Howie Kendrick gets NO RESPECT

[ten ocho recon scout]

haha, really? Other teams only scout 3-5? Screw those other guys, they'll never beat us. Wow!

a smart manager would then move his best hitters to the 6-8 spots. Just totally destroy the other teams plan!

[Marsaka]

You really believe this BS don't you?   I mean, do you have any idea how ridiculous you sound?   Do you only see closers come in to face the 3-4-5 guys? If they really are "pitching around them" wouldn't they then be facing Howie since he's been batting 6th for most of the last couple years or do they pull the guy out when they see Howie cause he's such an easy out? Is this really what you see when you watch games?  

 

BTW, I already posted Cabrera and Ortiz's career "Clutch" stats -- they were both below average.  Cano for his career is -4.64. 

 

lol ya im gonna bring my closer to face howie when he can easily get himself out on 3 pitches in the dirt...are you serious?  I dont get why you are still comparing 3,4,5 guys to kendrick and claiming theres no difference when the stats i posted clearly shows why your bring in your best against 3,4,5 - while kendrick it probably wouldnt matter.

[ten ocho recon scout]

Interestingly Howie was not the least clutch player on the Angels in 2013. Mike Trout was the least clutch player in the American League.

bomb....dropped. (I expect pimp to chime in right about now).

This thread reminds me of the vlad days. How vlad was a double play machine, and not clutch. Those were good times.

Hate to bring this up (because its always the dividing line), but naps was similar. Some people kept saying he was a part time player and struck out too much. Others of us said he was still very valuable in terms of where he played and how much he cost.

Bottome line, you move players if you have cheaper replacements, are ready to spend more for BIG improvement, or (like AND pointed out) you can get better value in the return.

Howie isn't perfect, but he's far from THE problem on this team. If the pitching is right, and pujols and hamilton actually earn their checks, howie can be as unclutch as he wants and we still win

If the pitching sucks, pujols and hamilton follow suit, howie can go all year without a double play and we still lose.

[jshep]

lol ya im gonna bring my closer to face howie when he can easily get himself out on 3 pitches in the dirt...are you serious?  I dont get why you are still comparing 3,4,5 guys to kendrick and claiming theres no difference when the stats i posted clearly shows why your bring in your best against 3,4,5 - while kendrick it probably wouldnt matter.

 

Name 1 manager that wouldn't bring in their closer in to face Howie if he was due up in a save situation.

[ten ocho recon scout]

Name 1 manager that wouldn't bring in their closer in to face Howie if he was due up in a save situation.

sosh.

If it was 'still early' (april/may) and he was saving his closer for the guy coming up two spots away.

[Jim]

What are you talking about?

It seems I'm constantly reading about how the team should be replacing key players with some prospect who is considered major league ready, or a player from another team who hasn’t been given a chance at full time status, all in an attempt to shore up the pitching staff or save a couple of bucks. Out of sheer necessity I completely agree when it comes to the pitching. But if we expect to make a legitimate run at the playoffs, we are going to need as many ready for prime time position players as possible, as well as a good bench and a minor league to pull from during the long season. If we trade solid position players away to save a couple of dollars, we might as well go in that direction completely and count 2014 a retooling year. 

[Season Over]

[Jimmag]

lol did those shades

[ettin]

It seems I'm constantly reading about how the team should be replacing key players with some prospect who is considered major league ready, or a player from another team who hasn’t been given a chance at full time status, all in an attempt to shore up the pitching staff or save a couple of bucks. Out of sheer necessity I completely agree when it comes to the pitching. But if we expect to make a legitimate run at the playoffs, we are going to need as many ready for prime time position players as possible, as well as a good bench and a minor league to pull from during the long season. If we trade solid position players away to save a couple of dollars, we might as well go in that direction completely and count 2014 a retooling year. 

 

I generally agree with that statement Jim, however if the trade moves players, saves money, and we can replace that production with a platoon or similar player and have a reasonable confidence rating that it will work then taking the risk might be worth it. Any move that you make or don't make has a chance of back-firing on us. What happens if Kendrick starts declining in 2014? He is on the wrong side of 30 when the season starts.

