What ever happened to Jorge Cantu?

[Greedy22]

Damn I missed jej take over this thread, I'm pissed I missed it. Too many haters, cantu was average at best.

[jej]

Basically what Jeffy said.

You can never look at just one stat like you seemed to insinuate. I just maintain that with OBP, SLG, and wOBA, there isn't much need for AVG. it tells you less than every one of those stats I mentioned. It is misleading because if you look at the average of one guy vs another, you are going to assume he is better at getting on base. But that may not be the case.

If you see a .280 guy and a .265 guy, you are gonna take the first guy. But, it turns out their respective OBPs are .330 and .350. Whoops.

I brought up wOBA because it does exactly what you want. It weights the hits. It factors in the type of hit/walk or whatever.

You can never you one or two stats and know everything. But to me, average is in about 8th in terms of useful offensive stats. I still tend to use the triple slash a lot, but ever just average by itself, or just with HR and RBI or something. Ever.

[jej]

Damn I missed jej take over this thread, I'm pissed I missed it. Too many haters, cantu was average at best.

[Greedy22]

[KingsnQueens7]

Friggen stat whoopers. Just remember and respect the player he was.

[Guppyfighter]

Friggen stat whoopers. Just remember and respect the player he was.

An average one?

[KingsnQueens7]

An average one?

damn right!

[jej]

That's exactly what I'm doing. It's the other people who think he was good.

[Vampirate]

There is no such thing as a player that only walks.




As for Dunn's OBP skills.

OBP is directly influenced by a hitters ability to hit for extra base power and their patience. It's two-fold. Being very patient will allow you to naturally draw more walks and more strike outs. The Ben Zobrist's of the world that don't carry a ton of power, or 30 or 40 home run power are so patient that they will work walks all on their own. But they still need to do other things to make these walks happen. You can't be a really bad hitter and just draw walks and create value. Albert Pujols' regression and decline the last few years is from him being less patient and chasing more pitches outside of the strike zone. You'd have to ask him directly why he was doing this, but he started to chase pitches he had never chased before. The rest of his game remained the same.

The other part is being a high power hitter makes pitchers work around you. With Dunn. His power was zapped. A lack of bat speed mainly. So pitchers were no longer afraid to attack him by simply throwing strikes. When a guy has the ability to drive himself in at any point in the game because he has consistent 40 home run power, pitchers will begin to throw pitches out of the zone more hoping he will chase and settling with a walk if it happens. It's what made Bonds' walk rate sky-rocket to record breaking totals.


You can expect to see Giancarlo Stanton's walk rate improve this season. He is going to get less pitches to hit as the season progresses and his power sustains. Which will cause an increase in his OBP and his Slugging will remain high. If his power falls down, then his walk rate will too since he isn't necessarily a very patient hitter on his own.


So high walk rates are driven by two things. Having the power that pitchers fear you, and being so patient that you just work them. You won't draw walks though if you are a bad hitter. Pitchers will attack you and go after you, especially if they realize you are slumping. So until you show you can beat them again, you won't be getting walked unless it's completely accidental. Ben Zobrist keeps a high walk rate because he crushes doubles and does other things. If he stops hitting, his walk rate will drop. But his patience will force walks all on their own.


As for singles driven obp. We know what that looks like. That's Ichiro and Ryan Theriot (to a lesser degree). It's still a mediocre obp and their batting average is very misleading because they are empty singles with no walks. Pitchers aren't afraid of them and their batting average tells you nothing.

It sounds like the chicken or the egg scenario. Dunn was always a .250 type hitter, probably lost some bat speed which made him getting hits on any consistant basis worse. As soon as this started to happen, he probably pushed himself too much which made him impatient. things kinda snowballed as pitchers we're not afraid of him anymore, coupled with his frustration at the plate and you see the results. In short, he started to swing and miss alot more, AVG dropped, strike outs rised and confidence hit rock bottom, then one giant slump hit.

As for the power begats walks, I agree with this as a good example was Jose Bautista 2 years ago, nothing more needs to be said here.

Ichiro is kind of a bad example though as as you're fully willing to have a singles hitter who can reach second base anyways, and can easily reach home plate from first and easily from second by bloop hit, singles etc.

Also, ichiro actually had a very good OBP (around .370 I think) due to the amount of hits he would get, again bad example but I know what you're getting at.

Basically what Jeffy said.

You can never look at just one stat like you seemed to insinuate. I just maintain that with OBP, SLG, and wOBA, there isn't much need for AVG. it tells you less than every one of those stats I mentioned. It is misleading because if you look at the average of one guy vs another, you are going to assume he is better at getting on base. But that may not be the case.

If you see a .280 guy and a .265 guy, you are gonna take the first guy. But, it turns out their respective OBPs are .330 and .350. Whoops.

I brought up wOBA because it does exactly what you want. It weights the hits. It factors in the type of hit/walk or whatever.

You can never you one or two stats and know everything. But to me, average is in about 8th in terms of useful offensive stats. I still tend to use the triple slash a lot, but ever just average by itself, or just with HR and RBI or something. Ever.

I'm one of those people that pretty much looks at Avg, then OBP, the Slug, the hits, doubles, HR, walks individually then adds them all up to determine how well a hitter hits. In other words the AVG stat is one piece to the puzzle, an importanit one but still a piece. Aside from RBI I view each of the hitters traditional statistics as being important in the grand scheme of things. I also believe RBI is not a useless stat when given it's context(yes again, not a good one for judging a batter alone).

I understand fully why wOBA is important, even if I critisize it, I respect it just like any advanced stat. Obviously a wOBA os .400 is excellent, just like a OPS of 1.000 is excellent. (maybe not to the same degree but you get my meaning). The rule of thumb in hitting really is the higher the number the better. With pitching it's the opposite except for WAR and strikeouts.

As for if wOBA is the best stat to use to judge a player's performance, maybe it is. I really don't know all the sabr stats and how they work to give any sort of insight into which stat is the best and why.


As for me, i'm kinda in the middle, I prefer to use many traditional stats but understand the importaance of sabr ones, even if I will never understand the math behind them, i'll understand the concept.

As for Jorge Cuntu, he seems like a decent contact hitter with decent pop noted by his homeruns. That's probably where the posotives ends though judging by his horrible OBP and pedestrian OPS.

Cannot comment on his fielding skills so no comments here.

[UPRock]

Papirico got banned. I really lol'd with his comment.

[Nomar]

If you can get banned for sarcasm I'm in trouble.

[Greedy22]

That comment had me dying...

[texanmonstra011]

His visa expired

wow

[texanmonstra011]

Hes still SOMEWHAT young right? around 30 years old?