Kole's 2018 was a ton of bad luck

[Fish Oil]

Thanks to Doc and Jeff for adding clarity. Objective analysis is always a good thing.

[Stradling]

2 hours ago, Dtwncbad said:

Nobody would disagree.  Not out of line with my point.  The shift works against Kole overall and his path to being a productive hitter absolutely is tied to the amount of the field he uses.

If he doesn't hit the ball hard he will lose his job.  If he doesn't use more of the field than just pulling the ball he will lose his job.

The good news is the data you showed and the data I show most likely mean he (and anyone working with him) already know this.

Everything I have said is really rooted in pulling for him.  I am just afraid of the downside since it was so real for so long and seemed to return over the last month of the season.

And I would be also more optimistic if he was 25 not 31.

It is not a three year slide.  I mean if you want to say he was his best three years ago, then decent in 2017 and then bad last year at least that would be accurate.  But a three year slide makes it sound like he has been bad for three years.

[Stradling]

2 hours ago, JarsOfClay said:

This is silly. The data says he was terrible for 6 months and good for one month, yet you insist the one month was real and the 6 months were outliers.

No the data doesn’t say that.  Stop making shit up.  What the data says is he was bad for three months, good for one month, really good for a month and amazing for a month.  

[Dtwncbad]

1 hour ago, Jeff Fletcher said:

This is where I disagree with you. 

Would Calhoun be a better hitter if he used the whole field? Obviously every hitter would get more hits if the defense had to cover every square inch of the field equally. Actually, if he could just hit it over the fence about 50 times, that would be best.

But that’s comparing him to some fantasy hitter that he isn’t.

It’s like saying the way for me to make more money as a sports writer is to become a lawyer. Unfortunately, as far as my wife is concerned, I can’t do that. I am not trained to be a lawyer. All I can do is make the most of who I am.

So all we can do is compare Calhoun to what Calhoun has shown he can be when he’s good, and in that case the primary factor is not all how much he pulls the ball.

He pulls it when he’s good. He pulls it when he’s bad. 

The difference is how he hits it, not where he hits it. 

I hope this is clear.

 

It is clear. Yes we do disagree.  Because what you say doesn't seem to fit the data that shows his burst was hitting the ball gap to gap, not pulling.

Cut and paste from before:

Baseball reference says basically all of Kole's success was hitting the ball up the middle.

Pull .558 OPS

Oppo .491 OPS

Up Middle 1.052 OPS

So it APPEARS that his 2.0 success was very likely him hitting the ball up the middle (with his "fixed" swing) and not from pulling smoking line drives through the shift.

[Dtwncbad]

Anybody want to guess how many of his 19 homers were to center and how many were pulled?

[tdawg87]

Narrator: It wasn't clear.

[Jeff Fletcher]

8 minutes ago, Dtwncbad said:

It is clear. Yes we do disagree.  Because what you say doesn't seem to fit the data that shows his burst was hitting the ball gap to gap, not pulling.

Cut and paste from before:

Baseball reference says basically all of Kole's success was hitting the ball up the middle.

Pull .558 OPS

Oppo .491 OPS

Up Middle 1.052 OPS

So it APPEARS that his 2.0 success was very likely him hitting the ball up the middle (with his "fixed" swing) and not from pulling smoking line drives through the shift.

April-May: Pull 42.8 pct, center 34.4 pct, opp 22.9 pct

June+: 42.5, 35.6, 21.9

[Stradling]

16 minutes ago, Jeff Fletcher said:

April-May: Pull 42.8 pct, center 34.4 pct, opp 22.9 pct

June+: 42.5, 35.6, 21.9

He didn’t get it the first time.  Not sure a second time will help.  

[Jeff Fletcher]

April-May: Line drive: 16.8, Ground ball 55.7. Hard contact: 35.1.

June+: LD 24.0. GB 36.5. Hard: 49.8.

[tdawg87]

But

[Jeff Fletcher]

[Jeff Fletcher]

You guys are lucky I have no life and can waste my time looking up this stuff.

In April-May, when Calhoun pulled a ball against a shift, he hit .132.

From June on, when Calhoun pulled a ball against a shift, he hit .390.

Same defensive alignment. Same direction of contact.

[Stradling]

1 minute ago, Jeff Fletcher said:

You guys are lucky I have no life and can waste my time looking up this stuff.

In April-May, when Calhoun pulled a ball against a shift, he hit .132.

From June on, when Calhoun pulled a ball against a shift, he hit .390.

Same defensive alignment. Same direction of contact.

Thank you for having no life. 

[Dtwncbad]

We are mixing two things.

You keep showing me where he hit the ball and I am showing you where his hit balls had success (according to baseball reference).

If we can't discuss these two without getting them mixed up there really is no point in having the discussion.

If I am missing something, fine.

 

 

[Blarg]

1 minute ago, Jeff Fletcher said:

You guys are lucky I have no life and can waste my time looking up this stuff.

Thank you for your service. I know the stat wars are hell but someone has to man the front line. 

[Dtwncbad]

3 minutes ago, Jeff Fletcher said:

You guys are lucky I have no life and can waste my time looking up this stuff.

In April-May, when Calhoun pulled a ball against a shift, he hit .132.

From June on, when Calhoun pulled a ball against a shift, he hit .390.

Same defensive alignment. Same direction of contact.

This is fascinating and thank you.  I am baffled as to how the baseball reference chart could have been correct then.

