91 replies to this topic

[MyDaughterLovesTomGordon]

The argument about whether Carl Crawford is "worth" $21m per year seems a little spent. If you can find someone who thinks the contract has any chance of being a good one, let me know, but I'll otherwise assume that we can all agree in unison that no one in his right brain would go back in time and offer that deal to Crawford again.

Let's move on.

Since his return from the DL, we've heard a lot about his elbow and its potential to explode; his new attitude toward being in Boston and letting it all roll off his back; how he felt undermined by Tito from the get go; how he seems more comfortable with Bobby V. Has this translated into something resembling the player Theo thought he was getting when he backed up the Brink's truck?

Maybe.

I'd say his numbers since his return, though a small sample, could be described as encouraging: 279/319/471. That's really pretty close to his career line: 292/333/441. His 790 OPS is actually just a little better than his career OPS of 774, trading some OBP for power. Again, it's a small sample, but this is basically the player Theo bought, right?

Extrapolated to a 162-game season, his current 18 games would look like:
172 H, 18 2B, 10 3B, 28 HR, 90 RBI, 18 BB, 136 K, 28 SB.

Obviously, there's a lot of wobble in there, when you're extending 18 games to 162, but this is his career line averaged out to 162 games:
191 H, 29 2B, 13 3B, 14 HR, 77 RBI, 37 BB, 104 K, 50 SB.

Now, his season is still so short that a couple good or bad games completely change the picture, but for the past 18 games, that's basically what we thought we were going to get, right? Wasn't it generally assumed that he'd give up some SBs and pick up some power?

Would you be happy if the CC of the past 18 games was the CC we got for the next five years? Is this what "normal" Carl Crawford can be expected to look like? Is Carl Crawford "back"?

I'm honestly not sure what my answers are to those questions. I'm so down on him that I don't feel like I can accurately describe his performance. Every strikeout seems like a fait accompli; every home run comes as a shock. But if he played 162 games at 279/319/471, I guess I'd be maybe not disgusted? I really can't decide.

[mt8thsw9th]

Tough to say. A week ago it didn't look like it, but he had a good weekend. Still, his overall line isn't awe-inspiring, so it depends what your expectations are. He's shown a couple of flashes since returning, but I'd give it a couple of weeks, or you could end up with egg on your face by misjudging a hot Carl.

Edited by mt8thsw9th, 06 August 2012 - 03:20 PM.

[Toe Nash]

After his horrific April last year he put up a .279/.309/.447 line for a .757 OPS from May on. So pretty close to what he's doing now.

I think honestly he needs to hit .300. If he picks up a couple more singles and hits .300 then his OBP is going to be around .350 (as it was for 4 of the 5 years previous to us acquiring him) and with his solid power and speed that's a good weapon. But if he's only hitting .275, OBP-ing .320, that's gonna hurt you especially if he's batting second.

[mauidano]

I say definitely getting there. Still looks awful at down and away. But far more consistent. From all accounts a great guy who works hard and really wants to do well. I believe he is motivated to finish strong this year regardless. it's personal on his part, so yeah, he's back.

[Eric Van]

The team only averaged 4.06 R/9 in those 18 games, versus 4.95 overall. (That's largely driven by the 2.17 R/9 in the 6 games where he went 2 for 22.) Adjusting for that would make the 18 game sample quite a bit better.

[tims4wins]

The team only averaged 4.06 R/9 in those 18 games, versus 4.95 overall. (That's largely driven by the 2.17 R/9 in the 6 games where he went 2 for 22.) Adjusting for that would make the 18 game sample quite a bit better.

Why would you adjust for that? Him going 2 for 22 was a big piece off them scoring only 2.17 R/9 in those games.

[Captaincoop]

The team only averaged 4.06 R/9 in those 18 games, versus 4.95 overall. (That's largely driven by the 2.17 R/9 in the 6 games where he went 2 for 22.) Adjusting for that would make the 18 game sample quite a bit better.

Once you adjust for all the runs the other team is scoring in Josh Beckett's starts, he's having an average year. Everyone should leave him alone.

[LogansDad]

I like what I see, honestly. I have felt like, from his first at-bat this year, he just looks more comfortable up there than last year. There have been multiple time when he was down 1-2 or 2-2 in the count, and laid off pitches out of the strike zone... something that he seemed to have a really hard time doing last year. It has finally been translating into success over the last few games, and I'm pretty excited to see how it plays out going forward.

