Atlanta Braves Outfielder Jose Constanza Is Winning The WAR Of Trade Deadline Acquisitions
by gondeee on Aug 16, 2011 11:00 AM EDT
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"Sometimes the best trade is the one you don't make," as the saying goes. In the case of the Atlanta Braves, the best trade deadline acquisition they made was the short speedy little "Rug-Rat" they called up from their triple-A squad. Before the 2011 season, Atlanta signed six-year minor league free agent Jose Constanza, a still young (at 27) Dominican ballplayer who had gotten lost in Cleveland's minor league shuffle.
The Braves were looking to improve their team speed, something Frank Wren has been focused on for the past couple of years, and Constanza brought with him over 200 minor league stolen bases. He didn't get that much attention in spring training, making it into 13 games primarily as a late innings replacement. He wasn't the first, or second, or third, or even the fourth outfielder the Braves called up from their triple-A club this year. But as it turns out, he has so far been the best.
Who would have thought that when the Braves called up "Georgie" two days before the trade deadline, simply as a fill-in because of injuries to Jordan Schafer and Nate McLouth, that he would end up being not only their most productive trade deadline acquisition, but also more productive than any other hitter acquired at or near the trade deadline. Here is a rundown of the players acquired during that time and how they compare to Constanza (by using rWAR, from Baseball-Reference, and fWAR, from FanGraphs; all WAR numbers for that player are with their new team):
| Player |
rWAR |
fWAR |
| Jose Constanza |
1.1 |
1.2 |
| Hunter Pence |
0.6 |
0.6 |
| Michael Bourn |
0.3 |
0.2 |
| Rafael Furcal |
0.2 |
0.1 |
| Derrek Lee |
0.2 |
0.2 |
| Kosuke Fukudome |
0.4 |
0.1 |
| Ryan Ludwick |
-0.2 |
-0.3 |
| Carlos Beltran |
-0.3 |
-0.1 |
| Orlando Cabrera |
-0.3 |
-0.2 |
| Felipe Lopez |
-0.3 |
-0.3 |
| Colby Rasmus |
-0.3 |
0.0 |
| Corey Patterson |
-0.3 |
-0.1 |
| Jonny Gomes |
-0.2 |
0.3 |
For the uninitiated, WAR is "Wins Above Replacement," and it is defined as a single number that presents the number of wins the player added to the team above what a replacement player (AAA or quad-A) would add. Keeping in mind that Constanza was probably considered a quad-A player prior to his call-up, his performance may be throwing the whole WAR stat for a loop. Nonetheless, the fact still remains that according to either measure of WAR, Jose Constanza has (so far) been the most valuable batter acquired at or near the trade deadline.
How long will this performance continue? How many licks does it take to get to the center of his bat? These are yet unanswered questions, but it's time for everyone to come around on how important this kid is and how important he could be for the rest of the year. (I have finally come around on this point.) Yes, he's going to take away playing time from Jason Heyward. But over the course of the entire season Heyward has posted an equal (1.1 rWAR) or lower (0.9 fWAR) WAR to that of the totals Constanza has put up in just 16 games.
Perhaps, then, this truly is the "Summer of George!"
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Summer of George, Autumn of McCann, and the Fall of the Phillies
DFA Heyward. I'm dead serious
by wpf3211 on Aug 6, 2011 9:11 PM EDT
by leedawg on Aug 16, 2011 11:03 AM EDT reply actions 20 recs
rec
I pray to Jason Heyward every night
by JasonHeywardisGod on Aug 16, 2011 11:05 AM EDT up reply actions
lmao
That woman center and up looks like a raptor feeding or something.
"It looks like The Hound of the Baskervilles out there." - Steve Stone
"...I'm reminded of Wuthering Heights." - Harry Caray
~
"Wang, my third at-bat, he threw me a 1-0 fastball that I fouled straight back, and he came back with another heater, which surprised me." - Freddie Freeman
by Chief Noc-A-Homa on Aug 16, 2011 1:10 PM EDT up reply actions
mmmm
You shouldn’t sip liquor.
-justincredubil02
no, Jack Daniel is whiskey.
-ChopMaster
"Welcome to the show, Brandon Beachy. I think you’re going to stay a while."
it's awesome that Georgie is doing well
he is fast and causes teams and pitchers to think 2×. i am not sure he can keep it going for the long run but that does not matter at all in this instance. Heyward vs Constanza isn’t really going to be much of an issue over the rest of their respective careers I don’t think, so let Georgie have his sunlight and clearly help us win
I completely understand...
the angst over Jason not getting playing time. I’ve felt some of it myself. However, I simply cannot understand how anyone can refuse to recognize how much this guy has done over the last few weeks for the Braves.
After some of Prado’s at bats (and plays coming in on balls in the outfield), I find myself thinking he’s the outfielder who may need to give Heyward some playing time.
"It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone." A. Bartlett Giamatti
No one has refused to recognize what Constanza has done, they just disagree about what he will do
Why do people try to completely obfuscate the point? Some people simply believe that despite his hot start, Constanza is still a roughly replacement level going forward.
by nixa37 on Aug 16, 2011 11:23 AM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
I've yet to see anyone dispute that fact either
the only dispute seems to be on the existence of ever being “hot” and how long that should be allowed to play out. I’ve yet to see a single comment referring to him as a long term fixutre in the OF, that we shouldn’t have gotten Bourn because he provides similar but better, that he should have been up all along instead of Schafer, nothing of the sort.
http://sportsandgrits.blogspot.com/
by Mr. Sanchez on Aug 16, 2011 11:31 AM EDT up reply actions
There was at least one comment about hoping Chipper retired this offseason
So Prado could move to 3B full time and open up LF for Constanza to start full time next season. While Constanza is a good guy to have around as a 4th OF, that’s all he should be for a team with plans of contending. Now if your the Astros maybe he’s acceptable as a projected starter, but that;s about it
So you're telling me there's at least one idiot around here?
Agreed. Random comments notwithstanding, no one is advocating handing Constanza a full time starting spot next year or for any longer than his Hanson-like hotness lasts.
http://sportsandgrits.blogspot.com/
by Mr. Sanchez on Aug 16, 2011 11:42 AM EDT up reply actions
Maybe I should clarify that by going forward I mean from his next AB forward
Not from some completely meaningless statement like when his hot streak ends.
His next AB may still well be within the hot streak
http://sportsandgrits.blogspot.com/
by Mr. Sanchez on Aug 16, 2011 12:05 PM EDT up reply actions
That's ex-post facto reasoning
If he does well its still part of the hot streak, if he doesn’t than the hot streak is over. The truth is the “hot streak” had nothing to do with the result either way, you’re just trying to explain it after the fact.
Because he's really a .400+ hitter with a 1.000+ ops?
how else to explain his results aside from he’s hot right now and it’s working for him.
http://sportsandgrits.blogspot.com/
by Mr. Sanchez on Aug 16, 2011 12:40 PM EDT up reply actions
Oh? Lucky?
Is that some advanced metric stat? Does that factor in how solid he is hitting the ball? His speed and beating out infield hits? How well he is seeing the ball?
I feel sorry for people who don't drink. When they wake up in the morning, that's as good as they are going to feel all day. - Frank Sinatra
His BABIP is .431. Either his true talent level BABIP is better than Ted Williams or Ichiro, or he’s getting lucky currently.
Except in short spurts where he was on his game...
I’d bet the Splendid Splinter topped that mark. It’s his career mark you’re referring to right? So there were times he was better, times he was worse. Again, it could be as easy as he’s seeing the ball well right now, and is making good contact which combined with his speed means high BABIP. No one is saying it’s sustainable, but unsustainable does not automatically mean “lucky” either.
http://sportsandgrits.blogspot.com/
William’s highest BABIP for a full season was .378 in 1941. One of the top few offensive seasons of any hitter in all of baseball history.
OK, how about for a two week stretch?
full season includes those better and worse moments.
http://sportsandgrits.blogspot.com/
I know this may seem elementary
but if he hit .400+ for a full season (which he did), then how did he not also have a full season .400+ BABIP the same year?
All while Fredi is surrounded by a bunch of orangutans, trying to teach them how to bunt the rocks and coconuts that angry 300 lb gorillas are throwing at them,
by royhobbs on Jul 29, 2011 11:20 AM PDT
by Santaklose11 on Aug 16, 2011 2:56 PM EDT up reply actions
hmmm...interesting
are HRs not considered in play?
All while Fredi is surrounded by a bunch of orangutans, trying to teach them how to bunt the rocks and coconuts that angry 300 lb gorillas are throwing at them,
by royhobbs on Jul 29, 2011 11:20 AM PDT
by Santaklose11 on Aug 16, 2011 2:58 PM EDT up reply actions
Yeah I think I remember Otis Nixon taking a dump on that definition once?
All while Fredi is surrounded by a bunch of orangutans, trying to teach them how to bunt the rocks and coconuts that angry 300 lb gorillas are throwing at them,
by royhobbs on Jul 29, 2011 11:20 AM PDT
by Santaklose11 on Aug 16, 2011 3:02 PM EDT up reply actions
And Ks reduce your BA but not BABIP
so it shouldn’t be that much of a difference maker when balanced on the other side.
http://sportsandgrits.blogspot.com/
Yeah but
Ted Williams was a ridiculously awesome hitter. He had 37 homers and 27 Ks that season.
which over a full season of at bats...
shouldn’t account for a 20 point differential of BA being superior to BABIP in over 450 at bats.
http://sportsandgrits.blogspot.com/
Weird of you to say that
Since, you know, it does. I mean, it’s hard to argue with the actual math involved.
456 AB-37 HR-27 K= 392 AB. 185 H-37 HR= 148 H. 148/392 = .37755.
On balls he did NOT put in play, he hit .578 (how ridiculous is that?). It’s not crazy to see how adding those in could raise his overall batting average by about 3%.
My buddy and I just decided that the braves would be set if we could get Matt Kemp, Jose Reyes, and Albert Pujols.
by willlinn on May 17, 2011 2:13 PM EDT
I was being too lazy to do those numbers...
thanks Bronn. Shocking it can make that big of a difference.
http://sportsandgrits.blogspot.com/
Are you arguing the math or the idea of BABIP?
Math: 185 hits in 456 ABs = .406 BA
(185 hits – 37 HRs) / (456 ABs – 27 Ks – 37 HRs – ? SFs) = .3775 BABIP, assuming 0 SFs, because I guess the info wasn’t available back then. It would be a little lower with a couple SFs though.
No need to subtract out sac flies
They affect OBP, but aren’t counted as ABs. If you DID know the number of sac flies, you’d end up with a messed up BABIP formula if you were trying to subract those out. All you need to know to find the number of balls in play are home runs and strikeouts.
My buddy and I just decided that the braves would be set if we could get Matt Kemp, Jose Reyes, and Albert Pujols.
by willlinn on May 17, 2011 2:13 PM EDT
Shouldn't a sac fly count against BABIP?
it’s a batted ball in play. I could see the argument against sac bunts along the lines of the two in obp (you use an abnormal approach for the sac bunt, but not for the sac fly)
http://sportsandgrits.blogspot.com/
It does
It gets added back into the denominator since it was a ball in play that doesn’t count as an AB. The mistake above was listing them as being subtracted. The formula is (H – HR) / (AB – K – HR + SF)
Since they don't list sac flies until the mid 50s
not even a 0, where it has 0 in those years after, I’m gonna assume that stat wasn’t kept at the time.
http://sportsandgrits.blogspot.com/
So wouldn’t BABIP really undervalue a player like, say Bonds circa end of his career.
"One thing I’ve learned as a Phillies fan is that a lot of people hate our team and its fans."-commenter on The Good Phight
by Chipper Pwns on Aug 16, 2011 4:21 PM EDT up reply actions
Meant to be a question. Doesn’t BABIP undervalue him?
