Ichiro Wins 10th Gold Glove

[JoltinJoe]

This is my "favorite" of all the extrapolated, new-fangled stats. So 31 shortstops in baseball "saved" more runs than Jeter?

Ok, prove it? When did those runs score?

Says the man who still hasn't accepted ERA as an important tool in evaluating a pitcher.

When did I say that?

But don't change the subject. The question was when did those runs score? Jeter was a so-called -13 in runs saved. Identify when each and every one of those runs scored. Thank you in advance.

[GannonFan]

Says the man who still hasn't accepted ERA as an important tool in evaluating a pitcher.

When did I say that?

But don't change the subject. The question was when did those runs score? Jeter was a so-called -13 in runs saved. Identify when each and every one of those runs scored. Thank you in advance.

Oh come on, you railed on and on about how Sabbathia should've won the Cy Young because W's are the most important measuring stick of a pitcher. You're like the Al Davis of stats.

[clenz]

This is my "favorite" of all the extrapolated, new-fangled stats. So 31 shortstops in baseball "saved" more runs than Jeter?

Ok, prove it? When did those runs score?

Says the man who still hasn't accepted ERA as an important tool in evaluating a pitcher.

I agree with Joe on this one.

The ERA thing he is wrong on, but "runs saved" as a short stop? I don't understand how that would be calculated?

I guess if someone can link me to how it works, I might change my opinion, but right now no

[dbackjon]

Says the man who still hasn't accepted ERA as an important tool in evaluating a pitcher.

I agree with Joe on this one.

The ERA thing he is wrong on, but "runs saved" as a short stop? I don't understand how that would be calculated?

I guess if someone can link me to how it works, I might change my opinion, but right now no

http://www.google.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;






















http://www.sabernomics.com/sabernomics/ ... xcerpt.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[dbackjon]

Note - based on that link, Derek Jeter, over the three year period 2006-8, was the worst in the league in the runs saved

[clenz]

I agree with Joe on this one.

The ERA thing he is wrong on, but "runs saved" as a short stop? I don't understand how that would be calculated?

I guess if someone can link me to how it works, I might change my opinion, but right now no

http://www.google.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;






















http://www.sabernomics.com/sabernomics/ ... xcerpt.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

You know I'm lazy.


Seriously though, i don't care enough to go looking on my own, but if it is linked I'll look at it.

[JoltinJoe]

When did I say that?

But don't change the subject. The question was when did those runs score? Jeter was a so-called -13 in runs saved. Identify when each and every one of those runs scored. Thank you in advance.

Oh come on, you railed on and on about how Sabbathia should've won the Cy Young because W's are the most important measuring stick of a pitcher. You're like the Al Davis of stats.

What I said was that Sabathia's 7 or 8 more wins more than make up for any difference in ERA between him and Hernandez. See that big "W" column in the standings? Get it?

[JoltinJoe]

Note - based on that link, Derek Jeter, over the three year period 2006-8, was the worst in the league in the runs saved

A completely useless stat ... The most remarkable thing about "runs saved" is that it is a extrapolated measurement which itself is derived from an another extrapolation.

People who buy into these defensive stats really have no clue about how defense is played on a serious level. Defense in baseball is a team concept and it starts with the pitch selection and location -- because that impacts on positioning. Let's say the location is inside with a fastball with the intent that the batter is going to need to turn his wrists quickly in order to make contact. A SS in that situation is likely to move toward the hole as the pitch is delivered, anticipating that the batter will need to get out in front of the ball in order to get it into play.

Instead the pitchers misses fairly badly and the ball is several inches off the mark, now more over the center of the plate. The batter is able to drive the ball to the left of the SS. Base hit, because the SS was shading to his right, expecting his pitcher to hit his spot. But this is a ball in the SS "zone" which went unplayed according to the zone rating geek.

You know why pitchers with excellent command get better defense behind them? Because the fielders can anticipate the pitcher htting his spot, and the TEAM is rewarded by the fielder frequently anticipating correctly and positioning himself to have a better chance to make the play.

