Dr. Stat Attacks!
Posted: July 6th, 2008 | Filed under: Baseball | 63 Comments »
OK, so I saw one of the most hilarious things ever Sunday at Tropicana Field after the Royals-Rays game. Every Sunday in Tampa, and many other places, they let kids run the bases on the field, which is always nice* — I love watching kids run the bases. Well, while that was going on, the scoreboard was featuring these baseball cartoons. One, of course, was Baseball Bugs, which is required viewing and a classic (“I think I’ll perplex them with my slow ball”).
*Have you ever noticed on those days when kids run the bases there might be, I don’t know, 20,000 people at the game, but when it’s time to run there are suddenly 500,000 kids? Where do they come from? Were they hiding outside and watching the game through a knothole like Our Gang until the game ended?
But then there was an even more awesome cartoon, if you can believe it. You won’t even believe me when I tell you. You’ll think it was a dream. But no, it’s a cartoon where the Tampa Bay Rays are superheroes. Yeah. I wasn’t able to get the entire plot line, but apparently Joe Maddon is some sort of superhero mastermind, kind of like a baseball superhero Charlie, and he has the power to turn his Rays players into superheroes. One becomes really fast — so fast his feet look like a tornado. One I guess can throw stuff at bad guys — sort of a Roger Clemens for kids. The other one seems to be able to destroy bad guys by hitting them with a bat. Good lesson for the kids.
But, believe it or not, that’s not the hilarious part. No, the hilarious part is this: The villain they were trying to catch was someone named “Dr. Stat.” No, really. It seems that Dr. Stat — and I’m quoting from the cartoon now — wants to “use his knowledge of useless statistics to destroy the game.”
Yes, I’m completely serious here — I saw the thing twice. This Dr. Stat them appears on the Superfriends monitor, and he asks them who was the highest paid umpire in 1888. The Rays, of course, don’t know, and they make it clear to him that it is a stupid and pointless question. Dr. Stat then says, “Wrong answer,” and he says as punishment he will point his stat ray direction at Tropicana Field in order to make it impossible for people to enjoy the games.
OK, timeout here — what is a stat ray? How would that work? I should ask the guys at Baseball Prospectus if they have one. A stat ray. How great is that? I wonder what would happen if we would point the stat ray at some of my baseball writing friends. I’d love to aim it at my buddy Rick Morrissey up in Chicago, just to see what happened. Would he explode? Would he start talking about VORP and Eqa? I need to get me one of them.
Anyway, the cartoon Joe Maddon, realizing that this stat ray could destroy what the game stands for, started burning copies of the book Moneyball. No, wait, that’s not right. No, what he did was turn his Rays into superheroes and send them after Dr. Stat. They landed in Dr. Stat’s lair, and Dr. Stat being a fairly uncreative and unimaginative villain type sent some robots after them. I have no idea why he thought this would work, nor do I know what robots (and I mean they were the most boring looking robots you ever saw) had to do with his love of meaningless baseballs statistics. Maybe if they were, like, robots who invented new run matrixes, that would have made sense. But, in all honestly, wouldn’t it have been more realistic if Dr. Stat had sent, I don’t know, Pete Palmer and Voros McRacken after the heroes? The Rays would try to come after them, but they would be helpless against the power of linear weights and DIPS.
RAYS SUPERHERO: “Alas! I will strike you down now!”
Bill James: “That swing looks like Big Klu.”
RAYS SUPERHERO: “Who?”
Bill: “Ted Kluszewski. Big hitter for the Reds in the 1950s. Did you know that in baseball history there have only been seven seasons where a batter hit 40 or more homers and struck out 40 or fewer times. Joe DiMaggio did it once. Lou Gehrig once. Ted Kluszewski had three of those seasons.”
RAYS SUPERHERO: “Really? That’s interesting.”
Bill: “Yeah, he was actually discovered by a Reds groundskeeper.”
RAYS SUPERHERO: “By a groundskeeper? Really?”
JOE MADDON (into ear piece): “Get that guy! Save the game already!”
RAYS SUPERHERO: “Did you know that Ted Kluszewski was discovered by a groundskeeper?”
