SB Nation User Blog: serq

Bert on Gomez

serq — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 02:18:42 -0000

Bert on the 9.10 broadcast, comparing Carlos Gomez to Rickey Henderson (paraphrase): He [Gomez] reminds me a lot of Rickey Henderson. I mean, what kind of hitter was Rickey when he was 22? He thought he could be a power hitter at first, you know...

There are so many things wrong with this, but I'll just post this from B-R:

Year Ag Tm  Lg  G   AB    R    H   2B 3B  HR  RBI  SB CS  BB  SO   BA   OBP   SLG *OPS+  TB   SH  SF IBB HBP GDP

1979 20 OAK AL  89  351   49   96  13  3   1   26  33 11  34  39  .274  .338  .336   88  118   8   3   0   2   4
1980 21 OAK AL 158  591  111  179  22  4   9   53 100 26 117  54  .303  .420  .399  134  236   6   3   7   5   6 MVP-10,AS
1981 22 OAK AL 108  423   89  135  18  7   6   35  56 22  64  68  .319  .408  .437  150  185   0   4   4   2   7 SS,MVP-2

Carlos Gomez's nickname...

serq — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 18:55:58 -0000

...is putrid, IMO. What do you think? Feel free to leave alternate suggestions. I don't think that someone whose full name is 3 syllables really needs a nickname, anyway. Fanposts have to be at least 75 words? Why? What if one just want to ask a question and make a poll? I guess we can use half the words to ask questions like these in those cases. Or just type random stuff. Or something.

Poll

Is "Go Go" a good nickname for Carlos Gomez?

Yes, it's brilliant! Gardenhire is a bloody genius!

30 votes

No, it's horrible.

33 votes

63 votes | Poll has closed

Lineup Analysis

serq — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 18:45:53 -0000

I promised a few days ago to do some lineup math. I'm feeling lazy and obligated simultaneously, so I'll do it, but half-assedly.

The lineup I suggested previously: Mauer, Cuddyer, Kubel, Morneau, Young, Lamb, Harris, Everett, Gomez.

Baseball Musings has a lineup analysis tool. You can see how it works here. Keep in mind that the only things taken into consideration are OBP and SLG (I used 2008 PECOTA projections). You can see the full results here.

The lineup I posted a few days ago would score 4.712 runs/game on average. The best possible lineup (according to this tool) would score 4.730 r/g (Mauer, Kubel, Lamb, Morneau, Cuddyer, Young, Harris, Everett, Gomez), and the worst 4.413 (Everett, Gomez, Kubel, Harris, Mauer, Cuddyer, Morneau, Young). Just to see what would happen, I plugged in cmathewson's Delmon Young prediction (.357 OBP/.507 SLG) instead of PECOTA's (.329/.458). The result? 4.827 r/g using the lineup from a few days ago, and 4.848 using the "optimal" one. As giving Young a .357 OBP immediately vaults him to second place on the team in projected OBP, the optimal lineup with cmath's Young in it is Mauer, Young, Lamb, Morneau, Cuddyer, Kubel, Harris, Everett, Gomez*.

With a more Gardenhire-ish lineup of Gomez, Mauer, Cuddyer, Morneau, Young, Kubel, Lamb, Harris, Everett: 4.605.

Conclusions? I knew you'd ask that... The difference between optimal and least optimal is .32 r/g, or 51.84 runs/season--this is the maximum impact that lineup construction could have on the '08 Twins. The difference between the optimal lineup and the "Gardenhire lineup" is 20.25 runs/season--over half the difference between least and most optimal goes away simply due to Gardenhire not being THAT stupid. The difference between my lineup and the Gardenhire linup is 17.3 runs/season. My lineup is close to what Gardenhire might do if forced to bat Gomez last (although he might just replace Everett with Punto and have Punto lead off and Gomez hit last); batting Gomez last and Kubel in front of Morneau is worth about this many runs.

The difference between the optimal lineups with the PECOTA Young vs. the cmath Young is 21.22 runs/season. Even with these extra 21 runs this lineup still only scores 785 runs this year.

Anyway, play around with this if you're so inclined. There's lots of interesting stuff one could do with this, but like I said, I'm lazy.

*There are some pretty interesting configurations that show up near the top of the optimal list for each set of OBP/SLG entered. For this scenario, consider the following:

4.848	Mauer	Young	Lamb	Morneau	Cuddyer	Kubel	Harris	Everett	Gomez
4.847	Mauer	Morneau	Lamb	Young	Cuddyer	Kubel	Harris	Everett	Gomez
4.847	Mauer	Young	Harris	Morneau	Cuddyer	Gomez	Kubel	Everett	Lamb
4.847	Mauer	Young	Lamb	Morneau	Cuddyer	Harris	Kubel	Everett	Gomez
4.847	Mauer	Young	Harris	Morneau	Cuddyer	Kubel	Gomez	Everett	Lamb

Ideal Lineup...

serq — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 04:24:24 -0000

...Before we get to that, the site looks good. Congrats! I've been waiting to post until it comes up.

Anyway, given that we now know pretty much who the position players are, what is everyone's dream lineup? I'll run some numbers on some of the various configurations and post later, but to spark some conversation here is what struck a friend and I as interesting:

Mauer

Cuddyer

Kubel

Morneau

Young

Lamb

Harris

Everett

Gomez

This of course assumes that Monroe is not in the lineup... Kubel and Young could be switched depending on what you think they'll do... I really like the idea of batting Gomez 9th and Mauer 1st, although this will never happen.