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Posted: Sat Jan 20, 2007 12:24 pm Post subject: Stephen Drew 13th among ML shortstops?
Or so Mike Harmon at foxsport.com predicts for the 2007 season. Personally I think Mike draws too heavily on his fantasy-league stats and that Stephen's true stock will be a higher value by the end of '07.
According to Harmon:
1. Jose Reyes, New York Mets
2. Derek Jeter, New York Yankees
3. Miguel Tejada, Baltimore Orioles
4. Jimmy Rollins, Philadelphia Phillies
5. Michael Young, Texas Rangers
6. Hanley Ramirez, Florida Marlins
7. Rafael Furcal, Los Angeles Dodgers
8. Bill Hall, Milwaukee Brewers
9. Carlos Guillen, Detroit Tigers
10. Edgar Renteria, Atlanta Braves
11. Felipe Lopez, WAS:
12. Orlando Cabrera, Los Angeles Angels
13. Stephen Drew, Arizona Diamondbacks
The Diamondbacks will field a youthful lineup, so there are some wild cards in the picture for 2007. However, we got a glimpse of just how effective Stephen Drew can be in the second half of the 2006 campaign. Drew hit for a strong .316 batting average with 25 extra-base hits in 209 at-bats, which projects to a strong full season. Most encouraging for prospective owners this season is the fact that Drew hit a robust .364 in 31 home games. At 23 years of age and with only 59 Major League games under his belt, the future is bright for Drew in the desert.
14. Julio Lugo, Bosto Red Sox
15. Omar Vizquel, San Francisco Giants
16. Jhonny Peralta, Cleveland Indians
17. Freddy Sanchez, Pittsburgh Pirates
18. Khalil Greene, San Diego Padres
19. Juan Uribe, Chicago White Sox
20. Bobby Crosby, Oakland Athletics
Great reality does not always = great fantasy players. i.e. Jacque Jones and Tori Hunter are to remarkable OFs that are not highly regarded fantasy players.
Total package guy. Good speed, arm, D, some power and good instincts. When Minn. had Stewart, Hunter and Jones, I feel that they had one of, if not, the best all around OFs in baseball.
Last edited by foulpole on Sat Jan 20, 2007 1:01 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Posted: Sat Jan 20, 2007 12:59 pm Post subject:
Jacque Jones arm, decsion making on defense, Jacque Jones on defense is a human comedy. My buddy puts him up with Shea, on the all decision making team. his arm is a scud missle.
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Posted: Sat Jan 20, 2007 1:01 pm Post subject:
Jones is the epitome of a league average hitter, (.260 lifetime EQA, -1 BRAA, 101 Career OPS+)
He's a decent right fielder, somewhat above average, but not outstanding or remarkable by any means.
His Career FRAA, (Fielding Runs Above Average is 37, which is about 4.5 per seasons.
His RS/PT in 2006 was +4
Pretty good, but hardly remarkable.
He may have decent speed, but it has never translated to alot of steals, and in fact he has a very poor stolen base percentage. 76 steals, 41 caught, just 65% success rate, which is WELL below the threshold for when a base stealer fails to break even.
I think he gets overated by some because he made sportscenter web gems alot a few years back, when he and Hunter were on every other night. No doubt he made some great plays....but I think the numbers capture perfectly exactly who Jacque Jones is......a thouroughly unremarkable league average player.
The thing about fantasy vs. reality that will typically bite a player like drew is that several players will be given extra "credit" because of the lineup or projected spot in the order. A guy with a lot of stolen bases will get way more credit than they deserve, especially considering how little SB's help a given team. Fantasy rankings are the last thing I would draw value off of.
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Posted: Sat Jan 20, 2007 1:42 pm Post subject:
rgndvo wrote:
The thing about fantasy vs. reality that will typically bite a player like drew is that several players will be given extra "credit" because of the lineup or projected spot in the order. A guy with a lot of stolen bases will get way more credit than they deserve, especially considering how little SB's help a given team. Fantasy rankings are the last thing I would draw value off of.
What, how little value a sb is? Oh sheepers creepers.
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Posted: Sat Jan 20, 2007 2:12 pm Post subject:
The difference between a single with nobody on base, and a single and a successful steal is about 0.2 runs.
