First off, big thanks to Dave Roberts for providing a spark at the top of the Padres lineup the past two years. As everyone around here knows, I hated the trade that brought him here when it happened, but he turned out to be way better than I (or anyone) could’ve expected. I was very wrong about Roberts, and I couldn’t be happier to have been wrong.
That said, big thanks to the Giants for giving Roberts $18 million for 3 years to play center field. As those of us who watched him attempt to patrol center in 2005 know, Roberts is overmatched at the position. He also turns 35 at the end of May.
I was happy enough when the Dodgers overpaid for Juan Pierre, but to have the Giants overpay for Roberts? Again, acknowledging all that he brought to the club during his time in San Diego, I couldn’t be happier. Plus Roberts is a Type A free agent who was offered arbitration, which means two more draft picks are coming to the Padres to go with the two resulting from Woody Williams’ signing with the Astros.
I cannot stress enough the positive contributions that Roberts made as a member of the Padres. He genuinely was fun to watch and I love the way he plays the game. I’m happy that Roberts was able to cash in on his success here, that the Padres didn’t commit crazy money to him, and that the Giants did.
I’d say the weekend is off to a good start. 
71 Comments
3 years and 18 million for Dave freaking Roberts? He’s a very good player..but there’s no way I’m paying him that kind of money at 35.
Geoff..good luck with the book….
I was a fan of Dave Roberts going back to his Dodger days and unlike Geoff I was pretty happy to see him come to San Diego (even though he cost us a little more than he should have). That said, I’m also happy to see the Giants overpay. Happy for DR and his big payday, happy he’ll be reunited with Bochy and very happy to get the draft picks. I’m not looking forward to watching him steal bases against us but hopefully we’ll get some power out of the LF spot.
Here’s hoping he and Bochy can convince them to sign Klesko and Park.
In related news, the Diamondbacks are talking to Omar Moreno’s agent about a possible multi-year deal, and the Rockies have inked Mickey Rivers to a seven-year, $84-million contract…
All that money for a guy who’s never played more than 127 games in a year and is reaching his breakdown age? Wow.
I know Scanlan has mentioned about finances being ridiculous in the first offseason post-labor agreement, but this is incredible.
I guess Bochy really IS the perfect fit for the Giants. Maybe he’ll get rocking chairs installed in front of all the lockers.
I wouldn’t be so excited to see either Klesko or Park in the NL West against the Pads. I think Klesko still has some pop left in him. His back is supposed to be completely healthy for the first time in a long time. He looked pretty good in his brief time at the plate at the end of the year last year. He certainly wasn’t worth the contract we had with him, but if he came cheap, he would be a good pickup for anyone. Not the greatest defensively for sure, but he doesn’t COMPLETELY embarass himself out there (just a little).
Chan Ho will come back and surprise people next year as well. He was dealing with some pretty scary (not necessarily painful, but scary) stuff last year, VERY distracting. I predict 13-7, 4.15 (or something like that). Again, if he is available for relatively cheap, a pretty good pickup, IMHO.
Klesko would be quite the bat off the bench. He’ll probably get to start somewhere, though.
We can be “happy” a rival overpaid for Roberts, but having a huge hole at the top of the lineup is alarming. This team showed last year it cannot reliably come through in the clutch, with RISP, which is necessary to win with a station-to-station style. We shouldn’t have paid that amount to keep Roberts, but we are in trouble without a classical catalyst type at leadoff. If Giles walks to leadoff the game, can we really hope those behind him will hit him around?
7: DR himself was a bit of a hole at the top of the lineup. The 1, 2 & 4 hitters are supposed to be your best hitters and DR was not one of our three best hitters last year.
8: Did you even watch the Padres last year?
Re: 8
Hmmm….I don’t see how you can make that contention, Roberts was one of our most productive hitters last year as the stats bear out.
However, you don’t seem to take issue with my main point that this team needs a guy who can force the issue on his own in the leadoff spot.
Behind my comments is a level of frustration. I don’t see any undergirding philosophy yet for putting together next year’s squad. The FO seems very reactive and they have had time to plan ahead and activate a coherent plan.
How’s that for a new poster airing it out?
Just a question: Why aren’t we discussing P-Mac as part of the LF solution?
the market doesn’t always allow you to “activate” your plan as soon as you might like to. The winter meetings haven’t started; some people need to chill. What has the FO done so far that could be considered reactive?
9: C’mon man, asserting that Dave Roberts was one of our three best hitters is ridiculous. Adrian Gonzalez, Mike Cameron, and Mike Piazza/Josh Bard were all indisputably better than him.
