Jose Abreu general discussion

[Steve9347]

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/jose-abreu-is-now-complete/

fap fap fap

[Steve9347]

I'm extremely pleased with last night's giveaway, even if the game was a rain-filled nightmare. Sox win, so that's cool, too.

 

[bmags]

Oh man that was great. I think I groaned out loud reading it.

[ILMOU]

I'm extremely pleased with last night's giveaway, even if the game was a rain-filled nightmare. Sox win, so that's cool, too.

 

That is outstanding.

[Eminor3rd]

I have a hard time believing that Placido Polanco has a UZR/150 of 9.9 while Adrian Beltre is at 8.4 since 2010. Does anyone really believe that Polanco has been a better defensive 3B than Beltre over the last 4 years? For these reasons, I have a hard time putting defense at the same value as offense

 

This cracks me up. How many innings have you watched of those guys over the past few years?

 

So the measure of a good metric is "does it confirm what I already think"?

[witesoxfan]

UZR says Beltre's defense is worsening a bit. The guy is 35 years old and has been in the majors since he was 19. Does it surprise anyone that his body might be breaking down at this point?

[Leonard Zelig]

Josh Donaldson, Jason Heyward, and Alex Gordon all play semi-premium to premium defensive positions and they play it incredibly well while being fairly to very productive hitters to boot. It's not flawed whatsoever.

 

In theory, yes, the White Sox are only 4 games better. Much of that depends upon context, which WAR removes from the equation. Still, I feel the difference between 54-58 and 50-62 is incredibly signficant.

 

 

Of course it's a flawed statistic, but no statistic is perfect. It's also difficult to just assume that teams are going to remain the same record wise. The Sox I think would be - they could simply move Gillaspie over to 1B and they'd be sitting right around their same mark - but the A's then have to do something with Moss or Abreu and find a 3B, which cuts 5 positional runs from either's value due to the positional adjustment made in WAR.

 

 

I am 99.9999% sure both of these cannot be true.

[witesoxfan]

I am 99.9999% sure both of these cannot be true.

 

LOL

 

I will take my lashings, please.

 

It's flawed because there is no perfect statistic and no statistic will tell you everything, but it is not flawed because it tells you exactly what it's supposed to. Perfect justification.

[Balta1701]

Stark

Do we talk enough about Jose Abreu? I don't think we do. Here we have a guy heading for one of the greatest rookie seasons in history. And it's about time someone filled you in on just how great it is.

 

The 40-40 Rookie Club: There has been a rookie who hit 40 home runs (Mark McGwire, who bopped 49). There have been a bunch of rookies who hit 40 doubles (most recently Ryan Zimmerman and Hanley Ramirez in 2006). Ah, but our man Abreu is on pace for 44 home runs and 40 doubles. You know how many rookies have ever done that? Not a one. Albert Pujols (47 doubles, 37 homers) came closest. And he didn't spend two weeks on the disabled list like this guy.

 

Extra, extra: Thanks to all those homers and doubles, Abreu would finish his rookie season with 85 extra-base hits if he keeps mashing at this rate for the rest of the year. While that's not unprecedented, it's still a feat that comes along only once every couple of decades. Want to hear the only five rookies in history who have ever thumped 85 or more? Here goes: Hal Trosky (89), Joe DiMaggio (88), Pujols (88), Ted Williams (86) and Nomar Garciaparra (85). Cool group.

 

Slugfest: In a related development, Abreu's slugging percentage is up to an outrageous .624. Our first attempt to put that in perspective: Among the hitters who have never slugged .624 in any season, we'd toss out the names of Giancarlo Stanton, Joey Votto, Prince Fielder, Troy Tulowitzki and Ryan Braun. Even Miguel Cabrera has slugged .624 or better just once. But here's the best perspective: How many rookies have ever had a slugging percentage that high over a full season? None. The current record: .618, by McGwire.

 

So let me ask one more time: Do we talk enough about Jose Abreu? Nooooooo.

