Tuesday’s baseball news and rumor
Ryan Klesko signs with the Giants. I’m going to bet he either gets in a fight with Bonds by June or they become best friends.
Werth signs with Philly.
The Yankees and Igawa have reportedly agreed on a deal.
Crasnick’s got an article on ESPN on potential free agents next year who might be signed to long-term extensions before then. Ichiro’s on there. But I noted this quote, on Carlos Guillen:
Guillen is Detroit’s clubhouse “glue guy,” and manager Jim Leyland regards him as a future managerial candidate and one of the smartest players he’s ever been around.
Remember when he was a bad clubhouse guy and needed to be run out of town at any cost? Ahhh, those were the days.
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Just one more in a long list of good players we threw away for no apparent reason.
I still can’t believe that no one is talking about the Bonderman re-signing – I thought that Detroit would have to pay him a lot more.
Oh, I guess it’s because he’s never won more than 14 games. He can’t be that good…
And Gagne is going to close for the Rangers.
Somehow, I think this is going to backfire on the Rangers. At least they have Otsuka ready to go if needed.
Was Guillen tagged as a bad clubhouse guy, or just a guy who went out drinking too much? I always thought they got rid of him because he partied too much, which is like getting rid of a doctor because they play golf too much. You’re not going to leave yourself with many options among the pool of millionaires in their 20’s and 30’s who get off work at 11 p.m. if you reject all the ones who like to go out drinking.
You know, I can understand hanging on to a guy that works well in your clubhouse. Seeing him in action and having some good chemistry that you’re a part of first hand is one thing, and I’m not sure I’d be eager to break that up.
Signing a guy because he’s supposed to bring that to your clubhouse is another, and it just seems stupid to throw money after that kind of intangible.
Guillen + DUI = Traded for Nothing
Sexson + DUI = Local White Boy Exemption
the Bradke retirement press conference over on mlb.com is pretty darned entertaining.
Well put, #6.
Carlos had the darndest propensity to make his team better and help it win games. Haven’t done much of that around here since he left.
Thanks, Howard. You know how to pick ‘em.
#6.
Stopped on 520 by police driving 89 mph in a 60-mph zone; refused a breathalizer test. Prosecutors dropped drunken-driving charges as part of a plea agreement, and his lawyer emphasized to reporters outside the courtroom there was no DWI conviction. 100 hours of community service, fined $1,000, alcohol education classes, speak to DUI victims panels and have no criminal violations after pleading guilty to negligent driving.
Stopped near his home, after taking off from a stop light and quickly reach 50 mph in a 35 mph zone. 2 open beer bottles were found in the back seat, prosecutors wrote. Performed field sobriety tests but refused to blow into a portable breath tester, and when his blood alcohol level was tested later it registered .07, just under the legal threshold of .08. Second-degree negligent driving, an infraction punishable by a $538 fine. Deputy prosecutors agreed to reduce the charge in part because the only reported driving problem, speeding about 15 mph over the limit, is common and isn’t by itself an indication that the driver was intoxicated.
For those of us that weren’t paying really close attention to baseball a few years ago, can someone explain what exactly the situation was with Carlos Guillen? Specifically, why was he traded for magical beans?
To play the Media/M’s propaganda game even further…
Freddy + ladies man rep = Clubhouse Cancer
Sasaki + infidelity = “Suitcase” injury
exactly who has said Garcia was a clubhouse cancer?
#11–
2001 140G played
2002 134G played
2003 109G played
2004 136G played
Wait a sec – isn’t that the guys we just traded FOR? Oh no it’s not, that’s too many games played…
The Guillen deal was Bavasi’s first trade with the M’s, right? It has some similarities to what will hopefully be Bavasi’s last trade with the M’s. The club was down on both Guillen and Snelling as oft-injured guys who hadn’t lived up to their potential. Bavasi undervalued defense and plate discipline in both cases. Of course, Guillen was three years older than Snelling and had more chances to succeed in the big leagues, so dealing him away was more defensible I supposed (except that they got nothing in return). Remember the original deal was for an aged former All-Star, Omar Vizquel, but he flunked his physical. So Bavasi signed Rich Aurilia instead. Jose Vidro has Rich Aurilia written all over him.
