Puig

I'm with PIS! Puig is really rounding out into form.  I keep him over just about anybody in the National League.  Now what the Dodgers need to do is deal Kemp and call up Joc Peterson.  I hate to say this because I am a big Kemp fan but "what have you done for me lately" 

 

Rich,

 

Agreed on the WINS point.  Puig is sitting at #14 on WAR in 2014.  I think I'll keep my day job.  If Mattingly can pull this off, he gets my vote for manager of the year.  I'd be pounding my head against the wall...Puig drives me crazy with the mental mistakes.  Just think how good he could be if he figures it out.

 

http://espn.go.com/mlb/war/leaders

forget Puig, though he is right in the middle of it. Its the Hanley show. Remember, he hit about .250 down the stretch last year. The season is from April to Sept. Not June to June. You can make stats say anything you want. He is a talent but he is far from the only reason the Dodgers are winning. He is getting great protection from Hanley.

 

Does anyone actually think Puig is the only reason the Dodgers are winning?

 

Lineup protection is a mythical narrative. Puig hits because he's a great hitter. It has nothing to do with Hanley batting in front of or behind him. You can't "make" stats "say" things, they are what they are. Puig has been the best player on the Dodgers so far this year by a lot. He's 23 years old and owed just $42 million through 2018. Ramirez is 30 years old, with significant injury history, and is a free agent after this season. 

 

Yasiel Puig is one of the most talented baseball players on the planet, and the best player on the Dodgers right now. To me, it's literally impossible to argue that.

 

 

You (or anyone) should create a stat that says anything you want, post it, and then let everyone pick through it. It'll be a fun experiment.

Puig is quickly becoming the top player in the NL. He has now played 157 career games and has hit 30 bombs with a .405 on base percentage and a .326 average. His discipline is getting better and better at the plate as according to graphics he is swinging at less and less pitches outside the zone and doing more with the ones that are in the zone. This is showing a strikezone maturity far beyond his years. As we saw with Manny, a guy can be a hitting savant and a goofball the rest of the time and still be exceedingly valuable to a team. He is becoming an absolute monster offensive player headed towards a 7.5 or 8 war season perhaps.

 

There is no doubt he can improve his baserunning but I feel the light will come on eventually. So much for the sophomore jinx!

Tell Robinson Cano that lineup protection is a myth. And no one is arguing that he isn't playing the best right now. But to say they are winning because of Puig alone is forgive me, is ludicrous. They are winning because they are playing better then the opposition.And please tell me what Hanleys age or free agent situation has to do with this. It matters not how old you are to help a club win. And just point out where I argue about Puigs talent. But it is a fact he hit around .250 down the stretch last year. This year could well be different. And if we look back to last year we will see the Dodgers take off after Hanley came back and started to hit.Put him in San Diego Padres lineup and see if protection is for real.

oldskool take a WAR any WAR number for anyone. That is one stat that depends a whole lot on your team. You can make that number say anything you want. And by the way you will not see me really quoting stats on this site too much. But please read my posts carefully. And yes, you can make numbers say whatever it is you want.

Explain more, please.

WAR is completely independent of a team's success. That's probably the chief tenet of the stat, actually. It's an individual stat. And, just like literaly every other stat in the history of mathematics, you can't "make" it "say" anything.

Also, thanks for bringing up Cano. Here's an article using him as a perfect example proving the false nature of lineup protection: http://www.lookoutlanding.com/...neup-protection-myth

I don't mind that people don't follow the statistics of the game closely. Enjoyment of baseball can happen independent of statistics very easily. But bashing something you literally have no clue about makes you look very foolish.

I do believe there is an advantage to both great hitters when they hit back to back.  Especially to the first hitter. I believe this advantage can produce better over all statistics.

