Clayton Kershaw leads the league in ERA, strikeouts and wins. Matt Kemp leads the league in RBI and isn't far off in home runs (second) and batting average (third). We can debate the value of the traditional Triple Crown stats, but there's no denying that the Dodgers have serious contenders for the NL Cy Young and MVP. The latest links from Los Angeles…
- Earlier in the season, the Dodgers' decision to non-tender Russell Martin and sign Rod Barajas seemed like a mistake, but as Dylan Hernandez of the LA Times shows, the two backstops have comparable offensive numbers. Martin maintains a 35 point edge in OBP, but Barajas has the superior OPS+ (96 vs. 91). Barajas, a free agent after the season, told Hernandez that he hopes to return to Los Angeles next year.
- Hiroki Kuroda will obtain $175K for having pitched 190 innings and if he completes four more innings to reach the 200 inning plateau, he'll obtain $200K more, according to Hernandez.
- Juan Rivera has hit well since the Dodgers acquired him from the Blue Jays and manager Don Mattingly says he should be a consideration in 2012, according to AJ Cassavell of MLB.com. Rivera would like to re-sign with the Dodgers and his skipper likes his versatility and power, so the sides figure to discuss a deal after the season.
Way to cherry pick stats to prove your joke of a point Hernandez. Barajas has had TWO total years in his entire career with an OBP over .300 and one of those was in 48 games and one was with a .306 OBP. Despite nagging injuries that started his slide Russell Martin more than doubles Barajas in fWAR at 1.3 to 3.0, has a large lead in wOBA at .308 to .324 and also leads in wRC+ with a lead of 94 to 100. It just goes to show if you use less reliable and advanced stats and only use one of them you can usually find one to back up a biased view when it isn’t Pujols vs Yuniesky Betancourt. Just garbage reporting.
Way to cherry pick stats to prove your point.
Owned…
If you want to call picking the most accepted stats available and 3 of them, instead of just OPS+, cherry picking then go ahead. You’re obviously just as biased and blind as Hernandez if fWAR and wOBA are cherry picking. OPS is a poor stat because it combines OBP and SLG but SLG has a max of 4.000 while OBP has a max of 1.000, but they’re weighed equally. All wOBA does is makes OBP and SLG equal in the equation which is more advanced and a better way to determine a players offensive value. I also threw in fWAR which isn’t the end all but is widely the most accepted way to judge and give guidelines for a players complete value on defense/offense/baserunning.
I chose better and more complete stats to prove my point while Hernandez chose an extremely flawed OPS+. I am truly sorry you don’t understand how any of these stats work because if you did you would know I wasn’t cherry picking. All you know is you’re a Dodgers fan and so you agreed with the homer/biased Dodgers writer.
How can you know whether I agree or disagree, since I never said a word to indicate one way or another? Sorry, you completely missed the point.
Rivera has been a nice pickup since there are so many holes in the 2011 roster for playing time.
But for 2012, he might clog up the system. The Dodgers need a real left fielder with some speed (at least not bad legs) and power. They need a first baseman where Rivera could see some playing time if here, and he is not first baseman, terrible glove.
If he could accept the role of starting one day a week, and pinch-hitting, and reserve duty during an injury to others . . . fine. But he should not be kept and then see 135 or more starts. The Dodgers need to do better.
Rivera has to be on the short list for next year, but I don’t know where the Dodgers put him if Sands continues to develop. I’d also like to see Barajas come back as a backup and mentor to Fedex. He is certainly more suitable than Ellis for that role. If he’ll stay, Kuroda coming back is a no-brainer.
Barajas would be great to have in the unlikely hood of carrying THREE catchers, as his Stairs-Beer-league all or nothing swing would be nice to see come off the bench to PH, however with 2 catchers, teams do not like to have that guy PH because of the emergency aspect of having 2 backstops.
Backup catchers aren’t normally used for pitch hitting anyway. I’d see him splitting starts with Federowicz. If we’re going to break in a rookie catcher next year we’ll need a veteran to back him up. Can you think of anyone better than Barajas for that job?
(duplicate post)
I remember a debate about the relative value of OBP vs SLG and that the A’s organization rate each opint of OBP as being worth a huge number of SLG points (something like 28 to 1). What I don’t remember was if that was based on some sort of cutoff (example each point of OBP beyond league average or something else).
After watching Barajas for a whole season I do think that a high-SLG low-OBP OPS is not as valuable as the other way around. Which is why I’d rather have a Jason Kendal type over a Barajas type (although perhaps Lance Parrish would be a better contrast).
Anyway, one thing I do know is that a player like Rivera has very little to offer a non-contending team. His late season audition reminds me of Cruz Jr’s. And when we resigned Cruz I think we had to let someone else go (was it Werth or Lofton or Victorino???) I can’t remember whom exactly — Does anyone recall?
It’s why wOBA is the more accepted and advanced stat. It stands for weighted on base average. In OPS you just add SLG AND OBP. But the max for SLG is 4.000 and the max for OBP is 1.000. So in wOBA it combines SLG and OBP but weighs them out properly so they’re equal parts. So you are definitely correct. OPS is a poor stat to base players on. The most important part of offense is to not make outs and to get on base, obviously. Someone that makes an out more than 7 out of 10 times is a VERY poor offensive contributor.
Kemp being 2nd in stolen bases, 1st in OPS, and 1st in runs scored are probably worth mentioning as well.