Lookout Landing

"Starter" and "multi-million dollar player" are not the words that come to mind when I see those career batting lines

JBell523 - August 7, 2010 reply

Above-average OBP and great defense is a starting-caliber player.

Aaron Campeau - August 7, 2010 reply

Why?

A .754 OPS from an above average defensive outfielder is good.

Oh, you said career batting line.

As Jeff posted, over the last three seasons Langerhans has hit very well. Three years is generally the accepted threshold for no longer needing to worry about small sample sizes. There is every indication that Langerhans has turned the corner away from the struggles he faced early in his career. As such, he is worthy of starting in a Major League outfield.

This isn't really true though

He only has 341 PA over the past 3 years. That’s not enough to say his performance over the past three years represents who he is.

This type of issue is often confusing. Due to ambiguity, or perhaps ignorance

What does it take to be enough to label a player? Just the minimum threshold to get a basic benchmark on a player.

The ignorance being on my part.

I’m not calling you ignorant. That didn’t read particularly well.

Its all about your confidence you desire

Here is a good post although the link to the actual article is dead for me.

Here is the money stuff:

50 PA: Swing %
100 PA: Contact Rate
150 PA: Strikeout Rate, Line Drive Rate, Pitches/PA
200 PA: Walk Rate, Groundball Rate, GB/FB
250 PA: Flyball Rate
300 PA: Home Run Rate, HR/FB
500 PA: OBP, SLG, OPS, 1B Rate, Popup Rate
550 PA: ISO

Cutter went to 650 PA as his max, meaning that the exclusion of statistics like BA, BABIP, WPA, and context-neutral WPA indicates that they did not stabilize.

http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/site/comments/fighting_with_pizza_cutter/

Here is more discussion on the topic with Tango chiming in

I always wondered how line drive rate and groundball rate stabilize before flyball rate. If you know the first two, don't you know all three?

lailaihei - August 7, 2010 reply

Pizza Cutter says in the comments to the fangraphs article

Those numbers are per PA, not per ball in play. So, for one player who always puts the ball in play LD + GB + FB may account for 95% of his plate appearances. For another guy who strikes out and walks a lot (we’ll call him "Adam Dunn" just to give him a name), LD + GB + FB might only cover 70% of his PA’s.

Its kind of lazy feeling using a projection system to make this point

But if you look at ZiPS you see he is expected to put up .222/.337/.346 for the rest of the year.

This is happening because we don’t have much data on him over the past few years. Since things like his K% stabilize quickly we can say he will strike out a lot and have a low average. We also know he walks a fair amount but this takes a little longer to stabilize so we regress this to the mean a little more heavily than we did with his BB%. His BABIP and power numbers get regressed pretty heavily because there is a lot of variance in these numbers.

Just to play some number games, its pretty easy to see why ISO is fluky and takes so long to stabilize. If Langerhans would have hit one more home run in the past two years his ISO would go from .172 to .190 which is a pretty big change.

Whoops forgot to give a source for the above info

Here

Oh wow! Thanks for the information

Good stuff! Sample size comes up in threads so often and it can be frustrating to keep up. So that’s a big help, thanks for taking the time to put all that together.

Its a good post

I was happy to dig it up because I wanted to look at it too.

This is pretty good reading, you just made my day.

Seriously, I greatly respect when people will share something. This is very informative, I’ve read a couple of these but not all. Plus the back and forth in the post. Thanks.

We can take this data and apply it in a different light

Using an equation Tango likes to use we can mess with these plate appearances so they have a little more meaning.

21 PA: Swing %
43 PA: Contact Rate
64 PA: Strikeout Rate, Line Drive Rate, Pitches/PA
86 PA: Walk Rate, Groundball Rate, GB/FB
107 PA: Flyball Rate
129 PA: Home Run Rate, HR/FB
214 PA: OBP, SLG, OPS, 1B Rate, Popup Rate
236 PA: ISO

Here I’m showing the number of plate appearances we need for a “breakeven” point. This means that this is the point where we would regress the player’s performance 50% to the mean. Therefore after 129 PA we would take a player’s HR/FB and 129 PA for an average player’s HR/FB to get our estimate of the player’s true talent. In other words, at this point r = 0.5.

