Posted by MikeT23 on 2/7/2014 2:00:00 PM (view original):

Posted by burnsy483 on 2/7/2014 1:55:00 PM (view original):
Where's the "I like cheese" option? Not voting.

The obvious question is "Does Martinez have a great pitch to hit?"  Which you don't know.

The Mariners are more likely to win the game when EM walks to load the bases for the next guy up than he if gets out.  When he swings at the 1-0 heavy sinker on the 50-50 pitch on or near the outside corner of the plate, it's not likely to be a hit.  You're grasping at straws, assuming you know what his atbats were like in these very specific situations.  And arguing that these very specific situations are a main reason on why he's not HOF material.

"I like cheese" is tec's thing.  I'm not a plagarist.

I don't even know if the situations existed.   I'm just saying I'd prefer to have Martinez swinging, because "he does damage when he swings" in your words, than Dan Wilson, Russ Davis or anyone not named Griffey or A-Rod.

"I don't know if the situations existed" but you'll use them as an argument on why he's not a HOFer.

I'd also prefer Martinez walk than swing at a pitch he has little chance of doing damage with.

Only Mike would argue that a great hitter (career .312 BA) with a lot of power (career .515 SLG) hurts his hall of fame case with a 14% walk rate.

Trolling at its finest. You are truly an artist.

He walked a lot.  I think it was something like once every 6.5 PA.    I imagine there were times that he walked in his 8000+ PA when the team would have been better served by him swinging rather than giving it to Dan Wilson.

Posted by bad_luck on 2/7/2014 2:03:00 PM (view original):
Only Mike would argue that a great hitter (career .312 BA) with a lot of power (career .515 SLG) hurts his hall of fame case with a 10% walk rate.

Trolling at its finest. You are truly an artist.

I feel like Mike would find him more worthy if it was an 8% walk rate instead.

Posted by MikeT23 on 2/7/2014 2:05:00 PM (view original):
He walked a lot.  I think it was something like once every 6.5 PA.    I imagine there were times that he walked in his 8000+ PA when the team would have been better served by him swinging rather than giving it to Dan Wilson.

He walked 10% of the time.  That's a good thing.  And I'm sure you can say what you're saying about many players who bat cleanup.  

Stupid Mickey Mantle walking 13% of the time.  Too selective.

Posted by MikeT23 on 2/7/2014 2:05:00 PM (view original):
He walked a lot.  I think it was something like once every 6.5 PA.    I imagine there were times that he walked in his 8000+ PA when the team would have been better served by him swinging rather than giving it to Dan Wilson.

Barry Bonds walked 20% of the time. Maybe he should have knocked that **** off and grounded out to 2b more often. What a loser.

Posted by MikeT23 on 2/7/2014 2:05:00 PM (view original):
He walked a lot.  I think it was something like once every 6.5 PA.    I imagine there were times that he walked in his 8000+ PA when the team would have been better served by him swinging rather than giving it to Dan Wilson.

No, it was once every 10 PA, hence the 10% walk rate.

EDIT: My bad, his walk rate was 14.8%. Don't know where 10 came from.

Mike, I don't think any baseball people (sabermetrics or otherwise) would advise walking Edgar Martinez in this situation:

Any score
2 out, men on first and third
Wilson on deck

To my recollection, the only time a batter was intentionally walked to advance a runner was during Bonds' 'roid rage of 2004. Maybe it happened to Edgar too, but I strongly doubt it.

What you're suggesting, however, is that Edgar *should* have always been walked because Wilson batting instead (with the bases loaded, but ignoring his outlier effectiveness there) was preferable for minimizing runs.

Does that really make sense to you?

Baseball wisdom says you don't put a player in scoring position intentionally.  But that seems to be a different argument.  I'm not arguing what the opponent should or shouldn't have done.  In fact, you're telling me they would not have pitched around him(and I agree).  Therefore, he was drawing a walk and not being issued one.

Anyway, the objective is to score a run.   I assume we all agree it's just based on opportunity.  Opportunity that you create and opportunity that a teammate takes advantage of.    There may be a stat for this but I'm not aware of it.  

Subtracting homers, because you knock yourself in, EM was on base 3310 times(simplistic 1938 H, 1283 BB, 89 HBP) and scored 910 times.  .275 rate. Maybe that's good, maybe it's bad.  I don't know.    By comparison, Bernie Williams(chosen because we've argued the value between these two before and because he hit 3rd/4th most of his career) was on base 3157 times(2049 H, 1069 BB, 39 HBP) and scored 1079 runs.  .342 rate. 

Was EM helping his team the most possible by walking and counting on his teammates to get him around?

Just as a point of reference, Rickey was on base 5046 times and scored 1998 runs(excluding homers in both cases).  .396 rate as a lead-off. 

But your hypothetical may not have ever happened. You're saying, "hey look, Martinez walked a lot." Everyone else say, "yep, that's a good thing." And you come back with, "yeah, but what if he was up in the bottom of the ninth with two out and two on and took a walk?"

So what? As far as we know, that never happened. And any good hitter to ever play major league baseball has walked at the very least 5 or 6 percent of the time. That one off scenario could literally apply to anyone.

How often Martinez scores once he's on base is completely dependent on the people hitting behind him. But I do know that Martinez was helping his team by getting on base because all batters score 0% of the time from the bench after making an out.

"Was EM helping his team the most possible by walking and counting on his teammates to get him around?"

I suspect, statistically speaking, yes. I haven't done the numbers, obviously, but it's that really at the crux of the number crunching that's been done in the past decade?

Doesn't every batter - perhaps save for 'roided Barry and his .850 slugging percentage (I'm not sure, but if there is an outlier it is him) - ultimately create more runs (long term, not in a single particular instance) but getting on base via a walk, and letting the guy behind him hit with men on, rather than succeeding a minority of the time (as every hitter will)?

He's helping his team when they don't score?  Interesting theory. 

I'll try to be very specific.

The standard batting order has the best 5 hitters in first 5 spots in the order.  Everyone wants their best to get the most AB.   6-9 might be based on any number of factors but, for the most part, none are as good as the 5th spot.   You take a walk 1-4 and you're passing the buck to another good hitter.   You take one in the 5th spot and you're giving it to Dan Wilson.   IMO, Martinez probably should have hit 3rd.   But he didn't.   And because he knew he had Dan Wilson and Russ Davis hitting behind him, he would have helped the team more by walking less and hitting more.  Might have hurt his rate stats, or would have hurt his rate stats(more accurately), but he would have helped the team score more runs.   Because he was a better hitter than Dan Wilson or Russ Davis or anyone not named Griffey/Rodriguez.