 

Maybe protection is the wrong word.  But is it a coincident that Prince Fielder hit right next to the last three MVPs.  Why did Roger Maris have that year in 1961?  Anytime there are two great hitters back to back it requires pitchers to think a bit more.  Buck Showalter wouldn't have intentionally walked Barry Bonds with the bases loaded if another Barry Bonds was on deck.

 

For some, (Barry Bonds) they will compile great statistics no matter what.  But there is an advantage when two great hitters are back to back.

 

It will be interesting to see if Miggy has another MVP year this season.  

 

That said, the new age statistics are here to stay.  Every club is involved.  Puig's talent is astounding!  It will be interesting to see how everything plays out for him.  He does make a lot of mistakes, especially on the bases, but he also does things that most everyone else can't do.

Well, Trout was MVP the last 2 years, just wasn't voted MVP by the holy writers.

Expansion + Luck + Skill = Roger Maris 1961

Asserting this doesn't make it so.  Bill James debunked the idea with Horner and Murphy back in the 80s, and it would be trivial to prove this advantage existed if it did.

 

The flip side of protection is that hitters without it should get pitched around substantially more, and should perform worse when they don't have it.  Barry Bonds was walked 232 times in 2004, which should tell you everything you need to know about how afraid opponents were of the hitters after him and how rarely he saw strikes, but he hit 362/609/812.

 

Stanton spent much of 2012 with Logan Morrison (230/308/399) and Carlos Lee (243/328/345 with the Marlins) batting behind him.  Stanton hit 290/361/608.

 

Paul Konerko (300/388/517) and Carlos Quentin (254/340/499) hit behind Adam Dunn in 2011. Dunn hit a whopping 159/292/277 thanks to their protection.

Putting all stats aside for a moment (because they make my head hurt):

 

Is anyone saying they pitch good hitter the same if there's a good hitter on deck versus a below average hitter on deck? Not every at bat I know, but say in a spot where the guy at the plate can hurt you?

 

You go ahead and go right at the good hitter at the plate regardless of who's up next?

So Hanley Ramirez and his .257 average in a third of a season's worth of AB's is why Puig is batting .340 with power? Gee, I thought Puig's talent had something to do with it! 

 

I think Cano's problems have more to do with no longer playing in that lefthanded batters HR paradise that Yankee Stadium is than what "protection" he gets. He is in a large park and and he was probably not quite the power hitter it seemed. His non power stats are very close to what he was before so the lack of protection protection stand up. He just can't reach the fences in his home park with any consistency. I know someone will bring up the HR Derby that he won but that was batting practice and they say Ichiro is a real slugger in BP and look what he does in games.

 

Hanley's walk percentage has not gone up appreciably and is way down from his years in Florida so if he is being pitched around it doesn't show in the stats. Part of the problem might be trying to live up to a contract that is way above his talent level.

Does anyone think Roger Maris would have hit 61 HRs in 1961 if Mantle (54 HRs) was not hitting behind him? Still an unbelievable feat!

 

It makes a difference what the hitting lineup looks like.  It becomes part of the game plan. It's not an every at bat thing, but situations come up. If you have one great hitter and eight bad hitters your mind set is don't let the great hitter beat you. With another great hitter on deck you might pitch differently.  Happens all the time!

 

I'm going to get less HR balls if the hitter behind me can't hit a home run. Maybe the difference isn't as great in MLB because most teams are strong at the 3 and 4 spots. But there is still a difference unless the opposing pitcher and manager just don't care.  It is exactly the reason Buck Showalter intentionally walked Barry Bonds with the bases loaded, putting the winning run on base. He thought there was a better chance of Bonds hitting a grand slam than the next guy getting a hit.

Maris 1960-1962 batting 3rd (presumably in front of Mantle): .268/.365/.567 (6.7% of his PA's were HR)

Maris 1960-1962 batting 4th (presumably behind Mantle): .286/.390/.609 (7% of his PA's were HR)

 

Mantle 1960-1962 batting 3rd: .266/.375/.520 (5% of his PA's were HR)

Mantle 1960-1092 batting 4th: .316/.458/.643 (7.3% of his PA's were HR)

Goes to show how misleading stats can be at times.  