10: You’re not looking at the right stats if you think that DR was on of our three best hitters.
12: Also, part of the plan is rebuilding the farm system and you don’t do that by throwing away draft picks.
Look, DR was one of my favorite players to watch. He’s a pretty good player. Very slick with the glove, good on the bases and roughly average at the plate (though that last item was only true this past year). It’s common for players to have career years when coming up on free agency. It’s also common for guys to start getting worse at about Dave’s age and with his injury history, I’d say he’s an even bigger risk than most. Also, despite being an above average hitter in ‘06, he’ wasn’t an above average hitter for left field.
If he could play center field well and continue to hit at his ‘06 levels, he’d be a valuable starter, but he can’t and he almost certainly won’t. And even then he wouldn’t fit into our plans because Cameron is WAY better.
Just because a guy is fun to watch doesn’t mean that he’s all that good. I enjoyed watching Eric Owens, for instance. Take some time to look at things objectively and please don’t act like your willful ignorance makes you smarter than other people.
I am trying to make a reasonable argument for the value of a qualified leadoff hitter not build a shrine to Dave Roberts. You can argue he wasn’t one of the top three hitters but you can’t say he wasn’t a key offensive contributor, particularly in a way that only classical leadoff hitters can be.
Last year’s squad was focused on pitching and defense. So far we have lost some players who contributed to that formulation. The moves we have made so far are lateral, filling some holes by opening others.
What will the character of next year’s team be? So far that remains unclear, but I look forward to some coherent vision hopefully coming together in the coming months.
17: I’m not saying Roberts wasn’t a good hitter (he’d have been a solid #6 hitter). I will argue that the most important thing a leadoff guy can do is get on base and we had guys who do that better than DR. You can’t steal first base. Also, some amount of power from a top of the lineup spot is necessary.
What good is a leadoff hitter that gets on base all the time if no one in the lineup can move him over? Dave was a great leadoff guy with the sabermetrics or not, he took pitches letting other hitters see what the opposing pitcher was throwing, had an ok OBP and could take 2nd but when it comes down to it LF is the only real power spot the padres had open this year and that’s where Dave plays. If DR was a SS, 2B or CF still he would be leading off for the pads in 07.
Re 13
I might agree with Bard or Piazza in the leadoff spots, but not sure about Adrian. Those 6-3-4 double plays tend to kill rallies, not to mention a team’s spirit.
Re 18
The Pads winning the division two years in a row without their best hitters in the appropriate slots (1,2,4) is just another testament to Bochy’s managerial prowess. Roberts provided very little power but the Pads won, nonetheless. And while you can’t steal first base, speed makes infielders rush throws, play closer to the batter, and pitchers change their pitch selection. Ichiro can turn “automatic” groundouts into hits and errors — not so different from “stealing first base.” (Btw, I’m not trying to be an as*.)
*When considering all the tangibles never forget to factor in the intangibles! (USC-UCLA is a case in point. There is a little more to sports than statisticians might want you to believe.)
*Give me a situational hitter over the guy with a better .OBP any day of the week. A hitter who knows his role is inevitably more valuable than a hitter who knows his statistics. Except during arbitration, of course.
re: 20
Sure seems like you’re saying that Bochy does a poor job of lineup management but a good job in most/all other aspects? Perhaps … but I think that winning the division says more about the competition than Bochy’s “managerial prowess” … the Padres won more games than 4 other bad teams …
re: intangibles … the statisticians whose analysis I like to read want me to believe there is a little more to sports than just stats … but not a lot more
re: “situational hitter” … hmmm, that smells like “clutch hitter”??? I think I understand the concept … I believe myself to be a non-clutch performer (albeit as a ‘weekend warrior’ trying to beat pals at golf and bowling and softball) … but I truely believe that at the MLB level, *all* those guys are clutch … and that’s why no one’s been able to identify a “situational hitter” ahead of time … so I believe in “depth of talent” … having more hitters in your lineup with high OBP’s creates more “situations” … which create more runs … which create more wins …
Amazing. That would have been nearly verbatim my take on Roberts’ time in San Diego and his departure as well. I never expected him to contribute as much as he did offensively, and I knew he couldn’t play CF in Petco, but he did a great job in LF and he had his best years at the plate by far.
As to whether he was one of the best 3 hitters, I guess it depends on what numbers you’re looking at. I think Richard uses some pretty advanced metrics, but even looking at more basic ones like OPS+ makes it pretty clear he was not. I think it would be safe to say he was the 4th best after Gonzalez, Cameron and Piazza, once SB are accounted for.
It would be tought to move him all the way past Piazza even with the playing time differential. But if you were to make an argument for him being in front of Piazza, that would be the tack to take, imo.
