Joe Madden walks!!! that's right walks not stupid bunts

[Olerud363]

So in my endless ramblings about on base percentage, I'm often told "chill out captain obviious -- on base percentage is no longer "moneyball"... these days everyone knows how important on base percentage is... so it's overvalued now."

 

If that's true why does Tampa Bay have a slightly better offense then Toronto (since 2008) with way less homeruns but way more walks?? If on base percentage is so expensive how does Tampa bay afford it??

 

When Tampa comes to town there is always 10 to 20 silly posts on crafty Joe Maddon and his bunts. There are zero on Joe Maddon working well with a brilliant team constructed by a brilliant GM that WALKS a freakin tonne. If walks are over-rated now why does the ultimate budget team still walk more than anyone?? Not that they have a totally brilliant offense. Their batting averages are low, they hit fewer homeruns then Toronto, but the walks make up for it, so the offense in the end (over a period of years) is a bit better then Toronto's.

 

Here is the data. Runs, homers, walks, and sacrafice bunts... league rank in parenthesis (except for bunts because it wasn't available). Toronto and Tampa bunt about the same. Toronto hits more homers. Tampa walks a lot more. How are they getting these overrated walks so cheaply??

 

2013

tbr 465 (4) 113 (4) 339 (5) 16

tor 439 (6) 120 (2) 307 (8) 19

 

2012

tbr 697 (11) 175 (8) 571 (1) 34

tor 716 (7) 198 (5) 473 (9) 33

 

2011

tbr 707 (8) 172 (6) 571 (3) 37

tor 743 (6) 186 (5) 525 (4) 31

 

2010

tbr 802 (3) 160 (6) 672 (1) 39

tor 755 (6) 257 (1) 471 (9) 16

 

2009

tbr 803 (5) 199 (5) 642 (3) 25

tor 798 (6) 209 (4) 548 (6) 24

 

2008

tbr 774 (9) 180 (4) 626 (2) 23

tor 714 (11) 126 (10) 521 (11) 48

[Olerud363]

Note especiallly 2010. Tampa score 50 more runs with 100 less homers??

 

How could that happen?? There is no explanation... other than...

 

CLUTCH BUNTS! That must be it right??

[eastcoastjaysfan]

Why didnt you just post this in your other thread..................

 

..................

[JohnnyLonghorn]

Walking is important no doubt but without clutch hitting it can be all for naught. Jays walked 7 times on Sunday and mustered all of one run.

[Olerud363]

And a final point. I know it's Maddon, and not Madden. I corrected it in my post but don't know how to fix the title. I don't know why I keep doing it. It's probably a sort of dyslexic thing.

[Olerud363]

Walking is important no doubt but without clutch hitting it can be all for naught. Jays walked 7 times on Sunday and mustered all of one run.

 

That's just one game though. You have to look at these stats over a period of years really.

 

If anyone has clutch stats from Jays and Rays over the last few years it would be interesting to see.

[TheHurl]

They aren't getting OBP cheaply. A big chunk of their walks this year are from 3 players they developed in Longoria, Jennings and Zobrist (well they didn't fully develop Zobrist) the forth guy is Joyce who similar to Zobrist has spent the majority of his pro career with the Rays. They locked up Zobrist and Longoria with team friendly contracts (not that dissimilar to the Jays who locked up their two best hitters). I would say that it's approach but if you look Escobar has a slightly better BB rate than what he had with the Jays last year but still below his other years in the bigs. Kelly Johnson is below last years BB rates, Loney right around his career averages which is also the league average...Ryan Roberts is putting up a career low BB Rate.

 

There is little doubt that the Rays are a saber friendly team and are looking for market inefficiencies. Tell me what the Rays saw in James Loney which made them think he would hit .350 against lefties and then you have something.

[JohnnyLonghorn]

I'm sure the disparity in statistics is probably much greater in regards to pitching than hitting between these two ball clubs.

