Where to play this guy? SS or CF? Topic

missouridawg
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Hardball Dynasty – Fantasy Baseball Sim Games - Player Profile: Javy Rojas
12/24/2011 4:19 PM
caesari
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SS, as long as you don't have another.
12/24/2011 4:31 PM
topoftheworl
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He's your AA SS right now and some day your utility IF.
12/24/2011 5:00 PM
jptrainwreck
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SS and Let him collect a half dozen gold gloves. I think his bat will be tolerable vs rhp, given how big a plus his glove will be.

12/27/2011 12:42 AM
jcairns
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I agree with Caesari and topoftheworl. He's your starting shortstop if you have no one better, your util if you do
12/27/2011 1:38 AM
dedelman
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Personal preference-- I would almost never roster this guy in the majors at all.  He's almost useful because of his platoon split; he'll hit about .220/.270/.290 against RHP at his peak (as opposed to about .180/.230/.250 against LHP), and I suppose that kind of plays with his glove.  If your primary SS were a guy like Jose Picasso with a strong bat, a weak glove, and marginal durability, I could maybe see rostering this guy to have him play the last 2 innings of every close game and get the occasional start against RHP.  But on most of my teams I don't want a completely non-hitting SS glove on the roster.
12/27/2011 12:54 PM
prezuiwf
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He will be a Gold Glove SS. I disagree completely with dedelman, I will put virtually any bat at SS if he's winning Gold Gloves.
12/27/2011 7:18 PM
caesari
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Posted by prezuiwf on 12/27/2011 7:18:00 PM (view original):
He will be a Gold Glove SS. I disagree completely with dedelman, I will put virtually any bat at SS if he's winning Gold Gloves.
Plus it is extremely difficult to find a good bat and GG defensive package. I sacrifice a bat for SS, and sometimes catcher. But mostly SS.

Trust me, those defensive + plays will far outweigh his horrible batting (just stick him in your 8th/9th spot, depending on whether you are AL or NL).
12/27/2011 10:22 PM
topoftheworl
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Let say his plays minus minus plays minus his errors equaled 12 (A HUGE number for SS (more achievable at CF), but let's go there to be generous.  According to the number dwoorley uses (and I've since seen other people using the same number) his defensive contribution would be positive 9 runs (12 X .75).  According to my formula that bat should be worth about 15 runs created too complicated to list here).  That is a total net of 24 runs created.  People have gone round and round about what is reasonable to expect out of a SS, but a conservative number is 50-60.  If we are generous and say its only 50 our hero would cost his team between 2 and 3 games versus an average SS in a typical year.
12/28/2011 4:59 AM
antoncresten
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12/28/2011 6:51 AM
dedelman
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Posted by topoftheworl on 12/28/2011 4:59:00 AM (view original):
Let say his plays minus minus plays minus his errors equaled 12 (A HUGE number for SS (more achievable at CF), but let's go there to be generous.  According to the number dwoorley uses (and I've since seen other people using the same number) his defensive contribution would be positive 9 runs (12 X .75).  According to my formula that bat should be worth about 15 runs created too complicated to list here).  That is a total net of 24 runs created.  People have gone round and round about what is reasonable to expect out of a SS, but a conservative number is 50-60.  If we are generous and say its only 50 our hero would cost his team between 2 and 3 games versus an average SS in a typical year.
I htink you're short-selling him a little bit defensively. 

Kane Beamon plays SS for one of my teams.  He's just a touch worse than this guy defensively, not enough to matter (although he's about 100 points of OPS better hitter).  Per "season" (1364 defensive innings, or ~152 full games, chosen because it's one third of his career total)  he makes about 22 more + plays than - plays, and makes about 12 errors fewer than the average SS.  This makes him about 25 runs better than average.

I found a comparable offensive player, Charles Lee-- well, he's actually a better hitter, but the park kills him to where his stats are close to what I would expect our boy's to be.  Lee creates about 38 runs per full season offensively.

This guy is comparable to an average SS who creates 63 runs on offense.  The first three guys I clicked on who created between 62 and 66 runs on offense had OPS in the .670-.680 range, all 3.  So he's about the same as a guy with recommended defensive numbers who can hit .260/.320/.350.  Which, in my opinion, makes him a better option than I first thought, one of the best 32 SSs in most worlds but not one of the best 25, someone who should be on the bench or platooning for a championship contender but can start for a rebuilding team without hurting them.
12/28/2011 2:33 PM
topoftheworl
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Two things.

1.  The formula is not a relative formula.  It gives what dwoorley believes (and I have no reason to doubt) the defensive contribution of any player.  Beamon's  23 + / 1 - / 16 error average gives him an average score of positive 6.  That would give him a defensive contribution of plus 4 runs. 

2.  The guys you are comparing him to are much better offensive players.  While our fearless hero is still young and therefore may develop a better bat, but Beamon's projected offensive production is 64.8 runs created per season.  Lee's is 42.9.  While neither of them will be confused with ARod its hardly the same as 15 runs created.
12/29/2011 2:45 AM
dedelman
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Posted by topoftheworl on 12/29/2011 2:45:00 AM (view original):
Two things.

