ReadingPhilly wrote:

mozartpc27 wrote:

ReadingPhilly wrote:the bitching is about his contract

So the Phillies paid somewhat more than they should have a for a likeable, marketable star who came through their very own farm system and was and has been a critical cog in the best team the franchise has ever built.

Will the injustices never cease!?!?!?!

heh, differing opinions.

I understand when fans get on a player who signs a big contract with their team as a free agent and then doesn't produce. For example, if Mets fans get all over Jason Bay or when Phils fans got all over Greg Jeffries back in the day. In those types of cases, the team is paying strictly for production it hopes to get, but had to pay a bonus for past production of which it was not the beneficiary. So I understand when fans get aggravated with a player who the team is paying a lot of money to but who fails to produce in that circumstance - after all, they've never enjoyed that player being "great."

But when it is a case of a team signing its own guy? Ryan Howard would have to be pretty bad for a pretty long time before I'd think it at all appropriate for fans to go all ape shit. Ryan Howard hit 22 HRs in 80 some odd games in his rookie year, and put another 58 on the board in his sophomore season, collected a RoY and an MVP, and got paid something like $1M TOTAL by the team for those seasons. Howard's great run in 2006 was largely responsible for reversing the trend of declining attendance after CBP's opening in 2004. Fans got to enjoy every moment of his ascendancy.

So if he gets paid too much now for what he can do, why should they care? He got paid way too LITTLE for two of the great individual seasons in all of Phillies history.

5th Round Pick wrote:So how do we pry Aramis Ramirez away from the Cubs to replace Placebo Polanco? I could live with our outfielders if we had Ramirez.

Ramirez or Hunter Pence. I throw in Cosart and don't think twice. Those are the only two position moves that I think help us this year as well as in future years.

I've always like ARamRam. Would still love to see him in Phils' pinstripes.

Eem wrote:Boarder JUburton did some research himself on this and wrote it up but I figure I'll let him post it

Behold my sabermetric botch job. It's not particularly well written but I gave it a shot:

On the heels of that Conlin piece I started thinking about Howard and was pretty bored at work so I did some 'research'. There may be something (or nothing) to this, but since 2008 (arbitrary begin point) Howard is 9th in WPA and 18th in WPA/LI while being all the way at 26th in wOBA. WPA is win probability added and totally context dependent while WPA/LI removes context…a home run is basically a home run. At least, I believe so. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.

Well, I found the correlation between wOBA and WPA it since 2008 and it’s pretty linear (wOBA as the independent variable and there’s an R^2 of 0.75, for fun, wOBA and RBIs are much less correlated and the R^2 drops to 0.41). A simple linear regression (thank you excel) shows that Howard “should have” about 7.3 WPA over that time in which he actually had 12.76...68% more than he should have had based on that regression. Doing the same for WPA/LI, which actually has an R^2 of 0.89...which makes sense given the context neutrality of the stat) says Howard should have had 7.9, but actually had 9.6, slightly less, but still a 30% increase. Obviously he's far lower in WAR due to defense/playing 1st so I left it out completely.
I know this has been discussed before but the shift has to be the key as for his career with runners on his OPS is .123 points higher than with bases empty. I feel that this gets overlooked when looking at Howard in a strictly SABR light and should really be included in any discussion of Howard’s hitting. Compare it to Utley (+.035 OPS), a great hitter on the same team, with probably just about the same situations to hit in, WPA wise. I understand this is an assumption, but over 2.5 years I expect they’ll even out for Utley/Howard. Utley, of course has a more normal correlation with his wOBA and WPA...10.6 expected and 11.9 actual (only a 12% increase). I forget how many games each played, but I’ll assume Chase’s is much lower due to his injuries.

Another example, Adrian Gonzalez, a fellow first baseman, same league for most of the sample, holds a .390 wOBA, not incredible, (better than Howard’s 0.372), but he has a massive 16.7 WPA and 16.5 WPA/LI since the beginning of 2008. Someone with a 0.390 wOBA is expected to have around 10.2 and 10.9 respectively. Gonzalez destroys these simple projections. Of note is, like Howard, his BABIP skyrockets with men on and especially with RISP (.306 empty to .333 to .348 for Gonzo…0.318, 0.333, 0.339 for Howard). As such, Gonzo, much like Howard, has a 0.130 higher OPS with RISP. I haven't seen a ton of Gonzalez, but I don't think he gets a shift like Howard, so I can’t offer a theory on why his BABIP changes so much while Howard’s is easily explained by the shift. As I was curious, I looked up Pujols and his BABIP is basically the same across the board...his slash line too...increasing a bit with RISP. I would expect most hitters slash line to increase with runners on due to the stretch, more neutral defensive alignments etc., but not like these Howard and Gonzalez. Of course, Gonzo is a better baseline hitter (bases empty) and plays better defense, and I’d venture a guess is better on the bases, hence his much higher WAR.