But no, instead, there were cliche robots, which the superheroes naturally destroyed with relative ease (especially since these were, like, two minute cartoons). And then, the narrator said: “Dr. Stat and his reign of useless knowledge was finished.”
It was a great cartoon. I just think it could have been even better.
* * *
OK, there is one other thing. I’m not going to lie to you: I’ve been pretty disappointed by a few of the responses to my frustration with Eric Wedge not moving Grady Sizemore into the No. 3 hole where he so obviously belongs. My disappointment is not in the disagreements … I like disagreements. And hey, there are very viable reasons to lead off Grady. They’re wrong. But they’re viable.
No, my disappointment is more with myself: I apparently did not get my point across. As someone who has Indians baseball in my bloodstream, I want to make this clear. I don’t CARE if Grady hits first or third or fourth or whatever. I don’t care, and I don’t think it would make much difference if any, and I don’t think it’s one of the Indians top 300 problems, and let me say it again: I DON’T CARE WHERE GRADY HITS. Hell, C.C.’s gone, the season’s flat over, nothing matters. If people want Grady in the leadoff role so they can see him bet 25 more at-bats this year, that’s fine.
No, my problem is not where he hits. My problem is that Eric Wedge won’t put him in the No. 3 hole. My problem is what that says about Eric Wedge. My problem is that very obviously Grady is not a leadoff hitter anymore, he doesn’t fit in that role, he’s too valuable for that role, he’s leading the American League in home runs, he’s on pace to get 85 extra-base hits, he has GRADUATED. My problem is that I suspect if you asked 30 general managers if they would rather have a good leadoff hitter or a good No. 3 hitter, 30 general managers would take the No. 3 hitter. My problem is that a good No. 3 hitter will cost you roughly three times as much as a good No. 1 hitter.
My problem is that, well, look at last year. Leadoff hitters in the AL scored 1,525 runs and drove in 884. That’s a total of 2,409 runs. No. 3 hitters (in part because they are a better players) scored 1,425 runs but drove in 1,465 — combined that’s almost 500 more. It was pretty much the same story in ‘06, ‘05, and ‘04, oh yeah, and also ‘03, and yeah, forever.
My problem is … well, let me show you. What follows is every single hitter since 1956 who hit 40 homers, had 80 extra base hits, had a .375 on-base and a .525 slugging — all things that Grady is on pace to do this year. Take a look.
– Jeff Bagwell, 1997 and 2000. Batted third.
– Albert Belle, 1995, 1996 and 1998. Batted third.
– Carlos Beltran, 2006. Batted third.
– Adrian Beltre, 2004. Batted fourth and fifth.
– Barry Bonds, 1993. Batted third, fourth, fifth.
– Barry Bonds, 2001. Batted third.
– Ellis Burks, 1996. Batted second and third.
– Carlos Delgado, 1999, 2000, 2003. Batted fourth.
– Adam Dunn, 2004. Batted fourth, fifth, sixth.
– Jim Edmonds, 2004. Batted fourth and third.
– Prince Fielder, 2007. Batted fourth and third.
– George Foster, 1977. Batted fourth.
– Troy Glaus, 2000. Batted sixth.
– Luis Gonzalez, 2001. Batted third.
– Shawn Green, 2002. Batted third and fourth.
– Ken Griffey 1993 and 1997. Batted third.
– Vlady Guerrero 1999 and 2000. Batted fourth.
– Todd Helton, 2000. Batted fourth and fifth.
– Todd Helton, 2001. Batted fourth.
– Richard Hidaldo, 2000. Batted sixth, fourth, fifth.
– Ryan Howard, 2006. Batted fourth and fifth.
– Reggie Jackson, 1969. Batted third.
– Chipper Jones, 1999. Batted third.
– Derrek Lee, 2005. Batted third.
– Willie Mays, 1962. Batted third.
– Mark McGwire, 1998, 1999, 2000. Batted third.
– Kevin Mitchell, 1989. Batted fourth.
– David Ortiz, 2004, 2005, 2006: Batted third.
– Rafael Palmeiro, 1998, 2001. Batted fourth and third.
– Albert Pujols, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006. Batted third.
– Manny Ramirez, 1998. Batted fifth, fourth, third.
– Manny Ramirez, 1999, 2004. Batted fourth.
– Frank Robinson, 1966. Batted third.