"One thing I’ve learned as a Phillies fan is that a lot of people hate our team and its fans."-commenter on The Good Phight
by Chipper Pwns on Aug 16, 2011 4:22 PM EDT up reply actions
No, it wouldn’t make a difference. We don’t really use BABIP as an evaluative tool, anyway. It’s more a predictor of expected performance-if a guy has a BABIP that’s well above his career average or higher than you’d expect, it means he might out-performing his abilities. It doesn’t take anything away from what he’s already done, though.
Heck, Bonds was able to walk a ton, strike out at very low rates, and hit tons of home runs, so his performance on balls in play was perhaps the smallest part of his skillset.
My buddy and I just decided that the braves would be set if we could get Matt Kemp, Jose Reyes, and Albert Pujols.
by willlinn on May 17, 2011 2:13 PM EDT
So would it be fair to say that the more value comes from a player’s HR power, the less BABIP should be considered?
"One thing I’ve learned as a Phillies fan is that a lot of people hate our team and its fans."-commenter on The Good Phight
by Chipper Pwns on Aug 16, 2011 4:39 PM EDT up reply actions
People can use statistics to prove all kinds of things Santa
14% of all people know that.
http://sportsandgrits.blogspot.com/
of course I know that
what did Mark Twain say once about statistics?
All while Fredi is surrounded by a bunch of orangutans, trying to teach them how to bunt the rocks and coconuts that angry 300 lb gorillas are throwing at them,
by royhobbs on Jul 29, 2011 11:20 AM PDT
by Santaklose11 on Aug 16, 2011 3:00 PM EDT up reply actions
The guy is on a hot streak. Probably the best of his career. What are some of Ichiros career marks for BABIP during his hottest streaks? Sometimes they just get the feel of it, start hitting the ball the same way, get the same results…obviously he won’t stay this hot forever, but he may continue for a little while longer
I feel sorry for people who don't drink. When they wake up in the morning, that's as good as they are going to feel all day. - Frank Sinatra
He's got a .431 BABIP
Of course he’s getting lucky right now. Yeah his speed helps on infield hits, but its also lucky that he’s gotten so many high choppers. And how solid he’s hitting the ball? He’s got a 13.7 LD rate and most of those have been of the softly hit over the IF variety
pretty damned lucky…….
got to be more than luck = skillz
"It looks like The Hound of the Baskervilles out there." - Steve Stone
"...I'm reminded of Wuthering Heights." - Harry Caray
~
"Wang, my third at-bat, he threw me a 1-0 fastball that I fouled straight back, and he came back with another heater, which surprised me." - Freddie Freeman
by Chief Noc-A-Homa on Aug 16, 2011 12:56 PM EDT up reply actions
Do you want him to fail as much as you give off?
Will it bring a smile to your face (and a head nod) if he has 2 games where he goes 0-for?
You lie.
"It looks like The Hound of the Baskervilles out there." - Steve Stone
"...I'm reminded of Wuthering Heights." - Harry Caray
~
"Wang, my third at-bat, he threw me a 1-0 fastball that I fouled straight back, and he came back with another heater, which surprised me." - Freddie Freeman
by Chief Noc-A-Homa on Aug 16, 2011 1:13 PM EDT up reply actions
Could have fooled me.
"It looks like The Hound of the Baskervilles out there." - Steve Stone
"...I'm reminded of Wuthering Heights." - Harry Caray
~
"Wang, my third at-bat, he threw me a 1-0 fastball that I fouled straight back, and he came back with another heater, which surprised me." - Freddie Freeman
by Chief Noc-A-Homa on Aug 16, 2011 1:14 PM EDT up reply actions
Crunch this.
"It looks like The Hound of the Baskervilles out there." - Steve Stone
"...I'm reminded of Wuthering Heights." - Harry Caray
~
"Wang, my third at-bat, he threw me a 1-0 fastball that I fouled straight back, and he came back with another heater, which surprised me." - Freddie Freeman
by Chief Noc-A-Homa on Aug 16, 2011 1:15 PM EDT up reply actions
And where has anyone said they have the expecation...
that he’ll continue at his current pace? We all have the “expectation” that his numbers regress. You just seem to think his past numbers are irrelevant and purely “luck” induced.
http://sportsandgrits.blogspot.com/
His 2011 MLEs come out to a .613 OPS, so I’m not ignoring his past numbers, nor am I saying his results are 100% luck. I am saying unequivocally that a .431 BABIP is lucky, though.
Disagree then,...
it can come through good luck, but not always and there may be other factors at play, as C mentions with his speed and ability to burn worms.
http://sportsandgrits.blogspot.com/
I don’t understand why people are so “sure” Constanza is not an every day player. Take a look at Bourns stats since coming over. They have almost the same number of at bats, yet Constanza has out performed Bourne in every category. More hits, more x base hits, more rbi, nearly double total bases. Bourne actually has 1 more stolen base. 6 to 5. Both have been caught once. Bourne has 3 times more strikeouts. Shockingly, Constanza has played better defense. Don’t misunderstand what I am saying here.. I love Michael Bourne. The point I am making is simply anyone who agrees Bourne is an everyday player should have no issue with Constanza also being an every day guy. They are very similar type players. Neither will hit for power. They are fast guys that should hit .280 – .300 and steal a ton of bases. While we all know Constanza will not hit .400 for ever, there are things he is doing that will not change. His speed will not diminish. If he was hitting .400 with all hard hit line drives to the outfield, I would be more concerned. I actually like the fact that he has only struckout 5 times in nearly 60 ABs. As long as Constanza continues to be a soft hitter with speed, there is not reason to believe he can not continue to beat out lots of infield hits. Based on his career, we have every reason to believe Jose Constanza will be a .280 – .300 hitter with speed, allowing him to steal 30-50 bases per year. Constanza will be playing for someone next year, I would love to see in a Braves uni. I actually would like to see him moved to 2nd in the lineup – I think Bourne – Constanza 1-2 with Freddie, BMac + Uggla coming up behind them would be a nightmare for any picture.
Jose Constanza is not getting lucky or doing something he hasn’t always done. Sure, a few extra hits have fallen in for him exagerating his batting average a bit, but the fact is his speed is what has led to most of his hits, and his speed will not diminish.
I can’t remember the name of the guy, but I heard a story of a Yankee player that got called up after being in the minors for year having over 2000 minor league at bats. Nothing special, but he made the most of his call up and went on to have over 2000 major league hits. It can be done. Maybe someone knows his name, I can’t remember.
The bottom line is take a good look at Michael Bourne. If you believe he is an every day player, then you should also believe Constanza is one also. There is no reason to not believe Constanza can be the same player Michael Bourne is. 5 strikeouts in 60 ABs is not luck. Its no fluke when it happens at the major league level.
by TREY JACKSON on Aug 16, 2011 3:02 PM EDT via mobile up reply actions
it sure is nice...
For the debate to be about somewhat that’s playing great and not debating someone in a slump. One other point on Constanza – there is no metric or stat that covers good old fashioned will/spirit/desire.
Constanza knows the life of a minor leaguer. I can only hope his current success is the product of hard work and a desire to stay. The human spirit is amazing.
by TREY JACKSON on Aug 16, 2011 3:59 PM EDT via mobile up reply actions
I think the question is how long Constanza can sustain this level of play
Bourn has proven that he can sustain his level of play over many seasons…Constanza has not been given the opportunity to try yet….
and I would not be opposed to seeing him get a few chances…
All while Fredi is surrounded by a bunch of orangutans, trying to teach them how to bunt the rocks and coconuts that angry 300 lb gorillas are throwing at them,
by royhobbs on Jul 29, 2011 11:20 AM PDT
by Santaklose11 on Aug 16, 2011 3:05 PM EDT up reply actions
We have plenty of “sample size” on what’s important – A. Speed. We can believe it will change barring an injury. B. Contact hitter – Constanza is doing what he has always done throughout his minor league career – make contact and not strikeout.
If we use the minor league stats as our “sample size” on when to call up everyone else, and then evaluate them by their major league production, why are those metrics not an adequate sample for Constanza. If you know what you are getting, understand the type of player he is, there is absolutely no reason to think he is anything other than we have seen. His BA will go down, but again – If a .280 leadoff hitter without power, that steals 30-50 bases and plays strong defense is what you need, then we absolutely know for a fact that is what JC has done throughout his career. He is currently proving he can do it on the big stage.
Do you have a large enough sample to believe Heyward is in a slump? Was the last month enough of a sample to believe Uggla is no longer in a slump? What constitues an adequate sample? 60 ABs is about 15% of a season.
by TREY JACKSON on Aug 16, 2011 3:50 PM EDT via mobile up reply actions
See: Gregor Blanco.
Same type of player. Came up, had a great hot streak. Reverted back to the .240-.250 hitter that his minor league numbers suggested he would be. Two weeks is not a sufficient sample size to show how a player’s career will go. Could he be the one in a million who is average in the minors and suddenly figures it out as a major league rookie at the age of 27? Sure. It is just a whole lot more likely he will be one of the 999,999.
I would argue that Constanza’s speed makes him much more valuable a .250 hitter than Gregor Blanco. When Constanza regresses, which he probably will, he will still have great speed which makes him more a threat off the bench as a baserunner and with less potential to GIDP. He also has the tools to be a fantastic defender….though he definitely looks a little awkward at times out there at this point.
All while Fredi is surrounded by a bunch of orangutans, trying to teach them how to bunt the rocks and coconuts that angry 300 lb gorillas are throwing at them,
by royhobbs on Jul 29, 2011 11:20 AM PDT
by Santaklose11 on Aug 16, 2011 5:25 PM EDT up reply actions
1 in a million
I think you mean 1 in 200,000,000
DFA Heyward. I'm dead serious
by wpf3211 on Aug 6, 2011 9:11 PM EDT
Never said he would keep it up.
I think by the way Fredi and others say “have to play him while he’s hot” they realize it probably won’t last.
"It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone." A. Bartlett Giamatti
Who said you did?
You’re the one saying that people refuse to recognize what Constanza has done when that’s clearly not the case. Some people simply don’t think he should be starting everyday because despite his hot streak he’s still a replacement level player (or somewhere thereabouts).
Until Chipper and everyone else is healthy...
who/s more deserving? Who’s more deserving of at bats today?
http://sportsandgrits.blogspot.com/
by Mr. Sanchez on Aug 16, 2011 12:06 PM EDT up reply actions
What does that have to do with anything I just said?
I said he shouldn’t be starting everyday. That doesn’t mean he shouldn’t be starting when other guys need a day off for whatever reason.
"Everyday" means how long?
I’m saying that today, he should be in there. And there hasn’t been a day pretty much since he came up where he wasn’t deserving of being in the lineup. At first cause of injury, and now for his play. At least for the last two weeks, he’s been among our best players and should be among the first 8 in the lineup. That probably won’t be the case for too much longer, but for the last several weeks imo, he’s earned that right to be in the starting lineup. “Everyday” is hard to figure. Today and tomorrow, he’s earning the chance to keep playing. Past tomorrow, who knows, but right now, that’s my opinion on it.
http://sportsandgrits.blogspot.com/
by Mr. Sanchez on Aug 16, 2011 12:39 PM EDT up reply actions
"Deserve" and "earn" have got nothing to do with it.
A baseball team can’t be in the business of rewarding past performance. He should arguably be in there when Chipper needs a day, because his superior speed and defense make him an ok substitute for Hinske, while preserving ‘ske for the key pinch-hitting opportunities late in games. But that’s got nothing to do with what he’s “earned,” and everything to do with what will win the Braves the most games.
You can’t reward past performance in SSS, I think you mean. Past performance is the only thing saying that Heyward should be playing over Constanza at the moment.
-C
It’s rough to sit through these games and not have someone that can’t hit a Ball?
by cthabeerman on Aug 16, 2011 12:54 PM EDT up reply actions
It's never about "rewarding."
If Jair Jurrjens comes back from the DL and he’s topping out at 82 with no movement, he’s off the team. Thanks for the good times, but you can’t help us anymore, and this ain’t no charity. Past performance is useful for predicting what a guy will do in the future, which is what matters. It also tells you how much of your past success you owe to that guy, which is relevant when deciding whose number to retire and irrelevant to deciding who will be in the lineup today.
