut you, hermano!
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Thanks. The picture just reminded me of a sea lion. You can just see Romero flopping into the ocean, off to swim to another team, intending to go to New York and winding up in Baltimore.
by Wet Luzinski on Sep 8, 2010 10:23 AM EDT up reply actions
Key line from the AJC article
Yes, the Braves have lost two in a row to Pittsburgh, but it wasn’t so long ago — two weeks — that the Phillies lost four straight at home to the sub-.500 Astros. Then they went on the road and won five of six from San Diego and L.A. That’s what a big-time team does. It gathers itself and hits back harder.
Re: Johnson article
I agree with some of the comments re: fWAR at Fangraphs. Using it for it’s predictive nature, such as with BABIP, is a better use than say, using it to determine who’s been better historically. The “luck” that it’s made to equalize for actually happened.
You can say Johnson “should have” the best WAR, but so far Halladay “has” the best WAR.
Given the fact that Johnson and Halladay’s advanced rate stats are pretty close, it’s quite shocking that JJ gets the edge in WAR given the fact that Halladay has pitched almost 40 more innings. I guess WAR is based entirely on FIP?
If you embrace it in an ironic kind of way, you can still get a date now and then.
by Wet Luzinski on Sep 8, 2010 10:06 AM EDT up reply actions
Sorry to burst your bubble, but women are just as shallow as men, albeit in different ways. Ugly guys can get beautiful women, but they better have deep pockets.
Lex clavatoris designati rescindenda est.
I’ve been told a sense of humor is kind of important too…shame
by SportingFanaticism on Sep 8, 2010 2:22 PM EDT up reply actions
Nerdiness aside, you’re correct that WAR is based on FIP alone (and doesn’t incorporate anything like xFIP or SIERA).
I can see the argument for Johnson, but for me, a pitcher who throws 40 innings more at a lesser xFIP and SIERA is a better Cy Young candidate than someone whose FIP is better thanks to an unsustainable HR/FB%. That’s to take nothing away from Johnson, who’s been legitimately excellent this year, but those innings mean a lot.
This could also be moot if the Marlins do decide to shut Johnson down for the rest of the year due to his elbow soreness. Halladay would then likely have ~60-70 more innings with better traditional counting stats (W-L, K’s, etc.).
BTW, it’s really impressive how consistent Halladay’s numbers are. If the season ended today his numbers would almost exactly match each of his previous 5 seasons in W-L, K’s, IP, HR.
Exactly. JJ’s WAR is higher precisely because his HR/FB is so low. But we are talking about very subtle shades of awesomeness here. They’ve both had crazy-good seasons.
I suspect that some of those Fangraphs commenters are skewing their opinions in Johnson’s favor because he has only 11 Ws and they’re so invested in proving how little they care about W-L record that the low W total is actually driving the boat for them.
That’s a typical mindset over there. Too many of those commenters see sabermetrics not as a way to discern truth, but as a means of proving how intellectually superior they are to the unwashed masses. This leads them down all kinds of dark paths that are not actually consistent with a proper understanding of sabermetrics. Their goal isn’t to assess stats for what they say, but to assess them in the manner that differentiates themselves the most from people they look down on.
I agree
You do get a sense of elitist attitude from some of the comments over there.
by Screen Name 20 on Sep 8, 2010 2:03 PM EDT up reply actions
Interestingly, Johnson will be missing his scheduled start on Friday vs. the Nats because of a sore elbow. Still up in the air whether he’ll be back to pitch against us in our series down in Miami early next week. If the Marlins are smart, they’ll just shut him down for the rest of the year, but who knows.
No point in ruining the guy’s pitching arm when you’re double digits back in the WC race. That said, I hate the way the Marlins handle prospects/young players, so my faith in them doing the right thing for Johnson and the team is fairly low. One of many reasons I’m glad I am not a Marlins fan.
Nothing stopped them from running Nolasco out there with a torn knee meniscus. That was the game Atlanta trounced him.
The problem with making Bold Predictions is that if you’re right you risk looking like a sanctimonious jerk, but if you’re wrong, you can just end up looking like a something that rhymes with gas pole.
“Hey, I’m over here predicting the future for a living, once you news guys start predicting murders, we can talk.” Some Comedian
God, did I hate that movie. Gus Van Sant has done very little I like in terms of movies and that one was unwatchable for me.
To Die For? Great movie. Different tastes, obviously.
by phillyinportland on Sep 11, 2010 11:29 PM EDT up reply actions
It’s really exciting to hear that Rodriguez’s scouting reports match the numbers. Goldstein says in comments that he doesn’t put him in quite the same class as Cosart/Colvin/May, but this is great news regardless.
Cant have enough good arms in the pipeline. We really should focus on getting some IF bats down there pronto.
