06/12/2023 6:40 pm EDT Atlanta Braves vs Detroit Tigers

[Tiger337]

8 minutes ago, SoCalTiger said:

Are we underestimating Zack Short ? Is it possible he is developing under the radar into a regular contributor going forward ? Or is it just SSS and a mini hot streak.

He's kind of old to be developing into a regular contributor.  Id say it's small sample size.  

[gehringer_2]

5 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

He's kind of old to be developing into a regular contributor.  Id say it's small sample size.  

Late blooming-short career arc guy? Rare, but we did have one once before in D. Kelly.

[Tiger337]

8 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

Late blooming-short career arc guy? Rare, but we did have one once before in D. Kelly.

Kelly never hit though.  

[gehringer_2]

16 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

Kelly never hit though.  

To clarify, I'm not implying Short is actually going to 'hit' either, but I could be persuaded he might have a year or two at a level improved enough over what he's done in the past to be able to remain useful for the ML team.

Or next week he'll crash and burn....🤷‍♂️

I do have to remind myself that maybe for most guys who don't make it, it's not that they never play at a high level, it's that they can't play at a high level consistently enough for that to be their normal.

[Tiger337]

1 hour ago, gehringer_2 said:

To clarify, I'm not implying Short is actually going to 'hit' either, but I could be persuaded he might have a year or two at a level improved enough over what he's done in the past to be able to remain useful for the ML team.

Or next week he'll crash and burn....🤷‍♂️

I do have to remind myself that maybe for most guys who don't make it, it's not that they never play at a high level, it's that they can't play at a high level consistently enough for that to be their normal.

He probably can, but I think that is true of most fringe players.  One famous example was Rusty Kuntz in '84.  

[RandyMarsh]

I remember a few years back on the old board somebody started a thread called "ZAch Short SS of the future?" I don't remember who started it but we all mocked him but maybe he will end up being right to an extent.

I mean he's probably not gonna be a good starter for any real length of time but maybe he could be a better than average utility player who you can start for a shorter period and not get burned too bad. 

[RatkoVarda]

he can play just about anywhere including SS, and works as a platoon partner with McKinstry, Maton or Keith

[chasfh]

5 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

Torkelson was unusually aggressive in his last couple of AB. That seemed like a bit of shift for him.

While I agree with Chasfh that in general there was too much pointless chatter from the three Amigos (Starburst anyone?) - there was one stretch when I think they had an interesting hitter/pitchers discussion. It started with Monroe saying he never cared much about the scouting report on a pitcher's tendencies because it didn't do him any good to know he threw pitch 'x', 'y' percent of the time, it's still no guarantee he'd get pitch 'x' if he looked for it on any particular pitch. That was fine, but it got better when Jones and Petry talked about how any good pitcher/catcher battery is changing their approach to each hitter based on what they are seeing from that hitter's swings in real time, Then even the further nuance that as a pitcher they knew that on occasion a top level hitter had 'set them up' by deliberatly telegraphing misdirection about his approach in an AB. 

The message I think being that in the flood of all the metrics we get (info from the past) don't forget to appreciate the games within the game going on present tense.

If whoever was giving Craig Monroe scouting reports was trying to get him to memorize numbers, then they were doing it 100% wrong.

[Longgone]

5 hours ago, Tiger337 said:

I like Torkelson's process stats, but his job is to get results.  I probably sound negative saying that, but I am actually encouraged by his hard hit rate.  I just see a trend where people are starting to judge players on process stats rather than results.  It reminds me of the early BABIP phase when people were using BABIP as an automatic indicator of future performance.  As it turned out, there are some players where a high or low BABIP is part of their skillset.  I think we will find that with statcast stats as well.     

BABIP is an indicator of future performance. It was always true that some players would be higher or lower based on speed, power and other hitting attributes. I think what surprises people is that periods of unexplained statistical variability are larger and longer than they expect, and they consistently overreact to smaller samples.

[Jim Cowan]

4 hours ago, Tiger337 said:

He probably can, but I think that is true of most fringe players.  One famous example was Rusty Kuntz in '84.  

Or Von Joshua!

[gehringer_2]

1 hour ago, Longgone said:

BABIP is an indicator of future performance. It was always true that some players would be higher or lower based on speed, power and other hitting attributes. I think what surprises people is that periods of unexplained statistical variability are larger and longer than they expect, and they consistently overreact to smaller samples.

Probably exactly what BaBIP is most useful for: When a player is on a streak, if his BaBIP diverges from his own career baseline as much or more, you probably want to take the results with a grain of salt.

