WAR doesn't consider things like Jayson Werth going 2 months without a hit with RISP & 2 outs. That killed this team last year - they really needed those RBI's and lost a lot of games because of his choking.
RBI's aren't a perfect stat, but neither is WAR. At least RBI's are tangible and clearly affect the result of the game and aren't made up by some statistician. Even though baseball has the largest individual component of most team sports, it still is a team game. A hit with a runner on 2nd & 2 outs is more valuable than a hit with nobody on and 2 outs. It just is.
Another thing, when a player gets down a sac bunt, or gets an RBI on a ground out or sac fly, all his teammates congratulate him in the dugout, everybody's happy. But his WAR goes down.
Cliffy, I remember you being happy about Swisher winning a game with a sac fly, but saying nothing about Rodriguez hitting a triple to get to 3rd in the first place. Based on your belief in WAR, you should've been singing A-Rod's praises and asking why Swisher didn't hit a single. But in that situation, the sac fly was just as valuable as a single. Baseball is a situational sport - it's not a series of random events as WAR would have you think.
Sorry for the long ramble. I also am trying to avoid R6 discussion because it's the worst.
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Of course not everyone is made to be a cleanup hitter and drive people in but there are plenty of players in the league that would put up similar RBI numbers if they had the Yanks or Phillies lineup. Plenty.
what is your definition of plenty? Neither the Phillies nor the Yankees have another. Maybe less than 30 guys in the league i'd say. to me that makes them pretty damn special players. id love to hear your list of players who you think would lead in the league in RBIs as of now with how this Phillies lineup is currently constructed. have you read the pages where eveyone one here bashes our offense and says it sucks?
30 is a lot of guys. If you flip flop Arod and Tex, Tex would put up bigger RBI numbers and he is already over 100.
Yeah, I know the Phillies offense is struggling but that article I posted the other day said Howard has had more runners on base than anyone in the NL.
not to mention there is a hell of a lot more external pressures and difficulty playing in cities like New York and Philly over say Cincinnati and Milwaukee.
Of course not everyone is made to be a cleanup hitter and drive people in but there are plenty of players in the league that would put up similar RBI numbers if they had the Yanks or Phillies lineup. Plenty.
what is your definition of plenty? Neither the Phillies nor the Yankees have another. Maybe less than 30 guys in the league i'd say. to me that makes them pretty damn special players. id love to hear your list of players who you think would lead in the league in RBIs as of now with how this Phillies lineup is currently constructed. have you read the pages where eveyone one here bashes our offense and says it sucks?
30 is a lot of guys. If you flip flop Arod and Tex, Tex would put up bigger RBI numbers and he is already over 100.
Yeah, I know the Phillies offense is struggling but that article I posted the other day said Howard has had more runners on base than anyone in the NL.
mark texeiara would not put up the numbers Howard has put up in Philly. sorry can't buy that at all.
WAR doesn't consider things like Jayson Werth going 2 months without a hit with RISP & 2 outs. That killed this team last year - they really needed those RBI's and lost a lot of games because of his choking.
RBI's aren't a perfect stat, but neither is WAR. At least RBI's are tangible and clearly affect the result of the game and aren't made up by some statistician. Even though baseball has the largest individual component of most team sports, it still is a team game. A hit with a runner on 2nd & 2 outs is more valuable than a hit with nobody on and 2 outs. It just is.
Another thing, when a player gets down a sac bunt, or gets an RBI on a ground out or sac fly, all his teammates congratulate him in the dugout, everybody's happy. But his WAR goes down.
Cliffy, I remember you being happy about Swisher winning a game with a sac fly, but saying nothing about Rodriguez hitting a triple to get to 3rd in the first place. Based on your belief in WAR, you should've been singing A-Rod's praises and asking why Swisher didn't hit a single. But in that situation, the sac fly was just as valuable as a single. Baseball is a situational sport - it's not a series of random events as WAR would have you think.
Sorry for the long ramble. I also am trying to avoid R6 discussion because it's the worst.
I have never argued that WAR is a perfect stat and if you look through my posts, I almost never quote it. Used it today because it was brought up. The stats I tend to go by are the triple slash line, that tells you pretty much everything about a player and OPS.
