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Play #4 is pretty dang terrific. So is the catch that robs the HR.
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Sherminator sez,
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Turns out Dyson creates his WAR in a little less than 300PAs per year, on average. That is a very low comitment in exchange for a starter's output of value. Jarrod Dyson the benchie is a championship caliber 4th-outfielder/pinch-runner, literally.
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Fangraphs has him at 12.6 career WAR in 1,539 AB's, which isn't even three full seasons' worth of at bats. Baseball-reference WAR has him at 12.8 over the same time period. This means one of two things: (1) Nobody knows what is happening in baseball, or (2) Nobody knows what is happening with Jarrod Dyson. Giancarlo Stanton would also like to know: he's got 11.9 WAR over his last 1,426 PA's.
At a pro-rated 4.2 WAR per season full time, Dyson would be one of the top 30 players in major league baseball . Jarrod Dyson is churning out WAR faster than he wheels around 3B to score the winning run. Bautista and Encarnacion have not had the WAR per game that Dyson has. Compare and contrast Altuve's 16.2 WAR in 2,113 plate appearances the last three years.
And, oh by the way, Dyson had easily the highest WAR total among Royals' players last year. In 337 AB's. Have a good life Nate Karns, you hapless feeb. We're lucky this kid didn't cost Seager.
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So: 'championship fourth outfielder'? Maybe for Havana. After he'd told the Castros' mother she wore army boots.
There is nothing that SSI enjoys more than a good baseball riddle. Right now, mine is "Why Doesn't Jarrod Dyson Play More." There are at least six possible answers, none of which are accurate; it certainly doesn't have anything to do with the idea that blazing speed matches up poorly against Miguel Cabrera. ... some part time players get "overexposed" in 550 AB's, but it's hard to overexpose diving catches in center field.
Any chance one of you mooks could enlighten me? Not a single historical comp comes to mind.
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Zoom pointed out the fact that Royals fans are inconsolable. Here they are torturing themselves with Dyson .gifs. But yeah. These 3-, 4-win players can sit on my bench any time.
Enjoy,
Dr D
Comments
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The backflip isn't half bad either. That, the trash talk to the Orioles, and the ten-count grin he fires off after sliding into home on the inside-the-parker exude a significant amount of swagger. I love my humble Seagers as much as the next guy, but gimme a high energy lightning rod any day. The point is to be entertained, yeah?
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So...I looked around at all of the historical comps I thought I knew that were glove whizzes with halfway decent bats who did not play fulltime? All of them played full time while their gloves were whizzular. So...
I thought of guys like Adam Everett, Vince DiMaggio, Paul Blair, Mark Belanger, Ray Boone...
The conundrum we have here is that if they don't play everyday, we won't remember them. :) I wish I still had my uberstat database active (I had WS, bWAR and my own Pythag-based uberstat all in one place for easy searching at one point), but I don't, alas. I am willing to bet that there are dozens of examples, and that most of them were part-timers because they were mediocre at the plate and did NOT have other big skills beyond their gloves. Dyson DOES have other big skills (pro-rated, he is the second best baserunner in the game, at present...second only to Billy Hamilton - we're not just talking about steals here...we're talking about extra bases taken). If he can OBP .340, he is a championship caliber lead-off hitter. Which...that's just weird for a guy to be that good at all of those things and then not play.
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Out of those ten plays...my favorite was #2. Because backlfip! I mean...you really can't do anything more on a baseball diamond to get your whole team behind you as a teammate. :)
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out...
For being a part time player, Dyson has a large clubhouse presence! I am sure you all remember how a guy like Munenori can have a smallish effect on the field, but a huge effect on the team. Talk about the softest of soft skills, but as we all are on teams in our work and personal lives I think we can all think of a person that makes the whole team better, even if it isn't directly through a skill or talent toward the actual output of the team.
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Manager / FO incompetence.
combined with a very slow upward trend that got Dyson to where he is now.
