SK790 wrote:

smitty wrote:

SK790 wrote:I know people like to over-play the heroic-ism from Exxon and Castor, but they are still both OPSing below .600. In reality, they haven't been very good at all.

OPS is great for evaluating a full season. But these guys have barely played and yet they have both driven in and scored some big runs and made a bunch of nice defensive plays and that's more than enough good things to get from a 2nd and 3rd string utility infielder.

Jimmy will be back soon and all will be well but meanwhile the Phils have a great record and are pretty far in front of the rest of the division and Castro and Valdez have helped and not hurt and that's a good thing.

OPS > RBIs and Rs in any sample size, since neither of those depend on other players.

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate that they've gotten hits to help the Phillies win more games, but you can't help but think they're were probably(likely) to be lucky to get those hits when they did. I don't mean to be a negative nancy or anything, but some people(not on this board, obviously) think that they are good ball players, when they are nothing more than AAAA replacement players.

And you are right -- they are not good players. And that's my point. If your crappy temp replacement players are scoring and driving in runs and playing good defense, that's about as great as you can get. These guys stink. I don't care about their OPS because I expect them to have a bad one. What I care about is winning games and these guys playing for a few weeks and contributing to the team winning is great news.

I don't care if they were lucky. I don't care about their BABIP. I don't care about their WAR or WARP or WHOOP. As soon as Rollins and Ruiz get back Castro goes to the bench to sit there and do his Chico Ruiz thing and Exxon and Hoover go back to the land of the Iron pig.

And Swish, if we need a replacement outfielder for a few games I think Timmy Lupus is available. I always kinda liked what that booger eating moron brought to a team. He's gritty.

SK790 wrote:

swishnicholson wrote:

SK790 wrote:

smitty wrote:

SK790 wrote:I know people like to over-play the heroic-ism from Exxon and Castor, but they are still both OPSing below .600. In reality, they haven't been very good at all.

OPS is great for evaluating a full season. But these guys have barely played and yet they have both driven in and scored some big runs and made a bunch of nice defensive plays and that's more than enough good things to get from a 2nd and 3rd string utility infielder.

Jimmy will be back soon and all will be well but meanwhile the Phils have a great record and are pretty far in front of the rest of the division and Castro and Valdez have helped and not hurt and that's a good thing.

OPS > RBIs and Rs in any sample size, since neither of those depend on other players.

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate that they've gotten hits to help the Phillies win more games, but you can't help but think they're were probably(likely) to be lucky to get those hits when they did. I don't mean to be a negative nancy or anything, but some people(not on this board, obviously) think that they are good ball players, when they are nothing more than AAAA replacement players.

See this where I start thinking of my essay on stats being"predictive" or "productive" which I've never actually written since I've only given it about two minutes thought and think it wouldn't make any sense if I really tried to do more. But the fact is Valdez has hit a perfectly respectable .286 with runners in scoring position and Castro has logged a remarkable .368. How valuable are these for predicting how they'll do in situations coming up? Absolutely worthless. But in the question of, "Well how did they do?" filling in for Rollins while he was hurt, it would be silly to overlook this or other positives. "Better than expected', I think , has to be the answer, along with, "Glad it didn't have to go on for much longer." The runs they scored or knocked in will always be there, along with the fact that the club played pretty well with them in there. Sure it would have been nice if they had gotten on more and come up with extra base hits in non-key situations, raising the old OPS. But to do that they probably would have had to be actually good players. Instead, they only seemed to come through when we were most certain they would fail and, like Timmy Lupus' catch, that's something that should be appreciated all the more, rather than dismissed.

Your "predictive vs productive" argument is something I personally find interesting, actually. I've argued about this IRL and on the internet about the subject. IMO, certain stats are "productive", and certain stats are "predictive". Most "primitive" stats are productive, while most modern stats are predictive, at least IMO.

Anyhoo, segwaying, hopefully, into my main point, the "predictive" stats have shown that they have been pretty lucky with their production. High RBI and RS numbers despite bad OPSes. I said in my original post that I appreciate their timely hits and all, but overall, they haven't been very good. The "productive" stats have shown they've been great and all, but how long is it before they start getting their hits with nobody on rather than w/RISP?

Also, this is all based on an extremely small sample size.

Castro's RISP performance is not predictive because it is not representative of a special skill (like you are saying), but it absolutely should be counted in his descriptive value to the team during his PT this season.

It does shown up in his WPA too that he has provided situational value above and beyond his slash line....his wRAA, context neutral based just on his wOBA line, is -4 (ie, about -.4 wins), but his WPA is -.17

So because of getting some hits in more important spots, he descriptive production was a lot closer to average than his overall slash line would suggest

I think we're both saying the same thing in that there is no reason at all to believe that given more PT, he would continue to hit significantly higher in high leverage/RBI situations than he would overall, but since we're talking about his performance during his time filling in, his context-specific (RISP) performances should count to his credit, IMO

And, hopefully he won't play enough for the rest of his Phillies career for his situational success to get counterfeited in a larger sample size

And Valdez hasn't been all that "clutch" or overall productive, but he's just had his moments. The big extra inning double in SF especially. And he has been pretty damn hot lately at the plate with hits and XBHs and has made two big time defensive plays in important spots last night

Who cares if it's predictive? Why does everything have to be normative? Castro sucks. I don't need Matts to tell me that. And he helped the team win by getting some hits in key spots instead of not getting hits in those spots.