– Alex Rodriguez, 2001, 2002. Batted third.
– Alex Rodriguez, 2007. Batted fourth.
– Mike Schmidt, 1980. Batted third and fourth.
– Sammy Sosa, 1998, 2000, 2001. Batted third and fourth.
– Willie Stargell, 1973. Batted fourth.
– Mark Teixeira, 2005. Batted third.
– Frank Thomas, 2000. Batted third.
– Jim Thome, 2003. Batted third and fourth.
– Larry Walker, 1997. Batted third.
– Billy Williams, 1970. Batted third.
OK, what is it that every single one of those guys has in common? Oh yeah. None of them hit leadoff. None. Zero. Well, now I pull out the one wildcard, I saved him for last. One guy did actually hit leadoff. The only player out of 72 seasons to hit like that and lead off … that was Brady Anderson in his aberration year of 1996. And THAT was because that crazy 50 homer year came crashing in out of nowhere. That team also had Roberto Alomar (136 OPS+), Rafael Palmeiro (132 OPS+), Bobby Bonilla (114 OPS+). And even then, they moved him down to second in the lineup for a chunk of that year.
So, what are we saying here? That Eric Wedge is smarter than every single manager in baseball history? He’s the one guy who understands that it’s better to put far and away your best hitter — and a guy who might lead the whole freaking league in home runs — in the leadoff role. Why? Because he’s speedy? Because you want to give him a few more at bats (mostly with the bases empty?) Because you like that 41% of his home runs have led off an inning. Because you are worried how Grady will handle the extra pressure of hitting third (and if hitting your absolute best hitter leadoff is such a bright idea, why would there even BE extra pressure hitting third?)
No, here’s what we are saying: Eric Wedge doesn’t seem to adjust very well. He seems to think that Grady is still the player he was two years ago. He seems to care a lot about keeping his players comfortable. He seems content to keep things as they are even when they are not all that sensible. I have absolutely no idea if the Indians would score more runs, fewer runs or precisely the same amount of runs to the 10th decimal point if Grady hit third (or second or fourth or whatever). I don’t know, and as mentioned a time or two, I don’t care. I just care that the Indians have a manager whose team came within one game of the World Series and is now buried in last lace, a manager who is hitting the American League home run leader leadoff and Ben Francisco third.
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DR STAT?!??!?! That is tremendous. I demand someone put that up on Youtube, NOW.
Dr. Stat will tremble in fear when they unleash the awesome power of the Joe Morgan-Dusty Baker duo.
First Base, Buggs Bunny. Left field, Buggs Bunny. Catcher, Buggs Bunny…
Can’t wait for the Dr.Stat video to be on YouTube. Maybe Joe should hook up with a cartoonist and do his own version with the Royals.
I hope Wedge reads your blog.
I’ve always wanted to see the box score for “Baseball Bugs.”
in his* prime, newspaper man. the starter is only one man.. this blog can be about learning baseball and english!
re: the poll again, didn’t you just have a post noting that bert blyleven’s history is better than jack morris’s when it comes to the postseason? curious that you pick morris over blyleven for the poll.
I’ve got no problem with your argument about Eric Wedge and where to bat Sizemore except that you say “…is that very obviously Grady is not a leadoff hitter anymore” and “… Eric Wedge doesn’t seem to adjust very well. He seems to think that Grady is still the player he was two years ago.”
He’s on pace for 40+ HR, sure. But he had 28 in 2006…not bad. Along with 53 doubles. He’s on pace for 36 or so this year. Also he’s on pace for more SB this year. 40 vs. the 22 he had two years ago. So his OBP is a little lower (.375 in 2006 vs .371 this year) and his SLG is higher (.533 in 2006 vs .542 this year).
I see pretty much the same player today as I saw in 2006. Sure, he’s hitting more HR at the expense of doubles (which is great!), but his OPS is pretty similar and he is stealing more bases.
You can bat him wherever you want, but all I’m saying is that if he isn’t your idea of a leadoff guy now, he probably wasn’t in 2006 either..
I wonder if A) Grady has something to do with it i.e. telling Wedge he wants to lead-off, because he’s comfortable there and the season’s in the tank? or B) It’s a financial decision motivated by the only real draw the Indians have going and just watching him come up to start the game is worth the field level tickets – and an extra X number of concessions sold? or C) Eric Wedge really is the stubborn SOB he seems to be on TV.
