Don't look now Braves fans

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Originally Posted by KB21

The point of the chapter is that a hot streak is defined as a streak where a player produces numbers that are out of the ordinary and higher than what his career has been, whereas a cold streak is when a player produces numbers that are much lower than what his career norm is. The whole point of making decisions based upon streaks is that they are not sustainable, and you should be making your decisions based on what the player is the majority of the time.

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Everybody understands that they are not sustainable. That shouldn't even be up for debate any more.

And of course you should base your lineup on what the player is "a majority of the time". But if you know a guy is on a hot streak, you might as well take advantage of it for that period of time that he is hot. I would have to believe that the team doing well falls into the exception category though.

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Originally Posted by Todd4State

So, what's Upton going to do tomorrow?

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You don't know what he's going to do on a certain day and THATS THE POINT. We KNOW La Stella gives the BEST CHANCE of getting on an a given situation so you can extrapolate that out to putting him there. You gain the advantage at the margins and it maximizes your wins over a season. Miguel Cabrera COULD go 0-4 tomorrow but are you bat him 9th because that may happen? No. You don't know what BJ is going to do tomorrow either. I can tell you that he is MORE LIKELY to be a worse leadoff option than La Stella based on numbers, not the "gut"

Your lack of a logical understanding on baseball lineups is startling

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Originally Posted by Todd4State

But if you know a guy is on a hot streak, you might as well take advantage of it for that period of time that he is hot.

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Did you not read the link or are you being willfully ignorant again? You cannot "take advantage of it" because there is no predictability to it. He is ALWAYS most likely to be his normal self the next day.

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Originally Posted by KB21

I'd say that a majority of managers in MLB intentionally do not pay attention to the data.

Remember the scene in Moneyball where Billy Beane goes to Art Howe and tells him that he should be playing Scott Hatteburg because of his superior OBP rather than Carlos Pena, who was a low contact, low OBP, high power guy back then? Art Howe's response was that he didn't care about hatteberg's OBP, and that Pena was the starting 1st baseman. IMO, that is the typical response from MLB managers when looking at the data. I think there are actually very few MLB managers that really pay attention to the data. Most manage on gut feeling, and the league's worst IMO is Kirk Gibson with Don Mattingly not far behind him.

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So, you are basing your thought on that off of a movie that was made to glorify Billy Beane and made to basically make him look like a genius and you think that is reinforced by the worst manager in MLB? That would be about like me taking the movie Titanic as fact on the actual event.

See- here's part of the problem with sabermetrics. They're trying to make it out into this war that doesn't really exist. And so you have these stat sheet baseball fans like Pioneer that only see one side of it and don't see the big picture because it's all about "proving yourself right". And if it doesn't work out like the stat sheet says, just throw out "umm....small sample size."

Think about it for a second. If MLB managers didn't pay attention to the data, then teams are wasting millions of dollars on these analytic depts. Most team would say," well Manager Gibson doesn't use this, so let's just cut it." MLB uses sabermetrics- no doubt about it. Managers use it. Now, they may not use it like sabermeticians WANT them to use it. But they do use it.

That said there is no doubt a human element as well. It's not fantasy baseball. I believe that a lot of the things that sabermetrics people call "luck" more often than not has an explanation. But because they can't see what's going on behind the scenes in batting cage, in the film room, on the training table the only way that it can be explained is "luck". But I do think that most managers use a combination of both stats and gut feeling. Even with sabermetrics, you still have to know situations and possible scenarios and the only way to know and manage through that is to know baseball.

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Originally Posted by Pioneer Dawg

You don't know what he's going to do on a certain day and THATS THE POINT. We KNOW La Stella gives the BEST CHANCE of getting on an a given situation so you can extrapolate that out to putting him there. You gain the advantage at the margins and it maximizes your wins over a season. Miguel Cabrera COULD go 0-4 tomorrow but are you bat him 9th because that may happen? No. You don't know what BJ is going to do tomorrow either. I can tell you that he is MORE LIKELY to be a worse leadoff option than La Stella based on numbers, not the "gut"Your lack of a logical understanding on baseball lineups is startling

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And how do you know LaStella isn't about to go cold?

Again, you are arguing that a manager is an idiot because he made a move that defies convention of the stat sheet and WON NINE GAMES IN A ROW. THAT in a nutshell is everything that is wrong with sabermetrics.

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Originally Posted by Pioneer Dawg

Did you not read the link or are you being willfully ignorant again? You cannot "take advantage of it" because there is no predictability to it. He is ALWAYS most likely to be his normal self the next day.

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Do you know what Upton is working on in the cage? Do you know what's going on behind the scenes with these players? No. That's where that information comes in.

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Originally Posted by Todd4State

So, you are basing your thought on that off of a movie that was made to glorify Billy Beane and made to basically make him look like a genius and you think that is reinforced by the worst manager in MLB? That would be about like me taking the movie Titanic as fact on the actual event.