I agree that baseball is a situational game and yes, in that situation a sac fly was as good as a hit. But a sac fly in that situation is not going to have a huge impact on a players stats. I mean, how many of a players RBI's come from sacs, 5% maybe?
mark texeiara would not put up the numbers Howard has put up in Philly. sorry can't buy that at all.
Howard and Tex have similar offensive numbers with Howard having more power. I will take Tex being a switch hitter and a great fielder (which UZR does not rate him as by the way) with a little less power than Howard.
Tex has had 122 and 108 RBI's in his 2 years with the Yankees batting 3rd. If he is 4th, that number jumps.
WAR doesn't consider things like Jayson Werth going 2 months without a hit with RISP & 2 outs. That killed this team last year - they really needed those RBI's and lost a lot of games because of his choking.
RBI's aren't a perfect stat, but neither is WAR. At least RBI's are tangible and clearly affect the result of the game and aren't made up by some statistician. Even though baseball has the largest individual component of most team sports, it still is a team game. A hit with a runner on 2nd & 2 outs is more valuable than a hit with nobody on and 2 outs. It just is.
Another thing, when a player gets down a sac bunt, or gets an RBI on a ground out or sac fly, all his teammates congratulate him in the dugout, everybody's happy. But his WAR goes down.
Cliffy, I remember you being happy about Swisher winning a game with a sac fly, but saying nothing about Rodriguez hitting a triple to get to 3rd in the first place. Based on your belief in WAR, you should've been singing A-Rod's praises and asking why Swisher didn't hit a single. But in that situation, the sac fly was just as valuable as a single. Baseball is a situational sport - it's not a series of random events as WAR would have you think.
Sorry for the long ramble. I also am trying to avoid R6 discussion because it's the worst.
mark texeiara would not put up the numbers Howard has put up in Philly. sorry can't buy that at all.
Howard and Tex have similar offensive numbers with Howard having more power. I will take Tex being a switch hitter and a great fielder (which UZR does not rate him as by the way) with a little less power than Howard.
Tex has had 122 and 108 RBI's in his 2 years with the Yankees batting 3rd. If he is 4th, that number jumps.
i would doubt that tex would lead the NL in RBIs this season with Ben Francisco and Raul Ibanez hitting behind him. neither is hitting over .230 at this point. you use the argument about Ryan having the most hitters in front of him on-base but he has arguably the WORST 5th hitter hitting behind him. is it possible there is a worse 5th hitter than Ben Francisco? you cannot take one part of the story to create an argument.
mark texeiara would not put up the numbers Howard has put up in Philly. sorry can't buy that at all.
Howard and Tex have similar offensive numbers with Howard having more power. I will take Tex being a switch hitter and a great fielder (which UZR does not rate him as by the way) with a little less power than Howard.
Tex has had 122 and 108 RBI's in his 2 years with the Yankees batting 3rd. If he is 4th, that number jumps.
i would doubt that tex would lead the NL in RBIs this season with Ben Francisco and Raul Ibanez hitting behind him. neither is hitting over .230 at this point. you use the argument about Ryan having the most hitters in front of him on-base but he has arguably the WORST 5th hitter hitting behind him. is it possible there is a worse 5th hitter than Ben Francisco? you cannot take one part of the story to create an argument.
I don't understand what you are getting at. So his protection is not great, he still has more RBI chances than anyone in the league. Cano is doing just fine with Posada batting behind him. Protection is a bit overrated. Good hitters are going to get hits regardless of who is behind them.
This really wasn't about Howard and it doesn't need to get into that. No one is going to change their opinion of the guy.
Cliffy,i think what he's trying to say is that because of are 5th hitter Howard gets shit to hit. Does Howard look real bad and swing at too much junk for sure. But it's hard to knock in RBI's when you rarely get a fastball or see a strike. We have 2.5 hitters in are lineup at the moment so completely pitching around Howard is alot easier then pitching around the Yanks 4 hitter.
Cliffy,i think what he's trying to say is that because of are 5th hitter Howard gets shit to hit. Does Howard look real bad and swing at too much junk for sure. But it's hard to knock in RBI's when you rarely get a fastball or see a strike. We have 2.5 hitters in are lineup at the moment so completely pitching around Howard is alot easier then pitching around the Yanks 4 hitter.