[chitownsportsfan]

He's started pulling off fastballs a bit. I think that's the new plan against him, just try and jam him in as much as possible. He's really cleaned up against hanging breaking balls for much of the year but right now it seems he's being thrown nothing but inside fastballs and junk outside. He's missed a few very hittable 90-92 mph heaters the last couple days.

[Jake]

The rookie Abreu vs rookie McGwire matchup will try to determine which is more meaningful: being a bunch older than most rookies or being a bunch more roided up than most rookies

[chitownsportsfan]

I am 99.9999% sure both of these cannot be true.

 

In general, don't trust players' that have a defense driven WAR, the confidence interval on those stats is much lower than offensive numbers.

 

For example we can pretty much nail down exactly how many runs above average Jose Abreu has been worth and then use that to predict his future performance in that category, but Heyward's numbers in the outfield this year? Some of that is just random noise. Guys get hot defensively as well and it doesn't correlate year to year nearly as closely as offensive production.

 

bWAR really loves Adam Eaton based partially their defensive runs above average metric, they have him as a top 12 player this year in MLB. I don't think anyone really believes that. Excellent player, top 50, maybe even top 40 no doubt, but not that good.

 

We can also quibble with the positional adjustments (at this point I think you can make an argument that there are more guys than ever (or at least a long time) that can play good defense but can't hit a lick) but in general it's a no brainer that a CF putting up a 950 OPS (Trout) is probably more valuable than a 1B putting up a 1000 OPS, besides the baserunning and relative defensive adjustments.

[ChiliIrishHammock24]

You know, if you didn't have any numbers in front of you, you'd think Puig's season last year absolutely dominated anything Abreu has done this year. The media never stopped talking about Puig. I get he was also a polarizing figure, and still is, but he was non stopped talked about for his great play as well. Abreu only gets mentioned when people talk about how Abreu should be mentioned more.

[Dick Allen]

I think you are going to see Jose's HR rate drop a bit as teams are starting to stop pitching to him. I also think his HR rate is really spectacular because I don't think the drop in HRs around the league is all fewer juicers.

 

MLB knows that these guys have way more than enough money to stay a step or more ahead of testing. I really think they have deadened the ball a little bit which will give the appearance of a cleaner (PED-wise) game, even if there are many players still juicing, which we would have to be dumber than what some think of Robin's managing not to believe. Andre Rienzo appearances aside, the ball is not jumping anywhere near it used to. I think Hawk was on to something when he used to say the ball was wound like a superball.

[witesoxfan]

I think you are going to see Jose's HR rate drop a bit as teams are starting to stop pitching to him. I also think his HR rate is really spectacular because I don't think the drop in HRs around the league is all fewer juicers.

 

MLB knows that these guys have way more than enough money to stay a step or more ahead of testing. I really think they have deadened the ball a little bit which will give the appearance of a cleaner (PED-wise) game, even if there are many players still juicing, which we would have to be dumber than what some think of Robin's managing not to believe. Andre Rienzo appearances aside, the ball is not jumping anywhere near it used to. I think Hawk was on to something when he used to say the ball was wound like a superball.

 

It could be interesting to tear apart a ball from 2000 compared to a ball from today just to see how much of a difference there is in how it's wound. Or, if you don't want the mess, to weigh them to see the differences there.

[Jake]

It could be interesting to tear apart a ball from 2000 compared to a ball from today just to see how much of a difference there is in how it's wound. Or, if you don't want the mess, to weigh them to see the differences there.

 

Baseballs have a standardized weight. A weight difference would be a scandal

[witesoxfan]

Baseballs have a standardized weight. A weight difference would be a scandal

 

I'm an idiot.

 

Still, it would be interesting to see if there is any difference in the composition of the ball.

[BaconOnAStick]

Anyone worried? I sorta am, particularly with the sudden loss of power since the break.

[JUSTgottaBELIEVE]

This cracks me up. How many innings have you watched of those guys over the past few years?

 

So the measure of a good metric is "does it confirm what I already think"?

