Carlos Ruiz/Cameron Rupp

[Omar 382]

I think these two have a chance to be a really good platoon for the Phillies this year. They both play great defense, and the time off for Ruiz will make him even fresher when he does play. The Phillies' catching is 7th in MLB in WAR, and I don't think that's a fluke. It's still early, and that statistics have yet to stabilize, but you've got to like what you've seen thus far. And it's not like there's been a ton of luck thus far either. Take a look at this table:

Player PA Career BABIP 2016 BABIP Soft% Med% Hard% wRC+
Carlos Ruiz 42 .288 .276 12.5% 53.1% 34.4% 151
Cameron Rupp 51 .300 .406 15.2% 48.5% 36.4% 101

Obviously, Rupp has gotten lucky with his BABIP, but they are both hitting the ball hard. Let's hope it continues

 

[Omar 382]

It's fucking up the line. I'll post an R sheet

 

[Omar 382]

Edit, now it's just going full retard. Abort thread

 

[Cedrique]

It's unusual to for guys to be sharing a position like that when they both have such a similar skill set (both RH, good at hitting lefties) but I can see how it would work in this case. Catcher is a demanding position and Ruiz has never been one to play more than about 110-120 games anyway. Now that he's older a 50 50 split with Rupp might work.

BTW, I was watching some mlb show with a bunch of stat nerds and they were talking about how Ruiz was one of the worst catchers in the majors at framing pitches. I always considered him good defensively based on his reputation and I had never heard this before. If it is true, that makes it even more amazing that the Phillies young pitchers have had this much success so far this year. Have you ever seen a stat on Fangraphs or something that captures that?

 

[Cedrique]

Actually I googled it, and apparently there are many sources that show that the Phillies catchers appear to be really bad at framing pitches.

 

[jvett77]

Yeah, both are doing a great job - Rupp, 280/.294/.480. Ruiz, .297/.381/.595. Rupp strikes out 1/3 of the time with no walks accounting for his lower OBP. He'll get better with Alfaro, Knapp, Joseph in the queue.

 

[Omar 382]

It's unusual to for guys to be sharing a position like that when they both have such a similar skill set (both RH, good at hitting lefties) but I can see how it would work in this case. Catcher is a demanding position and Ruiz has never been one to play more than about 110-120 games anyway. Now that he's older a 50 50 split with Rupp might work.

BTW, I was watching some mlb show with a bunch of stat nerds and they were talking about how Ruiz was one of the worst catchers in the majors at framing pitches. I always considered him good defensively based on his reputation and I had never heard this before. If it is true, that makes it even more amazing that the Phillies young pitchers have had this much success so far this year. Have you ever seen a stat on Fangraphs or something that captures that?

This one is pretty good. StatCorner Catcher Report. Both are pretty bad

 

[Retroram52]

I have always like Rupp and I know he'll continue to get better.

 

[Omar 382]

Rupp is first in all of baseball in Average EV at 97.73 MPH. Seeing as how balls hit hard on the ground aren't nearly as good as fly balls and line drives hit hard, I looked at his Average FB/LD EV, and he is 14th in baseball at 98.12 MPH

 

[Cedrique]

Rupp is first in all of baseball in Average EV at 97.73 MPH. Seeing as how balls hit hard on the ground aren't nearly as good as fly balls and line drives hit hard, I looked at his Average FB/LD EV, and he is 14th in baseball at 98.12 MPH

What does that mean? Should we be expecting some Dongs from Cameron?

 

[Omar 382]

What does that mean? Should we be expecting some Dongs from Cameron?

Exit Velocity is the speed of a baseball after it is hit by a batter. It's not fool-proof, nor are any one statistic looked at individually (or for that matter, all known statistics looked at comprehensively), but it's well established that the harder you a ball, the better will be your chances to get hits and then hit for power. Specifically, line drive and fly ball exit velocity is even better, because fly balls and line drives are better than ground balls for a hitter. Of course, every hitter is different. I don't think Statcast started measuring it until 2002 or something, but I'm sure Tony Gwynn had a very low EV. But Tony Gwynn (from what I've read, I never got to see him play) had great bat control, and could commonly place a ball in left field such that it would fall for a hit. It can't be quantified (yet) but I'm sure it is a learnable skill to be able to hit a ball such that it would fall in front of a left fielder and not be caught. I'm also pretty sure he hit a lot of line drives. But that trait is found so infrequently (I can think of Gwynn, Sam Rice, Willie Keeler, Rod Carew, and Bill Everitt (for a very small time) as some examples) that it is almost always better to learn to hit a ball hard. Here's a pretty good picture, measuring EV's correlation to wOBA (probably the single greatest singular statistic to look at that we have, outside of wRC+ which is measured by wOBA, but takes into account league and park adjustments)

The R^2 of 0.40 might seem small, but it's a good start, and this is just looking at one year. If you looked at data from all MLB seasons, I think you'd find the R^2 higher.

