X Marks the Spot
Sat, Jun 25, 2005
by Geoff Young
I was going to rant about how much more effective Xavier Nady has been when he’s in the lineup than when not, but thanks to David Pinto’s Day by Day Database I’ve found this not to be true:
G AB BA OBP SLG
off bench 21 21 .333 .400 .619
as starter 32 113 .257 .328 .478
Do me a favor, and don’t tell Bruce Bochy.
Picking up where last year's version left off, the Ducksnorts 2008 Baseball Annual provides in-depth analysis of and commentary on the San Diego Padres. Get your copy today.
June 25, 2005 at 10:54 pm
probably a small-sample fluke anyway.
June 26, 2005 at 7:55 am
What you COULD rant about is that he’s much more effective when he PLAYS than when he’s left to rot on the bench so that a backup catcher with a career .226 average can give it a shot in right field. I’m pretty sure that would be fair game for a rant.
June 26, 2005 at 9:55 am
Farm Report: Josh Barfield with HR #8 last night … http://www.minorleaguebaseball.....a_srcaaa_1 … and a good start by Germano (whom I think KT mentioned during the Q&A session, right?)
June 26, 2005 at 10:10 am
Eric and David: Agreed on both counts, especially on the Ojeda front. I don’t need to see that again.
LM: Yes, he did mention Germano and Travis Chick. The thing that’s impressing me about Germano this year is his increased strikeout rate. I still see him as a back-end guy, but there is value in that.
June 26, 2005 at 10:17 am
Testing how well this will post:
AB OPS AB OPS AB OPS
Fick 66 0.956 60 0.990 6 0.611
Giles 254 0.922 178 0.981 76 0.784
Sweeney 85 0.886 78 0.894 7 0.786
Klesko 241 0.884 177 0.974 64 0.635
Nady 134 0.847 80 0.865 54 0.814
Roberts 202 0.838 153 0.891 49 0.674
Ramon 236 0.738 178 0.739 58 0.737
Nevin 257 0.732 187 0.720 70 0.762
Loretta 160 0.732 122 0.747 38 0.680
Greene 194 0.684 143 0.646 51 0.788
Sean 213 0.661 167 0.690 46 0.557
Blum 179 0.654 117 0.646 62 0.668
Jackson 106 0.615 75 0.634 31 0.563
Ojeda 66 0.431 39 0.414 27 0.456
Average 2393 0.766 1754 0.790 639 0.697
June 26, 2005 at 10:29 am
Not well at all. Anyway, the point of this was showing players ranked by OPS (over 50 AB’s), with splits by LHP and RHP. As we keep saying, Nady, in 134 AB has 5th best OPS on our team. Only Giles and Klesko, of the starters have better OPS (Sweeney and Fick sneak in there). But Nady hits both LHP and RHP (unlike Fick and Sweeney; and, arguably Giles and Klesko who both have pretty big split gaps).
The team average of the players with over 50 AB’s is .766. Nevin’s OPS is .732. So he is sub-par, even on this team. Players have good and bad years, they age. That is really not their fault. The manager who refuses to acknowledge these facts is at fault.
Nady’s performance this year makes him clearly an everyday player. I would argue that he takes AB’s away from Nevin and Burroughs and Roberts (vs. LHP only).
I doubt this is news to anyone on this site, but if you are wondering why OPS is listed, it is because when you chart team OPS vs. team runs scored you get an almost perfect alignment. The more OPS you have the more runs you score. For stats geeks, the R-squared is well over .9, almost .95.