Jun 24
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30 Responses to “WasWatching.com Water Cooler Talk 6/24/09”
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June 24th, 2009 at 9:07 am
Hey guys, ill be drivin up for game tonight. I really think we’re due to bust the whoopin stick. Even we cant lose em all right…right?
June 24th, 2009 at 9:17 am
Even we cant lose em all right…right?
——–
Actually, if there’s one team that CAN lose them all, it’s us. The Yanks suck right now and everybody knows it. 2-5 against the sloppy underbelly of the NL East. Pathetic.
June 24th, 2009 at 10:46 am
Fangraphs article on Yanks offensive reserves
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/the-yankees-have-offense-in-reserve
The powerful performance of Scranton’s outfield reveals that the Yankees have some offensive depth in the minors ready to go, which makes Angel Berroa’s continued employment in the Bronx all the more bewildering.
June 24th, 2009 at 10:49 am
be wary, that depth consists of AAAA players (and a not ready a-jax)
June 24th, 2009 at 11:01 am
Corey wrote:
Be that as it may, it’s not that big a concern, as they’d be temp players.
June 24th, 2009 at 12:18 pm
I feel like the Red Sox pulled a “Temple of Doom” on the Yankees i.e. ripped their hearts out and then set them on fire. They haven’t been the same since going 0-8 against them. And I’m a little tired of Girardi’s excuse making- really, whining about interleague play and NL rules? That’s not really the attitude I like to see from the manager of the New York Yankees…..
June 24th, 2009 at 1:45 pm
Assuming that Damon and Matsui are off the books next year, what are the Yanks chances of getting Jason Bay? Is this something any of you think they are considering?
June 24th, 2009 at 2:08 pm
G.I. Joey wrote:
i certanly only hope not
June 24th, 2009 at 2:11 pm
I don’t want any part of Jason Bay. He can’t field his position for shit and his month of June has been pedestrian enough for me to feel like the hot start to ‘09 made him overrated.
I do, however, want the Yanks to sniff around him and make Boston overpay for his services.
June 24th, 2009 at 2:31 pm
plus, isn’t a big complaint about this team that we have too many old guys locked into long term deals? Why would we want another one? He’ll be 31 in Sept.
June 24th, 2009 at 2:41 pm
I’m primarily just concerned with the OF situation in general. My knee jerk reaction is to be dazzled by players that kill us who are going to be available. I didn’t realize he was that old, but I’m going to go with MJ on this one and hope that they make the Sox overpay for him.
June 24th, 2009 at 2:55 pm
@ G.I. Joey:
eh, you offer arbitration to damon, hope he signs cause of the shitty economy. promote a-jax, and let swisher/melky/gardner fill the rest. Heck, shoot nady a 1 year deal tell him to boost his FA value. To sign someone out of a knee-jerk reaction to a need is the reason we have had such shitty pitching the past 8 some-odd seasons
June 24th, 2009 at 3:10 pm
Corey wrote:
Agreed. It’s never comforting when the organization thinks like impatient and sometimes irrational fans such as myself.
June 24th, 2009 at 3:37 pm
Factor in the difference in arms and I’d say Bay is the equivalent of Damon in LF. He’s no great shakes but he makes the plays and is a huge upgrade over Manny (no that shouldn’t factor into the Yankees evaluation, but still). How much does it matter that he seamlessly stepped from a small market last-place team to one of the biggest markets without any trouble at all? You wouldn’t need to wonder whether he can handle the pressure.
If you really hate him, you should hope that the Red Sox get him signed before free agency. Because if Cashman or his successor decides they want him (and really, isn’t he a better bet, for the money, than Holliday?) they won’t just up the price for the Sox, they’ll go all in. And when they go all in, then what you probably will end up with is a contract that goes too long into his decline years.
Bay was a good player on a bad team. He’s proven himself a better player on a good team. This outright rejection of what he brings to the table is baffling.
June 24th, 2009 at 3:51 pm
[Bay]’s no great shakes but he makes the plays
——–
UZR/150 says he doesn’t make the plays.
2007: -11.4
2008: -18.2
2009: -10.2
Over the past three years, only Adam Dunn (-19.2), Manny Ramirez (-16.2) and Pat Burrell (-15.9) have been worse than Bay in LF.
June 24th, 2009 at 3:53 pm
OnceIWasAYankeeFan wrote:
eh, i dont think he had all that much pressure….I mean aside from the most educated in all matters baseball, who even knew who Bay was? He didn’t have any expectations, and everyone was expecting a big let down in production due to manny’s departure. I think, now, for his new contract that the expectations will be high. Then, and only then, will we see if he can handle the pressure.
June 24th, 2009 at 4:01 pm
M.J., any statistic that says he is Dunn/Manny/Burrell levels of bad in the outfield is obviously badly flawed. Anyone with eyesight can see that he is far better than those you named.
Corey, not all that much pressure? Replacing the greatest righthanded hitter in franchise history, in the middle of a playoff chase, after he was traded in a deal that at the very least, wasn’t greeted with cheering? There was huge pressure, and he hit and continued to hit. Now he’s hitting even better. Perhaps Yankee fans only see dollar-denominated pressure, because that’s the kind that the team generates?
June 24th, 2009 at 4:08 pm
@ OnceIWasAYankeeFan:
everyone knew he wouldnt hit like manny, and many expected him to hit a lot worse. His job was to prove everyone wrong, not meet expectations. That’s not pressure, that’s playing with a chip on your shoulder and a “i’ll show you who can hit like manny ” attitude.