[Gil Dobie]

Worst in the league in the runs saved, 1 of 3 starting shortstops to get a World Championship Ring.

[BlueHen86]

Worst in the league in the runs saved, 1 of 3 starting shortstops to get a World Championship Ring.

[Gil Dobie]

Worst in the league in the runs saved, 1 of 3 starting shortstops to get a World Championship Ring.

Jeter was worst in the league in runs saved the last 3 years from Jon's quote above, and was 1 of 3 shortstops on a World Series Champion in the last 3 years.

[BlueHen86]

Jeter was worst in the league in runs saved the last 3 years from Jon's quote above, and was 1 of 3 shortstops on a World Series Champion in the last 3 years.

Okay, thanks. I wasn't sure who you were responding to.

[Silenoz]

He was 32 out of 36 major league shortstops in the "runs saved" category this year.

And I'm not a Jeter hater - he's a first ballot HOF'er, one of the game's best clutch hitters in history, and the main cog in winning 4 WS titles. He's an all-timer. With that said, that doesn't mean he's perfect, and he's never been a great defensive shortstop. It doesn't take away from all the other things that makes him great.

As Andy eluded to, that can be attested to the fact that his range has reduced with age, but if he can field the ball he is still one of the most reliable. Choose your poison, I guess....a shortstop with greater range but more errors and a lower fielding percentage, or a shortstop with less range buy practically nil errors and a much higher fielding percentage.

My point though was only to argue dbj's post about Jeter. I'm not saying he is the best or perfect, only that it's not like the award was granted to a SS with 20 errors and fielding percentage 15 points lower.

Jeter has never had range. That's why he has so many Web Gems every year, he has to dive at routine balls

[Silenoz]

Note - based on that link, Derek Jeter, over the three year period 2006-8, was the worst in the league in the runs saved

A completely useless stat ... The most remarkable thing about "runs saved" is that it is a extrapolated measurement which itself is derived from an another extrapolation.

People who buy into these defensive stats really have no clue about how defense is played on a serious level. Defense in baseball is a team concept and it starts with the pitch selection and location -- because that impacts on positioning. Let's say the location is inside with a fastball with the intent that the batter is going to need to turn his wrists quickly in order to make contact. A SS in that situation is likely to move toward the hole as the pitch is delivered, anticipating that the batter will need to get out in front of the ball in order to get it into play.

Instead the pitchers misses fairly badly and the ball is several inches off the mark, now more over the center of the plate. The batter is able to drive the ball to the left of the SS. Base hit, because the SS was shading to his right, expecting his pitcher to hit his spot. But this is a ball in the SS "zone" which went unplayed according to the zone rating geek.

You know why pitchers with excellent command get better defense behind them? Because the fielders can anticipate the pitcher htting his spot, and the TEAM is rewarded by the fielder frequently anticipating correctly and positioning himself to have a better chance to make the play.

It is impossible to have that degree of control over where a ball is hit as a batter, much less as the pitcher. I mean just actually freaking hitting a pitch is one of the hardest things to do in sports. I mean take any pitcher (we'll use CC since I'm assuming you're a Yankees fan). His ERA and WHIP flucuate all over the place during the span of his career. But his hits/innings is pretty much the same, all the time. Because it doesn't matter how he's pitching, or how the batter is batting. If it gets put into play, where exactly it is going is completely random for the most part. Now a shittier pitcher would be giving up more long balls, and more extra-base hits, and would worse numbers. But each hit is no more likely to fly straight to an outfielder than the next.
And yes, the percentages lean towards pulled hits on inside pitches, and vice versa. If a guys is specifically trying to slap the ball somewhere into left field, he's probably going to hit it there somewhere if he connects. But that could be right at the 3rd baseman, right at left fielder, or right down the line for a triple. Can't control that. That's why fielding is only one small part strategy and one major part quickness and ability. For example, bviously every team is baseball is going to shift right on a right-handed pull hitter. Only the great fielders are gonna make plays though.

