Jim Gilliam?

I'm not even touching the issue of how much more heavily OBP should be weighted.

Furcal, SS
Martin, C
Nomar, 3B
Kent, 2B
Ethier, LF
Kemp, RF
Loney, 1B
Jones, CF
Penny, P

"I did a lot of changing around," he said. "Maybe that's why I'm not there anymore. Not that I'm starting to talk about it, maybe I screwed it up.""

- the guy sounds broken down, i hope that was just a wierd quote.

Well, as Cher said in "Moonstruck" after she slapped Nicolas Cage, "SNAP OUT OF IT!"

(That will be the only time I ever quote Cher here or anywhere.)

Not to denigrate his recent performance, cause that's how you're supposed to hit, after all. But I think he's very soon gonna start seeing a lot more stuff aimed at the paint. Now, that's all just my observation, and it may not be correct. But for the stat to acquire the power of language it has to reflect the reality of the game. This case, I don't think OPS does it very well.

But I'm not sure how that invalidates the usage of OPS here.

I just read the chapter on batting order in "Baseball Between the Numbers". Didn't Bill James argue for batting your worst obp guy 3rd and the rest doesn't matter? If so, Nomar is a great pick for batting 3rd.

Nothing personal - really, I don't want this to have anything but a conversational tone - but are you looking at his numbers at all before you write your comments?

In his career, Jones has walked in 10 percent of his plate appearances. In the past week, Jones has walked in 17 percent of his plate appearances. Basically, Jones walked 1.5 times more last week than you'd expect.

Your comment suggests that his OPS increase was tied up in an uncharacteristic jump in his walk rate. This couldn't be much farther from the truth.

There are two separate issues here. One is the merits of OPS, which no one is really arguing. The other is the discussion of Jones' performance on the past week, and what I'm seeing is exactly what I'm kinda fighting against - forming conclusions based on inaccurate impressions.

It's not like I haven't seen Jones flailing at a lot of pitches. But the fact is, over the past week, he's been taking enough pitches to improve his walk rate slightly, while also making good contact with the pitches he has swung at. He has not been a good hitter over the past week - he's been great. We can try to rationalize to fit into the collective 2008 image of him flailing at everything, but isn't it more accurate to note that, at least until Sunday, he had really snapped out of his slump?

I know it's early but the fact that we're in last place and behind the Giants which we all like point and laugh at is just crushing my soul right now.

Red Rum!

http://ceruleanst.livejournal.com/151753.html

I will be trying to teach my young one not to pull the ball.

3 Dog Night is as underrated now as ABBA was before that Musical. Somebody write a musical on 'em, quick. Hutton's a LA dude with Irish heritage, too!

Anybody here involved with the Motorhead record?

Don't forget to have some tires handy to burn tomorrow. (<- spoken in Andrew voice)

I think the only place we differ is that I would say 10% to 17% is a really significant increase in walk rate--or would be, if the sample size weren't uselessly small--and that increase is pretty closely reflective of what I thought I was watching.

As I said, I'm not knocking his performance; he's reacting exactly the way you're supposed to.

My only defense of Nomar batting third is that maybe he's just trying to get him going? I don't know, maybe he feels more comfortable there, psychologically? Otherwise I don't really get it either. I know we don't want to rush Andy LR, but I sure do hope to see him starting in a month.

41 - "Now that he's doing that, the pitchers will adjust back, and start throwing him better pitches."

I'm not convinced Jones is completely out of his slump - though I'm guessing he's done batting .100. But I'm not sure about this one statement. Is the theory that Jones has only been seeing pitches miles out of the strike zone or fastballs down the middle, that pitchers have gone out of their way not to throw him anything in between? I suppose it's possible, but it seems pretty unfair as theories go. And in any case, at least he's hit the fastballs. I'm sure Furcal has hit a fastball or two as well.

I don't really want to be the site's regular Jones defender, but I don't see why we can't give the guy some credit when credit is due.

Not sure if this has been said, but is Jones a 3 true outcomes type of player?

I'd say it's not even a theory at this point, more of an hypothesis.

But, yes, that's what it's looked like to date. And yes, he has nailed the fastballs. No question credit is due.

60 - So what I'm hearing from you guys is that Jones only hits easy pitches, while all the other Dodger hitters get hard pitches, so when they get hits (if they get hits), those are for real.

I'm sorry, I'm just not following the logic.

Sometimes, the pitch is not two feet outside, and he hits it real hard.

I'll really be happy if Andruw draws 100 walks, but I'm more comfortable hoping for 40 homers.

I guess what it boils down to is the suggestion that Jones has gotten easier pitches to hit than other batters - even though he's been swinging at everything.

