Lookout Landing

You know what?

I have no idea. Probably a guy like Jack is going to try for 3 every time he hits the ball to the wall. He had 12 triples and 11 homers that year.

Jack Wilson: hustles like a man, hits like a girl.

Sukafish - April 21, 2010 via mobile reply

Kind of like WFB!

Except with defense in an entirely different universe.

If you draw squiggly lines above Rob Johnson's name it would look like he's falling off the cliff onto the jagged rocks.

Grammatical tense fail.

I like the way you think

Am I the only one feeling really optimistic right now?

While everything is SSS our team is starting to look a little bit. Back end of the rotation starters pitching decently, back of line up stringing together some runs, batters taking pitches, not to mention in a week we have Cliff Lee pitching and a few after that Erik Bedard joins the rotation!

Oh and the rest of the league is looking pretty average.

I’m sure regression to the mean will ruin our fun soon but this week has been exactly what we needed.

cedarA - April 21, 2010 reply

Just wish Wak realizes that Sweeney really cannot hit

It’s really sad when we have a chance of putting a competitive offense out there with our great defense and sometimes-sparkling pitching, but some poor lineup choices ruin things

But, but, his spring training batting average! It was shiny!

Fearless Frog - April 21, 2010 reply

He was also alright last season

He’s a better hitter than a lot of guys in the lineup. The problem is that all the other guys do other things to make up for the lack of hitting. He’s a one-trick pony, and its a pretty lame trick.

Bearskin Rugburn - April 22, 2010 reply

Some of these pitchers will surely regress, however a lot of our guys still aren't hitting

what you would expect. Figgins is below .200, Bradley is below .200, catchers are both below .200 still (I think), Lopez has an OPS around .490

But Gutierrez is hitting .393

Regression works both ways. However, I do agree that overall we’ll get net gains.

This is the poorest competition that we're going to face and SSS, but still if we can

somehow replace our elder statesmen, we’re going to be okay through the summer and hopefully into October.

TrustBaseball - April 21, 2010 reply

Big fan of Jack Wilson as Popeye.

Does spinach count as a PED?

sanford_and_son - April 21, 2010 reply

You think those forearms are natural?

DrunkAmerican - April 21, 2010 reply

Tumors.

wyte_lightning - April 21, 2010 reply

Oh d-d-d-d-dear.

DrunkAmerican - April 21, 2010 reply

I absolutely love this reference.

Fearless Frog - April 21, 2010 reply

Synthol.

JBell523 - April 21, 2010 reply

Jack "Lewis Robert" Wilson!

AnotherAaron - April 21, 2010 reply

Wilson getting beaned was incredibly scary

If he gets injured in the bottom of the second what happens? With Bradley out, does Tui go to short and then Griffey to left? The depth issues scare me with Mascot taking up space.

romdal - April 21, 2010 reply

Byrnes to LF

Call up Josh Wilson I guess.

Sure will be nice when Hannahan’s back and the team realises Mike Sweeney is useless.

Eyeball Kid - April 21, 2010 reply

Hannahan is playing and hitting in Tacoma.

Awesome.

Eyeball Kid - April 21, 2010 reply

Hasn't played any SS yet though.

Just 3B. Hmph.

I'm just glad he's playing at all?

Anybody heard anything about a timetable for his return?

Er, my subject line shouldn't have a question mark there.

Whenever Wak and Sweeney breakup.

So let's rig a rumor that Sweeney is having an affair with Dayton Moore.

Then Wak will freak out, watch a Kate Hudson flick while eating Ben & Jerry’s, and realize, you know what, I’m better off without that asshole.

Or one can hope, anyway.

I hear Sweeney tested positive for herpes

Edgar for Pres - April 21, 2010 reply

Speaking of which,

Adam Jones appeared to have a helluva cold sore on his bottom lip.

Or maybe a mole.

Either way, it was unsightly.

Stress can lower the immune system and cause outbreaks.

What could be more stressful than playing for Baltimore? Besides playing for the Astros.

JAH - April 21, 2010 reply

Playing for the Royals.

touche`

TrustBaseball - April 21, 2010 reply

Wak and Kotchman having an affair would be nice

Tui to SS, Byrnes to LF would be my move.

True

Byrnes hasn’t done much to earn my trust yet though, especially when he has to catch a ball in the sun.

romdal - April 21, 2010 reply

Luckily this was a night game.

