[Pirata Morado]

We know that OPS is comprised by the sum of OBP plus SLG, thus the name: On base Plus Slugging (OPS).

But On Base can be also split into AVG + ISOBB, where ISOBB is the Isolated On Base Part. So OBP = AVG + ISOBB

So we can get into OPS by splitting it into the 3 main characteristics that comprise it, instead of only 2 like this:

OPS = AVG + ISOBB + SLG

I've stated before that there's a flaw there because SLG also has the AVG part in it. It could be better to isolate the ISO power of SLG, by doing this ISO = SLG - AVG, and could get into a better OPS indicator that could be built like this:

OPI = AVG + ISOBB + ISO

--------------------

Anyway, that's a letter for Santa Claus, in the meantime, we have what we have and that's OPS. So I made one simple chart but one that has a LOT of info in it:



You can see most of Mariners hitters (18 of them) with the first 9 being the ones who have taken the most PA at each of the positions. After those 9, the remainder 9 are the ones with most PA in order.

Then you can see the OPS of each player but split into each of the categories I described above: AVG + ISOBB + SLG by colors.

So there you have it, have fun with the chart, and please comment.

[Pirata Morado]

The higher the picture of a player, the better the OPS. So the following players stand out: Wells, Carp and Ackley in that order.

Of course Wells and Carp have seen very little playing time, but have clearly made their most out of it.

Smoak was putting similar numbers than Carp, and although he fell into a terrible slump, we can still see a healthy ISOBB.

The question I ask is: Who is going to be our 1B in the future, once Smoak is healthy? Carp or Smoak?
Who is going to be our LF of the future? Robinson or Wells?

I think Ichiro needs to rest 2 games a week in order to make room for both Robinson and Wells to show what they can do.

[IWantZduriencik'sJob]

Pirata Morado, on 16 August 2011 - 07:44 AM, said:

I think Ichiro needs to rest 2 games a week in order to make room for both Robinson and Wells to show what they can do.

I found it telling that Wedge said Ichiro would be a DH once or twice a week until the end of the season. I doubt it will happen, but continue to hope.

[Vidya]

IWantZduriencik, on 16 August 2011 - 08:55 AM, said:

I found it telling that Wedge said Ichiro would be a DH once or twice a week until the end of the season. I doubt it will happen, but continue to hope.

I don't believe he would have said it if he didn't mean it. I wish he would DH Ichiro more this season, and bench him once 200 hits becomes out of reach. That may happen in September, but it's not yet time to bench him.

[Vidya]

Thanks PM! Another excellent job. I would like a key that would match the pictures with the names, but I don't have time to do it now. Also, thanks for explaining the details of OPS. Some day your side of the debate will become the standard, but that day won't happen any day soon.

This post has been edited by Vidya: 16 August 2011 - 04:22 PM

[Pirata Morado]

Vidya, on 16 August 2011 - 04:20 PM, said:

Thanks PM! Another excellent job. I would like a key that would match the pictures with the names, but I don't have time to do it now. Also, thanks for explaining the details of OPS. Some day your side of the debate will become the standard, but that day won't happen any day soon.

Thanks Vidya, well the players are in this order:

1. Olivo
2. Smoak
3. Ackley
4. Ryan
5. Figgins
6. Peguero
7. Gutiérrez
8. Ichiro
9. Cust (I think you can recognize all of these)
10. Kennedy
11. Wilson
12. Carp
13. Rodríguez
14. Halman
15. Bard
16. Seager
17. Wells
18. Robinson

[Vidya]

Thanks! I could recognize many of them, but many were unclear. They showed up pretty small on my computer. I knew all I had to do was check the stats to figure it out.

This post has been edited by Vidya: 16 August 2011 - 04:46 PM

[Pirata Morado]

Vidya, on 16 August 2011 - 04:45 PM, said:

Thanks! I could recognize many of them, but many were unclear. They showed up pretty small on my computer. I knew all I had to do was check the stats to figure it out.

The objective of the chart was precisely that you wouldn't need to go to another source to check who is who. Sorry, perhaps I should remove some of the players like Cust, Bard, et. al. in order to make the chart easier to read.

Edit: You can also go to the original site in which the pic is linked from. Just click on properties in the image and you'll get the direct url. Perhaps you can get it bigger there.

This post has been edited by Pirata Morado: 16 August 2011 - 05:05 PM

[Pirata Morado]

I decided to do an update to the chart, now that the young guys have a larger sample size and start to stabilize.



Our 5 best hitters by OPS are:

Wells
Carp
Ackley
Robinson
Seager

Who would had thought that at the start of the season?