Hate to break it to you, but "predicting what a guy will do in the future"
is an exercise in futility.
http://sportsandgrits.blogspot.com/
No it wouldn't...
because their set up is not based on predicting a person’s future activities, it’s getting people’s money.
http://sportsandgrits.blogspot.com/
Vegas lines and prop bets are highly predictive. They typically beat or are among the very top prediction systems year in and year out. If Vegas was not highly predictive, they wouldn’t make money.
And you only make money by capitalizing on the inefficiencies in the market…like playing a streaking Constanza over a slumping Heyward.
It’s not a bet you make on a consistent basis, but a calculated and isolated risk.
My point is a limited one responding to Mr Sanchez. The point is that Vegas is highly predictive and consistently so. They have their own methods and models. Mr Sanchez is claiming, I guess, that sports performance is just a random walk and no one anywhere can predict future performance. That is obviously false. The debate is over what methods are more predictive than others.
Yeah...
But Vegas is the one setting the odds, the spreads, the O/U levels, etc.
They can manipulate the numbers to give themselves an advantage in most situations. They pit betters against each other, rather than against the house, in most cases.
Because of the added manipulation via odds, they can lose $45K to the winners of the bets, but take $55K from the losers. They really aren’t going against anyone. They’re just manipulating the numbers in order to maximize their profits regardless of which team wins or loses.
-C
It’s rough to sit through these games and not have someone that can’t hit a Ball?
I’m talking about taking the set vegas odds and using them as a prediction of whether the teams picked by vegas to win actually do win. It turns out that using vegas odds to predict future sports outcomes is highly predictive.
This claim has nothing to do with how Vegas sets the odds or makes its money. It is just a claim that vegas odds are highly predictive.
I used to think this was the case
It actually isn’t 100% true though. Vegas will set spreads that get uneven action because they believe the majority of money will be on the losing side
Its more predictive in that instance
Than trying to get even money bet on each side would be.
how so?
you just said it’s not predictive at all, because they want a majority of action on the losing side. That’s not “predictive” at all.
http://sportsandgrits.blogspot.com/
When did I say it isn't predictive?
I was saying that C’s take that they’re basically just pitting gamblers against each other and taking a percentage off the top is incorrect. They’re still setting a somewhat predictive line, they just realize that most money will end up on the less likely end.
That's not predictive...
if you are predicting more money on the losing side, you are predicting betting patterns, not outcomes of the games.
http://sportsandgrits.blogspot.com/
You predicting both
It doesn’t help to know which side the public is more likely to bet on if you don’t know which side is more likely to win
Absolutely...
That’s exactly what I’m saying. They manipulate the spread and the odds to get the most amount of money into the pool on the side in which they think will lose.
Even action isn’t Vegas’s goal. More money is.
-C
It’s rough to sit through these games and not have someone that can’t hit a Ball?
And also,...
accurately predicting outcomes isn’t Vegas’ goal. More money is.
http://sportsandgrits.blogspot.com/
I’ve already clarified this 3 different times.
It is meaningless what Vegas’ intentions are in settling lines. If you take those lines as a given, they are highly predictive of outcomes. It doesn’t matter that Vegas isn’t trying to predict, It just so happens that their lines create a very good prediction system.
Having followed that, I agree
their lines are often unnervingly accurate (and why I no longer gamble). But that’s different than saying MLE, etc is predictive of the results, or that a large, career sample size is more beneficial than recent production.
http://sportsandgrits.blogspot.com/
Just the opposite in fact
Vegas makes a ton of money off the fact that bettors tend to think recent history is more predictive than the full season. When I did a study on NFL betting, the worst performing teams against the spreads were the ones who had won there last few games by big differentials. They lost v. the spread something like 75% of the time over a 5 year period.
But in order to make money...
Oddsmakers need to have a good idea of the underlying probability distribution, so they can set odds that are profitable. If they offered 200-1 against the Phillies winning the World Series (at the beginning of the season), they would lose because all the gamblers would buy. If they offered 1.5-1 on the Phillies winning the World Series, they would lose because few gamblers would actually put down money on those odds.
Again, they need to know the underlying probability distribution...
In order to know what odds to set. If Philadelphia has a 10% chance of winning the World Series, you have to set very different odds than if it has a 0.5% chance of winning the World Series.
There's more to it than that...
and they also use recent production in their formulations.
http://sportsandgrits.blogspot.com/
And Vegas odds predict the RESULTS of spots outcomes better and more consistently than other prediction systems. It is an emergent feature of the manner in which they make money.
So then screw the book and Bill James....
we need the algebra Vegas is using. I agree.
http://sportsandgrits.blogspot.com/
I guarnatee you, Vegas uses sabermetric principles in setting baseball odds
As well as other factors, such as betting trends (since, as you say, their primary objective is to make money, not to accurately predict outcomes). But yeah, in order to determine how likely payout is on a given line, they are definitely using advanced stats to judge who the best teams are.
That's why St. Louis traded Albert Pujols for Miguel Tejada at the beginning of the season
Because although ol’ Al had been great for them so far, it was impossible to predict what he would do in the future.
Read that again then...
even Reyes, Pujols, whoever wasn’t that dumb of a comment.
http://sportsandgrits.blogspot.com/
“That’s why St. Louis traded Albert Pujols for Miguel Tejada at the beginning of the season”
This didn’t happen, especially not for the reason mentioned, therefore its sarcasm…
As if what I said implied that statement
he’s trying to say they can predict future success, and that’s why they didn’t trade Pujols for Tejada. I’m saying ZIPs projections, MLE’s, etc are masturbatory and just as likely to predict future outcomes as a monkey throwing darts at a board with possible outcomes.
http://sportsandgrits.blogspot.com/
Ok, so two things.
1) You are completely wrong on the facts. There are some excellent projection systems out there that have correlation coefficients of .730 or higher.
2) This is a much, much narrower claim than your original claim that predicting what a guy will do in the future is an exercise in futility. Now you seem to be acknowledging that predicting what a guy will do in the future is possible, but you don’t like the tools we’ve chosen.
Again, misunderstanding
giving a general sense of what someone is capable of is possible. Expecting short term productivity to mirror weighted algebraic equations is not going to do the trick.
http://sportsandgrits.blogspot.com/
You're going for least-error projection, not an exact triple slash line.
“General sense” is all you need to judge who should be in the lineup. The point is, you use the stats to give you the best idea, not that you use them to predict exact outcomes, which is impossible.
And general sense...
says Constanza is more worthy of being in today’s lineup than Heyward.
http://sportsandgrits.blogspot.com/
Yours does.
Fredi’s does. Least-error statistical projection does not.
That's the point too, that second line
thinking these “predictive stats” will produce the exact outcome is simply unreasonable. It can give you an idea, long term. But in the short term, they are next to worthless, and are worthless when weighed against recent production.
http://sportsandgrits.blogspot.com/
I'm saying:
Stats won’t tell you that Jose Constanza will go 1-4 with two grounders to second and a routine fly to right tonight. What they will tell you is that Jose Constanza has less ability to get on base and hit for power—to do the things that hitters are supposed to do—than Jason Heyward. With the caveat that if you believe Heyward has a lingering injury, or if his swing has been wrecked by compensation from injury, you have to adjust reasonable expectations for his overall performance downward.
Which stats?
Cuase recent stats show Constanza is a lot better getting on than Heyward, and has more power than Heyward, did the predictive stats predict that outcome?
http://sportsandgrits.blogspot.com/
That is in fact not true
Since someone posted it the other day, I guess I’ll go ahead and post it again.
Faulty example...
of course long term batting average will play out when you look at long term at bats. His “next at bat” inherently includes that large sample size and should be self-approving.
http://sportsandgrits.blogspot.com/
I read it, and still say that
they use “next at bat” over a career, which may as well just be their career. It says it self that “in isolated cases, [random outcomes] happen”.
http://sportsandgrits.blogspot.com/
It says “if you were predicting the likelihood of an MLB player getting a hit in his next at-bat [the best predictor would be] his batting average over the previous two seasons.”
which would mean Tejada for Pujols how?
And also, it says “best” without indicating by how much, or how accurate. If the difference is
a)23.2% accurate
b)27.3% accurate
c)27.6% accurate
d)27.7% accurate
e)28.1% accurate
e could still be claimed as “the best” but it’s not accurate nor is the difference enough to matter when compared to b, c, or d, and only slightly large enough to justify usage over a.
http://sportsandgrits.blogspot.com/
Read it again
They did this as a continuous backwards looking study. They looked at how well each method would have predicted the outcome of every single at bat for every single player. Not surprisingly to those of us that understand statistics, the last 5 PA and last 5 games did the worst as predictors.
Bullshii
there isn’t enough time in a person’s life to look at that large of a data set.
http://sportsandgrits.blogspot.com/
Seriously?
That’s one of the simplest programs I can imagine.
And when done over a full career it'll be self-fulfilling
oh, so a full career’s stats are better at predicting outcomes which produced those exact career stats. Baffling!
http://sportsandgrits.blogspot.com/
They only look at the stats prior to the next AB that they are testing, so that does not come into play
Seriously Sanchez?
People doing this stuff are much, much smarter than you give them credit for. Yeah, it was really that obvious of a flaw. Guess we all just missed it somehow. Thank God we have your genius to show us the way.
then share the numbers
if e is so much better than a, b, c, and d, then what are the predictive rates of those outcomes? Are we talking between 25 and 29% from top to bottom? A gap of at least 5 % points between each with e grading out well above 50%, what are they?
http://sportsandgrits.blogspot.com/
The fact that you're using percentages
Kind of proves you don’t understand what is going on. It would largely be about correlation. If it was about correctly predicting exact outcomes (instead of distributions of outcomes) I would just say next PA he makes an out and be right about 2/3 of the time
And the correlation is?
they don’t share those numbers. And yeah, outs will be the majority of the answer on next outcomes. So the prediction becomes pretty simplifed at that point.
http://sportsandgrits.blogspot.com/
I don't know
But the raw numbers themselves can be pretty misleading in terms of correlation. I forget the exact numbers but the correlation between taking Tylenol and pain relief is something like .17
And back to the original statement about "exercise in futlity"
“predicting exact outcomes” is exactly what I was referring to. Predictive measures are not often accurate in predicting actual outcomes. They can make guesses, but the “actual outcome” is not often precisely what those predictive stats said it would be. Hence “futility” and “masturbatory” as it’s an attempt to make the mathlete feel better about themselves while allowing they more often than not, they’re measures are no more “predictive” than an educated guess.
http://sportsandgrits.blogspot.com/
So you're arguing something meaningless?
The point isn’t that we can predict things perfectly. The point is that we can predict things more accurately doing on thing instead of the other.
And my point is the "more" in more accurately...
may well be a negligble difference.
http://sportsandgrits.blogspot.com/
Clearly we disagree on that
I’ll just leave it at that
Yes, it does, in their career outcomes
and again, they don’t define “best” so it’s even less reliable of a statement. Best if we’re talking a large gap between e and the rest would be one thing, a smaller gap would be another. That they don’t give those #s, at least not in the sample you gave, is telling imo that the differences weren’t enough to show.
http://sportsandgrits.blogspot.com/
Let me just respond to this quickly
That’s based upon information available to a statistician. There isn’t a numerical equivalent for all of the conditions that affect a player at a given point.
There ARE reasons besides luck for which a player might perform below their career expectations. For example, if I told you that player A had a career .370 wOBA and player B had a career .320 wOBA, a statistician with no additional information would insist that player A is the better option at the current moment. But, fortunately, the coaches are privy to information like “Player A has a broken leg and can’t play at all currently,” so they would understand that man most likely to succeed would be player B in a landslide.