[Silenoz]

Oh come on, you railed on and on about how Sabbathia should've won the Cy Young because W's are the most important measuring stick of a pitcher. You're like the Al Davis of stats.

What I said was that Sabathia's 7 or 8 more wins more than make up for any difference in ERA between him and Hernandez. See that big "W" column in the standings? Get it?

Wins are one of the most worthless stats in baseball. You're basically crediting a pitcher with how good his offense and relief corp is or isn't


Man, it has been a long time since I've been a part of a "sabermetric vs tradition" argument

[JoltinJoe]

A completely useless stat ... The most remarkable thing about "runs saved" is that it is a extrapolated measurement which itself is derived from an another extrapolation.

People who buy into these defensive stats really have no clue about how defense is played on a serious level. Defense in baseball is a team concept and it starts with the pitch selection and location -- because that impacts on positioning. Let's say the location is inside with a fastball with the intent that the batter is going to need to turn his wrists quickly in order to make contact. A SS in that situation is likely to move toward the hole as the pitch is delivered, anticipating that the batter will need to get out in front of the ball in order to get it into play.

Instead the pitchers misses fairly badly and the ball is several inches off the mark, now more over the center of the plate. The batter is able to drive the ball to the left of the SS. Base hit, because the SS was shading to his right, expecting his pitcher to hit his spot. But this is a ball in the SS "zone" which went unplayed according to the zone rating geek.

You know why pitchers with excellent command get better defense behind them? Because the fielders can anticipate the pitcher htting his spot, and the TEAM is rewarded by the fielder frequently anticipating correctly and positioning himself to have a better chance to make the play.

It is impossible to have that degree of control over where a ball is hit as a batter, much less as the pitcher. I mean just actually freaking hitting a pitch is one of the hardest things to do in sports. I mean take any pitcher (we'll use CC since I'm assuming you're a Yankees fan). His ERA and WHIP flucuate all over the place during the span of his career. But his hits/innings is pretty much the same, all the time. Because it doesn't matter how he's pitching, or how the batter is batting. If it gets put into play, where exactly it is going is completely random for the most part. Now a shittier pitcher would be giving up more long balls, and more extra-base hits, and would worse numbers. But each hit is no more likely to fly straight to an outfielder than the next.
And yes, the percentages lean towards pulled hits on inside pitches, and vice versa. If a guys is specifically trying to slap the ball somewhere into left field, he's probably going to hit it there somewhere if he connects. But that could be right at the 3rd baseman, right at left fielder, or right down the line for a triple. Can't control that. That's why fielding is only one small part strategy and one major part quickness and ability. For example, bviously every team is baseball is going to shift right on a right-handed pull hitter. Only the great fielders are gonna make plays though.

A quality major league pitcher knows, if he makes his pitch, where any given hitter is going to hit the ball within a given range (and even he knows that this varies from hitter to hitter). Infielders shade and position based on these tendencies. If they are out of position, it's usually because the pitcher missed his spot.

I've watched Mariano Rivera pitch for years. When Rivera moves his cutter into a lefty batter, and he hits his spot, the batter will NEVER get solid wood on the ball and be able to land the ball in fair territory. I've seen many lefties who will, one pitch after the other, pull him solid but always into the stands. In order to generate that kind of solid contact, a lefty batter needs to get his wrists out quickly, but he winds up getting his hands so far out in front, that he takes it foul. If he holds his hands back, the cutter will move further down the bat, closer to his hands, and he will inevitably hit a weak grounder or bloop. Under NO circumstances can a lefty take that pitch with any authority to left field.

Rivera is an obvious example, but there are others. I use to watch Catfish Hunter routinely get outs in old Yankee Stadium by letting batters take him deep into left-center field, but for some reason, batters rarely took him deep that way when he pitched in other ballparks. I met Goose Gossage some years ago and I told him that I still hold my breath when I watch replays of the 1978 AL East tiebreaker with Boston and see Jim Rice take him the warning track in right center in the bottom of the 9th. Gossage said (and he was serious), "That's where I wanted him to hit it. It's over 400 feet out there."