[Dogman2]

Why would you adjust for that? Him going 2 for 22 was a big piece off them scoring only 2.17 R/9 in those games.

Bad luck that he wasn't given anything to hit.

Once you adjust for all the runs the other team is scoring in Josh Beckett's starts, he's having an average year. Everyone should leave him alone.

Bad Karma that he wasn't missing bats.

It's all explainable.

[Stitch01]

Quality of pitching adjustment quick and dirty Id assume.

[Rasputin]

The sample size is certainly too small to draw any significant conclusions but it looks encouraging.

[Eric Van]

Why would you adjust for that? Him going 2 for 22 was a big piece off them scoring only 2.17 R/9 in those games.

Actually, no, of course it wasn't a big piece. It was one-ninth. His teammates were the other eight-ninths.

If the entire team offense was down by 17% over these 18 games, then the safest conclusion is that they've faced pitching that was 17% better than average. That mean's Crawford's numbers are 17% lower than they would be against average pitching.

Furthermore, note that in the six games that really drove this number down, Crawford reacted worse than his teammates. IOW, in this tiny 18 game sample, CC was more sensitive to the quality of the opposition pitching than his average teammate -- he had a bigger split when you look at bad nights versus good nights for the offense in general. In this small a sample, it's never evidence, but this is at least consistent with the notion that he's a guy who feasts on bad pitching but is not particularly a stud against good pitching. Which is one of the theories that has been floated for the team's inability to do damage against closers this year, which has cost them 4 or 5 wins this year, relative to a team with our hitting stats. Not that CC could have contributed to that, of course, but if he fit this profile as well, he wouldn't be any part of a solution.

One of the reasons I raised the question as to whether the team was still saber-cutting edge after laying off all their Baseball Ops consultants after 2008 is that this was something I had looked into a little (specifically, for Drew) and had proposed doing a full analysis of. Did that analysis ever get done by someone else? If not, have they made the mistake of collecting a bunch of guys whose great numbers have been mostly compiled against lousy pitching and aren't nearly as good as you'd think they'd be, when the opposing closer is on the mound? I can't help wondering, because we have seen that happen en masse this year and we don't know whether it's luck, psychological factors, or the lineup construction.

Edited by Eric Van, 06 August 2012 - 10:01 PM.

[yecul]

I've read somewhere that it's luck.

[CaptainLaddie]

edit

Edited by CaptainLaddie, 07 August 2012 - 12:24 AM.

[SydneySox]

One of the reasons I raised the question as to whether the team was still saber-cutting edge after laying off all their Baseball Ops consultants after 2008 is that this was something I had looked into a little (specifically, for Drew) and had proposed doing a full analysis of. Did that analysis ever get done by someone else? If not, have they made the mistake of collecting a bunch of guys whose great numbers have been mostly compiled against lousy pitching and aren't nearly as good as you'd think they'd be, when the opposing closer is on the mound? I can't help wondering, because we have seen that happen en masse this year and we don't know whether it's luck, psychological factors, or the lineup construction.

So after they fired all of the baseball ops people due to the economy after 2008 and not just the shit ones, you're wondering if, when players are facing opposing closers (the -theoretically best relief pitchers on the team) their lower numbers, which we have seen with our eyes, are a result of luck, how they feel, how much sleep they get or the lineup construction? And not a result of facing better pitchers?

[Rasputin]

So after they fired all of the baseball ops people due to the economy after 2008 and not just the shit ones, you're wondering if, when players are facing opposing closers (the -theoretically best relief pitchers on the team) their lower numbers, which we have seen with our eyes, are a result of luck, how they feel, how much sleep they get or the lineup construction? And not a result of facing better pitchers?

You know, if everyone who bitched about Eric Van would respond to what he actually wrote instead of whatever fantasy they have in their head of what he might have written in an alternate universe, this universe would be a better place.

The question is whether there are hitters whose performance varies more by the quality of the opposition pitcher than normal.

Let's imagine for a moment a normal hitter hits average pitchers with a skill level of 100, and hit's the best hitters with a skill level of 90 and the worst ones with a skill level of 110. He's suggesting looking to see if there are hitters who have an average skill level of 100 but hit the best pitchers at say 70 and the worst hitters at 130.

It certainly looks that way at times but everyone hits less against better pitchers and better against lesser pitchers because that's the nature of the beast. Not to mention the normal variance in this game is ginormous. A player can have radically different stat lines based on nothing but luck and we all know this so teasing out whether that phenomenon is real would take a whole shit ton of data and not an inconsiderable amount of time.