But getting caught is such a negative, as you lose both an out and a baserunner, that unless you succeed about 75%-80% of the time, it's generally not worth the effort, and in fact can be very damaging. Of course, having certain players steal when it's least expected can greatly increase the odds of getting there safely, but teams too often steal when expected and don't when not, so the element of surprise is lost.
And as for the oft stated positive effect of distraction caused to the pitcher by a stolen base threat on first causes....this has been studied in depth. the main advantage is because of the threat of a steal, the first baseman holds and you open up the hole. But other than that, there is no evidence to suggest that it actually helps the batters.
There are a lot of good ss now. It is a quality position. Even in real life, who is Drew better on that list. Ramiarez and Lopez (higher I image for roto becasue of sb's, as noted) are the only ones I'd go for. Maybe Cabrera, I don't know what he did last year.
I think 13th is about right... although I think Bill Hall is in for a reality check this year and Drew should also be better than the likes of Orlando Cabrera, Renteria, and Felipe Lopez. So I guess that gives me a projected rank of about #9 for this upcoming season. But as we all know, the sky is the limit for Drew, he could easily end up being the best SS in baseball in the not so distant future. Then in regards to fantasy type rankings, he'll always be ranking behind the like of Jose Reyes because of the SB category in your roto 5x5 leagues. Drew could very easily end up being a left handed version of Michael Young and that'd be spectacular.
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Posted: Sun Jan 21, 2007 10:03 am Post subject:
Quote:
The difference between a single with nobody on base, and a single and a successful steal is about 0.2 runs.
But getting caught is such a negative, as you lose both an out and a baserunner, that unless you succeed about 75%-80% of the time, it's generally not worth the effort, and in fact can be very damaging. Of course, having certain players steal when it's least expected can greatly increase the odds of getting there safely, but teams too often steal when expected and don't when not, so the element of surprise is lost.
And as for the oft stated positive effect of distraction caused to the pitcher by a stolen base threat on first causes....this has been studied in depth. the main advantage is because of the threat of a steal, the first baseman holds and you open up the hole. But other than that, there is no evidence
to suggest that it actually helps the batters.
Now granted, I get confused easy, but this guy's article almost makes the case for the as sb being valuable. He submits his own strategies for the sb, then goes to say Herzog's teams were more obp, Pinella's system works.....meh
Fact sb, is very valuable, buts its not easy, and can be misused. There is such a thing as overusing, and being overaggressive, and running into outs, of course, but a blanket statement saying its overrated, and not valuable gets debunked in his own article.
Next, this paragraph.
Quote:
And as for the oft stated positive effect of distraction caused to the pitcher by a stolen base threat on first causes....this has been studied in depth. the main advantage is because of the threat of a steal, the first baseman holds and you open up the hole. But other than that, there is no evidence
to suggest that it actually helps the batters
Ever hear the Rudi Law rule, its LaRussa 101. What is it, and how is it applied?
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certainly snagging an extra base is great, but they took rickey hendersons career, broke it down into number of runs he created by stealing a base minus number of runs he lost by getting caught and they came to the conclusion that with 1406 sbs in his career, he helped his team by adding 50 runs over 25 seasons. This is the most accoladed SB machine ever and he helped his team by an average of 2 runs a year (certainly more in some than others).
Like Shoe said, if you can do it in the right situation or do it and not get caught 75% of the time, then youre absolutely helping your team. And there is an intangible in getting into the mind of the pitcher or making the defense shift or whatever, but that only goes so far.
Lichtman and Tango's "The Book" says that "The disruptive runner has an enormously negative impact on the batter, enough to completely offet the disruption caused to the defense."( p. 326)
Having a man on first with < 2 outs is worth 14 wOBA points on the average. wOBA is a new stat that they came up with to combine slugging and OBP. 340 is about average. I find it confusing and hard to use, but I find the whole Book that way. I wish they would hire a professional writer to re-write it.
They also found that a sb attempt reduces the wOBA of the batter by 22 points.
I guess whether the sb is overrated depends on how you rate it in the first place. If you think it is almost worthless and should almost never be used (as the A's sometimes seem to), I don't think you have overrrated it and maybe you have underrated it.
