Going to Grad School on the HIT Tool
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PREAMBLE
The sabermetrics tables on Fangraphs, of which my faves (for hitters) include EYE (K/BB), BABIP, WAR, UZR, OSwing%, ZSwing%, among others, and the Mighty StatCast Crew including Average Exit Velocity and Average Launch Angle, are valuable stats and capture, probably, 80-90% of what we need to know about what's happening on the field.
I'll wager that almost all Denizens can sense, intuitively, that algebra cannot complex ALL of what is happening in a super-complex world. As a chess junkie, I know that math CAN capture all of what is happening -- in a super-ultra-simplified game with super-ultra-simplified rules and, certainly, no human psychology or variance affecting the outcome.
Bill James, to his credit, insists on exactly the same point. The world is billions of times more complex than the human mind (and, following, any computer) can understand, he'll say, and yet the human mind desperately craves the feeling that it understands everything perfectly, can fit everything into its preconceived paradigms.
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FOLLOW-ONS
A rich harvest of ideas sown by the Denizens in the Robby thread.
Hannibal sez:
You're right it's not very sabe. Cano is smarter than me on baseball stuff, but the only issue I have is that his perception of Gordon/Segura don't match their reality. Both are in the bottom half of "pitches per plate appearance," which I personally don't think matters much, but Robi seems to think they "see pitches." Gordon himself would probably laugh at the notion he goes deep in counts for his teammates' sake.
Every study since THE BOOK came out shows fairly convincingly that OBP is MOST important to the success of 1&2 hitters. Speed is more fun, for sure, and may have some unidentifiable effect on sequencing, etc which can benefit the lineup, but OBP = runs scored (and by association, RBI for ROBI). Both players' OBP is tied neatly to their BABIP. Let's hope for plenty of line drives, bleeders and bloops (or by some stroke of conscience either player sees a plateau leap from their career 4.5% walk rate, which I kind of expect from Segura, actually. In either case, Cano will look like a genius.)
Lastly, I love your examples of historical 1-2 punches, and Cano is right about their value. Notice the OPS+ of all those guys. Now check out Gordon's lifetime 93 (last year: 94).
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Great comment amigo. Without a doubt OBP is the most important single offensive statistic -- as Bill James pointed out in 1975. He was the one to alert the movie theater that Rickey Henderson was a 2x Hall of Famer, and not based on his SB's, but based on his BB's, which were valued at practically zero when Rickey got started.
To a certain extent Hannibal we are talking at a great overlap, no? Which .370 OBP hitter would not be the #1 leadoff guy that Robbie craves?
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The only interesting little difference I'd offer here is that "getting deep into the count" may not be QUITE as critical to the job that Robbie is talking about. If a 200-hit player with mediocre walks -- say Michael Young, Dee Gordon or Steve Garvey -- steps to the plate to start the game, then Corey Kluber has to throw his best pitches from the jump and that is what the MOTO players get to see.
Joey Cora cobbled a nice .360 OBP in front of Griff and Edgar, back in the day, but .... I was there, and I can tell you that the Corey Klubers or the world futzed around with Cora, giving him nothing near their premium effort. That phenomenon is not going to be captured by computer -- but perhaps Robinson Cano is trying to tell us something about baseball that you can't find on StatCast?
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Matty sez:
Contrary to intuition, statistical studies have shown that teams score more runs when they're all slugging or all on base or all high contact hit tool players than they do when there is a mixture of hitting types of roughly equivalent value. So...Which do the Mariners have more of? Hit tool, on base, or slugging?
I'd say they are about equal in all three...Which doesn't bode well.
If you think about it...here are the scouting scores for each skill for the starting nine plus two biggest bench players.
