Willy Taveras or Chris Dickerson in CF?

[TheNext44]

Originally Posted by dougdirt

Only if we told her it had cream filling

Reminds me of the great Pete Rose quote to Eric Gregg. Gregg missed a call at second. Rose told Gregg that if he admited that he missed it, he would turn around and go straight back to the dugout. Gregg admitted he missed it, Rose turned around, but not before adding:

"If it were a cheeseburger, you wouldn't have missed it!"

[Patrick Bateman]

Originally Posted by TheNext44

Well, it you think that, then you should think that he will finish with an OBP of .329, which means that he will OBP around .360 the rest of the way. Which is basically my point.

Right now, due to an 0-19 slump (Pujols just had an 0-16 slump) he is off of his career numbers. I think if he gets enough playing time, they will come back to his norm.

However, even if he did do that, I would still want Dickerson over him.

Technically base don that theory, you'd expect Taveras to OBP .400 the rest of the way if he were doing even worse right now. That doesn't really make any sense. Doing below norms in the past does not mean that it should be expected that players will do equally better in the future to counteract the past events.

Taveras' career numbers should still be the expected guideline at this point, from here on in (as in somewhere around .328 the rest of the way). A correction would be an unexpected bonus.

[TheNext44]

Originally Posted by Austin Kearns

Technically base don that theory, you'd expect Taveras to OBP .400 the rest of the way if he were doing even worse right now. That doesn't really make any sense. Doing below norms in the past does not mean that it should be expected that players will do equally better in the future to counteract the past events.

Taveras' career numbers should still be the expected guideline at this point, from here on in (as in somewhere around .328 the rest of the way). A correction would be an unexpected bonus.

I did say it was an absurd prediction.... :

[acredsfan]

Originally Posted by Ron Madden

So you would rather stick with a player like Taveras, who has proven to be unproductive rather than take a chance on Dickerson... because you think that he might suck too?

If you read my post again I said I'm all for giving Dickerson more playing time, BUT I'm not for trading Taveras away in case Dickerson fails miserably.

[Ron Madden]

Originally Posted by acredsfan

I'm all for giving more playing time to Dickerson, but let's not be too quick to trade Willy Taveras. Yeah, he may not be an outstanding player, but I'm not willing to place all of my trust in the rookie just yet. People can argue all they want about how Willy isn't as good of a hitter, but Dickerson hasn't proven crap yet. He's had one decent month at the plate this year, but his average is still under .250. He went through a spell where he swung at everything, but his OBP is a decent .375. Still, way too soon to declare him the answer in CF for the season. Knee jerk reactions are a terrible way to run a franchise. Let's remember that many people were calling for Dickerson to sit when Nix was showing promise in LF.

I'm in no way implying that Willy will be the answer in CF, but at the very least he's got the experience to take the job back over if Dickerson would faulter. CF is one of the areas that Walt should look to upgrade, but honestly it's rare to find a CFer who can play offense and defense.

acredsfan,

My argument is Taveras should have never been signed when There Were Better Options In House.

Signing Taveras to a two year multi million dollar deal was nothing other than foolish move, one that many members of RedsZone predicted to be a foolish move.

I have never posted anything about trading Taveras. Who the hell are you gonna trade him to and for what?

[Ron Madden]

Originally Posted by acredsfan

If you read my post again I said I'm all for giving Dickerson more playing time, BUT I'm not for trading Taveras away in case Dickerson fails miserably.

[bucksfan2]

Originally Posted by Ron Madden

acredsfan,

My argument is Taveras should have never been signed when There Were Better Options In House.

Signing Taveras to a two year multi million dollar deal was nothing other than foolish move, one that many members of RedsZone predicted to be a foolish move.

I have never posted anything about trading Taveras. Who the hell are you gonna trade him to and for what?

The Reds weren't ready to hand over the starting CF job to Dickerson at the start of the season. It is also apparent with Stubbs still down in AAA that the Reds didn't fell he was ready yet. From what I have seen of this front office they want to make their young players earn the job instead of handing it to them. They did a similar thing with Votto last season when he was brought up.

Dickerson was pretty awful in the beginning of the year. He wasn't ready yet to be an everyday player, and you could argue that he isn't ready now. I had no problem with Taveras being brought in as a stop gap until Stubbs was ready. The second year was a little confusing but with Owings bat on the bench the Reds would be ok with Taveras as a 4th outfielder.

[jojo]

Originally Posted by TheNext44

Well, it you think that, then you should think that he will finish with an OBP of .329, which means that he will OBP around .360 the rest of the way. Which is basically my point.

Right now, due to an 0-19 slump (Pujols just had an 0-16 slump) he is off of his career numbers. I think if he gets enough playing time, they will come back to his norm.

However, even if he did do that, I would still want Dickerson over him.

I'm not sure if I'm getting the context correctly but here goes...

If you think Taveras has a true skill represented by an OBP of .329, barring injury, you'd expect his OBP to be .329 +/- the standard deviation associated with whatever sample size you're projecting regardless of whether his last stretch of PAs were characterized by an OBP of .450 or .125.

[TRF]

Originally Posted by acredsfan

If you read my post again I said I'm all for giving Dickerson more playing time, BUT I'm not for trading Taveras away in case Dickerson fails miserably.

So, in case Dickerson fails, your contingency is a player that is a complete offensive black hole of suck?

cool.

[Redlegs]

Originally Posted by Chip R

Why do you hate Speed and Defense?

No, I love speed and defense. The problem is he's misplayed a few balls in center so his defense is replaceable, IMO. He has speed, but he hasn't been an agressive base runner. He wanted to swipe 100 bags this season. He'd better hurry.

