Tigers interested in Dunn?

[CincyRedsFan30]

It's been proven to be another Out.

Statistical analysis has proven that. You can ignore the facts if you want though.

Individuals at other venues have done analysis to prove that it's just another Out. They were proven right.

[MarinersFan87]

What stat can prove that a strikeout is no worse than a flyout or groundout?

[Wally Mo Pena]

It's been proven to be another Out.

Statistical analysis has proven that. You can ignore the facts if you want though.

Individuals at other venues have done analysis to prove that it's just another Out. They were proven right.

I actually wrote an article for this site to specifically respond to this claim of yours.

Here is the link http://strike3forums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5503

What i found was that how a batter makes an out is way less important that what he does when he doesn't get out, so much so that it's almost impossible to tell the difference between the types of outs. Almost, but not totally. It is clear that the teams that score the most runs make about one more fly ball out per game than lower scoring teams, which spread that out across k's and gb.

This is the same logical mechanism that is used to argue for OPS, as in teams with higher OPS score more runs, so anyone who contributes to OPS is helping score runs. Here you can say that players who add more to k's and gb's than fb's are hurting the team's chances.

Again, it's a lot less significant for one player than OPS, because if Dunn had the same OPS that he does and k'd for every out he made, but the team didn't k much on a whole, my analysis would say that the team has a fine chance of scoring a lot of runs. But you wouldn't want a whole team of guys who only k. If you had to pick any out that you would want your whole team to make every time, it would be fly outs. Thus, it is reasonable to say that a strikeout is worse than a fly out, but it's tough to hold that against one player in one year.

Ignore those facts if you must CRF, but they're every bit as legitimate as those other venue's analyses.

[CincyRedsFan30]

You obviously need to refine your methods, because they've been proven wrong.

[MarinersFan87]

You obviously need to refine your methods, because they've been proven wrong.

You mind sharing your unlimited wealth of baseball knowledge?

[Wally Mo Pena]

You obviously need to refine your methods, because they've been proven wrong.

excellent contribution to the conversation. i presented my methods, and i encourage you to dispute them logically. let me know when you've grown up enough to learn how you might go about doing that.

[missionhockey21]

I'd take a flyball over a strikeout. But I think the whole strikeout argument on Dunn is overrated considering how he makes up for it in other areas.

[CincyRedsFan30]

Here is a great post from someone else in another area:

"Any kind of out has the exact same effect on your SP. If you hit a homer in 4 Abs and K 3 times your SP will be 1.000 (4 bases/4ABs). The number is the same whether your 3 outs are groundouts or flyballs or errors or any combination of any kind of out. GIDP does not affect SP either. It's a straight stat, total bases acquired hitting divided by total at bats. That means high walk hitters will generally have higher SPs since there will be fewer ABs to divide into total bases. What kind of out you make has the same bearing on SP or OBP or OPS. An out is an out. If a hitter like Dunn becomes more aggressive and stops taking as many walks his production will almost always go down. Why? Because he is then swinging at pitches that are balls making solid contact very difficult and increasing strikeout totals without any corresponding increase in singles or any kind of hit. Even swinging at the wrong strike can have devastating consequences. Sure, if there are two strikes and the hitter has a good enough eye to be sure a pitch is going to be called a strike anyway - then he hacks at it. The great hitters like Williams and Gwynn flicked these pitches away - often intentionally. They'd rather hit a foulball on a strong "pitcher's pitch" strike than weakly tap it to an infielder for a DP or easy out. Dunn doesn't take too many pitches! That's a huge fallacy - hitters hit mistakes. Curves that don't break or break sideways in a flat plane making them easy to track, sinkers that don't, fastballs right down the middle etc. Hitters can hit "perfect" pitches but the odds are against it even for a Bonds or Pujols. Patience, taking pitches, making pitchers work harder and waiting on that mistake is smart hitting. I believe Dunn's average will rise over his career to a .260/.270 level, maybe even a tad higher. He'll simply become better the more he plays. One thing that isn't going to work for him is to swing at more pitches unless he gets more pitches that he knows he can hit. Getting out of the 6 and 7 hole and into the third spot with some protection behind him would help him more than anything anyone could do to his swing or his eye."

[Geki Ace]

Dunn had a better BB/K than Manny Ramirez, Jason Bay, Alex Rodriguez, Jim Edmonds, Carlos Lee, Travis Hafner, Aramis Ramirez, Andruw Jones, Richie Sexson, and Mark Teixeira, all comparable power hitters.

Honestly, what to 30 more strikeouts mean over the course of a season? Dunn cut 27 off this year, I expect him to do so again this year, and considering the kinds of numbers he puts up elsewhere, the amount he strikes out is completely moot.

[missionhockey21]

Dunn had a better BB/K than Manny Ramirez, Jason Bay, Alex Rodriguez, Jim Edmonds, Carlos Lee, Travis Hafner, Aramis Ramirez, Andruw Jones, Richie Sexson, and Mark Teixeira, all comparable power hitters.

