***The Official Philadelphia Phillies 2012 Thread***

The Fixer wrote:

Jearlpam0925 wrote:

Fixer, I would go to that game. The people I went with last year I planning a HUGE takeover of that park for that game. See if you can crash their tailgate beforehand as well - free food, free beer on tap from beer trucks.

Nice. I'm leaning towards going. I'm sure there are sports bars in the area, so maybe I could catch the 3rd period.

If you don't mind, try to find out where the tailgate is going to be.

dude, you can hop on a rickshaw after the game and take that directly to the bars. at least, that's what me and my drunk ass friends did last year.

yes, rickshaws are prevalent around nationals park

neilybabes86 wrote:

CAREFUL MY BOY FROM LONG BEACH LANNAN is going bust your ass

whatever you do, don't wager on the game.

The Fixer wrote:

Jearlpam0925 wrote:

Fixer, I would go to that game. The people I went with last year I planning a HUGE takeover of that park for that game. See if you can crash their tailgate beforehand as well - free food, free beer on tap from beer trucks.

Nice. I'm leaning towards going. I'm sure there are sports bars in the area, so maybe I could catch the 3rd period.

If you don't mind, try to find out where the tailgate is going to be.

Fixer, I can't remember exactly, but it was right up the road from the park, near the river, and bordered on both sides by Industrial brick buildings. It was in a sandlot because they don't allow tailgating in their parking lots. That's about all I got.

joe savery, former phils 1st round pick as a pitcher was converted to first base this year. He played first at Rice when he wasn't pitching (and DH'd some).

It's still early in the year and it's a tiny sample size, but he is 14 for 18 with a HR.

Cool story. Hopefully he can make a push to get to the majors...even if it's not with the phils

The Fixer wrote:

joe savery, former phils 1st round pick as a pitcher was converted to first base this year. He played first at Rice when he wasn't pitching (and DH'd some).

It's still early in the year and it's a tiny sample size, but he is 14 for 18 with a HR.

Cool story. Hopefully he can make a push to get to the majors...even if it's not with the phils

oddly enough, there's an article in today's paper about savery.

http://www.philly.com/philly/sports/phi ... agues.html

Johnny, you will enjoy this from keith law.


I'd like to propose the creation of a new statistic, an accounting stat for relievers that might help separate out a little of the noise from the generally awful save statistic. The new figure won't have much, if any, predictive value, but would merely exist for what I call "accounting" purposes -- a record of what happened for the curious or trivially-inclined, but of little use for looking ahead. It's for fun, and I deny any responsibility for harm that comes to you or your loved ones for unapproved or unauthorized usage.



I hate the save.



Ill-Gotten Saves
All-time leaders in saves while giving up at least one run:

Rank Player Total
1 Trevor Hoffman 53
2 Lee Smith 48
3 Jeff Reardon 46
4 John Franco 46
5 John Wetteland 44
6 Mariano Rivera 44
7 Bruce Sutter 43
8 Dan Quisenberry 43
9 Dennis Eckersley 41
10 Troy Percival 40
11 Todd Jones 40
12 Robb Nen 39
13 Gene Garber 37
14 Rod Beck 37
15 Rick Aguilera 36
16 Hoyt Wilhelm 35
17 Randy Myers 35
18 Jose Mesa 34
19 Roberto Hernandez 34
20 Rollie Fingers 34


I do. It's a number whose existence implies meaning that isn't there, a reckoning that has altered bullpen usage, roster construction, and the game's salary structure, thanks to two generations of managers, pitching coaches, and front-office executives who grew up hearing relievers praised for high save totals and others excoriated for their apparent inability to handle the pressure of the ninth inning.




The save falls into the worst category of counting statistics, those that depend on context as much as -- or more than -- they depend on the individual player's performance. The pitcher win is a good example, while the RBI is the Laurent Gbagbo of baseball stats, refusing to bow out gracefully even when its time has clearly come. (I promise to give the RBI a fair trial and painless execution when its day of reckoning finally arrives.)

The save gives a performance by a pitcher additional weight based on the score and inning, rather than based on the pitcher's actual performance. Consider: Three outs in the ninth with a three-run lead gets you a save, but the same three outs recorded in a tie game, which is higher-leverage work, do not.



That example gets at a minor criticism of the save -- that is, a pitcher can pitch poorly and still get one. With a three-run lead, a closer can give up two runs in his inning of work and still notch the save, even though I don't think many analysts would consider the 2:1 runs allowed-to-innings ratio an acceptable one. Yet we have no line in our ledger to reflect these pseudo-saves, to show that while the reliever fiddled, Rome reached medium well before the fire was finally extinguished.



Really Ill-Gotten Saves
All-time leaders in saves while giving up at least one run in no more than one inning of work:

Rank Player Total
1 Trevor Hoffman 47
2 Troy Percival 37
3 Todd Jones 35
4 John Wetteland 34
5 Robb Nen 33
6 Mariano Rivera 30
7 Jose Mesa 30
8 Brad Lidge 29
9 John Franco 29
10 Armando Benitez 28


With the glorious Play Index at baseball-reference.com, we can, in fact, see who the primary culprits were in collecting these ill-gotten saves (as you can see in the top chart at right), and I'd like to propose that we name the non-scoreless save after the man who earned more of them over his career than anyone else did. I give you my new statistic, the Hoffman.



