The C-ing Red Puppy is really into the Giro d’Italia right now and has not even been watching the Reds. BAD DOG.

So, it’s been awhile since I’ve blogged about the Reds. In related news, moving sucks.

While I’ve been keeping an eye on the Reds in my absence, I have been a bit distracted, and really, it seems like we’ve had a lot of bad news – Ludwick went out while I was still paying attention, but then we had Johnny Cueto and Ryan Hanigan go on the DL, and also Manny Parra (…oh noooooo..) and Nick Masset (…what a surpriiiiiiise…). Also, from what I’ve been hearing, Jay Bruce is the worst baseball player in the history of the galaxy, and Zack Cozart’s number two hitting has been condemned by the Catholic Church (that new pope is so cray-cray!)

Yet, we seem to be doing alright. 19-15 is pretty good. I can live with it. It probably doesn’t justify how cocky we were before the season started, but I’m not sure what would have justified how cocky we were at the beginning of the season (a Nobel Peace Prize, maybe?). I mean I said “Oh guys, we’ll be pretty good, but let’s not get out of hand,” but you know in my head I was like “YEAH WE’RE THE BEST SCREW THE NATS AND THE DODGERS AND THE GIANTS WE’RE BETTER THAN Y’ALL DON’T EVEN FORGET IT.” So, yeah. We haven’t been that good.

We are doing spectacularly ok, though, and I’d like to take a few minutes to thank the Reds who have picked up the slack for their teammates.Mat Latos: Latos has gone just over 6 inning on average in his seven starts, but they’ve been pretty awesome innings. His worst start so far was probably  his last- Sunday’s afternoon game against the Cubs – but even that was hardly terrible. I also like the way he’s striking out a lot of batters, not walking very man, and being especially sparing with the home runs. The HR number might regress a bit, but it’s a good recipe for success none the less.

Tony Cingrani: Cingrani’s done as much as a 23-year-old called up to the big leagues on an emergency basis can do, and more. He probably won’t striket out 12 batters per 9 innings for his career, but hey, if he can ride a bit of luck out for the next few months, we could very well have a ROY candidate at the end of the year.

Shin Soo Choo: Shin Soo Choo is the greatest ever, and we now have mathematical proof.  He leads the Reds in basically every category – inching out Joey Votto in average and on-base, and outpacing him by a much bigger stretch in power. I thought that Choo would be able to grab some more home runs in Great American, since it’s a little smaller, and the left field wall is a lot lower – in a very limited sample size: I was totally, right.

Joey Votto: Is still awesome. Who cares how many runs he drives in? NO ONE WITH TASTE OR DISCERNMENT. (J/K, guys, j/k. (Actually, I’m not kidding, I mean it.) I am a bit sad that he’s no longer on pace to walk 230 times. That would’ve been totally rad.

Ok, now I’ve got to go write a fake movie preview where the Tampa Bay Rays were the ones behind the European airport diamond heist in order to get enough money to build a time machine and bring back young Wade Boggs. And then somehow convince him he plays for the Rays.

If you don’t want to read the other post, just know that I worked out a ‘hitter similiarity index’ – where you compare two players’ rate stats (1B, 2B, 3B, HR, BB, K). The most dissimilar players of 2012 were Adam Dunn and Juan Pierre – and not only were they the most dissimilar to each other, one of those two players was the least similar player to every other player in MLB (sample: batter with >300 PA).

So, I thought I’d explore that a little. First, I just did a scatterplot of Pierre similarity, vs. Dunn similarity:

Ok! That’s not bad! Sure, it’s basically based entirely along walks, strikeouts and home run power, but still – it does a pretty good job (with the exception of one player). Partially because 2012 Dunn and Pierre were the platonic ideals of the “three-true outcomes guy” and “contact hitter”. So, I decided, why not rotate the graph around, so the regression line is your new x-axis? Well, because if there’s an easy way to do that, I don’t know it. But I didn’t let that stop me. So it took some work (just basic algebra, though), and here’s the new graph.

My favorite part is the Joey Votto part. (Which is something I say approximately 10 times a week). Every player basically fits on this continuum, except Joey Votto – thanks to a higher than Dunn walk rate, and a higher than god doubles rate, I’m guessing.  You also have a division here – above the x-axis, and the player is relatively more like both dunn and pierre, and below, the player is relatively less like both dunn and pierre. Joey Votto is way, way, way below the line.