 

Personally I think he will be his normal self next year around a 3.0 WAR. Steamer projects him at 2.8 WAR and Oliver at 3.2 WAR. I guess I'm just saying that Dipoto extended both Kendrick and Aybar for a reason: To lock them in at a comfortable salary rate so that they can either play out their entire contracts at an affordable rate or use them as solid trade pieces to acquire players in other areas of need.

[AngelsLakersFan]

I am not a Howie hater.  He's a very nice player. 

 

Yet, I can see why some people are down on him.  I see someone already mentioned it, but the WPA info is very telling about both him and Aybar.  These two players show a fairly large discrepency between their WAR and what actually happened on the field (WPA)

 

From 2008-2013

WAR

Howie - 17.1 (2nd on the team in that time frame for qualified position players)

Aybar - 15.9 (4th)

 

WPA

Howie - 0.11 (11th)

Aybar - -1.95 (15th - only ahead of jeff mathis and his whopping -5.83)

 

They are both very nice players and have good value, but WPA is a retrospecitve accumulation of actual events that happened on the field.

 

That isn't quite true about WPA. WAR measures estimated value on the field, WPA measures perceived value on the field. Neither give you an answer to the question 'who provided the most actual, on the field value.' Howie's poor sores in WPA show the reason for his poor perception among a lot of fans on this board. His ability to hit into a double play when we least need it is reflected in our minds and in WPA, but not necessarily reflective of the actual value of his entire game.

 

If you are looking for a better estimator of what players are actually contributing on offense look at RE24, which takes the inning, and score context out and looks only at how players affect the specific scoring opportunities they are presented with, Howie rates as the 15th 'best' second basemen over the last three years according to this metric. That is still a really poor showing, but it's also important to remember that this does not count his defense either.

[Hollyw00d]

To keep it plain and simple, I'm tired of watching him hit into double plays.

to quote Ervin Santana, Kendrick is a "double play hitter." he hits a lot of groundballs and some of those are gonna find infielders with runners on. I don't think he has a double play disability or anything, its just a byproduct of his game.

he still contributes Ina lot of other ways and is a solid fielder. be careful what you guys wish for, we can do A LOT worse at second base than Howie Kendrick.

[Jim]

I guess I'm just saying that Dipoto extended both Kendrick and Aybar for a reason: To lock them in at a comfortable salary rate so that they can either play out their entire contracts at an affordable rate or use them as solid trade pieces to acquire players in other areas of need.

Exactly.

 

Also, as someone else mentioned earlier, if we are floundering at the trade deadline, either player could be used to garner other pieces as we look to the 2015 season. I really do believe this off season is all about shoring up the pitching without gutting the position players in an effort to truly contend in 2014. Arte has to be all in at this point. I would not be a bit surprised if Arte went a bit over the luxury tax to land a good SP.

[nando714]

HGIDP47

[Docwaukee]

That isn't quite true about WPA. WAR measures estimated value on the field, WPA measures perceived value on the field. Neither give you an answer to the question 'who provided the most actual, on the field value.' Howie's poor sores in WPA show the reason for his poor perception among a lot of fans on this board. His ability to hit into a double play when we least need it is reflected in our minds and in WPA, but not necessarily reflective of the actual value of his entire game.

 

If you are looking for a better estimator of what players are actually contributing on offense look at RE24, which takes the inning, and score context out and looks only at how players affect the specific scoring opportunities they are presented with, Howie rates as the 15th 'best' second basemen over the last three years according to this metric. That is still a really poor showing, but it's also important to remember that this does not count his defense either.

 

I agree with you about RE24 being a solid indicator of a players worth, but I wasn't really looking for that sort or indicator.  The perception is that Howie isn't clutch.  WPA is nonpredictive as we know, but it is essentially a log of what has actually happened.  Context included.  So the fact that over the past 6 years his WPA is so low relative to his WAR or RAA or RE24 etc. indicates that when context is included into his at bats, he has performed much worse than what his value would be if all situations were neutral.  Not trying to estimate his value, but what he has actually done. 

 

I am not trying to predict whether Howie is going to be 'clutch' going forward.  I am just saying that the actual log of game events of his at bats over the past 6 years actually supports the theory that he hasn't provided the number of wins or runs that his context neutral value would  indicate he should have. 

