Seattle Sports Insider

HQ's 'Statistically Scouted Speed' - 30,000-foot View (2)

Posted by

1/25/11

=== Year In Review ===

Earlier this week, we offered the SSI shtick on what these new SPD insights meant for current Mariners:

ICHIRO: SPD score has declined noticeably at age 36, from "Immortal" to "Top 10 in baseball." Remember, 100 is league-average; Ichiro has gone from 200 to 160 to, now, only 130.

Together with some erosion in his EYE and RC/27, and Dr. D's own observations as to Ichiro's physical dropoff, we forecast a lessening of Ichiro's game to "Very Good" ...

UNLESS

Ichiro adapts his game, swings for 10-15 homers, slaps balls through the shortstop hole, etc., and reinvents himself as a different kind of 6.0 RC/27 player.

We expect him to probably, in fact, do this. SSI confidently expects Ichiro to redesign his game in his late 30's.

FRANKLIN GUTIERREZ: SPD confirmed Dr. D's Inconvenient Truth that, by center field standards, Mr. Matinee is shockingly slow afoot.

An industrywide application of HQ's SPD score also revealed that nearly all of baseball's true speed burners were occupying none other than --- > Franklin Gutierrez' own CF position.

Zales Jewelers show you their $2,000 diamond necklaces on the backdrop of black velvet ... the contrast amplifies the sparkle. Franklin's lack of footspeed glitter was accentuated by the black-velvet background now provided by SPD at the center field position.

...........

This ignited a fresh brushfire of SSI-commenter insistence that Gutierrez is, in fact, a great center fielder and that major league outfield play has little to do with footspeed.

SSI denizens quickly hacked Dr. D's server to find Climategate-style e-mails that proved he had manipulated commentary to diminish the value of jumps and angles, though criminal investigations were later dropped.

Dr. D's incredulity, at the sheer popularity of Mr. Matinee, reached new heights. :- )

JACK CUST: Though Jack looks better suited to beer league softball than to making Million$ playing pro baseball, his SPD suggests that actually he runs relatively well for his size.

This causes SSI to wonder whether Cust can't, indeed, function as a #6 outfielder for the M's.

Hey, there are times you want to pack the lineup with lefties. The Justin Verlanders and Jered Weavers are out there, and you might as well RISK a defensive lapse, as ASSURE an 0-for-4 by letting Franklin Gutierrez :- ) or Greg Halman take at-bats against a tough right hand pitcher.

JUSTIN SMOAK: Eye-poppingly bad footspeed from a kid in his early '20's suggests to Dr. D that the Mariners can expect (1) less-than-gold-glove defense, and (2) more homers, rather than less. Smoak's dynamic CG (his turn and burn, in action) is close to the ground; he anchors well to blast long balls.

Comments

Speed score is going to be

Speed score is going to be low for every member of the '10 Ms due to a terrible offense leading to low Rs scored. Being RH also hurts your time to 1B. LHs have an advantage in speed to 1B.
I don't understand the insistence on making speed=defense. Its an important factor, but is it the only factor?
Andruw Jones has worse career speed scores than Gutierrez, a worse infield hit%, and NEVER stole 30 SBs in a season.
Do you think that Jones wasn't that great of a defender?

Who said this?

that major league outfield play has little to do with footspeed.

Seriously, did ANYONE make that argument?

OK, that line was a bit TIC

Being called on it, we withdraw our question, your honor :- )

Oh, I dunno

Speed score is going to be low for every member of the '10 Ms due to a terrible offense leading to low Rs scored.

Remember, R is just ratio'ed over RBI ... a la Bill James' Run Element Ratio...
Guti's SPD wasn't low compared to his own past standards, and Figgins' SPD was equal to his 2007 and 2008...
Ichiro, interestingly, was way off, though, so could be interesting to watch...

It makes sense that R would

It makes sense that R would be lower in relation to RBI for Ichiro, Figgins, and Guti. Ich/Figs are leadoff hitters and typically hit behind far inferior batters over their careers.
Ichiro in particular has had a terrible offense hit in front of him over the last several years. This year the MOTO's SLG was nearly as bad as the 7/8/9 hitters. It makes sense that his Rs over RBI would be the most affected.
In Guti's case it also makes sense that his speed score would go down. He was a MOTO hitter behind Ich/Figgins all year and part of the problem. The lineup behind him was far worse in relations to SLG than the top of the order was in relations to OBP/speed.

Looking at the skillsets

Looking at the skillsets individually with Ichiro, the only speed stat I see in decline is 3Bs.
He had his 2nd highest infield hit% ever, he had one of his best SB years, and also one of his best GIDP years.
Hes in decline, but not to the extent that speed score would tell you due to the horrific MOTO we had last year.

Ya, the correlation is 0.74, not 1.00

And Guti's R vs. RBI definitely dropped off in 2010. Your remarks about R vs RBI for certain Mariners is well taken, champ.
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Somehow, HQ's SPD score weathered this contextual sideswipe beautifully:
Franklin Gutierrez SPD Scores
2006 - 104
2007 - 118
2008 - 106
2009 - 103
2010 - 110
Interesting that Gutierrez' SPD stayed 'up' despite the fact that his R/RBI got 'slower' and his Body Mass remained constant.
We do notice that he legged out "three times as many" triples as the year before, that being 3:1. :- )
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In our zeal to advocate for Guti, let's not lose sight of the big picture: most ML center fielders are considerably faster than him.

That decline in triples

Might be telling, since he's averaged 7 per season and he's down to less than half that.
3B% is one-quarter of the formula that racks up a nice CORR wth footspeed, so if triples are falling off, that's nothing to brush aside.
If Ichiro has four triples by the ASB next year, though...

Gut had his best SB/CS year

Gut had his best SB/CS year so far which made up for the difference probably.
Ichiro's 3B decline could be a hitting decline too. Its hard to determine right now. His IF hit rate and SB rate and GIDP were all close to career highs so there couldn't be a significant decline. At least not yet.
I'm more concerned about Ichiro's O-Swing%. His '11 should answer a lot of questions.

Ya, though SB and SB% are SX

Remember, SPD is an attempt to identify guys who might SB this year, who didn't the year before... it edits out SB, attempts, %, etc.
Guti is a prime example of a guy of whom SPD would say, "he had a great SB year, and don't pay for it again..."
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I was thinkin' that too... didn't see a lot of balls off the fence; I don't remember any deep right-center hits that he held up on, that surprised me...
That Ichiro's SPD drop to 130 might be an illusion, your idea there is pretty intriguing. Wouldn't bet anything I was afraid to lose that it might not bounce right back to 150, 170.