Here’s the kicker: Player A, if he does return to baseball, you’d expect he’ll find something approximating his old talent levels. Even if he’s slightly less mobile, he still retains many of the skills that have made him an excellent hitter-hand speed, good eye, presumably a bit of power as well. But perhaps Player A NEVER regains his form again. Maybe he’s out of baseball, or maybe he can’t swing properly any more. In that case, he’s likely to play very little ever again. Which means, when you look at his career as a whole, his career averages are still predictive of almost every stretch of PAs you can pull out, but, over the stretch during which coaches are privy to information beyond box score stats, they knew that wasn’t as predictive of his current skill level.
That’s an extreme example, of course. But my point is that while WE’RE just looking at stats and recent results, there’s more information that might make a difference. If the coaches are aware that a batter is flying open, or falling down as he swings, or his top hand is coming off the bat, they have a bit of reason to think he might perform up to his previously established career expectations. Assuming the guy is talented, though, you can trust the problem to become fixed, at some point. That’s not an information that anyone looking at the numbers can access, though, so we can’t distinguish between “Luck,” and “Unidentified Other Factor.” That doesn’t mean we should label everything we can’t identify as luck, certainly. Luck is certainly a factor all over the place, since no random event can be predicted with any certainty, but it is certainly not the only factor.
It’s part of the flaw in some projection systems. Marcel does very well in large part because it predicts rookies to perform at a league average level. The reason is that the rookies that perform BELOW a league average level don’t play very much-they get sent down or released-while players performing at or above a league average level gets tons of playing time, skewing the projection. Getting a higher correlation doesn’t mean that it knows anything special.
Kind of the same principle here-you’d project good numbers for Heyward in the future, but without knowing the exact circumstances that may or may not be affected his present performance. One thing to remember when you start getting into a serious discussion about the numbers is that the numbers are an incomplete data set.
My buddy and I just decided that the braves would be set if we could get Matt Kemp, Jose Reyes, and Albert Pujols.
by willlinn on May 17, 2011 2:13 PM EDT
This
was well said….
this:
Let me just respond to this quickly
was not
All while Fredi is surrounded by a bunch of orangutans, trying to teach them how to bunt the rocks and coconuts that angry 300 lb gorillas are throwing at them,
by royhobbs on Jul 29, 2011 11:20 AM PDT
by Santaklose11 on Aug 16, 2011 4:00 PM EDT up reply actions
chuckles
agreed santa. Good post, thanks bronn. But not exactly “quickly”.
http://sportsandgrits.blogspot.com/
I mean, I added the entirety of my input on this debate into a single comment
It’s certainly more concise than making a ton of small comments in a back and forth discussion.
My buddy and I just decided that the braves would be set if we could get Matt Kemp, Jose Reyes, and Albert Pujols.
by willlinn on May 17, 2011 2:13 PM EDT
well
it is definitely more coherent, but maybe not as concise.
All while Fredi is surrounded by a bunch of orangutans, trying to teach them how to bunt the rocks and coconuts that angry 300 lb gorillas are throwing at them,
by royhobbs on Jul 29, 2011 11:20 AM PDT
by Santaklose11 on Aug 16, 2011 4:15 PM EDT up reply actions
You're the one telling me that predicting baseball performance based on past baseball performance is an exercise in futility.
So, I’m sorry to say it, but you don’t strike me as especially smart yourself.
Yes, predicting the future is a masturbatory exercise
weatherman are often inaccurate, as are most predictive stats. Unless you are lose with the term “accurate”, they are not accurate measures and are often incorrect predictions.
http://sportsandgrits.blogspot.com/
This is a super-weird argument.
First of all, weather’s irrelevant. Totally different set of factors.
Second, by your argument, it really would be fine to swap Albert Pujols for some scrub C-grade prospect because, hey, you never know, Joe Blow might be the next Babe Ruth and The Machine might suddenly lose the ability to hit baseballs. Do you have any idea how crazy that is?
It's the obvious implication of your argument.
You’re saying nobody can predict anything. If so, baseball trades should be based on dudes’ hair color, last name, and social security number, and not their past performance.
then we're absolutely random, and that's never been a part of my argument
it’s is an extreme opposite of what you’re saying, but it’s not what I’m saying.
http://sportsandgrits.blogspot.com/
It's not what you're saying now
You’ve narrowed the scope of your position. But it is the logical implication of the sweeping statement you used to open this sub-thread.
Wrong
it’s the implication you’ve wanted to prove yourself correct. It is by no means a “logical” correlation of what I’ve said.
http://sportsandgrits.blogspot.com/
You said:
“Hate to break it to you, but ‘predicting what a guy will do in the future’ is an exercise in futility.”
The simple, logical implication of that statement, which you are now backpedaling away from, is that baseball performance is a random walk, and it’s impossible to know anything about how anyone will perform in the future.
Because it is...
saying Albert Pujols will hit 40 HRs and hit .320+ this year would have been a pretty obvious prediction based on his past numbers. He might reach the HRs with a hot final month, but his slash lines are far off what would have been predicted. Fact is that people change, they evolve, get better, get worse, get healthier, get less healthy. It is a leap to go from “predicting future outcomes is an exercise in futility” to “baseball is a random walk”. Expectations are one thing, predicting results is another.
http://sportsandgrits.blogspot.com/
I think that the two statements are logically equivalent.
That is, to say that predicting future outcomes (in baseball) is an exercise in futility is to say that baseball is a random walk. I’ll let others judge whether that’s so or not.
I do get that you’re recoiling from the implications of your original statement, which is fine. I never thought you meant to literally, which is why I use a reductio to point out that you had spoken too broadly. Bizarrely, you then decided to simultaneously dig in on the correctness of your statement while acknowledging that you don’t actually believe any of its implications.
The “exercise in futility” is what every major league team and every coach (and for that matter in every single sport) is doing every single day – predicting future performance. If you think sports are a random walk like stock prices, why even watch sports?
Is not in line with the above statement
scouting, etc goes in line with that stuff. MLE’s, “hot hand fallacy”, FIP, ZIPs, etc are all not done by every team and coach.
http://sportsandgrits.blogspot.com/
So we should just pick the players we think should be in there or better?
then kick out Beachy, cause his draft status says he should suck. Forget what he’s earned and deserved by producing on the field.
http://sportsandgrits.blogspot.com/
Beachy had steallar minor league numbers.
He also has excellent fastball command and two good secondary offerings. He was not an unproven commodity or a four-A guy when he got his spot in the rotation.
If you look at his career path...
it’s about as far from “proven commodity” as it gets.
And if we’re going on minor league numbers alone, then let’s discuss Jonny Venters.
http://sportsandgrits.blogspot.com/
Why would you look at his "career path"...
(meaning, I presume, the fact that he was an undrafted free agent?) when what you’re interested in is how he’s responded to the competition in the minor leagues? I mean, does anyone, stathead or not, say that in deciding who to put in your Opening Day lineup you should base it on which guys made the varsity cut their freshman year in high school? Come on, this is just dumb.
Jonny was a starter who was converted into a reliever. And they took it pretty slow with him during the early part of ’10, as they should have.
The point is
people can play above (like Constanza now) or below (like Heyward now) expectations. Planning based on those expectations is ignoring what is actually occuring, like Constanza outplaying Heyward right now.
http://sportsandgrits.blogspot.com/
Yes, well this is an application of the principle.
I continue to say—trust the tools, trust the track record, play Heyward. Whatever. Point is, as above—deserve’s got nothing to do with it. Constanza can’t “earn” playing time, he can only be (or not be) the best option to win us a game on a particular day.
Where did I say that?
I said I didn’t see how someone could refuse to recognize it, not saying any particular or group of people did in fact refuse to do so.
Gee.
If “some people” don’t think he should be starting because he should be doing worse than he is, then I think those people are more worried about advanced metrics than how well the team is doing. Which is fine, just don’t act like I’m stupid if I feel differently.
I love sabremetrics. I was reading Bill James before many of the people here were born. I gave my inforative speech on the subject in a public speaking class in 1985. I agree with many, but not all, of the theories and ideas that are the result of the scientific study of the sport. But I also understand the viewpoint that not everything can be quantified.
"It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone." A. Bartlett Giamatti
this
is very well said, and pretty close to my stance
All while Fredi is surrounded by a bunch of orangutans, trying to teach them how to bunt the rocks and coconuts that angry 300 lb gorillas are throwing at them,
by royhobbs on Jul 29, 2011 11:20 AM PDT
by Santaklose11 on Aug 16, 2011 4:14 PM EDT up reply actions
Let Chipper rest up
The log-jam in the outfield is more of a solution, rather than a problem.
"It looks like The Hound of the Baskervilles out there." - Steve Stone
"...I'm reminded of Wuthering Heights." - Harry Caray
~
"Wang, my third at-bat, he threw me a 1-0 fastball that I fouled straight back, and he came back with another heater, which surprised me." - Freddie Freeman
by Chief Noc-A-Homa on Aug 16, 2011 11:20 AM EDT reply actions
Agreed...
we all know his joints are held together by taffy these days anyway. Let the old man rest, and then maybe he’ll be able to get healthy (and more importantly, stay healthy) for September and October.
http://sportsandgrits.blogspot.com/
by Mr. Sanchez on Aug 16, 2011 11:32 AM EDT up reply actions
See, this is the aspect where Constanza has a purpose
Not in taking starts from Heyward (who really has to get it going in order for this lineup to be a force in the playoffs), but in spelling Chipper frequently, such that we have him available for every important playoff game.
Jose Constanza is the new Andres Torres.
In other words, we’ve caught lightning in a bottle with this guy.
My dad taught me how to make meat for sloppy joes and my mom let me turn over hot dogs on the grill.
by ChopMaster on Jun 25, 2011 7:25 PM CDT
by justincredubil02 on Jun 28, 2011 9:50 PM EDT reply actions
by ChopMaster on Jul 2, 2011 12:53 PM PDT
Who knows, maybe it can last a full season like Torres did
Have you checked Torres line this year though? .228/.314/.343 seems to point to it mostly being a fluke with Torres. Then again Torres was considered a much more legit prospect coming up than Constanza has been and actually managed to hit for power.
he’s going to take away playing time from Jason Heyward
Jayson Heyward has taken playing time away from Jayson Heyward. I am not downing JHey, I love the kid, I think his shoulder problems early in the year have messed up his swing and he is having a hard time getting it back. I think he could take a look at Freeman’s approach and learn. You have to make adjustments, not just during the game, but during your at-bat. Spend less time trying to pull the ball and go with the pitch. I was happy to see him go the other way last night. Do that more often. As far as Constanza goes, he really changes the dynamic of the game, especially when he is on base. I dont expect him to continue to hit .400+ the rest of the season, but if he managed to hit .270 or better, as he has done in the minors, with a walk or two, he would still be very effective. Maybe he is a career back-up player, or maybe he needed a chance to blossom and become a regular. I am completely willing to let him find out.
dear georgie...
we are pleased to accept the bonanza
of our little georgie constanza
adept with the bat
so fast and all that
we’ve just seen his opening stanza.
by blazon on Aug 16, 2011 11:44 AM EDT reply actions 2 recs
So what is going to happen with Nate McLouth?
Are we keeping him into roster expansion, or are we going to trade him (and Cash) before the waiver dealine?
Aug 5 McLouth had successful surgery Thursday for a sports hernia and he’s expected to miss six weeks, David O’Brien of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports.
He wont be back for a while
He's been carrying a high enough OBP
To have real value as a pinch hitter down the stretch. Defensive replacement…maybe? He’s probably better than Constanza out there in the corners. He’ll certainly be kept on the team—roster space will not be at a premium—but I doubt we’ll see too much of him unless there’s another outfield injury.
I really don’t have a problem with Freddi playing Constanza while he is hot. I just hope he quickly takes his rightful seat on the bench when his .431 BABIP drops back to realistic levels.
Do you think his BABIP is affected somewhat by all the infield singles he can leg out? I guess what I’m saying is that of course he’s hotter than usual, but his AAA batting was pretty good too…
Absolutely…. but we haven’t seen this kind of speed in…. years, really. Heck, even Uggla is busting out infield hits. It’s pretty impressive – and effective.
