Inge (was Re: Game Report - 7-23-06 - Tigers 8, Athletics 4)

[Nathaniel Grow]

On 7/24/06, Gabriel Schwartz <gab...@comcast.net> wrote:

Roger King wrote:
>
>>> B. Inge, 3b             4 1 3 1 3 0 0 .239 .301 .475
>
> He finally gets the OBA above .300.  Actually not bad numbers for your
> 9th place hitter, as we've said before.

They may not be bad numbers for the 9th hitter, but they're awful
numbers for a starting 3B, which is the relevant comparison (if you were
to replace Inge, it would be with another 3B, not with another 9th hitter).

 

 

Are they?  Inge's .777 OPS ranks 5th in the AL among qualified 3rd basemen, ahead of such notables as Eric Chavez, Hank Blalock, Melvin Mora, and Adrian Beltre.  Considering that Inge is also a stellar defender (second by a mile in Zone Rating among AL 3B), I think it's safe to say he's at worst an above-average AL 3rd baseman (the NL 3B pool is deeper, so he might only be around league average overall).

Apparently we shouldn't worry, though:  Tigers' genius manager Jim
Leyland is quoted in today's Free Press as saying, in reference in Inge,
"This guy could develop into a star".

Gabriel

I'm not sure why some seem to have so much disdain for Leyland.  He's clearly the best manager we've had since Sparky, has already wrapped up Manager of the Year, and is almost undeniably accountable for at least *some* share of our success this year.

--
Nathaniel Grow
nathan...@gmail.com

[Gabriel Schwartz]

Nathaniel Grow wrote:
>
>
> On 7/24/06, *Gabriel Schwartz* <gab...@comcast.net

> <mailto:gab...@comcast.net>> wrote:
>
> Roger King wrote:
> >
> >>> B. Inge, 3b 4 1 3 1 3 0 0 .239 .301 .475
> >
> > He finally gets the OBA above .300. Actually not bad numbers for
> your
> > 9th place hitter, as we've said before.
>
> They may not be bad numbers for the 9th hitter, but they're awful
> numbers for a starting 3B, which is the relevant comparison (if you
> were
> to replace Inge, it would be with another 3B, not with another 9th
> hitter).

> Are they? Inge's .777 OPS ranks 5th in the AL among qualified 3rd
> basemen, ahead of such notables as Eric Chavez, Hank Blalock, Melvin
> Mora, and Adrian Beltre. Considering that Inge is also a stellar
> defender (second by a mile in Zone Rating among AL 3B), I think it's
> safe to say he's at worst an above-average AL 3rd baseman (the NL 3B
> pool is deeper, so he might only be around league average overall).

The problem is that Inge is a great example of a case where OPS doesn't
work too well. OPS treats a point of OBP as equal to a point in SLG
when the point of OBP is actually at least 50% more valuable. For most
players, it works fine as an estimate of how well they've hit, but
Inge's value is so skewed in favor of SLG that it overrates him.
.350/.420 is quite a bit better than .300/.470 even though the OPS is
the same.

If you were to take just 20 or 30 points off Inge's OPS to account for
this, he goes from 16th to 20th-22nd among 24 major league qualifiers at
3B. I don't think calling that "awful" is unreasonable.

Here's a link to one article briefly discussing the limitations of OPS,
for anyone interested:
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=680

Gabriel

[Tanvir R. Shaikh]

On Mon, 24 Jul 2006, Gabriel Schwartz wrote:
> OPS treats a point of OBP as equal to a point in SLG
> when the point of OBP is actually at least 50% more valuable.

Do you have a reference for this? I didn't see a mention of this in the
BP article you linked; maybe I missed it. In the article, there's a
comparison of Bell, Belliard, and someone else, where park effects are
also accounted for, so it wasn't clear to me which variable was the key.

The dumb spreadsheet experiments I've tried showed that SLG was more
strongly correlated with runs scored. The paper version of this year's
Baseball Prospectus also wrote this in one of the profiles, with a caveat
that OBA carries extra information about improvement, or carryover to
higher leagues, or something.

A long time ago, Michael Wynblatt, or one of the sabermatric types, also
made the claim that OBA was more important, but his justification was
that it makes sense with regards to the runs created metric. If you're
skeptical about RC, which I am, then you're back to square one. Linear
weights, which makes sense to me, didn't seem to show that OBA is so
important.

-Tapu

[Gabriel Schwartz]

Tanvir R. Shaikh wrote:
> On Mon, 24 Jul 2006, Gabriel Schwartz wrote:
>> OPS treats a point of OBP as equal to a point in SLG
>> when the point of OBP is actually at least 50% more valuable.
>
> Do you have a reference for this? I didn't see a mention of this in the
> BP article you linked; maybe I missed it. In the article, there's a
> comparison of Bell, Belliard, and someone else, where park effects are
> also accounted for, so it wasn't clear to me which variable was the key.