He could still lose the ball in his ADHD however.

It's, unfortunately, the best you could do with the current roster if handed those cards.

I think the bigger issue is just the overall loss on Jack Wilson's defense.

His range makes up for Lopie’s and completes the middle infield.

SSS, but...

UZR loves Lopez at third so far. It likes him better than Beltre. My eyes still like Beltre though.

Sukafish - April 21, 2010 via mobile reply

This small of sample tells you less than nothing

It tells you he's made a number of difficult plays

it doesn’t tell you if he can do so consistently.

Bearskin Rugburn - April 22, 2010 reply

No it doesn't

Jeff Sullivan - April 22, 2010 reply

It has been 16 games.

16 games of UZR is anti-knowledge.

Aaron Campeau - April 21, 2010 reply

Why is it published this early

I was wondering this as well.

Seems like it just makes things more difficult for FanGraphs.

Why not?

It’s not really any sort of knowledge but if information is ready why not make it available.

njd.aitken - April 21, 2010 reply

Because it is information that leads you in a completely meaningless direction.

Did I hear someone say completely meaningless direction?

Who's more frustrating out in left:

Ibanez or Byrnes? Ibanez will never make the highlight reel by diving out from underneath his hat, but I was never really nervous on routine plays with Raul.

Sukafish - April 21, 2010 via mobile reply

Frustrating?

Eric Byrnes is a godsend

For the writing or for the baseball?

But what if one of the fans down the left field line had a shiny thing?

What then?

Sukafish - April 21, 2010 via mobile reply

Then this

I don't know if this .gif can be overused.

TheBishop - April 21, 2010 reply

We're going to find out

Aw man

Plenty of new posters here to ruin it!

I love Johjima has back spasming corpse.

CapSea - April 22, 2010 reply

I think that was right. Ibanez has been gone a while now.

CapSea - April 22, 2010 reply

Yes! Verifiable data!

TheBishop - April 21, 2010 reply

His reaction is the best part of this whole thing.

“No, don’t go, ball!” […] “My ball went that way.” =(

Ibanez was frustrating

Byrnes is hilarious.

Brian Floyd - April 21, 2010 reply

Career UZR/150 (since 2002), in the outfield:

Ibanez: -2.6
Byrnes: 4.7

Feel free to draw whatever conclusions you wish.

The point is UZR might be pretty fucked up for now.

Sad,

considering the implications a legit UZR method would have had on Guti’s performance in CF last year. Either way, if your senile (read: revered) play-by-play buy calls him “death to flying things,” you can get a pretty decent read on his performance.

*guy

I don't think we should discount Guti's defensive capabilities because of this

As someone who watches way more baseball than I ever should if I wanted to have a life, he is better than any CF I’ve ever seen. And UZR is not totally worthless, it’s just worth less than maybe we previously thought it was.

I meant purely from a quantitative standpoint...

I may or may not become aroused watching some of the… ahem… balls he runs down out there. He. Is. God.

It's not even a big concern.

Depending on defensive park factors, he might be BETTER than currently rated. Numbers will change, sure, but…

Also with the new park adjustments Guti actually gained a run in UZR last year

OlSalty - April 22, 2010 reply

Do you have a link explaining this?

I don’t follow the saber-blogs very closely these days.

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/uzr-updates

Here you are

MGL made some new adjustments, and a couple players’ numbers really changed. Like Jason Bay.

Jeff Sullivan - April 22, 2010 reply

Can this be related the difficulties of trying to account for the Green Monster?

Gihyou - April 22, 2010 reply

For sure

Jeff Sullivan - April 22, 2010 reply

And hasn't he only adjusted the 2009 data so far?

If that is the case, knowing we need a 3 year baseline for UZR conclusions…

OlSalty - April 22, 2010 reply

Not a huge difference there

Ibanez looked bad when he had to go get the ball. Byrnes worries me when he has to stay put and wait for the ball. He reminds me of my cat. Athletic and capable when chasing a flying thing, but really twitchy and prone to biff it without warning.

Sukafish - April 21, 2010 via mobile reply

This gif is great because it's so crappy

Poochie - April 22, 2010 reply

For the sole purpose of making us feel better about Lopez filling Beltre's shoes.

One of which is a glove.