If you and your BFF like to drink and have public records of DUI arrests, you can’t possibly be a valuable clubhouse guy. In fact, you would be worth less to me than an arbirary AAA-caliber shortstop.
Nothing about the rumor of the Mariners jumping into the Zito sweepstakes?
I had it from a reliable source that Guillen and Freddy were into the nose candy something fierce. Now take that for what it’s worth.
The way I heard it, Guillen was a ‘bad influence’ on Freddy and was traded in the hopes that we’d be able to make Freddy less of a head case on the mound and keep him longer.
Man. Reading it like that you wonder how the fuck they thought that was a good idea.
I don’t really care about the DUI thing, for either Guillen or Sexson. But, the one thing that really fried me about Guillen’s stop, is he tried to convince the Cop that he couldn’t speak or understand English. He was willing to let his GF have to deal with the Cop.
I’m relying on memory, but I believe that was the case.
Well, by the team we get a clubhouse full of Upright Moral Citizens, i.e., 25 Willie Bloomquists, we’ll be lucky to win 45 games a year. We threw away Carlos for NOTHING, and since then he’s been an MVP candidate and now managerial fodder. Genius.
Can’t we get some GOOD BASEBALL PLAYERS?
I’ve been reading USSM for years now and have never felt compelled to sign up and post in the past…
The recent moves made this offseason and today’s quote about C. Guillen being the glue for Detroit’s clubhouse have in effect pushed me over the edge and I need an outlet to rant…
I’ve long thought the trading of Guillen and Garcia for spare parts to my softball team was the beginning of what now has become our beloved 80’s M’s once again – cellar dwellers!
Rough overall impressions – leaving a lot out for sake of a smaller post or I might go on forever
* Getting rid of Guillen for him being a party animal or bad influence on Freddy – made no sense because they then go ahead and trade Freddy after getting rid of his bad influence, and who cares anyways because they could play and were young cornerstone type players. Plenty of good to great players have been partying types you don’t just give up good talent.
* Freddy wanted too much money – people can debate this all they want but we could have locked up a great #2 and sometimes #1 type pitcher with no history of arm problems, a workhorse and proven winner for a contract that made sense if management had any foresight and understanding that it would look good by the end of it due to escalating salaries over the course of the contract
* Once they did commit to trading them they needed to get the most out of them. Something like Langston for Holman and The Unit, Randy for Freddy and Guillen…White Sox and Tigers obviously both had pithing in their farm systems at the time but we settle for backup catcher and shortstop caliber players and Reed
Shoot, I feel like I’m going on too long already and I haven’t even gotten to this year yet, for another time I guess…
‘Tis the Season to be a Seattle Fan – M’s, Sonics and Hawks = depressing Holiday Season
Edman, My girlfriend’s Chinese gangster dad does that every time he gets pulled over. It’s hilarious.
#22– you do have to also factor in Garcia’s interest in going to Chicago…
After the trade went down, a reliable source told me Carlos Guillen was dealt to separate him from Freddy Garcia, similar to what a high school teacher might do with a couple of pranksters who sit beside each other in class. The two spent a lot of extracurricular time together, and Freddy’s drinking was bordering on the stuff of legend (Legend or not, even I ran into a well-oiled Freddy in the Belltown area on more than one occasion and I didn’t go out that often). Had the organization favored Guillen over Freddy, it probably would have been the other way around.
I’m not sure if Bavasi did any posturing or if he just came right out and told other GM’s that Guillen and Freddy were giving him trouble; but I do know that other players around the league were well aware of their exploits. Either way, there was probably enough evidence to damage Guillen’s trade value with or without Bavasi pulling the strings.
I don’t have any reliable sources, but Garcia and Guillen’s faces still look high/plastered 100% of the time.
