Thursday, January 25, 2007
Taking Issue With Ladson
Bill Ladson ... ahhhh the mere mention of his name brings to mind all kinds of mailbag-quoting smarminess for we Nats bloggers. Today, Farid at TBB (a.ka. the pride of Pocatello, Idaho) posted his long-awaited interview with our beloved beat writer. It was a fun read. Of course, knowing that he keeps up with the Nats blogs will have me casting a glance over my shoulder before I hit the "Publish" button. Big Brother is watching...
While I enjoyed the interview, one section cause me to sit up and hit the "BS" button (not to be confused with the "Easy" button). I'm afraid that Ladson couldn't be more wrong in his feelings about the decision to presumptively give Nook Logan the CF job. Since there's little else in the way of on-field news to talk about today (aside from the Escobar signing), let's take a look at why Rocket Bill and I disagree. First, here's the offending statement:
"From the right side of the plate, he's a major league hitter." -- At first blush, that appears to be a logical statement, but it just doesn't hold up under scrutiny. Yes, as a RH hitter, Logan is a career .322/.356/.461 hitter in the majors. Unfortunately, Ladson falls victim to a common ailment among many baseball pundits; making statements based on small sample sizes. Call it RickShort-itis for lack of a better term.
Nook has a grand total of 162 career major league plate appearances from the right side of the dish. To put it another way, assuming 3 PA's per game, that's less than two months worth of game data he's basing that statement on. Let's expand the sample size a bit to see if we can get a clearer picture. Thanks to MinorLeagueSplits.com, we can see how Nook did as a right-handed hitter during his two trips to the minors in 2006. .213/.314/.281 over 89 RH AB. Blech. Unfortunately, I don't have splits for the rest of minor league career, though his .261/.325/.334 career minor league stat line suggests that he really isn't that good from either side of the plate. And just because I can't stand letting a dead horse just lay there unbeaten, here are more 2007 projections for Logan than any man should be allowed to see:
PECOTA - .244/.302/.331 (AVG/OBP/SLG)
ZiPS - .247/.298/.329
Bill James - .250/.312/.319
CHONE - .240/.294/.327
Marcel - .275/.330/.388
Are we noticing a trend yet? I could go into why Logan's 2006 "success" was due to a BABIP a was unsustainably high, but I would start to bore even myself if I dug any deeper. The basic question is whether Nook will save more runs with his glovework than he'll cost the Nats with his bat bad versus someone who is worse in the field but better with the bat (Church, Snelling, Escobar). I'm surprised that Ladson is surprised that the bloggers hated the Logan move so much. The numbers strongly suggest that we, not Ladson, should be the ones asking what games he's been watching.
As a final thought today, I'll ponder the status of the Nats' pursuit of Steve Trachsel. Robothal made an interesting point about him earlier today:
While I enjoyed the interview, one section cause me to sit up and hit the "BS" button (not to be confused with the "Easy" button). I'm afraid that Ladson couldn't be more wrong in his feelings about the decision to presumptively give Nook Logan the CF job. Since there's little else in the way of on-field news to talk about today (aside from the Escobar signing), let's take a look at why Rocket Bill and I disagree. First, here's the offending statement:
"I'm really surprised by the Nationals bloggers reaction regarding Acta's announcement," Bill told me. "I mean, what games have you been watching? Before Nook Logan, this team had real problems in center field, fielding and hitting. Ryan Church didn't do well in center; he was misjudging a lot of fly balls and let's face it, Nook Logan is an excellent center fielder, and bad defense is why we had a 5th place finish last year. I don't have a problem with Nook being a starter. No question, he has problems with hitting. From the right side of the plate, he's a major league hitter. It's the left side where he gets the most at-bats, where he has problems. He can bunt, but he can't hit as well. But I think that Mitchell Page will work his magic on him."I'll repeat that statement in case you missed it the first time -- "bad defense is why we had a 5th place finish last year." Yes, the Nats committed the most errors (131) of any team in the NL last season, but defense is an oft-overrated element of the game. Cincinnati, the second worst team in the league in errors with 128, was within sniffing distance of the playoffs for most of the season and finished in third place in their division. Colorado and San Francisco the 2nd and 3rd best teams (respectively) on defense and both finished well below .500. No, the real reason the Nats were in last place last season can be pinned on terribly pitching. For more on why Nook's center field wizardry could be overrated, I refer you to Señor Basil's excellent analysis over at Béisbol Federales.