[SydneySox]

The question is whether there are hitters whose performance varies more by the quality of the opposition pitcher than normal.

No, that was part of the question. But you conveniently ignored this part:

I can't help wondering, because we have seen that happen en masse this year and we don't know whether it's luck, psychological factors, or the lineup construction.

So maybe...

You know, if everyone who bitched about Eric Van would respond to what he actually wrote instead of whatever fantasy they have in their head of what he might have written in an alternate universe, this universe would be a better place.

... You should help the universe and respond to what he actually wrote instead of whatever fantasy you have in your head of what he might have written in an alternative universe.

[Eric Van]

No, that was part of the question. But you conveniently ignored this part:

He didn't ignore that part at all. I said (in a thread I started on the topic that has had a lot of intelligent discussion and no clueless bitching) that the observed difficulty of the Sox hitting closers, relative to the quality of hitters on the team, has got to be some combination of bad luck, pressing psychologically, and a lineup prone to doing that. We don't even know whether there's such a thing as a lineup prone to doing that out. The current results simply make me wonder whether the Sox ever figured that (not suspect, just wonder). Note that if you did that study for hitters, you'd probably also do that study for pitchers, and if they had, I don't think there's any chance they trade for Mark Melancon.

The Melancon trade is evidence that they either have never studied pitching performance by quality of opposition, or ignored the results when they did, but probably the former. The inability to hit closers is not evidence that they've never done the same study for hitters, but it is consistent with their never having done the study.

Oh, BTW, I loved the "how much sleep they got" dig, particularly hilarious given that it was the Varitek study, dead on ("he's the first guy in bed on a road trip" -- Theo), that so impressed JWH that he personally recruited me.

[Adrian's Dome]

He didn't ignore that part at all. I said (in a thread I started on the topic that has had a lot of intelligent discussion and no clueless bitching) that the observed difficulty of the Sox hitting closers, relative to the quality of hitters on the team, has got to be some combination of bad luck, pressing psychologically, and a lineup prone to doing that. We don't even know whether there's such a thing as a lineup prone to doing that out. The current results simply make me wonder whether the Sox ever figured that (not suspect, just wonder). Note that if you did that study for hitters, you'd probably also do that study for pitchers, and if they had, I don't think there's any chance they trade for Mark Melancon.

The Melancon trade is evidence that they either have never studied pitching performance by quality of opposition, or ignored the results when they did, but probably the former. The inability to hit closers is not evidence that they've never done the same study for hitters, but it is consistent with their never having done the study.

Oh, BTW, I loved the "how much sleep they got" dig, particularly hilarious given that it was the Varitek study, dead on ("he's the first guy in bed on a road trip" -- Theo), that so impressed JWH that he personally recruited me.

Translated: I will spin my bullshit with any kind of bullshit I can to make it not seem like a big steaming pile of complete and utter bullshit.

Seriously, what the fuck are you saying? If you're attributing the performance of certain players on the team to nothing but luck, psychological pressing, and lineup construction then you're grasping at the thinnest of straws possible.

I, amongst millions of other people, would love to have real, quantifiable reasons to explain why certain players don't perform the way they should. Sometimes, though, we need to accept the fact that we don't know why a career .290 hitter is hitting .255. It could be one of a million different reasons. It could be simple, it could be complicated. We don't know. What would make us look like assholes, however, is trying to act like we DO know.

[Eric Van]

Furthermore, note that in the six games that really drove this number down, Crawford reacted worse than his teammates. IOW, in this tiny 18 game sample, CC was more sensitive to the quality of the opposition pitching than his average teammate -- he had a bigger split when you look at bad nights versus good nights for the offense in general. In this small a sample, it's never evidence, but this is at least consistent with the notion that he's a guy who feasts on bad pitching but is not particularly a stud against good pitching.

In his career, he has:

-- A terrible ninth inning split (57 tOPS, i.e., OPS relative to his own overall numbers; the AL this year is 85)
-- A much bigger ahead in game / behind in game split than usual (113 vs 86 tOPS, whereas the AL this year is 102 vs. 103)
-- A big power (85 tOPS) vs. finesse (112 tOPS) split (again the league is essentially neutral, 103 vs. 100)
-- And mildly bigger ahead in count versus behind splits.