1. Nearly everyone is pressing. Outside of Furcal, who has been playing well since ST, and maybe Ethier and Kent, all the rest of the players are trying to do too much. Whether its contract related, pride, inexperience or whatever, the fact that this team just can't hit when someone is on base has to be somewhat related to trying to do things that they are not capbable of doing right now.
2. I'm worried about Matt Kemp. Not because of the daily game of whether or not he plays, its his approaches at the plate. Maybe its fitting square peg into a round hole but he seems to try and pull everything, he gets behind in the count (some believe because he's not getting any calls) but that usually leads to a ground ball to the left side, often rolling over on an outside pitch. He has to start working counts and getting pitches to drive rather than defensive swings that lead to ground balls.
3. Is Russell overdue for his slump now? Maybe, but lets wait another month or so to call that conclusion.
4. Jones' struggles overshadows dark hole at 3B. Despite "The Solution's" fine play in the field and good plate discipline, the fact remains that the Dodgers need better production there. Personally I think the solution is starting his rehab assignment but the Dodgers won't win unless that is fixed in the next few months.
5. Starters have pitch with better command, shorter innings. For the last week or so, the pattern has been for starters to have one bad inning that blows up the game, plus none have lasted into the 7th in over a week.
6. The Dodgers won't win if Saito and Broxton go 4-5 games without meaningful appearances.

I know this stuff isn't that revealing but is a collection of what I have seen over the first 3 weeks of the season.

Pierre, Kemp, and Kent have combined for 5 walks on the entire season.

What's that you say? It was a single in two at-bats? Never mind then.

Kent, Loney, Ethier, Pierre are hitting about where I think they will for the entire season.

If the offense is to improve, Kemp's going to have to get hot (take walks), and LaRoche needs to come back with power at 3b.

If those things dont happen, you're looking at a .500 team that will finish 10 games or so out of 1st place IMO. Replacing the 5th starter with Kershaw by June could give the team a bump of +5 over .500 I think.

The higher a player is in the batting order, the more plate appearances he will have. That's been the complaint that we've all had about Pierre, right? He was hitting too high in the order and getting too many ABs in high leverage situations.

LAT'd from last thread:

RE: 333

I never quite got that "Dark Side of the Rainbow" thing -- it seemed awfully arbitrary. Back in film school I used to put on the gunfight-in-the-snowstorm climax from "McCabe & Mrs. Miller" backed with Pink Floyd's "Echoes."

That seemed to work just as well -- maybe even better, with better source material on both fronts.

Editing is like that.

Nothing like this is going on with Kemp. This seems like an outlier, a very extreme example of the normal battle over the strike zone, so extreme that it has been visible on TV.

I think it's just an interesting phenomenon--doesn't relate to anything. But who knows? We don't even have enough numbers yet to be sure it's really happening.

Getting the right players in the lineup is paramount. Everything else is gravy.

And I am just not buying into the players not knowing their roles, the guys that are playing now were the guys that were in the lineup for most of spring training outside of Kent and Nomar.

I just think that there is general frustration for the poor start and people start looking for answers when there may not be any except for this is baseball where you fail a lot more than you succeed. Unfortunately for the Dodgers, almost everyone picked this time to fail.

Patience is the key word for the next few weeks.

I ran the simulator again with the new lineup. Dodgers win expectancy went from 51.50% to 50.67%, slightly outside of the margin of error (1 stdv). vr, Xei

"Echoes" played to the ending sequence of Kubrick's 2001 is my favorite.

He's been a different hitter, and isn't that the crux of this whole debate? A week ago, some were calling for him to be benched or somehow deployed to the minors. Jones has shown he can still adjust. I find that to be quite important. As Sunday indicates, he'll still have his bad games - and as I defend him, he'll probably go 0 for 5 tonight - but the fact that we've now seen him adapt to circumstances, I think is very relevant.

2007: 12.29 PA/BB (or .081 BB/PA)
2008: 10.45 PA/BB (or .096 BB/PA)

The 2007 Dodgers walked 511 times in 6282 PAs; this year's rate would yield 601 walks, instead. (I have no idea if that's a meaningful increase though.)

110 -111 I almost wrote something like, "might depend on if the walks are replacing outs or hits."

The Brooklyn record is 732 by the 1947 team. Reese walked 104 times, Stanky 103, Walker 97, Robinson 74, and Reiser 68.

I haven't noticed Kemp swinging at the types of unhittable pitches Andruw does. When Kemp gets pitches like that, he generally lets them go. But he doesn't get very many pitches like that.

The pitches Kemp is swinging and missing on seem to be of the variety that are almost, but not quite, strikes, whereas Jones has had moments when he would probably swing at a pitch even if it was intentionally aimed at the Durham Bull.

One reason Kemp seems to be all screwed up is that someone seems to have advised him to always take the first pitch. Taking more pitches is fine advice in theory, but it only works if you're taking the bad ones and swinging at the good ones. Almost every first pitch that Kemp takes results in strike one, meaning he starts out most of his plate appearances at an 0-1 disadvantage. Sample size caveats apply, but so far this year Kemp has had an 0-1 count in 58% of his plate appearances. Last year, this number was 42%.