How can the Giants believe Roberts will be able to play CF in that park? It is Petco-like in CF and Right Center! They really need to sign Drew and have he and Winn as the CF and RF so Roberts can play LF. Of course I hope they re-sign Bonds so he and Roberts can combine to be one of the most porous LF-CF combinations in the history of MLB.
I really like Roberts and wish he could have stayed. But the idea of “so goes Roberts, so go the Padres” —- the Pads were 19-9 in September; Roberts: .228/.275/.287. Not saying you throw out the sparkplug because he slumped during a .679 month, but I found that interesting.
Re 20:
Others were saying that Bochy did a poor job of where to hit his players, not me. The inferences were that there were better hitters for Bochy to choose than Roberts for the leadoff spot and Piazza, Bard and Adrian were three of the four choices cited. You make the call.
Regardless of whether Roberts was the best choice for leadoff hitter (or not), the Padres still managed to come in first place. First among four bad teams — maybe. Many writers were choosing the Padres to be the NL rep. in the WS (over the Mets and all the other bad teams, I guess), for whatever that’s worth.
As for situational hitting, it doesn’t always mean clutch, but it could, and your “clutch” hitter isn’t always the guy with the highest .OBP. My definition is a hitter who adjusts his approach according to what the team needs at a certain point in the game, which at times might even mean giving up an at-bat. (The Padres got rid of Brett Boone and his 19 HRs because he wouldn’t adjust his approach.) No matter how much I want more power from LF, I don’t want Roberts swinging for the fences when he’s leading off an inning or when we are down by two runs in the 8th inning. I generally don’t want Ramon Hernandez bunting in a Division Series game with a runner on third, either, but if he does it to win the game I’ll chalk it up to excellent situational hitting — and I won’t whine when Bochy asks Cameron to try it once or twice a year or so.
“*Give me a situational hitter over the guy with a better .OBP any day of the week.”
Obviously Roberts (.293/.360/.393) was a good situational hitter… And comparing him to a non-situational hitter high on-base guy like… say, Chris Snelling (.250/.360/.427) and I’ll take Roberts as well. But if you still want Roberts over a guy like Pat Burrell (.258/.388/.502) then I want you to have a team in my ‘for money’ roto-league…
http://www.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/news/article.jsp?ymd=20050308&content_id=961606&vkey=spt2005news&fext=.jsp&c_id=mlb
From the horse’s mouth. Seems like he came to his senses after being dismissed by the Pads.
The importance of situational hitting rarely shows up in a box score, but every manager, coach and player realizes how critical it is to the team’s success.
As the saying goes, “Get ‘em on, get ‘em over and get ‘em in.”
A ground ball to the right side of the infield with a runner on second base and none out takes some points off a batting average, but it could result in the winning run being scored. Driving in a runner from third base with fewer than two outs actually might be more important in a game than hitting a home run.
“The best teams get it done more times than not, and that could mean the difference in a close game,” Mariners second baseman Bret Boone said. “Good situational hitting is not overrated.”
This shouldn’t come as a surprise, but the Mariners, who scored the fewest runs in the American League last season, flubbed badly last season when advancing runners. As a result, they finished fifth in hits and last in runs scored.
Big KT –
“I generally don’t want Ramon Hernandez bunting in a Division Series game with a runner on third, either, but if he does it to win the game I’ll chalk it up to excellent situational hitting — and I won’t whine when Bochy asks Cameron to try it once or twice a year or so.”
Cameron didn’t see the 3B playing super-deep and drop an unsuspecting bunt-hit, Cameron was asked to sacrifice… That play Ramon made was awesome. It was heady. And if you ask me, I’d take heady gamers who ARE high on-base guys (like Jeter).
Situational Hitting his Creed:
The job of hitting coach would seem to be all about trying to get the most out of each individual player.
Chris Chambliss, the Reds’ new hitting coach, does not see it that way.
“One of the major things overall is to mold the group to produce runs as a team and not so much individuals – but as a group,” Chambliss said.
Chambliss spent five years as the New York Yankees’ hitting coach. The Yankees won the World Series four of those five years.
A lot of that is attributed to George Steinbrenner’s checkbook. But the Yankees didn’t have baseball’s best hitters through that run so much as they had baseball’s best hitting team – in a way that is difficult to quantify.