#19 yeah, i had always read it as a move to split up carlos and freddy because they were perceived as a bad influence on each other, and they figured freddy had more upside.
to the topic at hand, i really wonder what the chances of ichiro leaving at the end of the season are, and if there is a point mid season where they realize they can’t sign him again and look for a trade.
From Rotoworld
#27 – Ichiro is the only real box office draw the Mariners have . . . but based on past history, I imagine the Mariners will offer Ichiro an extension and/or wait until the offseason to see if they can convince Ichiro to stay, neither of which I see happening. Ichiro only wants to win, and right now it’s impossible to convince anybody the Mariners are committed to winning.
The M’s may be committed to winning – they just have no clue how to do it…
Yeah, and I’m committed to Scarlett Johansson.
I think our commitments are just as likely to be fulfilled.
You guys love celebrity scandal, eh? Look, other people have had off the field issues and kept their jobs. Dave Henderson didn’t get fired for his DUI and all he is is a bad announcer. I don’t know whether Guillen’s supposed off-field issues may have played a small factor in his being traded, but the fact remains that Bavasi et al genuinely thought this was a good baseball move. They believed that an expensive Rich Aurilia gave them a better chance to win than a cheap Carlos Guillen. That’s incompetence.
Bavasi actually wanted to trade him straight up for Omar. Looking back on what happened, if Omar had not failed his physical, the M’s would have avoided the Ramontiago fiasco.
I think the real clubhouse cancers are Lincoln and Armstrong: The Cheney and Rumsfeld of the M’s.
isn’t the general understanding that Bavasi was informed when hired that Guillen had to be gone? Hard to deal from that starting point
I think the real clubhouse cancers are Lincoln and Armstrong: The Cheney and Rumsfeld of the M’s.
And Pocket Lint was their Tony Snow.
35: Yeah, I don’t know if that was a Bavasi or Gillick idea. But even if it was Gillick, Bavasi has earned the right to be blamed for it, it fits his MO.
He’s earned the right to be blamed for things that weren’t his doing? That seems unfair.
Bavasi’s said as much, that when he was hired “there were a lot of people who were just tired of looking at the guy” and he punted him.
These things happen. GMs aren’t entirely the masters of their own ships, and Bavasi when he joined, much less so. We’ve written about that situation here before.
Thanks 34 & 36, we get it, now can we talk baseball instead of politics, take that to Horsesass or Sound Politics.
Most newly appointed GM’s would have made it clear that a player such as Guillen was worth keeping if they really felt that way. But the drinking and the health issues and the sub-par positional OPS and everything else were probably enough to convince a lot of GM’s – not just Bavasi – that Guillen was expendable. A lot of clubs would have made similar moves if presented with the same situation.
Guillen, sure (Ramontiago?), but we got great value back for Freddy. We sent three months worth of a solid #2 starter and a wash-out catcher to Chicago for a starting catcher, a top outfield prospect, and an extra guy, all of whom were under team control.
It was the last great trade the team made (June 27, 2004), but it was a great trade.
I really believed at the time, and still do, that Bavasi was instructed to get rid of Carlos post haste. I do not blame him for making the trade or for the value he received in return. I did think, and still do, that it was very bad trade, especially since his departure created an even bigger need than we already had.
the sub-par positional OPS
Uh, what? His OPS’s against the LEAGUE (not just shortstops) the last two years were 98 and 102, and his OBPs were ALWAYS better than league after 2000.
We alll think SS = A-Rod and Tejada, but even now, short’s still a position heavy on the glove, weak on the offense.
And no, actually, I don’t think most GMs would have tossed him for crap- which is what Ramon Santiago was.
And I’m receptive to DMZ’s argument on one hand, but the two counters to it are:
- You endorse the paycheck when you’re GM, you get the credit for the roster moves and trades you participate in- good or bad. Similar to a field manager, it’s part of the job description to absorb blame and take credit as the public face of an organization.