And that's the problem with Zone Rating. It presumes, as you do, that if a batter puts a ball in play"where exactly it is going is completely random for the most part." That's just not true. Given a pitcher's pitch and location, and a batter's skills, there are certain "zones" of the field which are completely out of play, at least on that pitch, so long as the pitcher makes his pitch. The presumption that any batted ball is as likely to end up in any one of the 64 "defensive zones" on any given pitch is a fiction.

[GannonFan]

So, to sum up, Jeter's poor range is not to be blamed on him, it's to be blamed on poor Yankee pitching. Also, the Yankees have great pitching because the Yankees have a lot of wins. Sounds very logical.

[dbackjon]

So, to sum up, Jeter's poor range is not to be blamed on him, it's to be blamed on poor Yankee pitching. Also, the Yankees have great pitching because the Yankees have a lot of wins. Sounds very logical.

Lawyers!

[JoltinJoe]

So, to sum up, Jeter's poor range is not to be blamed on him, it's to be blamed on poor Yankee pitching. Also, the Yankees have great pitching because the Yankees have a lot of wins. Sounds very logical.

Where did you see that? I said that stat was pretty much useless and speaks nothing as to a player's "range." My comment was that the assumption that, once in play, a ball is as likely to land in one defensive zone as another, is faulty and appeals only to someone who never played beyond little league.

Zone rating appeals only to math geeks who approach baseball defense like it's board game.

What's illogical is that a player can be among the top half of the league in assists, but can be "shown" by Zone Rating to have poor range, near the bottom of the league. If a guy is getting his fair share of assists, he is getting to his fair share of balls. How can you claim otherwise? Some of these new stats (like OPS) are valid, but Zone Rating takes defensive measurement into a whole new level of abstract -- and baseless abstract at that.

Baseball is a game of hard numbers. You register three outs and you get to hit again. If an infielder achieves an assist, he has contributed to achieving what really matters: an out. You do that at the league average, or slightly above the league average (as Jeter does), you are doing your part to achieve the "hard" number that really counts: three outs per inning.

It's like the comment above that "wins" are useless. But that's what counts in the standings. I want a pitcher who gets his decisions, because a guy who gets a win has pitched well enough deep enough into the game to get that decision. That means on that given night, he was the better of the two starters. I don't give a damn if another pitcher, let's say in Seattle, pitched better than my starter that night -- unless I'm playing Seattle. In the end, I want the guy who is most often the better of two starters on a given night, because that gets wins, and that's what counts in the standings.

[Silenoz]

That's why ERA and IP are important (among other stats), not wins. You want a guy that can eat innings, and give you solid results during them. If you're good at those two things, you're probably going to get rewarded with a good W-L stat. And even if you're not, you might anyways. It's like trying to argue that Chien-Ming Wang was the best pitcher from 2006-2007 because he had 38 wins. Or that Sabathia should of won the Cy Young last year over Greinke because he happened to have 3 more wins because he had an offense a million times better

[JoltinJoe]

That's why ERA and IP are important (among other stats), not wins. You want a guy that can eat innings, and give you solid results during them. If you're good at those two things, you're probably going to get rewarded with a good W-L stat. And even if you're not, you might anyways. It's like trying to argue that Chien-Ming Wang was the best pitcher from 2006-2007 because he had 38 wins.

Wang was one the game's best pitchers in that time frame, before his freakish injury in 2008. His wins were cwertinaly part of it. He also had ERAs in the 3.6 to 3.7 range during that time frame.

Wang got his wins because, on most nights, he went deep into games and was usually the better of the two pitchers on any given night.

Seriously, I cannot grasp how people who claim to understand baseball can't get their hands around a basic concept: that the best pitcher in the league is not necessarily the one with the lowest ERA, or WHIP, or most Ks.

The best pitcher is the guy who most proves to be the better of two pitchers on a given night the most times during a season. Compilation stats like ERA and WHIP are informative and have their place, but pitching is ultimately about getting the win as many 5th days as possible.