See- here's part of the problem with sabermetrics. They're trying to make it out into this war that doesn't really exist. And so you have these stat sheet baseball fans like Pioneer that only see one side of it and don't see the big picture because it's all about "proving yourself right". And if it doesn't work out like the stat sheet says, just throw out "umm....small sample size."

Think about it for a second. If MLB managers didn't pay attention to the data, then teams are wasting millions of dollars on these analytic depts. Most team would say," well Manager Gibson doesn't use this, so let's just cut it." MLB uses sabermetrics- no doubt about it. Managers use it. Now, they may not use it like sabermeticians WANT them to use it. But they do use it.

That said there is no doubt a human element as well. It's not fantasy baseball. I believe that a lot of the things that sabermetrics people call "luck" more often than not has an explanation. But because they can't see what's going on behind the scenes in batting cage, in the film room, on the training table the only way that it can be explained is "luck". But I do think that most managers use a combination of both stats and gut feeling. Even with sabermetrics, you still have to know situations and possible scenarios and the only way to know and manage through that is to know baseball.

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No, I'm not basing my opinion of MLB managers on a movie that was made to glorify Billy Beane, who I do feel is the best GM in baseball. I'm basing my opinion on what I see as decisions managers make that are simply nonsensical when you look at the numbers. Decisions like putting BJ Upton in the lead off spot, putting Billy Hamilton in the lead off spot, putting Dee Gordon in the lead off spot, putting Ender Inciarte in the lead off spot.....etc.

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Originally Posted by KB21

No, I'm not basing my opinion of MLB managers on a movie that was made to glorify Billy Beane, who I do feel is the best GM in baseball. I'm basing my opinion on what I see as decisions managers make that are simply nonsensical when you look at the numbers. Decisions like putting BJ Upton in the lead off spot, putting Billy Hamilton in the lead off spot, putting Dee Gordon in the lead off spot, putting Ender Inciarte in the lead off spot.....etc.

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I think baseball is starting to transition a little bit because of the lack of offense. And because of guys like Beane speed has gotten undervalued for years- and even going back to the steroid era. A couple of those guys are really young players like Hamilton, who are going to get better as time goes on. When offense goes down, teams start to look for ways to try to create it. We've seen that in college. I think some teams are willing to take some lumps now in hopes that those players are better down the road. We'll see if it works or not.

At any rate, MLB has got to start getting hitters back to using the whole field, they need to stop trying to pull everything, and they need to stop trying to work the count every single time up and they need to start being aggressive.

If speed were undervalued and an inefficiency waiting to be exploited, Billy Beane would be the first to let you know.

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Originally Posted by Pioneer Dawg

If speed were undervalued and an inefficiency waiting to be exploited, Billy Beane would be the first to let you know.

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Right.**

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Originally Posted by Todd4State

And how do you know LaStella isn't about to go cold?

Again, you are arguing that a manager is an idiot because he made a move that defies convention of the stat sheet and WON NINE GAMES IN A ROW. THAT in a nutshell is everything that is wrong with sabermetrics.

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You don't….. thats the point. Holy Shit. MOST LIKELY is both will be their normal selves. Knowing this you put the better one at leadoff to MAXIMIZE YOUR ODDS.


Again with the correlation here. What is the r-squared here? BJ leading off single handily produced the win streak? Even with his SUB LEAGUE AVERAGE offensive output… he still CAUSED the streak?…... They won despite him leading off.. Same thing with bunting and Cohen. "Oh golly we won so ITS WORKING" is retarded.

Last 12 games WAR
Santana - 0.8
Teheran - 0.6
Freeman - 0.6
J Upton - 0.4
La Stella - 0.4
A. Simmons - 0.3
Kimbrel - 0.3
Walden - 0.3
BJ UPTON - 0.2

But by God its that BJ Upton thats causing these wins

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Originally Posted by Pioneer Dawg

You don't….. thats the point. Holy Shit. MOST LIKELY is both will be their normal selves. Knowing this you put the better one at leadoff to MAXIMIZE YOUR ODDS.


Again with the correlation here. What is the r-squared here? BJ leading off single handily produced the win streak? Even with his SUB LEAGUE AVERAGE offensive output… he still CAUSED the streak?…... They won despite him leading off.. Same thing with bunting and Cohen. "Oh golly we won so ITS WORKING" is retarded.

Last 12 games WAR
Santana - 0.8
Teheran - 0.6
Freeman - 0.6
J Upton - 0.4
La Stella - 0.4
A. Simmons - 0.3
Kimbrel - 0.3
Walden - 0.3
BJ UPTON - 0.2

But by God its that BJ Upton thats causing these wins

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So, winning is retarded? "Hey, we lost but we put the best "maximized" lineup out there!" "We won, bunt Cohen bunted." No- THAT'S retarded. And you go full retard constantly.

