did you watch any of the games, live or tv, or did you just check the internet for the box score and stats the next day? fly ball to the gap and Barry just kind of turns his head and maybe trots toward it. ball he thinks is going out over his head...no movement from barry. of course he didn't make many errors...he didn't try to get to many balls.
the worst part about it was listening to kruk and kuip excusing him for his lack of effort, saying that he had to conserve his energy because he was getting older and that he was a vet so he had the experience to know when he could get to a ball or when it would be the centerfielder's ball.

your eyes are clearly better gauges of defensive ability than uzr

hell, even if we were to presuppose that barry kind of sucked on defense late in his career, i can't believe you would actually complain about the defensive play of a left fielder when he was in his mid 30s to early 40s with bad knees. serious question: are you ******ed? i'll let you win this one if you are

Something like that.

I see a lot of typing and words.

Actions speak louder than words.

Not Lolo should have been a 1st rounder

did I ever say it was because he wasn't able to play good defense? when he was younger he made up for a weak-ish arm in the outfield with good footwork, a good path to the balls and one of the quickest releases from the outfield I've seen. even in the later years, when he was all about swinging the bat, there were a few times when he'd show this. make great jumps on balls. cut them off, quick throw back in...he had the ability to play good defense, but rarely actually put in the effort to do so. that he could have but didn't makes it worse.
now you: I'm clearly saying that he became one dimensional by choice/lack of effort. I've said that the whole time. you go arguing that he lost a step or two which I'll freely admit he did. however, that lost step mattered way less than it did in other players (van slyke types) because his defensive game was predicated more on his brains than his speed and arm strength.
so did you watch any games? does anything I'm saying mean anything to you, or are the only factors in a player's performance that matter the ones that can fill in a stat column?

m2d: your observations are plagued by all sorts of biases - in truth, it's damn near impossible for a lay-fan to observe what is or isn't good defense. statistical models aren't perfect either, but i will take its conclusions for a given team over a fan who watches every single inning.

Perception != Reality

Whoa guys, don't argue with Phildo, he's always right. I am expecting some morons to respond to this with an ODELLLLLLL, which is their only comeback when they wrong. Really immature and ignorant people on this board.

Maybe he realized that not diving for a baseball when 40+ with two balky knees is a decidedly +EV proposition for his team as he could never hustle to a single ball in the field and lose 20 runs on defense. But put 100+ back up with his bat without the risk of injury he'd incur trying really really really hard to gain a miniscule amount of value.

Instead folks just wanna comment on how he's lazy, instead of how awesomely intelligent he is.

i have no idea what this even means.

let me speculate

If your good as a pitcher the catcher catches the ball and then throws the ball around the horn when the batter strikes out.

Just like when a QB is good in football the receiver catches the ball and scores a touchdown and gets high fived.

The "barry bonds" of pitching is useless in the team sport of baseball without a catcher who can catch or a defense that can make routine plays.

Perception vs. Reality.

Let's roll that beautiful Bean footage.....

Link 1
Link 2
Link 3
Link 4
Link 5
Link 6
Link 7
Link 8
Link 9
Link 10
Link 11
Link 12

That's just it...your saying a lot of things, but you ain't showing none.

It's easy to rely on misperceptions formed from believing everything you read in a sports column.

It's quite another to back it up with, you know, things like proof and stuff.

MLBtv has an extensive archive of game footage.

Let's try this again.

How many eligible receivers can the QB throw to?

How many eligible batters can the pitcher throw to?

wait, so Kyleb has me on superignore but not Not Lolo? LOL.

lol did you even look at his link, it has nothing to do with errors or looking at box scores...if all bonds did was trot around the outfield letting everything drop then why does one of the most accurate defensive models (something thats a hell of a lot more accurate than your eyes) say he was an above average LF?

I guess this is off-topic now, but I was reading through the Ichiro discussion and didn't see anyone mention it.

I was curious if Ichiro has always been the same type of hitter (consistently high average, but not a lot of extra-base hits or walks) or if he used to hit for more power in Japan. If his time in NPB trended in a similar way as his time in MLB, then that could indicate a conscious effort on Ichiro's part to intentionally sacrifice power for a high-batting average throughout his career. If he's always favored his current offensive approach over hitting for more power, etc., why would he change it after switching leagues, unless he couldn't maintain it?