So in the Royals GM/Managers mind Dyson was still just a one trick pony (defense) when in fact he has grown into, like Matt says above a bonafide leadoff hitter with game changing base running.
Maybe he WILL be exposed as a full timer, but I would like to see us find out. if he can maintain the .340 OBP he had last year and Ichiro like ability to get infield hits. turn doubles into triples, take third on a fly ball etc. he will be very valuable.
This pollyanna, see Dipoto realising Dyson's value before The royals did :) And I have already commented a couple times that I (and apparently JeDi) don't value Karns nearly as much as you guys seem to.
Cheers, and go m's!
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Last year Dyson was a better bat than he's ever been, but mostly because he K'ed at a career low rate. His career # is 16.2% and last year it dropped to 11.6%. His BABIP was .315, almost dead spot on his career number (although his .423 vs. LHP didn't hurt). He walked 62 pts, vs 65 for his career. He ISO'ed 110 (more doubles) vs. a 93 career number, but even that is a very slight leap. Fangraphs has his batted ball stuff all within a point or two of career norms in every category. Well, he swung at more balls inside the zone (66% to 58%) and saw a few less FB's. But those fewer K's resulted in a few more balls in play, and that made the difference, evidently.
His UZR/150 was nearly 25 but his Advanced Fielding/Inside Edge Fielding numbers indicate something weird: AF says that he had 149 balls hit into his zone and made 135 plays. Those would be fly balls, I think. IEF says that he made 100% of the "Routine/90-100%" plays last year. On the 9 balls that were "Likely/60-90%), he made 78% of the plays; 7 of 9 chances. He was 0/2 on "Even/40-60%," 0-2 on "Unlikely/10-40%" and 1-8 on "Remote/1-10%."
I don't know quite how to put all that data together. UZR says he saved 25 runs over a full season, but the Inside Edge stuff says he made all the routine plays, plus one very tough one. Somehow that doesn't compute.
B-R says his RF/9 gets him to 3 balls more than the average AL OF every 10 games (.3 per game) That means he gets to 45 more balls over the course of a season. But the Inside Edge certainly stuff doesn't show that.
By the way, if you read this fangraphs page, http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-fly-ballline-drive-park-factor/, you will find this statement:
Unfriendly to Fly Balls and Line Drives: MIA, OAK, KC, SEA
Again, most of these have been discussed above. Kauffman Stadium has stealthily limited offense of all kinds in recent years, a trend which has been exacerbated by the excellence of the Royals’ defense. Hard hit balls just don’t get you far in KC. Production on 95+ MPH fly balls and 100+ mph liners is well below MLB average in each bucket at Kauffman, usually by a significant margin.
So an OF in KC (and Safeco) a should have a RF/9 and UZR/150 that is park enhanced.
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Otis Nixon .242/.348/.317 with an eye popping 48 steals per season from '88-'94 without topping 532 PA (average 402 PA) in a year before the Rangers finally gave him his first full time gig at age 36 (Fangraphs has him as 237 PA/WIN - 11.9 WAR over 7 seasons).
Rich Amaral batted .252/.351/.360 while swiping 15 bases over less than 300 PA/year for the Mariners from '93-'99, though he didn't have the defensive value of Dyson (Fangraphs averages him around 410 PA/WIN - 4.5 WAR over 7 seasons).
Ryan Freel batted .272/.357/.377 with 23 swipes/year for the Reds from '03-'08, but he was out of baseball after '09 at age 33 and the last 2 seasons when the defense fell off were shocking (Fangraphs average 226 PA/WIN - 9.5 WAR over 6 seasons '06 WAR: 3.8, '07 WAR: -0.4, '08 WAR 0.2). Freel did climb all the way to 592 PA one season, but didn't get there again, though in his case I think the lack of playing time and early end to his career was largely due to injury.
For reference, Jarrod Dyson sits at 120 PA/WIN by Fangraphs over the last 5 years.