I don't have a reference, or time to look right now; I just know that
suggestions on how to make OPS correlate better with run production
generally change the formula to x*OBP + SLG, where x is about 1.5 or higher.

> The dumb spreadsheet experiments I've tried showed that SLG was more
> strongly correlated with runs scored. The paper version of this year's
> Baseball Prospectus also wrote this in one of the profiles, with a caveat
> that OBA carries extra information about improvement, or carryover to
> higher leagues, or something.

I'm not sure about what you did, but everything I've ever read shows
that OBP is more strongly correlated with runs scored than SLG. Again,
I don't have the time to really look into this now, but a Google and
Google Groups search for "obp OR oba slg correlation runs" seems to
produce some promising possibilities.

[Smith, Brad]

At a very crude level, league slugging averages tend to be about 30% higher than league OPS averages. I would guess that there is also a bit more variation from the mean. Both ot those things would suggest that a point of OBP is worth more than a point of slugging, but you'd have to do the kinds of things Tapu is talking about to know how much more valuable.

Brad

________________________________

[Tanvir R. Shaikh]

On Mon, 24 Jul 2006, Gabriel Schwartz wrote:
> I just know that suggestions on how to make OPS correlate better with
> run production generally change the formula to x*OBP + SLG, where x is
> about 1.5 or higher.

Now that I re-check linear weights, as described by BaseballHQ.com
(http://www.baseballhq.com/overview/glossary/LW/index.html), I see that
walks are underweighted in OPS, as hits contribute to both OBA and SLG
where walks are counted only once, and the 'outs' term favors high-OBA
players. So I agree that up-weighting OBA makes OPS more informative,
and I'll defer to the experts that 1.5 is a good multiplier.

It looks to be the case that the numerical correlation for OBA is higher,
although I'm not sure how to reconcile the dumb least-squares fit that
I did. Still, if the variation for SLG is double (I'm guessing) that of
OBA, what's the best way of using this information? When scanning stats
quickly, I tend to look at SLG first, because I approximate that OBAs
don't vary that much; the converse doesn't hold. If OPS is available,
I'll look at that, of course, but who has time to add numbers themselves?

-Tapu

[John Black]

----- Original Message -----

From: Nathaniel Grow

To: tig...@lists.ibl.org

Sent: Monday, July 24, 2006 11:06 AM

Subject: Inge (was Re: Game Report - 7-23-06 - Tigers 8, Athletics 4)

On 7/24/06, Gabriel Schwartz <gab...@comcast.net> wrote:

 

[snip]

 

Apparently we shouldn't worry, though:  Tigers' genius manager Jim
Leyland is quoted in today's Free Press as saying, in reference in Inge,
"This guy could develop into a star".

Nathaniel queried in reply:

I'm not sure why some seem to have so much disdain for Leyland.  He's clearly the best manager we've had since Sparky, has already wrapped up Manager of the Year, and is almost undeniably accountable for at least *some* share of our success this year. 

Welcome, Nathaniel, to that small beleaguered group that believes that Leyland has both done an excellent job (generally) and has made a significant difference in the team's fortunes. We are surrounded by several hostile camps that seem to hold any of several disparate views, including:

1) Leyland's historical "track record" is really rather poor,

2) the Tigers' good fortune has been quite independent of Leyland,

3) any manager is largely irrelevant to the success of any team,

4) etc.

There also is (or at least was) the Tribe of Trammellites - which has become increasing silent as the season has progressed (but I'm sure they're still out there).

 

JtE

[Gabriel Schwartz]

John Black wrote:
>
> Welcome, Nathaniel, to that small beleaguered group that believes
> that Leyland has both done an excellent job (generally) and has made
> a significant difference in the team's fortunes. We are surrounded
> by several hostile camps that seem to hold any of several disparate
> views, including:
> 1) Leyland's historical "track record" is really rather poor,
> 2) the Tigers' good fortune has been quite independent of Leyland,
> 3) any manager is largely irrelevant to the success of any team,
> 4) etc.
> There also is (or at least was) the Tribe of Trammellites - which
> has become increasing silent as the season has progressed (but I'm
> sure they're still out there).
>
> JtE

Regardless of any of this, what the quote in the paper does clearly show
is that Leyland's player evaluation skills are severely lacking. The
statement that Inge is going to "develop into a star" is ludicrous.

There was another quote a few days ago that I don't remember, but
essentially it was that Craig Monroe (with an OBP even lower than Inge)
is doing a great job.