"Just take out the whole Tim McCarver part of the broadcast and boom, the director has freed up a whopping 45 minutes of airtime." - Rob Iracane of Yahoo! Sports, 7/13/11
Of course it is
Probably makes his true talent BABIP level something like .340-.350, but not anywhere close to .431
Here’s the career BABIP for some other speedy players:
Jose Reyes .313
Michael Bourn .341
Carl Crawford .329
Now that’s hardly a scientific sample, but it probably is true that fast guys reach base on balls in play more than Prince Fielder. It makes sense. But not at a .431 pace. That’s just being way lucky over a short period of time.
Slow guys can still post big BABIPs as long as they hit a ton of line drives
Miguel Cabrera for example is at .344 for the past decade
Which is the interesting thing
If you look at guys who maintain high BABIPs, you find it’s just as strongly correlated to high power guys as it is to guys who have elite speed. Hitting the ball hard is just as important as being able to run quickly. In fact, if you don’t hit the ball in the infield very often, you don’t really need elite speed to put up a decent BABIP. Chipper Jones had a .383 BABIP as a 36 year old.
In fact, infield hit % is not as strongly correlated to BABIP as you might think. Sure, it’s there, but you also have guys who get tons of infield hits posting BABIPs in the .290s sometimes, as well.
My buddy and I just decided that the braves would be set if we could get Matt Kemp, Jose Reyes, and Albert Pujols.
by willlinn on May 17, 2011 2:13 PM EDT
couple more
Luis Castillo .329, and Juan Pierre up to 2009 was .317- he’s fallen off big time the past 2 years
DFA Heyward. I'm dead serious
by wpf3211 on Aug 6, 2011 9:11 PM EDT
Peripherals explain a lot of this...
Sort those folks by FB%
Reyes – 36% FB, 44% GB, 20% LD – .313 BABIP
Crawford – 30.9% FB, 49.7% GB, 19.4% LD – .329 BABIP
Bourn – 24.2% FB, 55.7% GB, 20.3% LD – .341 BABIP
Constanza SSS – 21.6% FB, 64.7% GB, 13.7% LD – .431 BABIP
Speed kills on GBs, which is the main factor contributing to his high BABIP. All the other players sport much better LD rates (usually a much better indicator of high BABIP). Speed does little or nothing on FBs, though, so let’s hope Constanza keeps tapping them into the dirt.
So, realistically, how much will it regress?? Hard to say, to be honest. It really depends not so much upon luck, but the defense’s ability (or inability) to field the ball and make plays on a speedy runner.
I think Constanza’s lack of power, generally speaking, is helping him maintain a tremendously-elevated BABIP. He’s not grounding the ball hard, as players with greater power are more prone to do (Heyward would be an excellent example, in this particular case). Hard-hit ground balls can find holes, but they seldom test the defender’s range, arm, and accuracy. Constanza’s grounders test all three routinely.
Perhaps the most important stat, in Constanza’s case, is his 7.7% K rate. Once he starts striking out, it could really begin chipping away at his AVG-fueled OBP, BABIP be damned. However, he’s sported about a 11-12% K rate over from AA up, so he is quite adept at making contact.
-C
It’s rough to sit through these games and not have someone that can’t hit a Ball?
by cthabeerman on Aug 16, 2011 12:48 PM EDT up reply actions
Constanza is playing to his strengths right now. As long as he keeps doing that, he will be fine. I heard one of the announcers say last night that Constanza has a couple homers now, but hasn’t let it get to his head and continues to “slap” the ball in play.
This is incredibly important.
He’s doing exactly what everyone hoped Schafer would do when matched with excellent performance. Instead, Schafer tried to start powering the ball, which led to more outs in the field via BABIP for FB% and way more Ks.
-C
It’s rough to sit through these games and not have someone that can’t hit a Ball?
by cthabeerman on Aug 16, 2011 12:58 PM EDT up reply actions
I think .340-.350 is a reasonable higher end BABIP for Constanza
Slightly below what he’s done in AAA the past 2 years, but MLB defenses are clearly far better than AAA defenses.
with his speed though, the margin of impact that improvement can make is relatively small
http://sportsandgrits.blogspot.com/
No its not
If anything speed plays up way more in the minors than it does in the majors.
OK, so the point is,...
with his speed, the margin for error is so slim that it’s hard for the quality of fielder to make up for it. It helps, certainly, but the time needed to get him out on grounders is very slim even for the best fielders.
http://sportsandgrits.blogspot.com/
That's the opposite of how it works though
Because plays on him are always going to be pretty close, the difference in the extra few tenths he gets in the minors makes a pretty big difference.
Constanza has 5 Ks vs. 26 hits in 16 games
2L2Q
Freeman isn’t on Heyward’s level in terms of tools, skills, or baseball IQ–but it’s fair to say Freeman has failed to meet the modest expectations in place for him - Capitol Avenue Club (May 28th, 2011)
It is unrealistic to expect him to keep this up, just as it is unrealistic to expect any MLB manager to bench a player who gets the results Constanza has gotten over the last couple of weeks. I just hope Fredi doesn’t stick with him over Heyward when Constanza inevitably comes back to Earth.
At this point, I'm all aboard the Georgie train
From a long-term perspective, I hate to see Heyward losing ABs, because he’s clearly the future of the OF and the franchise. However, I can’t be upset with Constanza getting those ABs either. If losing these ABs stunts Heyward’s growth for a month or so, then (from a team perspective) at least those lost ABs were replaced with massive production.
I love what Georgie is doing…but seriously WAR is a stupid stat.
I feel sorry for people who don't drink. When they wake up in the morning, that's as good as they are going to feel all day. - Frank Sinatra
Because they rely on assumptions, can’t account for all variables, and it includes fielding which is absolutely impossible to determine…for example Freeman has -0.5 dWar even though all experts would consider Freeman one of the better defensive first basemen. No two models include the same variables. And who decides what a “replacement” level player is? Sticking with Freeman, has he really only been worth 1.4 wins more than a replacement 1st baseman?
I feel sorry for people who don't drink. When they wake up in the morning, that's as good as they are going to feel all day. - Frank Sinatra
First Base is a big problem with defensive metrics...
…because they have no way of measuring how good a first baseman is at catching throws. Hence, the defensive metrics for firstbasemen overvalue some aspects of defense and don’t count others at all. Freeman gets fried by that measurement. And, yes, it is a problem with WAR. As is the fact that UZR for any fielder is not really reliable for less than a three year sample size, making use of single year UZR measurements for WAR suspect. There are certainly some issues with WAR.
Too many moving pieces to be an accurate measure of each player's worth
http://sportsandgrits.blogspot.com/
gondee, sorry, but not your best work here.
For starters, you are going by WAR from a 16 game sample size. Given the large fielding component in WAR and the fact that advanced fielding stats from a 16 game sample size are completely meaningless to the point of stupidity, WAR from a 16 game sample size is pretty silly. Yeah, it is nice that he has had a little hot streak, and will be nicer if he continues it. The odds of that are rather small, however. Given that he is the fourth OF and Chipper is on the shelf for a few days, playing him now is no problem. When the helium dissipates and we keep playing him over superior players, however, we will be shooting ourselves in the foot.
The problem with this argument...
Is that Constanza’s UZR accounts for less than 0.1 WAR. He’s still dominating the other players.
-C
It’s rough to sit through these games and not have someone that can’t hit a Ball?
by cthabeerman on Aug 16, 2011 12:56 PM EDT up reply actions
If Constanza regresses to his career minor league numbers they are still better than Heywards for the year so far, so if he drops to hitting .270-.300 you want to sit him for Heyward who is hitting less than .220?
Yes.
Because batting average isn’t that important of a stat. (How many times do people have to explain this?). Even in his supposedly good year at AAA this year, Constanza’s OPS was only the same as Heyward’s has been this year (in his horrible year) at the major league level. Basically, no, Constanza’s career minor league numbers (and he’ll likely regress farther, players usually do not do as well in the majors as they did in the minors for obvious reasons) are not particularly better than Heyward’s numbers this year.
It is only an opinion that BA isn’t an important stat. Using OPS to compare Constanza and Heyward is basically unfair. They are two entirely different players. Heywards power and ability to get walks helps his OPS. Constanza is a contact hitter with speed, so his OPS will not be as high. I mean I’m not arguing that Constanza is better than Heyward but sometimes relying on these stats doesn’t tell the whole story.
I feel sorry for people who don't drink. When they wake up in the morning, that's as good as they are going to feel all day. - Frank Sinatra
There is an argument for Constanza having a speed advantage.
But honestly, Heyward isn’t slow so the difference is not particularly significant. And with Constanza being fast, he should have walks. As a non-power guy, he should be getting on base any chance he gets. And yes, guys with power who get on base are better inherently than contact hitters with speed.
Yes, it is only an opinion that batting average is not a particularly important stat. It is, however, the correct opinion with a strong statistical basis. The opposing opinion is not.
Again, that is not true. What is the “strong statistical basis” that your referring to? Is there a way to quantify whether a player with a high OPS is more important to a lineup than a player with a high batting average. I’d love to see it. If baseball were as easy as looking at OPS my nephew could be the GM.
I feel sorry for people who don't drink. When they wake up in the morning, that's as good as they are going to feel all day. - Frank Sinatra
There is a stronger correlation between OBP and team runs scored than batting average, so it is a better predictor of success.
There is also less variation from year to year in OBP than BA, which suggests that there is more skill in OBP and more luck in BA. (If something is being generates by skill, we expect it to be more stable over time).
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/the-joy-of-woba/
People have done a LOT of research into this, and found the relative run values for each event that can happen on a ball in play. The run equivalent value of a walk, single, double, triple, and home run are weighted out. wOBA is a rate stat based upon a player’s average offensive contribution per plate appearance.
It’s definitely worth pointing out that Jose Constanza did not have a significantly higher wOBA while in AAA compared to Heyward’s wOBA for the big league club.
My buddy and I just decided that the braves would be set if we could get Matt Kemp, Jose Reyes, and Albert Pujols.
by willlinn on May 17, 2011 2:13 PM EDT
Anybody remember Charles Thomas?
That’s probably what we are looking at here. In 2004, he came up in late June and started out crazy hot, OPSing over .925 through June and July. He then returned to earth, and in vastly too much playing time, OPSed .730 in August/Sept/Oct. Still, the early hot streak was enough to give him solid numbers for the year, and we flipped him with Juan Cruz and Dan Meyer for Huddy. Worked out for us. Not so much for Oakland, where he OPS’ed .363 before being sent down, never to make the majors again. And, fwiw, when he was called up in 2004, he was having a far better season in AAA than Constanza had this year.
Good comparison, too
Since the stretch in which Chuckie T was white hot spans a similar number of plate appearances.
I don’t know if I agree with the sentiment that he received too much playing time, though. I’m not sure who should have been playing over him-Eli Marrero was having a good season at the plate, yes, but it was equally a freak season for him, coming sandwhiched between a .266 wOBA season and a .275 wOBA season. Beyond that, the only other outfielder was DeWayne Wise. So we didn’t have much.
This is a situation where, when Constanza isn’t hot, you can point to two or three options who should be playing instead of him.
My buddy and I just decided that the braves would be set if we could get Matt Kemp, Jose Reyes, and Albert Pujols.
by willlinn on May 17, 2011 2:13 PM EDT
I love how the Minority Report people on here...
can’t wait for Constanza to cool down so they can somehow prove to themselves they are right about something. It’s not a huge leap of faith to say he’s not a .400/.450/.550 guy or whatever he’s done in 60 PAs. He’s hot, and needs to be in the lineup until he can prove otherwise…
I love this reasoning
In a discussion about who should be playing going forward you admit that Constanza will have to play worse than the guy he’s replacing would be expected to play for multiple games before he gets sent to the bench. So basically, we have to hurt ourselves because Constanza already helped up (and we get to keep that whether or not we keep playing him)
So by this reasoning we bench anyone on a hitting streak and play players on a slump? I don’t think you understand my point. Of course he’s not better than Jason Heyward, but PLEASE…try to tell me the EXACT moment he’s going to stop getting on base.