Grady was quoted last year as saying he would bat wherever Wedge wanted him to bat.
Wedge has been the one saying that Grady is more comfortable hitting leadoff. I can’t find a quote of Grady saying that.
Well I don’t think it’ll be Emmy winning cartoons, what can you expect!
As for Grady, I agree, he’s much more suited for the 3 hole. But seriously, who do you leadoff instead? They don’t have anyone who consistently gets on base for him to drive in runs.
By your logic (just saying) they should be batting Victor leadoff because he hits for a high average and is having a power outage this year…
So why is Wedge an idiot, and Gardenhire is the best manager in baseball, but anyone can see that Carlos Gomez is not a leadoff hitter. Gardy seems to put value on a player’s comfort, on some sort of chemistry – ok, so the Twins have won 16 out of 18 games, is that the justification? Tough call. Poor Wedge.
I’m not entirely sure how the situation works when a manager has a niche for a player and can’t figure out how to break that niche, but I’ve seen it before:
In 1985, Ray Miller, managing the Minnesota Twins, penciled in Kirby Puckett as the leadoff hitter 160 times. (Puckett got one day off, and came in as a pinch-hitter in a second game.) This was probably OK, since Puckett hit .288 with a .330 on-base percentage, 13 triples, 4 homers. Those seem like pretty obvious leadoff-hitter type numbers.
In 1986, Ray Miller pencilled Kirby Puckett’s name as the leadoff hitter 109 times out of 119 starts, and batted him second for some reason ten times in May. By the time Miller had the idea to try Puckett at the three-spot, he’d already hit .346/955 with 24 home runs. Miller left Puckett in the three-spot for five games, during which time Puckett went 4-for-20, then moved him back to leadoff.
Thankfully, mercifullly, Miller was fired as manager at the end of a five-game road trip in which the Twins lost all five games (three in Boston and two in KC), with Puckett batting leadoff four times and second once.
Tom Kelly took over for the final 23 games of the season. In those 23 games, Puckett batted third 10 times. In 1987, Puckett hit third just about every day, save for a handful of games in which he hit cleanup down the stretch, and one token game as the leadoff man on the final day of the season after the team had already clinched the division title.
I’m sure Miller pulled Puckett from the three-spot after a few games where Puckett didn’t seem comfortable there (heck, he didn’t have great numbers hitting third in his ten games under Kelly in 1986, either), but the job of a manager, sometimes, is to put players where they need to be in order to give the team their best chance to win.
You might have heard that the Twins did pretty good in 1987, after all.
CA Twins fan–
But Gomez isn’t so obviously a clean-up hitter (or third, or 5th, or whatever). if Gomez were playing up to his potential, he’d be the prototypical lead-off hitter, which Grady is not.
Mike: Why not leadoff Victor? Seriously, why not? If Brian Downing and Mike Scioscia can lead bat first Victor can.
Joe,
I guess I’ll concede that your animus is against Wedge and his inflexibility and that you are mostly only being coy and chewing up/churning out a blog entry when you foist the brummagem argument that “you don’t care where Grady bats”. But how do you get to A without B?
If you’ve got one guy whose OBP is significantly higher than everyone else’s (men with large heads who draw 100 intentional walks a season excepted), you probably want him leading off.
Of course, for the Indians this year, there is someone who fits that description. Thing is, that someone is Grady Sizemore.
The guy with the next-highest OBP on the team to date has batted above the 5-hole exactly three times all season. (Casey Blake.) Carroll’s third, and he seems settled into the 2-hole when he’s in the lineup. The difference between Carroll’s OBP and Sizemore’s is only 20 points. The difference between Carroll’s SLG and Sizemore’s, on the other hand, is close to 200 points — which is the best argument one can possibly come up with for why Sizemore should be batting behind Carroll, not in front of him. Indeed, they should be leading off with Carroll-Blake-Sizemore.
However, if Cabrera’s in the game rather than Carroll, I don’t know what you do at the top of the order… ’cause Cabrera’s .282 OBP has no business up there, and nobody outside of Carroll-Blake-Sizemore cracks the .333 mark.