Gabriel

[Roger King]

In defense of Leyland, I think Inge is one of those guys who does *appear*
to have all the "tools" as they say. He is pretty solid defensively and at
times, he has shown he can do most things offensively. This year, he's
hitting for HR's. Last year, he was drawing walks and getting on base. He
is capable of looking like a solid player for stretches. So, I can see
where coaches and managers would think, "If this guy can just put it all
together..." (but of course the odds are getting slimmer each season).

And Leyland really is just carrying on in the Sparky Anderson tradition.
Remember Torey Luvello and Chris Pittaro?

Roger

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[Jeremy Pulcifer]

Oh give me a break. Leyland's really going to come out and say "Monroe blows, don't know why we haven't sent him to the Expos for a bag of balls", or "Inge is a bad hitter and will never amount to anything other than the predictible one bad player on a championship team".

Words are not facts.

[Gabriel Schwartz]

Jeremy Pulcifer wrote:
> Oh give me a break. Leyland's really going to come out and say "Monroe blows, don't know why we haven't sent him to the Expos for a bag of balls", or "Inge is a bad hitter and will never amount to anything other than the predictible one bad player on a championship team".
>
> Words are not facts.

Probably a valid point in the case of Monroe, but he can say something
nice about Inge without calling him a future star. There's no reason to
say that unless you mean it.

Reverse voodoo note: As I type this, Inge has just hit a three-run homer :-)

Gabriel

[Gabriel Schwartz]

Roger King wrote:
> In defense of Leyland, I think Inge is one of those guys who does
> *appear* to have all the "tools" as they say. He is pretty solid
> defensively and at times, he has shown he can do most things
> offensively. This year, he's hitting for HR's. Last year, he was
> drawing walks and getting on base. He is capable of looking like a
> solid player for stretches. So, I can see where coaches and managers
> would think, "If this guy can just put it all together..." (but of
> course the odds are getting slimmer each season).
>
> And Leyland really is just carrying on in the Sparky Anderson tradition.
> Remember Torey Luvello and Chris Pittaro?

At least those two were young players with limited or no major league
experience at the time. Inge is a 29 year old with a career OBP of
.299. It's not really the same thing.

Gabriel

[Rob Hawks]

Come on Jeremy, get with it. Like that trade would ever happen.
The Expos no longer even have a bag of balls. They all got
turned in at Customs when they moved south.

rob

[Tanvir R. Shaikh]

On Mon, 24 Jul 2006, Rob Hawks wrote:
> Come on Jeremy, get with it. Like that trade would ever happen.
> The Expos no longer even have a bag of balls.

There's still an element of truth to what Jeremy wrote.
You'd have to be pretty bad to get traded to the Expos in 2006.

[Smith, Brad]

Gabe,

There's lots of reasons to say that about Inge even if you don't mean it.

Remember H.L. Mencken's wise words: "If, after I depart this vale, you ever remember me and have thought to please my ghost, forgive some sinner and wink your eye at some homely girl." Maybe Leyland was thinking about Mencken.

Point is, as Jeremy says, don't take those comments too seriously.

- Brad

________________________________

From: listmgr...@lists.ibl.org on behalf of Gabriel Schwartz
Sent: Mon 7/24/2006 7:22 PM
To: Tigers
Subject: Re: Inge (was Re: Game Report - 7-23-06 - Tigers 8, Athletics 4)

[Tanvir R. Shaikh]

On Mon, 24 Jul 2006, Smith, Brad wrote:
> Remember H.L. Mencken's wise words: "If, after I depart this vale, you
> ever remember me and have thought to please my ghost, forgive some
> sinner and wink your eye at some homely girl."

I'll try, but it'll make it harder considering I don't know this usage of
the word 'vale'. Wasn't she Bruce Wayne's girlfriend?

It'll be easier for me to remember the scene from _Groundhog Day_, when
Bill Murray decides to be a do-gooder, and when that random, chubby guy
in the inn mkes chitchat about the weather, Murray breaks into dramatic
prose and makes that guy's day. Jim Leyland was being Bill Murray.

-Tapu

[Gmrst...@cs.com]

In a message dated 7/24/2006 7:15:50 PM Eastern Standard Time, jeremyp...@yahoo.com writes:

----- Original Message ----
From: Gabriel Schwartz <gab...@comcast.net>

Regardless of any of this, what the quote in the paper does clearly show
is that Leyland's player evaluation skills are severely lacking.  The

First off, I always think it's a bad idea to put ANY stock in ANYTHING a manager says to the papers. Just last week, Leyland said that Roman (Colon) has been great." Massive hyperpbole there, too.