Going along the x-axis, you have a measure of (relative to the other batters), how the degree to which a player comparatively fits the Dunn vs. the Pierre mold. The x-value for each player gives his position on the Pierre-Dunn continuum. just to be clear, the player closest to Dunn on that continuum isn’t necessarily the most similar to Dunn – it’s the player that’s the most Dunn and the least Pierre. Thus, I can list 266 batters with more than 300 PA in 2012 in order of Pierresqueness to Dunnosity. So I will. (below the break)

1. Juan Pierre
2. Ben Revere
3. Jeff Keppinger
4. Marco Scutaro
5. Ichiro Suzuki
6. Placido Polano
7. Steve Lombardozzi
8. Jordan Pacheco
9. Michael Young
10. Derek Jeter
11. Erick Aybar
12. Salvador Perez
13. Melky Cabrera
14. Ryan Theriot
15. Darwin Barney
16. Ruben Tejada
17. Willie Bloomquist
18. Alexei Ramirez
19. Jose Altuve
20. Jose Reyes
21. Alcides Escobar
22. Omar Infante
23. Joaquin Arias
24. Michael Brantley
25. Jon Jay
26. Martin Prado
27. Casey Kotchman
28. Daniel Murphy
29. Rafael Furcal
30. James Loney
31. Yunel Escobar
32. Norichika Aoki
33. Greg Dobbs
34. Carlos Lee
35. Maicer Izturis
36. Elvis Andrus
37. Denard Span
38. Jonathan Lucroy
39. Jacoby Ellsbury
40. Starlin Castro
41. Jamey Carroll
42. Dustin Pedroia
43. Yadier Molina
44. Brandon Phillips
45. Juan Rivera
46. Andy Dirks
47. Donovan Solano
48. Ryan Hanigan
49. Chris Denorfia
50. Alex Rios
51. Adrian Beltre
52. Nick Markakis
53. Angel Pagan
54. Shane Victorino
55. Alexi Casilla
56. Carlos Ruiz
57. Jarrod Dyson
58. Josh Thole
59. Mike Aviles
60. Skip Schumaker
61. Brett Lawrie
62. Howie Kendrick
63. Alexi Amarista
64. Adrian Gonzalez
65. Logan Forsythe
66. Dee Gordon
67. Nyjer Morgan
68. Kurt Suzuki
69. Brian Dozier
70. Aaron Hill
71. Coco Crisp
72. Pablo Sandoval
73. Alberto Callaspo
74. Jesus Montero
75. Mark Ellis
76. Jemile Weeks
77. J.J. Hardy
78. Ian Kinsler
79. Jose Tabata
80. Joe Mauer
81. A.J. Pierzynski
82. Delmon Young
83. Paul Konerko
84. David Murphy
85. Aramis Ramirez
86. Billy Butler
87. Gerardo Parra
88. Alejandro De Aza
89. Albert Pujols
90. Torii Hunter
91. Chris Heisey
92. Anthony Rizzo
93. Gordon Beckham
94. Robinson Cano
95. Chipper Jones
96. David DeJesus
97. Asdrubal Cabrera
98. Jason Kipnis
99. Yonder Alonso
100. Jimmy Rollins
101. Brandon Crawford
102. Adam Jones
103. Rajai Davis
104. Zack Cozart
105. Jayson Werth
106. Prince Fielder
107. Allen Craig
108. Kyle Seager
109. Cameron Maybin
110. Ryan Doumit
111. Buster Posey
112. Clint Barmes
113. Chris Nelson
114. Daniel Descalso
115. Alex Presley
116. Miguel Cabrera
117. Adam Lind
118. Brennan Boesch
119. Michael Morse
120. Chase Utley
121. Eric Hosmer
122. Matt Carpenter
123. Jeff Francoeur
124. Yoenis Cespedes
125. Dustin Ackley
126. Jack Hannahan
127. Quintin Berry
128. Ian Desmond
129. Justin Upton
130. Neil Walker
131. Michael Bourn
132. Justin Morneau
133. Cliff Pennington
134. Gaby Sanchez
135. Alex Gordon
136. Jhonny Peralta
137. Mitch Moreland
138. David Wright
139. Andrew McCutchen
140. Ryan Roberts
141. Andre Ethier
142. Ryan Zimmerman
143. Will Venable
144. Brian McCann
145. Carlos Gonzalez
146. Desmond Jennings
147. Carlos Gomez
148. Raul Ibanez
149. Chris Johnson
150. Scott Rolen
151. Dayan Viciedo
152. Hanley Ramirez
153. Kendrys Morales
154. Austin Jackson
155. Carlos Quentin
156. Mike Moustakas
157. Garrett Jones
158. David Freese
159. Bryce Harper
160. Hunter Pence
161. Logan Morrison
162. Mike Trout
163. Everth Cabrera
164. Ryan Braun
165. Matt Holliday
166. Scott Hairston
167. Elliot Johnson
168. J.D. Martinez
169. Eric Chavez
170. Alex Rodriguez
171. John Jaso
172. Rod Barajas
173. Casey McGehee
174. Gregor Blanco
175. Andres Torres
176. John Mayberry
177. Brandon Belt
178. Sean Rodriguez
179. Shin-Soo Choo
180. Brendan Ryan
181. Tyler Colvin
182. Mark Teixeira
183. Todd Frazier
184. Ben Zobrist
185. Matt Wieters
186. Robert Andino
187. Jed Lowrie
188. Justin Smoak
189. David Ortiz
190. Matt Kemp
191. Michael Cuddyer
192. Nelson Cruz
193. Luis Valbuena
194. Evan Longoria
195. Jesus Guzman
196. Dexter Fowler
197. A.J. Ellis
198. Edwin Encarnacion
199. Miguel Montero
200. Carlos Santana
201. Trevor Plouffe
202. Jason Heyward
203. Geovany Soto
204. Brian Bogusevic
205. Freddie Freeman
206. Wilin Rosario
207. Carlos Beltran
208. Paul Goldschmidt
209. Daniel Nava
210. Ty Wigginton
211. Kevin Youkilis
212. Michael Saunders
213. Miguel Olivo
214. Mark Trumbo
215. Ryan Ludwick
216. Colby Rasmus
217. Corey Hart
218. Joey Votto
219. Justin Ruggiano
220. Josh Reddick
221. Luke Scott
222. Cody Ross
223. Casper Wells
224. Stephen Drew
225. Adam LaRoche
226. Chase Headley
227. Wilson Betemit
228. Alfonso Soriano
229. Danny Espinosa
230. Seth Smith
231. Matt Joyce
232. Tyler Greene
233. Russell Martin
234. Kirk Nieuwenhuis
235. Nick Swisher
236. B.J. Upton
237. Chris Young
238. Drew Stubbs
239. Jordan Schafer
240. Lucas Duda
241. Brandon Inge
242. Rickie Weeks
243. J.P. Arencibia
244. Alex Avila
245. Jose Bautista
246. Kelly Johnson
247. Chris Davis
248. Josh Hamilton
249. Jay Bruce
250. Josh Willingham
251. Jason Kubel
252. Ike Davis
253. Giancarlo Stanton
254. John Buck
255. Bryan LaHair
256. Pedro Alvarez
257. Dan Uggla
258. Curtis Granderson
259. Jarrod Saltalamacchia
260. Justin Maxwell
261. Jonny Gomes
262. Mike Napoli
263. Carlos Pena
264. Mark Reynolds
265. Adam Dunn