Actually Joe, the most important positions in the lineup are 4th and 2nd, and that’s where you should put your best hitter. This is one of the surprising (to me) findings of the lineup simulators out there. If you want to try one, David Pinto pointed his stat ray here: http://www.baseballmusings.com/cgi-bin/LineupAnalysis.py
Someone above asked for the line in ‘Baseball Bugs’. Here’s almost everything you would ever want to know:
http://ussmariner.com/2006/03/12/bugs-bunny-greatest-banned-player-ever/
there is a pretty hilarious breakdown of the Baseball Bugs game at U.S.S. Mariner. long, but hilarious
http://ussmariner.com/2006/03/12/bugs-bunny-greatest-banned-player-ever/
The Tampa Bay cartoons are still going? I remember they had these at the Trop last year. The stars were Joe Maddon, Carl Crawford as the fast guy, Scott Kazmir as the pitcher hero, and… Rocco Baldelli? Back when he had a slim margin of hope of coming back. Their enemy was the “Evil Umperor.” You can’t make this stuff up. Someone got PAID to animate and write this. It’s a case where it’s so bad it’s actually mildly amusing.
Of course, the worst part was that they had Don Zimmer as some sort of mystical protectorate of baseball. This is bogus, of course, as everyone knows this job belongs to Bill Pecota.
Is Dr. Stat any relation to the Rays (and former Cubs) announcer named Dewayne Staats?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dewayne_Staats
I’m shocked to see anti-intellectualism coming from Florida.
The cartoon should have had a heroine with three divorce settlements, D-cup implants, and skin cancer. Then they really could have captured the local flavor.
Does the player in his prime also get the mound from his time and strike zone from his time? Probably a technicality but it might change some voters’ minds. Or maybe they will keep voting for Gibson.
The Rays’ overwhelming victory over Dr. Stat can be found here:
http://mlb.mlb.com/tb/fan_forum/dotg.jsp
No telling if Dr. Stat would have been victorious if Tampa’s squad was still called the Devil Rays, as a lot of writers seem to have (only somewhat tongue-in-cheek) ascribed their ascent to the team dropping the Devil from its name.
I think Joe Maddon is fairly progressive when it comes to the use of stats and research. I remember him being asked about his particular Ortiz Shift — which is so complicated that the catcher plays first base and the designated hitter covers third — and he said something about getting all these reports, so he felt he ought to use them.
Also, he’s got those hip-to-be-square glasses.
Matrices.
i’ve now seen all the evidence i need to say that carlos peña is using hgh.
I could have sworn that Maddon was a more “modern” manager, to the extent that Fire Joe Morgan once called him “a 2.4 gigahertz Linksys router.” Also, PECOTA called 90 wins for the Rays this year, a figure which seemed so outlandish at the time that it was ridiculed by nearly everyone. So what, exactly, do the Rays have against stats?
Watching kids run the bases after a game is life-affirming.
I can’t believe that I just watched all 3 episodes during a busy work day.
Barry Bonds led off early in his career. Then Jim Leyland decided the guy who was slugging over .550 really should hit in the middle of his lineup. Eric Wedge is apparently no Jim Leyland.
Eric Wedge failing to make adjustments…hmmm…I know there is another good example of this! Ah, yes! How silly of me! How about keeping Joe Borowski in the closers role with your two best pitchers platooning in a set-up role…because thats where Borowski was supposed to be.
Joe, you just hit the big time. The boys at Fire Joe Morgan just linked to the blog.
Go- I wasn’t being sarcastic. I think, until he proves he can knock the ball outta the park, you bad Victor in the 1 spot. But the risk you take there, is you have a slow as hell lead off hitter… so it’s a double edged sword.
One near glitch to the .375/.525 40 HR 80 XBH argument was Alfonso Soriano in 2006.
That year he posted .351/.560 with 46 HR and 89 XBH. More interesting though was that when Frank Robinson tried moving him into the 3 spot briefly his numbers plummeted. In 18 games that year (small sample size I realize) he was .153/.235/.333. Soriano pleaded with Frank to put him in the lead-off slot where he posted a .294/.368/.588 season with 39 HR out of that spot in the line-up. I recall the Cubs putting him there briefly in 2007 (7 games apparently) and he similarly stunk. His career numbers in the lead-off spot (where about 60% of his PAs are) versus all other spots is very distinct. Obviously some of that is attributable to a younger Soriano hitting in a stacked Yankee line-up but he’s gone on record that he just feels more comfortable with his name at the top of the line-up card.
