If I were Manager...

[Richie Allen]

I'm less thrilled about the 2.5 million we paid him to play in Spring Training for us the last two years.

Argh. D.GOOCH

Yes, nothing is ever perfect. This kind of thing happens every year to every team.

[Richie Allen]

Even if Miles could hit .300 consistently (he can't and he doesn't...his highest finish was .293 at, you guessed it, Coors), he still doesn't walk enough.

And Gary Bennett might be the backup catcher. But that meant 157 ab's last season. Why not Marerro? He provides more positional versatility *and* he's got some pop. Bennett's OPS last season .605

.605

Luckily, the win column is not determined by adding up the OPS of each player, position by position. This idea that our wins are an accumulation of our 25 players is a fantasy. I applaud the folks that strive to determine these types of things but, in my opinion, their results are nothing more than entertainment.

In other words, Putting Eli behind the plate once a week may or may not help determine a win or a loss (or many) during a year. But just looking at his OPS/Win Shares (whatever the hell else numbers are out there) doesn't mean it's going to happen. And the key, as far as I'm concerned, I don't necessarily think those numbers mean there's a better chance of it happening. Stacking the odds in your favor, so to speak.

Now sure, replace Pujols with Joe Hague and you're going to see a big difference in the win column. But replacing Bennett with Eli, So with J-Rod, Miles with ?, and it's anyone's guess how they're going to have an effect on the number of wins or losses in a given year. Yes, I want the best possible team on the field and in the dugout...but, and I no this goes against rational thought, that doesn't necessarily mean the 25 highest OPS and ERA pluses.

Tony seems to think his chances are best with the 25 we have now. Do you really think he's that ignorant that he'd jeopardize his team by playing favorites? How quickly would he lose the respect of his players if everyone knew that Eli or John deserved to be on the team but it was obvious that Tony decided to go with someone else based on non-justifiable reasons. And I suppose that even if it was suspected that Tony played favorites, his recent track record might cause one to believe that he's got a pretty good idea of what is necessary to make up a winning team.

[GOOCH]

On Base Percentage is the most important baseball skill on offense.

On Base Percentage is the most important baseball skill on offense.

On Base Percentage is the most important baseball skill on offense.

Say it with me, guys. D.GOOCH

[GOOCH]

I'm less thrilled about the 2.5 million we paid him to play in Spring Training for us the last two years.

Argh. D.GOOCH

Yes, nothing is ever perfect. This kind of thing happens every year to every team.

Not "if I were the manager"... D.GOOCH

[GOOCH]

Win shares, OBP, OPS, heck, BA & RBI's you name your offensive metric...

they don't just apply to the best hitters. They are as meaningful for the lesser hitters as well.

Now, sure, there's enough noise in these measures that I can't take a .005 difference in OPS and try and tell you this proves that Player A is .005 better than Player B.

But we aren't talking about small differences. John Rodreiguez has NEVER posted an OBP below .350 in his Major and Minor League career (minimum 50 games played). Preston Wilson has NEVER posted an OBP above .350 in his entire major league career (min 50 games). Never. Ever. And it hasn't been above .330 since 2003. That year in Coors. And then it was a whopping .343.

J-Rod has posed above .800 OPS's throughout his minor and major league careers. Preston hasn't had a non-coors +.800 season since 2001.

J-Rod is a superior offensive player to Preston. The difference is fairly substantial. And, of course, the difference between J-Rod and So is...well, it boggles the mind. D.GOOCH

[Richie Allen]

On Base Percentage is the most important baseball skill on offense.

On Base Percentage is the most important baseball skill on offense.

On Base Percentage is the most important baseball skill on offense.

Say it with me, guys. D.GOOCH

We had the 5th highest OBP in the NL in 2006. Washington's was a point higher than ours!

[Richie Allen]

Win shares, OBP, OPS, heck, BA & RBI's you name your offensive metric...

they don't just apply to the best hitters. They are as meaningful for the lesser hitters as well.

Now, sure, there's enough noise in these measures that I can't take a .005 difference in OPS and try and tell you this proves that Player A is .005 better than Player B.

But we aren't talking about small differences. John Rodreiguez has NEVER posted an OBP below .350 in his Major and Minor League career (minimum 50 games played). Preston Wilson has NEVER posted an OBP above .350 in his entire major league career (min 50 games). Never. Ever. And it hasn't been above .330 since 2003. That year in Coors. And then it was a whopping .343.

J-Rod has posed above .800 OPS's throughout his minor and major league careers. Preston hasn't had a non-coors +.800 season since 2001.

J-Rod is a superior offensive player to Preston. The difference is fairly substantial. And, of course, the difference between J-Rod and So is...well, it boggles the mind. D.GOOCH

Another in a line of predictable Bill James clones. Try thinking for yourself for once.

Goodnight!

[GOOCH]

And we only won 83 games.

And you are jumping from a discussion of individual metrics of offensive skills to assessing teams by aggregating the individual performances of all the players who played for them over the course of a 162 game season. That's a different question...though a related one.

You also run into the problem of ordinally ranking teams. If you ordinally rank, then we assume equi-distance from rank to rank. So a move from 1st to 2nd is supposed to be the same as moving from 8th to 9th. But that's not really the case when we talk about OBP. OBP is continuous...not ordinal. You go from the Yankees at 1 with a .363 OBP for 2006 to the Red Sox (2) at .351. That's a 12 point gap. But we have to go from 4th (L.A.) all the way down to 16th (Reds) to get to our next 12 point gap in OBP. So ordinal rankings can be deciving.

With several teams bunched together, it's more difficult to distinguish them. That said, if you go and look at MLB and sort teams by OBP, you'll see a strong correlation between that team OBP and the runs scored for those teams.

D.GOOCH

[GOOCH]

Win shares, OBP, OPS, heck, BA & RBI's you name your offensive metric...

they don't just apply to the best hitters. They are as meaningful for the lesser hitters as well.

Now, sure, there's enough noise in these measures that I can't take a .005 difference in OPS and try and tell you this proves that Player A is .005 better than Player B.

But we aren't talking about small differences. John Rodreiguez has NEVER posted an OBP below .350 in his Major and Minor League career (minimum 50 games played). Preston Wilson has NEVER posted an OBP above .350 in his entire major league career (min 50 games). Never. Ever. And it hasn't been above .330 since 2003. That year in Coors. And then it was a whopping .343.

J-Rod has posed above .800 OPS's throughout his minor and major league careers. Preston hasn't had a non-coors +.800 season since 2001.

J-Rod is a superior offensive player to Preston. The difference is fairly substantial. And, of course, the difference between J-Rod and So is...well, it boggles the mind. D.GOOCH

Another in a line of predictable Bill James clones. Try thinking for yourself for once.

Goodnight!

LOL. Yes, I e-mail Bill to get the answers to the issues you raise, since Bill is the only guy on the planet capable of understanding baseball statistics. Damn, caught again...

D.GOOCH

[thrill]

Keep it friendly all. We could rehash the stats vs traditionalism argument everyday but that gets old very quickly and makes for a lame forum. I think you've both made your point articulately and thoroughly.