Honestly, what to 30 more strikeouts mean over the course of a season? Dunn cut 27 off this year, I expect him to do so again this year, and considering the kinds of numbers he puts up elsewhere, the amount he strikes out is completely moot.

Bingo.

+rep.

[Wally Mo Pena]

Here is a great post from someone else in another area:

"Any kind of out has the exact same effect on your SP. If you hit a homer in 4 Abs and K 3 times your SP will be 1.000 (4 bases/4ABs). The number is the same whether your 3 outs are groundouts or flyballs or errors or any combination of any kind of out. GIDP does not affect SP either. It's a straight stat, total bases acquired hitting divided by total at bats. "

well at least you're trying, even if it's not convincing. What this post is saying is that slugging percentage will not be affected by the type of out you make, which is an obvious statment because slugging percentage doesn't look at what type of out you make, so how could it be affected?

The point here is that slg is not offnese, runs are. What my analyses showed was that teams that score more runs generally have more flyball outs. I'm talking about offenses and their relationhips to types of outs. You are confusing yourself and the argument by talking about offensive stats that are meant to predict offense rather than the runs themselves.

The types of outs a team makes are not the best predictors of offense, as i mention in my article repeatedly. Did you even read it? But you can see trends develop with longitudinal analyses, and the trends are clear. Teams that score more runs make more flyball outs, leading one to believe that they are a more valuable out, if only marginally, compared to k's and gb.

[CincyRedsFan30]

February 29, 2004
Baseball Prospectus Basics
Just Another Out?


by Ryan Wilkins


As we've stated on a number of different occasions throughout the Baseball Prospectus Basics series, one of the goals of performance analysis is to separate perception from reality. Sometimes that means interpreting numbers, and sometimes that means interpreting events with our eyes. Either way, it's about collecting information, and getting a little bit closer to the truth.

Evaluating the importance of strikeouts, especially for hitters, is something that has traditionally fallen into the second category. And it's easy to understand why: baseball is a game that centers around the ongoing conflict between batter and pitcher, and there are few outcomes that capture the drama of that conflict better than a mighty whiff, followed by a long walk back to the bench. On the surface at least, a strikeout appears to be the ultimate failure for a hitter—infinitely worse than a Texas-leaguer or a flyout to center.

From a quantitative perspective, however, there is little evidence to suggest that a strikeout is "worse" than a groundout, popout, or any other means of making an out, with respect to generating runs. Sure, it might look bad—not even being able to put the ball in play—but the fact is that error rates, in this era of improved equipment, are as low as they’ve ever been. Granted, putting the ball in play, whether in the air or on the ground, can sometimes enable a hitter to advance a runner, but it also increases the chance of hitting into a double-play—a far greater rally-killer than a strikeout.

As a result of all that, the value of "just putting the ball in play" is as low as it's ever been. The following graph illustrates the correlation—or lack thereof—between team strikeouts and team run scoring from 1950-2002:



As you can see by the round, lifeless blob in the middle of the graph, there is virtually no positive correlation between a team's strikeout totals and its runs-scored totals. When it comes to offense, an out is an out is an out.

On an individual level, the evidence against strikeouts as the scourge of the earth only gets more damning. Check out the correlation between Ks and the various elements of offensive production:

Correlation of SO/PA with (all players 1950-2002, 300+ PA)


Metric Correlation
----------------------
ISO +0.388
SLG +0.198
BB/PA +0.125
OBP -0.100
AVG -0.290

OPS +0.106
MLVr +0.005


While it might not be overwhelming, there is a distinct, positive correlation between an individual's strikeout rate and a number of useful attributes: hitting for power—as represented in this case by isolated power (ISO, or slugging percentage minus batting average) and slugging percentage (SLG)—as well as drawing walks—as represented by walk-rate (BB/PA). Of course, causation is a sticky subject, so try not to misinterpret the above data as "proof" that increased strikeouts cause an improvement in a player's secondary skills. It's just that where one group shows up, often so does the other.
Notice, also, the virtually non-existent (albeit positive) correlation between strikeout rate and "complete" measures of offensive performance like on-base plus slugging (OPS) and Marginal Lineup Value Rate (MLVr). No matter how you slice it, it just doesn't appear that strikeouts have much of an effect on a team's—or an individual's—ability to produce runs.

But those are hitters. Pitchers, on the other hand, are a completely different story.

Where the value of "just putting the ball in play" has often been overstated for hitters, the opposite has long been the case for pitchers. In their case, a strikeout is most definitely not "just another out." In fact, the ability to create outs for one's self is among the most important skills a pitcher can possess.