- Guillen for Ramontiago + more crap looks very much like Soriano for Ramirez and Snelling + Fruto for Vidro, and the Washburn and Everett signings in terms of the overall thought process : the club fixates on something (”must get rid of clubhouse cancer”, “must improve DH with veteran”, “must add starter”) and locks in on a decision without making any kind of objective or sophisticated analysis of what they are giving up and what they actually get in return, in terms of dollars or talent. This has been something that’s been mentioned before: the team decides who they want and doesn’t really understand things like replacement level talent, and hugely overvalues veterans as a result.
In other words, yeah, Bavasi got his marching orders, but looking at his other decisions, I doubt they seemed very out of line to him at the time. I get the impression he’s quite collegial and more than willing to let other people in the organization (Hargrove, Armstrong, Pelekoudas and so on) get their opinions in and participate in the major league roster groupthink that’s led the team over the cliff. The one area where the team HAS improved (talent acquisition via the draft) is the area where Bavasi brought in an outsider (Fontaine).
Oh absolutely. I think the distinction I’d make is quite similar to the one you draw: I wouldn’t knock Bavasi’s decision to trade Guillen, because it wasn’t his. But it is certainly part of the larger “take and act on input, even bad input, from many sources” which I would argue is one of the really huge drawbacks to this stewardship. If someone comes to you and says that Carl Everett is the solution, that person is the problem.
At the same time, I do think that there are many decisions that we should excuse the GM from responsibility for. When the owners tell Bavasi to make sure that Ibanez retires a Mariner, he really only has one choice if he wants to remain GM. That’s not a fight any GM picks, because part of any GM’s job is on occasion to accept that the ownership can make those kind of business decisions.
For instance, take the Red Sox after the World Series. Theo and the front office (and the ownership) knew that contract for Varitek was too expensive and for too long, but they made a non-baseball decision that Varitek had to be brought back, and that was the result.
I should come up with a long list of “major decisions in Bavasi’s GM-manship of the Mariners, along with assignment of responsibility and results”. I think the results would be quite interesting.
All of which suggests a discussion on who’s deadwood, who’s “meh” and who’s doing their job in this organization.
Fontaine? Sounds like he’s doing his job.
Bavasi? Swung from “Meh” to deadwood.
Mattox? Sounds like deadwood to me…
Trade Calos, trade Doyle… it is the same old song and dance routine!
Bavasi: “I have a brand new doller that has not been circulated.
Other Teams Gm.”Oh yeah? I have a doller that is wringled and been spent more than several times, so it has experiance!”
Bavasi: “Ooow! Will you trade it for my new bill?
I should come up with a long list of “major decisions in Bavasi’s GM-manship of the Mariners, along with assignment of responsibility and results”. I think the results would be quite interesting.
I said in a post in the thread below about how some of this doesn’t seem to match Bavasi’s MO, despite what some are saying. If we’re to assume that it’s Bavasi’s MO that Guillen -> Santiago, Snelling + Fruto -> Vidro, and Soriano -> Ramirez then we’re casually overlooking Garcia -> Reed + Olivo + Morse, Choo + AdCab -> Benuardo, Moyer -> Baldwin + Barb, A Broken Down Husk of Eddie Guardado -> Travis Chick, Randy Winn -> Jesse Foppert + Torrealba, Torrealba -> Carvajol, Carvajol -> Gonzalez, etc.
Honestly, I don’t see how the three moves we DON’T like are an indication of Bavasi’s modus operandi. His free agency signings are well “knock” worthy, but I don’t think his trades have, until this offseason, been horrifying. For the most part, he’s done some pretty smart trades. Lots of high risk but high reward stuff for what is literally crap anyway. Chick, Baldwin, and Foppert may never become anything, but they were a decent return for Crap Guardado, the Age’d Jamie Moyer, and Everybody’s Gotta Randy Winn, respectively. You can argue til you’re blue in the face about Choo and Cabrera for Benuardo, but I don’t recall any of us saying it was horrible at the time. It wasn’t a great return in value for Cabrera, but Choo got us pretty much what we expected.
