We're still behind Oakland

[Taylor]

in the almighty Pantherian standings.

 

OAK   90-55

LA   88-57

 

Get ready for the "Angels got lucky, A's got unlucky" excuse during the off-season.

 

[bloodbrother]

Season over

[Second Base]

It's better to be lucky than good I guess.

And for the record, losing Richards and Skaggs is hardly what I would consider luck. Not to mention no permanent DH or lefty in the pen and everyone already forgot about Mulder.

[laagamer]

It's better to be lucky than good 

[UndertheHalo]

i lolz at the idea that luck has any significant power in a 162 game season.  Over that many games, things settle exactly as they should.  The stat heads and their notions have value, but they can also figure out a way to be contrarian in any situation. All teams need breaks here and there, I would argue that Oakland has got plenty of breaks squeezing every ounce of productivity out of a multitude of mediocre players over the past 2 and half years.  Congrats to them for making it happen, but if we're lucky, they sure as shit are as well.

Edited September 11, 2014 by UndertheHalo

[mancini79]

And Trout is still behind Donaldson on best WAR for a position player....

[Richard]

The only standings that matter!

[QuinlansMinion]

Who in their right mind would say winning a division by 9 games is considered lucky.  Lmao

[SoCALkid]

on MLB tonight they were talking about how Donaldson could win a gold glove this year and have the highest amount of errors ever for a person to win a GG. I'd consider the GG even more of a joke if he did end up getting one. 

[SoCALkid]

Who in their right mind would say winning a division by 9 games is considered lucky.  Lmao

Bitter A's fans. And Dodgers fans, their fan base is about 98% morons.

[HaloMagic]

on MLB tonight they were talking about how Donaldson could win a gold glove this year and have the highest amount of errors ever for a person to win a GG. I'd consider the GG even more of a joke if he did end up getting one.

If voters are factoring in errors above actual defensive ability then the gold glove is a joke.

[Inside Pitch]

in the almighty Pantherian standings.

 

OAK   90-55

LA   88-57

 

Get ready for the "Angels got lucky, A's got unlucky" excuse during the off-season.

 

 

 

It's all about base runs, Baby!!!!!  http://www.fangraphs.com/depthcharts.aspx?position=BaseRuns

 

Pythag is so 1995..... 

[AngelArcher]

It's better to be lucky than good I guess.

And for the record, losing Richards and Skaggs is hardly what I would consider luck. Not to mention no permanent DH or lefty in the pen and everyone already forgot about Mulder.

 

Grilli, Jepsen, Morin, Smith. Big spot in a game VS a left handed bat, which of these would you want Thatcher pitching instead of? Some of the Angels' best pens in recent memory did not feature a lefty and the current pen is right there with any of them. Personally I would rather see Thatcher left off the playoff roster.

[Angel Oracle]

2002 is a good example of lack of lefty relievers not mattering. Schoeneweis was the only lefty in the pen, and only after being demoted to the pen during the season and rarely being called on in high pressure spots.

[Angelsjunky]

on MLB tonight they were talking about how Donaldson could win a gold glove this year and have the highest amount of errors ever for a person to win a GG. I'd consider the GG even more of a joke if he did end up getting one. 

 

Errors don't inherently mean bad defense. Oftentimes players with greater range commit more errors because they get to more balls, including ones that are hard to play.

 

This isn't to say that errors are meaningless or that all players with good range commit more errors. Chase Headley and Josh Donaldson have similar range, but whereas Donaldson has committed 22 errors, Headley has committed 8. But reducing defense to errors and fielding percentage is like reducing hitting to Batting Average - it is important, but a very narrow slice (there's a huge difference between a player who bats .300 and walks 80 times a year and slugs .500, vs. one who walks 25 times a year and slugs .400).

Edited September 11, 2014 by Angelsjunky

[floplag]

personally i still think the As were the luckiest team in baseball for over 2 years.
every move worked, every platoon produced, every call up produced.. in fact is most of these cases they over produced or exceeded expectations.
has any other team ever had a run like that?

What all this tells me is that as has always been the case, the stats are valuable, and are embedded in the game forever at this point, but the game is still played on the field.

 

The A's broke thier own mold this season, and are now paying for it when they should have been better... what does this tell us?

[Guest]

And Trout is still behind Donaldson on best WAR for a position player....

