Kotchman's DPs and baserunning, Is Branyan suddenly a cripple or what? Options

[Taro]

League average GIDP per 691 PAs is 14.

Kotchman's MLB average GIDP career per 691 is 20.

Kothman basically creates about 5 MORE outs (prorating down for PT) compared to league-average in hidden bases via GIDP that aren't captured by WAR. He ALSO costs the team 6 to 7 runs in baserunning on a consistent basis. This is HUGE part of his value that is not currently calculated by WAR.

This guy is barely above RL considering these factors (projects at around something around 0-5 runs over RP). You pretty much HAVE to evaluate him as an otherworldly defender and/or have him break out to some extent offensively for him to make any sense at his arbitration salary.

A guy like this isn't worth much more than MLB minimum. DFA the guy and get Branyan in here for a cheaper salary. I'd even rather develop Mike Carp and accept the RL performance than pay $3.5 for a stiff who won't hold onto the job into July. Lets welcome Branyan's risk for the reward. If he gets injured we're covered with Carp.

This post has been edited by Taro: Jan 30 2010, 02:17 AM

[err0r]

So?

Jose Lopez - 25 in 613AB
Albert Pujols - 23 in 568AB
Adrian Gonzalez - 23 in 552AB


and on the other end of things, the least?

Joe Mauer - 13 in 523AB
Ichiro! - 1, in 639? Is this serious?

Mind you, these are just samples from last year- not averages. I don't know how weight should be put into this.

This post has been edited by err0r: Jan 30 2010, 02:53 AM

[Taro]

So?

Jose Lopez - 25 in 613AB
Albert Pujols - 23 in 568AB
Adrian Gonzalez - 23 in 552AB


and on the other end of things, the least?

Joe Mauer - 13 in 523AB
Ichiro! - 1, in 639? Is this serious?

Mind you, these are just samples from last year- not averages. I don't know how weight should be put into this.

I'd reccommend using career averages for a stat like this.

Lopez for example had a high rate last year, but overall is 18 GIDP. But in his case hes closer to 17 in reality since he has a higher% of PAs with ROB. This is also true of the MOTO hitters you listed (although it is a negative part of their value, its small considering their other contributions). Lopez also is generally a marginally above-average baserunner so the overall effect is close enough to zero that you can probably ignore it (maybe a run off or so per year, its not a big deal unless he grounds out 20+ again).

For MOST players, baserunning+GIDP will have a very small effect on their overall WAR. Some guys are on the extreme ends however.

When you have a 1-1.5 WAR 1B and he loses 10 runs in baserunning+GIDP, its VERY significant.

The fact that Ichiro GIDP in so few per year is just another hidden value of his along with his non-SB baserunning. This doesn't cover other values such as his hitting vs good pitching, clutch hitting, and moving runners over. Hes at least 10 runs better than his projected WAR. The guy is a true superstar and the more data you dig, the better he looks.

Figgins is another guys who is excellent in both (though not as good as Ichiro in GIDP). You can safely add around 10 runs to his value as well. Hes one part of the reason the Angels seemed to outperform their WAR the last few years.

[Sandy - Raleigh]

Just bat Kotchman behind Lopez. Lopez is never on base, (and when he is, it's more often 2B), so problem solved.

[tradedollarnut]

[CrustyJuggler]

Just bat Kotchman behind Lopez. Lopez is never on base, (and when he is, it's more often 2B), so problem solved.

/thread

[phredmojo]

have a bettrer suggestion, bat kotchman in everett where he belongs

[Gomez]

League average GIDP per 691 PAs is 14.

Kotchman's MLB average GIDP career per 691 is 20.

Kothman basically creates about 5 MORE outs (prorating down for PT) compared to league-average in hidden bases via GIDP that aren't captured by WAR. He ALSO costs the team 6 to 7 runs in baserunning on a consistent basis. This is HUGE part of his value that is not currently calculated by WAR.