So, yeah, he absolutely seems to be a guy with a bigger crap pitching / elite pitching split than the average player. However, since elite pitchers tend to neutralize the differences between great hitters and weak ones (the Enrique Wilson effect), while bad pitchers often can get weak hitters out but get killed by elite hitters, I think this pattern is true of all good hitters. Ortiz and Gonzalez have it as well -- but not nearly to the same degree. Pedroia has it, but just barely.

[Eric Van]

Translated: I will spin my bullshit with any kind of bullshit I can to make it not seem like a big steaming pile of complete and utter bullshit.

Seriously, what the fuck are you saying? If you're attributing the performance of certain players on the team to nothing but luck, psychological pressing, and lineup construction then you're grasping at the thinnest of straws possible.

I, amongst millions of other people, would love to have real, quantifiable reasons to explain why certain players don't perform the way they should. Sometimes, though, we need to accept the fact that we don't know why a career .290 hitter is hitting .255. It could be one of a million different reasons. It could be simple, it could be complicated. We don't know. What would make us look like assholes, however, is trying to act like we DO know.

Translated: I didn't begin to understand what you're talking about, so I assume its bullshit.

Try reading the thread on the lack of comebacks and/or completing a ninth grade education.

The entire team has failed to hit opposing closers in a dramatic fashion for hitters as good as they are, to a large enough degree that you could blame missing the playoffs on it alone.

This might be because the team is composed of guys who, more than usually, struggle against elite pitching.

It might be because the team has been subpar psychologically when they're down in the 9th: pressing, or everyone trying to be the hero, whatever.

Or it might just be bad luck. Maybe they just haven't run into their share of off nights by closers. Maybe they've actually hit the ball just as hard as always when they're down 2 runs in the 9th, but all season long it's been line drives right at people. Whatever. Luck.

(It might well be all of these things, to various degrees).

There isn't a fourth possibility that I could think of, nor did anyone else think of one in the thread discussing it. Can you think of any of the other 999,997 supposed reasons, that don't in fact fall under one of these? Either the team as constructed is always prone to do this, they're not prone to do this but this year they are really doing it anyway, or they're not actually doing it, they just seem to be. You can divide the observed effect into those three things. There isn't a fourth thing.

This isn't "grasping at straws." It's "exhausting the possibilities."

[MHead81]

Translated: I will spin my bullshit with any kind of bullshit I can to make it not seem like a big steaming pile of complete and utter bullshit.

Seriously, what the fuck are you saying? If you're attributing the performance of certain players on the team to nothing but luck, psychological pressing, and lineup construction then you're grasping at the thinnest of straws possible.

I, amongst millions of other people, would love to have real, quantifiable reasons to explain why certain players don't perform the way they should. Sometimes, though, we need to accept the fact that we don't know why a career .290 hitter is hitting .255. It could be one of a million different reasons. It could be simple, it could be complicated. We don't know. What would make us look like assholes, however, is trying to act like we DO know.

In regards to what would make "us" look like assholes, I would argue that you have done a great job doing just that with your insightful post.

EV is not saying he "knows" any of these things to be true; he is trying to come up with some reasoning behind the problems. I guess I'd prefer your idea that "sometimes we need to accept the fact that we don't know why a career .290 hitter is hitting .255." I'm sure your logic is the logic that a smart front office would use. (However, if you want to make the case that this current front office is using that kind of logic, well, that's a different story.)

I don't have a different idea of my own but have been enjoying reading the discussions in both threads.

[JMDurron]

I think the biggest problem in the past 10 posts in this thread is that EV said "lineup construction", which translates as "the order in which the batters in the lineup are placed" to 99% of us, when he meant "roster construction with regards to position players", or "lineup prone to doing that." That opened the door for interpreting the list as 3 intangible or generally minimally relevant factors, as opposed to one huge factor (roster construction) and two intangible factors (luck, psychology).

Language matters, particularly when one is highly likely to be selectively interpreted due to popularity issues to begin with, and might be prone to responding condescendingly to such misinterpretations.

[Buffalo Head]

Oh, BTW, I loved the "how much sleep they got" dig, particularly hilarious given that it was the Varitek study, dead on ("he's the first guy in bed on a road trip" -- Theo), that so impressed JWH that he personally recruited me.

What impressed them so much that they fired you?

Edited by Buffalo Head, 07 August 2012 - 07:58 AM.

[absintheofmalaise]

Everyone in here needs to cut out the one liners and smart ass remarks. If you want to go after the posts do so. If all you're going to do is attack the poster send him a PM.

EV - You need to cut out the self serving crap about cutting edge saber analysis. All it does is invite this sort of stuff. Just post your analysis, quit attacking people and move on.

