Jump to content

2008 MLB Thread


jetsniper

Recommended Posts

  • Replies 177
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

He's only 64.

Says the 65 year old pretending to be a student.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I thought Gaston was dead.

Is this just a scapegoat so people stop focusing on Riccardi's moronic comments regarding Dunn?

Probably a partial scapegoat. Probably also a realization that Gibbons was the worst manager in baseball.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Probably a partial scapegoat. Probably also a realization that Gibbons was the worst manager in baseball.

Can't argue that, I would've fired him back in 2006. I just thought the fact it came right after that incident was pretty funny.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Whatever that guy is a psychopath with his village in Florida which I believe is illegal.

you are really getting off the reservation, PTG. You know wikipedia is waiting for you for exactly these kinds of situations.

Mike Ilitch : Owns Little Caesars, the Red Wings, and the Tigers. Operated Tiger Stadium until it was razed.

Tom Monaghan: Owned Dominos until 1998, owned the Tigers until 1992. Sold out of Dominos in 1998 to do Catholic charities and advocacy. Started Ave Maria College and a bunch of other orgs with the moniker "Ave Maria" and becoming what can best be described as a "Born Again Catholic" Started the school in Ann Arbor, but will be moved to Ave Maria, Florida next year.

Ave Maria, Florida: Town under construction in Florida, funded by Monaghan. Basically trying to build a Catholic town. Moving Ave Maria College and Law School there. Lots of controversy, might be violating the 1st and 14th amendment under a company town theory. If he is trying to use restrictive covenants, will probably (IMHO) be struck down. Students at Ave Maria generally pissed about the move. American Bar Association Accreditation Board generally pissed at Ave Maria. Whole town might not happen (or at least school might not move there) because of lending crisis.

Ok, there are the facts - unsurprisingly few of which have to do with baseball.

Now pick one, PTG:

1) You thought Mike Ilitch, owner owner of Little Caesars was the psycopath

2) You didn't care that you were wrong about who owned the Tigers and instead of just admitting your mistake, you tried to change the discussion to the Dominos guy to avoid it.

3) You just want to hijack the baseball thread again.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Reds record when hitting a homer: 36-26

Reds record when not hitting a homer: 7-23

Note to Reds management: Stop trying to win with players like Griffey and Dunn, it doesn't work.

Griffey is getting pretty close to done, but I'd think I could win a lot of games on my team with Adam Dunn. .227/.384/.518, on pace for 40HRs and scheduled to be entering his prime - all for about $10mil. Sounds good to me. Those kind of stats work for a lot of people. Manny Ramirez, for example, is hitting .285/.380/.508 and on pace for about 25-30 homers. So you are getting a younger, cheaper version of Manny with better defense at half the cost. Manny has more hits, but fewer walks. Manny is giving you more doubles, Adam is giving you more homers. I know a lot of people in Cincinnati dislike Dunn, but I don't really get it.

He has by far the lowest BABIP (batting average on balls in play) of his career and he has a 17% line drive rate. That tells me is batting average is probably quite unlucky and I'm going to predict his batting average goes up about 20 points over the rest of the season. The strike out rate is somewhat troubling, but it is the cost of walks and a lot of sluggers have high strike out rates.

Corey Patterson is murdering your offense with his .222 OBP and his .340 SLG. There is no amount of defense that kind make up for that kind of suck.

Dunn isn't the problem - look at your pitching staff. Arroyo is pitching like the guy who got knocked off of Boston's rotation (although I like the strikeouts), Cueto seems to have come to earth (he'll undoubtedly improve), and Belisle is doing his best to have a 2.00 WHIP.

Now I don't watch too much Reds baseball, so maybe Dunn dropkicks Patterson at the end of every inning, but I'm not seeing it.

Your manager is a far, far bigger problem than Adam Dunn, who has the highest OPS on the team.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hey guys,

Im looking to get a baseball stats book and was hoping you could direct me to a good one. I've read Moneyball, but that's about it.

Baseball Between the Numbers

Baseball Prospectus 2008

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The problem with Adam Dunn is his batting average with runners in scoring position. He's a career .222 hitter with runners in scoring position. That's just God awful. Well over 50% of his homers are with nobody on base, and a high percentage of those are when the game has already been decided. He strikes out a third of the time with runners on base. I hate Adam Dunn with a passion and wish to God they would have trade him and a few prospects for Volquez instead of Hamilton, who brings so much more to the team. And don't get me started on defense. Manny has his moments, but Dunn is a terrible outfielder. He's among the worst outfielders I've seen play.

I'm not saying he and Griffey are the problems themselves, but they are a big cause. Baker is a horrible manager, but the team would stink anyways. For years now they've counted on "the big inning" to win them games. Guys sit back and wait for the homers to come to win the game for them. They expect Griffey and Dunn to simply win the game for them. Their record with and without homers just proves that point. They can't win without homers because they depend on them too much. Patterson obviously shouldn't be in the majors, but he hasn't been a regular in quite a while. Pitching has sucked too, but even with decent pitching this isn't a winning team.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On defense Dunn has a .899 Revised Zone Rating (probably the best D stat going AFAIK) at left field. This is better than Raul Ibanez, Jason Bay (both .874), Manny Ramirez (.811), Carlos Lee (.854) and Carlos Quentin (.836). It is worthwhile noting that defensive stats are getting way better, but are not quite up to par with offensive stats.

