SB Nation User Blog: bhoov

Is Carlos Quentin the unluckiest player in baseball?

bhoov — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 19:16:53 -0000

Well probably not "the" unluckiest, but he does have the 3rd lowest BABIP in baseball (for players with >350 PA, data from fangraphs). His BABIP is .226, just ahead of General Soreness and Jay Bruce.

While Quentin does seem to have a predilection for low BABIP (his career BABIP is .259 and last year it was .280) .226 is unsustainably bad. Well what should his BABIP be? Fortunately THT has a xBABIP calculator:

http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/fantasy/article/simple-xbabip-calculator/

Plugging Carlos '09 into the formula we get an xBABIP of .286 as opposed to the .226 he has. That would have given Carlos 16 extra hits, raising his BA from .232 to .268. Depending on how many of those were doubles we're talking about a 70-80 point increase in OPS. So .820 or so instead of his .747 OPS.

The caveat here is that Carlos seems to have consistently low BABIP that are sig. lower than what xBABIP would predict. As an example '08 Carlos had an xBABIP of .300 but a real BABIP of .280. So maybe Carlos has a "talent" for low BABIP that the model is unable to pick up or maybe next year Carlos will fall right into his xBABIP. Or maybe the next iteration of the xBABIP calculator that Carty and Dutton are working on will model Carlos better.

Obviously the difference between .286 and .226 is much greater than the difference between .300 and .280 and so I think the evidence points to Carlos being quite unlucky this year. Even if you regress his BABIP to his career .259 BABIP you get significant improvement ( 30-40 points of OPS).

So Carlos probably should have had an OPS somewhere between 30-80 points higher than he did.

I think we can conclude that while Carlos probably wasn't "the" unluckiest player he was quite unlucky and that indicates a better year is in store for next year. However, in order to return to Q! status he will need to bring his walk rate and HR/FB back up to '08 rates.

I wasn't going to put this musing into a fanpost

bhoov — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 00:28:31 -0000

, but I was motivated to try to start the discussion correctly after the last fanpost attempt at finding our left-handed power source for next year. I was also motivated by another horrific offensive "performance".

First of all let's stop the Prince Fielder talk. Unless we were (stupidly) willing to part with one of the top 5 lefty pitching values in MLB that ain't gonna happen. So what could happen. Looking at it quick and dirty: who are all of the available lefty bats with an OPS above or around Thome?

I come up with:

Dunn (153 OPS+)

Hawpe (128, 30 y.o.)

Matsui (124, 35 yo)

Thome (123, 39 y.o.)

Laroche (119, 30)

Abreu (118, 36)

Overbay (120, 33)

I have excluded some for lack of availability, expense or injury (Helton, Branyan for example).

Out of these I like Hawpe the best. He has pretty good home/road splits, Colorado has too many OFs, he's relatively young, he's not that expensive. If he can be had for something like Jordan Danks and John Ely or Christain Marrero and Brent Morel then I'd do it. Wouldn't trade Flowers, Hudson or Mitchell. But KW would have to talk to Ozzie and say something like: I can get this guy, but I'm only gonna do it if you promise me he will only play the field in an emergency (Thome and Matsui have already been handled in that manner and Dunn should be) .

If he's too expensive (talent-wise) then whoever is cheaper of Matsui or Thome. Laroche and Overbay wouldn't be horrible options if they can be had very cheaply. At this point I think all of the "he's taught the Angels to be patient professional hitters" talk has upped Abreu's projected salary beyond our pay range. Then again maybe I'm just tired of listening to Hawk slob his knob.

In order to get Dunn we'd probably have to dump salary and give up talent. So probably not worth it.

Thoughts? Comments?

The King of Swing

bhoov — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 16:09:37 -0000

AJ Pierzynski is having his best season since he's played for the White Sox and one of the best of his career. His wOBA and OPS are the best of his White Sox career. Much of this value is secondary to his (tied for) career high batting average. Why?

Well yes part of it is luck. His BABIP is .321, his xBABIP is .306 using the THT xBABIP calculator and his career BABIP is .307. But the more interesting component of his season is that in addition to having a higher % of his batted balls fall for hits he is also putting a higher % of balls into play.

While his BB% has remained similar to career levels his K% is at its lowest rate since his one NL season, and the 2nd lowest of his career. How has he done it?

Well he hasn't done it by being more selective. AJ is currently the triple crown leader of Swinging. He leads the AL in total % of pitches swung at, % of pitches swung at in the strike zone, and % of pitches swung at outside the strike zone (amongst qualified batters). While impressive (in a wow that's interesting sort of way), this is not particularly surprising as he ranked in the top 3 in each of these categories in other years and the top 5 every year he has been with the Sox.

What he has done differently is make contact: His out-of-zone, in zone and total contact rates are all career highs. He actually ranks 15th (out of 74 qualified batters) in the AL in Contact%, making contact with 88.6% of pitches he swings at. I wonder if anyone has ever "won" the Swinging Triple Crown and still ranked in the top 15 contact hitters in the league. Whether this is a repeatabe skill or not will be worth watching next year.

So some luck and some increased contact rates have led to an amazing season by Anthony John Pierzynski.