Philosophy as a hitting coach: “I don’t really have any revolutionary thing. What I will try do with this team is get real basic with the fundamentals. That’s a thing I stress. Hitting in situations. Moving runners over. Cutting down on strikeouts. Using the whole field … ”
The Yankees were a notoriously difficult team to pitch to from 1996-2000, Chambliss’ tenure. The lineup was full of good situational hitters. They’d work the count, running up pitch totals for the opposition early in the game. The cumulative effect tired the starter. That often meant they’d get a chance to tee off on middle relievers, the weakest link in any pitching staff.
Re 27:
“And if you ask me, I’d take heady gamers who ARE high on-base guys (like Jeter).”
No one is claiming high .OBP is a bad thing. High .OBP combined with a excellent situational hitting is invaluable.
I wouldn’t argue with hitting Giles in the leadoff spot, but if he was still hitting 30HRs and you were hitting Roberts 6th (after Branyan, Cameron or Adrian), it might raise a few eyebrows, not to mention the ire of your number 5 hitter who would almost never see a fat pitch with the game on the line.
Harold Reynolds on situational hitting (Willie is Willie Randolph).
“That last question is what I want to talk about, specifically this quote I heard from Willie about hitting at the top of the order – “Just because he gets on base doesn’t mean he’s doing the right thing.â€
I was a top of the order hitter for most of my years in the majors, so I know what it’s like. Your job, as a lead-off hitter, is to put pressure on the opposing team. You do that with clutch hits, with stolen bases, with foul balls. That’s a lot of pressure to put on one guy’s shoulders, to be responsible for putting pressure on the opposing team and upsetting their rhythms. It takes a special player – a Rickey Henderson, an Alex Cole, an Endy Chavez – to pull that off. And a key to this is what I like to call SITUATIONAL HITTING. You have to hit to the situation. Just like some pitchers pitch to the score, hitters have to hit to the score, and also the number of outs in the inning. It’s fine to just get a walk when you’re leading off the game, but when you’re down 3 runs with 2 outs in the 9th inning and a runner on 2nd, what good is a walk then? You have to hit to the situation.
If you’re in that 2 out situation, you want to get a base hit to drive that runner home to keep the pressure on. If you’re down 1 run in the 9th with one out or more, you want to get an extra-base hit so you can get in scoring position for your big boppers. If you’re leading off the 9th, you bunt for a base hit and try to steal 2nd, and maybe 3rd. If your pitcher is on base, you want to take as many pitches as possible so the pitcher can catch his breath, and step out between every pitch. If you’re up with runners on and a small lead early in the game, you want to move those runners over for the heart of the order. If you walk, you walk, but that’s a last resort. After all, there’s a reason you go up to the plate with a bat in your hand.
Sometimes getting on base isn’t enough. Sometimes even getting a hit isn’t enough. That’s what SITUATIONAL HITTING is all about.”
RE 27
“But if you still want Roberts over a guy like Pat Burrell (.258/.388/.502) then I want you to have a team in my ‘for money’ roto-league…”
I’m not arguing with the decision to get more power out of LF, and the route the Padres have chosen is fine. If I can afford Burrell’s contract and don’t have to give up too much, don’t expect me to join your Roto League any time soon. (Also, I am kind of hoping the Pads pursue Burrell, but the winter meetings may be a little soon to go after him.)
Random side note on the Chris Snelling mention by Peter: I had never heard of Chris Snelling before, but the very next site I visited after loading this page also mentioned Chris Snelling (mlbtraderumors, Snelling might be out of a job now that the M’s have signed Jose Guillen).
Oh, and to stay relevant: I like high OBP. I hate seeing one of the three best hitters on the team bunt a runner over (yes, I was for firing Bochy for having Cameron sac bunt several times this year). But I do like sacrifice flies or groundouts that bring in runners, because the alternative can be a game like the @#$%ing NLCS game three where we left a many a runner in scoring position.
Guys who are “protected” by having a better hitter behind them hit worse than guys who lack “protection.” The difference is that the “unprotected” hitter draws more walks. Guys don’t hit for more power or higher average when “protected.” That’s one of those things we all think would happen, but in real life don’t. You’re choosing to argue it as though it does, but the facts disagree with you.
You probably have posted it before, but, knowing what we know now about everyone’s overall numbers last year, what would have been your ideal batting order with Roberts hitting 6th? Do you think Bochy will hit him 6th in SF (or maybe that’s a silly question). If not, what might be his reasoning? In your opinion, why do you think Roberts is even considered a leadoff hitter?