Below are some of his career numbers from both leagues (the Japanese stats were kind of limited here):

NPB (1992-2000): AB (3,619), H/AB (.310), BB/AB (.106), 2B+3B/AB (.064), HR/AB (.032)
Slash line: .353/.421/.522

MLB (2001-9/15/09): AB (6,027), H/AB (.332), BB/AB (.067), 2B+3B/AB (.048), HR/AB (.013)
Slash line: .333/.377/.433

The most 2B he ever hit in a season in Japan was 41 (1994, breakout year), while the fewest was 22 in 2000. He only reached 20 homers twice in his Japanese pro-career (25 and 21 in '95 and '99, respectively). Those are in the shorter Japanese seasons, which I think are around 135 games.

In MLB, he's only broken 30 doubles once (34, rookie year), but will come close to that this season (29 right now). If you factor in the increase in triples, you could say he sort of broke 30 a couple other times, but overall, his extra-base hit totals are down even with a lot more at-bats. His HR power has been pretty much a non-factor compared to his NPB days. In Japan, he had at least 13 HR every season, but has only broken double-digits twice in his MLB career (13 and 15 in 2003 and 2005). Interestingly enough, his lowest season batting averages both occurred when his season HR totals spiked.

So reflecting what was pointed out by others earlier, if Ichiro could shift his approach to hit for more power and maintain his average, he would, but doesn't have the ability to do so (those two seasons where he did hit more HR, but saw his BA dip significantly suggests to me that this is the case). But since he wasn't really a prolific slugger even in Japan, it looks like he decided to utilize his speed and go with the infield-hits and slap-style to maintain a .300+ BA.

I'm still wondering what the deal is with his walk rate though. Is he just more aggressive now by choice (thus less of a chance he'll be up long enough to draw a walk) or could he not read MLB pitching well enough to maintain an above-average plate discipline (or both)?

WHO ARE YOU

Who, me?

I'm not anybody who previously posted in 2+2 on a regular basis, if that's what you were wondering. Somehow I forgot I had an account here, hence the lack of posts and the old join date.

I just figured that I should probably know all the Cleveland Indians fans that post with some semblance of intelligence on 2p2 with a join date in 2008.

Nice spot on the old-school hat then (I'm assuming that's how you knew I was a Cleveland fan). As far as the Pecota name, that's more a nod to the old Dugout comics, but I'm a pretty big stat-nerd too, so I guess the reference works both ways.

Are there a lot of Cleveland fans lurking around here? The Tribe thread seemed to have a dedicated few, but like I said, I'm new on this forum.

OMG DID ODELL AND NOT LOLO JUST POST ON THE SAME PAGE IN A THREAD?
HEAD ASPLODE
WORLD ASPLODE

PANDEMONIUM

It's funny how the popular perception of a player can pervade all analyses of him. The formerly popular perception of Babe Ruth was that he was a washed up guy by the 1932 Series when he called his shot. Truth is that, while he was no longer the "by far the best player in MLB" player he was in the 20s, he was still one of the top 5 players in the league in 1932.

Same with Bonds. Perception is that he was nothing in the OF by the time his 01-06 spurt happened. And that seemingly outweighs any statistical evidence that he wasn't.

Anyway, to say Bonds was one-dimensional by that time is ludicrous. Of the traditional "5 tools", two of them dealt with hitting, and he was incredible at them (he led the league in batting average twice in this period and his slugging percentage speaks for itself). So he was, at the least, 2-dimensional.

Also, the "5 tools" makes it seem like they are all equal. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The first two tools (hit for average and hit for power) are probably worth 80% (at least), compared to the other 3 tools combined 20%. And he wasn't just good, great, or even excellent at the two hitting tools. His 2001-04 period was the best of all-time.

In all seriousness kyle, he's one of the smartest, most well-educated Indians (and baseball in general) fans you will ever meet. I've been trying to get him to post more here for a while.

Are there any even semi-reliable translations between NPB and MLB (lol sample size of like 8)? I wouldn't be excited about attributing any of that difference to anything but Ichiro facing far inferior pitching and defense in NPB without any more information. Could easily be wrong though.

AA+ IIRC