 

Think about this one... In 1961 Maris hit 3rd, Mantle hit 4th, in 139 games. Maris hit 57 of his 61 home runs in those 139 games. 

How are those misleading? They are what actually happened. What actually happened can't be misleading!

Roger Maris hit 61 home runs in 1961 because he was a great home run hitter, not because Mickey Mantle was hitting behind him. There is no proof that lineup protection is a real thing. Over a large enough sample of plate appearances, hitters will hit regardless of who is hitting behind him. Again, not to be argumentative, but stats cannot be misleading. They just are what they are. Stats tell a story of what happens, they cannot be manipulated or made up or misleading. I find it difficult to grasp the concept that people argue against mathematical proof of things. Maybe that's just the way my mind works, I don't know. But when evidence is black and white, it's impossible to make a valid point against it. There is no proof of lineup protection. There just isn't.

 

 

EDIT: There is proof that a hitter hits *slightly* better with a high OBP guy in front of him, because hitters generally hit better with runners on base (and, conversely, pitchers generally pitch worse with runners on base). I should specify that my statement pertaining to the fact that there is no proof of lineup protection has to do with a hitter hitting behind another hitter.

 

Josh, as a pitcher, did you ever pitch differently to a guy knowing he had a particularly good or particularly bad hitter following him?

 

I didn't notice who was in the on-deck circle. My responsibility was to focus on the hitter in the batter's box, and get him out. I'd worry about the next guy when it was his turn to hit. I would pitch hitters differently based on their individual skillsets, but my approach had nothing to do with who may be hitting after them. I found the concept of lessening your own abilities as a pitcher in an attempt to maximize hypothetical future success completely illogical, and as I've moved on to the other side of the game, I find that the numbers back up that theory as well.

 

 

 

JH,

 

Hypothetical....Puig at the plate, and swinging a hot bat....if the on deck batter was 0-10, and hitting .200, would you pitch around Puig?

 

I am intrigued by your statement that you did not concern yourself with the batter on deck.  I wanted to see if that changed in the case of the hypothetical above.

Just for grins I looked at Roger Maris' 1960 season when he won the MVP for the first time just to see if having Mantle bat directly behind him made a big difference. Surprisingly, in 1960, Maris only had 108 of his AB's with Mantle directly behind him going 29 for 108, a .269 average which was LOWER than his .283 season batting average. Strangely, he walked 94 times the year (1961) that he had Mantle batting behind him most of the time but only walked 70 times in an MVP season when he only had Mantle batting 108 times directly behind him. Pitchers were more careful with Maris when Mantle batted behind him in those years than when he didn't.

 

By the way, I have always felt Maris being the MVP in 1961 instead of Mantle is a greater injustice than Cabrera's two MVP's over Trout. Mantle playing the premier position, having greater speed, burning Maris in OPS( a historic 1.135 to .992), OBP (.448 to .372), slugging percentage,batting average,(.317 to .269), stolen bases, (12-13 to 0-0) ground into DP's (only 2 to 16), and putouts in the outfield (351 to 261), Errors (6 to 9). So 7 Hrs and 14 RBI's and 1 run scored overrode all that? No way!

 

 

Where'd you find the information?

Three Bagger- You forgot the big bad WAR, in which Mantle also held a lead by a considerable margin in 1961 . While both years of Cabrera > Trout make no sense to me, there have been many more downright weird MVP awards given out in the history of the game. 

 

Usually involved Texas Rangers.

 

"Swinging a hot bat" is dependent on arbitrary start/end dates, so I wouldn't consider anyone that has had a good stretch of small sample hitting to be a "hot bat." Platoon splits exist - and perhaps a hitter like Puig may be a better hitter against the type of pitcher I am when compared to another type of pitcher. That may lead me to pitch him differently. But none of that has anything to do with the batter on deck. I would never approach an at-bat differently because of who is on deck, and I certainly would never encourage any other pitchers to do so. That makes no sense to me whatsoever. 

