How inconsistent is Jay Bruce?

[RedsManRick]

From Fangraphs today, a measure of hitter volatility: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index...er-volatility/

This is the first time I've seen a measure of hitter volatility and, to my surprise, Jay Bruce rates almost completely "average".

I know this is a finding that people on RZ would disagree with. I commented on the article accordingly. Thoughts?

[Chip R]

He's consistent in his inconsistency.

[mattfeet]

"Joey Votto logged a little less than 500 plate appearances, but posted a .409 VOL. That’s incredible when you think about the fact that he had a .448 wOBA for the season. Basically, he was just as consistent as Denard Span, but with a wOBA that was 35% higher than Span’s."

Whoa.

[Mario-Rijo]

Is that for last year only or for his career? I felt like he was coming in to his own alot more last year with regards to consistency. Prior to that he was wildly inconsistent.

Also I'd add that just because you consistently can go yard doesn't make you a consistent efficient offensive player, how weighted is that to SLG%?

[MikeThierry]

Interesting to see that Jeter is at the top of the list and is the least volatile player since 1974.

[lollipopcurve]

One very interesting stat re: Bruce -- shown on MLB Network's Clubhouse Confidential show, their stathead program -- is that he is among the top 5 is largest discrepancy between OPS vs worst pitchers and OPS vs best pitchers. In other words, he feasts on bad pitching and can't hit good pitching. This may be the kind of inconsistency that is frustrating to some fans.

Votto, by the way, is among the best vs tough pitching.

[Mario-Rijo]

Originally Posted by lollipopcurve

One very interesting stat re: Bruce -- shown on MLB Network's Clubhouse Confidential show, their stathead program -- is that he is among the top 5 is largest discrepancy between OPS vs worst pitchers and OPS vs best pitchers. In other words, he feasts on bad pitching and can't hit good pitching. This may be the kind of inconsistency that is frustrating to some fans.

Votto, by the way, is among the best vs tough pitching.

What time frame did they use for that? 2012, more or complete career to date?

[westofyou]

Originally Posted by lollipopcurve

One very interesting stat re: Bruce -- shown on MLB Network's Clubhouse Confidential show, their stathead program -- is that he is among the top 5 is largest discrepancy between OPS vs worst pitchers and OPS vs best pitchers. In other words, he feasts on bad pitching and can't hit good pitching. This may be the kind of inconsistency that is frustrating to some fans.

Votto, by the way, is among the best vs tough pitching.

http://www.billjamesonline.com/bill_...leaderboards_/

Bill James Handbook has those numbers too, all sorts of fun stuff too like this

Highest First Pitch Swing %
(minimum 502 PA)
Josh Hamilton	 Tex	 47.0
Ian Desmond	 Was	 44.8
Freddie Freeman	 Atl	 44.2
B.J. Upton	 TB	 43.5
Yadier Molina	 StL	 42.4
Delmon Young	 Det	 41.9
Pedro Alvarez	 Pit	 39.4
Chris Davis	 Bal	 39.3
Danny Espinosa	 Was	 39.1
Yonder Alonso	 SD	 38.3
Bryce Harper	 Was	 38.1

Josh Hamilton’s extreme highs and extreme lows in 2012 may have something to do with his hyper-aggressiveness on the first pitch of each at-bat. From the beginning of the season through May, Hamilton hit .368 with 21 home runs. In June and July, he hit .202 with just eight home runs.
The Nationals have three players—Ian Desmond, Danny Espinosa, and Bryce Harper—in the top-11. Patience at the plate is clearly not a priority for them.

Lowest First Swing %
(minimum 502 PA)
Martin Prado	 Atl	 6.9
Kevin Youkilis	 Bos-CWS	 7.3
Joe Mauer	 Min	 7.7
Mike Trout	 LAA	 7.7
J.J. Hardy	 Bal	 8.1
Dustin Pedroia	 Bos	 8.1
Ben Revere	 Min	 8.8
A.J. Ellis	 LAD	 9.5
Jamey Carroll	 Min	 10.9
Mark Teixeira	 NYY	 13.0

Surprisingly, despite his low first-pitch swing percentage, J.J. Hardy only had a .282 on-base percentage in 2012. Every other player on this list had an on-base percentage at least 50 points higher (Teixeira second lowest at .332), each one of them significantly above MLB’s overall on-base percentage of .319.