So, yeah, make that list. I want to see how this turns out. You guys have a lot of information we don’t have, so it’ll be nice to “lay the blame”, even though it contradicts my philosophy.
The sub-par positional OPS
Guillen’s career high for OPS as a Mariner was .753. In his other three full(ish) seasons his OPS ranged between .690 and .720.
In 2000 (288 AB’s) Guillen ranked 14th in OPS among shortstops with 250+AB’s.
In 2001 (456 AB’s) Guillen ranked 13th in OPS among shortstops with 450+ AB’s.
In 2002 (475 AB’s) Guillen ranked 8th in OPS among shortstops with 450+ AB’s.
In 2003 (388 AB’s) Guillen ranked 10th in OPS among shortstops with 350+ AB’s.
So you are right. Guillen’s OPS wasn’t below average. It was almost exactly average, which made him replaceable all the same. Fellow light hitters Omar Vizquel and David Eckstein were each posting higher OPS during those years, while many of the shortstops with lower OPS brought other skills to the table, like speed/leadoff abilities, better defense, and/or a quiet nightlife that wasn’t interfering with the development of their top young arm.
Don’t get me wrong. The Guillen for Santiago trade was beyond awful, and I wasn’t suggesting that other GM’s would have made the exact same deal. But under the exact same circumstances, if a GM approached me with Carlos Guillen in 2003, given everything I knew about him at the time and nothing about his future, I certainly wouldn’t have felt obligated to give much in return. More than Santiago? Probably. But not much more than that; especially if the rumors about Guillen loving the nose candy are true. Tuberculosis? Only three types of people get TB: those who reside in 3rd world countries, those with advanced HIV infection levels, and substance abusers.
Re: tuberculosis, you forgot Indian reserves/reservations. Also, Venezuela is technically still 3rd world.
Derek, I’d like to see that list.
Derek, I’d like to see that list.
Indeed. Good timing with the questionable moves recently made by Bavasi as well.
What the heck is with all the “reliable sources” slandering Guillen and Garcia in this thread? Nose candy? Looking high all the time?
Come on.
Ms threw away both players for garbage. Idiots.
#54 My ‘idiots’ reference was to Ms management, by the way. I don’t mean to personally insult other posters.
I always liked Guillen as a player. Freddy too. Frustrating that they are gone with so little return.
I wasn’t being entirely serious that Bavasi should be blamed for Gillick’s moves. However, even though Gillick may have ordered him to trade Guillen and put him in a tough spot, Bavasi still made the bad trade (unless Gillick brokered that too?). From the perspective at the time (not in retrospect) Guillen for Vizquel would have been ok. Not a trade you wanted to make, but if the M’s were determined to dump Guillen it was acceptable. However, just sending Guillen away for nothing after the Vizquel deal fell through was infuriating to us all. This seems consistent with Bavasi’s two recent trades, that he underestimates the trade value of his young players (of course I have no actual knowledge of what GM’s were willing to trade, so I’m making a big assumption here, I may be wrong).
Anyway, giving away Guillen for nothing was more justifiable at the time than the Snelling/Fruto for Vidro trade. Even if Snelling’s left leg knee explodes tomorrow and Fruto never throws another pitch in the big leagues, it is a bad deal because you have to pay a weak-hitting middle-infielder who doesn’t play defense $17+ million. Ramon Santiago may have had no value, but at least he wasn’t detrimental to the team.
I agree mostly with 49, not all of Bavasi’s trades have been bad. The ones during the season this year were pretty good overall, and the Garcia trade was good (even if it hasn’t worked out). Still, these last two negatively impact the future of club so much, without positively impacting the present, that he deserves a bad grade in trading.
#50: You bent over backwards, twisted sideways and contorted in physically impossible ways to put everything about Carlos Guillen in the worst possible light.
I, for one, have never heard any rumors about Carlos Guillen and drugs. And none of the rumors I have heard have been substantiated in the slightest. That the Mariners chose to put credence in those rumors and dump him says something BAD about the organization … as does the fact that Guillen has been playing at a Hall of Fame level ever since he left Seattle.