"But hey," you say (or would say, if I was secretly controlling your voice), "you can give up a run in a two-inning save and it's not that bad, really -- okay it's not that great but it's just fine, I mean, we can live with that can't we?" Sure we can! So let's change the criteria to one run or more allowed in no more than one inning of work, again with a save "earned". See the second chart.



That's right: Trevor Hoffman earned 27 percent more of these "short Hoffmans" than any other reliever in the history of baseball. Of course, that's partly a function of Hoffman pitching as long as he did, and earning more total saves than anyone else (a situation likely to change within the year), so let's look at the top ten leaders in saves with their Hoffman percentage (Hoffmans/total saves):



The "Hoffman" Percentage
The current top 10 leaders in saves next to their "Hoffman" percentage:

Rank Player Saves Hoffmans Hoffman %
1 Trevor Hoffman 601 53 8.8%
2 Mariano Rivera 563 44 7.8%
3 Lee Smith 478 48 10.0%
4 John Franco 424 46 10.8%
5 Billy Wagner 422 32 7.6%
6 Dennis Eckersley+ 390 41 10.5%
7 Jeff Reardon 367 46 12.5%
8 Troy Percival 358 40 11.2%
9 Randy Myers 347 35 10.1%
10 Rollie Fingers+ 341 34 10.0%


The most interesting part of that table, to me, is that there's someone below Mariano Rivera in percentage -- Wagner beats him by a Hoffman, since if Wagner had earned one more he would have been fractionally higher in the percentage column.



The range of Hoffman percentages among save leaders isn't all that high -- if you earn a lot of saves, you'll earn a lot of Hoffmans along the way. You can separate yourself slightly from the pack in this stat -- Rivera, Hoffman, and Wagner are the three best modern/one-inning closers, pretty much any way you slice it -- but the difference between these guys and average (10.7 percent) of the others in the top 10 is about a Hoffman every other year. That's not much.



The save is a bad stat, a point the Hoffman only further emphasizes.

Johnny Abruzzo wrote:

The Fixer wrote:

Johnny, you will enjoy this from keith law.

That was cool. I always thought Lee Smith was one of the most overrated players in baseball history. I fucking hate the save stat, as you all know. All that said, I don't think he really proved anything in this article. Even Mariano had plenty of Hoffmans.

But something else he said struck me:

So, if you (as in Keith Law) say RBI is an outdated stat, can you at least look at % of runners driven in? I mean, it's still important to score runs, right? Isn't that how they determine the winner of the game? Unless they decided to just tabulate both teams' OPS at the end of the game and declare the team with the higher OPS the winner, but I don't remember seeing that.

I think, offensively at least, the WAR and OPS stats are better suited to the late 90s/early 00s (i.e. steriod era) than now, when you have to grind out runs with sac flies & RBI groundouts (things that WAR does not recognize) to win 2-1 games. When every game has 10+ runs scored, then yes the object is to not make outs. When steroids are regulated and many games have 5 or less runs scored, the object changes to scrounging out runs in any way possible. My other problem with WAR is that there are about 25 different measures of it.

The point of OPS/WAR is that being on base usually gives your team a better chance to score than making an out. More guys on base = higher probability of team scoring runs.

Never thought about percentage of runners driven in. I think the caveat to using that is you are still giving a player credit for making outs. I see what you're saying...certain situations may result in making an out resulting in a positive team outcome.

Most of the saber stats are works in progress. Fangraphs and BP do need to get on the same page.

Law does a good job of summing up the insignificance of the RBI. It's almost (except for solo HRs) entirely dependent on what teammates do, not what the player getting credit does.

I love discussing this kind of stuff. I'm a dork

Johnny Abruzzo wrote:

Me too. :geek:

I think you have to give credit for baseball plays like RBI groundouts & sac flies. If you strike out or pop up (did you ever see Howard has the lowest career popup rate in baseball?) than the run doesn't score.

that could work. If you're going to credit them for making outs, then I think you'd have to have a formula which penalizes a player for striking or popping out and not getting the run in.

Me too. :geek:

I think you have to give credit for baseball plays like RBI groundouts & sac flies. If you strike out or pop up (did you ever see Howard has the lowest career popup rate in baseball?) than the run doesn't score.

Its all about production and pitching. The 08 Phillies were horrible with runners in scoring position during the playoffs but still won it all. New age stats imo take away from the point of the game. Does getting men on base matter sure but a solo or 2 run homer matter more.This team until this year has been long ball team and although it's not the typical way to win it's worked. New age stats are almost a lie in the scheme of things especially when dealing with this team.

The Juggler wrote:

good article by murphy today: http://www.philly.com/philly/sports/phi ... HELLO.html

i don't get all the hate for j werth. dude was a vital part of us winning the world fucking championship a few years ago and coming damn close the last two years.

i can't blame him for takinig 125M if someone was willing, or stupid enough, to give it to him. the juggler wishes him well.



.....they gonna get this one in tonight?

agree 100% about werth. I'm not gonna cheer for him anymore, but I don't blame the guy for taking the money. I would have done the same thing if I were him