"From the right side of the plate, he's a major league hitter." -- At first blush, that appears to be a logical statement, but it just doesn't hold up under scrutiny. Yes, as a RH hitter, Logan is a career .322/.356/.461 hitter in the majors. Unfortunately, Ladson falls victim to a common ailment among many baseball pundits; making statements based on small sample sizes. Call it RickShort-itis for lack of a better term.
Nook has a grand total of 162 career major league plate appearances from the right side of the dish. To put it another way, assuming 3 PA's per game, that's less than two months worth of game data he's basing that statement on. Let's expand the sample size a bit to see if we can get a clearer picture. Thanks to MinorLeagueSplits.com, we can see how Nook did as a right-handed hitter during his two trips to the minors in 2006. .213/.314/.281 over 89 RH AB. Blech. Unfortunately, I don't have splits for the rest of minor league career, though his .261/.325/.334 career minor league stat line suggests that he really isn't that good from either side of the plate. And just because I can't stand letting a dead horse just lay there unbeaten, here are more 2007 projections for Logan than any man should be allowed to see:
PECOTA - .244/.302/.331 (AVG/OBP/SLG)
ZiPS - .247/.298/.329
Bill James - .250/.312/.319
CHONE - .240/.294/.327
Marcel - .275/.330/.388
Are we noticing a trend yet? I could go into why Logan's 2006 "success" was due to a BABIP a was unsustainably high, but I would start to bore even myself if I dug any deeper. The basic question is whether Nook will save more runs with his glovework than he'll cost the Nats with his bat bad versus someone who is worse in the field but better with the bat (Church, Snelling, Escobar). I'm surprised that Ladson is surprised that the bloggers hated the Logan move so much. The numbers strongly suggest that we, not Ladson, should be the ones asking what games he's been watching.
As a final thought today, I'll ponder the status of the Nats' pursuit of Steve Trachsel. Robothal made an interesting point about him earlier today:
Of the remaining free-agent pitchers, right-hander Steve Trachsel, 36, could prove an intriguing buy. Excluding 2005, when he made only six starts due to back surgery, Trachsel has averaged 32 starts, 194 innings and a 4.29 ERA over the past 10 seasons. His 4.97 ERA last season was inflated by four poor outings; Trachsel allowed four earned runs or fewer in his other 26 starts. One more stat of note: Trachsel, despite earning only one victory in '05, has won 55 games over the past five seasons, two more than Weaver...The rumor is that the Nats' offer to Trachsel was $3M-ish. If he's available at that price, I think you go ahead and sign him. If nothing else, he'd play the Tony Womack-father figure (can't believe I just wrote that) to the pitching staff.
# posted by JammingEcono @ 2:56 PM 
Comments:
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You nailed the offense, and why Logan's going to be a disaster with the bat.
But I'm not so sure it's easy to just slough off the defense. Much of the 'pitching' problems were because of a lousy defense. And errors are only a part of it. Those grounders that rolled past Vidro weren't errors, but they were plays that a good defender would turn into outs.
Billy is probably right in that a big part of the reason why were in last place was because of lousy fielding (which begat lousy pitching).
But if Logan's in the lineup for the year, the same reporter will be telling us that we finished in last place because of a lousy offense.
The thought of Travis Lee, Nook Logan, Kory Casto, Cristian Guzman and Brian Schneider all in the same lineup would make any NL East pitcher volunteer to start on two day's rest. That'd be a mediocre Triple-A offense!
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But I'm not so sure it's easy to just slough off the defense. Much of the 'pitching' problems were because of a lousy defense. And errors are only a part of it. Those grounders that rolled past Vidro weren't errors, but they were plays that a good defender would turn into outs.
Billy is probably right in that a big part of the reason why were in last place was because of lousy fielding (which begat lousy pitching).
But if Logan's in the lineup for the year, the same reporter will be telling us that we finished in last place because of a lousy offense.
The thought of Travis Lee, Nook Logan, Kory Casto, Cristian Guzman and Brian Schneider all in the same lineup would make any NL East pitcher volunteer to start on two day's rest. That'd be a mediocre Triple-A offense!
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