This guy is barely above RL considering these factors (projects at around something around 0-5 runs over RP). You pretty much HAVE to evaluate him as an otherworldly defender and/or have him break out to some extent offensively for him to make any sense at his arbitration salary.

A guy like this isn't worth much more than MLB minimum. DFA the guy and get Branyan in here for a cheaper salary. I'd even rather develop Mike Carp and accept the RL performance than pay $3.5 for a stiff who won't hold onto the job into July. Lets welcome Branyan's risk for the reward. If he gets injured we're covered with Carp.

So we're talking about an impact over 2.9% of his plate appearances. There goes the AL West title

Seriously though, why ignore his defense, which is about 10-15 runs better than average? And how do you get 6-7 runs lost over a season in baserunning? Are you assuming that every baserunner that's getting thrown out on a Kotchman GIDP would have scored otherwise? Because that's not correct.

[CrustyJuggler]

have a bettrer suggestion, bat kotchman in everett where he belongs

At least say Tacoma. Everett? .. C'mon.

[err0r]

I didn't use the averages.. Correct, but when guys like Albert Pujols gdp at a higher average per full season than Kotchman -- it needs to be taken with a degree of skeptism.

It looks like to me, the gdp number correlates to slow people- Carl Crawford and Ichiro are fairly low in terms of gpp -- because they run out everything

[DrDetecto]

Kotchman is going to hit into 20 double plays and it's going to seem like 50 to you good amigos.

The man is a two-bounce-4-3 machine, and when it happens in the middle of a rally -- as it does constantly -- Seattle is going to get sick of him real fast.

.............

That's what I keep wondering, Taro. They must really dislike those X-rays on Branyan.

[DrDetecto]

BTW, Taro, Matty, do you know if GIDP's as such are captured by wOBA?

For those not familiar, wOBA (and its twin, Baseball Prospectus' EqA) simply assign a run value for each offensive event -- BB, HBP, 1B, out, etc -- and finds an average runs-created-per-plate-appearance for each hitter.

IIRC, a player who hits for an average of 0.30 "runs" per plate appearance, Tango multiplies that by 1.15 (=.345) so that the runs-per-PA now looks like OBP. (I relate better to the runs/PA or runs/27 outs, but whatever.)

What I don't know is whether wOBA makes a distinction between fly outs and ground outs, GIDP's and K's.

......................

If wOBA discerns between GIDP's and simple groundouts, then Kotchman's GIDP's are already captured in his terrible +10 runs vs. RLP (= -10 runs vs ML avg) figures.

If Kotchman's GIDP's are not already captured by that (-10 vs Avg) figure for the last two years, then wow. What the deuce is the run value of a GIDP, anyway?

This post has been edited by DrDetecto: Jan 30 2010, 12:45 PM

[phredmojo]

At least say Tacoma. Everett? .. C'mon.

he's not good enough for tacoma

This post has been edited by phredmojo: Jan 30 2010, 12:58 PM

[DocMilo]

he's not good enough for tacoma

LOL.

[Taro]

BTW, Taro, Matty, do you know if GIDP's as such are captured by wOBA?

For those not familiar, wOBA (and its twin, Baseball Prospectus' EqA) simply assign a run value for each offensive event -- BB, HBP, 1B, out, etc -- and finds an average runs-created-per-plate-appearance for each hitter.

IIRC, a player who hits for an average of 0.30 "runs" per plate appearance, Tango multiplies that by 1.15 (=.345) so that the runs-per-PA now looks like OBP. (I relate better to the runs/PA or runs/27 outs, but whatever.)

What I don't know is whether wOBA makes a distinction between fly outs and ground outs, GIDP's and K's.

......................

If wOBA discerns between GIDP's and simple groundouts, then Kotchman's GIDP's are already captured in his terrible +10 runs vs. RLP (= -10 runs vs ML avg) figures.

