Montero's Defense, 4.16.12 (ML trends)

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Q.  Does SSI sign off on Sgt. Wedge's level of emphasis on personalities?

A.  It does, yes, in the grand scheme.  Assuming that SSI's signoff meant anything, which it does not.

Not to put too fine a point on it, we see the very most un-athletic sabermetricians scoffing at Wedge's style of "wartime leadership."  It is very bad form for the head of the math club, himself sitting on the couch with a Slurpee in ease and comfort, to tell the UFC martial arts guys that the pre-fight staredown doesn't mean anything.  And he can prove it mathematically.  If you dunno why he can't prove it mathematically, you better ax somebody.

It takes a lot to --- > go chest-to-chest with a large man who really wants to hurt you, who has hurt people before, who enjoys doing it, and who isn't going to go away until you beat him down.  That simple feeling is opaque to a lot of sabermetricians.  They don't get it.  Sports teams can win games IN THE TUNNEL.  That stat will never be on Fangraphs, so they'll tell you that the reality does not exist.

Eric Wedge's Job One is to replace the Wussy Mariner culture with a Lou Piniella culture.  Nothing is secondary to that.

So we empathize with -- not agree with, but empathize with -- the idea that Olivo and Ryan need to be out there every day.  For many, many reasons, such as the one that says Eric Wedge can yell at Brendan Ryan and Ryan won't hang his head about it.

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Q.  So why don't you agree with putting Olivo out there every day?

A.  Because of the basic principle that is established in this thunderous argument by Geoff Baker.  (If this article had been run on USSM, under the author's name, there would have been forty "absolutely fantastic post, Dave" comments following it.)

It doesn't do ME any good to tell an aikido sensei that in a real battle, technique is 70% atemi and only 30% waza.  But if I tell him that Morihei Ueshiba said that, what is he going to reply?

............

Eric Wedge states that he doesn't want to overload Jesus Montero.  It doesn't do US any good to tell him that Montero won't be overloaded ... seriously, how would we know?  But Geoff Baker points out that, ROUTINELY, other major league managers have trusted their rookie catching stars with much more than Eric Wedge will.  That argument is very tough to beat.

Buster Posey, Alex Avila, Brian McCann, and Matt Weiters all caught 90% of their team's games, and did it from day one.  Those guys did not know the league's hitters.  They did what Montero has done:  take the initiative in the pitch sequences, and play to their pitchers' strengths.

Suppose you wanted to compare Jesus Montero to Jeff Mathis and Mike Napoli, because you think all three were baboons behind the plate.  Mathis and Napoli also got 80%-90% of their games behind home plate, and they were given those starts by whom?  By Mike Scioscia.

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Q.  The Mariners' peripheral media says that Montero looks starry-eyed.  Does SSI empathize with that?

A.  It does not, no.  I'm open to it, but I'll tell you why in this specific case I don't buy it.

The folks who back the org line on this, such as Drayer, are those who are functionally part of the Mariners' organization.  That's fine.  If that's your gig, run with it, and let's all be aware of it.

But those who say exactly what they think, come M's-org fire or high water?  Such as Geoff Baker?  They're vociferously calling for Montero to get more time.  Geoff Baker is around Jesus Montero as much as the next person, and Baker is the ex-athlete who understands about sports pressure.  He's fine with Montero's demeanor.

Also, Dr. D has watched Jesus Montero catch two games, has observed the aggressive and confident body language, the ball-pumping at the pitcher after strike three, the home runs when he's on the field that day.  Jesus Montero doesn't look starry-eyed to him.  He looks "iced" when he's DH'ing, is what he looks like to Dr. D.

..........

If the Mariners were just talking to us dweeby fans, saying "Montero can't handle it," the appropriate thing for us to do would be to say, "Okay, I guess."  But when they turn and talk to their peers, their peers go, "Huh?  What's wrong with letting a rookie catch?"

Good stuff Geof-thro.

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NEXT

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Comments

1
Fett42's picture

Yes, personalities are important. But as a platoon leader in the Army I can tell you it doesn't matter how hard-charging, forceful, gritty, whatever you want to call it, one of my sergeants (or fellow PLs is)... if they suck in physical training, can't shoot well, and don't perform well in the field, the soldiers will not respect them except to their face because of rank. Whatever Olivo and Ryan's personalities and experience are, their performance matters.

