News & Views
I remember taking Driver's Education, Career Guidance, and News & Views my sophomore year in high school. (Hey, I went to public school. I will say these were the easiest classes I took, if you don't count Teacher Aide the last semester of my senior year.) I had the same teacher--Mr. Gough--for all three subjects, which were rotated as a wheel program for tenth graders. The News & Views of that time were the Vietnam War, anti-war demonstrations at Kent State, cigarette advertising banned from television and radio, and the voting age lowered to age 18. Having felt cheated by not discussing baseball in our class back then, I decided to hold my version of News & Views as this weekend's Baseball Beat column. "We've been talking about that all week--we look at Fin, see his average and wonder how a guy could be hitting so low but be so productive," Manager Mike Scioscia said. "From runs to big hits to RBIs to home runs, every other number he has is terrific. "That probably highlights the fact that batting average is way down the scale of how you evaluate a player. You look at runs scored and runs knocked in. Not only has he been knocking them in, but at key moments." Views: I'm glad to hear that Scioscia de-emphasizes batting average in his evaluation of players. Although he points to runs scored and RBI as the more important measures, what he really is saying (without doing so) is that Finley's batting average on balls in play is artificially low while his power and plate discipline are basically in line with his career norms--points that I made last week. Steve Finley: OF, 40, LAA, .149/.227/.322. Although Finley has perhaps the worst rate stats of anyone, I suspect he is the most likely player of them all to end up with numbers closer to his seasonal average. Why? Well, for one, he is in outstanding shape. Two, his HR, ISO, SEC, and BB rates are all in line or better than his career norm. Three, Steve has stolen four bases in five attempts, suggesting he hasn't lost much, if any, speed. Come October, I think Finley's numbers will be just fine. Views: I have always been intrigued by Towers because he throws strikes. More often than not, good things happen when you don't walk batters. The Toronto starter has walked two and struck out 25 in 35 1/3 innings. He is on pace to give up 11 BB in 187 IP. Since 1900, no pitcher has given up so few walks throwing 150 or more innings. Since the 6'1", 188-pound right-hander signed as a free agent with the Blue Jays in November 2002, he is 18-11 with a 4.40 ERA in 204 IP as a starter. J.P. Ricciardi has gotten a lot of value out of the pitcher making $358,000 this year. Towers reminds me of Bob Tewksbury and Jon Lieber. Like Tewksbury and Lieber, Towers almost always gives up more hits than innings--the tradeoff for being around the plate so often and not having much in the way of a strikeout pitch. Interestingly, Tewks and Lieber didn't really come into their own until they turned 29, which Towers will be on his next birthday in February. Here's a secret: strikeouts are a good thing for a young power hitter. Views: Well, what I'm about to say isn't a secret. In fact, it is a well-documented fact. Strikeouts are not a good thing for a young power hitter. Silver went on to explain, "Let's reverse things for a moment and think of things this way: if Adam Dunn hits .266 and slugs .569 in a year in which he strikes out 195 times, that means he's absolutely murdering the ball those times that he does make contact. In other words, *if* he's able to improve his ability to hit for contact at all, the upside is real, real high as compared with, say, Sean Burroughs or someone." I'm not saying Dunn doesn't have more upside *if* he cuts back on his strikeouts than Burroughs. That's a given. In fact, I don't see any value added in that argument at all. I'm also not saying that Dunn, strikeouts or no strikeouts, isn't a better hitter than Burroughs. I don't think you will find many people on the side of the San Diego third baseman in such a debate. The major league burial grounds are filled with players such as Billy Ashley, Roger Freed, Phil Hiatt, Sam Horn, Dave Hostetler, and Hensley Meulens. I could list many, many more but limited the names to a half-dozen of the higher-profile names that have come along in the past couple of decades. More to the point, there are hundreds of unknowns out there who never even got a sniff of the big leagues because they simply didn't make enough contact to get a chance. Look no further than active players Joe Borchard, Jack Cust, Bobby Estalella, Bucky Jacobsen, Brandon Larson, Ryan Ludwick, Eric Munson, and Calvin Pickering as further evidence of young power hitters who are having a difficult time making the transition from the minors to the majors. I'm even skeptical as to whether Dallas McPherson and Wily Mo Pena will be as good as advertised. Josh Phelps, a one-time Baseball Prospectus coverboy, has a huge hole in his swing and is unlikely to be anything more than a mediocre DH on a poor team. All else being equal, the goal is to find power hitters who don't strike out. Active players who meet this criteria include Barry Bonds, Brian Giles, Vladimir Guerrero, Todd Helton, Magglio Ordonez, Albert Pujols, Gary Sheffield, and Frank Thomas (circa 1993-1997). I'm also high on Aramis Ramirez, who hit 36 HR last year while reducing his SO from 99 in 2003 to 62 in 2004. One of the weaknesses of the sabermetric community is that we don't challenge each other often enough. By allowing such comments to pass without addressing them adds to the conflict between scouts vs. stats or scouting vs. performance analysis. Nate is an excellent analyst, but he is off base on this subject. [Additional reader comments and retorts at Baseball Primer.] |
Comments
All else being equal, the goal is to find power hitters who don't strike out.
