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FWIW (SSS disclaimer), in only 362 innings, Herrera is at -6 DRS and -2 FRV, almost all of it from poor marks on his throwing. Over a full season, that kind of performance would be really bad. For context, the worst rated defensive catcher in all of baseball last year was Elias Diaz with a -16 DRS in just over 1,000 innings. Herrera is on that sort of pace.
@Shady wrote:
KCB, what do you feel is Burleson’s conceivable ceiling? Joey Votto-type hitter, maybe?
More of a Joey Chestnut-type . . .
RBK, so how do you foresee Burleson’s ceiling? Or do you see him merely an AAAA-type?
Are there any acceptable choices/options in between “Joey Votto” and “AAAA-type” in this imaginary Manichean world you’ve constructed?
KCB, what do you feel is Burleson’s conceivable ceiling? Joey Votto-type hitter, maybe? Before the last month, so many have underestimated Burleson’s potential to this point as an MLB player. Those same posters will likely underestimate his ceiling.
Votto: 144 OPS+; 145 wRC+ (for his entire career)
Burleson: 95 OPS+; 97 wRC+But hey, at least you’ve stopped claiming Burleson is “the next Tony Gwynn.”
@blingboy wrote: “You see, this is why I wondered if it should have a separate thread. I will remember to ask what is so funny about it, and report back.”
Please ask her to avoid any “chide remarks” [sic] that might “undermine” Burleson (and apparently, by extension, Shady) . . .
My granddaughter said Burleson has funny hair. Should we have a ‘Burleson Has Funny Hair’ thread?
Is your granddaughter a card-carrying member of the “anti-Burleson crowd” that allegedly is attempting to “undermine” both Burleson and Shady?
I’m sure they did believe what they had was adequate, but in their business, standing still is falling behind. The notion isn’t that they “backed off,” but rather that they didn’t keep advancing and challenging the status quo in the same way they had in the past. It’s worth noting that over that same post-2011 time period, several large(r) market teams like the Dodgers, Red Sox, Phillies, Cubs, Giants, etc. were ramping up their commitment of resources to data analysis, engineering, etc. The market was moving rapidly, especially as the larger market teams started staffing up and bidding more aggressively for talent. It’s hard to stay ahead of the curve when you’re frequently poached, but rarely the poacher.
It seems like there is a storyline we are missing…
Well, one important piece of the story is that Luhnow was primarily responsible for hiring most of the people who fairly could have been grouped under “analytics.” Many of those people followed him to Houston.
But I think it is entirely fair to wonder 1) why ownership and the FO didn’t aggressively “re-recruit” some of those people and try harder to retain them by giving them the kind of promotions they got in Houston (at the time, I remember thinking the Cardinals seemed far too passive/accepting of what was a pretty massive raid of their personnel); and 2) whether the organization aggressively sought outside talent to “re-stock” the FO with people with new/fresh ideas and continue to evolve (which is what the Cardinals did in bringing in Luhnow, et al, in the first place).
Perhaps Brian can fill in some more names, but in terms of visible senior analytics-oriented execs, I don’t get the impression there was a significant re-stocking. Basically, Girsch, Kantrovitz (re-hired in 2012, departed in 2014 for Oakland), and Flores are the names I can think of off the top of my head. Jeff Albert was hired to revamp hitting instruction for the entire organization using advanced analytics (similar to what he’s doing for the Mets, only without the MLB hitting coach responsibilities), but of course he departed in 2022 after a fairly short tenure. I’m sure I’m missing some names, but it doesn’t seem like the organization kept pushing the envelope after the Houston exodus.
ATM: Yes, that’s exactly what “brain drain” in an organization looks like. And the Astros’/Luhnow’s raiding of the Cardinals FO after 2011 did a lot of damage up front–the quantity and quality of people leaving the organization in such a short period of time should have set off alarm bells in the owner’s suite.
Albert was arguably the most analytics-driven coach the Cardinals have ever had. One need only look at his twitter feed to see just how deep into both analytics and bio-mechanics he is. It would seem rather odd if the reason he left the Cardinals was because they were too heavily invested in “analytics.”
I’m afraid Gray will be also when we are paying him $35M at age 36. Backloading that contract was foolish.
Also makes him slightly harder to trade. But this is the consequence of “compete every year” . . .
Correction: you can toggle for RHH-only below the heat maps. Not surprisingly, the RHH FB split is slightly more skewed high-and-away than the overall map.
Thanks, Brian. Unfortunately, there isn’t a URL for the image, it’s a .GIF. I was trying to figure out how to attach it to my post, but not sure that can be done. At any rate, I’ll just link to the web page below.
Unfortunately, Statcast doesn’t break these charts down into RHH/LHH, but given the distribution of hitters overall, safe to say this is roughly reflective of what the RHH split looks like. Scroll down to “Statcast Pitch Arsenal” and you will see the heat maps for pitch location.
https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/savant-player/matthew-liberatore-669461?stats=statcast-r-pitching-mlb
Unfortunately, I don’t know how to attach a .jpg or .gif image on here (if someone does, pls let me know how), so I’ll just narrate it: Statcast shows that he’s he’s up and away a lot to RHH with both the 4-seam and the 2-seam. The pitch he’s more consistently in on the hands with is the slider.