[Toe Nash]

It seems possible that Crawford's skill set and weaknesses could lend itself to being more vulnerable to pitchers who can exploit those weaknesses. Specifically, it seems that he tends to chase bad pitches, particularly breaking balls down in the zone (or out of the zone). So it would make sense that pitchers with better breaking pitches and better control can exploit this weakness more regularly than other pitchers.

As others have noted though, it's difficult to tease this out in comparison to other players, because pretty much everyone is apt to chase a nasty breaking pitch with two strikes and if you have that pitch you're probably going to use it a lot to get guys out (which is why you're a good pitcher).

[nvalvo]

It seems possible that Crawford's skill set and weaknesses could lend itself to being more vulnerable to pitchers who can exploit those weaknesses. Specifically, it seems that he tends to chase bad pitches, particularly breaking balls down in the zone (or out of the zone). So it would make sense that pitchers with better breaking pitches and better control can exploit this weakness more regularly than other pitchers.

As others have noted though, it's difficult to tease this out in comparison to other players, because pretty much everyone is apt to chase a nasty breaking pitch with two strikes and if you have that pitch you're probably going to use it a lot to get guys out (which is why you're a good pitcher).

But doesn't this precisely describe Yu Darvish? Crawford K'd in the first against Darvish last night with a bunch of slurvey slider-ish pitches with different breaks and speeds, but came up again in the third and did a great job staying back on a first-pitch slider, hitting it for an RBI double.

[Alcohol&Overcalls]

But doesn't this precisely describe Yu Darvish?

The slider part, yes - Darvish's slider is outrageously successful per Fangraphs. Control, not so much - walking nearly 5 per 9.

Either way - we shouldn't extrapolate too much from one pitch/swing as far as long-term trends, but it's definitely good to see that kind of adjustment, as well as solid approach/results from the guy.

[nvalvo]

The slider part, yes - Darvish's slider is outrageously successful per Fangraphs. Control, not so much - walking nearly 5 per 9.

Either way - we shouldn't extrapolate too much from one pitch/swing as far as long-term trends, but it's definitely good to see that kind of adjustment, as well as solid approach/results from the guy.

Right. Darvish has been pretty wild.

And I totally agree that small samples can mislead, but we're trying to determine, in this thread, whether or not Crawford is "back." What we know is that he's played about 20 games this season, and put up a .825 OPS.

He started off with a good series against Chicago, before scuffling badly against Toronto and Texas, at which point he bottomed out with a gruesome sub-.500 OPS. Since then, he's done nothing but rake, reaching safely in 9 games out of 10, and notching eight XBH in 43 PA. I haven't seen every game, but while many of his early hits looked like BABIP luck, he's seemed to me to be squaring up the ball quite well recently.

These are all small samples, so we're looking for hints. I was struck with the adjustment he made against Darvish, which made me think he was seeing breaking pitches to the outside half of the plate better than he did last year. If he's actually improved that aspect of his approach, I'd say we have reason for optimism.

edit: grammar

Edited by nvalvo, 07 August 2012 - 05:17 PM.

[E5 Yaz]

Pete Abraham ‏@PeteAbe
Crawford came out a little early becaue his wrist was bothering him. "Little thing," Bobby V said. "I hope."

[crystalline]

You know, if everyone who bitched about Eric Van would respond to what he actually wrote instead of whatever fantasy they have in their head of what he might have written in an alternate universe, this universe would be a better place.
The question is whether there are hitters whose performance varies more by the quality of the opposition pitcher than normal.

If you'd like to determine if a hitter depends more on the quality of the opposing pitcher, you should use a proper measure to assess the quality of the opposing pitcher. In particular, you should not use RS/game, which is fairly strongly _correlated with the hitter's performance_ (100/9% correlated on average in fact).
I'm pretty sure that's what the first responses were about.

As for the general question-- I assume the RS have examined hitter performance not just against quality of pitching but even more specifically against pitchers with certain repertoires - i.e. does Drew hit guys with plus fastballs well? With plus sliders? etc. I also would be shocked if they have not examined whether certain players are more variable over time (streaky). These all seem more likely to be informative than whether certain players hit better against closers, because at first thought it seems this should fall out of 'close and late' performance, which we know is basically random - there are no players with strong repeatable 'clutch' skills. And so I doubt that there are players with strong repeatable 'hit better against closers' or even 'hit worse against closers' skills because you'd see them fall out of the clutch analysis.