I don't see that at all. I see the goal as being able to find good players regardless of what comprises their value.
Posted by: Gatts at May 8, 2005 1:01 AM
Seems that both Silver and you are simply shooting from your hips: neither of you documents your assertions. He fails to offer a study showing multiple examples proving his point, while you merely point to established stars while ignoring whether they struck out frequently as youngsters. Maybe all the hot air will hasten summer...
Posted by: DodgerDan at May 8, 2005 8:19 AM
Gatts, I was referring to power hitters. But I will still stand by my comment even under your interpretation. Show me a power/low strike out hitter who isn't good and we'll take it from there.
Posted by: Rich Lederer at May 8, 2005 9:20 PM
Dodger Dan, In defense of Nate Silver, he made his comments in a chat format. He really didn't have the forum to offer "multiple examples proving his point." As far as my examples are concerned, I didn't hand pick them per se. They were cited because they didn't strike out frequently as youngsters. Every player was linked to ESPN, Baseball-Reference, or Baseball Cube so anybody who was a bit more enterprising could have looked up their seasonal and career records.
The fact that they are all "established stars" validates my point. You simply can't find many players who hit for power without striking out who are NOT stars.
To wit, here is a list of players 24 or under who have hit 3O HR in a season, shown with their strikeout totals. Who would you rather have, the players at the top of the list or those at the bottom? (I could run other screens to prove my point but, for the sake of time and space, will go with this one for now.)
SEASON
MODERN (1900-)
AGE HOMERUNS >= 30
Posted by: Rich Lederer at May 8, 2005 9:31 PM
Not sure comparing raw couting stats from the '30s with those of today is that reliable. Looking at only recent (last 15 years) players at the top and bottom of your list, we have at the top:
Adam Dunn
Troy Glaus
Dean Palmer
Hank Blalock
Miguel Cabrera
Juan Gonzalez
Andruw Jones
Scott Rolen
and at the bottom:
Gary Sheffield
Albert Pujols
Nomar Garciaparra
Vladimir Guerrero
Ken Griffey Jr.
Vernon Wells
I'm not sure there is a convincing difference, esp. given the ages of Dunn, Blalock and Cabrera.
Posted by: MP at May 8, 2005 11:43 PM
Not a convicing difference? Of the top-namers, you list a MVP in Juan Gone, a stud in Rolen and the rest are power hitters who, besides Cabrera, have had seasons of erratic performance and have yet to, or never did, "put it all together". From the bottom of the list, you highlight two future HOFers (Sheff and Griffey), two players well on their way to HOF careers (Pujols and Vlad) and Garciaparra, a player who may end up short of the Hall only because of injuries, not his hitting. Wells is the only odd-man out.
With that said, if you read what Rich original wrote, he'll take players like Dunn and Miguel Cabrera because they are exceptions to "the rule". The bottom of the list is littered with HoFers, MVPs, and perennial All-Stars. The top of the list has Incaviglia, Snyder, Plantier, etc.
I'm going to repeat this only because people don't seem to be absorbing it into their skulls: Rich (and most everyone with common sense) believes young high-strikeout, power hitting players can succeed at the big league level. But if the player shows some command of the strike zone, his chances are much, much better.
