data.3news-bydate.train.rec.sport.baseball.104957 Maven / Gradle / Ivy
Subject: Re: MVP '92 Revisited
From: [email protected] (David Grabiner)
<[email protected]><[email protected]> <[email protected]><[email protected]>
Organization: /etc/organization
Nntp-Posting-Host: germain.harvard.edu
In-reply-to: [email protected]'s message of 22 Apr 1993 16:34:44 GMT
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In article <[email protected]>, Tim Shippert writes:
> Ideally, DHs "should" be the strongest offensive players, because
> any schmoe can play DH if he can hit. That would take care of position
> corrected anomolies such as Frank's. Since that is not the case (and why
> not? Is it always this way?) then we are going to have trouble finding the
> true value of DHs using the same models as that for position players.
There are several reasons for this difference. The main reason is that
good hitters in their prime (such as Frank Thomas and Danny Tartabull)
are rarely regular DH's, even if they can't field; it's more commonly a
place to put aging veterans.
Another use of the DH slot is to help a player come back from injury
slowly, getting his bat in the lineup without forcing him to play in the
field. I would expect such players to hit worse as DH's than they did
during the rest of the season.
A third factor is that most player who split time between DH and first
or the outfield don't hit as well as DH's for some reason. Reggie
Jackson was a good example; in five years as a RF/DH for the Angels, he
hit like the old Reggie when he was in right.
The second and third factors will be lost if players are considered by
their primary position only; a player who plays 90 games in right and 60
at DH will count only in the right fielders' averages.
> A logical starting place would be to look at defensive replacement
> value (if you can find it) for 1B or LF or something. We can assume that
> if forced to play defense they would play at true zero value, even though I
> doubt this is actually true for players like Winfield and Molitor. This
> would let us "discount" the time they spend playing DH, because that
> forces the team to find another real fielder to play.
This makes sense; you might also look at it another way. Although the
*average* offensive performance of a DH may be lower than for a left
fielder, the *replacement-level* offensive performance is certainly
lower; if you are a left fielder but can't hit well enough to keep a job
anywhere, then you certainly can't hit well enough to keep a job at DH.
--
David Grabiner, [email protected]
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