And on the thread topic - I've seen some decent at-bats by Crawford but I've also seen some bad at-bats recently where he flailed at breaking stuff way out below the zone. I think Theo expected he had reached a new level at the plate (135 OPS+ in 2010) and he'd hit above his career level here. But at this point yes MLDTG - I'd say 'satisfied' if he gives us his career OPS+ (~110, .800 OPS) for the life of his contract.

[Eric Van]

If you'd like to determine if a hitter depends more on the quality of the opposing pitcher, you should use a proper measure to assess the quality of the opposing pitcher. In particular, you should not use RS/game, which is fairly strongly _correlated with the hitter's performance_ (100/9% correlated on average in fact).
I'm pretty sure that's what the first responses were about.

In a stretch of N games where the team scores well above or below their average RS/G, it's obviously a combination of how well the pitchers were pitching and how well the hitters were hitting. However, I don't buy that an entire lineup of 9 guys can all slump together so badly that they average 2.2 R/G over 6 games, against average pitching. It seems to me much more likely that most of the struggles were because you ran into a good sequence of pitchers. Imagine a nine game sequence for convenience's sake: the range of pitching performances you run into over those 9 games is, I think, much larger than the range of hitter hotness / coldness in the 9 hitters in the lineup. Most guys at any one time do not appear to be either hot or cold; I think typically there's only one or two guys you can point at as being noticeably one way or the other.But over a 9 game stretch there's way more than 1 or 2 pitchers who were noticeably other than average.

All of this, though, is admittedly gut feeling. And I think that if a team goes 6 games averaging 2.2 RS/G, or 18 games averaging 4.1, or any other set of games where they score more or less than usual without a change in personnel, it's probably 80% - 90% the pitching they faced and 10% - 20% the team being hot or cold together. But that's a guess, and it would be a great (and challenging) study to try to nail this down
.

As for the general question-- I assume the RS have examined hitter performance not just against quality of pitching but even more specifically against pitchers with certain repertoires - i.e. does Drew hit guys with plus fastballs well? With plus sliders? etc. I also would be shocked if they have not examined whether certain players are more variable over time (streaky).

I wouldn't make any of those assumptions, in terms of hard-core sabermetric analyses as opposed to from a scouting perspective. I think there's a pretty good chance they've had Bill James look at these and similar questions, but Bill's methodology, while often producing unique insights that no regression analysis could yield, doesn't tend to produce best-guess estimates for the proposed traits. For instance: "whether certain players are more variable over time (streaky)" -- Bill would answer that and he'd give you a group of players who collectively could be shown to be streakier than average and a second group who collectively could be shown to be steadier than average, but he would not give you a sorted list from streakiest to steadiest, with some number next to each name representing the trait. I think anyone who has ever read both a Bill James Annual and some conventional recent sabermetrics should get that difference.

And the reason I wouldn't make that assumption is that laying off all the Baseball Ops consultants at the end of '08 made no sense from a business perspective. If you thought they added any value at all, anything more than zero, then they were one of the best bargains in the organization. What they paid a guy like me would buy them a tiny fraction of 1 run on the FA market. If each consultant saved them just 1 run a year, we were obviously collectively worth our money. If you are looking to cut costs, fine, but you simply do not cut costs that essentially more than pay for themselves in revenue. It's insane.

So it seems to me that whoever ordered this purge (and I have always assumed it was LL) simply believed the Baseball Ops consultants were worthless, and was using the economic downturn as an excuse to can us all, as a way of winning a round in his perpetual battle with Theo. I can imagine LL thinking that if they were paying BJ 6 figures and he was the best in the game, then there was nothing extra the rest of us could add. I know that Baseball Ops objected, and I got the sense it was pretty violently.

And if that's what LL believed then, why would he believe anything differently now?

These all seem more likely to be informative than whether certain players hit better against closers, because at first thought it seems this should fall out of 'close and late' performance, which we know is basically random - there are no players with strong repeatable 'clutch' skills. And so I doubt that there are players with strong repeatable 'hit better against closers' or even 'hit worse against closers' skills because you'd see them fall out of the clutch analysis.

Yeah, I was using 'closer' just as a proxy for a certain type of elite pitcher. In any case, I now think the lack of comebacks is much more psychological and that roster construction is probably only a small factor, if at all.

Actually, BTW, both Tango and BP found that about 10% of overall clutch differential was predictive. I found the same thing for Pyth differential.

[Eric Van]

What impressed them so much that they fired you?

