Scarey, I don't know where to start. But I'll try to give an outline, (with some old-school KB graphics, to the non-delight of many.)
I think Butcher would agree with me that the #1 Hendry fault (and to restate the obvious, he has many plusses. Yes he does.), but his #1 minus (IMO) is his view of "<b>how to spend a payroll dollar</b>." The way he <i>values</i> things in baseball players. Money.
Uninformed people who didn't read the book say things like "Moneyball is about On-base percentage." No. It isn't. It's about properly valuing baseball players, and exploiting inefficiencies in the market. At the time (late '90's, early this decade) OBP was not given its proper importance by most teams, so the A's (the subject of the book) exploited that oversight, and became a perennial winner despite being a small-market team. (and as the book mentioned, the other team at the time who made a big deal about OBP, the Yankees, won 4 championships in 5 years.)
Nowadays, probably 15-20 of the 30 teams strive to make OBP a big part of their picture; thus, <i>that</i> market is tougher to corner, but crafty GM's are trying to exploit <i>new</i> inefficiencies (the draft, Latin America, advanced fielding stats, positional value, how a player's age relates to value, etc.)
Some teams, inexplicably, still don't properly value OBP. We talked about the unorthodox practices of the Angels, but last time I looked, they were leading the majors in OBP, so there's a reason they're scoring all those runs.
From an SI Joe Posnanski piece:
<b>On-base percentage is just so much bigger than so many people seem to realize. On-base percentage is not some convoluted modern statistic. On-base percentage is not something new ... it goes back to the time before Ty Cobb. On-base percentage is not even about walks. On-base percentage is simply the core of baseball, the very heart of it since the first ball hit the first stick. It is about how many times a batter gets on -- and, conversely, how many times he makes outs. It is what the game is all about.
It isn't about <i>walks</i>, it really isn't. That's one thing everyone seems to miss. You say OBP and everyone says, "Oh, walks." But that's not it. Walks and hits by pitch make up a pretty small portion of on-base percentage. <i>Most of it is hitting</i>.</b>
The Cubs during the Hendry Years:
Rank in MLB for OBP and Runs Scored (Cubs)
2009: OBP-19th, Runs-22nd
2008: OBP-<!--coloro:#0000FF-->
<!--/coloro-->2nd<!--colorc-->
<!--/colorc-->, Runs-<!--coloro:#0000FF-->
<!--/coloro-->2nd<!--colorc-->
<!--/colorc-->
2007: OBP-17th, Runs-18th
2006: OBP-29th, Runs-28th
2005: OBP-20th, Runs-20th
2004: OBP-23rd, Runs-16th
2003: OBP-23rd, Runs-20th
It seems to me from the above graph that 2008 was a lucky aberration, instead of a well thought-out, well-executed "plan." (I could be totally wrong. But every other year of his tenure, we've finished BELOW the league average in both categories.). And that was why, though I was quick to give credit to Jim on certain things, I mainly just enjoyed the ride last year, and wasn't frothing over with praise for Jim, even though I was extremely happy with the Cubs' play.
So that's it in a thumbnail, but doesn't come close to totally covering it. (For instance, Jim refuses to believe the stats that say players reach their peak performance in their mid-to-late 20's, and constantly puts together teams heavy on players on the wrong side of 30).
But these two articles do a good job of explaining how I feel; the second one I've printed out because it's especially pertinent.
1.
Observation vs. analysis
2.
<!--quoteo-->QUOTE <!--quotec--><b>Stats vs. Royals</b>
Posted: July 12th, 2009
There is something about this whole Royals-Yuni Betancourt deal that I can’t quite let go of … and I’m not entirely sure I’m going to be able to get at that something. It is more about being a fan, I think, than being a Royals fan.
A few months ago, I wrote about how <!--coloro:#008000-->
<!--/coloro--><b>one of the more frustrating things about being a fan is when you root for a team that so clearly has a different philosophy about sports than you have about sports</b>.<!--colorc-->
<!--/colorc--> For instance, my buddy Chardon Jimmy is a huge fan of football defense … nothing thrills him more about the game than a team that focuses on stuffing the run and going after the quarterback. It is his burden in life, however, to be a Cincinnati Bengals fan, a team that — even in their rare good years — really doesn’t stuff the run or go after the quarterback. He still loves the Bengals because that’s his team and here in July, just before training camp, he is once again hopeful that his team will live up to his image (“I think they have the making of a dominant defense!”) but he is not unaware that for the last 35 years, he has been rooting for a football team that simply doesn’t see the world the way he sees it.
