Pirates Outright Ryder Ryan

mlb1225;

I think Bryan Reynolds is one of the most overrated players in MLB. He built a rep being the only decent player on the Pirates and playing CF. But people that watched saw he wasn’t a particularly good defensive CF, he covered some ground but his throwing was weak and inaccurate.

A few years ago I was arguing with you that Reynolds belonged in LF. Now he’s there and hits decently, but is sort of like an Andrew Benintendi in his good years…but not as good. I watched a lot of the Pirates-Padres 2 series recently. Reynolds still has the weak arm and still throws inaccurately. There was a quintessential play in which he overthrew the SS that came out for a cutoff throw in front of 3B which a Padre was running to. The reason for the overthrow was that Reynolds can’t throw on a line, so he throws up in the air (which takes more time to get to where it’s going). But not only did the ball go over the cutoff mans head, it also went over the 3B’s head that was standing on the bag. I believe the Pitcher backed up the play which stopped the runner from scoring (in football a weak armed QB that has to throw the ball high in the air usually washes out as defenders can catch up to the pass as it comes down). I saw Reynolds doing this 2 years ago, he obviously hasn’t improved.

Your statistics sound impressive. I don’t know if you played sports. But strongly suggest you read up on playing fundamental baseball, then watch a lot of Pirates games.

The_Fan_27;

OK….

Did you know that this year in MLB the average batting line is: .244 / .313 / .401 / .714?

Did you know that a .244 BA vs. say a .275 BA for a full-time player averages out to less than one (1) more hit a week? And that the corresponding averages are similar.

Do you think that a SS that butchers plays multiple times a week that causes momentum changes for his team has to hit well over .300 with corresponding power numbers to offset the damage he’s doing on D? To his pitching staff that has to throw more pitches to make up for his mistakes and then gets out of the game faster?

SS is a defensive position. I’ll take a sure-handed player that knows when to eat the ball instead of throw it wildly to a base to show off his arm, thereby costing the team.

The fact that you don’t get this perspective is understandable. You’re a poster on an Internet chatroom board. The fact that a MLB organization doesn’t get it dooms them to second division finishes.

mlb1225;

If that’s how you’re scouting, Fine.

Before there were computers, businesses used to use “Efficiency Experts” (believe that went back to the original Rockefeller). They would tell business supervisors which hand the worker on the assembly line should use to pick up an item, how long it should take to add their part, and how many steps to walk over to put item down back on he assembly line (Charlie Chaplain parodied that in a sequence in one of his movies…I forget which).

There are 2 ways economists and investors use to measure what they follow: 1) Macro / Fundamental and 2) Technical.

Although Branch Rickey was using stats going back to 1915 in baseball (he believed in OPS over BA), he was an outlier. Pro sports had the first (Macro) from their inception until the late 1960’s / early 1970’s. Only then was technical added. I find those things interesting. But I don’t think they’re a Bible as many younger people do and have done for 40 years now. And many MLB FO’s swear by them – like the SF Giants. Proof is that they work to a point. Once someone finds a pattern and it becomes popular, it fails. (Or as Joe Granville the father of modern Stock Market analysis put it: “When I find the key to the market, they change all the locks”.)

For a long time now players play for their stats. After all, it’s what their agents need to negotiate their contracts and maybe go to arbitration to argue for their salaries. My issue is this:

That has little to do with a team winning or losing. If it did, pre-season predictions for both individual players and teams wouldn’t be so far off. Too many variables that change too fast.
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“”Analytics will tell you about the process. The numbers you are looking at only tell the results.”
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What your post brought back to me was the “Lucky/Unlucky” argument the analytic people use to justify their being wrong. That argument to me is a built-in excuse for the people making their living with the analytics – because what happened didn’t happen as the variables in my algorithm said it should, said player / team was “Lucky” / “Unlucky”. Same for FO’s justifying the techniques their coaches are demanding their player use.

I’m older and look at my medical markers. Stats that tell me things about what my body is doing. Working with world-class doctors it puts the percentages in my favor. But every human body is different, reacts to daily occurrences differently, and every human body is constantly changing as its cells are constantly dying as new ones form.

I enjoy watching baseball games.