Strikeouts are not the key to success for young power hitters!
Posted by: Joe at May 9, 2005 12:14 AM
In addition to those mentioned in my article, I have found another dozen young power hitters from the post-expansion period who couldn't even muster 2000 AB in the big leagues because they struck out about 25% of the time.
Shane Andrews
Eric Anthony
Buddy Bradford
Willie Greene
Pedro Munoz
Dave Nicholson
Melvin Nieves
Greg Norton
Adolfo Phillips
Phil Plantier
Ruben Rivera
Mike Young
Players who hit HR at the same rate as those above and rarely struck out not only stuck around longer but were generally star players.
More to the point, there are literally hundreds of players who struck out at an alarming rate who either never made it to the majors or enjoyed nothing more than a cup of coffee.
Once again, the point is that power hitters who don't strike out succeed at a far higher rate than power hitters who do strike out. If you want to show me proof otherwise, please go right ahead.
Posted by: Rich Lederer at May 9, 2005 7:22 AM
It seems to me that Nate's comment would be read as: "If someone's performance is way over average in something, his expected performance in that metric will regress towards the mean, and if we treat all the other facets of his performance as independent, then all those strikeouts will convert into a decent performance, especially for a young power hitter."
I suppose you can say the same thing for a young speedster, with a good BB/K ratio, with lots of groundball outs. That is, if you have say Tim Raines with a great eye at 21, and he's grounding into more than his fair share of outs, you figure that one small improvement will turn into a great change.
This is true in everything, I'd expect. Look for something that's way over average, look for groups of players where that negative is in conflict with all the other positives, and you have a candidate player to alter slightly through good scouting and teaching.
Posted by: tangotiger at May 9, 2005 7:37 AM
My question is that Nate thought if Dunn cut down his Ks and put more balls in play and keep on his power pace(and other hitting ability) at the same time in the future, he can be a supreme hitter (sure), but is it possible?
Is it possible a power hitter with many Ks mature into a power hitter with not-so-many Ks? Can Reggie Jackson mature into Barry Bonds? (I just checked Rich's list...and I don't like the chance)
Posted by: TyC at May 10, 2005 12:20 AM
Silver has detailed his assertion (albeit briefly) before in a column about Wily Mo (http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=3306)
"In fact, in retooling PECOTA this past winter, I discovered a positive predictive relationship between strikeout rate and power output. That is, a player with a higher strikeout rate, all else being equal, is expected to produce more home runs going forward than a player with a lower strikeout rate. Strikeout rate has the opposite effect on base hits, diminishing a player's projected batting average, but for a player like Pena, whose value derives from his power, the higher strikeout rate has a positive impact on his forecast."
Posted by: Anthony at May 10, 2005 6:13 PM
Is there evidence that High HR/Low strikeout hitters have figured how to put the ball in play with two strikes? In other words, maybe they take big hacks with less than 2 and then modify their swing slightly with 2, whereas the High HR/High strikeout guys don't. It would be interesting to compare the HR numbers of both groups with 2 strikes.
Posted by: CoachAdams at May 13, 2005 2:01 PM
No, to reiterate: there is not a convincing difference between my two lists, especially given the sample size and the percentage of the players' careers completed.
Nothing in the original article proves that having a high K rate portends failure for players with great power. And throwing a list of names out there with some legitimate potential studs at the top (highest Ks) of the list does little if anything to further the argument.
Silver's thesis is unproven (to the public anyway); but you do not denounce someone else's unproven thesis by offering your own unproven thesis as fact. That fails to achieve anything.
Posted by: MP at May 13, 2005 9:01 PM
The other key aspect of Silver's more detailed statement (as posted by anthony) is "all else being equal." And "all" is more than just number of HR in a season. If you wanted to compare young sluggers who were very comparable in all aspects of offesive production (normalized for league/era/park) except Ks, that would be a better starting point than looking at all young sluggers with > x HR in a year, as the original list does. Obviously, it would take a lot of work to do such a study. But anything short of that is just speculation.
Posted by: MP at May 13, 2005 9:12 PM