That is exactly the crux of the argument
The idea is that since nobody can predict the EXACT moment that Constanza’s hot streak will end, the most reasonable guess is to assume that Constanza will play to his MLE true talent level from here on. Thus, Heyward and Prado should be starting over him.
Disagree. Baseball is a game of streaks. Constanza may be on the streak of his life and continues it for another month. You can’t take him out until he actually shows that he will regress back to his “true talent level”.
I feel sorry for people who don't drink. When they wake up in the morning, that's as good as they are going to feel all day. - Frank Sinatra
Or, it could end tomorrow.
The fact is that we don’t know. Since we don’t know the future, I think the Braves should err on the side of playing the players who are actually the best players.
Unless empirical evidence dictates that one player is not playing at his potential level for observable reasons.
-C
It’s rough to sit through these games and not have someone that can’t hit a Ball?
If so...
…fix the swing. Or DL him if it is still the shoulder (I suspect this).
I wholeheartedly agree...
I also fail to see the reason to play him if any of these observations are likely (and the swing thing looks to be a likely issue atm).
In a given game, Heyward might swing his bat what, like 15 times maximum?? He can swing that many times in 5 minutes of BP. It doesn’t take a baseball game in order for him to get his groove back.
He obviously needs more than simple BP, perhaps simulated situations with a pitcher actually trying to get him out. There’s no reason it can only be worked upon in game situations, even if he stays on the MLB team while he works on it.
-C
It’s rough to sit through these games and not have someone that can’t hit a Ball?
I feel sorry for people who don't drink. When they wake up in the morning, that's as good as they are going to feel all day. - Frank Sinatra
Thank
I feel sorry for people who don't drink. When they wake up in the morning, that's as good as they are going to feel all day. - Frank Sinatra
And recent productivity doesn't factor in to the "best players"
at least in present lineup construction?
http://sportsandgrits.blogspot.com/
Oh, for the record, I agree that it’s not quite as simple as “Heyward is a better player, so he must play, and that’s that.” Baseball has so many moving parts and human elements involved that I don’t think statistical analysis can be applied as a hard and fast rule. It’s a bit trickier than that, I think.
I’m not familiar with MLE, and honestly don’t need a lecture on it today. The guy is not a shit player and his regression won’t be “epic”. He’s just not a slugger, and honestly Heyward hasn’t done much slugging lately.
I think he is going with the raw data, lol.
But honestly, if you are engaging in a debate on a topic then say you are not familiar with something relevant to the topic and don’t want to be informed about it, why should anyone bother debating the issue with you?
These aren’t theoretical numbers. It is just like adjusting numbers in Coors Field to see what the equivalent would be at Turner, except that you also adjust for the level of competition at AAA compared to MLB.
So let me get this straight. We’ll play Minority Report and defend younger slumping players (we like) based on their MiL history – which is defended to me in terms of raw data, and prosecute players we like less because of MLE-deflated MiL production?
Subjective is the EXACT word I would use…
No lecture, just a quick sentence
MLE stands for “Major League Equivalent,” which attempts to translate a player’s minor league numbers into what an expected “major league equivalent” line might be.
which is again subjective
I feel sorry for people who don't drink. When they wake up in the morning, that's as good as they are going to feel all day. - Frank Sinatra
Actually its a completely objective system
There is no subjectivity involved in anyway. Its purely based on mathematical translations.
Subjective may not be the best word
In the sense that it is just a mathematical formula that spits out a value no matter what the subject is.
However, it’s certainly true that the MLE formula is meant to be effective in judging the masses of players in the minor leagues, but will not be perfect in evaluating each and every player in the minors.
How did you get that from what I said?
My point is you play your best true talent players when you have the opportunity regardless of hot or cold streaks. Obviously this is within reason as guys need days off now and then, etc.
The whole point is you can’t predict exactly when a hot streak will end (because in all likelihood it is largely luck based anyway), so you assume players are as good as their long term stat profile suggests.
This is true...
Unless empirical observation forces your hand. That’s what’s occurring. There’s plenty of non-statistical data that is important in this case. It doesn’t take a professional scout to see that Heyward’s having trouble with his swing. There are health concerns associated with him as well. These things add up.
Unlike the hot hand belief, etc., these are not things that can simply be written off. They are important observations that may not jump out statistically, but they are affecting current play to the point at which past performance is devalued as a predictor of future success. When Heyward gets these issues sorted, sure, he’s far more likely to be of greater benefit to the team. Until that’s the case, however, you can’t simply look at a stat sheet and make decisions based upon performance predictors.
-C
It’s rough to sit through these games and not have someone that can’t hit a Ball?
And how does sitting him on the bench get those issues sorted out?
If you want to send him for AAA for a few weeks to try and get him fixed (and get an extra year of team control) I’m fine with that. Heyward finally put a few good ABs together against the Mets and then got pulled from the game and sat the next few days…how is that helping things?
Playing him in a game, where he might swing 15 times maximum (that would be a ton of swings unless he’s racking up a couple 9-10 pitch PAs), isn’t going to do a world of good either.
I don’t think a game, in itself, helps him. It’s got to be worked upon outside of a game. I’m not necessarily for or against him going elsewhere, he can still work on it from the bench. It’s not like there aren’t opportunities for him to work on it outside of those three hours.
-C
It’s rough to sit through these games and not have someone that can’t hit a Ball?
I'm sure he's still hitting the ball great in BP
The issue is getting game reps to get things to carry over. Hitting the ball off a tee or hitting mid 70s BP fastball isn’t going to help all that much.
I agree...
See above a little bit. Having him hit against a pitcher(s) that actually try to get him out would be incredibly helpful. That can happen in Atlanta, or elsewhere.
-C
It’s rough to sit through these games and not have someone that can’t hit a Ball?
Which is why I said I'm fine with sending him to AAA
You’re the one saying he needs to work on this outside of games.
Outside of MLB games, sure. I’m fine with him staying or going, but I don’t think in-game at-bats alone will be the deciding factor in when he returns to form (if it isn’t injury-related, good health alone should significantly impact that).
-C
It’s rough to sit through these games and not have someone that can’t hit a Ball?
Which he could do...
…whether playing or not.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought I’ve been hearing that he’s been taking extra time at BP and has spent time on the side with Chipper to work on his swing. While it’s true that he can do things outside of game time, it also helps to have reps during actual games to see if those adjustments are having an effect.
We are not saying bench guys on a hitting streak...
…and play slumping guys. We are just saying that we should, shockingly, play the best players.
If "going forward" means today, then yes Constanza should be in there
if “going forward” means the next 3 years, that’s a different subject. But Fredi isn’t filling out the lineup card for the next 3 years, just for “today”.
http://sportsandgrits.blogspot.com/
Did you read my post?
The whole point it that you guys are basically saying “let’s wait for Constanza to play worse than Heyward would be expected to play over a period of at least a few games before we acknowledge that the better player should be in there.”
Kind of....
the flip side is that right now, Constanza is a better player than Heyward. Until he fixes his swing, he’s not the better player anymore. He has greater ability, but in terms of today, he is the lesser player, not better.
http://sportsandgrits.blogspot.com/
Disagree completely
I still don’t see any real problems with Heyward’s swing. More than anything I just think he’s pressing up there. And even with his struggles, Heyward’s MLB numbers were basically the same as Constanza’s AAA numbers.
Professional hitters and scouts strongly disagree with you.
If we can land [Stephen Drew], I will give FW a bj.
~justincredubil02
by king of games on Aug 16, 2011 3:15 PM EDT up reply actions
Keith Law has answered the question numerous times on Twitter and radio shows.
If we can land [Stephen Drew], I will give FW a bj.
~justincredubil02
by king of games on Aug 16, 2011 3:28 PM EDT up reply actions
Hadn't seen it
What does he say the problem is?
Law thinks the shoulder injury messed up his mechanics and he’s unlikely to fix it this season, but that he has no doubt it will be worked out over the offseason and he’ll be fine going forward.
If we can land [Stephen Drew], I will give FW a bj.
~justincredubil02
by king of games on Aug 16, 2011 5:05 PM EDT up reply actions
He did, but I can’t remember exactly what he said. It was on the Baseball Today podcast a week or two ago.
If we can land [Stephen Drew], I will give FW a bj.
~justincredubil02
by king of games on Aug 16, 2011 5:52 PM EDT up reply actions
His swing appears to be slower
The mythical debut swing:
http://mlb.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=7282459
Something a little more recent:
http://mlb.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=17304245
The bat simply isn’t getting through the zone with the same speed, and the hitch in his swing from when the bat leaves the shoulders to the start of the swing is slower; he brings his hands down for a moment before initiating the swing.
Considering the relative nature of shoulder health and bat speed, this is why I think he’s still playing with an ailing shoulder. The endless foul balls to the left side are obvious late swings, and the jammed 4-3s are him probably cheating and starting his swing earlier, both of which are probably compensating for reduced bat speed.
Alternatively, I wouldn’t mind it if Heyward wagged the bat less, and maybe cut back on the bobbing knees. Not that I expect Pujols production, but his whole methodology was a quiet swing, with minimal moving parts.
No wonder nobody likes you, Tuttle... everything's a (Pujols) damn debate.
I can buy this more than the dropping the front shoulder one
I see the slight dropping of the hands, but I’m not so sure about the bat speed part. It could be that or it could be the difference between a 93 MPH pitch on the inside corner versus an 88 MPH pitch over the plate.
Ideally we'd have hit f/x data to supplement this argument
If we knew things like what Heyward’s bat speed was, the average velocity he’s putting the ball, and the average distance he’s putting on fly balls, we’d have plenty of evidence. Of course, we’d also need a relative understanding of the typical standard deviations in those data, both from a league-wide perspective and in individual hitters.
Unfortunately, hit f/x and field f/x aren’t going to publicly available, so it’s just missing data.
My buddy and I just decided that the braves would be set if we could get Matt Kemp, Jose Reyes, and Albert Pujols.
by willlinn on May 17, 2011 2:13 PM EDT
Worth pointing out, though
We DO have hittrackeronline.com, though. On his home runs, at least, Heyward’s velocity off the bat has remained consistent, while his average home runs are traveling further than last year. That’s, naturally, a tiny tiny sample of his total batted ball data, though. And it might just be a result of of his becoming more of a pull hitter, exerting more torque on the ball even though he’s making solid contact less of the time. So it doesn’t really mean anything.
My buddy and I just decided that the braves would be set if we could get Matt Kemp, Jose Reyes, and Albert Pujols.
by willlinn on May 17, 2011 2:13 PM EDT
Heyward is also hitting HRs at the same pace or slightly faster than last year, which is very encouraging, and lends credence to the argument that he’s suffering, in part, from bad luck on balls in play
from what I see (and I am definitely no hitting instructor)
is that he keeps trying to pull everything this year….where as last year, like Freeman, he was spraying hits to all fields.
I have no idea whether his mechanics are messed up or he is just trying to hard to pull everything instead of going up the middle and letting his bat dictate where the ball goes…
he is also way less patient than last year….
…thats just my perspective
All while Fredi is surrounded by a bunch of orangutans, trying to teach them how to bunt the rocks and coconuts that angry 300 lb gorillas are throwing at them,
by royhobbs on Jul 29, 2011 11:20 AM PDT
by Santaklose11 on Aug 16, 2011 4:08 PM EDT up reply actions
But there's other factors that are correlated WITH his poorer performance
First, and most troubling to me, is the lower walk rate. Considering that he’s a rookie who is struggling (and therefore spending more time with Larry Parrish), the fact that his walk rate is lower than it has been in the past two years is problematic for me-especially when you consider that the team as a whole has a lower walk rate.
Additionally, he’s hitting more flyballs and fewer line drives, which helps explain a lower BABIP. It’s questionable just how predictive these measures are, (especially IFFB%), but they do correlate to lower BABIPs, which means there are factors beyond luck in play.
