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

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  • booomm11
    booomm11 Posts: 865
    Baseball is f'n infatuated w/ stats. What happen to just being a gammer???
    being so KiND.. tO LEt me RiDe!!!
  • Johnny Abruzzo
    Johnny Abruzzo Philly Posts: 12,404
    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. 8-) I also am trying to avoid R6 discussion because it's the worst.
    Spectrum 10/27/09; New Orleans JazzFest 5/1/10; Made in America 9/2/12; Phila, PA 10/21/13; Phila,  PA 10/22/13; Baltimore Arena 10/27/13; Phila, PA 4/28/16; Phila, PA 4/29/16; Fenway Park 8/7/16; Fenway Park 9/2/18; Asbury Park 9/18/21; Camden 9/14/22; Las Vegas 5/16/24; Las Vegas 5/18/24; Phila, PA 9/7/24; Phila, PA 9/9/24; Baltimore Arena 9/12/24; Pittsburgh 5/16/25; Pittsburgh 5/18/25

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  • Cliffy6745
    Cliffy6745 Posts: 34,030
    pjhawks wrote:
    Cliffy6745 wrote:
    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.
  • pjhawks
    pjhawks Posts: 12,940
    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.
  • Cliffy6745
    Cliffy6745 Posts: 34,030
    Looks like you guys cant count on Ed Wade.

    http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2011/ ... ean-house/
  • pjhawks
    pjhawks Posts: 12,940
    Cliffy6745 wrote:
    pjhawks wrote:
    Cliffy6745 wrote:
    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.
  • Cliffy6745
    Cliffy6745 Posts: 34,030
    Johnny Abruzzo wrote:
    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. 8-) 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?
  • Cliffy6745
    Cliffy6745 Posts: 34,030
    pjhawks wrote:
    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.
  • jamminpearls
    jamminpearls Posts: 7,078
    Johnny Abruzzo wrote:
    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. 8-) I also am trying to avoid R6 discussion because it's the worst.
    Great fucking post!!!!!!!!!!
    Go Birds!!!!
  • pjhawks
    pjhawks Posts: 12,940
    Cliffy6745 wrote:
    pjhawks wrote:
    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.
  • Cliffy6745
    Cliffy6745 Posts: 34,030
    pjhawks wrote:
    Cliffy6745 wrote:
    pjhawks wrote:
    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.
  • jamminpearls
    jamminpearls Posts: 7,078
    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.
    Go Birds!!!!
  • Cliffy6745
    Cliffy6745 Posts: 34,030
    jamminpearls wrote:
    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.
  • Cliffy6745
    Cliffy6745 Posts: 34,030
    Gotta run to a meeting. It's been real.
  • pjhawks
    pjhawks Posts: 12,940
    jamminpearls wrote:
    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.
  • pjhawks
    pjhawks Posts: 12,940
    Cliffy6745 wrote:
    jamminpearls wrote:
    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.
  • jamminpearls
    jamminpearls Posts: 7,078
    Cliffy6745 wrote:
    jamminpearls wrote:
    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.
    Go Birds!!!!
  • Johnny Abruzzo
    Johnny Abruzzo Philly Posts: 12,404
    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. :lol:

    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.
    Spectrum 10/27/09; New Orleans JazzFest 5/1/10; Made in America 9/2/12; Phila, PA 10/21/13; Phila,  PA 10/22/13; Baltimore Arena 10/27/13; Phila, PA 4/28/16; Phila, PA 4/29/16; Fenway Park 8/7/16; Fenway Park 9/2/18; Asbury Park 9/18/21; Camden 9/14/22; Las Vegas 5/16/24; Las Vegas 5/18/24; Phila, PA 9/7/24; Phila, PA 9/9/24; Baltimore Arena 9/12/24; Pittsburgh 5/16/25; Pittsburgh 5/18/25

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  • The Fixer
    The Fixer Posts: 12,837
    Cliffy6745 wrote:
    Top 10 in WAR according to FanGraphs since 1900

    Babe Ruth
    Barry Bonds
    Ty Cobb
    Willie Mays
    Hank Aaron
    Tris Speaker
    Ted Williams
    Stan Musial
    Honus Wagner
    Eddie Collins

    By reading this thread I would have thought ryan howard would be in the top 5. shocked he's not on there
  • The Fixer
    The Fixer Posts: 12,837
    edited May 2011
    Cliffy6745 wrote:
    Johnny Abruzzo wrote:
    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
    Post edited by The Fixer on
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