I didn’t mean to imply that the hitter giving protection has to be a “better hitter” — who would you hit behind Bonds, for instance? — but he does have to give the opposition a reason not to want to face him with a runner on base instead of your best hitter. Whether Barry Bonds’s overall numbers increase or decrease is irrelevant — many of his at-bats that pad his numbers may be meaningless over the course the of the season. You want him to see hittable pitches in critical game situations. What does it matter if you throw him a decent pitch when you are up or down by 6 runs? I have always assumed — perhaps mistakenly — that the Giants were a better team with a guy like Kent hitting behind Bonds than someone like Randy Winn, but I was never under the illusion that Kent was a better hitter than Bonds. The again, I also assumed that Cameron or Adrian hitting behind Piazza made more sense than Roberts. Of course, it depends greatly on what a manager has to work with and a million other in-game situations that statistics might not account for (or maybe they do).
I still haven’t read The Book, so when you have a moment, enlighten me on your reasoning.
BTW, for a book of great short stories by a master writer (and sportswriter), pick up Ring Lardner’s collection of stories.
All you had to do was watch the Padres with your eyes and not your spreadsheets to see that Dave Roberts was much more valuable than most of you are contending. I still wouldn’t pay him what the Giants are, no doubt, but KT could have signed him for far less during the year and then spent his time these days trading albatross Brian Giles. Giles is the anti-situational hitter. If he’s up with a man on 1st and 1 out, so the one thing you can’t have is a ground ball in the IF, he’s far more likely to swing at a pitch likely to produce a ground ball just because he thinks he might be able to poke it through, rather than wait for something that he can drive or hit in the air at least to preserve the runner.
In 2006, Giles’ worst offensive season as a pro, he hit .238 with no one on base, and .293 with runners on. His relative “clutchness” or “situational hitting”, as has been referred to here, was about the only thing that kept his season from being a complete disaster.
Perhaps you can lay off snide comments about spreadsheets and also lay off small sample size anecdotes when making arguments.
Anyone interested in IGD’s for the Chargers should check out http://boltz4eva.blogspot.com/
35: I agree, Clayton. Selective memory is way better than the record of what actually happened.
36 – don’t be an a$$. There was nothing snide there. I watch all the games, live. I know what I see, and what I saw in ‘06 is DR making things happen with his speed and tenacity and Giles hitting weakly into a ton of DP’s on pitches he has no business swinging at with a man on first.
38 – again, I watch all the games. There is nothing selective about that. BG is the most disappointing Padre who was out there on a regular basis.
39: Explain why Giles was still more valuable than DR when you measure what they did in WPA rather than context neutral stats. As for not being an ass, I’ll work on it but I promise nothing.
What I think a lot of people are failing to grasp is that you have to look at baseball from both a sabermetric point of view as well as a traditional point of view.
From sabermetrics we have learned that average is a rather hollow stat and OBP is much more insightful as far as production, but sabermetrics fails in other areas such as de-emphasize of the stolen base. I understand the risk reward argument but ask any red sox fan how valuable Dave Roberts running ability is.
Sabermetrics also devalues defense, which as padres fans we all know how much more valuable Cameron is in CF over Roberts or dare a say Jay Peyton.
What I’m getting at is you cant only look at spreadsheets and you cant only trust our eyes otherwise the Braves and A’s would be meeting up in the world series each year (example was based on two teams who always makes the playoffs but normally do not make it past the first round). A team like the red sox is a good example of how a hybrid theory is the best way to go,
This ends my blowhard rant of the day.
41: That’s where WPA comes in. The break-even point for SB% changes throughout the game. DR’s running ability wouldn’t have been needed if the guy he replaced on the bases had hit a double.
Sabermetrics does not devalue defense. I don’t know where you’re getting that from.
Your ‘graph about not only looking at spreadsheets and not only going by scouting is obvious and I don’t know what your point is.
Re: 42 the problem with your argument is that the guy DR replaced did not hit a double therefore they had to pinch run and a SB has value.
Also sabermetrics is famous for putting more emphases on stats like OBP and OPS and less on defense. While win shares do account for defense it only looks into fielding percentage and passed balls leaving range out of the equation. You can argue all you want because its not published anywhere that sabermetrics do put less of an emphasis on defense.
Clayton, you are the one being an a$$ with your snide comments about spreadsheets and your generally snotty attitude towards sabermetrics in general.
I like Giles for reasons beyond his OBP and other things that are deemed important by sabermetricians. I like how he slides hard into second to break up the DP; I like his durability; I like how he positions himself in RF and has solid fundamentals charging the ball, so as to make up for his relatively weak throwing arm; I like how he runs the bases (almost always well, takes third on quite a few singles).
I also recognize that he had a bad year by his career standards.
Watching 81 home games or even all 162 doesn’t necessarily prove your point, and/or your memory could be faulty. In fact, it is. Your anecdotal argument fails on the facts – Giles had more opportunities to hit into double plays than any other Padre, so he was going to hit into more than others – but his RATE was relatively average.