My buddy and I just decided that the braves would be set if we could get Matt Kemp, Jose Reyes, and Albert Pujols.
by willlinn on May 17, 2011 2:13 PM EDT
Check out this post: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/defensive-independent-hitting-or-shh/
If you use the spreadsheet (you have to download it and open in excel to edit) and plug in Heyward’s 2011 walk and strike out rates and HR rates, and a .290 BABIP (average or slightly below average, well below his 2010 BABIP), you get a wRC+ of 108.
That’s not off the charts, but it is still much higher than his current wRC+ of 95.
I was still just pointing that there's additional factors
Which DO point to a decline in his performance, rather than a series of bad luck breaks which have caused his decline from his rookie year. There are indicators which would point to a poorer performance.
I’m curious as to whether wRC+ might also be a tiny bit misleading, since league offense is at a 20 year low.
My buddy and I just decided that the braves would be set if we could get Matt Kemp, Jose Reyes, and Albert Pujols.
by willlinn on May 17, 2011 2:13 PM EDT
Burn Notice?
liked the few i saw, never got in to it though. But then again, it does have Bruce Campbell, so maybe I should.
http://sportsandgrits.blogspot.com/
I'm a big fan
It’s like a cross between Miami Vice and MacGyver. Voice-overs explaining how to do cool things, along with lots of shots of women in bikinis, plus Bruce Campbell generally being entertaining.
It’s at the point where it’s starting to get repetitive, though. The last episode basically had the same solution for certain problems as a half dozen older episodes. “All right, we’ll distract the bad guys in the compound by making them think there’s a bomb inside, and then we’ll sneak in while the security is compromised,” and then “We’ll just stride up to the bad guys in broad daylight, announcing ourselves, to convince them we’re secretly working for the same people.”
Both of which are followed by the “Oh dear, our plan is running into additional complications.”
My buddy and I just decided that the braves would be set if we could get Matt Kemp, Jose Reyes, and Albert Pujols.
by willlinn on May 17, 2011 2:13 PM EDT
Possibly on the speed difference
But I do find concerning the hands dropping. Whenever I watch a game on tv, and they do slow motion of his at-bats from the side-view, it just looks like a wasted movement.
No wonder nobody likes you, Tuttle... everything's a (Pujols) damn debate.
Who said we can't wait?
I’d love for him to OPS over 1.000 for the rest of the year. I just don’t think it is likely. I think that given their full track records, Heyward will be better the rest of the year than Constanza will. That’s why I think Heyward should play. With Chipper on the shelf for a few days, it is a moot point, as they will both play and we don’t have anyone better.
Question...
Last night, 0 outs and down by 2 runs entering the bottom of the 9th against Brian Wilson. Who makes you feel better – right now – leading the inning off? Jason Heyward…or Jose Constanza?
Leading off the inning its mostly a toss up
Because Constanza is a good OBP guy with no power, but since you’re down by 2 you just need to get on base.
I thought Jason Heyward was an OBP guy too? Look, he’s struggling right now and it’s right to take away some PAs from him until he can prove otherwise.
Then the masses rabble about Fredi and his “feelings” if it fails when a hotter player is on the bench.
I worry not about the masses.
I am enough of a mass all by myself. ;)
I'd rather not lose ballgames...
…while my superstar is sitting on the bench and the flavor of the month deflates.
How about lose games...
cause your superstar is damaged goods right now and hitting .150/.250/.250?
http://sportsandgrits.blogspot.com/
Then let's fix him.
Ship him off to the superstar repair shop and make sure they do a good job. ;)
The EXACT moment you can tell me...
when either happens to change then I will say you are correct. But you can’t…and therefore I won’t.
The EXACT moment you can tell me, with certainty,
that the hot streak will continue for XX more days, then I’ll say you are correct. Unless, of course, you are wrong.
Then I guess we are at an impasse...
I would only argue that a guy OPSing over 1.000 for your ballclub is entitled a game or to without getting on base…
He's an OBP guy with power
That additional power doesn’t actually help much leading off an inning and down by two runs.
I love Jason Heyward, but God forbid if it was the other way around I wouldn’t have to keep watching him against LHPs continually have the same results, namely…
1) Weak grounder to 2B
2) Pop up to 3B
That's not fair.
He whiffs against lefties fairly regularly, too.
Oh that's right...
Even though he knows a LHP is going to either… 1) bust him inside with a fastball, or 2) throw slider away…he still flails at the slider away.
The problem is you have to let someone hit someone out of a hot streak just like you have to let someone hit their way out of a slump. But one of the two is far better for the team during it’s course.
Sgt.: Pointed stick? Oh, oh, oh. We want to learn how to defend ourselves against pointed sticks, do we? Getting all high and mighty, eh? Fresh fruit not good enough for you eh? Well I'll tell you something my lad. When you're walking home tonight and some great homicidal maniac comes after you with a bunch of loganberries, don't come crying to me! Now, the passion fruit.
No one is wishing for Constanza to cool down to be proven “right”, just like no one on the other side is wishing for Heyward to continue to struggle.
The success of a guy like Constanza is a great omen for a play-off bound team. Things like a career AAAA guy coming up and producing at the major league level often separates a play-off berth from a WS championship.
Sgt.: Pointed stick? Oh, oh, oh. We want to learn how to defend ourselves against pointed sticks, do we? Getting all high and mighty, eh? Fresh fruit not good enough for you eh? Well I'll tell you something my lad. When you're walking home tonight and some great homicidal maniac comes after you with a bunch of loganberries, don't come crying to me! Now, the passion fruit.
Why is he a AAAA guy...
When before this year he’s never been given a shot at MLB PAs?
There's a reason for that
Just like there’s a reason he wasn’t a hot commodity when he hit the market as a minor league free agent over the offseason.
That seemed to be the perception especially considering how long it took for the Braves to give him steady playing time despite a myriad of injuries and problems.
Sgt.: Pointed stick? Oh, oh, oh. We want to learn how to defend ourselves against pointed sticks, do we? Getting all high and mighty, eh? Fresh fruit not good enough for you eh? Well I'll tell you something my lad. When you're walking home tonight and some great homicidal maniac comes after you with a bunch of loganberries, don't come crying to me! Now, the passion fruit.
He looks a whole lot like...
…Gregor Blanco to me. Speedy, no power, good contact, not great patience (although Blanco had patience and less contact). The problem is that there are tons of these guys out there. We have another one in Matt Young, he just wasn’t hot when he got his chance.
But even if we all agree that that is a good description of him, his recent success has to be given weight. Sure it’s a SSS but we have to let him hit his way out of a hot streak and in the mean time reap the benefits.
Sgt.: Pointed stick? Oh, oh, oh. We want to learn how to defend ourselves against pointed sticks, do we? Getting all high and mighty, eh? Fresh fruit not good enough for you eh? Well I'll tell you something my lad. When you're walking home tonight and some great homicidal maniac comes after you with a bunch of loganberries, don't come crying to me! Now, the passion fruit.
There will be no benefit...
…when he hits his way out of the streak. Only before then.
That’s making the assumption that he is going to be terrible when he comes back. Considering how well he has done for the last half month it is reasonable to assume that he might be passable or at least a solid 4th OF or utility player. But until he reaches that point you have to keep giving him ABs. If he starts playing badly then you can reassess the situation, but it is far better for a team to be using a guy who is hitting his way out of a hot streak than hiting out of a slump regardless of value.
Plus, if you believe that Heyward is truly a superstar, I personally do, then you have to think that his production this year has been way below skill level. His skills would transcend game scenarios (which he will get plenty of just in the course of shuffling) and he should make the adjustment himself. In the meantime, you have to play the hot hand.
Sgt.: Pointed stick? Oh, oh, oh. We want to learn how to defend ourselves against pointed sticks, do we? Getting all high and mighty, eh? Fresh fruit not good enough for you eh? Well I'll tell you something my lad. When you're walking home tonight and some great homicidal maniac comes after you with a bunch of loganberries, don't come crying to me! Now, the passion fruit.
If you are playing your way out of a streak...
…then you are struggling. Otherwise, you would still be in the streak. If you are playing your way out of a slump, you are producing, otherwise, you are just still in the slump.
that’s a little black and white, you can easily regress to your career norms from a streak without struggling.. it can just be a slower process . The problem is no one knows Georgies career norms in the big leagues.
by SuperHeyward on Aug 16, 2011 1:34 PM EDT up reply actions
First, there is no indication when and how badly Constanza will regress. And in the meantime, he hasn’t yet. Heyward has struggled to produce and has looked ugly at the plate as recent as last night. He is still struggling, and if Constanza cools down a little he will be producing far better than Heyward as he climbs his way up. If Heyward starts producing at a reasonably good pace then we reassess this. In the mean time, you can’t give meaningful ABs to someone who is trying to figure it out when you have someone who is playing out of his mind, inspired by realization of a dream that kind of came out of no where.
Sgt.: Pointed stick? Oh, oh, oh. We want to learn how to defend ourselves against pointed sticks, do we? Getting all high and mighty, eh? Fresh fruit not good enough for you eh? Well I'll tell you something my lad. When you're walking home tonight and some great homicidal maniac comes after you with a bunch of loganberries, don't come crying to me! Now, the passion fruit.
All I know that is until we have a 8+ game lead in the WC
I want Constanza playing over Heyward… after that let Heyward try to bust out of the slump
This debate always comes down to whether people put stock into the studies that show that:
(A) hot streaks (at the team level and the individual level) do not predict future success,
(B) the best predictor of future success (for the next month, week or even the very next PA) is generally the larger sample size of data, and
© minor league numbers, properly adjusted for park and level of competition, are as predictive as a prior season of MLB numbers
The research is out there – The Book, Scorecasting, some other sources I’m sure. I understand that not everyone buys into A, B, or C, and that’s reasonable. It doesn’t make someone smarter or dumber, in my view. It is just a different way of framing the numbers. But all the arguments basically come down to this.
C I'll never agree on
if only because players are developing in the minors and improving areas of their game, so “properly adjusted” is a near impossibility no matter how arrogant the number cruncher is about their number crunching ability.
And B) future succes in the long term, agreed. But in the short term sample size of today/tomorrow, I put a lot more stock in the numbers of this week, the last two weeks, and the last month, than I do numbers from last year or several years prior.
http://sportsandgrits.blogspot.com/
ie. Dan Uggla at the beginning of the season/ Dan Uggla now… neither are like his career norms
by SuperHeyward on Aug 16, 2011 1:37 PM EDT up reply actions
Uggla is a great example of A and B in action. His cold streak did not doom him to being cold all season. And even during the worst moments of the cold streak, the correct position was that he would perform closer to his career numbers rather than his cold streak numbers.
Freddie Freeeman is a great example of C. He’s performing a lot closer to what his minor league numbers projected compared to his very bad MLB numbers in 2010 in a small sample size.
Re: Uggla
True, his cold streak did not doom him to eternal coldness. That was the long term view. However, it certainly feels as though his cold streak perpetuated more struggles through the first half. By the same token, his hot streak in July is helping to perpetuate more good hitting in August.
I think that streaks are random in nature, but cannot be dismissed as being 100% luck. Moreover, I think Uggla’s cold/hot splits this season can’t be simply attributed to the law of averages. Not to say that he hasn’t had some luck along the way, but I’d be willing to bet that Uggla has made some kind of significant adjustment in his approach at the plate. Fangraphs (or Stats & Info at ESPN, can’t remember which) had an article about how he is hitting/laying off outside pitches differently than in the first half.
If that is truly the case, then Uggla’s hot streak can be looked at as a separate entity from his cold streak, thereby giving credence to the idea of not always looking at the larger sample as the most relevant predictor.
Uggla is a horrible example of B. His 2011 monthly wOBAs have never been within 50 points of his career average. They did absolutely nothing to predict his actual performance, let alone a week or an individual PA.
-C
It’s rough to sit through these games and not have someone that can’t hit a Ball?
You are misreading B. B says that any time we see a big outlier from career norms, we should relax and expect future performance closer to the career norms. That’s exactly that happened.
