BB-Ref Rips Figgy: Stats Show Decline Already Evident

Yikes. Just read some of those nuggets. It is not that he was not a good player. It is that he is 31 and no longer a good a player.

about 2 years ago Rev Halofan 18 comments 0 recs |

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Read that yesterday...

And laughed

posted from a yellow submarine.

by Figgi4life on Dec 8, 2009 11:45 PM PST via mobile reply actions

Measuring Figgins according to OPS+ is bottomfeeder sabermetrics.

Many of the better sabermetric minds are pretty sour on profiling player production through OPS/OPS+. And assigning a normative value to 3B production based on recent conventional tendencies is interpreting narrowly, in the extreme. What’s more, the author basically says, hey, if you throw two of his his three most reason seasons (the ones that have best exhibited his maturation and player development — in his words, “flukes”), but leave in his worst seasons — he actually looks really mediocre.

Yeah, no shit. Subtract the forward curve of any distribution and renormalize, and a player ain’t going to look nearly as good.

As someone who works in the machine learning field and does statistical analysis occupationally, I find this a lowball laugher. The only credible criticism in this analysis is that of Figgins’ caught stealing rate. I’ve analyzed that before, and a significant fraction of those CS are actually pickoffs, but Figgins will nevertheless have to adjust in Seattle. Scioscia’s green-light-always-on consent in recent years hasn’t been rewarded by selectivity.

by Turks Teeth on Dec 9, 2009 10:15 AM PST up reply actions

What's "machine learning"? As in, figuring out ways to help machines learn?

by mattwelch on Dec 9, 2009 12:34 PM PST up reply actions

No, it's when the '75 Reds all go to college together.

Angels baseball. We do what we must, because we can -- HaloDutch

by red floyd on Dec 9, 2009 1:03 PM PST up reply actions

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_learning

In this case, NLP and computational linguistics. For the last several years or so pursuing text classification and algorithmic development at Google.

by Turks Teeth on Dec 9, 2009 1:26 PM PST up reply actions

cool

by mattwelch on Dec 9, 2009 3:10 PM PST up reply actions

"We only count it as a fluke in the positive direction"

All ‘negative flukes’ that work for our model are to be considered actual data. Players ‘fluke’ up, never down. You know, like expected wins for any particular franchise. If you beat the projection over and over, you’re just fluky over and over.

“Nothing wrong with the conclusions, nothing to see here, move along.”

by PitPerc on Dec 9, 2009 1:17 PM PST up reply actions

Ha

They been sayin’ this for a couple years now.

It's Always Somethin'

by Funke5ive on Dec 8, 2009 11:54 PM PST reply actions

He's played in less games

Than most on that list.

by TheAntiSox on Dec 9, 2009 1:32 AM PST reply actions

Glorified utility player

tall power hitting 3rd baseman >>>>>>>> figgins

by Quinlan's Goofy Swing on Dec 9, 2009 3:23 AM PST reply actions

Production can come in many forms, this article ignores some.

I would have liked to have seen wOBA used over OPS+ to account for his base-stealing, which is still an asset. Also, zero reference is made to his defensive skills or his positional versatility that adds to roster flexibility. Fangraphs has also highlighed that if you include Figgins’ baserunning [i.e. taking the extra base on a single] you can add almost half a win to his value.

Figgins OPS+ is never going to be impressive, however he is not being signed for his OPS ability.

Going forward Figgins projects to be a 2-3 WAR player with serious upside and is signed to a below-market contract. No one expects him to repeat his 6.5 WAR performance of last season, however if he can produce just half of that each year he will be an asset in Seattle.

by EnglishMariner on Dec 9, 2009 4:46 AM PST reply actions

You don't need to sell him to us...

…we know how good he is

I see red people

by The Limey on Dec 9, 2009 7:22 AM PST up reply actions

You make some good points....

but his base stealing bodes to only get worse than it already is. He has far too many CS and not enough SB. His problem really isn’t his speed but his decision making skills on the basepaths. I wouldn’t cite SB as a reason to like Chone Figgins going forward. Clearly his best days in that department are behind him.

That doesn’t make him a bad player. He can hit for average and draw walks and plays outstanding defense and can go first to third well. I think he’ll be doing that for the next couple of years. I just don’t know if he’ll be doing it for the next 4 or 5.

by Nashdiesel on Dec 9, 2009 10:52 AM PST up reply actions

Yeah

on a team that has dealt with a lot of injuries over the past several years it really sucks to have a guy who can play 6 positions. Good job Baseball-Reference.

Captain, there are doubt's...

by Match Day 5 on Dec 9, 2009 5:48 AM PST reply actions

I love Baseball Reference, but that's some cherry-picked hooey

Let’s see, emphasize Figgy’s two worst statistics — slugging percentage, and raw caught stealing numbers — then pronounce that his two best offensive years were “flukes.” Voila! And whatever you do, don’t point out that by most sophisticated measures, he has been at or near the top of all of baseball in high-percentage bases added through non-SB baserunning.

by mattwelch on Dec 9, 2009 7:22 AM PST reply actions 3 recs

Agreed

the “fluke” statement seemed silly to me.

by ryanfea on Dec 9, 2009 7:52 AM PST up reply actions

baseball idiots

You people do realize this is/was a team sport. Now they think they can buy a championship team. It seems to me baseball, because of this all business attitude, is , has been and will continue to decline. And all you who are down on Figgins, GET REAL!!! After reading all these articles, I just wonder. DO YOU FOLLOW BASEBALL?? I DOUBT IT!
Oh well, thank God for NASCAR

by betrguy on Dec 9, 2009 2:08 PM PST reply actions