He predominantly uses FB (4-seam primary, 2-seam secondary) (40%) and SL or CU (38%) against RHH, not a lot of CBs (11%). I wish he had a better CH, would be useful against RHHs–he throws it about 10% of the time vs. RHH, and gets decent results, but it’s not one of his better pitches.
Also, his mix skews more heavily to the hard stuff (FB/SL/CU) out of the bullpen, CB usage drops significantly vs RH (not surprising).
This year, RHH are hammering both of his FBs, but doing less well against the SL, CU, CB, and CH. Biggest problem with his FB isn’t so much the velocity (he’s right around 95 MPH), but the fact that it’s pretty straight. And his command is suspect: his BB% is 23rd percentile and he misses location a lot in the zone.
Liberatore at AAA:
Year/age/WHIP/H9/BB9/K9/K-to-BB
2021: 21/1.25/8.9/2.4/8.9/3.73
2022: 22/1.38/9.2/3.2/9.1/2.83
2023: 23/1.485/8.1/5.3/11.7/2.21At a 10K-foot level, it looks like they’ve been successful in their goal of pumping up his velocity and K-rate, but in the process he’s become a worse pitcher.
The problem for Liberatore is regression: his peripherals were actually better than Hudson’s in their first full seasons at AAA (but his ERA was worse). But in subsequent years, Liberatore’s peripherals have declined notably, especially his BB% and K/BB. Have no idea what is driving that, but he showed more promise in terms of underlying metrics at age 21 than he does at age 24.
I think it also indicates that the Intl League is a hitter’s league–the average OPS last year was .794. Which is why I always caution when certain posters are overly impressed by raw, unadjusted hitting stats of position players at Memphis.
To be clear, I’m not suggesting that Liberatore was killing it at AAA, just that the Cardinals promoted him pretty aggressively and he was generally better than the raw numbers look. I just wish they would have left him down there last year for the full season and kept him on a regular starter’s schedule.
Liberatore certainly hasn’t knocked down any doors with his opportunities, but I think his AAA numbers need a little more context:
Year/ERA/League ERA/ERA-/Age relative to lg avg
2021: 4.04/4.51/-90/-6.0
2022: 5.17/4.63/112/-5.0
2023: 4.18/5.17/-81/-3.9I didn’t suggest Arenado be assigned to AA. I just suggested it would be prudent. If mutually agreed upon. My critics and I have a tendency to miscommunicate. lol
So then why do you think Manoah’s involuntary assignment (and subsequent rehab from a physical injury) “proves [your] point?”
And yes, you suggested that he should go to AA to “work on things” without the “pressure” of MLB games. And let’s be honest, you didn’t even know he had to agree to an assignment until I told you.
Manoah, likely, is not in Arenado’s pay bracket. But he was a star MLB pitcher and it proves my point.
Manoah actively resisted his assignment, but the team held an option so he couldn’t stop it (see link below). And it turns out he had a real physical injury that ultimately required rehab. This is not an example that “proves your point” at all. Again, Arenado would have to agree to any assignment, and you were suggesting he be assigned for performance reasons, not injury. Try again.
Further, less than 24 hours (and one HR) after you started this thread, you were saying you really wanted him the lineup, so it’s not at all clear what your point actually was.
https://nypost.com/2023/09/12/blue-jays-alek-manoah-refused-to-report-to-triple-a-assignment/
blingboy, Burly’s future offensive production will be fine as a DH. He’s going to be an average corner outfielder, overall, with an above average arm. He’d be an above average defensive 1B.
Where do you come up with this stuff???
Burleson in OF (597 innings):
DRS: -3
UZR: -0.6
OAA: -11Burleson at 1B (166 innings):
DRS: 0
UZR: 0.6
OAA: -3And those numbers would be worse if the Cardinals hadn’t come to their senses and stopped putting him on the field to the maximum extent possible.
@blingboy wrote: “For a reserve player who historically sees very limited playing time, and who has been called upon to play nearly full time, I consider .729 OPS to be entirely “successful”. I will certainly take that from a back up guy thrown into the daily lineup due to multiple injuries,implosions and demotions.”
I agree, a 107 OPS+ in 51 games is fine for a bat-only bench player who is unexpectedly thrown into the starting lineup due to a series of unfortunate events. That’s grading on a curve that is based in reality.
Thanks, but I’ll decide what and how I post–no one needs or wants your unsolicited advice. But I do agree with you, as a purely mathematical matter a .729 OPS looks like “progress” compared to his .691 last year. Everything’s relative, I guess . . .
Now, back to the substantive discussion: will you commit in advance to some specific, concrete metrics/standards for what constitutes “success” for a bat-only player like Burleson? All you have to do is give us a few key metrics, and then we can hold Burleson (and you) accountable to those standards. No more shifting the goalposts with vague descriptors like “amazing,” “fabulous,” “fantastic”–let’s get down to some concrete benchmarks, especially since you’ve now declared that “future success” is “apparent.”
