Comments on: The Average Player

By: Jay5ive

Jay5ive — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 21:38:38 +0000

I’ll take Upton and his better defense with potential over Bay and his awful defense and inflated batting stats this year. Saying Upton would be in the minors if he couldn’t run would be like saying Bay would be in the minors if he couldn’t hit. It’s irrelevant. Let’s not forget Upton came into this season dealing with shoulder issues as well. It’s obvious his superior defense outweighs his lack of production at the plate where as Bay has putrid defense that takes away from his batting prowess. It’s not that hard to figure out.

By: dbuff

dbuff — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 19:44:04 +0000

Jason Bay plays half his games at Fenway Park where the defensive demands on a left-fielder are minimal.

By: Slick

Slick — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 19:27:59 +0000

Counting on Adam Dunn to hit 40 HRs and 100 RBIs a year is a sure thing. He’s done it for 4 season in a row and had 46 five seasons ago and also looks poised to do it again playing half his games in a pitcher’s park. Then again, who cares where you hit HRs as long as they go over the fence. Of course, sabremetrically he ‘sucks’ cuz he strikes out a lot and plays horrific defense, etc, etc. But at least you can count on his production and they didn’t sign him to win a gold glove.

By: Mark

Mark — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 18:20:59 +0000

No, my point is that a great offensive player will win you more games with his offense than a great defensive player will with his defense.

By: wobatus

wobatus — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 15:53:27 +0000

That’s a fair point. I don’t discount the fielding values completely. I think fangraphs has had some examples where they are pretty hard line about what they think values are. The biggest examples I recall, and neither of these are 20/20 hindsight, were saying Giles was worth his contract and padres holding onto him wasn’t so bad, and Kubel was not worth his contract. I thought these opinions were wrong on both counts at the time and didn’t take the probablility of regeression on one hand or progression on the other into account enough. Neither of which are speciafically fielding based issues, but they overemphasized Giles fielding value compared to what seemed a likely regression in hitting, and for Kubel overemphasized his dh status and underemphasized the good possibility of increase in his hitting value.

By: Michael

Michael — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 15:26:57 +0000

I think part of the problem here is that people seem to think “average” is a bad thing. Average players contribute around 2 WAR a season, or about $8-9M on free agent market value a year. I don’t think people need to get up in arms on that.

Not sure where your “obvious reasons” comes into play. Maybe the work being done on defensive metrics isn’t always precise (i.e. not all metrics agree), but it is based on sound principles and should absolutely be taken seriously. Does it require more regression? Sure, and we should regress defense more because it does change so radically year-to-year. But when a player posts three or four years worth of -10 or more runs on defense, you gotta think his value is right around there.

I have a strong belief that while year-to-year defensive projections are difficult, the actual values you get are trustworthy, or at least trustworthy enough within the error bars (I believe MGL has UZR/150 at +/- 5, for what that’s worth).

By: Mark

Mark — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 08:29:35 +0000

Let’s be real. The term “average” is brutally misused in its context here, first of all — perhaps you could include some sort of caveat to indicate such. Also, it’s a big stretch to label someone as average if they are subpar in one category and above-par in another. I’m of the belief that while defense is important and all, great offensive players are several times more valuable than great defensive players, for obvious reasons–thus rendering the “average” term all the more obsolete. And yes, I’m aware that merely stating such a belief is appalling to the most dyed-in-the-wool statheads. I don’t care.

By: Not David

Not David — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 07:37:15 +0000

What I wouldn’t give to have more average players surrounding Mauer and Morneau.

By: Not David

Not David — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 07:34:42 +0000

I’ve always liked the following article. Even though it measures strictly offensive, it does a nice job of showing talent distribution.

http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/the-burdens-of-being-average/

By: hennethannun

hennethannun — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 05:36:37 +0000

Shouldn’t we be careful to remember the distinction between ‘average’ level and ‘replacement’ level?

I mean in theory the bar for replacement level should be lower than the bar for average. An average player should have a roughly median value, meaning about as many players in the majors are worse than him as are better. But a ‘replacement level’ player is the theoretical expression of ‘freely available talent’ that any major league team could acquire in the form of minor league free agents and unemployed veterans. Of course this sort of thing only works on a macro-scale. On the micro-scale everything is context dependent. The Brewers probably have an above ‘average’ level of replacement at SS in Escobar, while the red sox clearly have a much lower than ‘average’ replacement level at SS having moved lugo and diaz and lost lowrie.

But the point is that we should remember to think about where the replacement level bar has been set relative to ‘league average performance’ when talking about the value of specific players relative to replacement level.