Evaluating the 2011 Angels: Productivity Rate

Why do you view walks as useless?
-It makes the pitcher throw more pitches
-Frustrates opposing teams pitchers, when they know they HAVE to throw it IN the strikezone or a player won’t swing
-extends innings, instead of out #3 the player draws a walk and gets another batter up. i.e. more pitches thrown, more chances to drive in runs…
-If you are a speedy runner or a good baserunner, makes the pitcher pitch out of the stretch and alter his delivery, Also makes them worry about runners on base.
-If you are also a competent hitter who draws walks, forcing a pitcher to have to be a little more fine with his pitch can lead to a cookie down the middle for you.

I of course would rather have a guy who’s hits 50% of the time are for extra bases, but don’t poo-poo drawing a walk.

Question, do you want Jeff Mathis swinging a lot this season trying to gap the ball for extra bases or have him triple his walk total, and settling for the 40 singles he will hit

Not productive is watching strike three. If you get a walk, you did your job of getting on base. That could be the difference between the guy behind you hitting a solo HR or hitting a 2-run HR. Also, no pitcher is the same with no runners on as he is with runner(s) on. What you can’t quantify in numbers is the distraction a player can be for a pitcher if he is on base. And if you’re a speedy guy, the pitcher won’t be able to get you out of his mind. And if he somehow does, he’s practically giving you 2B. If that happens, you just turned a walk into putting a guy in scoring position for the next batter.

So yeah, I’d say a walk is productive.

Not only does it continue an inning and put a runner on base in the position to be driven in, but batters who show patience generate more favorable hitting counts. There is a reason Howie Kendrick finds himself 0-2 and 1-2 so often. He doesn’t take pitches out of the zone and thus allows himself to be susceptible to curveballs in the dirt. The same goes for Wood and Aybar. Ted Williams, Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle, Albert Pujols…Most of the great hitters in history were at least relatively patient at the plate. They let lousy pitches go by, get ahead in the count, and turn on mistakes. Or, they take first base, force pitchers to give in to the next hitter, and score tons of runs, like Rickey Henderson.

at sabermetricians.

Granted he has some serious formulaic problems in terms of 1) the walks/HBP not being included as productive stats and he hodgepodges RBI with xhb without explaining why, 2) he’s using a new word “Productivity” while not operationally defining it.

I assumed it was a work in progress and he was seeking feedback. What I think is interesting is the attempt to create a measurement for identifying players by batting outcomes. I agree that XBH should be weighted for whether or not they’re doubles, singles, triples etc. Walks and HBP should be equal to singles, if not .80. But if you could make a stat similar to grade point average, assign hitters as A hitters, B hitters, C hitters etc, based on what they have a tendency to do (and at what rate) during at bats, it could be interesting.

This is not my area of strength but it would seem this is a rate stat so since he’s using the “of” function correlation’s not really an issue like converting stats into wins etc. It’s simply of the times one does x; a, b, and c happens to y degree at z value type of thing. Not a whole lot of new correlation stuff needed for multipliers.

having said that, thebigtizzle has a tendency to give opinions their proper treatment and context, but he gives work and effort its proper respect too. I was trying to be constructive. It’s not my strong area, but I’d be interested in where he ends up with it.

How can someone “undersell” something when repeatedly writing about the positives of it? James has given more print to the Angels in recent years than to many other teams. He even bizarrely cast a vote a couple years ago for Jeff Mathis as the best defensive catcher in baseball (for that season) — and there are few of us that would agree with that.

Can you give some more evidence about how James has sold the Angels as less successful or good than they are over the years? I don’t see it, I’m an Angels fan, and I read plenty of the guy.

IMO, there’s just too much victimological howling about some perceived disdain of the sabermetric community toward the Angels. As a fan, it bums me out, because it makes the fanbase that I’m a part of appear weak and aggrieved. Most of the criticism of the Angels is well-placed — the front office undervalues on-base-percentage and overvalues RISP and RISP2. As a result, it spends inefficiently, and has largely benefitted from a relatively weak division with historically small-market teams with smaller budgets than the Halos.

James in particular though has never been one of the Angels persistent detractors. And other bright lights in the sabermetric community are dedicated Angels fans (Sean Smith, for example). When it comes down to it, there’s more disdain for the sabermetric folk from the FO than the other way around.

What James has said of the Angels is consistent with what he’s said throughout his career: some factors of the game are difficult to quantify, there’s more work to be done, and here are a few areas where we could look to try to explain what we currently do not know.

I think someone needed a random creepy guy to be in the backdrop of a movie or TV show, so he got the call.

Although no predictions are ever 100%.

it’s a well known formula. The weighting recognizes that not all hits are created equal.

I didn’t come up with the formula.