No one here is saying that Upton is THE reason that they won, but I bet Freeman's WAR isn't 0.6 if he doesn't have Upton to drive in. But hey, it only took until page 12 for you to put words into my mouth.

Again- you only have your data and not what Gonzalez knows about his team, something you and your stats still have no answer for which would totally change from day to day and series to series. All you have is long range projections. I know this will blow your feeble little mind, but sometimes all the data and all the information ISN'T out there and isn't in black and white. You don't know what's going on with Upton, LaStella, Simmons, Freeman, etc. Gonzalez does. And that's going to carry more weight than what your spreadsheet says.

So, go ahead- keep calling a guy that has more information than you and is winning 9 games with the same lineup an idiot. Awesome.

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Originally Posted by Todd4State

but I bet Freeman's WAR isn't 0.6 if he doesn't have Upton to drive in.

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Uh RBI's don't factor into WAR

Dee Gordon is an All-Star this year. He is hitting .301, has a .356 OBP, 49 R, 42 SB, and a .416 SLG% which is higher than Evan Longoria, Matt Carpenter, Dustin Pedroia, Shin-Shoo Choo, Matt Holliday, Jay Bruce, Jason Heyward, Jacoby Ellsbury and oh yea Chris Davis too and on and on of franchise household name players. Skinny little Billy Hamilton has a higher slugging % than all those names too. You just have a problem with speed at the top of the lineup.

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Originally Posted by KB21

No, I'm not basing my opinion of MLB managers on a movie that was made to glorify Billy Beane, who I do feel is the best GM in baseball.

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Brian Sabean has two World Series rings. How many does Billy Beane have?

Has it ever occurred to you that BJ Upton might just be looked up to on that team by the other players? That he might be viewed as a veteran player that has a powerful voice in that dugout? He has a younger brother that could probably beat the shit out of anyone on that damn team besides maybe Gattis and BJ is the louder tougher older brother. I have a feeling that he is looked up to by everyone on that team just about as a guy that will lead us to victory and Gonzalez uses this by putting him at the front of the line to get their offense started. It is also a motivational tactic by Gonzalez to show BJ that he trusts him to lead his team. Gonzalez is leaning on BJ to be a leader and he's telling him that by placing him atop the order. This is stuff that sabermetrics doesn't account for. You have to be a part of that team to understand it and motivation and team chemistry most certainly have a MAJOR influence on day to day results.

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Originally Posted by Pioneer Dawg

Uh RBI's don't factor into WAR

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I didn't say that they did.

What I was saying is that Freeman is a better hitter with runners on base than he is without them. His average goes up from .284 without men on to .309 and his OBP goes up from .379 without men on to .395. His OBS goes up from .885 to .899 with runners on base.

And since you want to split hairs, I'm assuming you are using fangraphs definition of WAR which factors in defense fairly heavily in a discussion about offensive value. I love WAR, but since this is an offensive only discussion, let's keep the stats offense only based.

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Originally Posted by Todd4State

I didn't say that they did.

What I was saying is that Freeman is a better hitter with runners on base than he is without them. His average goes up from .284 without men on to .309 and his OBP goes up from .379 without men on to .395. His OBS goes up from .885 to .899 with runners on base.

And since you want to split hairs, I'm assuming you are using fangraphs definition of WAR which factors in defense fairly heavily in a discussion about offensive value. I love WAR, but since this is an offensive only discussion, let's keep the stats offense only based.

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There are two discussions going on here. Can you walk and chew gum? One discussion is based only on offensive production. The other is the sacred win streak. Now in win streak discussion SURELY you can't attribute a win only to offense. So you have to look at who is actually providing for the wins during the win streak in that topic.

1. BJ and Simmons still 1-2

2. Jay Bruce is playing 1B for the first time in his career for the injured Votto. Jay Bruce is a power guy. Cincinnati could have gone with a better defensive option in Bryan Pena but he only gets on base at a .292 clip for his career. This allows for Skip Schumaker (.341 career OBP) to take RF. Sounds familiar to a recent discussion around here. Such a tough defensive position that 1B** I of course am talking about the "need" for Rea's glove at 1B even if he can't hit and how Garner couldn't possibly do it.

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Originally Posted by Pioneer Dawg

1. BJ and Simmons still 1-2

2. Jay Bruce is playing 1B for the first time in his career for the injured Votto. Jay Bruce is a power guy. Cincinnati could have gone with a better defensive option in Bryan Pena but he only gets on base at a .292 clip for his career. This allows for Skip Schumaker (.341 career OBP) to take RF. Sounds familiar to a recent discussion around here. Such a tough defensive position that 1B** I of course am talking about the "need" for Rea's glove at 1B even if he can't hit and how Garner couldn't possibly do it.

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The Garner argument is null and void since he's gone...so can we drop that subject? Please?