A-ROD vs. David Ortiz

[TSC25]

I really like watching Ortiz hit,but if I had to either take him or A-Rod,I'd have to take A-Rod,because he can atleast play in the field.

[wigglestrue]

I'm a big Sox fan but it is Arod every day of the week. You don't pass on the gold glove SS who gets equal or BETTER production and actually has speed on the bases. Granted Ortiz is as clutch as they come over the past 2 years but I think Arod's tendency to "choke" is overblown by the media and relayed by Yankee fans. There really isn't a large sample of playoff games with which to base this assumption. Quite frankly I think he is a good guy and would love to see him opt out of his deal and come to Boston as we could move Lugo to 3rd.

I don't know, I think if a player were to slump for a sample of 75 at bats like ARod has in his last 75 playoff at bats, we'd be wondering if a part of his body were broken. In ARod's case, I think it's a part of his brain, maybe the part that handles playoff pressure, and it broke at some point during the 2004 ALCS.

A-Rod because he can do so much. Ortiz can only hit bomb but when he doesn't he has to run and that's not pretty. A-Rod has better base running, and he also saved a child from being hit by a car, has Ortiz?

Long story, but that saving-the-kid thing was a total fraud.

Also, people, ARod hasn't played SS in a good long while.
I'll take Papi + average 3B over ARod + average DH.

[bigboy1234]

I'll take Papi + average 3B over ARod + average DH.

Thats unfair to say, the average 3B is a good amount better hitter than an average DH.

3B has a good amount of defensive value, DH has none. Ortiz plays a position in which Manny should be playing. According to UZR Manny cost his team about 30 runs per 150 games. That is what we call awful and hideous defense that should be at DH, but since they have Ortiz he can't be.

[wigglestrue]

According to UZR Manny cost his team about 30 runs per 150 games.

(If one were to go back and review every single chance Ramirez had in the field and what the exact consequences were, I'd be absolutely shocked if Manny's fielding/throwing actually cost the team more than a HANDFUL of actual runs in actual games. I want to know what a bad fielder actually costs his team in runs, and what those runs meant in the individual games. If Manny's team is up by 6 on a 3 run homer by him and he commits a 2-run error and the Sox still win, who the F really cares about the fielding? Maybe it's such an old school backwards pre-saber concept that it's actually the future of measuring defense. We still measure Runs Batted In (actual runs, not theoretical estimates), how about Runs Fielded Out? Why aren't there more actual, per-instance stats being introduced, as opposed to or at least in addition to theoretical rate stats which assign fractions of theoretical runs based on probability?)

[bigboy1234]

I'd be absolutely shocked if Manny's fielding/throwing actually cost the team more than a HANDFUL of actual runs in actual games.

You can't be serious.

I want to know what a bad fielder actually costs his team in runs, and what those runs meant in the individual games.

And is this why you think runs allowed is a good measure of pitcher performance? Sorry, every play counts.

If Manny's team is up by 6 on a 3 run homer by him and he commits a 2-run error and the Sox still win, who the F really cares about the fielding?

Yeah, and IF Manny only hits a solo shot, he costs his team a win, and wins mean a lot I hear.

We still measure Runs Batted In

Someone may measure it, but no one who knows a thing uses it for anything.

[wigglestrue]

I'd be absolutely shocked if Manny's fielding/throwing actually cost the team more than a HANDFUL of actual runs in actual games.

You can't be serious.

I'm quite serious.

I want to know what a bad fielder actually costs his team in runs, and what those runs meant in the individual games.

And is this why you think runs allowed is a good measure of pitcher performance? Sorry, every play counts.[/quote]

The buck stops at fielders, dude. There's no such stat as a "Pitching-Independent Fielding" a.f.a.i.k. And actually, I think allowing runs and earning wins is an underrated part of measuring pitching, used to be the only way sure which was bad, but now it's almost totally ignored by Those-Who-Know-Better. If a SP gives a team 6 IP and allows 4 ER he looks like **** in the box score, but if his team was up by a few runs when he left, that should count for something, possibly for quite a lot. He did enough to win, to win that game. Baseball is about winning games. Actual games.

If Manny's team is up by 6 on a 3 run homer by him and he commits a 2-run error and the Sox still win, who the F really cares about the fielding?

Yeah, and IF Manny only hits a solo shot, he costs his team a win, and wins mean a lot I hear.

"Up by 6", dude.

Also, that's precisely what I want to know, when has his defense actually cost the team wins.

We still measure Runs Batted In

Someone may measure it, but no one who knows a thing uses it for anything.[/quote]

LMAO. Right, because the game of baseball exists theoretically inside a big calculator now.
It used to be played by actual humans, who competed in actual individual games. Oh well.
Humans suck anyway, their emotional lives often get in the way of good ol' mathematical odds.

[bigboy1234]

I'm quite serious.

Thats quite funny then.

The buck stops at fielders, dude. There's no such stat as a "Pitching-Independent Fielding" a.f.a.i.k. And actually, I think allowing runs and earning wins is an underrated part of measuring pitching, used to be the only way sure which was bad, but now it's almost totally ignored by Those-Who-Know-Better. If a SP gives a team 6 IP and allows 4 ER he looks like **** in the box score, but if his team was up by a few runs when he left, that should count for something, possibly for quite a lot. He did enough to win, to win that game. Baseball is about winning games. Actual games.