No, in drafting and signing amateurs, you should always focus exclusively on getting the best talent available. Positional considerations should be more or less irrelevant. If you’re stacked with OF and P talent, then you can get your IFs through free agency or perhaps trades.
MLB draft is pretty much a crapshoot where predicting who will pan out is very difficult. The more bullets you invest in the position of need, the better in my opinion. Its pretty much impossible to acquire elite young talent without massively overpaying for it.
It is precisely because it is such a crapshoot that positional considerations should be irrelevant. You can’t guarantee positional coverage by focusing on it. All you can do is lower your chances of getting a useful player at any position at all.
Look at the case of the Twins trading an elite catching prospect (Ramos) for a mediocre BP guy this season. They were in a position of need and clearly didnt get equal value. I’d rather buy the lottery tickets where they can provide me the most value if I win.
The ‘best available’ philosophy may work in football and basketball, but with talent spread out over so many players in baseball, I dont think its possible to predict who really is the ‘best available’.
But given the fact that it takes guys years to make the majors, and given all the trades, FA signings, breakouts and busts that can happen in that timeframe, isn’t it also difficult to predict what exactly your positions of need really are?
It seems to me (I may be wrong) that the amateur talent pool for infielders, especially middle infielders, is the crappy-shootiest of all. How many major-league shortstops are drafted every year?
Most Middle Infielders don’t stick at the position. In HS and College, the most athletic guy plays SS and the runner up plays either CF or 2B. What passes for most athletic in college many times is not what matches most athletic in the Pros.
I agree in general with what you’ve said, but I do think the infield situation needs to be addressed somehow. The current Phillies infield is the result of early round draft picks (in the case of Rollins, Utley, and Howard) and one free agent signing. The club hasn’t taken an early round infielder — unless you count Anthony Hewitt — in several years, which is a bit bothersome to me at least.
And I don’t say this because I expect the next infield prospects acquired to replace Utley/Rollins/Howard/Polanco; I say it because it’s an organizational weak point more generally.
Oh, it definitely needs to be addressed. I just think that prioritizing it in the draft process is wrongheaded. If the front office thinks that an IF and a P are exactly equal to one another as draft prospects, then I’m OK with them taking the IF to break a tie. But if they view the P as being even a slightly better risk, then take the P.
No matter what you do, you’re unlikely to be able to fill every position (or even the majority of positions) on the diamond with talent you developed from within. Even the teams with the best farm systems are unable to do that. If the Phillies need to get all of their IFs and none of their OFs or Ps from the outside, then I don’t see that as putting them in any worse shape than if they needed to get one player in each category from the outside. It’s all the same in the end.
I hear you, I just think that the infield positions are much more difficult and expensive to fill than the outfield positions. Not that this incarnation of the Phillies is the be-all, end-all, but Werth and Victorino were scrap heap guys and Ibanez was a free agent signing, and the production they’re getting out of their outfield is just fine. But to get the production that Utley/Rollins/Howard/Ruiz give them on the open market would be far more difficult and expensive. It’s the whole, “Championship clubs are built up the middle” thing.
Of course, that doesn’t mean the club should routinely pass up more talented players. But if they identify an early round talent as a future major league regular at an infield position (aside from first base), then I’d be okay with the occasional “reach.” Hell, Biddle was a reach, so the idea of reaching a bit doesn’t terribly bother me if it’s done for the right reasons.
OK, but isn’t the fact that infielders are harder to find “priced into” the valuation structure (for lack of a better way to put it)? That is to say, when you have two equivalent draft prospects in front of you, then you aren’t choosing between an outfielder who you project to hit .850 OPS vs. an infielder who you project to hit .850. Instead you’re choosing between an outfielder who projects as an .850 hitter vs. an infielder who projects as a .750 hitter. If an .850 infielder was available, that would mean you were picking higher and that your alternative was a .950 outfielder. I don’t know if I’m explaining this well.
No, I know what you’re saying. I guess this is where I’d say that I think the Phillies are too locked into finding the next Willie Mays, no matter the small probability of success, rather than finding higher probability Carlos Ruizes. (I know, I know, Ruiz was an amateur free agent signing, but you see my point.) You know, my whole, “Why take Kelly Dugan in the 2nd round when you can take Kyle Seager, then pop someone similar to Dugan in the 20th and sign them for above slot?” rant.
In other words, it’s a sliding scale of ceiling/probability that I think the Phillies often slant the wrong way on in early rounds. Though I may have just taken this off on a tangent.
Wow, Marlins sure picked a great place to haze their rookies, making the bullpenners wear fairy wings, halos and pink backpacks in Philly of all places. Hardcore.
Lex clavatoris designati rescindenda est.
Cause Philadelphia has a larger portion of ignorant homophobes than the rest of the country?
by SportingFanaticism on Sep 8, 2010 2:24 PM EDT up reply actions
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