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The fact that Fowler had a positive defensive WAR in 2016 and a large negative defensive WAR in 2017 tells me a lot about defensive measurements. They are pretty worthless, just like I have always said.
They are especially worthless when they don’t fit the narrative you are spinning. Guys can have big swings in defense. That doesn’t make the stats worthless. They still prove out over time.
But, judging by other arguments you’ve made in this thread, you don’t want to toss out defensive metrics, you want to toss out defense entirely, and only judge players on hitting metrics. That’s your prerogative, but do understand that you are only looking at half the game.
And some people would prefer Matt Weiters to Frank Thomas against righties. Opinions vary.
Edit: Now that I see the lineup, I am ready for this toilet to be flushed. That we are in contention with a registered and obvious moron managing this team is unreal. Does he know that Ozuna is right handed? Why not put Weiters in LF?
In case you guys missed it, Fowler was just as good in 2017 for the Cardinals as he was in 2016 for the Cubs. He has been in short spurts this year, also.
I have a hard time equating a 4.6 WAR with a 2.5 WAR. Fowler got paid based on his outlier season of 2016, and in 2017, we got the 4th best season of his career, which will also be the best we get out of him. His career prior to 2016 earned him a one year contract for $13 million (really a 2 year $17 million deal with a player option). And that was, predictably, the better half of his career (he turned 31 before the 2017 season). And yet we threw $82.5 million over 5 years at him.
Playing him now is certainly the defensible, safe play. He’s been playing well the last couple of weeks. But I’d rather see Thomas out there in his place. And no matter how bad Bader was hitting, he was providing more overall value than Dexter.
We are stuck with that garbage contract, and we might as well try to extract as much value as possible out of him.
Yeah, but Edman hits lefthanded against righties. Just because he actually performs worse against righties than Lane Thomas does is no reason to do something rash and play the player who is the better hitter and fielder.
The very numbers you quote and dismiss are why they are the smart money. You don’t have to have amazingly high odds in your favor to have (betting) equity.
If you doubt run differential (not speaking to anyone in particular now), just go look at the final standings every year. There are a few outliers, but the correlation to standings is enormous. And that is why it is a fairly reliable indicator of future performance.
And just because we are a slight dog doesn’t mean I’m giving up or saying that anyone else should. I’m just saying Eurowolf’s post was a good one, and another data point. And it isn’t uncommon for people to just outright dismiss something because they don’t like it or it doesn’t fit their narrative.
Suggesting a regression to the mean over the last 7 weeks shouldn’t be so contested. The data is the data, but that doesn’t mean we don’t get to still enjoy the games.
Good post, Eurowolf. Pythagorean run differential is meant as an indicator, not any sort of absolute predictor. Of course there are times when it is going to be a false positive.
But for those of you saying it is total bunk – the Cardinals and Cubs are tied for first in the standings now. If you guys truly believe it is nonsense, you can make some good money betting on the Cardinals right now. You can certainly get even money from some people here. Anyone willing to put their money where their heart is? Or are we really just dismissing stats that don’t say what we want them to?
Never mind the fact there are right handed hitters that can hit right handed pitching better than Edman. Just put him in because he can hit lefty (and because Wieters is already catching, otherwise…).
Honestly, I think that Schildt may be posting on this message board.
I have no clue on this one. I am all for a top down house cleaning, so if this is something that helps DeWitt realize the whole toilet needs to be flushed, then I’m all for it. If this is going to be this year’s scapegoat, then I hate it.
In other words, the problem isn’t Bill DeWitt. The problem is Mo.
No ****, Sherlock. Plenty of people have been saying that for a while. I just wish Bill DeWitt would realize that.
Thank you for the share, though, gscott.
Edit: The Sherlock, in this case, is in general. I was not directing that at you, gscott. I read it after posting and it sounded like I was attacking you. Definitely did not mean it that way.
Our major problem this year is clearly the offense. We simply can’t hit. Shouldn’t that in some way involve the hitting coach? Last year this board was merciless in its criticism of Mabry. This year so far not a peep about good ol’ whatshisname.
I agree completely. Outside of Ozuna, our new hitting coach is not having a positive effect on anyone. And now I just checkod on Ozuna’s stats, and he’s not really doing anything out of the ordinary for him aside from a hot start to the season and the first few months when he was coming up to bat with an inordinate amount of runners on base. He has been a sub-.800 OPS guy since the beginning of May.
Then again, I’m of the opinion that firing the hitting coach now is just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
I don’t know if I agree with the players being soft because I don’t know how you would measure that.
When you say that the players got significantly worse due to the mental anguish of the front office not making deadline deals, you are explicitly calling them soft.
They ate $17 million plus international cap money for Leake. That is not trivial. He was not a good fit on the team so they felt they had to move him.
And, in hindsight, even that was a mistake.
Hard to play well when you have the disappointment of not getting replaced by someone better at the deadline.
Lane Thomas is now nothing more than a glorified pinch runner.
He’s easily the best defensive OF they have right now, and he might be the second best hitter of the group. Seems perfectly normal to limit him to pinch running and have infielders who are lesser hitters play in the OF.
I’m sure it is perfectly normal for a top bullpen that is fully rested to run out 3.5 ERAs and 1.3 WHIPs with a 1 run lead in the 9th.
Has there ever been a young pitcher who lost three straight seasons and ended up with any semblance of an MLB career? I’m looking for something to hang some hope on right now, but this doesn’t bode well (not that things were not already ominous before this season).
I think that’s fair, Forsch. And we also don’t know that in two years Edman will be our best option. Someone else could rise up and be better. I certainly don’t want them to be in a rush to commit more money to over 30’s.
Bob Reed is an asset to this site. The only complaint I have about him is that he doesn’t post enough. His prospect info is second to none.
Thank you, Bob, for the work you put in for us. I know that you put a lot of time into this, and I wanted to let you know that it is much appreciated. I’ve been reading your stuff here since before I even signed up for a handle to post.
I agree that Wong is being underrated. He seems to be improving as a hitter, year by year, in his approach. And his glove is amazing.
I’m also not sure what Tommy Edman has done to convince anyone that he’s a better offensive player than Wong, unless you just love switch hitters.
Let me ask you this…if Bryant and Rizzo had career worst years, where do you think the Cubs would be at?
They pretty much did last year, and they finished 7 wins ahead of us.
You choose to hang your hat on their “DEF” number,
That is the stat that Fangraphs hangs their hats on, too, since it is their default ranker for team defense. It is, in a nutshell, defensive WAR.
In the latest SABR Defensive Index (25% of Gold Glove scoring), the Cards have three defenders in the top 10 of the entire league across all positions. However, one is Bader. Mikolas and Flaherty are in the top quarter of pitchers. Wainwright and Hudson are in the top half. Molina ranks in the top quarter of catchers.
Five Cards are among the worst at their respective positions, with negative scores: Wacha, Fowler, Ozuna, Carpenter and Martinez.
Remember when I took a shot at the defense and said, “We do not have good defense (at least with how we manage the lineup).” Well, we choose not to play Bader, and we do choose to make all four of the “worst” fielders regulars. We platoon Wong more than we should. Heck, Schildt would probably do the same to DeJong if he had anything resembling an MLB SS.
So that’s what I meant about how we choose to manage the lineup. All three of our elite fielders should only come off the field when they need rest. But we choose to run a circus in the OF every night, and, lately, when we rest one of those guys, we choose to put an infielder out there who is actually worse than the other three.
