Batted Ball Profiles and What They Tell Us-- Part 3
by PaulThomas on Dec 31, 2007 12:46 PM PST
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Now that Marco's gone it's harder, but maybe Clutchmasters.com can kick you a little somethin-somethin for the Jack Cust Award.
As for Meineke, specializing in mufflers, I believe a certain South Side Chicago manager is in desperate need of their services.
by FreeSeatUpgrade on Dec 31, 2007 12:50 PM PST reply actions
Tony Gwynn Memorial, etc?
You aren't supposed to name something "Memorial" unless the guy is dead ...
He's dead to me
after his announcing performance in the playoffs...
Actually, I just used the term to denote "retired."
It's okay to imply that Tony Gwynn, et al
are dead, by completely misusing the term "memorial" but not to use fundamentals in a commonly understood, though not entirely correct manner?
I'm sure I've seen "memorial" used to refer
to non-dead (but presumably retired) people before...
If anything, it's probably the same phenomenon as in the other thread-- interpreting a word's meaning literally. Or, as many would argue, over-literally.
Eh. I'll just edit it out. It looks kind of silly to me too. At least it gave me a chance to crack a cheap joke...
He was terrible, wasn't he?
All these years, all these lovingly relayed sportswriter anecdotes about what a brilliant, incisive student of the game the guy is, about the hours upon hours spent immersed in videotape, about how you'd learn more about pitch sequences and hitting mechanics standing next him for five minutes at BP than you could ever hope to absorb in twenty lifetimes ... after all that, he gets into the broadcast booth, and it's nothing but a squeaky voice stammering platitudes and banal repetitions of action ("you see how he hit the ball to the right side there, and ended up at first base").
Also: Excellent diary series, though I have, sorry to say, nothing of substance to contribute to the discussion (unless unhinged Tony Gwynn hostility counts as "substantive").
With Swisher, I wonder if one side of the plate
was that much worse than the other, it seemed he struggled this year as a leftie. I wonder if the shoulder problems he had affected his left handed swing more than his right, because he was a lot closer in OBP, and SLG, from both sides in other yeats.
Shoulder problems?
This is the first I've heard of him having shoulder problems.
Would it surprise you?
I mean really? Brilliant diary by the way. I really love this stuff.
I'd be interested...
in seeing the batted ball profile of Jason Kendall, just to see that GB% and Infield Fly Ball% he had. I'm sure he would take the cake in those two categories and isolated slugging and set every benchmark for this team - in a very negative way.
I don't think the team should consider re-signing Shannon Stewart. With Buck, Kotsay, Denorfia, Cust, Swisher and DJ slated for the OF/DH spots, Oakland will not have the roster space to add another defensively limited outfielder to the mix, no matter how much of a "known quantity" he is. I'd rather see Putnam and/or Robnett be given at bats in place of Stewart, especially in a losing season.
Further, it would be really interesting to do a near-reverse study of these numbers to see which pitchers on the A's staff limit line drives, induce ground balls and pop-ups and keep the ball in the park. I guess we have an idea as to those numbers just by rate stats, but a more in-depth analysis would be interesting...not that I'm trying to goad you into more work or anything!
Really appreciate the whole series. well done!
Kendall's stats:
LD 18.5%
GB 43.9%
OFB 34.3%
IFB 3.3%
HR/FB 1.9%
BABIP .261
OCSlg .340
Kendall is about the best example I can come up with for why ground balls and fly balls can each be more valuable for different players. This year he added 12% of fly balls, losing 5% off his LD rate and 7% off his GB rate. That many fly balls from a guy with his HR/FB ratio basically poleaxed his batting average.
On Stewart-- I'd rather keep him than Kotsay. $4.5 million worth of rather? Not sure about that.
I'm considering doing a reverse series for pitchers; we'll have to see if I have time.
With the way outfielders can play Kendall
anything in the air that's 15 feet onto the OF grass will end up as a "fly-ball".
Kendall probably loses a lot of
potential ground balls because OFers can play him in front of the mound and catch a lot of those balls in the air.
Absolutely terrific, Paul
I thoroughly enjoyed all three parts.
On a completely unrelated note, do you or any other ANers happen to know what happened to Jose Garcia, the Marlins guy that we added to our 40-man, then had to release from the 40-man? Were we able to get him trough waivers and to Sacramento, like we were with Jay Marshall...or he solemnly roaming free somewhere?
I haven't seen an article with his name in it since we DFA'd him.
Even hurt, I thought he had some very interesting upside down the road.
BB's new strategy...
claim bargains off of "trough waivers," players you pay for by the pound.
He's now a free agent
He was not tendered a contract at the deadline. I'm guessing that the A's want to resign him for a minor league deal, but he wants to see if he can get onto someone's 40-man roster. But that's pure speculation on my part.
Very likely true
Do teams have a ceiling of what they're allowed to pay players signed to minor league contracts? I'd assume they probably do, in order to prevent teams from having a de facto "41st man" in the system whom they sign to a minor-league deal for a guaranteed ~$500,000.
I'm familiar with the concept of split contracts, and also with structuring deals like Sammy Sosa's with Texas last year, where you bring a guy to camp as an NRI but offer him an incentive-based contract if he makes the big club out of spring. But neither of those scenarios would apply to Jose Garcia, because if he needs surgery, he won't be playing on a major league roster in '08 anyway.
My point is, what can the A's offer him in terms of "incentive" to sign? Are they allowed to offer a minor league player a bonus...or do all minor league players w/o major league deals make the same amount of money as everybody else at their level?
Because if the A's can't offer him any incentives, and the rest of the league was offering him minor-league deals anyway, it seems like he'd just re-sign closer to home, perhaps even with Florida again.
by notsellingjeans on Jan 2, 2008 12:45 AM PST up reply actions
I don't think there's a MiLB contract ceiling...
Roger Clemens was technically signed to a minor league contract last season-- albeit one that paid him at a rate of $27 million for a full season...
Maybe it was some kind of split contract, but I was under the definite impression that he was getting paid for his minor league "buildup" starts at the full rate.
Garcia already had surgery; theoretically he was in the process of rehabbing from TJS when the A's picked him up (and further along in the same process when they let him go). People were theorizing that he must have had a setback of some kind. Where that leaves him right now... who knows?
I don't see how that gets you a 41st man
He still has to be moved to the 40-man before he can play in the bigs, so where's the gain?
If you're saying that a rich team can protect any guy being optioned down to AAA by making his salary so high that no other team would want to take it on, well, yeah, I think teams can do that right now. But why would anyone do that on purpose? I mean, if we give Dana Eveland a start in Oakland and then want to send him back to Sacramento without having him claimed off waivers, all we have to do is sign him to a Zito-priced contract, and then no one will touch him, right?
As for Jose Garcia, wouldn't he go straight to the 60-day DL? Same as Denorfia last year, so he doesn't take up a roster spot.
Or maybe I'm just not understanding you.
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