But considering that he had a .368 at the top of the line-up being protected by Royce Clayton, a decaying Jose Vidro and Felipe Lopez in an substandard offensive line-up anyway, I feel like his .368 OBP in the lead-off spot at least warrants a footnote in the exhaustive 50+ year list you compiled.
Hanley Ramirez has very similar stats to Sizemore (at least in respect to your point about historically good seasons – 21 HR, 42 XBH, .387 OBP, .553 SLG) and also continues to hit leadoff. The main difference seems to be that he was actually put in the three spot this season and hit markedly worse (albeit, in a small 56 at-bat sample) whereas Wedge hasn’t even tried Sizemore there. Hanley is two years younger than Grady, and perhaps he geniunely is uncomfortable betting third, but it would seem that two of the majors’ best young hitters are ill cast in their current roles.
Where in the order did Brady Anderson bat in 1996? I thought he was the lead-off hitter for some reason, and I’m sure his stats measured up against Grady’s 2008-to-date.
I like the concept of the team’s best offensive player hitting first in the AL. If more teams hit their best offensive player in the lead-off spot, instead of in the three- or four-hole, I would certainly be comfortable making an assumption that the productivity of the top spot in the lineup, as well as that of the three- or four-spot would be affected, accordingly. That is, run production would go up in the one-hole, and down in the three- or four-hole….
Agree completely regarding Sizemore, although I think the lay-up winner for silliest use of a power hitter in the leadoff role goes to every team Alfonso Soriano’s ever played for. You could kind of justify it when he used to run, but now…. He’s in the lower third for OBP of all the Cubs’ everyday players, he doesn’t steal bases much; all he really does is hit for power. Add into the mix that either Theriot or Fukudome would be the painfully obvious choice to leadoff and you have a real forehead slapper.
Huh. Doesn’t anyone else know that John Gaffney was the highest-paid (or at least highest regarded) umpire in 1888? He worked most of the Series between the Browns and Wolverines (15 games) by himself.
Joe, please find the nearest tall building, make your way to the roof, and jump off.
Thank You,
Dr. Stat
I believe Brady Anderson’s 1996 season is the exception to every baseball rule.
I watched the episode of Dr. Stat, and it seems like half of the stuff being emitted by the stat ray are famous baseball names like Ban Johnson, Abner Doubleday, and Alvin Dark. Does that mean that the Rays are interested in wiping away baseball history?
You know, after reading about John Gaffney, I’m starting to think he deserves a spot in the Hall of Fame.
Can someone with computer skills please recreate alternate dialogue for the Dr.Stat cartoons and post on youtube?
Potential comedy gold!
Do the Rays think that more fans would show up for baseball at the Trop if they did not have to focus on all of the numbers?
“No kids, we can’t go to the Rays game. They’ll fill our heads with numbers. Get in the car, we need to get some scratch tickets at the Circle K and then pick up mom from Mons Venus.” – Overheard in Tampa
Joe, what is so different between Grady Sizemore in 2006 and Grady Sizemore in 2008?
I mean, you’re acting like it’s some sort of big surprise that Grady is on pace for a boatload of XBH. This is the guy who led the league in XBH in 2006. The only difference is the personnel around him; Hafner and Martinez are on the shelf and there’s really no one worthy of sticking in the 3/4 holes, but there’s no one besides Grady who deserves to leadoff either. The season is over; just let us enjoy watching Grady get more PAs.
Also, Wedge is no Leyland? You mean the Jim Leyland that continues to use Granderson as a lead-off hitter, a guy who is clearly in the Soriano mold? Granderson has similar slugging abilities to Grady but nowhere near the on-base skills, yet Leyland is a fantastic manager even though he continues to trot him out in the leadoff spot?
SW – Your reasoning doesn’t compare. Soriano is entirely different, in his 40/40 year, what was the Nats record? Nobody expected them to compete and they still don’t. The Indians were a win away from the World Series last year!!! Have we all forgotten that?