Sukafish - April 21, 2010 via mobile reply

Seriously, you need 3 years of UZR data to tell you anything

Less than a month is worth nothing. NOTHING. You are better served using visual observation of his skillset right now. Which personally I think has been pretty good, but we don’t know that with any certainty at all. Also, UZR itself has kind of been called into question over park factor adjustments lately that don’t really match up….Supposedly they have been improved, but that is going to take some time to verify.

You can get some information out of less than 3 years UZR

Yeah, but the message is right

I agree

If you regress it heavily, but over a month? That regression is going to render any conclusion meaningless.

And think of it this way

Prior to the new, more accurate park factors being factored into UZR, wasn’t Jason Bay like -15 runs defensively last year right? With the new park factors he was +1.9. That is just too big of a difference to think this is reliable data. I don’t want to hate on UZR but that is a huge difference, it makes me think they’ve been doing their park factors totally wrong and we should trust this less than we have been.

Wow.

I can’t believe they got Fenway that wrong. You’d think that since everyone friggin’ loves the BoSox (fespn) that they would make sure they got that right before trying to go mainstream.

Sukafish - April 21, 2010 via mobile reply

Ellsbury also gained about 5 runs too.

OlSalty - April 22, 2010 reply

Ahahaha Brad Hawpe's 2008 got worse

seattlebruin - April 22, 2010 reply

I just think it's funny that despite all the cautioning about SSS at Fangraphs.

They still publish UZR on the site after a week of games. And they’ll give you the UZR leaders after a week. This is kind of like telling you who’s leading the HR race after 7 innings.

Sukafish - April 21, 2010 via mobile reply

Correct me if I'm wrong.

But UZR is collated manually by people watching the games, based on individual plays, right? So a month of UZR gives you less than zero information about a fielder’s TRUE ability over his career/a long time, but isn’t it a fairly accurate measurement of that fielder’s performance over that short time? Lopez’z +3.1 UZR as of now doesn’t mean he’s a true +30.1/150 3B (absurd), but it does mean that based on the opinion of the person rating him, he has currently saved us about 3 runs with his glove.

It is still dangerous because you don’t want to use this to project anything going forward. But when you correlate this with what you see on the field, it makes sense. He’s been making good plays out there.

Not necessarily

there’s a great degree of subjectivity that goes into the stat, rendering it all kinds of volatile over small samples.

If Lopez has a +3.1 UZR over the course of this entire season

I will be happy. I’m mostly glad that he’s not a turd out there. UZR/150 is giving me the giggles, projecting our lovably round third baseman to break all sorts of defensive records.

Sukafish - April 21, 2010 via mobile reply

See that's why you shouldn't look at it at all

They shouldn’t even put UZR/150 up there with this small of a sample. Or, as some would argue, UZR at all.

And I agree with your first statement.

What's the reason behind that?

More precisely, what is it about UZR that dictates its need for such large samples compared to other advanced metrics?

Because the correlation between players switching parks and their UZR is almost non-consequential.

Ah...

and because UZR is so park-dependent (because of the arbitrary zones) that renders it useless over short periods of time? Thanks for bearing with.

We know we need a 3 year baseline for UZR already, but there should be the same correlation between players year to year in the same park as year to year players switching parks if this is true.

And there was not before this correction. Not even close

Players don't get a ton of fielding chances, the correlation on the stat is low, it's dependent on ball location information that isn't exact and needs time to average out

AH.

Succinctly put. Thanks. Also clarifies the finer points Sr. Salty makes.

Also

UZR leans heavily on how a ball in play is classified (well hit, not well hit, etc). As people who are familiar with line drive percentage can tell you, these classifications are imperfect.

Far more multi-factored than I thought.

What are the chances that hit f/x eventually takes care of these subjective classifications?

What are the chances hit f/x is made available to the unwashed masses?

Subject Line

Probably doesn’t answer this question completely but link

I would say pretty high, having seen the demo of hit f/x.

It looks like a pretty good tool, with the speed of the ball off the bat, angle (?) and all that. This would be a good way to see the difference between line drives and fly balls in numbers, as opposed to the scorer’s eyes.

Kirk - April 21, 2010 reply

I certainly hope so

I am thoroughly amazed with how accurate the algorithm for classifying matches up with scouting reports on repertoire. Hopefully a batted ball algorithm could be just as accurate.

Hit f/x stands a chance of fixing everything

However, Hit f/x stands a chance of never being released to the public.

Hmmm....