You are so, so welcome.

]]> http://aeryssports.com/c-ing-red/2013/04/22/the-pierre-dunn-continuum-hitter-similarity-index-part-2/feed/ 0 http://aeryssports.com/c-ing-red/2013/04/20/2012-season-hitter-similarity-index-because-why-not/ http://aeryssports.com/c-ing-red/2013/04/20/2012-season-hitter-similarity-index-because-why-not/#comments Sun, 21 Apr 2013 03:14:16 +0000 tarafraney http://aeryssports.com/c-ing-red/?p=1129 Or “How I Broke Google Docs”

He truly is the incomparable Joey Votto. (Photo by Geoff Livingston on Flickr)

I was actually playing around with a bunch of different kinds of ‘similarity scores’ (sort of inspired by the career similarity scores sometimes used in HOF discussions), but I decided that this one was the most straightforward, so I thought I’d share it – a number that tells you how similar to player’s season htitting numbers are.The basic idea is that you start at one, and then go down base on differences in stats (and then I normalized to 100). The variables I used were rates for singles, doubles, home runs, triples, walks, and strikeouts – all out of the players’s season PA. So the calculation basically weights itself, and totally identical batters will score 100 Here’s the formula

Player A and Player B= 100*(1 – |A’s 1B rate – B’s 1B rate| - |A’s 2B rate – B’s 2B rate| - |A’s 3B rate – B’s 3B rate| - |A’s HR rate – B’s HR rate| - |A’s BB rate – B’s BB rate| - |A’s K rate – B’s K rate|

The ||’s are absolute value symbols (makes any negative’s positive). Of course, it’s not a perfect comparison  tool, it doesn’t include all the stats, probably could be weighted better, and focuses on results which aren’t necessarily telling- but it will let you grab a ‘most similar hitting numbers’ for any given player pretty quickly. It doesn’t really give profound or surprising results, but I enjoyed playing around with it for a bit, so maybe you will too.