As I've said, ownership (and I'm fairly certain it was LL) ordered Baseball Ops, over their strenuous objections, to lay off me and every other consultant ( I was told something like "it's not just you, it's a bunch of other guys, believe me" -- this in a very aggrieved tone of voice). I don't know how impressed they were with me, but I've said a few times that I parted on great terms with them, and you might think about what that might mean if it refers to some objective fact.

EV - You need to cut out the self serving crap about cutting edge saber analysis. All it does is invite this sort of stuff. Just post your analysis, quit attacking people and move on.

It's really not intended to be self-serving; I'm trying to gradually spill the beans about what really seems to me to be a never-reported serious story, and one that undermines their reputation as a cutting-edge sabermetric team. I think there is a serious possibility that that's become at least somewhat of a fiction.

Let me go on record as saying I believe I influenced precisely one player personnel move, and that was signing Carlos Pena for 37 whole PA (and they didn't ask or tell me before cutting him that winter). I think I helped them score a run here and there by giving good lineup advice, e.g., I seemed to have really figured out who Alex Cora and Doug Mirabelli could hit. But I was a decidedly small, mildly helpful piece. (The major studies I might have done had I stayed on had the potential to be much more valuable.) The question I'm raising is why you would let go a handful or two of such mildly helpful pieces when by the standards of player salaries we were essentially free. We may have only been worth 1 or 2 wins a year among us all, but you'd pay 4 to 8 million on the FA market to get those wins, and they were paying us what they would later pay John Lackey to scratch his balls twice. The only answer I can think of is that LL thought we were worthless. I mean, he's not a stupid businessperson; he knows how to do a cost / benefit analysis. And if he thought we were no benefit (and it has to be none because the cost was so low), I just can't square that with the team being on the sabermetric cutting-edge. At about this point in time, for instance, the Rays were hiring guys like Josh Kalk, not letting guys go.

Edited by Eric Van, 13 August 2012 - 03:09 AM.

[AB in DC]

It's really not intended to be self-serving; I'm trying to gradually spill the beans about what really seems to me to be a never-reported serious story, and one that undermines their reputation as a cutting-edge sabermetric team. I think there is a serious possibility that that's become at least somewhat of a fiction.

That's all well and good, but could you please keep that story in its own thread? Thanks.

[Smiling Joe Hesketh]

That's all well and good, but could you please keep that story in its own thread? Thanks.

Seconded. Maybe we'll just have a Van Affirmation/Job History thread, and we'll chat about Crawford here.

[TomRicardo]

Seconded. Maybe we'll just have a Van Affirmation/Job History thread, and we'll chat about Crawford here.

If only we knew a mod who could break that out and it the thread it so richly deserves.

So now we are excited about paying 21 million dollars for a left fielder with the line .280/.306/.505? Awful. I wish we shipped Crawford off while someone was talking themselves into it.

[Smiling Joe Hesketh]

.505 would be the highest slugging percentage of his career.

[Smiling Joe Hesketh]

Add Carl to the list of players now annoyed by Valentine's incessant yap:

Valentine tried to temper the situation by saying the wrist is not a big issue and that Crawford was taken out for precautionary reasons so the “minor issue” would not become a major issue.


Crawford seemed annoyed that his manager volunteered the news to the media. “He did?’’ said Crawford. “What did he say?”


When told what Valentine said, Crawford acknowledged, “Yes, it was a little sore today.”


Asked whether it was a concern, Crawford said, “Maybe it’s a concern to him since he brought it up to you guys.”

[lexrageorge]

Add Carl to the list of players now annoyed by Valentine's incessant yap:

Add me to the list of people that are getting annoyed by Crawford's constant whining about every little, insignificant, perceived "slight". At least he's consistent, however.

[CaptainLaddie]

I'd rather have the guy who gets paid $21M a year not be pissed off than the guy who pisses everyone not off be pissed off. Flawless Bobby V needs to be run out of town.

[TomRicardo]

I think they were both mistakes.

[lexrageorge]

I'd rather have the guy who gets paid $21M a year not be pissed off than the guy who pisses everyone not off be pissed off. Flawless Bobby V needs to be run out of town.

Except Crawford was pissed off at Francona as well. It's unlikely Crawford will ever "not be pissed off".

[Savin Hillbilly]

I think they were both mistakes.

Agreed, but the Bobby mistake is a lot easier to undo.