Maybe at some point in my career I can get the Freedom of Information Act extended to entities granted anti-trust exemptions

Trenchtown - April 22, 2010 reply

When you start funding Pitch f/x with your tax dollars there might be a case to be made

Edgar for Pres - April 22, 2010 reply

I'd be ok with that

I’m sure some of my tax dollars go to things I care considerably less about then pitch f/x

Trenchtown - April 22, 2010 reply

I would say you need 3 yrs of UZR data to try to use it to try to use it to "know" a player's true talent

But you can definitely use it when there is less than 3 years of data. Any quantity of UZR data contains some amount of useful information otherwise gathering more UZR data would not improve your knowledge. Its noisy but there is something there on average.

With Lopez, lets say we didn’t know anything about his past defense or had ever watched him. All we have is that he has played 15 games and is on pace for +30 UZR/150. If we do a really ghetto regression to the mean we take his 15 games of for a total of +3 runs and 435 games of average UZR (says we need three years of data). This tells us that we have him at +1 UZR/150 as our true talent projection. Before the last 15 games we had him at +0 UZR/150. This kind of gives you an idea of about how much impact 15 games has on our ability to understand a player’s talent level. 15 games of UZR is not completely worthless if its all you have but its pretty close.

Since we have more knowledge than UZR (aka we have watched the games) we can say he seems like a reasonably decent fielder at this point. A little slow and bumbling and doesn’t make the greatest throws but has all the skills and has shown enough athleticism to be a slightly above average fielder.

Edgar for Pres - April 22, 2010 reply

This is not a piece of bread

My beer has a really nice head.

rbr07 - April 21, 2010 reply

I really should go to bed.

Rachmaninoff - April 21, 2010 reply

I don't like the color red?

What's going on here

Fett42 - April 21, 2010 reply

I don't know about the other three, but mine is about hating the Angels

And 1/3 of America.

DrunkAmerican - April 21, 2010 reply

Nice chart.

No baseball talk here. Nossir.

moyerLIVES - April 21, 2010 reply

There is an open thread below for all open thread activity!

Thank you for your patience.

moyerLIVES - April 21, 2010 reply

Jack Wilson is the biesnies

I feel like this has been asked before, but is it possible for the "biggest suckfest" to actually have a positive contribution?

Yes!

Just as the biggest contribution can be negative.

In a 12-0 game probably yes

Yeah, I figured it was possible, but even in the 14-1 games it seems like there is always someone who has the 0-4.

That's just up to luck. Theoretically (and I'm sure this has happened), biggest suckfest can have a positive contribution

The fact that Mike Sweeney did not get the suckfest makes me wonder about this metric.

He should get biggest suckfest even if he doesn’t play.

moyerLIVES - April 21, 2010 reply

Figgins error likely hurt him as well.

WPA also counts their contribution at the time they contribute toward the game.

I love the Will Venable example: he went 3-6 or 5 with a triple and various other hits but had a huge negative WPA for the game because he made outs in very big situation with the game tied.

Slurvey - April 21, 2010 reply

Yeah, I've seen stuff like that on a couple of occasions.

Same thing with pitchers, sometimes the pitchers that gives up 5 or 6 runs has a better WPA than the one that gave 3 because of the timing of the runs. I imagine it has to be very hard for the biggest negative WPA to be positive, every hitter would have to have 2 or 3 or hits or one big hit with the bases loaded.

Felix!

Its hard to imagine him losing a start the way hes pitching…but it probably has to happen…eventually…

Punkhazard - April 21, 2010 reply

Nonsense, the King shall lead his people to everlasting victory!

The Texas Rangers have the same record as the Houston Astros

JLC - April 21, 2010 reply

They are losing it over at Lonestar Ball.

All hail the king.

Griffin Cooper - April 21, 2010 reply

Quality Starts.

Can anyone find the MLB record for consecutive quality starts by a pitcher? Felix is at 17.

kmb - April 21, 2010 reply

I typed it into google and got a whole bunch of articles about Felix!

Maybe that’s your answer.

Josh Johnson had at least 17 at one point.

That’s the best I could Google-find.

RunningFool - April 21, 2010 reply

Quality starts are kinda meh, but given that Felix has like 17 in a row, and the next best guy

is like at eight or nine, it’s pretty cool

That streak didn't start about the time we traded Yuni to KC, did it?

3 Weeks after we sent Yuni to KC.

He’s gotten the loss in just 2 games since we sent Yuni away.