Steve – the difference is, there’s no Hafner that pitchers have to be careful of, there’s no 25 HR 100RBI Victor Martinez to face in the lineup either. Just the intimidation factor and the carefulness pitchers would have to go through those at bats were enough to make Grady a great lead off man.
And Leyland is no genius, if he was, he’d have packaged Sheffield and Guillen in a deal to get a real pitcher for that team.
No reason to argue over which hole he should be batting in. The lineup is awful without Haf-Mart, and there no high OBP guy to bat in front of him in that lineup no matter where you stick him.
If Martinez wasn’t doing his Eckstein impression this year, I would love to see a 2-3-4 of Mart-Size-Pronk.
Dr. Stat…
Wasn’t that the name of a King Crimson Album in 1977?
If you’re going to aim the stat ray at Chicago, I hope you hit Hawk Harrleson. Hell, if you aim ANYTHING at Chicago, I hope you hit Hawk Harrleson….
*Sigh* Why do some great 8th inning set-up men fold like tortillas when they are thrown into the closer’s role? Because they’re not comfortable there. Soriano hits leadoff still because that’s where he is most comfortable. As noted, the Cubs and other teams have tried hitting him other places in the lineup and his production plummets. Does it make sense? Not really; much like the strangely non-quanifiable difference between pitching in the 8th or the 9th. But that’s what the numbers say.
If anyone wants the Cubs to drop him in the lineup to one of the “power” positions from 3-5, that’s fine, but he’s going to have to adjust and, last I checked, the team is in a tight division race and frankly doesn’t have the time to have one of their best hitters struggle for weeks. Their 8-11 (so far) record and reduced offensive numbers without him in the lineup since he broke his finger against Atlanta 3 weeks ago shows that the team is missing him in the 1 hole.
Would Theriot or Fukudome make fine leadoff hitters? Yes. When Soriano comes back, where is he going to bat? Leadoff. Period.
I’m SO sick of having this argument.
Go Royals! Bring the Sox back down to earth.
Hey, AJNRULES: WTF???
I have yet to watch it (but thanks to the link over at FJM, I’ll be sure to when I get home), but Ban Johnson and Alvin Dark? You kidding me?? And why is Ban Johnson included in the “Stat Ray”?? The guy didn’t even play!! I guess his incomperable stat would have been…hmmm…I don’t know…maybe: “Creating the American League.” What an A-Hole. Just sullying up the great game of baseball to this day. Knowing about those players and figures is essential to knowing and loving the game; it does not detract from it!! What’s next?? They go after Rube Waddell and King Kelly?!?!? IS NOTHING SACRED!?!?!
Is anybody else like me, and thinks that only way DR. Stat can win is by attacking with “The Merkle Boner” ???
Joe, Albert Belle was the Indians four hitter in 1995 and 1996.
Anyhoo, I agree with this column. Hafner is hurt and even when he plays is a shell of his former self. I think Martinez can bounce back though he didn’t have extraordinary power to begin with. Wedge batted Sizemore third in the lineup for about two weeks, forgot what sample sizes were, and immediately put him back at leadoff.
This is not a case of Alfonso Soriano, a player who swings at everything and rarely walks. Sizemore has developed into a legit power hitter. While I don’t see him becoming the next Barry Bonds (the Pittsburgh and early-Giants version) I think he can be the centerpiece with the Indians for years to come.
The Blue Jays have a similar ‘players as superheroes’ cartoon that is occasionally played on the big screen at Rogers Centre during inning breaks. It’ll have to be updated now, I guess, since John Gibbons is cast in the Maddon/Professor X role as team leader. The funniest part of that cartoon is that for some reason, Lyle Overbay is cast in the Meg Griffin role. It lists the three player/heroes (I think it’s Rios, Wells, Ryan) with an impressive display of their powers, and then it cuts to Lyle just standing there saying ‘And I’m Lyle Overbay!’, followed by an awkward pause. Comic gold.
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DF,
I’ve gone to the Trop at least half a dozen times a year for the last several years, because my fondness for baseball is strong enough to overcome the atmosphere of The Baseball Crypt at least that much. In those scores of visits, I’ve *never* seen Dr. Stat or these cartoons, which I guess they show at least 30 minutes after the game. Long enough, at least, that they’re shown well after people who don’t want to fight to get out into traffic have hit the bathroom once more, poked through the stands, listened to a couple interviews and slouched out of the stadium.
