Comments on: ALCS Preview: Is Bobby Abreu Fast?

By: Orangeman94

Orangeman94 — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 23:27:09 +0000

Yeah, Victorino is listed at 5′9″ 185 lb. Is this meant to be a large baseball player?

By: don

don — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 22:29:14 +0000

I was just sort of thinking out loud another reason why some guys without top end speed might rack up pretty good steal totals. It might be interesting to see who runs the most frequently compared to their opportunities, though.

Pujols went 16/20 this year, he would seem to fit somewhat slower pick your spots well mold too.

By: Choo

Choo — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 22:11:03 +0000

Not sure, but all of the steals I saw from Abreu were solo swipes, the majority of which came on breaking balls. Being able to spot those breaking ball situations is a big plus for a base stealer, and typically the best hitters are the ones who possess that skill. Abreu, Utley, Getz, Kinsler, Jeter, Choo, Kennedy, Longoria, A-Rod, etc are successful base stealers despite lacking world class speed. I’m guessing a lot of their steals come on breaking balls as well.

By: David

David — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 21:22:01 +0000

The anti-Bobby Abreu has to be Felix Pie. Pie is very fast and exhibits great range in the outfield, but his baserunning instincts are awful. He is 1/4 in steals this season – I’m pretty sure that’s 3 pickoffs and 1 lucky botched hit and run. I think if you did a study on “number of times thrown out on the basepaths”, Pie would be at the top.

One question – does Abreu usually hit near the top of the order? If so, maybe he’s going on the back end of double steals frequently. That’s how Nick Markakis has so many steals (in previous years at least); he’s actually one of the slower players on the team.

By: Kevin S.

Kevin S. — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 20:35:27 +0000

To take that to the logical conclusion, wouldn’t we have to normalize it to ‘OBP with second base open?”

By: Choo

Choo — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 18:13:15 +0000

Every team has a minimum of one coach on the bench who times everything for in-game decision making and a scout or statistician who times everything for record keeping purposes. A grizzled vet of the stopwatch can probably name the five fastest umpires when it comes to retrieving a ball from his bag and getting it to the pitcher. No joke. Everything that can be timed has been timed because calculating speed as it applies to baseball has to be performed on a task by task basis.

For example, home-to-first times are important as they apply to home-to-first, but that’s about it. A left-handed slap hitter with a quick finish has a huge advantage over a right-handed power hitter with a high finish. Their h2f times can help the opposing team position their infield defense, but it says nothing about their ability to steal a base, patrol center field, score from first on a shallow double to the gap, etc.

I like the list of the 10 rangiest OF’s in David Foy’s post above. They aren’t simply the 10 best outfielders at positioning and reading the ball off the bat and they aren’t the 10 most explosive runners, but there is a definite commonality. Eight of the 10 OF’s share the prototype CF body: striders with long levers and lean mass on a rangy 6-1 to 6-4 frame. They look like wide receivers. Covering ground in the outfield requires a specific type of speed and it’s not the same kind of speed that is required for stealing bases. Some players have both kinds of speed. Some don’t.

By: Steve

Steve — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 17:53:19 +0000

The difference, as some have alluded to, is that speed is a physical attribute that can’t be learned. Base stealing or range, are attributes that can be learned by reading pitchers, or the bat off the ball, picking the right situation to run on, or getting a good first step in the outfield, etc. I’m a Yankee fan, and I’ve talked to a lot of other Yankee fans who believe that signing Chone Figgins in the offseason to play CF would be a good idea citing his speed. This of course fails to address the fact that Figgins has been a below average defender everywhere in the field except third base where speed as no defensive value and the position relies on quick reaction time/reflexes and arm strength.

Also, drawing another Yankee fan comparison, Abreu was a terrible defensive outfielder in his time in pinstripes and his replacement, Nick Swisher has been much better. Swisher isn’t a great defender in his own right, but is atleast slightly above league average despite being slower than Abreu and having a weaker arm. The difference again is the ability to read the ball of the bat, take a good route to the ball, and if necessary sacrifice the body to make the play. Again many Yankee fans try to claim that Abreu is a better defender than Swisher because they either try to draw a correlation between Abreu’s stolen base totals and defense (without looking at defensive metrics) or just because Swisher looks terribly unathletic going after balls giving him the appearance of a poor defender.

Is Abreu fast? He’s probably got above average speed, but knows how to run the bases.

By: Alireza

Alireza — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 17:42:04 +0000

Everyone of those OF SB guys is fast. Above average fast or better. Also, Victorino is not a big guy at all. He has some pop, but is not a big guy.

By: joser

joser — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 17:31:31 +0000

So, that’s kind of interesting: you’re suggesting we should normalize SB attempts (whether successful or not) by OBP, to get a better sense if a guy really is trying to steal whenever he car or if he is just on base so much that a lower SB rate makes it “looks like” he is?

By: aweb

aweb — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 15:42:26 +0000

There is widespread access to home-to-first speed – everygame is available to watch/rewatch online for a fee. Hit tracker has gone ahead and tracked all of the home runs, how far/hard they were hit, etc. Obviously more people care about homers, but the same could be done easily enough (conceptually, it would be a lot fo repetitive work) for timing players from contact to first base. If someone really wanted speed measures like that, they are there for the taking. There are software packages (the NFL broadcasts use them now sometimes) that are able to take the images and translate them to mph. Is Abreu fast? Check.

I’d be stunned if teams don’t have a good measure of speed for players, either from timing them on the basepaths or in the outfield when running to a ball. Just because the info isn’t publically available doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.