2
Compass Rosy's picture

I understand (and for the most part agree with) Wedge's stated position re: Jesus catching...
no reason to rush, ease him into it, he's still very young, etc.
As well as the opinions of thee who think the best way to keep him healthy is to limit his times behind the plate.
BUT, granted it's a very SSS, kinda hard to ignore his career slash line as a catcher vs. that as a DH. Certainly not the only example of a player who tends to perform better offensively when he's playing in the field every other inning as opposed to sitting on the bench (Rauuuuuuul comes to mind)

3
OBF's picture

A LOT, mostly because I really want to see Olivo go buh bye (and take his TERRIBLE approach ( THE PITCHER THREW THE BALL, SWING! SWING! SWING! huh I missed.. I know SWING HARDER!!! ::strikeout:: )...at the plate with him).
However, I can't really get behind the methodology behind Geoff's original article. For the record, I LIKE Geoff and I read his stuff regularly, and appreciate most of his efforts, so I am not just a Geoff hater, but this article is pretty badly biased and misleading.
My issues:
1.) 11 games -- We are ELEVEN games into Jesus' Rookie season on a new team who already has an established veteran catcher. Very few of the examples Geoff gives involves those circumstances, most of the players he gives as examples are original draftees who worked their way up the system, who got their cups of coffee with the team the year before, who are coming into situations where there IS NO CATCHER to replace, who were groomed to fulfill the role. It is completely natural that it will take a few games for Jesus to overcome some of those differences, so 11 games is WAY too early to start parsing playing time. There is a lot more going on with Jesus taking over the catching duties than with any of Geoff's examples so right off the bat he is comparing apples to oranges.
2.) Suspect Data -- He may not have done it intentionally, but Geoff's stats are... well.... wrong, or at best misleading. Certainly in 2010 Buster Posey started 75 of the 76 games he played AT CATCHER, but why did Geoff leave out the fact that he played an additional 30 games where he started at 1B? Maybe he was just reading the stat page wrong, but it feel like he wants us to believe that young catchers played EXCLUSIVELY at C, when they did not. Mauer DHed 13 games his rookie year, Napoli DHed some, Doumit was a part time player his first THREE years and in fact 2006 (his second year) he was mostly 1b and 2007 mostly OF. Geoff edits all of this out for his examples for some reason, but doesn't when he presents that Jesus has started 2 out of 11 games at C. Using his methodology for his examples Jesus has played 2 games at catcher and has also STARTED 2 games at catcher... 100% yay the same as most of Geoff's examples.... hmmmmm, dubious Geoff, dubious. The overall point that his examples played a lot of catcher still stands, but he didn’t need to go the extra mile and present bad / false statistics to make the point even more stark, it was already there, this just makes him look sketchy.
3.) Why is Jesus here – Let’s be clear Jesus is here because we were a TERRIBLE offensive team the last few years. We want, no we NEED Jesus to start strongly on Offense, we don’t really need him to be a great defensive catcher right now. Being a catcher is a great bonus, and will make him a 8 WAR player at his peak. So how did those examples Geoff give do offensively their first year? By OPS+ – 133, 113, 110, 107, 103, 96, 95, 90, 78, 75, 72, 72, 68, 64. If we are going to be able to claim that Jesus should start at catcher just like the set of examples, then he should also be compared to how they actually handled both offensive and defensive duties together, and most of them did quite poorly. I would consider it VERY disappointing if Jesus ended the year with less than a 100 OPS+ and really anything under 110 (sorry kid, I have high hopes for you!) would be meh.
4.) Cherry picking – I am fine with comparing Jesus to a HOF catching prospect like Joe Mauer, but if we really do want a nice cross section of how young catching prospects do when they first come up to the majors, then why not also include a guy like Jeff Clement in your examples list? He would fit right in to the paradigm of starting a lot at catcher his rookie year and being a very highly regarded prospect, yet he was an abject failure so he doesn’t get any mention in the article. There is a confirmation bias going on here. Geoff went and looked a bunch of SUCCESSFUL MLB CATCHERS and looked at how much they caught as a rookie, well if they are ALREADY successful MLB catchers OF COURSE they played a lot of catcher their rookie year! Hot shot prospects fail all the time. Hot shot CATCHING prospects fail all the time. Nowhere in the article that Geoff presented did it take that into account or ask the question why. Maybe because it IS hard to juggle the both the defensive and offensive side of catching. We take it as a truth that catchers mature slower than other prospects precisely BECAUSE of that fact, so why would we question the mariners for trying to assuage some of that difficulty? Or not address it when writing an article about how much playing time the 22 year old kid is getting behind the dish?
5.) Some catchers can’t DH – half of the guys on Geoffs list didn’t get any time at DH because they weren’t worth it. If Yorvit can’t hold down C, then he goes back to AAA. It is a LUXURY that we can have Jesus learn the MLB game while taking a bunch of hacks as a DH because he is THAT GOOD offensively. So yet again we have another bias in Geoff’s examples. All he really showed was that catchers tend to… catch a lot their rookie years. Well thanks for that! What he didn’t show was that extremely talented offensive catchers that could spend another 2 years learning to catch better in the minors tend to catch a lot their rookies years.
I want Olivo gone as bad as anyone. I want Jesus to succeed as a MLB catcher as bad as anyone. However I also think that Wedge's use of Jesus so far has been completely reasonable, and in fact probably preferred. Get him rolling at the plate. Get him in a few games at C and slowly increase his workload with the mitt as he gets more and more comfortable hitting clean up :)
The real problem I have is Wedge's insistence to use Olivo over JASO. Now THERE is an issue that needs some attention! :)