HIT
GORDON: 70, SEGURA: 65, CANO: 60, CRUZ: 60, SEAGER: 55, HANIGER: 60, HEALY: 60, ZUNINO: 35, GAMEL: 55, VOGELBACH: 60, HEREDIA: 55, ICHIRO: 55
PWR
GORDON: 25, SEGURA: 50, CANO: 60, CRUZ: 75, SEAGER: 55, HANIGER: 60, HEALY: 65, ZUNINO: 75, GAMEL: 40, VOGELBACH: 60, HEREDIA: 35, ICHIRO: 25
EYE
GORDON:, 60, SEGURA: 50, CANO: 55, CRUZ: 50, SEAGER: 45, HANIGER: 55, HEALY: 30, ZUNINO 30, GAMEL: 40, VOGELBACH: 65, HEREDIA: 65, ICHIRO: 35
SPD
GORDON: 80, SEGURA: 60, CANO: 30, CRUZ: 30, SEAGER: 30, HANIGER: 55, HEALY: 45, ZUNINO: 30, GAMEL:.55, VOGELBACH:.25, HEREDIA: 60, ICHIRO: 50
So, the thing w have most of is unclear but maybe leaning toward contact? In which case, Segura and Gordon make for a smarter 1-2 than other iterations of this club?
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I hadn't seen that one, but, thinking about it .... yeah, I could see it. If you're struggling to avoid power zones on each hitter's heat map all day, or if you're trying to razor-out the called strike areas on a group of EYE hitters, I could imagine this being true.
I'm sure Matty would agree that such an effect would be SUBTLE. The 1976 Reds were famously versatile, leading the NL in EVERYTHING -- #1 in HR, #1 in AVG, #1 in SB's, #1 in 3B's, #1 in 2B's, #1 in absolutely everything. They scored 5.3 runs in a league where the #2 club, the Phillies, scored 4.7, the Pirates 4.3 and only 3 teams were above the league-average cut! LOL!
So, yeah, if team A had 140 OPS+ and low synergy (like the 1976 Reds) and another team had 80 OPS+ and good synergy, it'll be lost in the wash. I don't know how many OPS+ points "synergy" is worth but I'll take a guess at what it's worth:
Synergy -- if it is deployed by a VERY good hitting offense -- increases your chance of KO'ing the starting pitcher. By a fair bit. ------ > That is Dr. D's guess.
Versatility, if deployed by a tremendous offense like the 1976 Reds' -- increases your chances of coping with a wide variety of pitchers, with Steve Carlton or Gaylord Perry or Tom Seaver. ----- > That is Dr. D's guess.
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Nick proposed that the 2018 M's WILL have the above-specified type of synergy - in the HIT tool. Is that true?
1 Gordon - 200 Hit Man - automatic 70 (plus-plus) hit grade, enforced by the push-bunt skill
2 Segura - 200 Hit Man - automatic 70
3 Robbie - Lifetime .305 AVG automatic 70, with 500 doubles and 300 homers. Yep yep yep
4 Boomstick - Hits "only" .290 which equates to 65 on this chart though I, as a pitcher, would feel much more comfortable going against a .300 AVG with 4 homers
5 Seager - life .265 which is about 55
6 Haniger - .282 last year; 60-65 if he does not improve
7 Healy - .282 AVG as a young-20's player; 60-65 if he does not improve
8 Zuumball - .270 post-callup = 55 = "Above Average"
9 Ichiro/Gamel - .275 = 55-60
Another way to look at it is that those four 70's equate to 5.0 WAR on the WAR scale; the two 60-65's equate to 3.5 WAR; the three 55's to 2.5 WAR.
Stepping back and looking at it from distance .... the 2018 Mariners indeed send 9 straight hitters in a carousel who are well capable of 2 hits on any given day. Mike Zunino is the least of their threats looking strickly from a HIT standpoint, and he just got done blasting 4 authoritative hits in one game -- 3 homers, and a classic right-field, line-shot single. That's from their worst HITter.
.... this team has its problems, such as the fact that it's starting from the outside 8th lane of a 78-win season, but .... I personally am thrilled with the offense JeDi has put together, with the CF mind trick and the C lightsaber slash. Look, Haniger and Zunino aren't even the front line batters.
Enjoy,
Dr. D
Now-Old Argument