[Marco]

" Who would had thought that at the start of the season? "

Certainly not all those who were excited by Jack Cust amazing OBP skills. For istance I can remember very well the irate comments from USS experts when Wedge started benching him. Again, professionals to professionals, amateurs to amaterus I'd say.

This post has been edited by Marco: 30 August 2011 - 09:57 AM

[Huindekmi]

Pirata Morado, on 30 August 2011 - 06:59 AM, said:

Who would had thought that at the start of the season?

No one, obviously.

Even the most astute tracker of minor league prospects would not have predicted that Wells and Robinson would be playing for the M's this season. Digging that deep into other team's farm systems to predict the outcome of potential trades with that much detail three months before they are even discussed ... That's like predicting the winner of the Kentucky Derby three years in advance.

And very few would have predicted that Seager would rise through the ranks so quickly. The kid started the season in AA with a bunch of guys ahead of him on the 3B depth chart (Figgins, Kennedy, LuRod, Mangini, Liddi, and Tui to name a few). You'd be hard pressed to find someone, even a huge Seager fan, who would have predicted more than the kid becoming the starting 3B in AAA by the end of the season and earning the right to make the club in 2012.

Carp was definitely the forgotten man by many. The M's former coaches didn't like his skills (calling him a "slow-twitch" player). Most of the fan base had written him off. The prospect sheets either ignored him completely or put him on a "we'll see" list as he attempted to become a competent LF, since his natural 1B was now taken by the much heralded Smoak. I think most predicted that he'd be traded or released before he got serious consideration as an everyday player for the M's.


But... we pretty much got Ackley right!

[Marco]

It's not exactly like that as far as I followed the season. Of course nobody could have predicted guys like Robinson and Wells who were part of another club at that time. But it's undeniable that some players from the minors had been underrated for a long time. Notwithstanding Shannon Drayer wrote in different times on her blog that Seager was carefully followed by the FO and that he would have been in Seattle sooner than later nobody among "the experts" cared about him. Before his recent heroics Carp had been repeately scorned as "another of those boring AAAA players". And before them even Halman and Peguero callups was labeled as ridiculous since day-1 and every K they got it was like a fans fest. On the other side some players - Smoak and Saunders for instance - seem to receive every kind of public support and forgiveness for their poor performances even when are unexcusable. Perhaps that's due to the fact they're tall, blond and athletic ? And what's become then baseball, a Miss Universe beauty contest ?

[Huindekmi]

Mike Carp is 6'2" 210# and blond.
Justin Smoak is 6'4" 230# and blondish.

You can't tell me that those two inches are the difference between the blogosphere loving Smoak and dismissing Carp.

Likewise, my adopt-a-player, Matt Mangini, is 6'4" 230# with light brown hair... He was even a high draft pick (#52 overall - supplemental first round pick)... yet despite another offensively good season, the blogosphere ignores him and the team just released him.

This has nothing to do with height, hair color or appearance.

The blogosphere loves Smoak partially because he's the new flavor of the month - the new hot prospect brought in to fix our woes. Anyone remember how much the blogosphere loved Carp the year after he was traded here? He was going to be our star 1B for years to come. Then the bloggers bored with him. They had a new toy to play with.

The sabremetric blogging crowd is also VERY picky. They only like players who fit a specific mold. Must swing for power. Must take a ton of walks. Must play spectacular defense. If your EYE ratio isn't good enough, you're garbage. Here's the story of six players. All hit for power (ISO around .150 or better). Most play average to below average defense.

• Liddi's EYE ratio in the minors is .35. He plays average defense. Garbage.
  
• Halman's EYE ratio in the minors is .20. He plays good to average defense. Garbage.
  
• Peguero's EYE ratio in the minors is .22. He plays comically bad defense. Garbage.
  
• Saunders' EYE ratio in the minors is .49. He plays good defense. Probably garbage, but might stick at a glove-first position for some other team.
  
• Carp's EYE ratio in the minors is .54. He plays average defense. AAAA filler at best.
  
• Smoak's EYE ratio in the minors is .91 and in the majors it's .55. He plays average defense. STAR!!!!

Smoak fits the SABR model of a good player. Thus he's the anointed star and the others are little more than punchlines.

Sometimes it takes giving a player an opportunity in order for those with a fixed view of what can/will work to see that the world is not black and white. A guy like Carp can sometimes take advantage of those opportunities, but they have to work a lot harder than the chosen ones.

In my opinion, Liddi deserves one of those opportunities. Hopefully, he gets a Sept call up and gets to play occasionally. But as long as Seager remains hot, he may not get much chance to prove himself.

[Vidya]

Excellent Hui!

Mariner management seems to cut players like Liddi, Halman and Peguero a lot more slack than the bloggers. They seem to believe that the high strikeout rates are fixable. They know that most power bats will have that weakness. My personal observation over too many decades to mention confirms that belief. Most power bats will also strikeout a lot. How have the bloggers not figured that out?