4

Absolutely the performance matters, and Olivo's performance last year was 0.1 WAR per fangraphs, or 2-4 WAR depending on what you believe about Olivo's CERA.
This year, Olivo may be considerably worse.
...........
Now is the analogy here:
1.  A platoon that has been properly trained, and has been popping tall for a long time, and the platoon leaders installs a UFC fire squad leader with an IQ of 70?, or ....
2.  A platoon like the one in Heartbreak Ridge, where they've all been morons and foulups for years, and the major has to put a gunny (the catcher) in who has been to war before?
Not trying to be ironic.  The M's had that thing this offseason where they were -30 below .500 after July 1, and all the troops needed to lose weight, and now they're all tightening their strike zones as you can see from the stats.  Progress is being made.
Would like your considered opinion as to whether Wedge needs to continue his rah-rah discipline kick, or whether a rookie at C could genuinely affect troop morale.
Good stuff Fett.  And thank you for your service, sir.  Robert A. Heinlein thought that only people who have served the country in the armed forces, taking personal responsibility for our safety and freedom, should have the vote.  

5

And I think most of them are right.  I think Tom Tango demonstrated *some* hit to a batter's performance for DH'ing, as there is for PH'ing.
The *average* hit for DH'ing is one thing; somebody's gotta DH, right?, so you take the hit at 1 of 9 batting order slots regardless.
But it could easily be that Montero is one of the MANY players with a big DH falloff.  As you note, he's slugging .688 in his 5 ML games at catcher so far.
Thanks Rosy! :- ) 

6

Absolutely superb thinking.  Thanks for that.
...........
1.  Baker's article definitely was not a Hardball Times type study in which he established that in truly similar situations, other ML orgs give their catcher 82% of the starts.
What his article conveyed, and effectively, was that it is not "overloading" Jesus Montero to ask him to hit as a rookie, and learn the league's hitters.  I think we'd agree that he demonstrated that point.  The methodological concerns that you noted are signficant, but they don't affect Baker's point that yes, other ML teams would presume that Montero can catch without suffering a nervous breakdown.
 
This is what the Mariners have been saying; maybe it's just for public consumption.  The reason they give for DH'ing Montero is that he can't handle catching in terms of the learning curve and pressure.
Their statement should be recognized as either a PR statement, or their own unhelpful bias.
.............
Particularly good point about Montero being a brand-new import, and Olivo being a team "captain."
..............
Re:  cherrypicking --  Granted, Baker may? have been trying to imply more than "See?  Other teams wouldn't be afraid of Montero."  If Baker was trying to say that it is UNUSUAL for clubs to not give a Montero 100 games catching, that would be saying too much.  Agreed.
.............
He threw out a long list of young catchers, who were allowed to catch.  He made the Mariners look a little silly for implying that NO WAY JOSE is it reasonable to "throw Montero into the fire."  
It's like an NBA coach told you, I need my players on the floor to be 6'4", and a reporter said, "Huh?  What about Steve Nash and Chris Paul and Allen Iverson and ..."  It's not a THT study, but the counterexamples will suffice to make the point, considering the dogma that provoked it.
...............
Post of the month OBF.
 