But I feel, and numbers show that there may be some hitters that truly are more than just their wOBA, our own Ryan Howard being one of them. Note, I’m not taking Howard’s defense into account here and I’m not saying he’ll be worth 125 million, but his true value must lie somewhere between preeminent power hitter of our generation and worst contract extension of all time, regardless of what the internet might say. Of course MattS did a great job with this article: http://www.baseballprospectus.com/artic ... leid=10677 that I read again before I started looking at this stuff.

One final note, I don’t pretend to be an expert on this stuff so if Crashburn or MattS reads this and has some critique I’d be more than glad to listen. I haven’t taken stat since oh…2002 so I don’t know if these were appropriate comparisons to make.

jamiethekiller wrote:

Eem wrote:With RISP, Howard actually has performed tangibly better in his career, and I think the lack of a shift is a huge part of it

yeah, did some looking on bbref the other day on this. with a man on first he's still average or so. a runner on second and first he gets a little bit better. but a runner on third and second he's a beast.

That's mostly because he gets intentionally walked which raises his OBP. The rest can be attribited to the fact that a fly ball with less than two outs will be a sacrifice rather than an out.

JB, isn't it true almost all hitters hit better with men on than without

jamiethekiller wrote:JB, isn't it true almost all hitters hit better with men on than without

I didn't look, but I'd assume it. I even took out a sentence that said I'd expect most hitters slash lines to increase based on the pitcher being in the stretch/more neutral defensive alignments. But not like Howard and Gonzalez. I'm not quite sure how to get all of MLB's slash lines in all base states, but that would certainly help.

Soren wrote:

JUburton wrote:

jamiethekiller wrote:JB, isn't it true almost all hitters hit better with men on than without

I didn't look, but I'd assume it. I even took out a sentence that said I'd expect most hitters slash lines to increase based on the pitcher being in the stretch/more neutral defensive alignments. But not like Howard and Gonzalez. I'm not quite sure how to get all of MLB's slash lines in all base states, but that would certainly help.

Does this work?

Ah, yes. I didn't think about the IBB either, but a walk is walk and should be rewarded as such, I suppose. In 2010 with empty/men on/RISP OPS was .711/.751/.750 for the league. A pretty significant increase, but not the crazy jump Howard and Gonzalez see. Ignoring the IBB, Howard's SLG for his career increases about 0.060 with men on where as in 2010 the league's SLG jumped only 0.016.

OSWALT IS PAIN FREE

he is still a pain in my ass

Eem wrote:OSWALT IS PAIN FREE

You don't say.

He could throw a bullpen in Chicago, and then go from there

Man that's pretty seriously good news

real Ken says so

Ken_Rosenthal Ken Rosenthal
Oswalt: Pain gone, needs to strength back in left leg. Bullpen session early next week. Maybe rehab stint in 10 days or so.

also - Victorino is supposedly working out with LHV today and and may play for Reading tomorrow.

missin u kendrick.

NOPE

stevemc wrote:real Ken says so

Ken_Rosenthal Ken Rosenthal
Oswalt: Pain gone, needs to strength back in left leg. Bullpen session early next week. Maybe rehab stint in 10 days or so.

also - Victorino is supposedly working out with LHV today and and may play for Reading tomorrow.

Pleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseplease be OK.

TITTTTTIES

This was before tonight's game, but hilarious nonetheless:

@STATS_MLB
STATS LLC
I-95 opposites: #Orioles have allowed 103 runs while losing 13 of 14 - same # of runs #Phillies have allowed in their last 36 games. #MLB

lolololololol

1 wrote:

76erfan wrote:polanco to dl.....ut oh

i remember getting this circled in a project in elementary school. i was all like "but that's totally how i say it" and she was all like "you're wrong. interjections clearly have to be spelled a certain way. why? because i said so."

same thing happened with "shew" (phew)

no one actually says "phew".

also, polanco sucks. giant head and whatnot.

Everyone I know says "phew." Maybe it's a south Jersey accented thing. Realistically, I guess I don't hear people say it very often, but that's how I've said it. I don't think I've ever heard 'shew.'

phdave wrote:After hearing for years that the Phillies strike out too much, I was shocked to see that they are dead last in that category in the NL.

This had me checking the leaders of other categories in the NL. Cardinals, by far, have grounded into the most double plays with 98. Next closest only has 75.