The consensus on the boards now is that WAR is not a good stat because it no longer supports what we want to hear. 

[Taylor]

[floplag]

The consensus on the boards now is that WAR is not a good stat because it no longer supports what we want to hear. 

lol, the consensus from almost everywhere is that WAR is a nice base stat that has flaws.

there are far too many examples of players being much higher than they should be for it to be taken as gospel at this point... whether they are anomalies or failures in defensive stat measurements, WAR has been exposed and needs to be adjusted to be taken seriously.

 

Jonathan Lucroy has the 6th best WAR in MLB

Juan Lagares is 12th

Steve Pierce 16th...

All of these ahead of Abreu or Victo Martinez for example?

This screams there is something wrong in the weightings, and devalues the stat as anything more than a guideline.

[tdawg87]

Where's the one that says "Winning the division the Pythagorean way is the right way"?

[Angel Oracle]

Wicked approves of this thread.

[dimitrig]

Errors don't inherently mean bad defense. Oftentimes players with greater range commit more errors because they get to more balls, including ones that are hard to play.

 

This isn't to say that errors are meaningless or that all players with good range commit more errors. Chase Headley and Josh Donaldson have similar range, but whereas Donaldson has committed 22 errors, Headley has committed 8. But reducing defense to errors and fielding percentage is like reducing hitting to Batting Average - it is important, but a very narrow slice (there's a huge difference between a player who bats .300 and walks 80 times a year and slugs .500, vs. one who walks 25 times a year and slugs .400).

 

It depends on the error. Some errors turn into plays much worse than the hit might have been. For example, a bad catch leads to a bad throw and then before you know it instead of a single all of the baserunners have scored.

[Link]

Errors don't inherently mean bad defense. Oftentimes players with greater range commit more errors because they get to more balls, including ones that are hard to play.

 

This isn't to say that errors are meaningless or that all players with good range commit more errors. Chase Headley and Josh Donaldson have similar range, but whereas Donaldson has committed 22 errors, Headley has committed 8. But reducing defense to errors and fielding percentage is like reducing hitting to Batting Average - it is important, but a very narrow slice (there's a huge difference between a player who bats .300 and walks 80 times a year and slugs .500, vs. one who walks 25 times a year and slugs .400).

 

 

Agreed.  I'm grossly oversimplifying here but assuming Donaldson's crazy range/reactions/fielding ability get him to 50 balls that would have been hits against another third baseman and he makes errors on 15 plays that a normal third baseman would have made, he's still coming out on top.  And that's discounting that it's possible that some of his "errors" might have been clean hits or at least plays that other fielders would have had a more "difficult" play on, turning it into a hit.  For example, Donaldson or Headley might get a great jump and quick reaction and then make a mistake on a play that would have been a diving attempt on a fielder like Freese.  Against Headley/Donaldson it's an "error" since they make it to the ball and against Freese it isn't because it was a diving attempt - on the same ball.  I doubt this happens frequently but it's certainly possible that 1 or 2 of the errors are situations like this.

 

Not saying that range is everything or that his errors don't matter but if I've got some theoretical fielder that makes it to 100 more ground balls than Freese while making 50 more errors I'd take that guy over Freese any day of the week.  Mathematically he's still making a higher percentage of the plays.

[Taylor]

Where's the one that says "Winning the division the Pythagorean way is the right way"?

 

Can't find it. I believe Blarg created these, or at least the original ones, so he probably has it.

[Stradling]

lol, the consensus from almost everywhere is that WAR is a nice base stat that has flaws.

there are far too many examples of players being much higher than they should be for it to be taken as gospel at this point... whether they are anomalies or failures in defensive stat measurements, WAR has been exposed and needs to be adjusted to be taken seriously.

Jonathan Lucroy has the 6th best WAR in MLB

Juan Lagares is 12th

Steve Pierce 16th...

All of these ahead of Abreu or Victo Martinez for example?

This screams there is something wrong in the weightings, and devalues the stat as anything more than a guideline.

I'm not a stat guy but I would assume that it has to do with positions. So Lucroy may not put up better numbers than Abreu, but there is a bigger gap between Lucroy and the average catcher than Abreu and other first basemen. I'm not defending the stat just thought I would add this. I don't have a problem with it as far as offense goes, I do think the defense is questionable. By the way, Freese has a 2 WAR offensively, man 3rd base sucks around MLB right now.