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Thread: Can Mike Trout field?

  1. #46
    Churlish Johnny Footstool's Avatar
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    Re: Can Mike Trout field?

    I'd rather have Trout on my team than Cabrera. I'd venture most of the MVP voters would feel the same.
    "I prefer books and movies where the conflict isn't of the extreme cannibal apocalypse variety I guess." Redsfaithful

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  4. #47
    Member Norm Chortleton's Avatar
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    Re: Can Mike Trout field?

    Quote Originally Posted by Johnny Footstool View Post
    Cabrera won the MVP award, no doubt about it.

    Trout was the more valuable player.
    College basketball solved this problem by changing from Most Valuable to Most Outstanding. Valuable = too ambiguous.

  5. #48
    Member Norm Chortleton's Avatar
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    Re: Can Mike Trout field?

    Quote Originally Posted by Johnny Footstool View Post
    I'd rather have Trout on my team than Cabrera. I'd venture most of the MVP voters would feel the same.
    Why didn't they vote that way? Did they change to electoral votes while I wasn't watching?

  6. #49
    Posting in Dynarama M2's Avatar
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    Re: Can Mike Trout field?

    Quick thought on defensive stat flux, the flux isn't the problem so much as potentially why the flux occurs.

    Batting and pitching, mechanically, defy consistency. Slight variations can make or break you in those pursuits. Fielding, especially in the OF, is based much more on gross motor functions. Players aren't getting appreciably faster or slower year to year. It's not like you get locked-in out in the field and suddenly you're faster.

    So the flux may have more to do with circumstance than with anything the player is doing. If so, then we've got to figure out whether there's actually a baby in that bathwater.
    I'm not a system player. I am a system.

  7. #50
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    Re: Can Mike Trout field?

    1. I think the team matters to me because bad teams appear to get more chances - this is maybe not a good example but bad teams get more opps to make plays in all manner of areas. I'm not real sure UZR takes that into account.

    2. i think the proprietary systems that each team has is good stuff -but you still have to have the ability and insight into how to interpret those numbers and i wonder if that's out there. i think that's what's missing in sabermetrics these days -- it's data over interpetive analysis.

    There appears to be a huge amount of data collected -but what's missing is someone who can make sense of the numbers and communicate the story. Imho, that's what's missing with sabermetrics recent generation - they have no one who can analyze and present the data in a way that makes good sense. When i see this i tend to think they are working at the margins without understanding the big picture....and that's this .....defensive numbers can only be understood if you know how they relate to the overall teams numbers, thus making sabr defensive numbers skewed.

    Currently, Jose Altuve has the best double play percentage -he plays on the worst team in the league by a long shot - i have a sneaky suspicion that his numbers are skewed because he plays on the worst team in baseball- maybe this is a poor example - i think we are about 50% of the way there in evaluating ind defense.

  8. #51
    Sprinkles are for winners dougdirt's Avatar
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    Re: Can Mike Trout field?

    Quote Originally Posted by BluegrassRedleg View Post
    Sure one can. The best guy at Apple could be more valuable the best guy at Dell, no matter how good the latter might be.

    Then again, Cabrera is Apple in this argument.
    But we aren't comparing those things. We are comparing everyone. If Mike Trout is the best player in baseball, then no one else in baseball can possibly be more valuable than him or he wouldn't be the best.

  9. #52
    Sprinkles are for winners dougdirt's Avatar
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    Re: Can Mike Trout field?

    Quote Originally Posted by Norm Chortleton View Post
    Win totals don't. Place in the standings do. Right or wrong, it's always been that way. Just like pitchers are rarely ever considered, even if they are the most valuable players.

    This debate is as old as the award itself. Your point of view is reasonable, but has been rejected by the voters. They almost always go with the best player from the best team unless someone else has a season that is far, far superior.
    And until the voters start doing it right, we are going to complain that they are doing it wrong.

  10. #53
    5.3 Posts Abv Replacement BluegrassRedleg's Avatar
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    Re: Can Mike Trout field?

    Quote Originally Posted by dougdirt View Post
    But we aren't comparing those things. We are comparing everyone. If Mike Trout is the best player in baseball, then no one else in baseball can possibly be more valuable than him or he wouldn't be the best.
    We just have a different definition for value, which is a subjective concept. From my perspective, your value is relative to what your team accomplished. If your team was third with or without you (as the Angels would have been sans-Trout) you don't have the same kind of value as a guy whose team made the playoffs. Doesn't mean I think any less of Trout's game. He's great. Just not better, er, more valuable, than Miggy last year.
    Rounding third and heading for home...

  11. #54
    Stat geek...and proud
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    Re: Can Mike Trout field?