Kirk - April 21, 2010 reply

He can't be anywhere close to a record.

As a guess, crunch the numbers on Pedro for the late 90’s and early naughts.

And that's just a modern name.

Going back I’m sure there have to be many ahead of him.

And yes, “quality starts” are pretty much as crap as a hold.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/play-index/shareit/78ckw

Look's like the record's 26

by Bob Gibson. Started on 9-12-67 and lasted to 7-30-68. (Check the ERA during that span. Whoa.) Felix’s run makes him 22nd.

(I hope you guys are glad for this; it cost me two bucks.)

craig3410 - April 21, 2010 reply

The dropped the height of the mound 5 or 6 inches in 1969.

The=they, and they being MLB.

Doesn't explain Maddux, though.

3 streaks in the top-10.

craig3410 - April 21, 2010 reply

Maddux is explained by Maddux being really good.

That's a large part of it, but not all...

He was very good, but nowhere near the talent of many guys not on the list. He always got the benefit of the doubt on calls, and he was just solid and consistent.

It wouldn’t be hard to name 5 better pitchers who aren’t even on the list.

I didn't say he was a phenom.

In terms of absolute “stuff”, Felix is undoubtedly better than Maddux. But that sort of sustained consistency goes a long way.

Oh, certainly.

I think that’s more of a failing of the stat than anything else.

The fact that Felix is up so high is great. The big thing I notice is a lack of power pitchers on that list…Ryan not on it once, for instance.

Wait, Seaver should count as that...

I'm not sure how much that change increased the run scoring environment.

Just mentioned it as something to keep in mind. Game is pretty fluid, I used to have a link to a time line of all the rule changes in baseball. Night games is another thing I’d like to read about, from what I’ve read the lights were pretty crappy early on. Be interesting to know if that affected the defense or offense.

Amazingly,

There is only a two game span between two of his long streaks. If it were not for his April 20th start giving up 4 runs in 8 innings and April 26th start giving up 6 runs in 5 innings, Maddux would have had a consecutive string of 42 quality starts in a row,

Trenchtown - April 22, 2010 reply

A rec for your purchase.

Nice work, sir.

Wilder. - April 21, 2010 reply

Bob Gibson has the record with 26

Gibson tossed 19 CG’s and posted a 0.90 ERA during that stretch as well. Felix’s streak is tied for the 17th longest.

Mark Sandritter - April 21, 2010 reply

Is it just me? Or just Jack Wilson look like Cypher from the Matrix?

Or does*

.

Just you.

RunningFool - April 21, 2010 reply

Nah, I can see it

More than the alleged Fister-Snell connection

I love that even average Felix os better than 95% of starters.

That game was awesome. Shame on the 30K people dressed as empty seats.

James F'n X - April 21, 2010 reply

I enjoy watching Sweeney work the pitch count

and wish Wak would bat Sweeney fourth and Byrnes fifth- I’d love to see flyouts followed by popups with Ichiro, Figgins and Guti on base, peppered with the occasional double play.

RustyJohn - April 21, 2010 reply

Sweeney knows he has little left, he tries to jump on those first pitch fastballs

He usually fails, and the result is a horrid at-bat.

There'd be more value in just going up there...

…and working the count as effectively as possible, if he has to be in the lineup at all (cough, Wak, cough).

FIRST. PLACE.

I HATE EVERYONE NEW EXCEPT THE PEOPLE I KNOW AND CAMERON MCCRACKEN. ;)

Okay I'm kidding, but welcome Cameron

I am a self-loathing b

THolt - April 22, 2010 via mobile reply

God damn phone...

*self-loathing new… b

THolt - April 22, 2010 via mobile reply

This could be a very good year!

However, we somehow need to rid ourselves of Jr. and Sweeney and I think we’re looking at October baseball. (How we do that is left for people better than myself). Lee still hasn’t pitched a single game, but CLIFF LEE! Bedard hasn’t pitched at all, but he may! We are ok at catcher, unless RJ decides he really is going to take Felix out. JL will be ok at 3b and if Bradley doesn’t have to start at LF we will more than survive. We will be alive in October. There are so many teams that can’t say that tonight. Go Mariners.

TrustBaseball - April 21, 2010 reply

If we dump Sweeney, we can bring up Saunders or Langerhans.

Milton Bradley can DH, and we’ll still have a backup outfielder in Byrnes. We thus keep Griffey. We do not need to rid ourselves of both, just one.