I hear you and I get that. But that means he should have a much higher OBP than he does. Just looked at his stats and his OBP is 30 points below his career average, if he isn't getting anything to hit, he should be on base more, right?
Good hitters get hits regardless of who is around them, Howard gets more RBIs because he gets hits with runners on. That's all I'm saying.
Cliffy,i think what he's trying to say is that because of are 5th hitter Howard gets shit to hit. Does Howard look real bad and swing at too much junk for sure. But it's hard to knock in RBI's when you rarely get a fastball or see a strike. We have 2.5 hitters in are lineup at the moment so completely pitching around Howard is alot easier then pitching around the Yanks 4 hitter.
exactly, talking about what is in front of him but not in back of him is like saying a house is beautiful because you like the porch, but you've never really seen the inside or the backyard.
Cliffy,i think what he's trying to say is that because of are 5th hitter Howard gets shit to hit. Does Howard look real bad and swing at too much junk for sure. But it's hard to knock in RBI's when you rarely get a fastball or see a strike. We have 2.5 hitters in are lineup at the moment so completely pitching around Howard is alot easier then pitching around the Yanks 4 hitter.
I hear you and I get that. But that means he should have a much higher OBP than he does. Just looked at his stats and his OBP is 30 points below his career average, if he isn't getting anything to hit, he should be on base more, right?
Good hitters get hits regardless of who is around them, Howard gets more RBIs because he gets hits with runners on. That's all I'm saying.
his low OBP combined with his RBIs suggests he gets BIG hits and not meaningless for average-only when the game is over hits.
Cliffy,i think what he's trying to say is that because of are 5th hitter Howard gets shit to hit. Does Howard look real bad and swing at too much junk for sure. But it's hard to knock in RBI's when you rarely get a fastball or see a strike. We have 2.5 hitters in are lineup at the moment so completely pitching around Howard is alot easier then pitching around the Yanks 4 hitter.
I hear you and I get that. But that means he should have a much higher OBP than he does. Just looked at his stats and his OBP is 30 points below his career average, if he isn't getting anything to hit, he should be on base more, right?
Good hitters get hits regardless of who is around them, Howard gets more RBIs because he gets hits with runners on. That's all I'm saying.
I agree that his OBP isn't good,but i think part of it being low is hes trying to hard. He dosen't have the Bonds eye or patience's which is a major flaw especially when he could walk alot more. It's gotta be tough not getting pitches to hit all game,especially when u know the rest of ur lineup is struggling.
It all comes back to R6. Maybe he's not walking so much because he doesn't feel like watching Francisco pop up from 1B. I don't know. He usually clogs up the bases anyway.
I don't think Howard has been spectacular this season, but he has been crucial in helping the Phils get to a rather unlikely .667 winning pct so far.
I read an interview with a high-up in the Phils org last winter, who said all they want Howard to do (offensively at least) is drive in runs. Not sure what you think that says about the Phils org, but they've won a lot of games the past decade.
One more thing on sabermetrics - is it me or do the Phils outplay their pythagorean winning pct every year? That's something that should regress to the mean, by theory.
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Fixer repeatedly says that "RBI's don't mean anything" and Cliffy says similar things. That, my friends, is hogwash.
The RBI list & WAR list are pretty similar if you go into top 20 or so.
It's not that they don't mean anything, it is that they are a terrible evaluator of a players talent as so much relies on the team around them. I won't even use Howard, Arod, would not have 100+ RBI's a season if he played for the Pirates but that wouldn't make him any less of a hitter. How can you possibly argue with that?
They are similar but the order is so much better on the WAR, I think at least. Mays shouldn't be 9th on any list talking about the best players of all time.
exactly. just look at adrian gonzalez's numbers in SD. he's a much better hitter than howard and his RBI totals are miniscule in comparison.
using RBI totals to judge a player is just plain stupid. like judging closers by saves or pitchers by wins. too many outside variables in play that effect the outcome
what is your definition of plenty? Neither the Phillies nor the Yankees have another. Maybe less than 30 guys in the league i'd say. to me that makes them pretty damn special players. id love to hear your list of players who you think would lead in the league in RBIs as of now with how this Phillies lineup is currently constructed. have you read the pages where eveyone one here bashes our offense and says it sucks?