[DuckDuckGose]

They aren't getting OBP cheaply. A big chunk of their walks this year are from 3 players they developed in Longoria, Jennings and Zobrist (well they didn't fully develop Zobrist) the forth guy is Joyce who similar to Zobrist has spent the majority of his pro career with the Rays. They locked up Zobrist and Longoria with team friendly contracts (not that dissimilar to the Jays who locked up their two best hitters). I would say that it's approach but if you look Escobar has a slightly better BB rate than what he had with the Jays last year but still below his other years in the bigs. Kelly Johnson is below last years BB rates, Loney right around his career averages which is also the league average...Ryan Roberts is putting up a career low BB Rate.

 

There is little doubt that the Rays are a saber friendly team and are looking for market inefficiencies. Tell me what the Rays saw in James Loney which made them think he would hit .350 against lefties and then you have something.

 

A big part of it is the Jays' hitters missing time to injury or under-performing.

[Olerud363]

Why didnt you just post this in your other thread..................

 

..................

 

Fair question. The motivation for the thread was about 10 to 20 Joe Maddon "bunting" comments I saw over the weekend.

 

The "dogma" was that the Rays are an under-financed franchise with a mediocre offense so have to bunt more than the Jays...

 

It was just one of those things were the "dogma" was completely wrong... so I felt it deserved it's own thread.

 

1. Joe Maddon doesn't bunt more then the Jays.

2. The Tampa offense is better then the Jays (over a period of years).

3. Tampa bay does hit less homeruns then the Jays. They make up for it by walking, not by bunting.

[Buster]

Zaun ripped on Bautista yesterday for a poor approach with runners at 3rd in a critical situation. This may also be the key. Clubhouse culture can impact how players approach highly critical situations, that when you add them up over a season won't change the aggregate numbers a lot, but contribute to a lot of wins.

 

When your clubhouse leaders are guys like Longoria, and Zobrist, it has has a positive impact on the rest of the guys playing a team game. We have "JOEY BATS!!!" and lo viste's. And guys that swing and miss at pitches bounced 15 feet in front of home plate.

[Olerud363]

They aren't getting OBP cheaply. A big chunk of their walks this year are from 3 players they developed in Longoria, Jennings and Zobrist (well they didn't fully develop Zobrist) the forth guy is Joyce who similar to Zobrist has spent the majority of his pro career with the Rays. They locked up Zobrist and Longoria with team friendly contracts (not that dissimilar to the Jays who locked up their two best hitters). I would say that it's approach but if you look Escobar has a slightly better BB rate than what he had with the Jays last year but still below his other years in the bigs. Kelly Johnson is below last years BB rates, Loney right around his career averages which is also the league average...Ryan Roberts is putting up a career low BB Rate.

 

There is little doubt that the Rays are a saber friendly team and are looking for market inefficiencies. Tell me what the Rays saw in James Loney which made them think he would hit .350 against lefties and then you have something.

 

I doubt the Rays try to predict individual player performance to that kind of precision. It's not possible and the Rays are smart enough to avoid that.

 

As a group they predicted that Loney, Johnson, and Escobar would rebound and be productive. The individual variations (Escobar a bit low, Loney a bit high) are just noise.

 

I suspect the Rays "group" projection for Loney/Johnson/Escobar was pretty good.

[TheHurl]

I doubt the Rays try to predict individual player performance to that kind of precision. It's not possible and the Rays are smart enough to avoid that.

 

As a group they predicted that Loney, Johnson, and Escobar would rebound and be productive. The individual variations (Escobar a bit low, Loney a bit high) are just noise.

 

I suspect the Rays "group" projection for Loney/Johnson/Escobar was pretty good.

 

I'm not going to argue with you about something that I not only believe to be true but know to be true...the Rays base a lot of their decisions based on numbers and projections (including defense). The Jays have some predictive models they use but I have to believe that defensive metrics are largely ignored and production is heavily weighted (which shouldn't even be in predictive models). I'm just saying that I don't think the Rays set out looking for OBP (Loney had a .293 last year, KJ .313, Yunel .300) they look for value, and say at least they play good defense and even if they don't hit they draw a few walks at a very small investment (under $10M for the 3 of them). For some unknown reason many of them do hit.

