Perception Differences
Let’s play one of baseball writer’s favorite games – anonymous player comparison!
Player A, 2007: .386 OBP, .562 SLG, 3.42 WPA/LI
Player B, 2007: .386 OBP, .554 SLG, 3.51 WPA/LI
Player A, 2008: .384 OBP, .526 SLG, 2.32 WPA/LI
Player B, 2008: .373 OBP, .528 SLG, 2.31 WPA/LI
That’s two years where both players have been almost identical in terms of offensive value. They couldn’t be viewed any more differently by most of baseball, however.
Player A is Hanley Ramirez, the Marlins all-star shortstop, sometimes mentioned MVP candidate, and widely considered one of the most valuable players in the game. Player B is Adam Dunn, the guy who was traded for a marginal minor league starter and two PTBNL’s on a waiver-wire deal yesterday.
Now, there’s obviously a big difference between them – Ramirez plays shortstop, and Dunn plays outfield. But neither of them are particularly adept defenders relative to their peers, so most of the actual difference between their value comes from the position adjustment required to make up for the difference in expected offensive from an SS and an LF.
The average NL SS is hitting .271/.328/.396, while the average LF is hitting .273/.351/.460. That’s a significant difference, and when plugged into a win value calculator, the difference comes out to about one win over the course of the season. Even if we wanted to give Ramirez a bit of extra value for being a better shortstop than Dunn is an outfielder (which is arguable, but possible), the most we’ll be able to get the difference up to is 1.5 wins over a full season.
There’s a difference, no doubt, but can you imagine the media reaction if the Diamondbacks had traded for Hanley Ramirez yesterday? It’s not exactly a proportional response to the actual difference between the two. More than anything else, the way Dunn and Ramirez are perceived tells us just how strongly batting average still has a hold on the game as a whole.
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how do you account for dunn’s 1.68 WPA/LI in 2006?
While I agree that batting average is too highly thought of, I have to say that I would rather have a guy who is identical in most ways, except his average is 62 points higher. I would also say that the fact that Dunn is striking out 32% of the time while Ramirez is only at 22% is a decided advantage for Ramirez as well. I’m definitely a novice to all of the more sophisticated statistical data, but it seems like the guy who puts the ball in play safely with greater consistency is still the more valuable player, even before factoring in the positional adjustment.
Dave is not saying Dunn is a better value than Ramirez. He is just pointing out that over the last couple of years they have had similar offensive output. During that time one is praised as the second coming while the other is chased out of town by the local media.
The thing we can’t forget here is that the DBacks will only have Dunn for a couple months and if they don’t resign him they will get a couple picks back. Ramirez has a few cost controlled years left under his belt which increases his value quite a bit.
Ramirez signed an expensive (for the Marlins, anyway) contract extension, which I think kicks in next year.
As far as strikeouts go, most of the work I’ve seen has indicated that they’re not substantially worse than normal ball-in-play outs. Of course, since balls in play go for hits sometimes, strikeouts do serve to reduce batting average. But if you have two hitters whose OBP and SLG are pretty much the same, one of them striking out more than the other won’t cause a difference of more than a couple runs per year.
Dunn is commonly miss-understood. However, the one thing the stats due not account for is the difference in skill set. Ramirez has put up these numbers at an age short of the prime year(s) as well as playing in a pitchers park. Also he affects the game with his speed.
It’s obviously a lot more than just batting average.
Hanley is 24, Dunn is 28. Dunn has played his home games in a great hitters park, while Hanley plays in a pitchers park. Hanley has 130 stolen bases from 06-08, and has scored 76 more runs than Dunn with just about 140 extra plate appearances in that span.
Then there’s the batting average thing, and the SS vs LF thing as well. Dunn is a very good player, but it’s also true that he doesn’t deserve nearly as much buzz as a player like Hanley.
Dunn gets a punch for playing in GABP. Also Dunn is basically getting paid what he’s worth (3 win player when totaling his bat and glove for $13M).
Ramirez is is controlled for 6 more years (and he’ll be underpaid probably for at least the next 3) and Dunn for about 6 weeks depending upon the playoff fortunes of the snakes.
I think Dunn is a lightning rod for just about everyone-K haters, D lovers, guys who don’t like how true three outcome players age, those who think only Pete Rose clones truly love the game, guys who love BA-especially with RISP etc.
After all of that, he’s a 3 win player with slump-proof on base skills and the durability of a mule.
He should be a DH in the AL and his skipper should just pen him into the number 2 spot on his line up card in order to max his PA’s, leverage his on base skills and let him hit those long balls.
All of that said though, he is one of those guys who tend to age poorly making him a bigger risk as he seeks his career payday during his peak years (it’s said he’s told his buddies in the Cincy clubhouse that he’d like $100M).
Dunn is 4 wins above replacement offensively. Ramirez is 7. I don’t see the comparison.
Age and speed, that’s all. 4 years age difference is a looong time in baseball-years. Also, one guy can steal 50 bases, the other won’t steal 10. It’s not complicated.
Counting everything I can count – batting, park adjustment, position, defense, dp turning, OF arm, baserunning -
I’ve got Dunn at +33 over replacement, Ramirez at +53. The difference in 2006 was much greater, Ramirez +45, Dunn +7 – Dunn had a bad year at the plate by his standards and the rest of his game went from poor to unacceptable.
I really don’t think it’s batting average. If Dunn could play a passable shortstop and steal 50 bases, the perception of him would be much greater.
Also, as for the discrepancy between my over replacement levels and others posted – if you have a replacement player worse than 20-25 runs below an average player, you are demonstrably wrong – any decent analyst could easily identify many players available freely who are much better than your “replacement level”.
FWIW, I have Dunn projected at .5 wins better than Hanley in context-neutral offensive lwts (that includes park adjustments, adjustments for quality of competition, etc.). That is right now. Of course over the next few years, Dunn is probably on the decline and Hanley is probably on an upslope.
I have them about the same (10 to 15 runs below average) at their respective defensive positions. SS is worth around 1.5 wins more than LF. For example, if Hanley moved to LF, he would presumably go from a -10 fielder at SS to a +5 (per 150 games) fielder in LF.
So, Hanley has a 1 win edge so far. Dunn is actually not a bad baserunner for a big, lumbering guy. He is around average. Hanley is not small of course, and he is only around 2 runs above average in baserunning. I’d be willing to give him an edge over Dunn of .5 wins in that department.
So Hanley is around 1.5 wins better, give or take a half win or so.
I agree with David about the public, media, and even the baseball insiders’ perception of both players. It is night and day. Most people (like all the announcers I hear on TV) think that Hanley is one of the best overall players in baseball. He would be if he were even an average defensive player. These same pundits seem to think that he is a good if not very good defender for some reason, although I don’t think they have any good reason why they think that, other than it is not common knowledge that he is probably a bad defender other than among analysts and the like.