[MyDaughterLovesTomGordon]

Jiminy F Cricket. Have the Sox done away with their entire media relations department? Do these guys get zero training on handling the media? It's like they're throwing chum off the back of the boat and then jumping in for a swim.

Can't anyone put their heads together before chatting up the media to make sure stories are straight? Can't anyone shrug something off, even if they're pissed, and then address it behind closed doors?

The locker room is like a high school cafeteria and the media are the mean girls.

[TheShynessClinic]

Jiminy F Cricket. Have the Sox done away with their entire media relations department? Do these guys get zero training on handling the media? It's like they're throwing chum off the back of the boat and then jumping in for a swim.

Can't anyone put their heads together before chatting up the media to make sure stories are straight? Can't anyone shrug something off, even if they're pissed, and then address it behind closed doors?

The locker room is like a high school cafeteria and the media are the mean girls.

[SydneySox]

Jiminy F Cricket. Have the Sox done away with their entire media relations department? Do these guys get zero training on handling the media? It's like they're throwing chum off the back of the boat and then jumping in for a swim.

Can't anyone put their heads together before chatting up the media to make sure stories are straight? Can't anyone shrug something off, even if they're pissed, and then address it behind closed doors?

The locker room is like a high school cafeteria and the media are the mean girls.

There's nothing you can do for people like Bobby Valentine - Bobby V thinks he knows everything. The day he took media training or key messages advice from a member of the media staff would be a first.

Which is why we keep ending up with these little offhand 'jokes' he makes that he quips without thinking and assumes everyone will just let slide... except they won't because it's great info. And he doesn't know what is a good quote or a bad quote.

It was the primary criticism of him coming into the season for me and for a few others; namely that he might have ok baseball sense - but we couldn't really know if his decade away from MLB would keep him current - but he was a polarising figure who generated conflict.

And we've seen how that plays out; Youk is (rightly or wrongly, that's another thread) gone... Crawford's stuck here but every day it gets worse. I'm not absolving CC of blame but when you have are of the view, as I am, that a managers primary role is a people manager who really only has to worry abotu bullpen use in-game, it's his fault when he can't manage his players.

[lexrageorge]

There's nothing you can do for people like Bobby Valentine - Bobby V thinks he knows everything. The day he took media training or key messages advice from a member of the media staff would be a first.

Which is why we keep ending up with these little offhand 'jokes' he makes that he quips without thinking and assumes everyone will just let slide... except they won't because it's great info. And he doesn't know what is a good quote or a bad quote.

It was the primary criticism of him coming into the season for me and for a few others; namely that he might have ok baseball sense - but we couldn't really know if his decade away from MLB would keep him current - but he was a polarising figure who generated conflict.

And we've seen how that plays out; Youk is (rightly or wrongly, that's another thread) gone... Crawford's stuck here but every day it gets worse. I'm not absolving CC of blame but when you have are of the view, as I am, that a managers primary role is a people manager who really only has to worry abotu bullpen use in-game, it's his fault when he can't manage his players.

So far, all we have to go on is one poster's view of an excerpt of one reporters view of a partial interview with Crawford. That's not a lot to go on to judge the Valentine/Crawford relationship. Also, I'm curious why you think the Crawford situation is "getting worse every day". He's started to put up half-decent numbers in the last couple of weeks (nowhere near his $20M, but that sunk cost is a whole different thread).

[SydneySox]

I'm sorry if it wasn't clear to you that my entire post was referring to clubhouse issues and not on field performance. Except for when I said 'stuck with' which is in reference to Youk who we traded because a) we could and b) he was (probably) gone anyway.

Also when you "quote" someone you're usually supposed to actually quote them instead of changing the words around and putting quote tags on them.

This is what the direct quotes of Bobby and Carl - not "one poster's view of an excerpt of one reporters view" - are that build on every other direct quote by Bobby Valentine about a player in which his player is then quoted as being surprised to learn his manager - the guy who's supposed to be his leader - has said about them.

[Van Everyman]

Also, I'm curious why you think the Crawford situation is "getting worse every day".

Because he's looking for something to complain about.

Honestly, I'm not sure I read anything more into that comment than, "Yeah, Bobby is worried about my health." Especially since Bobby and CC seem to get along. But why ruin a perfectly good bitchfest?

Edited by Van Everyman, 13 August 2012 - 07:58 PM.

[SydneySox]

... Especially when you can add to it.

Curious - why do you say CC and Bobby seem to get along? Seems contrary to the constant wrist/surgery timetable refrain we're hearing about.