[REDREAD]

Ok, I looked up the formula for wOBA:

from http://www.fangraphs.com/library/ind.../offense/woba/

The wOBA formula for the 2011 season was:

wOBA = (0.69×uBB + 0.72×HBP + 0.89×1B + 1.26×2B + 1.60×3B +
2.08×HR + 0.25×SB -0.50×CS) / PA

These weights change on a yearly basis, so you can find the specific wOBA weights for every year from 1871 to 2010 here.

1. If the weights for these constants change every year, doesn't it make comparing year to year values almost useless in terms of comparing volatility from year to year?

2. Also from the same fangraphs article:

Rules of Thumb

Rating wOBA
Excellent 0.400
Great 0.370
Above Average 0.340
Average 0.320
Below Average 0.310
Poor 0.300
Awful 0.290

So Volatility = STD(daily_wOBA)/Yearly_wOBA^.52
For an excellent hitter, wOBA = .400 which means the denominator is .62
For an awful hitter, wOBA = .290 which means the denominator is .52
Thus the volatility formula rewards the better players with a lower volatility score and punishes they worse players with a higher one, even if they had the identical Standard Deviation. Specifically, the "awful" hitter has about a 19% penalty in his VOL score. ("awful" multiplier: 1/.52 = 1.92, "excellent" muliplier: 1/.62 =1.61 )

Overall, this is an interesting effort, but I would expect the better wOBA people to be more volatile. If Votto has a .400 OBP, it's a lot easier to have a day that's worse than his average than it is for someone like Stubbs to maintain his average (which is closer to the distribution peaks of .000 and .250 shown in the graph) The different multipliers hide that fact.

I can't think of a better method. I don't mean to come across as negative, but I question whether this has true value.

[PuffyPig]

Every fan thinks its team and players are inconsistent on offense, becuase every team and player is.

If you visit the Card's boards they complain bitterly about a Card's offense which has been 1-2 the last two years because they can't score 5 runs every game. What team does?

[PuffyPig]

Originally Posted by lollipopcurve

One very interesting stat re: Bruce -- shown on MLB Network's Clubhouse Confidential show, their stathead program -- is that he is among the top 5 is largest discrepancy between OPS vs worst pitchers and OPS vs best pitchers. In other words, he feasts on bad pitching and can't hit good pitching. This may be the kind of inconsistency that is frustrating to some fans.

The better players may have the largest discrepancy. It may be that Bruce feasts on bad pitching but us just normal vs. good pitching. I haven't seen the stats. How does he rank vs. other hitters vs. good pitching?

[MikeThierry]

Originally Posted by PuffyPig

Every fan thinks its team and players are inconsistent on offense, becuase every team and player is.

If you visit the Card's boards they complain bitterly about a Card's offense which has been 1-2 the last two years because they can't score 5 runs every game. What team does?

hahaha why do you think I spend my time here? Those boards are insane and don't realize that baseball isn't something you find on MLB The Show. The Matt Holliday hate gets beyond ridiculous on the STL forums.

[dougdirt]

Originally Posted by MikeThierry

hahaha why do you think I spend my time here? Those boards are insane and don't realize that baseball isn't something you find on MLB The Show. The Matt Holliday hate gets beyond ridiculous on the STL forums.

I doubt it compared to what Adam Dunn got...

[MikeThierry]

Originally Posted by dougdirt

I doubt it compared to what Adam Dunn got...

Was Adam Dunn hated because he had the stigma of not being a clutch player?

[dougdirt]

Originally Posted by MikeThierry

Was Adam Dunn hated because he had the stigma of not being a clutch player?

Yes.
And he struck out a lot.
And he wasn't a good fielder.
And he struck out a lot.
And he didn't hit sac flies (because they landed in the seats).
And he wasn't clutch.
And he struck out a lot.
And he wasn't a good fielder.
and he wasn't clutch.
And he didn't hit sac flies.