The opposite of shell-shock

Not Joakim Mariano Putz from 2010. I guess maybe I should have said Blaine Boyer or something.

Somehow, watching Winn and Manny in the outfield reminded me of the outfield play during the home run derby. Maybe Manny and Winn could play 500 with all those kids wandering about and trying to catch a ball while not getting killed in the process.

If they can’t hold on to a 6 run lead with a ever so slightly worse defensive CFer, then they deserve to lose out on the playoffs.

Winn is probably still above average since he has been more than +10 in the OF in three seasons out of the last five, and because most of his defensive value has come in the last few seasons, so it is probably not just based on speed in a way that could crush his entire value in one season. The difference between the two on defense is probably around five runs over a season.

Meanwhile, even as a switch hitter, Winn is awful against lefties, and Jay was an above average hitter in the minors. If he is average in the majors his hitting value far surpasses Winn’s combination of Brendan Ryan’s frenetic batting style, Aaron Miles’s power, and Dan Uggla’s plate discipline and contact skills.

Jay should be playing over Winn for lots of reasons, i guess.

i know i haven’t seen him enough to draw that kind of conclusion

See what I did there?

“weird” as in prolly has somebody chopped up in ziplock bags weird. he looks like his happy meal is short a fry or two.

that there is a broken head connector clause in his contract that I was not aware of? Also, I believe his hand-claw is malfunctioning given his blooper in the All-Star game.

If his leg hinges start to go, we’re truly fucked.

or maybe it’s the hat connector.

The Cardinals don’t have many attractive young players they can afford to part with, but would any team be willing to take a big, Ed McMahon-oversized check and along with serviceable players? I mean, if Mo walked into the D’Back front office and said “I’ve got nothing, boys, except this giant check for 10,000,000,” would they go for it? (Not that the home team has $10 million lying around).

Also, Mo may want to trade for adjustable hats for Matty H. Maybe Holiday is just ordering the wrong size? Maybe his head is swollen? Maybe he washed a wool hat and threw it in the dryer?

of Federalist Papers. I deadpanned, “I hope he makes a catch in the outfield to end the inning, so I can say ‘the defense rests!’” He thought that was hysterical. We were probably the nerdiest two people in section 263.

monsoon season.

because the bottom line is that he is hitting and getting on-base and scoring runs. even if its just luck, who cares? until he stops getting lucky, of course. and now that craig, greene, and jay are all up here, and descalso is hurt, i don’t necessarily feel like he’s blocking anyone that absolutely SHOULD be here.

/runs for cover

but his gritting has been exemplary. Aaron Miles: professional gritter

he’s not a .360-odd hitter, he’s a true talent .280 hitter, MAYBE, which is his career rate (might be a bit lower now with age taken into account). He’s not striking out at a higher rate, he’s making decent contact (better than his career rate), although he IS swinging at more stuff outside the zone (in a small sample size), but he’s also walking at better than his career rate.

I would pay zero attention to his batted ball numbers, to be honest. The vagaries of batted ball classification plus the tiny sample size makes it meaningless. If just THREE of his groundballs/flyballs that he’s hit this season are reclassified into line drives, he’s back up near his career rate of 19%.

Also, I’d rather he hit more groundballs and fewer flyballs – with his extreme lack of power, virtually every Aaron Miles flyball is going to be a near automatic out, with a few doubles down the line and the occasional dying quail that falls in front of an outfielder. He’s better off keeping it on the ground and trying to poke it into holes.

Again, I’m not saying I’m happy with the situation, or that I want him on the team. His presence is evidence of extreme procedural and evaluative deficiencies within sections of the organisation, in my opinion, and is a bad example of some sort of favouritism (he didn’t “deserve” to be here ahead of Greene or Gotay) BUT my worst fears (that of a guy who would literally be the worst player in baseball, by a long shot, making 2 or 3 starts a week and taking at-bats away from better players) largely haven’t been realised.

His spray chart on stlcardinals.com is depressing and amusing all at once. As an aside, why on earth must I choose a stadium in which to view a spray chart? Why can’t I choose “all hits everywhere” or something?

I think I said something along the lines of, that’s what he’s always done. He’s never had any power. Of course his BA is hugely lucky and he sucks, but my point was he doesn’t (and hasn’t) sucked in the way I thought he would’ve. I’m also encouraged that he’s getting the least playing time out of all the middle infielders, and quietly hopeful that he’ll be the man to make way when Freese is back. I reserve the right to take all that back and curse TLR’s name if Tyler Greene is sent down instead.

And did you watch last nights game?

From a man who cautions about drawing any conclusions from small sample sizes?

Miles is absolutely terrible and should not be anywhere near a major league team.

I agree. He’s perhaps not as bad as I imagined, however, and he’s not taking as many plate appearances, either. Plus we literally have NO other players I’d say are hugely more deserving of being the 25th man on the roster. Of course, if that changes (Craig or Greene get sent down, for instance) I reserve the right to lambast TLR/Mo for it.

The fact that he hasn’t embarrassed himself so far this year means nothing.

It means NEARLY nothing, as I’m sure I don’t have to explain to you. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to draw the conclusion that he probably hasn’t got enormously worse (which I assumed he had) over the last couple of years, however.

43 PA says absolutely nothing about his talent going forward compared to the 2466 PA in which he’s been below replacement level – BEFORE he fell off a cliff.

All I’m saying is – how do we KNOW he’s fallen off a cliff, true talent-wise? We’re making assumptions off incomplete data (worse, much of it in the minor leagues) either way.

Miles is dreadful and I don’t want him on the team. But I’m not sure he’s appreciably worse now than he was when he last played for us.

than that .371 BABIP implies by itself

wOBAr is .273

that accounts for the type of luck he specifically has had on each batted ball type in the past. not a major leaguer

7 of their top ten are in Helena right now playing Rookie ball.

Arkansas’ head coach said in yesterday’s paper that he still thinks Cox will sign, but that those higher round picks usually sign in August. The article didn’t give any details, but said Cox was “still negotiating” with the Cards.

afternoon, assuming 12 at the earliest im guessing and probably 1

we could start drinking at 11 – Now no one can even make the trip.

that’s weird…. but you said… nevermind…

I’ve always been very skeptical of WAR so, maybe I’m just trying to find some kind of closure on that.

although I like the idea of just showing top hitters, than putting a simple fielding indicator by the offense stat. so if a player is known by observation and by quantification to be a plus defender, they would get ++ by their name. if they are just generally known to be good at defense, they just get one +. if they are neutral defender, they get no sign or maybe an n for neutral. and the one – for a bad defender, and two — for a horrible defender.

the future kicks ass

The new tracking system is going to give us much more discrete and quantifiable data (zones, hit speed, trajectory, angle of elevation, fielder position, distance to ball, hang time, etc) but, in my head, you still need to know an average run environment for those situations to know how many runs that play should be worth.

An example: Ryan Braun hits a soft grounder to Pujols. The ball is 5 feet to Albert’s right (towards second) but Albert catches the ball in zone 17 and flips it to the pitcher. The ball left the bat at speed X with trajectory Y.

That’s all easily quantifiable info on the ball and where the player is. What I don’t know is the average value of that play because I don’t have a historical record of plays like that. What I’m driving at is a kind of linear weights for defense. If I don’t know the frequency of that example play and the average runs scored when it isn’t made, then I don’t know how much value to assign it. Maybe I’m looking for too much precision but I feel like you need a sample data set before this new data is going to be truly objective and valuable — that may not be available until years after the field f/x system is in place.

Or maybe not, I really don’t know…

might not be a very good idea though. hmm. I just can’t think of any starters that we can afford that would be that much of an improvement.