Yeah, I don’t get the logic behind it. Usually, it’s the handedness of the pitcher but it doesn’t appear to be the case here, even though he did bump Victorino up against Sabathia and down against Bush/Suppan.

Dave, as far as I know, agents tend to cherry-pick statistics and organize them in deceptive ways to maximize the perception of their client’s value. I believe the hold (like a save, but not for closers) was created by an agent or at least created for the purpose of contract negotiations for relievers.

I think Dick Allen is a Hall of Famer, but then again, I really don’t care about the HoF anymore.

I was a big fan of Richie Allen as a kid and have read a website for people who want to see him in the HOF. Some of the people on the site who write against HOF for Allen use a lot of modern stats that you guys use.

Have you guys looked into this already and can you share your feelings? If you want to see the site it is:

http://www.expressfan.com/dickallenhof/

Dave

Sorry but I’m too lazy to study up on the non traditional stats right now. I only know the stats that are on my baseball card collection from the late 60s and early 70s.
DO these stats get used in contract negociations or do they go by the old baseball card stats?

It’s basically Albert Pujols and no one else at the top. A long gap between Pujols and Lance Berkman and Chipper Jones.

Wasn’t picking on Dave, I’ve just come into some conversations with ignorant phillies fans, as every base has their own.

As an A’s fan living in Philly, when you try to talk stats with them, i hear, “ok A’s fan, i know you love Beane, and you want to be him, and live by Moneyball, but watch a game. “- Or something to that extent. Little do people know Moneyball hardly got into sabers, but focused on OBP.

Anyway, where would you have Howard as MVP this year?Roughly i have him pegged in the low 20′s.

Unless you were speaking in generalities.

Yeah, I wasn’t a fan of the switch with Werth but it worked out. As they say, “the ends justify the means.” Manuel has been fortunate with some of his decisions simply working out and going against the odds. Regardless of the success, he is definitely not a great tactician.

If he pulls Burrell out of the game for Bruntlett again…

Solid stuff. I really have gotten into the Sabers of baseball, but have gotten into some heavy arguments with people, who essentially came to a gun fight with a knife.

It’s hard to talk stats with people because there are way too much of the ” you don’t even watch the game, stats don’t tell everything ” crowd.

It’s frustrating, because they refuse to admit you’re right, and insist on the eye test, which is completely insane. It’s times like that, when you just want to laugh and walk away, but its near infuriating.

Taking the discussion a step further, I do not have Howard in my top 15-20 MVP in the NL. I refuse to put stock in a player who was 5th? i believe VORP on their own team. I also refuse to put much stock in a player who by all means should have been platooned this year against lefties in a power position.

Howard posted a sub .900 OPS 48 HRs, thats actually quite a feat. I mean, thats near impossible to happen.

On a sidebar, I came across an argument where someone pointed out Manuel was crazy for hitting Werth 6th against CC, posting his .650 slugging percentage, and plus 1.000 OPS against lefties. When people like Rollins, Victorino, Utley, Howard especially and Burrell were all inferior. The person got basted by others saying Victorino came through, but it wasn’t the right move.

I wholeheartly agreed that Werth should have been where Victorino was game 2, and vise versa game 1. I would have even been in favor of dropping howard, i mean their slugging and OPS difference was just insane.

I’m sure you have people who disagree with you, but keep doing what you are doing. Some people are just completely ignorant when it comes to stats, as annoying as it may be.

Looking forward to your response, and will continue to follow your site.

That’s the beauty of the ambiguity of the word “valuable” I guess. No one said it has to or does not have to factor in “clutch” hitting, so neither you nor I are wrong with our philosophies.

If a guy has a lot of RBIs but poor clutch hitting stats, I would not give him a lot of points for his RBIs in my MVP evaluation.

My argument against that is that every RBI counts the same in the box score. You don’t get 1.5 RBI for a “clutch” RBI nor are you debited 0.5 RBI for driving a runner in when your team is already up by 10 runs.

It would be unfair to penalize a hitter because he plays in a high-powered offense where his team is much more likely to be up by a significant amount of runs. For instance, how much more likely were the Phillies to sport a 7-run lead than the Washington Nationals?

If you’re interested, there are some advanced metrics out there that do try to take into account the context of the situation. FanGraphs most prominently logs them with their metrics WPA (Win Percent Added) and LI (Leverage Index). Here’s their glossary.