[Tiger337]

1 hour ago, Longgone said:

BABIP is an indicator of future performance. It was always true that some players would be higher or lower based on speed, power and other hitting attributes. I think what surprises people is that periods of unexplained statistical variability are larger and longer than they expect, and they consistently overreact to smaller samples.

Yes, there is a lot of overreacting to small samples - both hot streaks and cold streaks.  

I think a lot of it is circular.  Does a batter have a high BABIP during a hot streak because they were lucky or because they were consciously or sub-consciously doing something different during that period?  Does their BABIP retuirn to normalcy because of regression to the mean or because opponents made an adjustment?   

[Longgone]

1 hour ago, Tiger337 said:

Yes, there is a lot of overreacting to small samples - both hot streaks and cold streaks.  

I think a lot of it is circular.  Does a batter have a high BABIP during a hot streak because they were lucky or because they were consciously or sub-consciously doing something different during that period?  Does their BABIP retuirn to normalcy because of regression to the mean or because opponents made an adjustment?   

I believe your skills, which surely fluctuate somewhat, and your opponents, will have an impact on babip, but over time, it's mainly random luck how the hits happen to roll out, and it will even out over time.

But tell me this, do you truly believe results stats are more predictive than process data? Because that is what you were implying in your previous post.

Edited June 14, 2023 by Longgone

[Tiger337]

1 minute ago, Longgone said:

I believe your skills, which surely fluctuate somewhat, and your opponents, will have an impact on babip, but over time, it's mainly random luck how the hits happen to roll out, and it will even out over time.

But tell me this, do you truly believe results stats are more predictive than process data?

Process data is a little more predictive than results data, but you need to get the results at some point and the longer you go without getting them, the less weight you can put on the process data.  

[RandyMarsh]

Ultimately you need results but I was always told that as a batter all you can really do is try to hit the ball hard, what happens after that really isn't in your control. Now I don't 100% agree with that cause I think batters do have some control where their batted balls go but in general there is truth to it.

You may be able to let the ball travel deeper to go the other way with it but you're never going to be able to control whether that line drive the other way lands right in the RFs glove or fall just out of his reach.  In regards to Tork I haven't really looked at his spray chart but if he is hitting the ball hard AND spraying it in different directions I really don't know what else he can do, now if his spray chart shows that all his hard hit balls are hit to a similar spot then maybe he needs to try to use the whole field so it makes it harder for teams to defend him. 

[gehringer_2]

7 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

Process data is a little more predictive than results data, but you need to get the results at some point and the longer you go without getting them, the less weight you can put on the process data.  

It's the hidden variable problem. If a system is complex, you don't really know for sure if there is a hidden variable you don't know about that causes the predictive value of two things that normally correlate to fail. The longer the correlation continues to fails, the more the probability that there is a hidden variable you don't know about rises.

[Longgone]

1 hour ago, Tiger337 said:

Process data is a little more predictive than results data, but you need to get the results at some point and the longer you go without getting them, the less weight you can put on the process data.  

Of course you need results to test your data, but that doesn't make the results themselves predictive. It's the same as always; you watch two hitters for the first time, one bloops two hits off the handle and the end of the bat and k's twice, the other hits four rockets right at the outfielders. One got results, but who would you bet on for the future? It's the same thing with process data, just a bit more sophisticated. You can't just look at results and come to a flat conclusion without looking deeper to see how randomness may have impacted those results.

[Tiger337]

1 hour ago, Longgone said:

Of course you need results to test your data, but that doesn't make the results themselves predictive. It's the same as always; you watch two hitters for the first time, one bloops two hits off the handle and the end of the bat and k's twice, the other hits four rockets right at the outfielders. One got results, but who would you bet on for the future? It's the same thing with process data, just a bit more sophisticated. You can't just look at results and come to a flat conclusion without looking deeper to see how randomness may have impacted those results.

If it's just one game, then yes I'll totally go by process.  The larger the sample size gets, the more results matter.  

[Tiger337]

2 hours ago, RandyMarsh said:

Ultimately you need results but I was always told that as a batter all you can really do is try to hit the ball hard, what happens after that really isn't in your control. Now I don't 100% agree with that cause I think batters do have some control where their batted balls go but in general there is truth to it.

