Posted by MikeT23 on 8/18/2017 4:57:00 PM (view original):
You mean THE GREAT JAY BUHNER!?!??!?

Get back to me when we have multiple discussions on the HOF-worthiness of JAY BUHNER, OK?

So your gradations of players only allow for "HOF-caliber" and "****?" 'Cause Jay Buhner slugged over .500 repeatedly. Pretty sure he hit 40+ HRs at least 3 years in a row batting behind Edgar. And it's not like he was Chris Davis-ing those HRs while batting .225, either. A lot of steroid-era 1B/OFers hit a ton but won't get any HOF consideration. Doesn't mean you don't want them batting with men on base. I bet none of Buhner, Albert Belle, Moises Alou, D-Lee, Brian Giles, Berkman, Shawn Green, Mo Vaughn, Magglio, Juan-Gone, or Luis Gonzalez are on your HOF radar either. Does that mean we don't want to see them come up with the bases loaded?

In Edgar's best 2-season stretch from '95-'96 Jay Buhner drove in something like 260 runs batting behind him. That's what a bunch of walks in front of a decent bat do for your team.

I'm not sure I'm the one who's coming across as a little slow here.

You're the one who established your priorities as plating "ACTUAL runs." During the period from 1993-1997, a 5 year sample, Jay Buhner was the 10th-best player in baseball at doing that. Now you have 2 choices. Either he was better than you implied on the last page, or he drove in a lot of runs because he had guys in front of him who got on base all the damn time. Like Edgar. Edgar drawing all those walks allowed him to be one of the best run-producing bats in baseball. In reality there's a little of column a, little of column b here. Buhner was a pretty good batter. But the reason he drove in that many runs is because you score more runs when you put more guys on base.

Which is why I take 1.57 expected runs over 1 ACTUAL run and 0.23 expected runs. Over a large sample size those expected runs do score.

And as far as the poker goes, yes, if I made the right call I'll feel ok about it. I've taken some horrible beats on 4-figure hands in my life and decided it's not worth getting steamed about. In the long run I make money. Just like in the long run my team that always walks with 1 out and runners on the corners will score more runs than wylie's team that always sacrifices in that spot.

Here's another way of looking at it. In 2015, the average run value of a walk was 0.55. That's higher than the long-term historical average, but it's always been better than .4 during the live-ball era. Do I like Edgar Martinez with the bat in his hands better than Buhner? Sure. But that much better? Nope.

Posted by wylie715 on 8/18/2017 7:14:00 PM (view original):
its amazing how you know what's in my mind. Nobody ever said everytime Edgar walked it was on a borderline pitch and he should have swung at it, or at least I never said that. All I said is there were times, if I was his manager, I would have preferred he try to get a hit instead of taking a walk. Of course I am not and never will be a major league manager, so what the hell do I know?

It's not necessarily directed at you specifically. There are certain individuals who continue to bring up the "Edgar hurt his team by not putting the ball in play" as if he just constantly chose to watch pitches in key game situations.

And, as I've previously pointed out, these pathetic trolls don't apply that standard to other good hitters who drew a high amount of walks. Apparently one of the best hitters of all time in Ted Williams, even with his .344 career batting average, saw fit to let some Ball 4's go by, considering he led the league in walks 8 times (more often than he led the league in BA).

It's retarded to insinuate a good hitter should always be swinging the bat.

Posted by Jtpsops on 8/18/2017 9:26:00 PM (view original):

Posted by wylie715 on 8/18/2017 7:14:00 PM (view original):
its amazing how you know what's in my mind. Nobody ever said everytime Edgar walked it was on a borderline pitch and he should have swung at it, or at least I never said that. All I said is there were times, if I was his manager, I would have preferred he try to get a hit instead of taking a walk. Of course I am not and never will be a major league manager, so what the hell do I know?

It's not necessarily directed at you specifically. There are certain individuals who continue to bring up the "Edgar hurt his team by not putting the ball in play" as if he just constantly chose to watch pitches in key game situations.

And, as I've previously pointed out, these pathetic trolls don't apply that standard to other good hitters who drew a high amount of walks. Apparently one of the best hitters of all time in Ted Williams, even with his .344 career batting average, saw fit to let some Ball 4's go by, considering he led the league in walks 8 times (more often than he led the league in BA).

It's retarded to insinuate a good hitter should always be swinging the bat.

You keep channeling your inner BL with posts like this, as you keep insisting that absolutes are being argued when, in fact, they're not.

Nobody is saying "always". If the bases are empty, there's nothing wrong with drawing a walk ("a walk's as good as a hit"). Likewise, especially in the ninth inning if you're down a couple of runs, when you're down to your last out (or two or three), base runners are vital. If you're down to your last out and you're down 3 with a runner on second, take the walk. Getting the potential tying run to the plate has more value in terms of risk/reward than putting the ball in play attempting to drive in what could be a meaningless run (i.e. meaningless, if you don't get at least two more).

In other words, it's situational. The mindset of "walks are always preferable" shouldn't be the absolute that the sabrmetric crowd thinks it should be.

Those are just a handful of the exceptions. There are more.

But in general, as a rule, you want you best hitters actually, you know, "hitting". If there's a runner on second base, and you have a good hitter at the plate, let's say somebody of EM's caliber, then I want him swinging at hittable pitches rather that trying to work a walk.

Posted by dahsdebater on 8/18/2017 8:36:00 PM (view original):
I'm not sure I'm the one who's coming across as a little slow here.

You're the one who established your priorities as plating "ACTUAL runs." During the period from 1993-1997, a 5 year sample, Jay Buhner was the 10th-best player in baseball at doing that. Now you have 2 choices. Either he was better than you implied on the last page, or he drove in a lot of runs because he had guys in front of him who got on base all the damn time. Like Edgar. Edgar drawing all those walks allowed him to be one of the best run-producing bats in baseball. In reality there's a little of column a, little of column b here. Buhner was a pretty good batter. But the reason he drove in that many runs is because you score more runs when you put more guys on base.