I've seen enough of Beltre playing against the sox over the last few years to know he's a damn good defensive 3b. I saw enough of polanco when he was with the tigers and I can't imagine he's gotten better the last 4 years now that he's 38 years old turning 39 in 2 months. I'm not saying polanco is bad defensively, hell he's own gold gloves, but no way he's better than Beltre in my eyes

[JUSTgottaBELIEVE]

Alexei Ramirez and Tyler Flowers have been vastly better. Dunn has been better. That's six spots in the lineup that are better than last season. You also have to consider that we're getting at-bats from Abreu instead of Paul Konerko's corpse, so while Abreu is a massive improvement, the level of production he is replacing was miserable.

 

 

And that's exactly why we need the metrics. I'm not saying they are perfect, but Jake and others have done a beautiful job of explaining their value. They help measure something that is otherwise fuzzy. They tell you something, which is exactly what good stats should do.

 

 

Why? Have you watched every inning they've played? I know I haven't. All I know is that Beltre gets more press for his glove - largely because of his bat. Which, again, is why the stats are useful. We can see that, hey, even though he doesn't get the same level of attention, Polanco has played the field pretty well.

I'll give you ramirez but how has Dunn been vastly better this year? And flowers has improved his average but power numbers haven't improved. I wouldn't say he is vastly better. As we have seen over the past week, if abreu isn't driving in runs this entire offense is lifeless. He is was what makes this thing go. Without him, they are easily in the bottom third in runs scored and bottom 5 in record again even with the "vast" improvement of everyone else in the lineup.

 

Regarding defensive metrics, yes they give you an idea of whether a guy is a good defender or not but my problem is the use of them as the end all be all. If they aren't perfect then they shouldn't be used as a large component in everyone's favorite modern age statistic - WAR. When people start using WAR as the single most important metric when evaluating trades, players's worth, etc. that's where I have an issue. Alex Gordon has the third highest WAR of position players this year, that's comical. Is he the third most valuable player in baseball this year? If you went by WAR, the answer is yes but I would love to hear an argument from anyone on this board that justifies this rank. Again, he's a LF, not a SS, 2b, or C, he's a LF!

[LDF]

I'll give you ramirez but how has Dunn been vastly better this year? And flowers has improved his average but power numbers haven't improved. I wouldn't say he is vastly better. As we have seen over the past week, if abreu isn't driving in runs this entire offense is lifeless. He is was what makes this thing go. Without him, they are easily in the bottom third in runs scored and bottom 5 in record again even with the "vast" improvement of everyone else in the lineup.

 

Regarding defensive metrics, yes they give you an idea of whether a guy is a good defender or not but my problem is the use of them as the end all be all. If they aren't perfect then they shouldn't be used as a large component in everyone's favorite modern age statistic - WAR. When people start using WAR as the single most important metric when evaluating trades, players's worth, etc. that's where I have an issue. Alex Gordon has the third highest WAR of position players this year, that's comical. Is he the third most valuable player in baseball this year? If you went by WAR, the answer is yes but I would love to hear an argument from anyone on this board that justifies this rank. Again, he's a LF, not a SS, 2b, or C, he's a LF!

 

with the way flowers has hit in the past, I would rather see him get a decent to good batting avg instead of

more hrs and batting 200-220.

 

[southsider2k5]

Anyone worried? I sorta am, particularly with the sudden loss of power since the break.

 

No. Not at all.

[Balta1701]

Anyone worried? I sorta am, particularly with the sudden loss of power since the break.

It's not like there was anything we could have done in the first several months to keep him fresher for the late-season grind.

[Jose Abreu]

Anyone worried? I sorta am, particularly with the sudden loss of power since the break.

I wouldn't call it a loss of power, pitchers are just approaching him differently. He just barely missed one last night; it looked gone off the bat.

Edited August 9, 2014 by Jose Abreu

[elrockinMT]

I wouldn't call it a loss of power, pitchers are just approaching him differently. He just barely missed one last night; it looked gone off the bat.

 

 

Wind was blowing in and knocked it down just enough. The Mariner's lost a homer that way too

Edited August 9, 2014 by elrockinMT