Adrian Gonzalez (one of the worst in the majors), Khalil Greene and Mike Piazza all had worse numbers overall when it came to hitting into double plays, because they hit into double plays at a higher rate per opportunity.
You can look here:
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/statistics/sortable/index.php?cid=153393
43: I’m aware he didn’t hit a double. I was just saying that power is more useful than speed. Also, the argument you’re making is that DR is valuable as a bench player and he didn’t get bench player money.
44: “Fathers”, I still have to take issue with you calling my comments “snide” – they are not in any way. Your reactions, however, have gone way beyond what’s required to try to make a point.
And, I don’t have a “snotty” attitude towards sabremetrics. I’ve been all over this stuff for years, it appeals to me in lots of ways, specifically b/c I do much the same types of analyses in my job, where I’ve had to overcome what most people think of as a purely subjective discipline (Marketing). I’ve simply begun to come back the other way in the last couple years or so. The numbers simply don’t tell you everything. Call me “disillusioned”, or a “recovering sabremetric-aholic”.
We can all do each other a lot of favors by avoiding certain adjectives like “snide” and “snotty” which imply you know the tone and attitude of the person speaking when there is no way you can. That goes for me a lot too, by the way.
correcting 46 “…had to overcome built-in biases…”
46: Sounds fair. Feel free to assume that if I’m being an ass, I mean it more/less jokingly.
“*Give me a situational hitter over the guy with a better .OBP any day of the week. A hitter who knows his role is inevitably more valuable than a hitter who knows his statistics.”
Huh???
The “role” of every hitter is to reach base as frequently as possible. To assert that ANYTHING is more crucial to success than a team’s ability to reach base, and to prevent the opposition from reaching base, is ludicrous.
My apologies, Clayton. Instead of “snide” or “snotty”, I will use terms like “unwarranted”, “unnecessary” or “inappropriate” instead.
50 – no, no, no…clearly none of those apply either!
43: I’m rereading “Moneyball,” so I know of one place where you might have picked up the “devaluing defense” thing, but who are the ones creating tools to better measure defensive performance? Why bother if it’s not that big of deal? That generalization doesn’t seem defensible any more considering all the different metrics out there.
52: An interesting note is that the A’s were one of the best defensive teams in baseball the last year or two and that was obviously by design.
re 49
I assume your read 26, 28 and 30. Those are just a few quick quotes I found on “situational hitting” from Chris Chambliss, Willie Randolph and Harold Reynolds.
Just so you aren’t so terribly perplexed by my assertion — as your “huh???” post seemed to indicate — I’ll repost the quotes.
Willie Randolph
“Just because he gets on base doesn’t mean he’s doing the right thing.â€
Harold Reynlods
Sometimes getting on base isn’t enough. Sometimes even getting a hit isn’t enough. That’s what SITUATIONAL HITTING is all about.â€
Chambliss:
“One of the major things overall is to mold the group to produce runs as a team and not so much individuals – but as a group,†Chambliss said.
Philosophy as a hitting coach: “I don’t really have any revolutionary thing. What I will try do with this team is get real basic with the fundamentals. That’s a thing I stress. Hitting in situations. Moving runners over. Cutting down on strikeouts. Using the whole field … â€
No one is saying .OBP isn’t valuable, but adjusting your approach at the plate to the game situation (which at times will not show up in the box score or boost your .OBP/overall numbers) is usually more valuable to the team as a whole and managers, as well.
Situational hitting isn’t a bad thing, but it’s not as important as you seem to be suggesting. I’d rather have a guy with another .030 of On-base Percentage than a guy who is better at grounding out to second base and sac bunting.
Wow, fun thread to be coming in so late on – after the smell of sulfur has all but dissipated. But…
#30 – Guys who played the game well often are quite clueless in baseball analysis (see Morgan, Joe). The Reynolds quote is a great example. Not the part of the quote that BigKT is talking about, but this: “but when you’re down 3 runs with 2 outs in the 9th inning and a runner on 2nd, what good is a walk then?” Wow!
#40 – Thanks, Richard, I’ll be laughing for days thinking about that last sentence. And I’ll find need to employ it myself on a regular basis.
#41 – Sabermetrics simply argues that the SB, in the current MLB run-scoring environment, is overused. And it provides a nice analysis of exactly why Roberts’ postseason steal was a nearly perfect example of when you should try it. (Read Chaper 4-1 of Baseball Between the Numbers.)
#43 – Sabermetrics doesn’t devalue defense; it does acknowledge that at present defensive metrics are far less precise, or should I say have far less predictive value, than offensive or pitching-related metrics.
