The Dord of Darien

Musings from the Mayor of the Internet

A few quick ones from Gordon

He babbles for a while about some metric from billjamesonline.com, of which I am not a member, and therefore cannot access. I’m still willing to bet he’s taking it way out of context, though, since I really doubt Bill James is making too much of a fuss over how many RBIs people have against pitchers with ERAs better than 3.50. But then that boring stuff is over, and we get something to make fun of proper! Go, man, go:

A-Rod still will be under pressure to improve on his abysmal postseason history, while Ortiz has been a 21st-century Mr. October for the Red Sox.

Alex Rodriguez, career postseason: .279 / .361 / .483 / .844, 15.56 CARP (Chokes Above Replacement Player)
David Ortiz, career postseason: .293 / .401 / .543 / .944, .843 October Hero Rating

And, just for fun:
Mr. October, career postseason: .278 / .358 / .527 / .885, AAAA+++ would trade with again

We’ll have to see whether regular-season form holds in October.

Chokex Chokedriguechoke, career regular-season: .305 / .390 / .575 / .965
David Octobertiz, career regular-season: .282 / .377 / .545 / .923
Reginald Martinez Jackson October, esq., career regular-season: .262 / .356 / .490 / .846 and the all-time record for strikeouts so please shut the fuck up about how Adam Dunn and Ryan Howard suck because they strike out too much.

Comedy addendum:

Here is a list of all major-league third basemen with a better OPS in 2009 than A-rod’s career postseason average:

Pablo Sandoval
Alex Rodriguez
Mark Reynolds
Michael Young
Evan Longoria
Ryan Zimmerman

That is all. No David Wright. No Chipper Jones. And, since half of A-rod’s postseason appearances were at his natural position (SS), here’s a list of all major league shortstops with a better 2009 OPS than A-rod’s career postseason average:

Hanley Raimrez
Troy Tulowitzki
Jason Bartlett (WTF?)
Derek Jeter

Hanley is the only player on either list beating A-rod’s .844 mark by a hundred points or more.

Bonus content: Atlanta Braves pitcher watch!

"When I saw him throwing 96 in Australia before he signed, I knew he had a chance to be good in the big leagues," said Jon Deeble, the coach of the Australian national team who made a run at Moylan in his role as Pacific Rim scout for the Red Sox.

Really, this is fine. I just wanted to make fun of this guy because his name is Jon Deeble. He should open a scouting agency with Rob Dibble.


September 30th, 2009 Posted by | Baseball | 9 comments

9 Comments »

  1. So what your crazy made-up stats show is that David Ortiz really is better in October than he is on average, and Alex Rodriguez really is worse in October than he normally is.

    Oh, and that Reggie Jackson was a fucking beast.

    Comment by Dave | 1 October 2009

  2. If you’re Joe Morgan, that is exactly what they say. To the rest of us, they say that David Ortiz plays exactly the same in October as he always does, that Alex Rodriguez’s numbers are slightly lower, but hardly "abysmal," and, in fact, nearly identical to Reggie Jackson’s.

    Besides, I didn’t make up OBP. Didn’t you hear? Billy Beane invented that using the same computer that he wrote Moneyball on.

    Comment by Darien | 1 October 2009

  3. So how many standard deviations below his norm does A-Rod perform in the postseason?

    Comment by Dave | 1 October 2009

  4. I think, by definition, that’s 1.

    I’m not sure, though. I suppose we’d need a tighter definition.

    Comment by Darien | 1 October 2009

  5. Actually, if my ridiculous attempt at statistical analysis is correct, A-Rod’s mean postseason OPS is about 2 standard deviations below his regular season mean monthly OPS ( I picked monthly OPS because it better correlates with the “post season”, which is basically the month of October in baseball). But that’s only if you count his first post season, in 1995, in which he had approximately 0 PA and consequently had 0.000 OPS. Throwing that out, it’s just about bang on 1 standard deviation below.

    And either way, it turns out you can’t say anything statistically significant, since the sample size is too low.

    But holy shit was he bad in the ’06 post season.

    Comment by Dave | 1 October 2009

  6. I also discovered that A-Rod’s best months, OPS wise, are May and August. But he’s ridiculously good in every month. His mean May OPS is .996, and August is .973. His worst month? September, at .910. His worst mean monthly OPS is .910. Jesus he’s good.

    Comment by Dave | 1 October 2009

  7. Yeah. He’s incredible. That’s part of the reason why it’s so noticeable when he has a huge postseason flameout like in ’06.

    But, of course, when his .143 OPS in the 2006 ALDS is put up next to his 1.253 OPS from the 2000 ALCS, it starts to look a lot more like a sample-size issue than anything else. Anybody can be awful for 14 PA.

    Meanwhile, did you know that Carlos Beltran’s career postseason OPS is 1.302? No lie.

    Comment by Darien | 1 October 2009

  8. Yeah, I completely believe that Beltran stat. He’s only been in one post season, hasn’t he? And he was a complete monster–set all kinds of stupid records or something. Then got a huge contract and disappeared.

    Comment by Dave | 1 October 2009

  9. Two — 2004 with the Astros and 2006 with the Mets. He was good in the 2006 playoffs (frankly, he’s been good his whole career), but the Mets definitely paid him based on his absolutely unreal 2004 playoff numbers, when he went .435 / .536 / 1.022 / 1.557.

    Comment by Darien | 1 October 2009

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