Dorothy screaming during the tornado in unison with the soul singers in track 1

Money plays when Dorothy arrives in Oz and the movie goes to color, the munchkins march to the beat

Black and Blue: pans back and forth between the Wicked Witch and Dorothy during the chorus....Black, black, black (shows witch) and blue, blue, blue (shows Dorothy)

The Lunatic is on the Grass: Dorothy is introduced to the scarecrow during this song, he dances around like he's rockin out to Floyd.

I'm sure that I'm not remembering it all but it's worth a try, I really enjoyed it.

They finished in third place, 8 games out.

The hardcore pitching and defense wins more games. Example: the 2003 Dodgers, and they did not have anything close to an offensive juggernaut

Boston had one of the top offenses but also lead the league in pitching.

I would say, I guess having a good offense is more fun but its hard to win 7-5 everynight.

Nobody ever won a baseball game by playing a certain style. Teams win baseball games by having good players make good plays. The style of play is, in my view, completely irrelevant. You just need good baseball players. It really is that simple.

Look at the Rockies. In the O'Dowd era, they have tinkered with every style of play under the sun. Small ball, defense, high-priced pitching, sluggardly sluggers. None of it worked, until they got a bunch guys on their team that could actually play baseball. Then they won the pennant.

The more one focuses on a style of play being a reason for winning, the further removed one gets from reality. Teams have won World Series with outstanding pitching (1965 Dodgers), extraordinary defense (1914 Braves), incredible hitting (1955 Dodgers), well-rounded teams with no superstars (1998 Yankees), and teams consisting of a couple of superstars plus a bunch of spare parts (1988 Dodgers). You can win with any style.

All I know is that in RBI Baseball I would always give my leadoff guy the highest avg. and most speed and no power, with the #2 being similar. #3 good avg, ok speed, but with more power. #4 and #5 guys had no speed so so avg, but had the highest in power. everyone else was even. I could always generate a lot of runs with that configuration.

Go Dodgers!

vr, Xei

But its another leadoff home run for Furcal.

Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun

Eusmus, when ever I see your name it reminds me of the movie Osmosis Jones© (2001)

To properly understand what has or has not been going on with Andruw, I think you need to look a little closer. If he could sustain his current walk rate that would constitute a whole new level of performance. 17% for 650 PAs = 110; a little too much to hope for. Myself, I'd be happy with the 64,82,70 he put up in 2005-07.

Let's go Bison!

129 - only if the Dodgers can solo homer the Reds to death.

170 - Thanks, Tony :)

I too love Baseball Reference and Retrosheet.

I'm gonna guess that "Set the Controls" would probably work pretty well for the lightshow climax of "2001" as well, hallucinogens notwithstanding.

Other than the typical failings of small presses (typos, mostly) it's pretty good so far (p. 50).

Oh, is there a game going on? Good for Furcal!

If it was because of me, though, I hope he mentions the URL in the broadcast tonight!

Basically I've never trusted the lead off home run ever since Lopes hit one in game six of the 78 series.

Of course, I named my parrot `Seamus', after the track on Meddle, so I'm a bit biased.

And I'm impressed that you double-checked his work.

Its a single but we'll take it.

Furcal is now at .506.

Maybe it's his name. NO-mar might be more fun to say than Furcal. But if Kent gets a hit here, I'm sure Steiner's reaction will be about 1/4 what it was for Nomar's single.

I've just given up on new Gameday. It keeps locking up. MLBAM seems determined to make everything bigger and worse every year. I wonder how much money MLBAM got from Microsoft to settle on their godawful Silverfish technology for video distribution.

Usually.

Go Kemp!

Nah dude, he just doesn't like the way the balls were rubbed, he's had that issue in the past...

Those are my extremely original and potent observations today.

He's requested new baseballs at least 2twice in this game already.

I think Gameday is on Pink Floyd.

254 I notice them on yahoo, cbs sportsline etc. not infrequently.

Of course, I was at the game where he stole five in LA.

Penny isn't hitting his spots at all.

Payback at last!

Yes, and the next day he took over first base full time, effectively benching Choi.

Those were monumental DT times.

They showed the papal mass on NINE channels here. I couldn't believe it.

http://6-4-2.blogspot.com/2005/07/adam-dunn-scouting-expedition-reds-7.html

Not if you oppose base-clogging.

And, extra base hits during that span:
2006: 2
2007: 3
2008: 13

Randy Johnson and Koufax?

It won't take long.

Base hit by Ethier to left center.

I hope the Dodgers get some more insurance runs, but, yeah, if they win 11-0, that doesn't seem to bode well for the rest of the week does it. I'll take 8!

Hey: Dusty Baker guided the Giants to the World Series that one time.

Ugh. Bad Bison baserunning. (TM)

It's easy to look tough when you have the Karate Kid runner-up standing behind you.