 

OldScool2, Retrosheets on EBaseball World allows you to look at a player's game by game results as well as every box score since the early 20th century. Love to browse through it.

JH - I won't sidetrack this Puig thread anymore, however I love your mindset.  I would suspect there would be less intentional or unintentional intentional walks with that thought process.   ....of course walking the batter for force out, double play notwithstanding.

Yeah, I know about Retrosheet pretty well. Did you go through each box score and add it up yourself?

 

I view the IBB similarly to the sac bunt…there are very few instances in the game when they are warranted. I IBBed one batter in college, in a similar situation you just outlined - with a runner on second base and one out in a tie game in the 9th inning on the road. That is an example of a time it makes sense to me; to set up a force play while allowing a runner on base that literally means nothing in the context of the game. 

 

I appreciate that you appreciate the mindset. I've always felt that way and I am very happy to see that the numbers back up my mindset.

 

Oh, and when I IBBed the hitter, the next batter (who I didn't think about while IBBing the hitter) bounced into a double play on the first pitch .

 

 

Oh and JH I left out WAR because..well you know...

Yeah I just did a quick game by game look for that season since I saw that Maris didn't bat third all that much. Surprisingly, he batted leadoff the first couple of games that season. He had Moose Skowron and the immortal Hector Lopez "protect" him a lot that season and Bobby Rishardson behind him when he batted leadoff!

Yeah, I bet he protected the #9 hitter pretty well!

If a pitcher isn't aware of the lineup, the manager sure is.  Are we saying pitchers never pitch around a hitter in certain situations. That the guy on deck plays no part in how you pitch to a hitter. This is part of advanced scouting.  It's also about knowing all the statistics of the opposition.  It's part of pregame prep.  Knowing the opposition!  I can almost guarantee that every pitcher that ever faced the Giants knew when Barry Bonds was on deck in an important situation. If they didn't know, the catcher and the manager did.

 

Of course statistics are what they are.  Roger Maris hit 57 home runs in 1961 in 139 games that Mantle hit behind him.  That is a true statistic!  My comment about statistics meant that we can find a true stat that can back nearly any argument. In this case it is my belief that Roger Maris would not have hit 61 home runs without Mantle hitting behind him.  It's not something that can be proven one way or the other with statistics. IMO

 

Then again, I could be wrong about all this.  Many years have taught me that I have the capability of being wrong at times.

That Maris hit the majority of his HR with Mantle hitting behind him (as near as I can tell, he actually hit 55 with Mantle in the starting lineup behind him, but I don't feel like being completely exhaustive and it doesn't change the math much) doesn't prove your thesis.  Maris hit 61 HR in 698 PA.  He hit 3rd for 610 PA and hit 57 HR doing so.  If his HR were completely randomly distributed, there's roughly a 20% chance he'd hit 57 or more HR in any given 610 PAs.  That's not evidence that having Mantle behind him offered "protection", especially when we already know that Maris didn't hit markedly better/worse with Mantle behind him over a more substantial number of PAs. FWIW, unless he hit all 61 in the 610 PAs, the odds that it's just chance distribution don't fall below 5%, which is where things might start to look significant.

 

Not that it matters what the math says, since you've essentially dismissed it out of hand with your last sentence.  Nothing can actually be proven with statistics, but it is possible to show via statistics that there's no real evidence that there is a protection effect in MLB hitters as it's being commonly referred to here. I realize that won't convince you with regards to Mantle/Maris, but until you're willing to actually attempt statistically to prove your thesis that protection exists, your beliefs on the subject are just that, beliefs.

So, yeah…. that Puig guy is pretty good huh!?

PGStaff....I sent you a PM (Dialog)