Speaking of Carl Crawford
by R.J. Anderson on Jul 15, 2009 12:33 PM EDT
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PrintBB%: 7.6 (highest of career)
BB/K: 0.5 (tied for highest of career)
O-Swing%: 29.6 (lowest since 2004)
Swing%: 48.7 (lowest of career)
Contact%: 83.6% (highest since 2006, second highest of career)
F-Strike%: 59.7% (lowest of career)
The improvements are still there and look genuine. Crawford is walking more, swinging at less garbage, swinging less overall, making more contact, and not falling behind on the first pitch as often. His strikeouts have increased as well, but such is the price to pay when taking borderline calls on two-strike counts. It's been a long-time coming, but maybe Crawford is finally developing his plate discipline game after all. Good job Carl.
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In post game MVP interview he said he thought that was his biggest improvement this year...
And it is good that he understands that the improvement is an important one for his career. Now if he could learn to bunt for hits…
Has anyone asked him and/or gotten a good answer as to what's changed?
I mean, these are big changes from last year, there has to be some sort of decent explanation.
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Maybe Steve Henderson tricked him into listening.
by R.J. Anderson on Jul 15, 2009 12:58 PM EDT up reply actions
Playing with Pena, Upton, Burrell, and Gross must rub off on your willingness to take pitches.
Also, listening to Maddon harping on it, and the possibility that he’s actually talking to Henderson now.
Steve Henderson: the Anti-Hickey?
Sign lady must die.
by EminenceFront on Jul 15, 2009 1:18 PM EDT up reply actions
This is the key to him being a productive player into his 30s.
You can’t hit for power when swinging at junk unless you’re Vlad.
I can tell you that the change had not happened in Spring Training, he was swinging at first pitches then even more than Delmon ever did.
Maybe having a basestealer in front of him made him feel like he had to take a few pitches…
Why don't we just accept the truth.
He saw the post on here where there was much bloodletting and CC hatred, called us a bunch of fools and idiots, then did exactly as was suggested here.
Even if this is the truth, I don’t care if he doesn’t acknowledge it, I’m too happy seeing him have a career year to care.
I can't wait until we trade him for a reliever.
Its true
Yep Yep, it was like a light switch. Navarro has been much better too since he was IBBed and I called him out for hacking at everything after strike 1. DRB is an unglorified bench coach.
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I wish
Then he could learn something instead of just being the watch the pitcher to see if they are tired coach. What sucks is he has been doing a freaking horrible job at watching the pitchers to see if they are tired lately.
You could do a post trying to explain typically how long it takes for each starter to get fatigued
Not a joke.
I can't wait until we trade him for a reliever.
Stu reads the site ~weekly.
But a bunch of baseball ops employees visit the site.
by R.J. Anderson on Jul 15, 2009 2:24 PM EDT up reply actions
Improvements
This is an honest question and isn’t meant to come across as sarcastic as it
may sound. On here we talk a lot about people regressing. As one versed in
stats I fully understand this concept and its application to baseball
players.
However, at what point (with any player) do we stop and say that he is
actually better or worse based on stats rather than say they are playing
above or below their head and are due for regression?
It seems with some players, Rays and non Rays, when things are not so well
or too well, as the case may be, there is always the “he is due for
regression” statement. Yet at other times we simply give in to the fact
that a player has changed/improved/worsened.
I guess an addition to my question is if there are certain stats that really
lend themselves to regression and others that simply indicate a change in
ability.
I guess I am just being cautious that we don’t cherry pick as a substitute
for wishful thinking.
by wtbudlight on Jul 15, 2009 2:40 PM EDT via mobile reply actions
Usually, the regression comments are based on stats like BA/HR/ERA/etc.
And are due for regression because Player X has a really high BABIP or Pitcher C has way too high of a strand rate.
In cases like these, the plate discipline numbers usually stabilize very quickly, leaving less room for fluke seasons. There’s still some fluctuation to be had, mind you, but not with some of the other statistics.
by R.J. Anderson on Jul 15, 2009 2:45 PM EDT up reply actions
To look at it from pitchers too
And I’ll go ahead and play the Edwin card this time, while he was here, his peripheral stats did not match his results. He walked a lot of players, didn’t strike a lot out, and had a lot of fly balls, yet he managed a respectable ERA and 14 wins. The process indicates that based on what he was capable of doing, his results were set by the quality of defense behind him combined with some measure of luck. 2007 was no indication of how ‘good’ he was, but neither was 2008. Based on his peripherals, he looked to be somewhere in between.
Fast forward to this year, and now Edwin is striking out a lot more players while walking quite a bit fewer. His K/9 and BB/9 are at career-best rates. His line-drive percentage is also way down. There are still two things that stand out as odd for him. He has a persistently high strand rate (league average is around 72%, he’s been at around 78% since last year), and his deduction in line-drive percentage is due to an increase in fly-ball percentage. Because the difference between a line drive versus fly balls is purely a judgement call, there’s no way to tell if this is a genuine improvement or not there, but either way, there has been an overall genuine improvement in his process, so he’s a better pitcher now then when he left here. But because of some slightly odd peripherals, Edwin appears due for a minor level of regression at some point.
The magic number, FIP for Edwin is 3.45, which indicates closer to what results we should be expecting based on his process. This is still very good. In comparison, JA Happ and Mike Cain have the highest negative differential between ERA and FIP, marking them due for some serious regresison trending negatively, while Rickey Nolasco and Carl Pavano have the highest positive difference, resulting in an expectation of the opposite.
I can't wait until we trade him for a reliever.
by kericr on Jul 15, 2009 3:16 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
Plate Discipline is more of an approach than a result
BA and OBP are more results based stats. Similar to ERA vs curveball usage. A player has control over whether he swings in or out of the zone. He does not control if his swing will result in a hit.
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