Thanks.

I was just about to make that spreadsheet.

Just so every one understands what you can do with these numbers, it goes like this: let a player’s PA be x and the “breakeven point” be y. Then the player’s true talent HR/PA is estimated by (HR + LgHR / PA * y)/(x + y).

http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/fantasy/article/when-do-stats-become-meaningful/

This THT article has similar numbers for pitchers.

Sadly, Statspeak, where that was originally published, is no more.

Its surprising to me that walk rate takes so long to stabilize

I always thought it took a little longer than strikeout rate but was in the same area. It isn’t even close though. IF/FB stabilizes faster than BB/PA. That is really surprising to me. I’m also surprised that LD% stabilizes so fast. I thought this tended to be fluky.

Agreed.

This fact breaks my rule of thumb that DIPS stabilize quickly and non-DIPS slowly. It’s interesting to note that batters BB/PA stabilize sooner. That suggests that walk rates have more to do with hitters than pitchers.

They do say...

4th outfielder, supersub, though

Dave Paisley - August 7, 2010 reply

Only we love Langerhans like he deserves to be loved. He can't go anywhere else.

Also, every team should have a fourth outfielder of his abilities. We have four outfielders (not including Bradley, who can’t reliably play in the field). Langerhans needs to stay on the bench and be used as a pinch hitter more. Plus, what if Saunders, Gutz, or Ichiro gets hurt? Last year, we had Ronny Cedeno playing outfield while Ichiro was out with the ulcer.

Decatur - August 7, 2010 reply

Curious which team would be interested in Ryan Langerhans as a starter.

During the time (2008) he’s put up the .226/.360/.394 batting like he’s been traded for Mike Morse and non-tendered.

ThundaPC - August 7, 2010 reply

There are 36 OFers in baseball this season with at least 250 PA and an OPS below Langerhans'.

He's accumulated 0.5 WAR in just 80 PA this year.

flashbeak - August 7, 2010 reply

I can't believe it but Mike Morse has been more valuable than Langerhaus

Morse has also played significantly more often.

Hopefulmsfan - August 7, 2010 reply

Morse actually has played less but apparently I can't add because they have both been worth 1.1 WAR

On further reflection,

THE BILL HALL-JACK HANNAHAN-RYAN LANGERHANS BENCH WAS GOING TO BE THE MOST GLORIOUSLY VERSATILE AND HANDEDNESS-BALANCED BENCH OF ALL TIME, AND INSTEAD WE GOT A MOORE-TUI-SWEENEY-GRIFFEY BENCH WITH BYRNES AS OUR STARTING LF THREE GAMES INTO THE SEASON!!! NOW YOU WANT TO TAKE LANGERHANS TO A NICE FARM WHERE HE CAN RUN AROUND AND PLAY WITH THE ANIMALS AND BE MUCH HAPPIER THAN HE IS HERE BECAUSE IT’S THE HUMANITARIAN THING TO DO??? ARE WE NOT HUMAN, TOO, JEFF?!?!?!

Decatur - August 7, 2010 reply

You are too loud.

jackyz - August 7, 2010 via mobile reply

Maybe we're dancer.

Slurvey - August 7, 2010 reply

Yeah that would have been a really nice bench to have.

Hopefulmsfan - August 7, 2010 reply

Check your caps lock key.

It appears to be broken.

It looks to me like it's working just fine.

JY - August 7, 2010 reply

Langerhans plate displine numbers are weird

He doesn’t swing at much, doesn’t make contact with much and doesn’t get thrown any strikes. So far this year he has walked or struck out in 60% of his plate appearances. I understand why his strikeout totals are so high but I don’t really get why pitchers refuse to throw strikes to him.

I wonder if pitchers would figure him out and reduce his offensive production if he got regular playing time (the reverse could also be argued that with regular playing time his contact numbers might rise).

Probably falls into the Chone Figgins rule of most pitchers can't throw strikes to save their lives, and so rarely swinging will get you on base a lot.

joof - August 7, 2010 reply

I wish Langerhans could play a serviceable shortstop.

That would be one less hole.

Hopefulmsfan - August 7, 2010 reply

In my mind Hannahan and Langerhans were basically the same player but one played OF and the other played IF

I don't see how he has failed to work himself into Wak's Belief System.