It's propaganda; often it's for the PLAYER'S benefit, builds him up.

But though Inge may have a lousy OBP (not helped by last year's decent walk season), how many players let alone 3Bs have 19 home runs so far this year?

Baseball teams should be about balance.

I will suffer Inge's low BA and low OBP to have him smack 19 homers by the end of July.

Wow, 19 home runs... yeah, that sucks.

GO INGE!!
-tower

[Gmrst...@cs.com]

In a message dated 7/24/2006 9:51:59 PM Eastern Standard Time, ta...@hexdump.org writes:

On Mon, 24 Jul 2006, Smith, Brad wrote:
> Remember H.L. Mencken's wise words: "If, after I depart this vale, you
> ever remember me and have thought to please my ghost, forgive some
> sinner and wink your eye at some homely girl."

I'll try, but it'll make it harder considering I don't know this usage of
the word 'vale'.  Wasn't she Bruce Wayne's girlfriend?

The first girlfriend in movie lore: Vicki Vale. Let's not discuss it because Alfred bringing her to the Bat Cave made me shout "NO!" in the theatre uncontrollably because I was so upset. I don't do this often. Only other time was during Stargate. I have since become accustomed that the lead woman must always learn that Batman and Bruce Wayne are one in the same in each film.

Here, vale means, I think, the world, the vale being the great valley.

It'll be easier for me to remember the scene from _Groundhog Day_, when
Bill Murray decides to be a do-gooder, and when that random, chubby guy
in the inn mkes chitchat about the weather, Murray breaks into dramatic
prose and makes that guy's day.  Jim Leyland was being Bill Murray

I think we were supposed to take from that scene that Phil (Murray) knew just what Baudelaire or whatever the guy loved best and quoted it to him.
I doubt Leyland is quite so .... psychic.

That's a GREAT movie. Harold Ramis is a genius.

-chris

[Borshuk, Michael]

Whoa, I missed this quote pasted below, which JtE offered earlier, regarding various factions on the list who pick on Leyland:

"There also is (or at least was) the Tribe of Trammellites - which has become increasing silent as the season has progressed (but I'm sure they're still out there)."

I feel compelled to address it since I was so vocally upset on the list about Trammell's firing in the offseason. I love Alan Trammell. There are few living famous people for whom I have more admiration. (Yes, you can take the ten year old kid out of Tiger Stadium, but you can't take..., er, or some kind of pat explanation for my skewed priorities.) Even at the time of Trammell's being fired, I was willing to admit that I thought Leyland was a good choice for manager. Most of my being upset had to do with a fondness for Trammell and a desire to see the team win while he was back with the organization, and a feeling that he'd been given a raw deal of sorts, in being hired as a high-profile distraction when the team was miserable.

I don't recall many of Trammell's defenders or admirers on this list speaking ill of Leyland's managing at any point. (I will retract that if some enterprising list-newshound shows me quotes...) So, don't lump the so-called "Tribe of Trammellites" among the Leyland-criticizers. Really, JtE, I'm with you, amigo. I'll say it loudly, "How could anyone be too critical of Leyland given the team's turnaround this season?"

Off to NYC this morning, where I'll catch the Mets and Yankees (hopefully) this week,
Mike B.

-----
Dr. Michael Borshuk
Assistant Professor of African American Literature
Associate Director of Graduate Studies
Department of English
Texas Tech University
P.O. Box 43091
Lubbock, Texas
79409-3091
(806) 742-2500, ext. 255
Fax: (806) 742-0989
http://www.faculty.english.ttu.edu/Borshuk

"What exactly does he want / this Rabelaisian puff of smoke?" --Donald Fagen, "Morph the Cat" (2006)

________________________________

[Tanvir R. Shaikh]

On Tue, 25 Jul 2006, Borshuk, Michael wrote:
> Most of my being upset had to do with a fondness for Trammell and a
> desire to see the team win while he was back with the organization, and
> a feeling that he'd been given a raw deal of sorts, in being hired as a
> high-profile distraction when the team was miserable.

I had to make a conscious effort to separate Trammell the player from
Trammell the manager. Because of my admiration for the former, I was
tempted to get rid of the malcontents, but deep down I knew that the
latter had his deficienies.

I've been pretty happy with Leyland so far. Early on he was overmanaging
the bullpen, like Trammell, but he's learning how to use the personnel
effectively, such as not using Jamie Walker as a one-out specialist.

If we could do it over again, I'd have liked for Trammell to be a bench
coach somewhere so that he could hopefully learn the people skills to be
the manager someday. Instead, I'd be a little surprised if he managed
anywhere again.

-Tapu