A guy who is a good hitter should ALMOST NEVER sac bunt. Therefore the ability to sac bunt is really only important if the guy isn’t a good hitter. A guy who is a good hitter shouldn’t come up looking to hit a grounder toward the right side. He should come up looking to get on base. Unless the guy hitting behind you can’t hit at all and you’re out of pinch hitters, taking a walk is ALMOST ALWAYS better than grounding out to second. Trust me, walks contribute to more runs than ground outs.
I mean, what’s better? Runners on first and second with no outs, or a runner on third with one out? I’d rather have a guy look to draw a walk than look to move the runner over with a runner on.
57: Shorter version: Fundamentals are nice, but slugging and plate discipline are more important and it ain’t close.
BigKT (#28), “They’d work the count, running up pitch totals for the opposition early in the game. The cumulative effect tired the starter. That often meant they’d get a chance to tee off on middle relievers, the weakest link in any pitching staff.”
That’s EXACTLY the philosophy I like. You don’t want to strike out. You want to talk your walks. And when you’re up to bat, you want to get on base, but if a guy is on second w/ less than 2 outs, you try to hit the ball towards right field (unless they’re over-playing you)…
Jeter has his critics in the SABR community basically b/c he’s guilty of being over-rated defensively. He is, however, one of the most complete players in baseball. He has power, he takes walks, he could strike out less, and he works within the context of the situation.
You never want to give away outs (see sac bunting w/ a good hitter and Richard’s comments @ 57) but you do want to leverage your possibilities; create a win-win situation where if you get a hit great, but if you fail to get the hit, your team still benefits.
59: Well stated, Peter.
I didn’t see Cameron’s bunt — the one that almost caused Coronado Mike to jump off his eponymous bridge — so maybe someone will have the heart (and time) to go back and examine the game situation and come up with reasons why Bochy might have had him bunt. A few questions we might want to think about:
Who was pitching? Who was left in the bullpen (Pads and opposition’s)? Who was on base and what was the score? How had Cameron fared in previous at-bats in the game and the previous three games? Had he been striking out every other at-bat or looked hapless at the plate? How was his batting practice session? Did the hitting coach or bench coach communicate something to Bochy that influenced his decision? Had Cameron faced the guy on the mound previously? Had the guy on deck had particular success against the guy on mound or the guy in the bullpen they were likely to bring in? (Yes, I know that means little to you, Richard, but managers seek out tiny advantages like that because they have played the game long enough to know that they do matter, even if the statistics indicate otherwise.) Who was playing third base? How deep was he? Was it a straight sacrifice, or with Cameron’s speed was there a good chance he could put pressure on the pitcher or third baseman to make a bad throw? Was there an element of “Ramon Hernandez” surprise involved — how often had Cameron been asked to sacrifice in similar situations in the past? And there are about 50 more questions I could come up that could possibly justify Bochy’s decision. Feel free to add to the list, but please don’t tell me it was wrong because it didn’t work. The Pads finished first place, but that doesn’t mean every move Bochy made was the best one, either.
I don’t think Bochy was purposely trying to lose the game. Possibly more inconceivable than Bochy’s decision was Cameron’s failure in that situation (if it was a straight sacrifice). Again, I don’t recall exactly what happened, but at the time the decision to have Cameron bunt didn’t strike me as a horrendous idea.
Maybe we can compare it to LT throwing a pass (or maybe not). As you ALMOST NEVER want a good hitter to sacrifice, you ALMOST NEVER want your RB to throw a pass, especially when you’ve got a quarterback who can do it much better. But it hasn’t worked out too poorly for the Chargers when they’ve tried it. Why is that?
Richard and Peter, Burrell had 94 RBI last year and hit .221 with RSIP. Any thoughts?
Re 61: I’m not Richard or Peter (at least I don’t think I am
, but RBI are a counting stat which are more dependent on lineup (how many quality offensive performers are on the team) and position in the batting order (a 4 or 5 hitter can be horrendous with runners on base and still accumulate a good number of RBI).
As for Burrell’s BA with RISP, BA is a rate stat which fluctuates year to year and is thought to be somewhat dependent on “luck.” Sometimes balls fall in during a season and the next year are outs, for whatever reason. I believe I have that is correct, but I may be mistaken.
Furthermore, when you’re looking at a single season of RISP, you’re looking at a fairly small sample size. So in addition to the .221 of last year, you have a .313 in 2005, a .263 in 2004, a .320 in 2003, a .295 in 2002, and a .257 in 2001. Career, a much better sample size, is .267.