Getting the win helps your team in the standings -- and that's true even if you pitch ugly and win. A nice ERA or WHIP on a given night is nice, but they get you nothing in the standings if they don't lead to a win. Over the course of a season, a nice ERA and WHIP should lead to many wins, but if you don't get the wins, that means you didn't prove to be the better of two pitchers on any given night enough times and these nice stats don't help the team in the standings.

As I noted before, starting pitching in baseball is like match play in golf ... but sabermetricians want to turn it into stroke play.

[GannonFan]

If the two starting pitchers opposing each other on each night were facing the exact same lineups, then you would have a point. However, they don't so your attempt to turn it into match play is pretty baseless. It's like a match play tournament where one guy plays on one course and someone else plays an entirely different course. That analogy works, but they don't play match play like that for obvious reasons. But by all means, continue to rail on about it until no one pays attention to the argument anymore.

[Silenoz]

That's why ERA and IP are important (among other stats), not wins. You want a guy that can eat innings, and give you solid results during them. If you're good at those two things, you're probably going to get rewarded with a good W-L stat. And even if you're not, you might anyways. It's like trying to argue that Chien-Ming Wang was the best pitcher from 2006-2007 because he had 38 wins.

Wang was one the game's best pitchers in that time frame, before his freakish injury in 2008. His wins were cwertinaly part of it. He also had ERAs in the 3.6 to 3.7 range during that time frame.

Wang got his wins because, on most nights, he went deep into games and was usually the better of the two pitchers on any given night.

Seriously, I cannot grasp how people who claim to understand baseball can't get their hands around a basic concept: that the best pitcher in the league is not necessarily the one with the lowest ERA, or WHIP, or most Ks.

The best pitcher is the guy who most proves to be the better of two pitchers on a given night the most times during a season. Compilation stats like ERA and WHIP are informative and have their place, but pitching is ultimately about getting the win as many 5th days as possible.

Getting the win helps your team in the standings -- and that's true even if you pitch ugly and win. A nice ERA or WHIP on a given night is nice, but they get you nothing in the standings if they don't lead to a win. Over the course of a season, a nice ERA and WHIP should lead to many wins, but if you don't get the wins, that means you didn't prove to be the better of two pitchers on any given night enough times and these nice stats don't help the team in the standings.

As I noted before, starting pitching in baseball is like match play in golf ... but sabermetricians want to turn it into stroke play.

You're not even trying to see what I'm saying. What you're describing are IP and ERA. Every 5th night you try to put as little pressure on your bullpen as possible while delivering solid results. If your offense performs well, or well enough, and your bullpen doesn't screw up, you get a W. If your WHIP is good you're only helping yourself here because you're going to have less pitches, which means you last more innings and put less burden on your bullpen. If your ERA/RA is good, you're not putting the burden on your offense to win a home run derby. But that's all a pitcher can do, is put his team in a position to win the game. If you pitch a complete game, and give up 2 unearned runs, you've done your job and then some. But if the offense was terrible and only scored one run, or had 12 hits and zero runs because they hit into 4 double plays and made 3 base-running errors you're saddled with a loss, and it has nothing to do with being "the better of two pitchers on any given night."

Wang was nowhere near the best pitcher those years. He put up above average numbers, managed to stay healthy, and benefited from a powerful offense. Hence the inflated Ws

And I never mentioned Ks.

[GannonFan]

Wang was one the game's best pitchers in that time frame

Btw, that's got to be one of the funniest starts to a post I've seen on here in a long time. Kudos!

[JoltinJoe]

If the two starting pitchers opposing each other on each night were facing the exact same lineups, then you would have a point. However, they don't so you're attempt to turn it into match play is pretty basebless. But by all means, continue to rail on about it until no one pays attention to the argument anymore.

No, it may well be that one pitcher has to face a more difficult lineup. It is still a match between the pitchers, and the starter's job is to out-pitch the other starter.

Seriously, you Math Leaguers just don't get baseball. Let's draw a field with 64 zones and pretend that, on every pitch, a player's job is to defend each one of these zones that some guy with a protractor has assigned to him.