The Mariners are like a man who’s in love with a woman, but, out of deep-seated insecurity, chooses to listen to the friends who are whispering in his ear about what a whore and a gold-digger she is, and not believe what he sees with his own eyes. They were Ben Affleck dumping Joey Lauren Adams in “Chasing Amy.”
Uhm… Excuse me Mr. T.I. Fan, but in #49 you said,
I recall many of us complaining about those trades, especially Cabrera. I can’t swear that the word horrible was used specifically, but certainly words to that effect.
There have been some good trades, some mediocre trades, and too many bad trades, but the Soriano and Doyle+Fruto trades were abysmal. I, like many who heard him at the “feeds”, gave WFB (William F. Bavasi) more slack than seems reasonable in hindsight. My opinion of him was cemented with the retention of Hargrove, but these last two trades… suck like a Hoover. This FO is beyond redemption.
#57 This is the 1st time of posted, however, if your are going to argue that Freddy and Carlos did not have a problem with coke and salsa clubs and this being the major reason for their departures, You will be laughed off these boards. I know for fact that they both loved to “indulged”. They were both young and Carlos has done MUCH better without Freddy. Make whatever conclusion you will. But don’t argue the obvious. The rumors are there for a reason. I love these boards and I like to read all you guys argue all this stuff. But this arguement is played. All of baseball knew about these two and that is the reason they couldn’t be traded. Garcia is the player that you all should be blaming….the kid loved to party.
No more on purported drug use of Garcia/Guillen, please, that’s a road to nowhere, conversationally.
lol, anyone who says that the garcia trade was not a good one does not deserve to think about baseball. Equate your selves with bavasi, cause thats the baseball knowledge you have.
This just in:
M’s meet with Zito in California.
My question is….are they really looking at this as a way to make a big splash and put butts in seats after the upheaval of the last few weeks? If so, would they have to move Sexson to make it happen, or are they willing to go way above their previous payroll limits?
How does USS Mariner feel about Zito, and how do they feel about Zito at $100 million bucks?
OK … so now I know how the new link button works.
Yes, and if you could get that done before 3pm on Friday so that I have something to read (other than what I should be reading that is) while sitting in the airport, i’ll put in a good word to Santa for ya…
Back in the day of the Cabrera trade, which particularly annoyed me as I saw it as the start down the path towards ‘Doyle can’t fill that spot; we need a proven veteran’, and, well, because Cabrera had an awesome wickedly accurate throwing arm….
Well, I made a list of BJB (Bill J Bavasi or maybe just BJ Bavasi)’s trades. I was just feeling like loads of folks were giving the man way too much of a free pass on his actions and either blaming Gillick or Mattox, or pointing to Fontaine as a reason for keeping him around. Of course, I don’t have access to the insider info, but the list was, well, abysmal at a gut level for me.
It’s hard to know how to evaluate a trade – do you evaluate from the day it is made and whether it helps the team for the rest of the season, or in a larger frame, whether it helps the team in the long-run, and then you’d have to define ‘help’ and ‘long’ – as well as taking into consideration what we lost in the trade…..But a lot of his Hail Mary passes (where he snagged us what he terms high risk high reward folks like Foppert) just ended up being for nothing…
I’ll be fascinated to see the list you come up with DMZ, in part because the insider info – if accurate – lends additional insight, but in part because I want to see the criteria you’d use to evaluate a trade (short vs long-term and how to measure ‘benefit’ vs ‘cost’). I struggle with such metrics when I think too long about them.
And as far as the insider info piece of it goes…isn’t part of BJB’s JOB to make a successful case against Howard and Chuck on instances where he disagrees with what they’re essentially telling him to do? I mean, even THOSE moves lay partially at Bavasi’s feet…
#60– esp. as we don’t know what they may or may not have done and we also don’t know what if anything the front office believed …
Heh, BJB’s JOB…nasty.
Garcia and Guillen:
When Mickey Mantle came up his drinking buddy was Billy Martin. The Yankee brass looked at that and decided that Billy was a bad influence and traded him.