What those players may need, and all but Liddi have gotten so far, is exposure to MLB pitchers and defenses. That exposure tells them what they need to do when they return to the AAA level to continue their development. Not all of them will succeed, but some of them will.

I have no idea why Seager was so underrated by the experts, but Mariner management got him right. Zduriencik had high hopes for Carp when he first got him, but those hopes likely faded a lot last year. He was told what he needed to do, he did it, and it worked. One thing I have noticed about the players at Tacoma is they have full faith in management to be in their interest. The ones that follow the advice given and work hard on their deficiencies get promoted, and the ones that don't have to find a job in another organization.

I give high marks to Zduriencik's minor league team of scouts, coaches, and roving specialists. They are doing a good job at developing our own players, and finding players that are underestimated by other organizations.

I will miss Mangini, but the numbers were against him. Others have just passed by him, but I hope he has success in another organization. I expect Tui will also face the same fate, I will miss him even more, and wish him success somewhere else. Both should easily find jobs in another organization.

[MtGrizzly]

Vidya, on 30 August 2011 - 06:17 PM, said:

What those players may need, and all but Liddi have gotten so far, is exposure to MLB pitchers and defenses.

Liddi is striking out every third AB against AAA pitching. That means a lot of Luke French/Anthony Vasquez level guys. What makes anyone think he's going to do better against the Jarod Weavers of the world? He hasn't mastered AAA. Maybe he will, maybe he won't. But at this point, any major league AB's given to Liddi would be better given to Seagar, IMHO.

Send Liddi to winter ball and tell him to learn how to take a pitch out of the strike zone.

[Vidya]

MtGrizzly, on 30 August 2011 - 07:08 PM, said:

Liddi is striking out every third AB against AAA pitching. That means a lot of Luke French/Anthony Vasquez level guys. What makes anyone think he's going to do better against the Jarod Weavers of the world? He hasn't mastered AAA. Maybe he will, maybe he won't. But at this point, any major league AB's given to Liddi would be better given to Seagar, IMHO.

Send Liddi to winter ball and tell him to learn how to take a pitch out of the strike zone.

Did you look at his monthly splits?

While his K rate is still not the greatest, it has gone from the highest in the league by a large margin, and on pace to set a new league record, to about normal for a power hitter. One of the problems may be a focus on OPS and BA at that level. It would probably help him to develop a two strike swing, but it would depress his OPS numbers. Whatever he's doing, he's following the instructions of management. I'm not exactly sure what he's doing, but it's working.

Earlier in the season I wasn't expecting him to get a September call-up, now I'm not certain, but I'm expecting it to happen. I still expect him to take some time to adjust to MLB hitting, but I do expect him to be MLB ready by the end of next season. I can see how winter ball would be good for him, but for now I'm focused on what he does once the AAA season ends. Once the MLB season ends, the Mariners will probably announce what he does this winter.

[Marco]

I can't see how another winter ball appareance (that would be his second straight) could help a hitter like Liddi or anyone else to fix that K's issue. Winter ball are competitive environments, not really good for that development purpose. Even the strike zone they use down there is just a matter of opinions. In other words I think that's exactly the opposite Liddi needs right now. As written before Liddi needed to go to the AFL to work extensively with good hitting coaches, but the M's decided a different way. IMO Liddi history in the M's system is just a matter of time.

This post has been edited by Marco: 31 August 2011 - 12:18 AM

[Pirata Morado]

I decided to update the OPS chart for the 2012 season so far.

Here it goes, updated to today.



The chart is pretty straightforward. It has the OPS for each player, split into its 3 components: AVG + ISOBB + ISOPower, where ISOBB = (OBP - AVG) and ISOPower = SLG - AVG

The navy bar is AVG, the silver bar is ISOBB and the teal bar is ISOPower, so the sum of the three items is = OPS. Then, the picture of each player stands above it, so the higher the picture, the higher the OPS, except for Jaso whose picture is not above it because it didn't fit the chart.

Several things to note:

1. Our 2 highest OPS guys are some of the lowest PA guys (Jaso and Liddi).
2. Smoak's OPS is even lower than.... yes, you guessed it right, Figgins's
3. Ichiro, Montero and Seager have decent AVG, but low ISOBB's.
4. Ryan is pathetic, but he is our highest ISOBB guy.

Feel free to add things you note from the chart.

[DocMilo]

We can give Carp a month to catch up, right?

[Pirata Morado]

I'm sorry, the teal bar in the chart refers to slugging, not ISOPower.

Yes Carp has obviously the fewest PA, he will certainly improve