He doesn’t do the flashy stuff to get him noticed by outsiders, but he seems to help his team almost every time he is in there. He does not glide to balls like Guti and Ichiro but he gets to all the balls he should get to. He has some speed, some pop, and he walks a ton. He doesn’t make mistakes.

Instead, when he was first called up this year Wak promised that he would not get the playing time that Eric Byrnes did. He was going to be used in emergency situations only, and he has kept that promise. Through all the change and suckitude we have endured this year, Ryan Langerhans has stayed firmly on the end of the bench. He could have been used a lot better.

Droid Rage - August 7, 2010 reply

Langerhans seems like a classic case of a guy scouts can't get their heads around.

.230 batting average is just going to kill you with scouts. A sub-.400 slugging percentage from an OF who can’t swipe bags is another thing that scouts won’t get excited about.

I still maintain that scouts might be able to tell who’s going to hit dingers and who’s going to strike out, and all that, but they still don’t get the relative values of events on the field. Every scout out there seems to love a .300/.300/.500 hitter and be luke-warm on a .250/.400/.400 hitter.

I'm pretty sure scouts value OBP pretty highly

But it seems like guys in the minors who have high OBP and low SLG have a tough time translating to the majors.

Also, there are only 6 players in MLB who have OBP greater than or equal to .400. All of them have SLG > .550.

There are four players with OBP > .375 and SLG <.425:
Ian Kinsler
Brett Gardner
Daric Barton
Chipper Jones

I’d say these guys are pretty well valued for their production and pretty well liked by scouts.

I was exaggerating a little.

But scouts don’t love Nick Johnson.

Also, this season is not representative of OBP/SLG. Among 20 active leaders in OBP, 5 have a sub .500 slugging percentage (Mauer, Johnson, Youkilis, Jeter, , and Abreu), and a sixth (J. D. Drew) is exactly .500. You’re right than nobody has a .400 OBP and a .400 slugging percentage, but I was picking numbers for illustration (nobody has zero walks either.)

Of those last four: Kinsler is playing below his true talent right now (and injured), Jones gets some respect for being one of the best hitters of his generation, even if he’s not the hitter he once was, and I’m not sure about Gardner’s profile with scouts, and last I heard lots of people had given up on Barton.

Yeah I think we both exaggerated a little to make our points

but I think scouts just worry that its difficult for a player to maintain a high walk rate if they lack power.

This is why ISO is so telling though

a guy posting a .336 OBP with .150 ISO and good defense will almost always be a valuable player

seattlebruin - August 9, 2010 reply

And that's (one of the uncountable reasons) why I hate Wakamatsu

I didn’t like him last year – he got lucky. This year, still hate his decisions and they stand out way more because of the bad luck. How much of that bad luck has come home to roost because of poor decision making in spring training, though?

Dave Paisley - August 7, 2010 reply

Wait I'm confused. What's the wrong decision you're talking about?

I mean I love Langerhans but I’d still rather have a Saunders/Guti/Ichiro outfield.

MT Olson - August 7, 2010 reply

Elaborate on this bad decision making in spring training

He kept Langerhans on the team. His decision to keep Sweeney over Garko has been largely vindicated, as Garko has been awful and scouts seem to think he has just given up. Hannahan was injured. The bullpen was as well constructed as it could have been.

The problems on this team have been the bullpen, Figgins, Lopez, Wilson, RRS/Snell, Griffey, Kotchman, and the lack of a catcher. Absolutely none of those are Wak’s fault.

I can see not liking the guy. He often makes awful bullpen decisions. His lineup construction is, at times, puzzling. But he did as well as he could with the roster.

Fuckmikereilly - August 7, 2010 reply

Though, obviously, the bullpen has been mismanaged, so that could be placed partially on Wakamatsu.

But much of it was a lack of good relievers to work with, and injuries.

Fuckmikereilly - August 7, 2010 reply

Also failure to utilize platoon advantages, handedness in his line ups. A couple other things I'm forgetting

Doesn’t matter the outcome, he’s left a significant amount of advantage on the bench when it mattered. With so many close games the value of small elements of tactical leverage is magnified. Bender had a post touching on this