Which is why I take 1.57 expected runs over 1 ACTUAL run and 0.23 expected runs. Over a large sample size those expected runs do score.

And as far as the poker goes, yes, if I made the right call I'll feel ok about it. I've taken some horrible beats on 4-figure hands in my life and decided it's not worth getting steamed about. In the long run I make money. Just like in the long run my team that always walks with 1 out and runners on the corners will score more runs than wylie's team that always sacrifices in that spot.

I like this guy. He's smart.

Posted by tecwrg on 8/18/2017 9:46:00 PM (view original):

Posted by Jtpsops on 8/18/2017 9:26:00 PM (view original):

Posted by wylie715 on 8/18/2017 7:14:00 PM (view original):
its amazing how you know what's in my mind. Nobody ever said everytime Edgar walked it was on a borderline pitch and he should have swung at it, or at least I never said that. All I said is there were times, if I was his manager, I would have preferred he try to get a hit instead of taking a walk. Of course I am not and never will be a major league manager, so what the hell do I know?

It's not necessarily directed at you specifically. There are certain individuals who continue to bring up the "Edgar hurt his team by not putting the ball in play" as if he just constantly chose to watch pitches in key game situations.

And, as I've previously pointed out, these pathetic trolls don't apply that standard to other good hitters who drew a high amount of walks. Apparently one of the best hitters of all time in Ted Williams, even with his .344 career batting average, saw fit to let some Ball 4's go by, considering he led the league in walks 8 times (more often than he led the league in BA).

It's retarded to insinuate a good hitter should always be swinging the bat.

You keep channeling your inner BL with posts like this, as you keep insisting that absolutes are being argued when, in fact, they're not.

Nobody is saying "always". If the bases are empty, there's nothing wrong with drawing a walk ("a walk's as good as a hit"). Likewise, especially in the ninth inning if you're down a couple of runs, when you're down to your last out (or two or three), base runners are vital. If you're down to your last out and you're down 3 with a runner on second, take the walk. Getting the potential tying run to the plate has more value in terms of risk/reward than putting the ball in play attempting to drive in what could be a meaningless run (i.e. meaningless, if you don't get at least two more).

In other words, it's situational. The mindset of "walks are always preferable" shouldn't be the absolute that the sabrmetric crowd thinks it should be.

Those are just a handful of the exceptions. There are more.

But in general, as a rule, you want you best hitters actually, you know, "hitting". If there's a runner on second base, and you have a good hitter at the plate, let's say somebody of EM's caliber, then I want him swinging at hittable pitches rather that trying to work a walk.

Then, as I said, apply that standard consistently. By your own standards, Ted Williams was not good enough at situational hitting, since he drew 649 walks with RISP in his career, compared to 550 hits in similar situations. With two outs and RISP, he drew 262 walks against 192 hits.

By contrast, Edgar had more hits than walks for his career with RISP, and his ratio was much closer than Williams' was with 2 outs and RISP (237 hits/262 walks).

So if this is your position, then apply it equally to all hitters and stake your claim that Ted Williams was not a good enough situational hitter. But more than likely, you'll feed us some hypocritical BS about how Williams walked to help his team when they needed more baserunners, and Edgar just selfishly took free bases instead of helping his team with base hits.

Who hit behind Williams in the Red Sox lineup?

Who hit behind Martinez in the Mariners lineup?

Posted by tecwrg on 8/18/2017 10:32:00 PM (view original):
Who hit behind Williams in the Red Sox lineup?

Who hit behind Martinez in the Mariners lineup?

I'm not your research monkey - figure it out for yourself.

But I'll wager good money whoever hit after Williams was not as good of a hitter as Williams.

Posted by dahsdebater on 8/18/2017 8:53:00 PM (view original):
Here's another way of looking at it. In 2015, the average run value of a walk was 0.55. That's higher than the long-term historical average, but it's always been better than .4 during the live-ball era. Do I like Edgar Martinez with the bat in his hands better than Buhner? Sure. But that much better? Nope.

In that case, you should probably be touting JB as a HOFer.

Every AB doesn't result in a K or BB. It's conceivable that the guy who simply won't expand his strike zone is taking close strikes in 2-0, 2-1 counts. So anyone using absolutes, like jtpops, simply doesn't get it.

Posted by Jtpsops on 8/18/2017 11:26:00 PM (view original):

Posted by tecwrg on 8/18/2017 10:32:00 PM (view original):
Who hit behind Williams in the Red Sox lineup?

Who hit behind Martinez in the Mariners lineup?

I'm not your research monkey - figure it out for yourself.

But I'll wager good money whoever hit after Williams was not as good of a hitter as Williams.

Dude. You're BLing again.

You're the one who's trying to bring Williams into the discussion. You can't just dump Williams' name here and then run away. Especially after you've already provided "research monkey" type numbers (Williams' hits vs. walks with RISP) into the conversation.

So who hit behind Williams in the Red Sox Lineup?

I already told you...someone who wasn't as good of a hitter as Williams. But that doesn't matter anyway, by your standards.

"But in general, as a rule, you want you best hitters actually, you know, "hitting". If there's a runner on second base, and you have a good hitter at the plate, let's say somebody of EM's caliber, then I want him swinging at hittable pitches rather that trying to work a walk."

Nothing in that quote mentions the following batter. If you want your best hitters hitting, then you want Williams swinging away. You're contradicting yourself and throwing up smokescreens just like your mentor. He'd be proud right now, Grover.

Where am I contradicting myself?