(B) the best predictor of future success (for the next month, week or even the very next PA) is generally the larger sample size of data, and
is not
B says that any time we see a big outlier from career norms, we should relax and expect future performance closer to the career norms.
in even the most remote of fashions.
Really large sample sizes can predict large sample sizes, as evidenced by Uggla’s career wOBA being closest to his 2011 composite wOBA rather than any individual monthly subset. The “next month, week, PA” bit is a bunch of hogwash.
-C
It’s rough to sit through these games and not have someone that can’t hit a Ball?
The hogwash has been empirically tested. If you have other theories and the data to support it, I’m all ears. I’m agnostic on any claims. I just like to see evidence.
What evidence says the next at bat is better predicted on numbers from 2-5 years ago vs. 2-5 days/weeks ago?
http://sportsandgrits.blogspot.com/
Basic probability theory?
Sample size? Any of this sound familiar?
That the sample size of recent production is more relevant than far past production?
So then we should trade Constanza for Tejada right, cause his numbers from 2-5 years ago say he’s the type of big bat, high production SS we need, right? Cause Tejada would fix our ails, his past performance proves it because his past production outweighs recent production in predictability?
http://sportsandgrits.blogspot.com/
As an Engineer, I hasten at the statement "empirically tested"
Making generalizations over millions of data points tell you the general direction of your sample size to a degree of desired certainty…but less accurate at predicting individual subsets of that larger sample.
SSS (past, present, and future) cannot be statistically evaluated by a large sample size. It’s as easy as that, really. When you look into a PA, a week, or even a month, career performance is not a great predictor. When you start looking at larger sample sizes, that of a half-season or even a season, career numbers do much better.
Baseball uses a ton of rate stats, which is fine. But it’s important to note that very few hitters actually hit for their career rate over short periods of time, i.e. SSSs.
Just as an example, I took a look at Brian McCann. Good career stats, good season stats. No big drop-off like Uggla had to begin the season.
Career wOBA: .365
Season wOBA: .378 (difference: 13 points)
April: .327
May: .384
June: .465
July: .344
August: .309
Once again, the season difference is much smaller than any of the monthly comparisons. This is because player commonly have extended streaks of hitting well, and conversely, hitting poorly.
When SSS is in play, all bets are off…not just at the beginning of the year when you can point at this guy or that and say, “He’s playing way above/below his talent level,” but throughout the season. SSS is a constantly occurring statistical anomaly.
-C
It’s rough to sit through these games and not have someone that can’t hit a Ball?
The claim that a season-sized sample size is the better predictor of the very next PA than the last day, week, or month of data has been tested and validated. You don’t have to accept that evidence. If you have some evidence showing otherwise, I’m happy to read it as well. You are picking one player and I’m talking about effects for all of MLB.
Feel free to provide a link. I’d link to mine, but there are literally hundreds of thousands of articles across baseball websites that state that SSS is a crapshoot. It’s not like my statements invented the wheel. It’s quite common knowledge.
-C
It’s rough to sit through these games and not have someone that can’t hit a Ball?
I don't agree with anything that said.
Unfortunately, it didn’t say how good the entire sample size was at predicting.it’s still not good, albeit better than other options.
At no point did it actually state that a career sample was a good predictor, simply that it was the best. There is a dichotomy between the two that I hope you see.
-C
It’s rough to sit through these games and not have someone that can’t hit a Ball?
To extend this...
Let’s say we all take an incredibly hard test, and the highest score was a 35%, which is still way below failing.
It’s the best score of the group, but it doesn’t mean all that much because it’s still horrible on a 100-point scale.
-C
It’s rough to sit through these games and not have someone that can’t hit a Ball?
I have always made the claim about what predictor is better than the alternative. I’ve never said that predictions are guarantees. If you don’t want to believe their published results, that is fine.
They found that for the very next at bat the best predictor was 2 years of batting average, rather than smaller, more recent sample sizes. That’s the claim I made above.
I believe their results. I agree with them.
However, they left out a very big piece of information, which was how well the predictor actually did.
SSS cannot be predicted with any amount of certainty any more than SSS can predict the future with any amount of certainty. The only thing that is certain with SSS is that it’s incredibly uncertain.
-C
It’s rough to sit through these games and not have someone that can’t hit a Ball?
Large sample size of data on the numbers generated by a spinning wheel is predictive of the outcome of the very next spin of the wheel.
I think you misunderstand when I say “prediction.” Prediction is a guess about the likelihood of the outcome of the next [spin of the wheel] [roll of the rice] [plate appearance].
I predict that the chances of a 1 on the next roll of the dice will be 6. If you give me better odds than 1/6, I’ll take the bet any time you offer it. No one is suggesting that I can tell you exactly when a 1 will appear.
If we're "guessing the likelihood of the outcome"...
then we’re just doing the math. Numbers are what they are. If we’re guessing the actual outcome itself, that “likelihood” is not often the exact outcome and is more likely wrong than right when looked at the actual outcome.
http://sportsandgrits.blogspot.com/
I think in the end, sports is sports and there are always exceptions
no one can predict how good a player will be from just looking at numbers (ie Matt Cain)
Hypothetical question...
If both were healthy…would you rather have Jose Constanza or Nate McLouth as your 5th OF?
Jose, and that would be even if both had equal offensive production (measure that any way you like). My reasoning is based on the superior speed of Constanza. I’ve also seen enough of his defense to learn that (a) he has a better arm than Nate; and (b) will use it without ‘threatening’ to do so, if you know what I mean.
When you throw in the offense-side differential, this isn’t even an interesting question right now.
"Just take out the whole Tim McCarver part of the broadcast and boom, the director has freed up a whopping 45 minutes of airtime." - Rob Iracane of Yahoo! Sports, 7/13/11
Anybody who SERIOUSLY suggested
That we should bench somebody who was 3-3 last night, and was on base all 4 times he came up to the plate, just so we don’t have to deal with his regression…. Let me just say i’m glad you’re not the coach.
Constanza is a sparkplug right now, and Heyward is a malfunctioning socket.
Let me just say that Constanza’s OBP vs. lefties is practically the same as Heywards OBP vs. lefties. At the VERY least, you should all be down for Constanza against LHP and Heyward versus the righties. But obviously, Heyward is the golden child, and Constanza is just a bat licking n00b, so he shouldn’t get a chance to keep his hot streak up.
As a Braves fan, I WANT CONSTANZA on the field as often as possible.
Jason Heyward homeruns make babies stop crying.. Jason Heyward homeruns also make babies, period.
by TheMelkHasSpoiled on Aug 16, 2011 2:15 PM EDT reply actions
Oh yeah, McLouth.
I totally forgot about that guy.
Is he still on this team?
Just throwing this out here
While we’re looking at limited time frames in the past three-plus weeks, and I’m aware that WPA is not the perfect stat either, but I like the down and dirty methodology of hashing out a scoring system based on results in all degrees of leverage and situations.
Since July 29, Constanza’s call-up:
+0.581 Jose Constanza
-0.062 Jason Heyward
WPA scores for outfielders on their new teams:
+0.409 Colby Rasmus
+0.240 Michael Bourn
+0.165 Hunter Pence
+0.113 Corey Patterson
+0.029 Jonny Gomes
+0.019 Ryan Ludwick
-0.317 Kosuke Fukudome
-0.474 Carlos Beltran
Georgie’s obviously doing something right, and personally, I have no problem in riding out the hot hand with Constanza, and as mentioned previously in this thread, I’m willing to bet Heyward’s still hurt as well. Given the trend of crippling, debilitating shoulder injuries all across the baseball landscape, why Heyward’s not on the DL is completely beyond me. Shoulder injuries are turning into something worse than Tommy John, IMO, because so often is the case, baseball staffs think they’re just a day or two’s rest away from being gone, and all the unknowns involved with them.
No wonder nobody likes you, Tuttle... everything's a (Pujols) damn debate.
They're bad for throwing shoulders on pitchers
Justin Upton is currently proving that shoulder surgery on you non-throwing arm isn’t that big of a deal as we speak.
But that was after shoulder surgery
Adrian Gonzalez, as well as Justin Upton. Either Heyward’s swing is completely broken, or he’s proof that trying to play through an blurry shoulder ailment in his non-throwing arm can be a big deal.
I’m just growing concerned over the underrated detriment that shoulder troubles are these days. Non-pitchers like Jesus Flores needed two years to really come back from shoulder issues. Johan Santana is on the cusp of two years himself, as was Chien-Ming Wang. Josh Johnson and now Adam LaRoche might see how lengthy the comeback process will be, next.
No wonder nobody likes you, Tuttle... everything's a (Pujols) damn debate.
Constanza’s nickname stems from the character George Costanza from Seinfeld. George’s mother often referred to George as Georgie. So to answer your question, Jose Constanza is the Georgie that people are talking about.
by HI State of Mind on Aug 16, 2011 5:57 PM EDT up reply actions
This debate is a microcosm of national debates. One side is arguing with facts that they or others have dilligently and thoughtfully researched, while the other side presents their opinion as an equally relevant “fact”. It’s f***ing sad.
Don't kiss an ass if it's in the process of shitting on you.
"…aren’t worthy enough to hold his (Pujols) ass cheeks apart while Playboy models wipe him with thousand dollar bills after he craps out the cure to whatever previously-incurable disease." by royhobbs 1/7/09
It is sad
I thought the Braves were winning. I guess for some people that’s not enough. I don’t even have the patience to read that long-ass debate going on up there. I just hope Constanza keeps shitting on the haters.
by HI State of Mind on Aug 16, 2011 4:07 PM EDT up reply actions
I just hope Constanza keeps shitting on the haters.
FTFY
All while Fredi is surrounded by a bunch of orangutans, trying to teach them how to bunt the rocks and coconuts that angry 300 lb gorillas are throwing at them,
by royhobbs on Jul 29, 2011 11:20 AM PDT
reply fail
to Hi State of Mind
All while Fredi is surrounded by a bunch of orangutans, trying to teach them how to bunt the rocks and coconuts that angry 300 lb gorillas are throwing at them,
by royhobbs on Jul 29, 2011 11:20 AM PDT
by Santaklose11 on Aug 16, 2011 4:12 PM EDT up reply actions
..................
Freeman isn’t on Heyward’s level in terms of tools, skills, or baseball IQ–but it’s fair to say Freeman has failed to meet the modest expectations in place for him - Capitol Avenue Club (May 28th, 2011)
by ATLandUNC on Aug 16, 2011 5:27 PM EDT reply actions 3 recs
HAHAHAHAHAH
Rec’
All while Fredi is surrounded by a bunch of orangutans, trying to teach them how to bunt the rocks and coconuts that angry 300 lb gorillas are throwing at them,
by royhobbs on Jul 29, 2011 11:20 AM PDT
by Santaklose11 on Aug 16, 2011 5:27 PM EDT up reply actions
Co-Stanza: By- Mennen
Doesn’t he look like a young Luis Castillo?! Good eye, good h-e coord, speedy, slick fielder?! Trade bait, maybe: the next big thing, maybe: good addition to the lineup: absolutely.
by Pork Chop Sandwich on Aug 16, 2011 5:44 PM EDT reply actions
What Matters
The only stat that really matters is WINS & LOSSES…
And, the most important game that you have control over is your next game.
Play the guy that gives you the best chance to win the next game. All this other stuff is just talk. Winning is all that matters and right now Georgie gives us the best chance to win. Period! Play him and hopefully Jhey can get his groove back and the future will take care of itself
by Gjmoody on Aug 16, 2011 6:15 PM EDT via mobile reply actions
1. Bourn CF, 2. Prado LF, 3. McCann C, 4. Uggla 2B, 5. Freeman 1B, 6. Jones 3B, 7. Gonzalez SS, 8. Constanza RF, 9 Delgado P
I worry about Old Man Jones in front of singles-hitters and GDP candidates (Gonzalez). Probably going to get him hurt again at some point. Would be ideal in the #2 spot because he’s slow with a high OBP.
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