30 is a lot of guys. If you flip flop Arod and Tex, Tex would put up bigger RBI numbers and he is already over 100.
Yeah, I know the Phillies offense is struggling but that article I posted the other day said Howard has had more runners on base than anyone in the NL.
mark texeiara would not put up the numbers Howard has put up in Philly. sorry can't buy that at all.
as always way to bring substance to your argument...
tex would surpass howard's RBI numbers simply by striking out less. you know, since you don't have to get a hit to earn an RBI
Cliffy,i think what he's trying to say is that because of are 5th hitter Howard gets shit to hit. Does Howard look real bad and swing at too much junk for sure. But it's hard to knock in RBI's when you rarely get a fastball or see a strike. We have 2.5 hitters in are lineup at the moment so completely pitching around Howard is alot easier then pitching around the Yanks 4 hitter.
this never bothered bonds when he had pedro feliz hitting behind him. or pujols with a washed up jim edmonds behind him.
the lineup protection thing is nonsense. good hitters should be able to hit any type of pitch
Cliffy,i think what he's trying to say is that because of are 5th hitter Howard gets shit to hit. Does Howard look real bad and swing at too much junk for sure. But it's hard to knock in RBI's when you rarely get a fastball or see a strike. We have 2.5 hitters in are lineup at the moment so completely pitching around Howard is alot easier then pitching around the Yanks 4 hitter.
exactly, talking about what is in front of him but not in back of him is like saying a house is beautiful because you like the porch, but you've never really seen the inside or the backyard.
Cliffy,i think what he's trying to say is that because of are 5th hitter Howard gets shit to hit. Does Howard look real bad and swing at too much junk for sure. But it's hard to knock in RBI's when you rarely get a fastball or see a strike. We have 2.5 hitters in are lineup at the moment so completely pitching around Howard is alot easier then pitching around the Yanks 4 hitter.
this never bothered bonds when he had pedro feliz hitting behind him. or pujols with a washed up jim edmonds behind him.
the lineup protection thing is nonsense. good hitters should be able to hit any type of pitch
Which is why Bonds was better,the Phillies might have the worse 5-8 hitters in the game.
Cliffy,i think what he's trying to say is that because of are 5th hitter Howard gets shit to hit. Does Howard look real bad and swing at too much junk for sure. But it's hard to knock in RBI's when you rarely get a fastball or see a strike. We have 2.5 hitters in are lineup at the moment so completely pitching around Howard is alot easier then pitching around the Yanks 4 hitter.
this never bothered bonds when he had pedro feliz hitting behind him. or pujols with a washed up jim edmonds behind him.
the lineup protection thing is nonsense. good hitters should be able to hit any type of pitch
Which is why Bonds was better,the Phillies might have the worse 5-8 hitters in the game.
Cano is hitting close to .300 with power and often has Jorge Posada batting behind him. Edit: or Swisher, who has also been pretty brutal so far this year.
as I said last week, beltran would be perfect in RF for this team. make it happen raj
In a season in which teams are scratching for runs and general managers are scanning other teams' rosters and trying to identify players who could be potential trade targets, Carlos Beltran is developing into a very interesting option. He slammed three homers on Thursday and is hitting .295 with eight homers, a .387 on-base percentage and a .590 slugging percentage.
Beltran, who's eligible for free agency in the fall, is making a whopping $18.5 million this year, and it will be interesting to see how his salary plays into other teams' pursuit of him. Last year, only two teams -- the Rangers and the Yankees -- spent $5 million or more in midseason additions. If Beltran were to be traded at midseason without the Mets kicking in any money, his next team would be on the hook for $9 million.
Presumably, the Mets will wind up kicking in some money to offset the salary, but the better that Beltran plays, the better his trade value will be as one of the very few available position players who could be a difference-maker. New York could wind up getting a decent prospect in return for him if he continues to play this well.