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Posted: Sun Jan 21, 2007 11:12 am Post subject:
Dangerfield wrote:
Quote:
The difference between a single with nobody on base, and a single and a successful steal is about 0.2 runs.
But getting caught is such a negative, as you lose both an out and a baserunner, that unless you succeed about 75%-80% of the time, it's generally not worth the effort, and in fact can be very damaging. Of course, having certain players steal when it's least expected can greatly increase the odds of getting there safely, but teams too often steal when expected and don't when not, so the element of surprise is lost.
And as for the oft stated positive effect of distraction caused to the pitcher by a stolen base threat on first causes....this has been studied in depth. the main advantage is because of the threat of a steal, the first baseman holds and you open up the hole. But other than that, there is no evidence
to suggest that it actually helps the batters.
Now granted, I get confused easy, but this guy's article almost makes the case for the as sb being valuable. He submits his own strategies for the sb, then goes to say Herzog's teams were more obp, Pinella's system works.....meh
Fact sb, is very valuable, buts its not easy, and can be misused. There is such a thing as overusing, and being overaggressive, and running into outs, of course, but a blanket statement saying its overrated, and not valuable gets debunked in his own article.
Next, this paragraph.
Quote:
And as for the oft stated positive effect of distraction caused to the pitcher by a stolen base threat on first causes....this has been studied in depth. the main advantage is because of the threat of a steal, the first baseman holds and you open up the hole. But other than that, there is no evidence
to suggest that it actually helps the batters
Ever hear the Rudi Law rule, its LaRussa 101. What is it, and how is it applied?
Rudi Law, rule, Carlton Fisk was a dead red hitter, LaRussa hit him behind Law, a base stealing threat knowing that pitchers are more apt to throw fastballs when Law was on base.
could the rule of been applied to Dan Uggla this year, behind Ramirez, and been a reason for his success as well.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/pi/event_hr.cgi?n1=fiskca01&type=b
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I always thought that Jay Bell had that great year becasue Womack has such a good year stealing bases. Bell did see a lot of fb that year.
The numbers from the Book are averages. I don't interpret them to mean that it is never a good idea to run or that you shouldn't adjust to fit a player's skill set. OTOH, I think the numbers do show that teams run too much as a general rule or at least with the wrong players.
An alternative explanation for Bell's success is that Bell made a deal with Rogers Hornsby that Bell would get Hornsby's batting skills for a year, but Bell would give his defensive skill to Hornsby for eternity. A big factor in Hell v. Heaven matchup.
Satan goes to St. Peter and challenges him to a baseball game. St. Peter says: "you have no chance. We have all the great ball players." Satan says: "But who has the umpires?"
Last edited by stu on Sun Jan 21, 2007 1:12 pm; edited 2 times in total
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Posted: Sun Jan 21, 2007 11:40 am Post subject:
The evidence begins to pore in. Even Jay Bell made a deal with the devil....
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This is one of those things that might be impossible to statistically quantify - although maybe somebody can think of a way. The only way to even somewhat statistically test it is - as stated - having a home run hitter bat behind a base stealing threat (after a period of time when he did not).
Anecdotally, just ask a hitter who bats behind a basestealing threat. They will tell you that they see a ton more fastballs. One that we've all heard a million times is how Yogi Berra used to call so many fastballs with runners on first before Bill Dickey straightened him out defensively (i.e., "learned me all his experience").
Or go ask the same question to a third base coach who flashes the signs. When I coached 3rd sometimes when I had a big hitter up I'd virtually stop the action on the field by having the batter step out, flash lengthy signs to the runner on first to make the pitcher think we were stealing - ONLY for the purpose of increasing the chances of getting a fastball. It worked VERY well! :)
I think you are right on both accounts. 1- there's a definite effect on the pitching when there's a base stealing "threat" on first and 2- it's nearly impossible to quantify.
I remember watching a few games with Pierre on first and some of the pitchers appeared to lose total concentration.
I don't think this ranking is far off. There are probably what five guys at short that really standout then there is a group of guys were Drew fits in, they are better then average, but either haven't pushed to the next level or have too small a sample size to push the next. Then there is a a buch of guys who are defensive gems with little in the way of a bat.
You could probably slide him up or a down a few spots, and it wouldn't hurt either way.
I think the guy is going to be very good, only time will tell.
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