AL Central Discussion

[mr.hockey4242]

Jordan Westburg:

147 wRC+ at home
109 wRC+ on the road

Westburgs home OPS is .866

On the road its .751(higher than Witts)

Yeah, kinda proving my point. Witts discrepency is fucking nuts, no matter how much you try and defend it.

 

[broncosmitty]

He was an Ace last year. Has the talent to be one again.

Way too hittable at home this year.

 

[mr.hockey4242]

He was an Ace last year. Has the talent to be one again.

Way too hittable at home this year.

Bizarre home run problem. Something is up with the sweeper.

Best walk rate of his career and similar K rate to last year. Just cant keep it in the yard.

 

[broncosmitty]

Bizarre home run problem. Something is up with the sweeper.

Best walk rate of his career and similar K rate to last year. Just cant keep it in the yard.

If he only pitched on the road, during the day, he’d be having another great year.

 

[mr.hockey4242]

If he only pitched on the road, during the day, he’d be having another great year.

Or if he just stopped pitching to goddamn Vazquez.

Which lucky for you all, he will be tomorrow.

 

[mr.hockey4242]

God,

Lopez is also on 5 days rest tomorrow too(6.8 era)

So Vazquesz catching, night game, 5 days rest. Kitties licking their chops

 

[broncosmitty]

Or if he just stopped pitching to goddamn Vazquez.

Which lucky for you all, he will be tomorrow.

Not lucky for me.

I need to win in Dynasty this week. And I always start Lopez.

 

[Fountain City Blues]

Westburgs home OPS is .866

On the road its .751(higher than Witts)

Yeah, kinda proving my point. Witts discrepency is fucking nuts, no matter how much you try and defend it.

I guess I don't get it. You're gonna have an outlier here or there in the league. That's statistically pretty normal. Nothing suspicious or even 'bizarre' about it. Some rando mediocre player in Arraez was pushing .400 last year for a long stretch. The peripherals on Witt would, if anything, imply he is the MVP. I showed a less extreme but nonetheless very stark example to demonstrate it's hardly unprecedented.

The issue again is there no discrete causation here, which just defaults back to his averages and implied numbers.

 

[broncosmitty]

Can you be mediocre with back to back batting titles?

Two guys ever have led both leagues in their career. And he did it in back to back years.

But Id still say Minny won that trade.

 

[mr.hockey4242]

I guess I don't get it. You're gonna have an outlier here or there in the league. That's statistically pretty normal. Nothing suspicious or even 'bizarre' about it. Some rando mediocre player in Arraez was pushing .400 last year for a long stretch. The peripherals on Witt would, if anything, imply he is the MVP. I showed a less extreme but nonetheless very stark example to demonstrate it's hardly unprecedented.

Less extreme??

Westburg has a OPS gap of .115? Much more comfortable at home? Sure. Anything glaring? No. That's a split you will find a lot.

Witt has a difference of .463!!!!!!! You provided an example that was slightly less than FOUR times less egregious haha.

He has a tOPS+ of 145 at home and 52 on the road.

Again, nothing proves he or the Royals are actually cheating. And even if they were, wins are wins. So it continues to be baffling that you are trying to die on the hill that this is not a straight up bonkers split. Because it objectively is.

You could stack Baez OPS this year coming into today onto Witts road OPS for free. And it still would be less than his home OPS

 

[Fountain City Blues]

Can you be mediocre with back to back batting titles?

Two guys ever have led both leagues in their career. And he did it in back to back years.

But Id still say Minny won that trade.

From a true talent level standpoint? 100%. Easy call that he was gonna fall off and out of view very quickly and it's also not an accident he got traded like a hot potato. He sucks ass at most everything that isn't batting average fueled. He depreciates faster than a car you drive off the lot. Tony Gwynn he is not.

 

[Fountain City Blues]

Less extreme??

Westburg has a OPS gap of .115? Much more comfortable at home? Sure. Anything glaring? No. That's a split you will find a lot.

Witt has a difference of .463!!!!!!! You provided an example that was slightly less than FOUR times less egregious haha.

He has a tOPS+ of 145 at home and 52 on the road.

Again, nothing proves he or the Royals are actually cheating. And even if they were, wins are wins. So it continues to be baffling that you are trying to die on the hill that this is not a straight up bonkers split. Because it objectively is.

You could stack Baez OPS this year coming into today onto Witts road OPS for free. And it still would be less than his home OPS

The point isn't that the gap is big, the point is in a league with literally hundreds of players it's inevitable at least some of them will have really big home/road splits not explainable by just park factor (hi Coors Field) that wRC+ will generally capture. The existence of an outlier doesn't imply it is fake, fraudulent, or unusual necessarily. That's just basic statistics.