From Stats & Info: Beltran became the eighth Met to hit three home runs in a game -- and the first since Jose Reyes in 2006. Two of his home runs Thursday came off pitches that were up and away. Of his eight home runs this season, half have come on pitches in that location. Since 2008, Beltran is hitting .325 and slugging .695, and has belted 14 home runs on pitches up and away. The 14 homers are the most he has hit among the nine pitch locations even though he has seen more pitches in two other spots: down and away and down and in.
Beltran is the first player this season with a three-homer game. Last year, there were 13 such games. The last four players to hit three or more home runs in a game at Coors Field were visitors. Dustin Pedroia was the most recent, in 2010. From Elias: Carlos Beltran homered to all three fields (left, center, right). The only player to do that in one game last season was Adam Dunn.
Avg OBP SLG
R Cano 2b .291 .317 .560
N Swisher RF .218 .333 .303
B Gardner LF .260 .357 .420
E Nunez SS .300 .364 .400
F Cervelli C .231 .286 .538
R Ibanez LF .232 .289 .360
B Francisco RF .229 .343 .373
B Schneider C .173 .218 .327 W Valdez 2b .238 .273 .286
P Orr PH-2b .265 .333 .327
and the point is...
This is for Cliffy and it's pretty obvious there 5-8,9 is alot better then are's.
I don't really believe in protection all that much. As I said, good hitters get hits regardless of who is behind them, sure they may get one better pitch to hit an AB at times but I don't think it has that big of an impact. Posada is not on that list though and my point was Cano does fine with Swisher and Posada behind him.
Comments
RBI's aren't a perfect stat, but neither is WAR. At least RBI's are tangible and clearly affect the result of the game and aren't made up by some statistician. Even though baseball has the largest individual component of most team sports, it still is a team game. A hit with a runner on 2nd & 2 outs is more valuable than a hit with nobody on and 2 outs. It just is.
Another thing, when a player gets down a sac bunt, or gets an RBI on a ground out or sac fly, all his teammates congratulate him in the dugout, everybody's happy. But his WAR goes down.
Cliffy, I remember you being happy about Swisher winning a game with a sac fly, but saying nothing about Rodriguez hitting a triple to get to 3rd in the first place. Based on your belief in WAR, you should've been singing A-Rod's praises and asking why Swisher didn't hit a single. But in that situation, the sac fly was just as valuable as a single. Baseball is a situational sport - it's not a series of random events as WAR would have you think.
Sorry for the long ramble.
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30 is a lot of guys. If you flip flop Arod and Tex, Tex would put up bigger RBI numbers and he is already over 100.
Yeah, I know the Phillies offense is struggling but that article I posted the other day said Howard has had more runners on base than anyone in the NL.
http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2011/ ... ean-house/
mark texeiara would not put up the numbers Howard has put up in Philly. sorry can't buy that at all.
I have never argued that WAR is a perfect stat and if you look through my posts, I almost never quote it. Used it today because it was brought up. The stats I tend to go by are the triple slash line, that tells you pretty much everything about a player and OPS.
I agree that baseball is a situational game and yes, in that situation a sac fly was as good as a hit. But a sac fly in that situation is not going to have a huge impact on a players stats. I mean, how many of a players RBI's come from sacs, 5% maybe?
Howard and Tex have similar offensive numbers with Howard having more power. I will take Tex being a switch hitter and a great fielder (which UZR does not rate him as by the way) with a little less power than Howard.
Tex has had 122 and 108 RBI's in his 2 years with the Yankees batting 3rd. If he is 4th, that number jumps.
i would doubt that tex would lead the NL in RBIs this season with Ben Francisco and Raul Ibanez hitting behind him. neither is hitting over .230 at this point. you use the argument about Ryan having the most hitters in front of him on-base but he has arguably the WORST 5th hitter hitting behind him. is it possible there is a worse 5th hitter than Ben Francisco? you cannot take one part of the story to create an argument.
I don't understand what you are getting at. So his protection is not great, he still has more RBI chances than anyone in the league. Cano is doing just fine with Posada batting behind him. Protection is a bit overrated. Good hitters are going to get hits regardless of who is behind them.
This really wasn't about Howard and it doesn't need to get into that. No one is going to change their opinion of the guy.