[Jeff Fletcher]

10 minutes ago, Dtwncbad said:

We are mixing two things.

You keep showing me where he hit the ball and I am showing you where his hit balls had success (according to baseball reference).

If we can't discuss these two without getting them mixed up there really is no point in having the discussion.

If I am missing something, fine.

 

 

Here is the point.

You are trying to draw a conclusion about what the difference was for Calhoun 1.0 to 2.0, but you're using stats based on the whole season. They aren't split at all.

Yes, he had more success hitting the ball up the middle for the entire season.

What you are missing is rather significant piece of information that he hit it up the middle just as frequently when he sucked. So the difference between when he was good and when he wasn't clearly was not the direction in which he hit the ball. It was the way he hit the ball.

That's what I've been trying to say all along. The notion that "he was bad because he pulled the ball" is false. He was bad because he didn't hit the ball hard, and because he hit it on the ground too much.

 

[Jeff Fletcher]

April-March

Pull: .216 OPS; Center: .711 OPS. Oppo: .400

June+

Pull: .931 (+715); Center: 1.238 (+527). Oppo: .694 (+294)

Everything went up, not just balls to one direction. And the pulled balls went up especially because that's where you really get burned if you're hitting ground balls. If you're not hitting ground balls, the shift doesn't have as much of an impact.

Edited February 2, 2019 by Jeff Fletcher

[Docwaukee]

during Kole's cold streak to start the season vs. the shift:

Pull, Cent, Oppo
43.5, 33.0, 23.5

Soft, Med, Hard
15.7, 53.0, 31.3

LD, GB, FB
14.8, 59.1, 26.1

ops of .393, babip .183

his 1hr is not included in this data

during Kole's hot streak from mid june to mid sept.  vs. the shift:

pull, cent, oppo
42.5, 34.3, 23.3

soft, med, hard
12.3, 43.8, 43.8

LD, GB, FB
27.4, 36.3, 36.3

ops of .710, babip of .301

his 17 hrs hit during that time aren't included in that data.  as an fyi, he had the same k rate during the streak as before.  

so, looking at the above data, he didn't change his distribution of batted balls.  He hit the ball harder, he hit more line drives and less ground balls.  And that's just on the in play data.  

by changing his swing it lead to 17 hrs vs. 1.  

 

league wide for LHed batters vs. the shift and not:

if they pull the ball into the shift they have a wRC+ of 64.

if they hit the ball the other way or to CF against the shift, their wRC+ is 94 

BUT, the huge caveat is that LHers hit 767 hrs to cent and oppo while they pulled 1510.  And even those numbers are skewed because a lot of the hrs that those lefties hit to CF wouldn't have come if the players changed their approach to punch the ball the LF.  In fact, lefties hit only 230 hrs to the opposite field.  

 

at the end of the day, you've got to ask yourself what give Kole the best chance to succeed.  Changing his approach completely to try and hit more balls to the opposite field or focusing on hitting more line drives no matter which direction they go.  Hit the ball hard on a line or in the air and you have a better chance of good things happening.  

[tdawg87]

Soft med hard

Oh yeah

[WeatherWonk]

12 hours ago, ettin said:

Nothing is going to move you off of your opinion, that is the only thing that is clear, here.

Calhoun has been a productive Major League player for five of the last seasons. He has one off year and people take a giant sh*t on him even when some of his peripherals showed it was his best season to-date.

Continue to ignore facts at your own peril.

Sorry, but I disagree. Irrespective of why it is occurring (direction, velocity, whatever) Calhoun has hit at .255 or below for eight of the last twelve months he has played. Five of those eight months, he hit below .172.

That's an incredible hole in a lineup from a position that teams rely upon for production.  Especially when he is hitting in the top five positions in the lineup, which he usually has.

He has had TWO consecutive years with major droughts occurring within them. 

 

[ettin]

4 hours ago, WeatherWonk said:

Sorry, but I disagree. Irrespective of why it is occurring (direction, velocity, whatever) Calhoun has hit at .255 or below for eight of the last twelve months he has played. Five of those eight months, he hit below .172.

That's an incredible hole in a lineup from a position that teams rely upon for production.  Especially when he is hitting in the top five positions in the lineup, which he usually has.

He has had TWO consecutive years with major droughts occurring within them. 

 

There are palpable reasons why and both you and Jars refuse to acknowledge them, which is just obnoxious on both your parts, so I am done trying to convince you because it is a waste of time.

[Stradling]

6 minutes ago, ettin said:

There are palpable reasons why and both you and Jars refuse to acknowledge them, which is just obnoxious on both your parts, so I am done trying to convince you because it is a waste of time.

They don’t want to be convinced they want to be whiners.  

[WeatherWonk]

48 minutes ago, ettin said:

There are palpable reasons why and both you and Jars refuse to acknowledge them, which is just obnoxious on both your parts, so I am done trying to convince you because it is a waste of time.

Like I said, I dont care about the WHY. I care that it is what it is. He is statistically not performing for about 2/3 of the time, over the past TWO seasons.

[hangin n wangin]

4 minutes ago, WeatherWonk said:

Like I said, I dont care about the WHY. I care that it is what it is. He is statistically not performing for about 2/3 of the time, over the past TWO seasons.

That’s kind of how I feel to be honest. Reality is, he has been inconsistent as F*ck offensively the past two years. Maybe he plays well this year. Either way, his time in an Angel uniform is limited and I’m hoping he plays well to build up some trade value.