Defying the True Outcomes: The Pressurizers!

by devil_fingers on Feb 9, 2009 9:06 AM PST in Sabermetrics Comment 19 comments

Yes, it is tempting to write a timely story about A-Rod for some reason, even if just to point out that the whole steroid thing between the "mainstream media" and the "blogosphere" has quickly taken on a very Rush Limbaugh-Michael Moore, pigs-indistinguishable-from-humans-at-the-end-of-Animal-Farm kind of tone in the duel between self-righteousness and self-righteous anti-self-righteousness the (one might divide it into Stark & Neyer factions).

But you don't come here to read that kind of thing. I know I was sick of it about 15 minutes after the story broke. So let's talk about another dire threat to Our National Innocence: Three True Outcomes Hitters. They must be stopped. Therefore, today, I will celebrate their antithesis. I do so because I will not let the high priests of the Rob Deer Fan Club demonize those players who do whatever it takes to put pressure on the defense.

I will not.

Well, I guess that auto-publish didn't work...

As you probably know, the "Three True Outcomes" are the walk, the strikeout, and the home run. They are so named because, in a curious-if-obvious relationship to DIPS (defensive-independent pitchings statistics) , those are three outcomes we can definitely say are limited to the pitcher-hitter relationship without the mediation of defense (yes, hit-by-pitches should probably be in there, but who am I to stand in the way of tradition?).

Last week at The Hardball Times, Craig Brown published an article on the top five "true outcome" hitters of the 2008 MLB season. Frankly, I'm appalled. These guys aren't putting pressure on the defense with their pathetic strikeouts, easy-way-out home runs... and don't even get me started on bases on balls. They're called walks for a reason -- because they're an expression of the hitter's laziness.

To combat the foul tendency as expressed in Brown's infernal article, I have decided to respond by listing the bottom five 3TO hitters of 2008 among those qualified. Or better yet, the top 5 "pressurizers," since they make the defense answer the bell! I've used the Baseball Databank database, so if my plate appearances are a bit off, it's probably because BDB doesn't contain reached-on-errors for some reason. So without any further ado...

5. Cristian Guzman
613 PA, 9 HR, 57 SO, 23 BB
TT0%: 14.5

I was going to make a joke here, but can I break character for a moment and ask, "Remember when Christian Guzman was terrible and we all mocked Bowden for acquiring him?" He actually busted a 3.1 WAR this year. I'm sure that will continue (ahem) ...

4. Placido Polanco
631 PA, 8 HR, 43 SO, 35 BB
TT0%: 13.6

Wait a minute, seriously, I really expected most of these guys to be terrible, and now I come to an underrated icon of the New Moneyball who, unlike Guzman, actually isn't a fluke? Oh, you didn't know? Here are some WAR figures for the last four years, courtesy of Fangraphs:


Year	Polanco	Player X
2005	5.2	3.5
2006	1.2	3.8
2007	5.1	1.2
2008	3.2	6.3
Total	14.7	14.8

Pretty close, huh? Who is this "Player X?" Probably some other "above average" and under-appreciated middle infielder, right?

...

Player X is Manny Ramirez.

3. Bengie Molina
574 PA, 16 HR, 38 SO, 19 BB
TT0%: 12.7

This makes sense -- putting the ball in play is the best way to utilize his speed.

2. Jeff Keppinger
505 PA, 3 HR, 24 SO, 30 BB
TT0%: 11.3

Naturally a member of the 2008 Reds would rank this high. I'm sure that "Kepp" is held up in the clubhouse as an example to which all the other Reds should aspire to in their plate approach. I bet they put Jay Bruce's locker right next to his.

[Note the awesome flow chart to the right. I don't know where it originated, but if you created it and want credit for it or want me to take it down, please let me know. I'm not trying to steal it, I just saw it posted somewhere and had to share it with the world. The world, of course, reads my articles religiously.]

1. Yuniesky Betancourt
590 PA, 7 HR, 42 SO, 17 BB
TT0%: 11.2

If anyone knows why making the defense work is important, it's a shortstop with a -14.5 bUZR. Is there anything this guy can't do? No way he'd be traded for Billy Butler now. Oh well, maybe Joey Votto, though...

If you really want to see who's who, check out Brown's article at THT, and this Google Spreadsheet I whipped up for the occasion.

So, until the next time the world demands that I create another stupid award, congratulations Yuniesky!

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Comments

I think you need more tags on this post.

Perhaps a “I used a ton of tags” tag? Sadly, I don’t see any way to shoehorn in food metaphors.

Seriously though, I find this quite interesting. I wonder if there’s any consistency between TTO value and non-TTO value.

by jwiscarson on Feb 9, 2009 11:04 AM PST reply actions 0 recs

you mean from year-to-year?

Some examples:

Ryan Howard
2006: 46.8%
2007: 51.7%
2008: 45.7%

Jim Thome
2002: 49.6%
2003: 48.0%
2004: 45.0%
2005: (Did not qualify)
2006: 47.6%
2007: 48.3%
2008: 44.5%

Yuniesky Betancourt
2006: 13.5%
2007: 12.8%
2008: 11.2%

Cristian Guzman
2002: 16.0%
2003: 19.1%
2004: 16.2%
2005-2007: (DNQ)
2008: 14.5%

I don’t know what the standard deviation is or anything, but these seems pretty consistent to me. One would need to adjust for park and stuff, but in general, we think a player’s plate approach basically stays the same (although we’d expect increased discipline and power relative to the player’s basic skill set as the player ages), so yeah, think it’s the same. There’s a reason Jack Cust has easily lead the majors the past two years.

Bringing you more-or-less replacement level analysis and commentary since sometime in 2008.

by devil_fingers on Feb 9, 2009 11:29 AM PST up reply actions 0 recs

Sorry, I meant

TTO WAR values in comparison to non-TTO WAR values, in trying to determine if one set of skills is more valuable (or consistently valuable) than the other.

by jwiscarson on Feb 9, 2009 11:36 AM PST up reply actions 0 recs