The irony is that it didn’t really change anything — Jim Bouton wrote about Micky’s excessive drinking in Ball Four. Mickey’s liver eventually failed him. Billy was killed as a passenger with a drunk driver.
My perception at the time was that Guillen was traded because he enabling Garcia’s partying. Maybe Garcia didn’t need the help.
I always thought he was traded because of health issues…
Mickey did have Hepatitis C. It is unknown (unknowable?) how much of his liver failure should be attributed to the disease as opposed to the alcohol.
Most of life isn’t a clearcut morality play, it turns out.
Didn’t know about the Hep C thing….how’d he get it?
#57 – I contorted and twisted? Remove the last bit about the white stuff, which was in reference to a previous post, and everything else is cold, hard, unspun fact. I didn’t make up anything in relation to his OPS or the way he was perceived by others around the league at the time he was dealt.
I know a lot of us saw potential in those long AB’s he would have as a Mariner, but I’m tired of people pretending like they knew Guillen was going to blow up the way he did. His OPS jumped 200 points, almost magically – and he stayed healthy. Nobody saw that coming.
So you are right. Guillen’s OPS wasn’t below average. It was almost exactly average, which made him replaceable all the same. Fellow light hitters Omar Vizquel and David Eckstein were each posting higher OPS during those years, while many of the shortstops with lower OPS brought other skills to the table, like speed/leadoff abilities, better defense, and/or a quiet nightlife that wasn’t interfering with the development of their top young arm.
Uh, keep in mind that you need to make a park adjustment there. If you look at OPS+ (adjusted for park), Guillen comes out better.
#72 – Park effects need to be applied with a grain of salt in regards to OPS. Deep fences will have a more negative impact on a flyball hitter than it will on a linedrive hitter, who can actually benefit by having wider alleys and more room down the lines. Conversely, shorter fences will have a greater positive impact on a flyball hitter than it will for a linedrive hitter. Running a straight line average across every hitter who plays 50% of his games in Park X certainly helps paint a picture of general performance for each specific ballpark, but it’s not indicative of how Park X actually affected each specific hitter. It can only represent how Park X affected the average of all offense that occurred in that park without further consideration to things like quality of pitching, and more importantly, variables in fence dimensions.
For example, Yankee Stadium shows up as X% on the park effects chart, but X% doesn’t discriminate between its effects on left-handed hitters (positive) vs. right-handed hitters (negative). Between 1982 and 1988, Mattingly and Winfield each played 50% of their games at Yankee Stadium. The same ballpark had opposite effects on their performance, but BPF requires that both players have the same number applied. So by the time you take those disproportionate numbers and compare them to the disproportionate numbers generated by other ballparks, the end result is a compounded mess.
#72 – Park effects need to be applied with a grain of salt in regards to OPS. Deep fences will have a more negative impact on a flyball hitter than it will on a linedrive hitter, who can actually benefit by having wider alleys and more room down the lines. Conversely, shorter fences will have a greater positive impact on a flyball hitter than it will for a linedrive hitter. Running a straight line average across every hitter who plays 50% of his games in Park X certainly helps paint a picture of general performance for each specific ballpark, but it’s not indicative of how Park X actually affected each specific hitter. It can only represent how Park X affected the average of all offense that occurred in that park without further consideration to things like quality of pitching, variables in fence dimensions, etc.
For example, Yankee Stadium shows up as X% on the park effects chart, but X% doesn’t discriminate between its effects on left-handed hitters (positive) vs. right-handed hitters (negative). Between 1982 and 1988, Mattingly and Winfield each played 50% of their games at Yankee Stadium. The same ballpark had opposite effects on their performance, but BPF requires that both players have the same number applied. So by the time you take the disproportionate statistics from one ballpark, compare them to the disproportionate statistics generated by all of the other parks, and blanket every player in the league with those numbers, the end result is a compounded mess.
That was muchas cervezas ago. The Detroit Guillen is a kinder, gentler… soberer?… Guillen.