Adam Dunn is a career .247 hitter - doesn't seem like he changes much with men in scoring position. This season he is hitting .226 overall and .216 with RISP. Hardball Times gives him a miniscule -.6 clutch rating. A-Rod this year is -7.7 clutch, J.D. Drew -1.1, Jermaine Dye -3.5, Hanley Ramirez -6.5. Manny was -6.4 last year and is +3.5 this year. I should note that quickly looking at some RISP stats, I see no year-to-year correlation.

Of Dunn's 359 plate appearances this season, there have been runners on base for 137 of them (38%). It is not surprising, therefore, that he hits most of his homeruns with nobody on base. Of the 155 players with at least 300 PAs, Dunn ranks 136th in MLB for number of plate appearances with runners on base.

Dunn bats in about 14.6% of runners on base (this obviously does not include himself when he hits a homerun).

Of the 155 players with at least 300 PAs this season, Dunn ranks 82nd in batting in efficiency - which puts him right with B.J. Upton, Russel Martin, Troy Glaus, Jermaine Dye, Prince Fielder, and Jose Reyes. It should be noted that I think this is to a great degree a luck stat and a team dependent stat. Perhaps people in front of Dunn can't run well or Dusty is calling for a lot of hit and runs.

All stats from baseballprospectus.com and hardballtimes.com

It is totally cool to dislike players. I dislike Eric Byrnes in a way completely unjustified by his baseball skills. I dislike most Yankees, good or bad. I think it is totally cool that you do not like Adam Dunn, but he is pretty good at playing baseball.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have to wonder what the actual difference is between Ryan Howard and Adam Dunn. It can't just be 10 homers a season can it? Does Ryan Howard only put up 130+ RBI and Adam Dunn 100 RBI because of the players in front of them or is there something more? I don't have time to look deep into the stats, but I suspect that for their career's Ryan Howard's RISP OPS is at least 150 points higher than that of Adam Dunn's.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On defense Dunn has a .899 Revised Zone Rating (probably the best D stat going AFAIK) at left field. This is better than Raul Ibanez, Jason Bay (both .874), Manny Ramirez (.811), Carlos Lee (.854) and Carlos Quentin (.836). It is worthwhile noting that defensive stats are getting way better, but are not quite up to par with offensive stats.

I don't care what his defensive numbers say, I watch him play all the time and my eyes tell me he is horrible defensively. He drops balls, takes terrible angles, just plain misses balls, can't read bounces off the wall, and barely even looks like he is trying half the time. This is a great case of the stats not painting a correct picture. There is a reason they sub him out at the end up most games, and it's not because their other outfielders are amazing defensive players.

Adam Dunn is a career .247 hitter - doesn't seem like he changes much with men in scoring position.

Career .251 hitter with the bases load, then drops to .241 with someone on base, then down to .222 with runners in scoring position. Going with your Manny Ramirez comparison again, there is a player who improves his batting average with runners on base, the way it should be. Going with the Ryan Howard comparison that Q60 brought up, and we have another example of a player who hits better with men on base. I just looked at two dozen top outfielders and only 3 of them bat better with the bases empty than when there are runner on base. And neither of those other two come close to the drop off that Dunn has. Good baseball players hit with men on base.

I will in no way say that Dunn is a good baseball player. He is good at hitting homers, striking out, and walking. Everything else about him is average to below average. Toronto's GM's comments about Dunn didn't surprise me at all. I don't see passion for the game out of him at all. I see more intensity in the eyes of high school players on the local sports network.

I have to wonder what the actual difference is between Ryan Howard and Adam Dunn. It can't just be 10 homers a season can it? Does Ryan Howard only put up 130+ RBI and Adam Dunn 100 RBI because of the players in front of them or is there something more? I don't have time to look deep into the stats, but I suspect that for their career's Ryan Howard's RISP OPS is at least 150 points higher than that of Adam Dunn's.

Adam Dunn with RISP for his career: .222 batting average, .411 OBP, .469 slugging, .880 OPS.

Ryan Howard with RISP for his career: .280 batting average .426 OBP, .590 slugging, 1.017 OPS

Link to comment
Share on other sites

OOC, where are you finding the RISP data? I don't see it at baseballprospectus, hardballtimes or the other sites I use.

Out of curiosity? (Never seen that one before.)

The data is from Yahoo Sports player profiles. There's a tab for "situational stats." You can select individual seasons or all of the player's stats since 1987, the first year they have stats from, I guess.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't care what his defensive numbers say, I watch him play all the time and my eyes tell me he is horrible defensively. He drops balls, takes terrible angles, just plain misses balls, can't read bounces off the wall, and barely even looks like he is trying half the time. This is a great case of the stats not painting a correct picture. There is a reason they sub him out at the end up most games, and it's not because their other outfielders are amazing defensive players.

I agree that defensive stats are quite there yet, but I don't like to only trust my eyes on these kinds of things. Look at Derek Jeter, for example. To many people's eyes he is a great defensive shortstop. I don't think Dunn is a great defensive fielder, but most LFs aren't either.

As far as passion for the game, I don't like to guess at that either. I know J.D. Drew and Manny often get flack for this, but they are absolutely fantastic offensive players. I don't like to assume that others, like the oft-cited Eckstein, loves baseball any more than these guys. If I have to choose between being good and loving the game, I pick good.

A lot of sluggers are classic 3 outcome guys, ala Dave Kingman. Just because you are not a complete player doesn't mean that you cannot be incredibly useful on a team. Most players are not "complete", and if I had to pick between "homer, strikeout, walk" and "groundout, single, strikeout", I'll take the guy who can walk and hit homers.

Note: I am not saying you want a team full of singles hitters or that you love Eckstein, but I think it is just important to remember that the skills Dunn has are very valuable.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.




×
×
  • Create New...