So I don’t think the Rays’ management has any real investment in brainwashing the fans with anti-stat messages. If they did, they’d certainly be more assiduous about it. Hearing about it for the first time via the internet doesn’t say much about their communications strategy.
If anything, the Rays’ management has had an interest in promoting stat appreciation, because that’s most of what it’s had going for it for the past couple years. A greater understanding of sabermetrics amongst the fanbase would have made for greater patience. For years, people in Tampa Bay have been screaming for more money, more payroll, more stars and more wins. Then staying away from the park when they don’t get any of them. And then wondering why the team wasn’t winning according to the wishful “buy all the all stars” mindset many fans daydreamed with. Sternberg and his group made a fairly good effort to try to get across the value of homegrown talent, exploiting inefficiencies (informed by his business experience) and not locking up payroll in proven marquee free agents who might be edging near sudden decline. That “numbers can work FOR you” mentality isn’t at all foreign anymore.
I think they’ve been pretty successful in at least making sure those ideas are floating around the fanbase, because on the whole some of the most intelligent Moneyball-related conversations have taken place at the stadium. Actually, I originally clicked on Joe’s blog to find a way to post a thank him for the Banny blogs. (Thanks, Joe!) I’ve been reading them off and on this season and, because of them, had a fun and intelligent ballpark conversation with a KC fan on Friday. He was a really nice guy, so hopefully the discussion helped take his mind off the fact that Banny was having a bad night.
Anyway, if Dr. Stat were turning up on the TV or radio broadcasts or regularly piped in before the game or immediately after the game, I’d say there was something sincere behind it other than something sincerely goofy. If anything, that sincere goofiness seems pretty harmless. “Don’t care about the stats, kids; it doesn’t matter what your OBP is; just play a good game.” Because any other interpretation would seem to go against the mindset the front office has been trying to popularize. Well, there’s also the possibility that they know what kind of attitude the cartoon has and don’t care because it’s just a damn cartoon.
Wow. Now I want to see the Jays’ version. That Lyle Overbay part sounds truly great.
They landed in Dr. Stat’s
lairmom’s basement. Fixed that for you, Mr. Pos.Re: the lineup simulator posted above by Dr. Stat:
I tried it out with the most common post-Hafner Indians lineup, using The Hardball Times’ Marcel projections for each batter’s OBP/SLG. Its highest scoring lineups had Sizemore leading off.
1. I thought that Joe Maddon actually knows his stats, and knows all about sample sizes, OBP, park effects and whatnot. Dr. Stat could be a feint to make everyone think the Rays don’t actually know their stuff.
2. The spot for Grady is #4, this way he either gets up in the first inning with at least a man on, or leads off the 2nd. Win-win. I think the best #3 hitter is a player who doesn’t walk much, because that spot doesn’t lead off many innings. Someone like Don Mattingly, Garrett Anderson, Bill Madlock, etc.
I love how the TB Rays consider stats to be “useless” and make you “not able to enjoy the game”, when their front office is one of the more sabermetrically inclined in baseball.
“Anyway, the cartoon Joe Maddon, realizing that this stat ray could destroy what the game stands for, started burning copies of the book Moneyball”
*Joe Morgan Smiles And Nods Happily*
“No, wait, that’s not right.”
*Joe Morgan Pulls A Sad Frowning Face*
“nor do I know what robots had to do with his love of meaningless baseballs statistics.”
They wrote Moneyball!
“his was probably OK, since Puckett hit .288 with a .330 on-base percentage, 13 triples, 4 homers. Those seem like pretty obvious leadoff-hitter type numbers.”
A .330 OBP? Might I suggest you bury this guy somewhere in the bottom third of your batting order?
[...] of Rays fans and ruins the game of baseball. Joe Posnanski (KC Star columnist) mentioned this on his blog this week and I didn’t believe it was real until I found a few episodes on the Rays website. [...]
[...] -If you don’t read Joe Posnanski yet, start now. [...]
Maybe these stupid cartoons are meant for kids?
Thanks for posting this, am I OK to use this information for a school project?