    Quote Originally Posted by dougdirt View Post
    And until the voters start doing it right, we are going to complain that they are doing it wrong.
    Exactly. The baseball writers have been proven to be clueless time after time. These are the same cats who voted Jim Rice into the HOF but not Jeff Bagwell. Just because they vote a certain way certainly doesn't make it the way it should be.

  12. #55
    Churlish Johnny Footstool's Avatar
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    Re: Can Mike Trout field?

    Quote Originally Posted by Norm Chortleton View Post
    Why didn't they vote that way? Did they change to electoral votes while I wasn't watching?
    The MVP vote is based on stats for one season, not on who you'd rather have on a team.
    "I prefer books and movies where the conflict isn't of the extreme cannibal apocalypse variety I guess." Redsfaithful

  13. #56
    Member Norm Chortleton's Avatar
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    Re: Can Mike Trout field?

    Quote Originally Posted by Johnny Footstool View Post
    The MVP vote is based on stats for one season, not on who you'd rather have on a team.
    If I were voting, I'd vote based on who I would want on my team based on his performance for that season. And it would still be Cabrera. (It would be close, though.)

  14. #57
    Box of Frogs edabbs44's Avatar
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    Re: Can Mike Trout field?

    Quote Originally Posted by jojo View Post
    Here are some important points that need to be made for context in this discussion:

    3) It's perfectly normal for players to have good and bad defensive seasons. In other words, it's not a reasonable expectation to expect that their performance wouldn't vary naturally on defense while it does in every other aspect of the game. If UZR didn't vary from season to season, it would be suspicious. Huge swings without injury should be noted but again that isn't a de facto proof of unreliability.

    Trout isn't a throw the baby out with the bath water example. UZR isn't really broken here. Some in the media just aren't using proper caution. Dirty harry once said a man has got to know his limitations. Well that also holds true concerning a man's statistics.
    Why do we think that this is perfectly normal? Because it is, or because the current metrics tell us so?

  15. #58
    Member RedsManRick's Avatar
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    Re: Can Mike Trout field?

    Quote Originally Posted by BluegrassRedleg View Post
    We just have a different definition for value, which is a subjective concept. From my perspective, your value is relative to what your team accomplished. If your team was third with or without you (as the Angels would have been sans-Trout) you don't have the same kind of value as a guy whose team made the playoffs. Doesn't mean I think any less of Trout's game. He's great. Just not better, er, more valuable, than Miggy last year.
    Just to make sure I understand your perspective:

    Miguel Cabrera was more deserving of the MVP in large part because the Oakland Athletics and Texas Rangers were better than the Chicago White Sox and Kansas City Royals, meaning that Detroit's 88 wins won a division while the Angel's 89 finished 3rd.

    Similarly, if Cabrera had better teammates, such that the Tigers ran away with the AL Central instead of squeaking by with 88 wins, he would have been less valuable, perhaps making Trout more deserving.

    Or, if Trout had better teammates, such that the Angels finished ahead of Texas and won the wild card, Trout would have been more deserving.

    Is any of that inconsistent with you view of value? If yes, please clarify.
    Games are won on run differential -- scoring more than your opponent. Runs are runs, scored or prevented they all count the same. Worry about scoring more and allowing fewer, not which positions contribute to which side of the equation or how "consistent" you are at your current level of performance.

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  17. #59
    Five Tool Fool jojo's Avatar
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    Re: Can Mike Trout field?

    Quote Originally Posted by edabbs44 View Post
    Why do we think that this is perfectly normal? Because it is, or because the current metrics tell us so?
    First, because baseball players are human (this by the way is a favortite refrain by those who lecture staheads about their metrics) and second, they also often have nicks and cuts from a grind of a season that can be unique to a season that impacts various aspects of their game.

    So it's because it is and by the way, current metrics reflect this too.
    "This isn’t stats vs scouts - this is stats and scouts working together, building an organization that blends the best of both worlds. This is the blueprint for how a baseball organization should be run. And, whether the baseball men of the 20th century like it or not, this is where baseball is going."---Dave Cameron, U.S.S. Mariner

  18. #60
    Box of Frogs edabbs44's Avatar
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    Re: Can Mike Trout field?

    Quote Originally Posted by jojo View Post
    First, because baseball players are human (this by the way is a favortite refrain by those who lecture staheads about their metrics) and second, they also often have nicks and cuts from a grind of a season that can be unique to a season that impacts various aspects of their game.

    So it's because it is and by the way, current metrics reflect this too.
    I guess that depends on if you believe defense is a skill that can vary the way certain metrics say they can. Not all human skills vary at the same levels.


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