 

[mr.hockey4242]

Can you be mediocre with back to back batting titles?

Two guys ever have led both leagues in their career. And he did it in back to back years.

But Id still say Minny won that trade.

When you're borderline retarded at everything else on a baseball field, Id say yeah probably.

Arraez isn't mediocre when he hits .350 simply cause that many singles will boost OBP and OPS naturally.

But this year he's basically woooooooof. No power. Cant field. Runs like Adam Dunn.

 

[broncosmitty]

From a true talent level standpoint? 100%. Easy call that he was gonna fall off and out of view very quickly and it's also not an accident he got traded like a hot potato. He sucks ass at most everything that isn't batting average fueled. He depreciates faster than a used car.

He’s leading the league in hits right now.

 

[Fountain City Blues]

He’s leading the league in hits right now.

0.8 fWAR. He's bad enough in the field he's effectively a DH-only player. His base running isn't very good either. He does exactly one thing at an even above average level.

 

[mr.hockey4242]

The point isn't that the gap is big, the point is in a league with literally hundreds of players it's inevitable at least some of them will have really big home/road splits not explainable by just park factor (hi Coors Field) that wRC+ will generally capture. The existence of an outlier doesn't imply it is fake, fraudulent, or unusual necessarily. That's just basic statistics.

And I'm saying Witts goes beyond "basic Statistics" you keep saying that some will have comparables. But there isn't anyone close to Witt.

And Im not sure theres a team in baseball with a team gap like the Royals either. I mean keep kicking ass at home, its working to be competitive.

But the numbers are still alarming outliers

 

[Fountain City Blues]

And I'm saying Witts goes beyond "basic Statistics" you keep saying that some will have comparables. But there isn't anyone close to Witt.

And Im not sure theres a team in baseball with a team gap like the Royals either. I mean keep kicking ass at home, its working to be competitive.

But the numbers are still alarming outliers

I don't think it's alarming at all per se. It's not as though Witt has some completely different approach on the road to serve as a predicate or plays in some bizarro park like Coors. What I find more alarming is players with a TTL of being ass (hi outfield) or prone to horrendous WPA outings (hi shitty bullpen) and the team being very thin. As I recall Melendez had to rework his swing after an epically bad roadtrip and has been somewhat respectable since the middle of June.

I am not hyper-ventilating about players with borderline immaculate statcast profiles in Witt. Just not gonna galaxy brain myself into buying in splits like that. That's how you convince yourself of a lot of reactionary baseball opinions, imo. Hardest thing to do is to acknowledge there's no there there to a perceived pattern.

Speaking of pattern recognition, we've found conspiracists actually have very high pattern recognition abilities, they just have almost no ability to discern which patterns are meaningful or not.

Way more concerned that Pasquantino and Melendez are doing the "theoretically should be hitting better but have not" routine. Garcia has been very disappointing, and while I don't think he's gonna camp out at a .630 OPS going forward, he banked a shit year at the plate and his defense can't overcome an OPS that bad.

 

[WiggyRuss]

I mean, he's been frustrating as hell this year. But this is pretty par the course of you just blindly saying things with no context.

His career ERA is impacted by having a 5.19 as a 23 year old

Since then he's consistently been well under 4 until this year. Where he has a 3.68 FIP and killer advanced metrics across the board

He's also proven to show up in the post season.

Is he a healthy Gerrit Cole ace? No. Would he start game 1 for the Guardians? Yes. Supported by a long track record.

Bibee seems to have settled into being a pretty good pitcher.

Long term Williams has the upside but has a long way to go development wise and really has not pitched that much.

Bibee really reminds me of a young Corey Kluber in a lot of ways- I dont think he will ever have the same heights- but just how he knows how to pitch and his feel for pitching. Right now Bibee has about 260 innings under his belt and a 3.2 era- a little more than a k an inning- its an encouraging start to a career.

 

[WiggyRuss]

He was an Ace last year. Has the talent to be one again.

Way too hittable at home this year.

Lopez is just an incredibly difficult pitcher to figure out--- consistency is what holds him back- he can look so good. It would be interesting to see him with an organization and pitching development staff like the Guardians have. With his stuff he should have better numbers but it just seems somethign holds him back.

 

[WiggyRuss]

Lopez can be really really good and rip of 10 great starts in a row- but then he gets tripped up- what is so surprising is his underlying numbers always seem to be better than his actual numbers- his K to Walk ratio is the best of his career- something just does not add up here.