No, every play has a significance. If a SP gives up 4 ER that doesn't mean he had a bad game, he could have struckout 18 guys and walked no one but given up a couple bloop or dribble hits, then someone hits a HR. Thus giving him 4 ER, is that a bad game no, thats bad luck. Do you think Clay Buchholz sucks balls because this year he has 5.74 RA

"Up by 6", dude.

Also, that's precisely what I want to know, when has his defense actually cost the team wins.

Yeah, I read that wrong.

LMAO. Right, because the game of baseball exists theoretically inside a big calculator now.
It used to be played by actual humans, who competed in actual individual games. Oh well.
Humans suck anyway, their emotional lives often get in the way of good ol' mathematical odds.

Um, name one respectable person that uses RBI, please. And don't name Peter Gammons. Name someone who actual analyzes baseball. Apparently you haven't noticed but almost all baseball teams are hiring sabermetricians now and people like Bill Bavasi are on their way out, and for good reason. David Murphy has more RBI than Chipper Jones, thus he must be a better hitter.

The calculator isn't the only thing that says Manny Ramirez sucks at defense. Everyone knows and sees it. To say that he only cost his team only a handful of runs is absolutely ludicrous. If Manny has only cost his team a handful of runs in your eyes Derek Jeter must have somehow saved a couple runs at defense. Or do you not think defense matters much at all and it's all about offense? I'm guessing you think it's all about offense.

[wigglestrue]

No, every play has a significance. If a SP gives up 4 ER that doesn't mean he had a bad game, he could have struckout 18 guys and walked no one but given up a couple bloop or dribble hits, then someone hits a HR. Thus giving him 4 ER, is that a bad game no, thats bad luck. Do you think Clay Buchholz sucks balls because this year he has 5.74 RA

Yeah, and on the other extreme he gave up 10 BB and 10 hits with zero K but because of a series of errors and well-timed DP he only gave up 4 ER. I'm talking about the kind of performance one would expect (expect in a math-type average-whatever sense) from a 6 IP/4 ER line, namely, the SP got knocked around a bit but hung in there. If a dude gives up 4 ER in 6 IP practically every time he's on the mound, your first instinct is to look at the rest of the box score, right, to see if he had good FI stats? Mine is to see if his team won the game. For predictive purposes, your way is best. For actually measuring how successful a player has been, mine is best. Because if a SP has a 6.00 ERA but a 25-5 record, then he's possibly absurdly lucky, but he's more likely pitching just well enough to win most of the individual games he's pitched, which is all a SP has to do. He doesn't need a great K/BB ratio, he just needs to win. Winning is all that matters. Will a pitcher be effective is a different question than was he effective.

Um, name one respectable person that uses RBI, please. And don't name Peter Gammons. Name someone who actual analyzes baseball. Apparently you haven't noticed but almost all baseball teams are hiring sabermetricians now and people like Bill Bavasi are on their way out, and for good reason. David Murphy has more RBI than Chipper Jones, thus he must be a better hitter.

Yeah, that's an appropriate response to my point. Not. RBI is still a relevant stat, even if it's not as important as we once thought, even if one cannot "use it" in the game of Whose Single Composite Stat Mathematically Correlates to Wins the Most. Sabermetricians are still a wonderful group of people, totally useful, and brilliant, even if their theories don't quite yet completely encapsulate the game of baseball.

The calculator isn't the only thing that says Manny Ramirez sucks at defense. Everyone knows and sees it. To say that he only cost his team only a handful of runs is absolutely ludicrous. If Manny has only cost his team a handful of runs in your eyes Derek Jeter must have somehow saved a couple runs at defense. Or do you not think defense matters much at all and it's all about offense? I'm guessing you think it's all about offense.

Obviously Manny is not a good fielder. Has his poor defense literally led directly to about 30 runs lost over a season, over any season? THAT is the ludicrous notion. All the mistakes he makes in the field, even Manny, cannot possibly lead to 30 runs literally being lost, even in the long grind of a baseball season. Especially because that's a NET stat, supposedly, factoring in (conceptually) all the (not-as-frequent) good defensive plays that have (conceptually) saved runs. For such a brilliant community of minds, one would think they'd at least supplement their abstract-runs-crunching (ironically based on an advance in simple observation, hit-tracking technology) with some actual observations about what literally led to the actual runs being scored. Isn't the DATA supposed to come first?

As for the impact of offense vs. defense, fielding is but one subset of defense, the least important subset. Not that it's unimportant, fielding is still very significant, but hitting and pure pitching still account for the vast majority of how/why teams win/lose. Most batted outs can be fielded by replacement fielders. The fielding play that actually saves/loses a run (whether immediate or later in an inning) is rare.

[Relentless88]

A-Rod..

[travis minor]

over a 162 game span, A-rod

over the span of one postseason, Papi

[wigglestrue]

Ahem. A-Rod.

[PropositionJoe]

A-Rod without a doubt... They both have had their ups and downs since 2004 but with their offensive stats being so similar I'll take the player who plays a premium position on the baseball diamond.

[Travis_Knight]

A-roid is a little punk ass bitch

[J08]

Arod easily

[primecougar]

a-rod

[dungan123]

I love Ortiz.

[Huuminh]

ARod is the more talented player. Ortiz doesn't even play a position in the field

[This IsMy House]

A-Rod without a doubt. Ortiz can't even play the field anymore. A-Rod is still a great 3rd basemen, can still hit, steal, and do everything a regular player can. Ortiz can only hit at this point, and has only done that for some time now.

[jr lucosa]

Current: A-Rod

Careers: A-Rod

Even at the high level Ortiz continues to play at, I can't take him over Alex Rodriguez.

[N31L]

Arod of course.