Farmers only: Drew Stubbs is the MVP of something... Celebrate!

by Rick House on Jun 15, 2008 4:40 AM EDT in News

Stubbs

It's a pretty nice honor to have 4 of your guys on an All-Star team, and it's really special when one of them is named MVP of the game. Congratulations, Drew. I hope this break gets the S-Reds going at the pace they were on when the season began.

Triple-A: Daryl Thompson nearly went the distance as the Bats won 4-1. Read more about the game in this FanPost. (Note: Keppinger and Hopper are up to Louisville in their rehab assignments.) UP NEXT: Game 2 at Rochester, 1:35 today.

Thompson

Double-A: Chattanooga lost 8-2. Chris Valaika had a hit, Sean Henry had 2. UP NEXT: Lookouts at West Tennessee, Game 5, 5:35 tonight.

High A: Sarasota's Drew Stubbs was the MVP of the Florida State League All-Star Game as the West prevailed 9-3. Stubbs went 1 for 4, but that 1 was a 2-run homer in the second and proved to be the game-winning hit. Juan Francisco was 1 for 3, Chris Heisey was 0 for 2 and Ramon Geronimo got his two guys out. A splendid showing by our boys. Francisco supposedly took part in the home run derby, but I can find no record that he competed. Maybe he didn't do very well. UP NEXT: New series vs. Lakeland, 7 tomorrow.

Alonso

Low A: Brandon Waring had a double and 3 RBIs in the Dragons' 9-7 loss. Zach Cozart went 3 for 4, and he's starting to heat up. He's batting .351 in his past 10 games. UP NEXT: Game 3 at South Bend, 1:30 today.

College: Yonder Alonso went 1 for 2 with a homer to center and two walks, but Miami choked on the lead and fell 7-4. UP NEXT: The Canes face Buster Posey and Florida State in an elimination game tomorrow at 1 on ESPN2.

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Congratulations, Mr. Stubbs

The Reds’ future looks bright, I must say.

Sounds like the Reds are expecting Keppinger to rejoin the team before the Yankees series next weekend. I hope it’s not Andy Phillips who gets the axe. New Yorkers would love to see him again.

The Rangers-Mets game was rained out yesterday. Josh Hamilton and some of his teammates treated the tarp-covered field as a slip-and-slide, to the delight of the few remaining fans. Stadium security escorted them off of the field. Party poopers.

After seeing that on the evening news, I was curious to see how Hamilton was doing. I know he’s hitting well, but I wondered if he was better than Bruce in CF. He is…but not much better. According to BP’s rate, both Bruce and Hamilton are gawd-awful in CF.

Yeah, I know, some people don’t like Rate. I like it, mainly because I’m lazy. It’s easy, and I’m not convinced any of the other defensive stats are much better. So, for anyone who’s not as lazy as me…what’s the deal with Hamilton’s D? I haven’t seen much of him at all this year. How can a guy with his tools be so bad on defense? Last year, I could see it. He was noticeably rusty and made some pretty bad decisions on occasion. But surely he’s shaken the rust off by now?

All Things Bubba: Because how can you not love a baseball player named Bubba?

by BubbaFan on Jun 15, 2008 7:37 AM EDT reply actions

It's too early to assume any defensive stats are indicative of anything for Bruce

According to THT’s RZR, he’s only had 14 balls hit into his “zones” while in center and he’s fielded every one of those. Given that information, I have a hard time believing that he is 38% worse than the average CF. That makes me doubt Rate even more.

Typically you need twice as much data for defensive stats to get the same level of confidence that you have with hitting stats. As the saying goes, two months of defensive stats is equivalent to one month of offensive. So, we should be as confident about what any of them say as we are about one month of hitting data for a batter. That is, we shouldn’t put too much credence into them just for this season of data. More important would be the trend over time. Since we don’t have a lot of trend for Hamilton, I would guess that he’s not as bad as his numbers indicate this season, but he’s probably also not a CF for the long-term. Speed is only part of the equation in CF, and I think Hamilton lacks a bit on the defensive instinct side of it. That hurts more when you have more ground to cover. He’d probably be a decent RF, much like Jay Bruce and Austin Kearns – both of whom have the skills to play CF, but are better suited to cover less area.

"Hard being everybody’s hero, I suppose." - Buck O'Neil on Willie Mays

by Slyde on Jun 15, 2008 10:24 AM EDT up reply actions

Interesting

Reminds me of what they used to say about Bernie Williams. They said his instincts were terrible. He got by on raw speed and athleticism. And that that kind of outfielder tends to age poorly. I have to say, that prediction turned out to be correct. Bernie’s defense fell off a cliff at a fairly young age.

All Things Bubba: Because how can you not love a baseball player named Bubba?

by BubbaFan on Jun 15, 2008 12:17 PM EDT up reply actions

Did anyone impersonate Piazza on the slip 'n slide?

The UZR ratings agree that Hamilton is pretty bad in CF. -37 runs (projected to 150 games) so far this year. While it’s hard to make any final judgments about his defense this early, he seemed only okay in CF last year to me for a lot of the reasons Slyde gives. With his arm he should be in RF in the long run.

I tried to find an article comparing Rate with the more advanced metrics but I didn’t see any, which may in itself be an indication of how little Rate is used. Part of the problem is that BPro’s stats are not transparent, so it’s hard to compare them with anything. But from what I understand, Rate (and FRAA/FRAR, the other BPro defensive stats) is not based on play-by-play and batted ball data, which severe limits its accuracy. The BPro stats estimate the number of balls a fielder could’ve reached by looking at the pitcher’s GB/FB tendencies, hits allowed, batter handedness, park factors, and some other things. The advanced metrics, on the other hand, look at the location of each batted ball and how hard it was hit to determine whether it could’ve been reached.

by ken on Jun 15, 2008 11:11 AM EDT up reply actions