You may be able to let the ball travel deeper to go the other way with it but you're never going to be able to control whether that line drive the other way lands right in the RFs glove or fall just out of his reach.  In regards to Tork I haven't really looked at his spray chart but if he is hitting the ball hard AND spraying it in different directions I really don't know what else he can do, now if his spray chart shows that all his hard hit balls are hit to a similar spot then maybe he needs to try to use the whole field so it makes it harder for teams to defend him. 

looking at his spray chart on FanGraphs, he hits fly balls to all fields and line drives most frequently to left field.  Most of line drives seems to be going for singles.  He seems to maing a lot of outs on fly balls, but that's just eye balling it.  I don't know if he makes too many outs on fly balls.  The only thing I can see which he needs to change is he's not hitting enough balls for home run distance.   

[gehringer_2]

55 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

looking at his spray chart on FanGraphs, he hits fly balls to all fields and line drives most frequently to left field.  Most of line drives seems to be going for singles.  He seems to maing a lot of outs on fly balls, but that's just eye balling it.  I don't know if he makes too many outs on fly balls.  The only thing I can see which he needs to change is he's not hitting enough balls for home run distance.   

Other than last night, I don't think Torkelson has been a very aggressive hitter, and I think HR hitters tend to be aggresive. Hopefully it's just something he'll grow into with more experience. His selectivity early in the count can get him behind and then he may have to put a worse pitch in play than one he had taken hoping for something even better. But those 1-2, 2-2 pitches are going to have a lower probability of ending in the seats. So I think he has room to refine his balance there. Plus, it's already true that when he gets ahead his zone judgment is good enough and pitchers have already been reluctant to give in to him so instead of hitting when ahead in the count, he often walks. Walks are good, but they also cut down on chances to drive mistakes. I did like moving him up in the order for that reason.

Edited June 14, 2023 by gehringer_2

[casimir]

9 hours ago, RandyMarsh said:

Ultimately you need results but I was always told that as a batter all you can really do is try to hit the ball hard, what happens after that really isn't in your control. Now I don't 100% agree with that cause I think batters do have some control where their batted balls go but in general there is truth to it.

You may be able to let the ball travel deeper to go the other way with it but you're never going to be able to control whether that line drive the other way lands right in the RFs glove or fall just out of his reach.  In regards to Tork I haven't really looked at his spray chart but if he is hitting the ball hard AND spraying it in different directions I really don't know what else he can do, now if his spray chart shows that all his hard hit balls are hit to a similar spot then maybe he needs to try to use the whole field so it makes it harder for teams to defend him. 

Torkelson's spray chart.

Just looking at it and comparing to the batted ball percentages from baseball reference, it seems like Pull% should be higher and Cent% should be lower.

One of the complaints about Torkelson is that he doesn't elevate the ball enough.  The GB% kind of jives with that.  That blob of outs to SS/3B does seem familiar to those that watch the games, doesn't it?

[chasfh]

12 hours ago, Tiger337 said:

Process data is a little more predictive than results data, but you need to get the results at some point and the longer you go without getting them, the less weight you can put on the process data.  

I agree with this, and I also think that at 674 career plate appearances, TORK! is still a long, long way from giving up on him because of outcomes based on bad luck.

Edited June 14, 2023 by chasfh

[gehringer_2]

Most hitters would kill to have a 30% LD rate. In 2013, considered by many to be Cabrera's best yr, and one of best in recent right hand hitting history,  his  LD/GB/FB was  26/40/29.

The difference is that right now Tork is hitting his LD's harder than his FBs. That's is an almost microscopic level adjustment to make and yes, 675 AB is a little soon to give up on him making it.

Also note that almost every '23 value is improved over '22. Thus the unbiased extrapolation forward is upward.

 

 

Edited June 14, 2023 by gehringer_2

[Tiger337]

42 minutes ago, chasfh said:

I agree with this, and I also think that at 674 career plate appearances, TORK! is still a long, long way from giving up on him because of outcomes based on bad luck.

Who is giving up on him?  I like him.  I am really just generalizing about the use of process stats.  

Edited June 14, 2023 by Tiger337

[gehringer_2]

What would be interesting to see the batted ball data by pitch type. You might see something there - like maybe he hits most of his lazy fly balls against off-speed or something that might offer an idea of where he needs to improve.

One thing that does show from his his heat maps is that he has more success with the ball up. So then you want to know whether he tops low pitches and grounds out or underswings on them and pops out? Either way it looks like the adjustment he needs to make is better swing path to pitches lower in the zone. Maybe his buddy Riley can show him that golf swing hack he uses on low pitches.

Edited June 14, 2023 by gehringer_2