I hear you and I get that. But that means he should have a much higher OBP than he does. Just looked at his stats and his OBP is 30 points below his career average, if he isn't getting anything to hit, he should be on base more, right?
Good hitters get hits regardless of who is around them, Howard gets more RBIs because he gets hits with runners on. That's all I'm saying.
exactly, talking about what is in front of him but not in back of him is like saying a house is beautiful because you like the porch, but you've never really seen the inside or the backyard.
his low OBP combined with his RBIs suggests he gets BIG hits and not meaningless for average-only when the game is over hits.
I don't think Howard has been spectacular this season, but he has been crucial in helping the Phils get to a rather unlikely .667 winning pct so far.
I read an interview with a high-up in the Phils org last winter, who said all they want Howard to do (offensively at least) is drive in runs. Not sure what you think that says about the Phils org, but they've won a lot of games the past decade.
One more thing on sabermetrics - is it me or do the Phils outplay their pythagorean winning pct every year? That's something that should regress to the mean, by theory.
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By reading this thread I would have thought ryan howard would be in the top 5. shocked he's not on there
exactly. just look at adrian gonzalez's numbers in SD. he's a much better hitter than howard and his RBI totals are miniscule in comparison.
using RBI totals to judge a player is just plain stupid. like judging closers by saves or pitchers by wins. too many outside variables in play that effect the outcome
as always way to bring substance to your argument...
tex would surpass howard's RBI numbers simply by striking out less. you know, since you don't have to get a hit to earn an RBI
this never bothered bonds when he had pedro feliz hitting behind him. or pujols with a washed up jim edmonds behind him.
the lineup protection thing is nonsense. good hitters should be able to hit any type of pitch
man, you are lost
Cano is hitting close to .300 with power and often has Jorge Posada batting behind him. Edit: or Swisher, who has also been pretty brutal so far this year.
In a season in which teams are scratching for runs and general managers are scanning other teams' rosters and trying to identify players who could be potential trade targets, Carlos Beltran is developing into a very interesting option. He slammed three homers on Thursday and is hitting .295 with eight homers, a .387 on-base percentage and a .590 slugging percentage.
Beltran, who's eligible for free agency in the fall, is making a whopping $18.5 million this year, and it will be interesting to see how his salary plays into other teams' pursuit of him. Last year, only two teams -- the Rangers and the Yankees -- spent $5 million or more in midseason additions. If Beltran were to be traded at midseason without the Mets kicking in any money, his next team would be on the hook for $9 million.
Presumably, the Mets will wind up kicking in some money to offset the salary, but the better that Beltran plays, the better his trade value will be as one of the very few available position players who could be a difference-maker. New York could wind up getting a decent prospect in return for him if he continues to play this well.
From Stats & Info: Beltran became the eighth Met to hit three home runs in a game -- and the first since Jose Reyes in 2006. Two of his home runs Thursday came off pitches that were up and away. Of his eight home runs this season, half have come on pitches in that location. Since 2008, Beltran is hitting .325 and slugging .695, and has belted 14 home runs on pitches up and away. The 14 homers are the most he has hit among the nine pitch locations even though he has seen more pitches in two other spots: down and away and down and in.
Beltran is the first player this season with a three-homer game. Last year, there were 13 such games. The last four players to hit three or more home runs in a game at Coors Field were visitors. Dustin Pedroia was the most recent, in 2010. From Elias: Carlos Beltran homered to all three fields (left, center, right). The only player to do that in one game last season was Adam Dunn.
R Cano 2b .291 .317 .560
N Swisher RF .218 .333 .303
B Gardner LF .260 .357 .420
E Nunez SS .300 .364 .400
F Cervelli C .231 .286 .538
R Ibanez LF .232 .289 .360
B Francisco RF .229 .343 .373
B Schneider C .173 .218 .327 W Valdez 2b .238 .273 .286
P Orr PH-2b .265 .333 .327
and the point is...
I don't really believe in protection all that much. As I said, good hitters get hits regardless of who is behind them, sure they may get one better pitch to hit an AB at times but I don't think it has that big of an impact. Posada is not on that list though and my point was Cano does fine with Swisher and Posada behind him.