But if you don't like that explanation of why it's important, look at it intuitively. If a guy hits a fly ball harder, there's less chance for it to fall for a hit; same thing with ground balls. And that's not even taking into account that harder hit balls travel farther, resulting in more home runs or double

 

[Omar 382]

In unrelated news, I just bought two tins of Copenhagen's new Long-Cut Mint, released nationwide just in March. Pretty good. Not much burn (though I find most mint flavors don't have as much burn as the more natural flavors) but it might replace Southern Blend as my go-to dip. I like that Cope didn't think that they had to make it as minty as gum (cough cough Skoal) to be good. It's more subtle, which I think results in a better taste

 

[Omar 382]

But seriously, one last thing on Exit Velocity. Mark my words, put money down, in 40 years EV will be league adjusted because of pitchers throwing harder. I'm sure if we had the data, Ty Cobb's exit velocity would be much smaller than today's because of pitcher's throwing harder today.

 

[Cedrique]

Exit Velocity is the speed of a baseball after it is hit by a batter. It's not fool-proof, nor are any one statistic looked at individually (or for that matter, all known statistics looked at comprehensively), but it's well established that the harder you a ball, the better will be your chances to get hits and then hit for power. Specifically, line drive and fly ball exit velocity is even better, because fly balls and line drives are better than ground balls for a hitter. Of course, every hitter is different. I don't think Statcast started measuring it until 2002 or something, but I'm sure Tony Gwynn had a very low EV. But Tony Gwynn (from what I've read, I never got to see him play) had great bat control, and could commonly place a ball in left field such that it would fall for a hit. It can't be quantified (yet) but I'm sure it is a learnable skill to be able to hit a ball such that it would fall in front of a left fielder and not be caught. I'm also pretty sure he hit a lot of line drives. But that trait is found so infrequently (I can think of Gwynn, Sam Rice, Willie Keeler, Rod Carew, and Bill Everitt (for a very small time) as some examples) that it is almost always better to learn to hit a ball hard. Here's a pretty good picture, measuring EV's correlation to wOBA (probably the single greatest singular statistic to look at that we have, outside of wRC+ which is measured by wOBA, but takes into account league and park adjustments)
View attachment 113463
The R^2 of 0.40 might seem small, but it's a good start, and this is just looking at one year. If you looked at data from all MLB seasons, I think you'd find the R^2 higher.

But if you don't like that explanation of why it's important, look at it intuitively. If a guy hits a fly ball harder, there's less chance for it to fall for a hit; same thing with ground balls. And that's not even taking into account that harder hit balls travel farther, resulting in more home runs or double

Yeah, that's good information. That's kind of what I was asking. I understand there is a lot of luck involved in baseball so you're saying Cameron Rupp is hitting the ball hard and his increase in slugging percentage this year is not a fluke and we may even expect to see some more homers and extra base hits from him.

 

[Omar 382]

Yeah, that's good information. That's kind of what I was asking. I understand there is a lot of luck involved in baseball so you're saying Cameron Rupp is hitting the ball hard and his increase in slugging percentage this year is not a fluke and we may even expect to see some more homers and extra base hits from him.

Possibly, but as with any statistic, you have to look at confounding variables. Rupp is sixth in MLB with a vFA of 93.2 MPH (he has seen fastballs with an average of 93.2 MPH). I'd like to see that velocity faced decrease before I dub him the next Giancarlo Stanton

 

[Cedrique]

Possibly, but as with any statistic, you have to look at confounding variables. Rupp is sixth in MLB with a vFA of 93.2 MPH (he has seen fastballs with an average of 93.2 MPH). I'd like to see that velocity faced decrease before I dub him the next Giancarlo Stanton

Yeah, I wasn't going to dub him Stanton anyway, I was thinking more Ozzie Virgil Jr

 

[Omar 382]

Yeah, I wasn't going to dub him Stanton anyway, I was thinking more Ozzie Virgil Jr

Man, you could have used that in guess a player thread. I never would have gotten it, but northeast would have been all over it

 

[Cedrique]

Yeah, no doubt Northeast would have gotten that one. Ozzie was a good hitter for a couple years but then they traded him to the Braves when they saw the value that Daulton brought to the team (attracting dozens of Hooters girls into the hotel lobby on road trips)

 

[Omar 382]

Yeah, no doubt Northeast would have gotten that one. Ozzie was a good hitter for a couple years but then they traded him to the Braves when they saw the value that Daulton brought to the team (attracting dozens of Hooters girls into the hotel lobby on road trips)

Speaking of '80s Phillies players, I was looking at the '83 roster. What can you tell me about Jon Lefebvre? He had like three amazing seasons, but only played six years. He must have gotten hurt. He wasn't a power hitter either. What was his approach?

 

[Omar 382]

Well, "amazing" may be a drastic overstatement, but in '80, '81, and '83 he put up wRC's pf 110, 127, and 147, albeit in limiting playing times.

Last question- how the fuck do you pronounce his name?