Election Day Thread -- Enter At Your Own Risk

bhoov — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 16:22:40 -0000

Come on. We've got a southsider and White sox fan running for president. We've got to have an election day thread. I know we're apolitical here on SSS but this is a once in history event (southsider and White sox fan running for president). Even rarer than the cubs winning the world series!

I'll give my election day story. I early voted 10 days ago. Working until about 4 today. I've got my ticket to the Grant Park celebration, goin' with the wife and another couple. Probably hit a pre-grant park event first then grant park.

Yes We Can!

And WU I can't believe you're voting for a ticket with palin on it. McCain I can at least understand, but Palin??!!

[Note by The Cheat, 11/04/08 12:45 PM CST]: I was going to start one of these. We need an outlet for the inevitable political discussion that is bound to come up over the day-into-night-into-week. So consider this a suspension of the already broken soft rule about no politics. But let's keeep it to this thread, and leave it in this thread. Mkay thnx

We're Doomed

bhoov — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 04:46:01 -0000

We are a horrific 4 games under .500 against the other AL playoff contenders at a pathetic 17-21. If we make it to the playoffs, we will get eliminated in the first round. We should just pack it in. Maybe we can get a better draft pick.

We are getting crushed by a clearly better team. A juggernaut that will cruise through the playoffs and obviously is much better than us against contenders.

thought ballon: (hmm.... maybe I should check that out because somebody's gonna check that on a site devoted to thoughtful analysis).

Red Sox: 15-19 against AL contenders....................

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/standings/grid

Cabrera best defensive SS in baseball?

bhoov — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 17:14:33 -0000

http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/site/article/how_well_can_we_project_team_defense_and_other_uzr_data/

MGL's early UZR postings show Cabrera at the top of the heap. Also of note, Q isn't quite perfect (although small sample size of course and as I recall his UZR has been fine in the past). Juan was quite good at 2B (it would be interesting to see Alexei's UZR). These are all per 150 games so Cabrera projects to +36, but of course is not likely to be that valuable defensively at the end of the year. And since defensive stats are best evaluated over a couple of years instead of a couple of months we must bear in mind these are very small sampke sizes.

The White Sox rank 4th in AL in defense according to UZR at +15. And that feels about right to me.

Chicago guy and BP writer Nate Silver sheds anonymity

bhoov — Fri, 30 May 2008 15:32:19 -0000

One of my recent favorite websites has become http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/

It's byline is "electoral projections done right". Really great analysis and application of a regression model to polls. He developed a demographic regression model that actually predicted NC and IN dem primary better than the polls. I've been visiting the site daily for a couple of months now. The blogger was previously anonymous going under the name Poblano. Today he revealed himself as Nate Silver. Pretty interesting.

Chicago White Sox: MLB 's greatest managerial incubator

bhoov — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 16:38:38 -0000

Chicago White Sox: MLB 's greatest managerial incubator

An interesting short piece on hardball times about Sox hiring tendencies.

What I expect from MY $5,500-a-night-hooker.

bhoov — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 03:49:40 -0000

I can't take credit for this one. This is one of of the very few times that I have actually Laughed out Loud online. And since there is at least one on base percentage/ batting average baseball line in here I figured I would share. I think you'll enjoy it.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/3/13/124649/291/112/475838

BA Sox draft questions in chat with Callis

bhoov — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 20:32:43 -0000

Some draft questions at BA.

It seems the top 8 right now are Alvarez, Matusz, Crow, Smoak, Melville, Beckham, Hosmer, Alonso. I'd be happy with any of those 8. Of course it's still early, and that will almost certainly change, but it seems like a relatively deep draft according to Callis. Only Alvarez and Hosmer are represented by Boras so far.

Q: Steve from Chicago asks:
Hey Jim. There's great fear in Chicago that the White Sox will continue to not take the best available talent. Their 1st round picks in recent years seem to be conservative picks while passing on much higher ceiling players. Granted they've been picking lower in the draft, but what do you envision them doing with this year's 8th overall pick? Watching the Tigers snag elite talent (some of which the Sox passed on) while not being afraid to go over slot is not making Sox fans very happy about the Sox' recent draft philosophies.

A: Jim Callis: I've heard that fear as well (I live on the North Side up here in Subzeroland). Last year, GM Kenny Williams reportedly mandated landing some multitooled athletes, but they loaded up on pitchers. I don't think you'll see Jerry Reinsdorf start playing the over-slot game, but I do think you'll see the White Sox take a quality player at No. 8. They might be in play for one of the first basemen, like South Carolina's Justin Smoak or Miami's Yonder Alonso, or someone like Skipworth. I'd be a little surprised if Chicago took another pitcher. The Sox system is really bereft of advanced hitters right now.

Q: Landy from Hinsdale asks:
White Sox fans believe Kenny Williams is enamored enough with Jordan Danks that there's contemplation about selection him 8th overall. Please reassure me that this won't happen. Please Jim. For the love of Shoeless Joe, say it ain't so...

A: Jim Callis: Oh boy. The White Sox did take a late-round flier out of high school and did deal for his brother. And if they wanted Danks, they might have to take him at No. 8 because they won't pick again until No. 84. But I can't see them popping Danks there at all, and he could be available at No. 84. He looks great, but his bat isn't what scouts thought it would be at this point. So, it ain't so . . .

http://www.baseballamerica.com/chat/chat.php?id=2008021101&rnd=12