7

OBF, very nice post.
I would like to see a bit more of Montero behind the plate....but I am mystified as to why Wedge won't catch Jaso instead of Olivo some/much of the time.
For example, it looks like Jaso's cERA was.4-.5 better than Shoppach's in TB the last two years.
I think I've got that right.

8
OBF's picture

:)
IRT the idea that doing both catching and learning to hit in the MLB is "Too much to handle" for Jesus. I agree with you that it wouldn't be too much for him, but if the M's were to err on one side or the other I would rather them err on the side of babying Montero's offense a little too much and delaying the full time catching a year to avoid the terrible OPS+'s that most of Bakers example guys put up their first years.
Not to say it is the catching that caused those guys to underwhelm offensively, but it could have been a contributing factor. Although the idea that it is easier to bat when you are already sweating is also a very good point.
My hope is that Wedge is just using the first month or so as a soft landing for Montero and that by the end of the season we will be seeing very little of Olivo and a 50-50 split at C between Jaso and Montero.

9
Fett42's picture

But I've seen a Sergeant who had been in his position for years (and had deployed to combat), performed alright but nothing special and didn't take initiative on his own, lose his position to a Specialist who was demonstrably more competent and involved despite having never been overseas, and without a doubt the platoon was better because of it. I won't get to see how it plays out for the M's either way; off with my platoon to Afghanistan on Friday for the rest of the 2012 season and then some!

11

You have the gratitude of me and mine, especially as the war has become prolonged. It's much easier, though not easy, to serve when everybody in the country is Gung Ho. In times like these, I shake my head in wonder at what we ask our soldiers to do, even more so that so many do it well.
:salute:

12
tjm's picture

I echo the others - thank you and please do what you can to be safe, understanding much of that is beyond your control. Do you know where you'll be?

13

I live in a military town next to a giant army base (Fort Carson) and so far, all of my boys have come back safe.  Best wishes for you and yours this time around.  Do what you do and come back to us.  We've got lots more baseball to talk about.
Not that I really need to be worried.  Who can take this guy?
Just don't fall in a Sarlaac pit and we'll be fine.
~G

14

Last year Olivo's cERA was 3.75 and Bard's was 4.07. Olivo was better (remember that Bard's was a relatively small sample). Olivo's was a whole point better than Gimenez, but he was terrible and his sample smaller.
But Jaso has also been significantly better than his catching cohort in Tampa Bay the last two years.
In '10, Jaso's cERA was 3.88 (80 starts) and Kelly Shoppach's was 4.37 (46 starts). Shoppach has averaged 70+ starts with Cleveland and TB over the last four years....so he isn't completely terrible (although he's been a Zero WAR guy over that time)
In 11, Jaso's cERA was 3.36 (67 starts) and Shoppach's 3.78 (71 starts). Jaso's was significantly better despite the fact that he only threw out 17% of basestealers and Shoppach did so at a 41% clip.
Jaso's an adequate backstop. There is not much indication that he is signifantly worse in the cERA realm (or in improving his pitchers' performance in that metric) than Olivo.
Jaso does have a career 19% rate of throwing our would-be thiefs. Olivo's is 34%.
This year Olivo has thrown out 4 of the 9 guys who tried to steal. he's ahead of his career rate.....by a considerable degree. If we assume that Jaso throws out 2 of those nine....that means Olivo has saved two bases, if we don't include passed balls, an area where he is usually at/near the league lead. He has two in 79 innings this year.
Olivo averages, over the last three seasons, about one passed ball every 95 innings. Jaso, about one every 120 innings.
Point being, I'm finding a hard time coming up with a real metric that shows Olivo to be a significantly better defensive player than Jaso. He throws out a few more runners (which means there will be a few less attempts) but he lets a few more balls passed him, as well.
(Last year Olivo threw out 31 of 110 basestealers, a 28% clip. If you assume he hit career averages then he would have throw out about 37 of them. Let's assume Jaso would throw out 21 of them, his career average. Olivo gets a 16 base advantage, which he may well give up at the plate....(especially this year).
And if cERA indicates framing and pitch calling, there is certainly some dispute whether the numbers indicate Olivo's any better at those at all.
Montero's knock out performances would indicate that nothing is lost in pitch calling and framing when Olivo sits.
Olivo is a battling warrior, I suppose, maybe. But numbers indicate that Jaso is at least near his equal behind the plate. I think it is clear he is a better vR bat option right now, too.
If you're not going to catch Montero, then at least catch Jaso a bunch more (especially vR).
moe

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