Why? There are a number of reasons, but mainly it's because more strikeouts mean fewer balls in play. Fewer balls in play mean (on average) fewer hits surrendered. And with fewer hits surrendered come fewer runs allowed. The steps aren't perfect, mind you, but on a macro level they hold up. The following graph illustrates the correlation between individual strikeout rate and ERA from 1993-2002:



Or, to perhaps give this conclusion some real-world resonance, look at the disparity in ERA between those pitchers with the highest strikeout rates in the league in 2003 and those at the bottom of the barrel:


Pitcher SO/9 ERA
------------------------------------
Kerry Wood 11.35 3.20
Mark Prior 10.43 2.43
Curt Schilling 10.39 2.95
Pedro Martinez 9.93 2.22
Javier Vazquez 9.40 3.24


Pitcher SO/9 ERA
------------------------------------
Joe Mays 3.46 6.30
Danny Graves 3.20 5.33
Aaron Cook 3.12 6.02
Kirk Rueter 2.51 4.53
Nate Cornejo 2.13 4.67


The difference isn't accidental. In a nine-inning complete game, Kerry Wood is roughly 30% less reliant upon his defense to convert batted balls into outs than someone like Kirk Rueter or Nate Cornejo would be. That's not just a huge difference, that's a Marlon-Brando-pulling-up-a-chair-to-the-buffet difference.
Strikeout rate also has predictive value. According to a study conducted by Keith Woolner, pitchers with high strikeout rates age better than comparable pitchers (i.e., pitchers who posted similar park-adjusted ERAs at the same age) with low strikeout rates. Bill James also gave this subject some treatment in his most recent edition of the Historical Baseball Abstract when discussing Mark Fidrych, and came to a similar—if slightly hyperbolic, as Tommy John can attest—conclusion: "There is simply no such thing as a starting pitcher who has a long career with a low strikeout rate."

The prominence of the strikeout in Major League Baseball has been increasing steadily over the past 130 years, and it may continue to grow as teams begin to let go of their macho attachment to "just putting the ball in play" on offense, while further valuing pitchers who are self-sufficient on the mound. Like many other developments in baseball, this will be a sign of evolution, and a better game overall will be the result.

Don't fear the strikeout. In many ways it is a harbinger of better things to come.

[Wally Mo Pena]

Definitely interesting. I agree totally that for a lot of batters, k's aren't a bad thing, but that's not the same as an out is an out is an out.

The graph didn't come through for me at least, so i couldn't see the team trends that they provide, but the text leaves me with two thoughts.

One, they use the method that i talk about in my article in the first paragraph, where they look at the number of k's and the number of runs that a team has. The problem with this, which i outline, is that because what a batter does when they don't get out is so much more important than what they do when they do get out, that it is hard to find any trends there because you are looking at both good and bad offenive teams that strikeout a lot. To find the differences that i did, i took the approach of starting with the teams that score a lot of runs and looking back at the way they made their outs, and a trend, while small, did appear.

and my argument was predicated on the FB being better than both the GB and the K. I didn't find any difference between a groundball and a strikeout, so there an out is an out. But the FB is better than both, by a little bit, and i would guess that if you broke there trend into three categories rather than a strikeout vs other outs, comparison that would become more clear.

The other thing that always leaves me confused in this argument, is the glaring inconsistancy between wanting pitchers to strike batters out, and then saying that strikeouts are good for batters. I think that there points to a flaw in the logic, since they are in the end, the same strikeout. It takes two to tango and all that. I also cam eot the conclusion that the argument was more important overall for pitchers, because the way they get there outs can be so one sided, but you can't take hitters out of the discussion all together.

It's that inconsistancy that got me to investigate the problem from a different perspective, and I'd like to see someone address my point in an article (or here, since i respect many of the opinions posted). I'm not saying that i'm absolutely right, but i think it's a fair point to raise.

[Wally Mo Pena]

the whole thing is statistical nitpicking in the end, as (sound of a broken record) i mention in my article. It is far more important to find guys who do well when they don't get out, than it is to find guys who make flyball outs or any other out for that matter.

The reds led the league in k's and runs last year, which shows that you can put together a good offense no matter what type of outs you make. It doesn't prove that an out is an out though, because a team with the same OPS but fewer k's may have scored more runs.

[CincyRedsFan30]

As a whole though, teams who strikeout a lot tend to score more Runs than teams who don't strikeout as much.

That would make the base theory that strikeouts are just another out a plausible one. There are exceptions to every rule, but in general, the rule rules.

That's especially true for players like Dunn, who bring so much else to their game that the strikeouts actual help predicate his performance. The strikeouts are part of his performance and it is unlikely his performance would be good if he tried to cut down on his strikeouts. His strikeouts don't hurt the team because the other stuff that happens as a result of those strikeouts help the team. That makes those strikeouts just another out, since the goal is to avoid outs and he does that quite well.

Here is a link to the graphs that didn't show up from the article:

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/ar...articleid=2617