I suspect this isn’t uncommon. There are undoubtedly fans of fast-paced basketball who find themselves stuck rooting for teams that slowly dribble the ball up the court. There are undoubtedly college football fans of power running attacks who are stuck with teams that are playing the ubiquitous spread offense. There are undoubtedly baseball fans who love power and on-base percentage and find themselves stuck with a team trying to win with speed and defense. And so on. Every so often, you get lucky and the team you love plays precisely the style you love (and also wins) and that’s when it is magical. But it doesn’t happen very much.
I bring this point up again because it seems to me now that the hard truth about Yuniesky Betancourt is that, plainly, either the numbers I am looking at are wrong or the Royals are wrong. There is no middle ground here, no way for both of them to be right.
The numbers I see suggest that Yuniesky Betancourt is a terrible defensive shortstop. Not a mediocre shortstop. Not a talented but sloppy shortstop. Not a shaky shortstop. No. Terrible. Ghastly. Tragic. I’ve already shown you his UZR numbers, his John Dewan plus/minus numbers — they tell the story of a shortstop who was never especially great (despite his ability to make sensational plays) and has progressively gotten worse and worse until now he has no range, no consistency and might be the worst defensive shortstop in the game.
The Royals, obviously, believe this is entirely wrong. The numbers I have chosen to see are wrong. They believe Betancourt is actually a very good defensive shortstop with a chance to be the best. They believe that his problem is that he can be inconsistent but that he has tremendous ability and that with a new start, a stable environment, a firm but encouraging group of coaches and teammates, he can shake off that inconsistency and pull out that remarkable talent.
The numbers I see suggest that Yuniesky Betancourt is the worst every day offensive player in the American League and has been for quite some time. There are countless numbers I can use to make this point — at the most basic level, Betancourt’s .299 on-base percentage since 2007 is the worst in baseball for anyone with 1,300 or more plate appearances.
<!--coloro:#0000FF-->
<!--/coloro-->Anyway, <b>numbers</b> suggest Betancourt is a terrible offensive player. But the Royals, obviously, believe this is entirely wrong.<!--colorc-->
<!--/colorc--> They will mention a statistic of choice (he has a lifetime .279 batting average), but more they will talk about how he has the attributes of a potentially good hitter, he doesn’t strike out much, he has a little pop in his bat, and (once again) given that new start he might become a good (not necessarily great, but good) offensive player who will help the ballclub.
The numbers I see suggest Betancourt is in serious decline. He’s 27 now — he’ll be 28 in January — and the fact that his defensive statistics are in a free-fall, the fact that his offensive numbers fell off last year and have fallen way off this year (at age 26 and 27, which are often a players’ peak years), the fact that his pop-up numbers are on the rise — this year more than 21% of his fly balls are infield pop-ups — and the general belief that he has never been the hardest worker in the first place, all of these might lead you to believe that he is not going to get much BETTER from here on out.
But the Royals, obviously, disagree with this too. They see a guy who is only 27, a guy who still has a chance (given a fresh start and the right kind of attitude shift) to improve, perhaps only a little, perhaps a great deal.*
*This is pure opinion, but I have come to believe that the Royals biggest problem lately may have to do with their <b>philosophy about a player’s age</b>. It is SO important that a team understand the aging process of a player. I’m not here to tell you that I have it right and they have it wrong. But I will say this … the Royals signed a 32-year-old Jose Guillen in the belief that he would maintain his skills. He hasn’t. They traded for a 28-year-old Mike Jacobs in the hope that he would continue to hit with power while improving his weak spots (like his on-base percentage). So far — despite a good attitude and worth ethic — he has seriously gone backward. They traded for a 29-year-old Coco Crisp in the hope that he would provide an every day leadoff man and stability; he never looked entirely healthy and then he was out for the year.
Now, they’re trading for a 27-year-old guy who has shown signs of decline the last year and a half and they hope he will stem the tide and actually improve his earlier performance. I don’t know … lots of things are possible, but it seems to me that if you always are expecting someone 27 years or older to improve, or someone 32 years or older to sustain, well, that’s probably not a winning philosophy.
Now look: I could be misreading the numbers. I could be looking at the wrong numbers. And I would never write off the possibility that the Royals (who have much more information and have spent much more time studying the matter) are entirely right and I’m entirely wrong. In fact, I hope that’s true. I have always hoped for that.
But it gets us back to the point: Either the Royals are right or the numbers (as I look at them here) are right. For years now, Kansas City fans have been stuck rooting for the Royals to beat the numbers. And, for years now, the numbers have been kicking the Royals butts.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
There's nothing better than to realize that the good things about youth don't end with youth itself. It's a matter of realizing that life can be renewed every day you get out of bed without baggage. It's tough to get there, but it's better than the dark thoughts. -Lance