The year to year fluctuation seen in Burrell in isolation is what is seen in larger populations when “clutch” hitting is studied. That is to say, there is generally no correspondence between who is clutch in one year and who is clutch the next year. Assuming, of course, that clutch is being defined as hitting with RISP.
To sum up with regards to Burrell, I’d say you have a guy with horrendous BA, but pretty darn good OBP skills and plus, but not great, power numbers. He’s not young, but he’s not old, and he’s played enough that what you see is what you’ll get for the next 3 to 5 years, assuming he doesn’t incur any serious injuries. You’ll get about 80 to 90 BB’s, about 150 K’s, about 30 2B and 30 HR. And in the years where the 1B fall in you’ll get a .280 BA, but in the years when they don’t you’ll get a .260.
Re 61
That was helpful and instructional, and after looking at Burrell’s situational stats over the past 5 years, very accurate. So the difference between his 05 and 06 BA w/RISP — the lowest of his career — was primarily due to small sample size and a fair amount of luck. Thanks.
From Gammons:
The Padres still believe that David Wells will end up pitching another year. If he pitches, Wells will win. He’s the 14th winningest left-hander of all time. The Padres have dabbled in the Ramirez talks but don’t think they have enough without trading Peavy, which is not going to happen. Boston does not think Scott Linebrink is a closer, and the one available starter in that kind of deal would be Clay Hensley. “That,” says one GM, “isn’t going to get it done.”
The Wells thing is interesting…I would love to have him back at a reasonable salary ($4M?) as a #4 or #5 guy. His recent fragility combined with his age make me hope no one in the front office sees him as a top of the rotation workhorse.
What, Linebrink + Hensley doesn’t net us Manny? I’m shocked, truly shocked. Maybe if we threw in a few bags of shag balls? Glad to see someone really close to the Boston front office (Gammons) refuting the Peavy to Boston rumors. He’s still got a lot of risk (injury risk I mean), but I want to see that story play out as a Padre.
BigKTFan…surprised you remember that…I still talk about that play as the one that broke the camel’s back. It is when I decided I was done making excuses for the Boch. I do appreciate the efforts of those at DS talking me down.
As far as Pat the Bat, I think he may be a good fit. His periferal numbers suggest that ‘06 was a fluke and he is poised for a big year in ‘07. They need a set-up/closer type of guy. They are fearful that Gordon will break down. I think the Pads may have that.
Give me Boomer for another year…I think he would command $7-8mm, but in today’s environment and the lower risk of a 1-yr deal, we should do that all day long.
One thing not mentioned earlier from the Gammons article:
“Bruce Bochy’s many friends back in San Diego kid him about having so many familiar faces in San Francisco: Dave Roberts and Mark Loretta (in addition to Rich Aurilia) plus the possibility of Ryan Klesko going back.”
Where would Loretta play now that Aurilla and Durham are on board? Plus, Feliz is pretty much back, too, right?
Reminds me of an oh-so-knowlegable segment on XX where Josh Rosenberg and Jack Kronin were talking about Manny and the Pads/Giants. They said that the Giants had developed the sort of young pitching that could possibly get the deal done, whereas the Pads’ cupboard was essentially bereft of chips. So if the Giants are so adept at developing young hurlers, who would pitch effectively in SF if they traded Cain and Linoceum to get Manny? Hennessey and Lowry? Maybe, but if the Giants’ system is better than the Pads’, why are they just signing more mid-30s types? Grow some knowledge, guys. I’d much rather have Chris Ello for lunch.
“(Yes, I know that means little to you, Richard, but managers seek out tiny advantages like that because they have played the game long enough to know that they do matter, even if the statistics indicate otherwise.)”
If by tiny, you mean non-existent.
“Maybe we can compare it to LT throwing a pass (or maybe not). As you ALMOST NEVER want a good hitter to sacrifice, you ALMOST NEVER want your RB to throw a pass, especially when you’ve got a quarterback who can do it much better. But it hasn’t worked out too poorly for the Chargers when they’ve tried it. Why is that?
Richard and Peter, Burrell had 94 RBI last year and hit .221 with RSIP. Any thoughts? ”
First of all, that’s a horrible analogy. It’d be more like having your great running back try to jump over the pile to pick up one yard on first and ten. You just can’t compare a trick play to a sac bunt. It’s more akin to swinging for the fences in a situation in which you’d normally be looking to go the other way. Tony Gwynn looking to pull the ball. Not Mike Cameron intentionally making an out.
RISP numbers are non-predictive of future performance.
RIchard,
What about all the clutch hitters that we need? Who are they?
70: There’s no way to identify a clutch hitter.