Trent Steele wrote:Who cares if it's predictive? Why does everything have to be normative? Castro sucks. I don't need Matts to tell me that. And he helped the team win by getting some hits in key spots instead of not getting hits in those spots.

I'm pretty sure that's what most of us are saying using many more words and even some WARP stuff.

according to Fangraphs

Castro has a .31 Clutch rating so far
Valdez has a .14 Clutch rating so far

both positive, so they are doing something right. Castro is in the top 70 for 'clutch.'


to compare, victorino, howard, and ruiz are all in the top 20.

Up to #3 in the latest ESPN rankings, behind the Rays and Yankees and ahead of the Twins, Padres and Blue Jays...

Cole Amyls (via TheFightins.com)

joe table wrote:
Castro's RISP performance is not predictive because it is not representative of a special skill (like you are saying), but it absolutely should be counted in his descriptive value to the team during his PT this season.

It does shown up in his WPA too that he has provided situational value above and beyond his slash line....his wRAA, context neutral based just on his wOBA line, is -4 (ie, about -.4 wins), but his WPA is -.17

So because of getting some hits in more important spots, he descriptive production was a lot closer to average than his overall slash line would suggest

I think we're both saying the same thing in that there is no reason at all to believe that given more PT, he would continue to hit significantly higher in high leverage/RBI situations than he would overall, but since we're talking about his performance during his time filling in, his context-specific (RISP) performances should count to his credit, IMO

And, hopefully he won't play enough for the rest of his Phillies career for his situational success to get counterfeited in a larger sample size

And Valdez hasn't been all that "clutch" or overall productive, but he's just had his moments. The big extra inning double in SF especially. And he has been pretty damn hot lately at the plate with hits and XBHs and has made two big time defensive plays in important spots last night

I didn't say that hitting w/RISP was predictive, I said it was productive...otherwise, I completely agree with you.

Bakestar wrote:[img]Cole%20altering%20his%20conscious%20reality[/img]

There was a shot of Prince Fielder snorting that last night too. Weird.

Bakestar wrote:Cole Amyls (via TheFightins.com)

...found in Wertz'z locker?

SK790 wrote:

joe table wrote:
Castro's RISP performance is not predictive because it is not representative of a special skill (like you are saying), but it absolutely should be counted in his descriptive value to the team during his PT this season.

It does shown up in his WPA too that he has provided situational value above and beyond his slash line....his wRAA, context neutral based just on his wOBA line, is -4 (ie, about -.4 wins), but his WPA is -.17

So because of getting some hits in more important spots, he descriptive production was a lot closer to average than his overall slash line would suggest

I think we're both saying the same thing in that there is no reason at all to believe that given more PT, he would continue to hit significantly higher in high leverage/RBI situations than he would overall, but since we're talking about his performance during his time filling in, his context-specific (RISP) performances should count to his credit, IMO

And, hopefully he won't play enough for the rest of his Phillies career for his situational success to get counterfeited in a larger sample size

And Valdez hasn't been all that "clutch" or overall productive, but he's just had his moments. The big extra inning double in SF especially. And he has been pretty damn hot lately at the plate with hits and XBHs and has made two big time defensive plays in important spots last night

I didn't say that hitting w/RISP was predictive, I said it was productive...otherwise, I completely agree with you.

Yeah I did the parentheses wrong. Was trying to say that I agreed with you that his RISP hitting isn't a persistent skill

This team wins in it sleep. Note to Chuck: you can start some of your bench players even when an injury doesn't dictate it, especially against piss-poor teams like the Pirates. Francisco better be starting tomorrow. Gload is probably wondering why he signed here. I'd like to sign Burrell but he'd get 3 ABs a month.

ek wrote:[quote="Warszawa"Gload is probably wondering why he signed here.

somehow I doubt that. the guy just wants to win[/quote]


small page article in the may phillies program about gload and the main quote was something on the lines of " he signed with the phillies because he had a defined role" gload also said something about how in miami there was usually 4,000 fans at the game , while in philly its always standing room even on mondays when its cold and rainy , which was ironic because that was tonight

F Gload. Werth's only here 140 more games (playoffs), he plays every day

Anyone tried this stuff?



They also have Wrigley, Fenway, Busch and Great American....

i wanna get my hands on some tropicana field seed.

Ace Rothstein wrote:

ek wrote:[quote="Warszawa"Gload is probably wondering why he signed here.

somehow I doubt that. the guy just wants to win

small page article in the may phillies program about gload and the main quote was something on the lines of " he signed with the phillies because he had a defined role" gload also said something about how in miami there was usually 4,000 fans at the game , while in philly its always standing room even on mondays when its cold and rainy , which was ironic because that was tonight[/quote]

Yeah I know, but I think he was counting on a little more playing time than next to zero

Phillies fans are bad at the quote function

"I didn't come here for more playing time," Gload said. "I probably came here for less playing time - and a chance just to be part of something good."

Seems content with sitting in the dugout and watching the Phillies maul their opponents without having to pay for a ticket

BigEd76 wrote:Anyone tried this stuff?



They also have Wrigley, Fenway, Busch and Great American....

Scotts could make bank with Jayson Werth brand grass.