June 24th, 2009 at 4:10 pm
side note: per Pete Abe, veras was traded to the indians for cash (aka sold)
June 24th, 2009 at 4:13 pm
Obviously you’ve paid no attention. Bay said from the moment he arrived that he can’t equal Manny and would be foolish to try, he’s going to do his best to play as well as he can. Replacing Manny didn’t put a chip on his shoulder. But replacing him in the lineup certainly creates more pressure than he had dealt with in the past.
June 24th, 2009 at 4:15 pm
any statistic that says he is Dunn/Manny/Burrell levels of bad in the outfield is obviously badly flawed. Anyone with eyesight can see that he is far better than those you named.
———-
I don’t know what to tell you here. People a lot smarter than either of us seem to think this is a pretty good defensive metric.
I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve used the same defense you’re using here — my eyes tell me something the stats don’t — but, given the names on that list, it seems to me that the list may be onto something. Dunn, Manny, Burrell and Ibanez (the name right after Bay) all do suck in the field. Why would Bay be the only name that doesn’t belong?
June 24th, 2009 at 4:18 pm
Anyone with eyesight can see that he is far better than those you named.
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FWIW, he IS better than the ones I named. Those three were all rated worse than Bay. Just saying this so you don’t think I said Bay is worse than them. According to FanGraphs UZR/150 leaderboard for the past three years, Bay is the 4th worst LF in baseball
June 24th, 2009 at 4:23 pm
side note: per Pete Abe, veras was traded to the indians for cash (aka sold)
———
In reading the comments on a Cleveland website, a lot of commenters there hate GM Mark Shapiro as much as Steve hates Brian Cashman. Everyone’s a critic…
June 24th, 2009 at 4:30 pm
OnceIWasAYankeeFan wrote:
theres no way i can answer you without causing steve to put up a community standards comment. Just know that, since he knew that he couldn’t be as good as manny and everyone else did too (as you’ve agreed), that there couldn’t possibly have been the same pressure.
June 24th, 2009 at 4:44 pm
I understand that these are the guys ranked worse, but when they are the ones in your neighborhood, its obvious that statistic doesn’t see a lot of difference between Bay and the rest – unless you can tell me that Bay is closer to some other, not so unanimously bad outfielders than he is to Manny, Dunn, Ibanez and Burrell.
This measure is basically supposed to be “range” right? Well here’s one reason I’d suggest its wrong: Bay is a good baserunner with not only excellent success at stealing bases (46 SB, 4 CS in the last four years), but has stolen more bases in the last four years than all four of those other guys combined. Is baserunning a proxy for skill in the outfield? Certainly means you have a little bit of speed, right? Stands to reason that your range shouldn’t be so awful as to be lumped in with living statues like Manny.
What my eyes tell me is that Bay makes the plays you expect him to, and he surely is not the adventure-in-fielding, or even remotely close to it, that Manny or Dunn or Burrell are.
Tell me M.J., did your eyes tell you that Bay is a crappy fielder, or did you go looking for stats to support your general view that he isn’t really very good?
June 24th, 2009 at 5:13 pm
Basestealing success has nothing to do with it. Speed only helps to correct other shortcomings but outfield defense is based on taking good routes to the ball and reading the ball off the bat as much (or moreso) than anything else. To illustrate that point, Chone Figgins is a career -6.4 UZR/150 in the outfield. You’d have to agree that Figgins has been one of the best basestealers and certainly one of the fastest players in baseball. If speed were the only requirement for outfield defense then baseball would be a much easier game.
When you say “[t]ell me M.J., did your eyes tell you that Bay is a crappy fielder, or did you go looking for stats to support your general view that he isn’t really very good?” my response is simply that I didn’t have to go looking for stats to support my hypothesis. I didn’t go into the conversation looking for stats because I had no opinion on Bay as a defensive player. That I found stats doesn’t mean I’m suffering from confirmation bias here.
I won’t pretend to say that I watch Bay in the field as often as you do. But just because you watch him every night doesn’t mean that the metrics are necessarily wrong.
At the end of the day, I don’t care about this subject nearly as much as you do. I can certainly understand your POV here: something disparaging has been said about one of your favorite hometown players and you’re trying to defend him.
I guess all I can say is that you might want to talk to the folks that came up with UZR/150 and have them explain why their metric is valid and why Jason Bay grades out so poorly in LF over the past three years. Your eyes are telling you something different but, to me, you sounds a lot like Yankee fans did (myself included) back in 2002 when Rob Neyer first said Derek Jeter was a crappy defensive SS. It took some time to accept it but then you start to see what people are talking about.
June 24th, 2009 at 5:30 pm
I’m not going to waste my time with a metric that concludes that Ellsbury is also a poor outfielder. No one can rationally say that, so …
June 24th, 2009 at 11:09 pm
@ OnceIWasAYankeeFan:
Hear ye, hear ye: Any stat that doesn’t fluff a member of the Red Sox is hereby shunned.
June 25th, 2009 at 9:06 am
Wrong again.
Show me a stat that says Lowell isn’t as good a fielder as he was, I won’t deny it.
But it is the height of insanity to claim that Ellsbury is a poor fielder. He gets to everything. He’s caught every thing he’s reached but one in his major league career. He is not a poor fielder by any possible stretch of the imagination.
June 25th, 2009 at 9:48 am
Show me a stat that says Lowell isn’t as good a fielder as he was, I won’t deny it.
———
2008: +15.6
2009: -17.2
I had no idea that Lowell had declined in the field to that extent. So you’re right about that.
As far as Ellsbury being a poor fielder, I’m not making that claim, the guys that came up with UZR are. They’re using data provided to them by Baseball Info Solutions which publishes “The Fielding Bible” by John Dewan and the Bill James books. I can see this bothers you a lot but I guess I’d probably give these guys the benefit of the doubt.