1.  The formula is not a relative formula.  It gives what dwoorley believes (and I have no reason to doubt) the defensive contribution of any player.  Beamon's  23 + / 1 - / 16 error average gives him an average score of positive 6.  That would give him a defensive contribution of plus 4 runs. 

2.  The guys you are comparing him to are much better offensive players.  While our fearless hero is still young and therefore may develop a better bat, but Beamon's projected offensive production is 64.8 runs created per season.  Lee's is 42.9.  While neither of them will be confused with ARod its hardly the same as 15 runs created.
1.  By definition, all formulae are relative in HBD.  You can say that Beamon is +4 runs-- but when it's time to choose a SS you're going to line them all up and compare them relative to each other, and the way you're doing it you'll find that  there are only a handful of + SS in the world, and your "zero" will be way above league average, and suddenly -10 won't seem so horrible.  You're just setting the zero level as a player who makes no errors and no plus or minus plays, someone with ratings of 80/100/85/100 or so.  Which is a well above-average SS in HBD.

2.  I was totally unclear about why I dragged Beamon and Lee into this, my bad. 
     First, I needed some way to convert our boy's defensive ratings into runs so I could compare him to a bunch of other SSs to see how good he is.  Beamon was just how I converted his ratings into defensive runs; his bat had nothing to do with it.  Note that had I used the defensive formula the way you want me to, all it would have done was subtract about 15 runs from everyone, leaving the order the same.
     Next, I needed to convert his hitting ratings into runs created.  I couldn't find a ML guy with hitting ratings comparable to our boy-- guys with those ratings tend not to get a ton of ML ABs-- so all I could do was take my projected OBP/SLG for him, find someone with similar OBP and SLG, and find that guy's runs created.  Lee is a better hitter than Lopez, but he had an off season in a pitchers' park in which his OBP and SLG were about what I expected of Lopez, creating a way for me to estimate how many runs Lopez would create as a starter. 
     A quick and dirty comparison of Lopez to other SSs in one of my worlds, using this total runs number, seemed to indicate that he would be marginally playable as a starting SS, which surprised me-- these guys usually end up as AAA SSs for my teams, giving me a way to salvage something from the position in case of injuries.
12/29/2011 12:08 PM
topoftheworl
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Posted by dedelman on 12/29/2011 12:08:00 PM (view original):
Posted by topoftheworl on 12/29/2011 2:45:00 AM (view original):
Two things.

1.  The formula is not a relative formula.  It gives what dwoorley believes (and I have no reason to doubt) the defensive contribution of any player.  Beamon's  23 + / 1 - / 16 error average gives him an average score of positive 6.  That would give him a defensive contribution of plus 4 runs. 

2.  The guys you are comparing him to are much better offensive players.  While our fearless hero is still young and therefore may develop a better bat, but Beamon's projected offensive production is 64.8 runs created per season.  Lee's is 42.9.  While neither of them will be confused with ARod its hardly the same as 15 runs created.
1.  By definition, all formulae are relative in HBD.  You can say that Beamon is +4 runs-- but when it's time to choose a SS you're going to line them all up and compare them relative to each other, and the way you're doing it you'll find that  there are only a handful of + SS in the world, and your "zero" will be way above league average, and suddenly -10 won't seem so horrible.  You're just setting the zero level as a player who makes no errors and no plus or minus plays, someone with ratings of 80/100/85/100 or so.  Which is a well above-average SS in HBD.

2.  I was totally unclear about why I dragged Beamon and Lee into this, my bad. 
     First, I needed some way to convert our boy's defensive ratings into runs so I could compare him to a bunch of other SSs to see how good he is.  Beamon was just how I converted his ratings into defensive runs; his bat had nothing to do with it.  Note that had I used the defensive formula the way you want me to, all it would have done was subtract about 15 runs from everyone, leaving the order the same.
     Next, I needed to convert his hitting ratings into runs created.  I couldn't find a ML guy with hitting ratings comparable to our boy-- guys with those ratings tend not to get a ton of ML ABs-- so all I could do was take my projected OBP/SLG for him, find someone with similar OBP and SLG, and find that guy's runs created.  Lee is a better hitter than Lopez, but he had an off season in a pitchers' park in which his OBP and SLG were about what I expected of Lopez, creating a way for me to estimate how many runs Lopez would create as a starter. 
     A quick and dirty comparison of Lopez to other SSs in one of my worlds, using this total runs number, seemed to indicate that he would be marginally playable as a starting SS, which surprised me-- these guys usually end up as AAA SSs for my teams, giving me a way to salvage something from the position in case of injuries.
1.  Fair enough so long as we allow that the formula doesn't presuppose a position except catcher when computing a defensive value.  Clearly our hero would have an even greater defensive value if we played him at first, though his bat would be even further outside of expectations.

2.  I don't necessarily disagree with this point.  I wouldn't overrate park effects that much.  Clearly there is an effect, but its less than the average amount of variation in any season.  In the end we just disagree on whether his contribution would ever justify a starting spot.  We both think he is a ML, I just think he belongs as a utility man.
12/29/2011 3:02 PM
Where to play this guy? SS or CF? Topic
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