[Olerud363]

I'm not going to argue with you about something that I not only believe to be true but know to be true...the Rays base a lot of their decisions based on numbers and projections (including defense). The Jays have some predictive models they use but I have to believe that defensive metrics are largely ignored and production is heavily weighted (which shouldn't even be in predictive models). I'm just saying that I don't think the Rays set out looking for OBP (Loney had a .293 last year, KJ .313, Yunel .300) they look for value, and say at least they play good defense and even if they don't hit they draw a few walks at a very small investment (under $10M for the 3 of them). For some unknown reason many of them do hit.

 

A reasonable guess is that the Rays look at career on base percentage (Loney has a .341, KJ .338, Yunel .349).

 

Players, somewhere around 30, with a good career on base percentage, coming off of a down year.

[IronLadle]

Jays are tenth in league in walks, not that far behind Tampa

[Olerud363]

Jays are tenth in league in walks, not that far behind Tampa

 

Jays are 8th in the league in walks. Not 10th. Tampa is 5th. Jays are 32 walks behind. Did you read the post?? I summarized all that info for all seasons since 2008.

 

Jays end up 50 to 200 walks behind Tampa in a given year. There's variation. This year it will probably be closer to 50 then 200. In an average year Jays are 100 walks behind Tampa.

 

Jays and Tampa bunt about the same amount. The difference in the offense (Tampa a bit ahead) is walks.

 

Are you arguing that?? Over the weekend I heard people say the differenece in offense is "clutch" and "bunts". My point is that the main difference is that Tampa walks 100 times a year more.

[IronLadle]

Jays are 8th in the league in walks. Not 10th. Tampa is 5th. Jays are 32 walks behind. Did you read the post?? I summarized all that info for all seasons since 2008.

 

Jays end up 50 to 200 walks behind Tampa in a given year. There's variation. This year it will probably be closer to 50 then 200. In an average year Jays are 100 walks behind Tampa.

 

Jays and Tampa bunt about the same amount. The difference in the offense (Tampa a bit ahead) is walks.

 

Are you arguing that?? Over the weekend I heard people say the differenece in offense is "clutch" and "bunts". My point is that the main difference is that Tampa walks 100 times a year more.

 

The Jays finished ahead of Tampa the last two years in runs scored - we've had a consistently good offense over the years. We just can't pitch.

[Olerud363]

The Jays finished ahead of Tampa the last two years in runs scored - we've had a consistently good offense over the years. We just can't pitch.

 

Tampa scores about 10 more runs a year. It is not much. But they are consistently a tad better.

 

The comments from the weekend indicated (some) people believed that Tampa had an inferior offense, and were forced to use brilliant clutch bunts at key moments.

 

The truth is that Tampa has a good offense, slightly better then Toronto (over a period of years). They do not use "clutch bunts" (atleast not anymore then Toronto.

 

Tampa hits less homers but makes up for it with walks. Just stating the facts. I believe I've stated them accurately.

 

Dogma: Tampa Bay and Joe Maddon are on a budget so they use clutch bunts.

 

Truth: Tampa Bay and Joe Maddon are on a budget, they walk more than most teams, their offense is slightly above average, they don't seem to use clutch bunts.

[IronLadle]

Tampa scores about 10 more runs a year. It is not much. But they are consistently a tad better.

 

The comments from the weekend indicated (some) people believed that Tampa had an inferior offense, and were forced to use brilliant clutch bunts at key moments.

 

The truth is that Tampa has a good offense, slightly better then Toronto (over a period of years). They do not use "clutch bunts" (atleast not anymore then Toronto.

 

Tampa hits less homers but makes up for it with walks. Just stating the facts. I believe I've stated them accurately.

 

Dogma: Tampa Bay and Joe Maddon are on a budget so they use clutch bunts.

 

Truth: Tampa Bay and Joe Maddon are on a budget, they walk more than most teams, their offense is slightly above average, they don't seem to use clutch bunts.

 

Not the last two years