If Kotchman's GIDP's are not already captured by that (-10 vs Avg) figure for the last two years, then wow. What the deuce is the run value of a GIDP, anyway?

wOBA doesn't capture GIDP and non-SB baserunning isn't captured in WAR. You can subtract those values from Kotchman to get a better idea of where hes at.

wOBA is an awesome stat IMO and even captures thing like reaching on error, HBP, and has specific run value for every hit outcome, etc. It should replace OPS pretty soon as the popular offensive stat.

[Taro]

I didn't use the averages.. Correct, but when guys like Albert Pujols gdp at a higher average per full season than Kotchman -- it needs to be taken with a degree of skeptism.

It looks like to me, the gdp number correlates to slow people- Carl Crawford and Ichiro are fairly low in terms of gpp -- because they run out everything

gdp correlate with slower foot speed, high GB% (without speed), and number of opportunities with a runner on 1st.

Kothman's career average per 691 games in the Majors and minors combined is 20.5. Ichiro's is 5.

Adjusting for # of opportunity with runners of base and that 14-15 outs a year.

Normally this doesn't mean anything, but when you go on the extreme ends it starts having an impact. Considering non-SB baserunning as well, Kothman is awful. It eats a significant part of his already small value away.

[M's Watcher]

So if Kotchman is the slick fielding rally killer first baseman, does Carp have any chance of making the 25 man roster out of ST?

[DrDetecto]

wOBA is the stat of choice these days, which is a little for Baseball Prospectus, since wOBA is 99% just EqA translated to an OBP scale instead of an AVG scale.

and EqA itself is not much different from RC/27 translated to an AVG scale as opposed to a scoreboard scale.

Never understood why it was more advanced to say "Ichiro's total offensive game is like having a .340 AVG or .390 OBP" as opposed to simply "nine Ichiros would get you 7.0 runs per ballgame," which James has been saying for twenty years. But, whatever.

wOBA does have the advantage that if you divide by 1.15, you have marginal runs per PA. But, of course, "7.0 runs per 27 outs" tells you that a player is 2.5 runs better than average, "per ballgame."

....................

in wOBA, singles are .92 runs or somesuch -- real high, I know -- so GIDP's have got to be -1.4 runs or something. Kotchman only has 10 runs above REPLACEMENT to start with. Factoring in GIDP's, his offense falls below that of a good AAA first baseman.

This post has been edited by DrDetecto: Jan 30 2010, 02:17 PM

[DrDetecto]

Watcher ...

Wish I could chime in, but I'd have predicted that Zduriencik wouldn't come anywhere near Kotchman. So what do I know about his 1B plans.

Kotchman over Carp is one of my least-favorite moves of the last year - much worse than bringing in Cedeno and Olson. That is really taking MLB™ philosophy to an extreme. It ain't easy for a hitter to break into the majors in this regime.

[Taro]

So we're talking about an impact over 2.9% of his plate appearances. There goes the AL West title

Seriously though, why ignore his defense, which is about 10-15 runs better than average? And how do you get 6-7 runs lost over a season in baserunning? Are you assuming that every baserunner that's getting thrown out on a Kotchman GIDP would have scored otherwise? Because that's not correct.

I'm not ignoring the D. Even considering 10-15 runs above average D (the higher end), hes barely 5 runs above RL unless his bat improves.

You can look at baserunning runs compared to average (which are seperate from GIDP) here:

http://baseballprospectus.com/statistics/s...x.php?cid=69327

This includes SB run values as well. As a full-time player Kotchman is around a -7 run baserunner averaging his career rates.

http://baseballprospectus.com/statistics/s...x.php?cid=81363

Thats '07 with the Angels in 508 PAs. -6.2 runs. He was also -6.2 runs in '08 in 573 PAs. -3.6 in 438 PAs.

Per 650 PAs his average is -6.85 runs in baserunning (not including GIDP).

Its no mistake that Kotchman has such a low career average Runs scored.