I'm not one to go hating on our players. I just think his presence in the lineup has not given this club an advantage thus far. But when he's in there, I'm rooting for him.

[OnBaseMachine]

From Lance:

Let's play a game
How long before Dusty gives in and plays Dickerson in CF and/or the Reds place Taveras on the DL?
The table settter is 0 for his last 24 and 1 for his last 29.
And consider the emailer Jeff earlier this week: (updated)
Taveras during 14 game hit streak: 24-59 .407 avg (Reds record 10-4)
Taveras in other 45 games: 22-134 .164 avg (Reds record 21-24)
1st Dusty got "irritated" about people telling him to play the hot hand.
2nd Dusty moved Taveras to the 2nd spot to help him get going.
3rd? Heck, maybe Dusty moves him to the 3rd spot.
Taveras has an OBP of .294. He's done the impossible, it's lower than his OBP last year in Colorado (.308)
It all makes my head hurt.
Wouldn't you love to hear the conversation where Bob C. asks Walt why they are paying him 4-million next year?

http://www.1530homer.com/pages/lancesBlog.html

[Jpup]

Originally Posted by OnBaseMachine

From Lance:

Let's play a game
How long before Dusty gives in and plays Dickerson in CF and/or the Reds place Taveras on the DL?
The table settter is 0 for his last 24 and 1 for his last 29.
And consider the emailer Jeff earlier this week: (updated)
Taveras during 14 game hit streak: 24-59 .407 avg (Reds record 10-4)
Taveras in other 45 games: 22-134 .164 avg (Reds record 21-24)
1st Dusty got "irritated" about people telling him to play the hot hand.
2nd Dusty moved Taveras to the 2nd spot to help him get going.
3rd? Heck, maybe Dusty moves him to the 3rd spot.
Taveras has an OBP of .294. He's done the impossible, it's lower than his OBP last year in Colorado (.308)
It all makes my head hurt.
Wouldn't you love to hear the conversation where Bob C. asks Walt why they are paying him 4-million next year?

http://www.1530homer.com/pages/lancesBlog.html

Kind of like me asking Bob Miller why they were paying him 4 million before the season started. He is a DFA waiting to happen. If not soon, then it will be before the end of his contract. I can't really see anyone taking him in a trade unless the Reds are dealing with Kenny Williams.

[TheNext44]

Originally Posted by jojo

I'm not sure if I'm getting the context correctly but here goes...

If you think Taveras has a true skill represented by an OBP of .329, barring injury, you'd expect his OBP to be .329 +/- the standard deviation associated with whatever sample size you're projecting regardless of whether his last stretch of PAs were characterized by an OBP of .450 or .125.

Thanks for pointing that out. I was wrong on that.

Actually my mistake was using his current career OBP of .329. Coming into the season, he had one of .330. Now it is .327. If one were to assume that his skill level is a .330 OBP, you would have to assume that he will perform better at some point to get his career number back to .330.

Now I don't really buy into this notion that his skill level is exactly .330, but if one were to assume that, that is the conclusion that could be drawn.

My point was that if you believe that Willy Taveras = Willy Taveras, then you would think that he is due for a hot streak at some point this season, to offset the slump he currently is in.

To be honest, he could be much worse than a .330 OBP, and this slump is the correction to get him to his true skill level. Who knows?

[RedsManRick]

Originally Posted by TheNext44

Thanks for pointing that out. I was wrong on that.

Actually my mistake was using his current career OBP of .329. Coming into the season, he had one of .330. Now it is .327. If one were to assume that his skill level is a .330 OBP, you would have to assume that he will perform better at some point to get his career number back to .330.

Now I don't really buy into this notion that his skill level is exactly .330, but if one were to assume that, that is the conclusion that could be drawn.

My point was that if you believe that Willy Taveras = Willy Taveras, then you would think that he is due for a hot streak at some point this season, to offset the slump he currently is in.

To be honest, he could be much worse than a .330 OBP, and this slump is the correction to get him to his true skill level. Who knows?

Say you're rolling a die and you've gone 30 throws without throwing a 6. You know that since there's a 1/6 chance of throwing a 6 on any given roll. Thus, in that time period you expected to have seen 5 6's, on average. So you surmise that you're "due" and expect a run of 6's sometime in the near future to "balance things out"... right?

This is called the gambler's fallacy. Probability simply doesn't work that way. In reality, what's likely to happen is that from this point forward, you'll see 1/6 of your rolls showing up as 6's.

So, if Willy Taveras is truly a .330 OBP hitter, we would expect him to put up a .330 OBP moving forward, regardless of what he's done in the last few weeks. "Due" is true, but only to the extent that we should expect a player to perform as his true level of ability moving forward rather than to continue to slump. There should be no expectation of a hot streak to balance things out.

The mistake is made because we forget our assumptions. The most likely result of future events is based on the player's skill level. The player's skill level doesn't change because of what he did yesterday, or last month. Taveras won't be a better hitter tomorrow because he struggled yesterday. So if we want to know what is likely to happen moving forward, if he's the same player he was on April 1st, we expect a .330 OBP moving forward. If want to know what to expect by the end of year, we simply take the sample we've observed and add it to our best guess about what's likely to happen moving forward.

So, given that we know that his OBP through 218 PA is .294, and we would predict a .330 OBP over the remainder of his PA (say 350), we would expect his final OBP to be around .316.

[klw]

Ah but would you trade Taveras straight up for Carlos Lee with no money thrown in?