 

There were also several posts about the 'clutch' stat from fangraphs.  Bear in mind that is really just the difference between WPA vs. WPA/LI.  So to say that someone has a 'clutch' number of -1.0 means almost nothing other than they performed worse in higher leverage situations than they did relative to context neutral ones.  But it gives not indicator of the total amount of WPA they provided overall.  ex. 

 

If a player has as WPA of 5 but a WPA/LI of 6, they still provided way more value to the team than someone who's 'clutch' of 1.0 was because the had a WPA of 1.0 and a WPA/LI of 0.  It's a pretty bad stat other than to potentially confirm a perception of whether a player has performed well in the clutch over a given point.  Trout's 'clutch' from last year was a good example.  He wasn't 'clutch' but still logged a significantly higher WPA than anyone else on the team. 

Edited December 14, 2013 by Dochalo

[seenoevil]

Edited December 14, 2013 by seenoevil

[Docwaukee]

It's funny because the first one, the halos are up 9-0.  The second one, Kendrick hit a rocket at the best defensive 3bman in the game.  The third one sucked though. 

[Scott34]

http://wapc.mlb.com/play/?content_id=30908177&c_id=mlb

 

http://wapc.mlb.com/play/?content_id=30673203&c_id=mlb

 

http://losangeles.angels.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=26541379&c_id=mlb&topic_id=vtp_budweiser

 

 

Woah I can post videos too!!!

Edited December 14, 2013 by Scott34

[seenoevil]

http://wapc.mlb.com/play/?content_id=30908177&c_id=mlb

 

http://wapc.mlb.com/play/?content_id=30673203&c_id=mlb

 

http://losangeles.angels.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=26541379&c_id=mlb&topic_id=vtp_budweiser

 

 

Woah I can post videos too!!!

 

Actually you can't. You just posted links to them

[Blarg]

all the guys u named are high profile hitters, usually hitting in the 3, 4, and 5 spots in the lineup and every opposing team has a plan to specifically get them out.

 

I guess all of those sliders low and away that Wally has been seeing are just flukes and unintentional.

[Vegas Halo Fan]

This is absurd. 

 

Especially coming from someone who insinuates that we must not watch games if we believe that he is anything more than a plant for the opposition..

[ten ocho recon scout]

lol

[Jim]

http://wapc.mlb.com/play/?content_id=30908177&c_id=mlb

 

http://wapc.mlb.com/play/?content_id=30673203&c_id=mlb

 

http://losangeles.angels.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=26541379&c_id=mlb&topic_id=vtp_budweiser

 

 

Woah I can post videos too!!!

I especially like the third video. A walk off HR against Texas in April. 

[AngelsLakersFan]

I agree with you about RE24 being a solid indicator of a players worth, but I wasn't really looking for that sort or indicator.  The perception is that Howie isn't clutch.  WPA is nonpredictive as we know, but it is essentially a log of what has actually happened.  Context included.  So the fact that over the past 6 years his WPA is so low relative to his WAR or RAA or RE24 etc. indicates that when context is included into his at bats, he has performed much worse than what his value would be if all situations were neutral.  Not trying to estimate his value, but what he has actually done. 

 

I am not trying to predict whether Howie is going to be 'clutch' going forward.  I am just saying that the actual log of game events of his at bats over the past 6 years actually supports the theory that he hasn't provided the number of wins or runs that his context neutral value would  indicate he should have. 

 

 

I think you were missing my point Doc. The point is that a stat like WPA undervalues Kendrick's actual on the field contributions to the team specifically because Kendrick has not been clutch. A three run walk off homerun is not four times more valuable than a three run homerun in the first inning. I wont debate that Kendrick has not been a clutch performer, only that looking at his WPA paints a negative picture on what is still a good player.

[stormngt]

Kendrick had a -2.25 WPA in 2012 (5th worst in the majors that year) and -0.39 last year. And his career Clutch score according to Fangraphs is -2.81.

That's silly?

Your complaints about not performing in the clutch is silly. Stats can only tell you so much. Relying on them exclusively is stupid.

[stormngt]

all the guys u named are high profile hitters, usually hitting in the 3, 4, and 5 spots in the lineup and every opposing team has a plan to specifically get them out. do you have any players similar to howie kendrick...you know like the fly on the wall type of player that no one in baseball gives any attention, yet they still suck in clutch situations.

If you are going to use a stat to support ab argument than dont subjectively decide when to use them and when to discount them.