So, how about a smell test? According to this, among 2012 hitters with 300 PA or more (about 266 batters total), the two most similar hitters were Dustin Pedroia and Norichika Aoki at a score of 98.2 . Well, those two players certainly don’t remind me of each other in any way – but the math works: they had similar hitting numbers, especially when using rates.

I mean, yeah, Pedroia’s numbers are very much affected by his home park in ways that Aoki’s are surely not, but hey, it’s an interesting comparison none the less. Notably, Pedroia and Aoki have similar OPS numbers – .797 and .787, but are clearly are more similar to each other than, for example, the qualifying batters in between them –  Freddie Freeman, Martin Prado, and Derek Jeter.

As a secondary smell test, out of that >300 PA group, the least similar batters (index = 36.9) are Juan Pierre and Adam Dunn. Yep, looks right to me. Unsurprisingly, Dunn and Pierre are also the least similar batter for a LOT of players. Surprisingly, Dunn and Pierre are also the least similar batters for every one of the batters in the sample. Sure, Pierre has no strikeouts and no walks, and Dunn has a gazillion strikeouts and a bazillion walks, but still. (For reference, Pierre’s best match was Ben Revere (a pretty good match), and Dunn’s was Carlos Pena (not a very good match)

So, here’s how the current REds fall out, again, using all 2012 batters with 300 or more plate appearances.

Santana seems like a woefully inadequate comparison for Joey Votto, but that’s a very low score – look at how high the other players’ best comps are. Joey Votto’s season last year was very, very unique.

Do you want to find the most similar hitters from 2012 to youuuuuur favorite hitter? Well, it won’t be totally easy. You can grab the spreadsheet with the final data off google, here: googledocs. Then you can play around with it, but it is probably easier to download it on to your own computer. Warning: it’s a pretty large file, since it’s, roughly, a 256 by 266 column table.

(Photo by Keith Allison/Flickr)

Definitely a nice change of pace from our recent troubles, all around. First of all, we won (twice), which is great. Second, we swept the Phillies, which is pretty amazing after the 5 game losing streak (and the panic and doom-foretelling it inspired). Thirdly, the offense was back to Week 1 levels. Fourthly, it was a really great start from Mr. Mike Leake. It’s sad, really – Mike Leake was so impressive as a rookie that never went to the minors, and we all loved him. A few years later, he’s still pretty good for a 25 year-old non-flamethrowing starter, but we apparently expect more out of him. Well, we got more tonight. 7 innings, no runs, 3 hits, and seven strikeouts/zero walks is good enough no matter what, but to add to that – he goes 3 for 4 with a triple.

So now Mike Leake has 9 PA – with four hits, including a triple (thanks to some adventurous fielding by Ben Revere) – by my math, that gives him a 0.444 average (and OBP) and a .667 OBP – a 1.111 OPS. Clearly that makes Mike Leake our best all-around hitter. If you’ve read the Enquirer lately, you’ll realize that the Reds have a huge #3 hitter problem. The current batter in that spot just walks too much – and doesn’t drive in runs, because he’s too busy walking. Thankfully, we have an obvious solution. Bat Mike Leake 3rd. With three hits tonight and one extra base hit in every 9 plate appearances, Leake is clearly what we need in that number three spot. In AL games he can be our DH. If he’s not pitching, let’s just stick him in LF.  BAM! Third spot in the order problem solved! (/sarcasm)

It’s also great to see Cozart and Bruce pick it up, in both the bottom 9th of yesterday’s game today, and in the main show this evening. Jay Bruce may not be super clutch, but he’s not totally unable. Also, you have to love Cozart’s 4 home runs already. Some more pop from him could really help this team drive in runs – especially if Ludwick comes back and Cozart goes back toward the bottom half of the lineup.

The best part is that Joey didn’t hit today, but he did walk in the bottom of the 9th in the continuance game, and then got hit by a pitch in the evening game, which means the on-base streak is still alive! Choo sat today, and the Angels got postponed – which means that Trumbo was out too, so their streaks are still alive, but Votto moves into sole possession of the longest-season on base streak. Also – ho w

Ah.

Here it is:

It’s a very sad clown.

Yesterday was a pretty emo day for Reds fan, and today did not get much of a mood lift.

Sure, things opened in a pleasant way. Shin Soo Choo opened the game with a single, and hoo-boy (choo-boy?), having a lead-off hitter who actually gets on base is sort of the greatest thing that has ever happened in the history of all things in history.  Soon, Brandon Phillips, returning from bereavement leave (and in my opinion, understandably looking kind of sad, still) , drove in two runners to give the Reds a lead in the top of the first. Yeah, the Jay Bruce double-play was disheartening, but the 5-0 lead the Reds developed in the first half of the game felt pretty good – just the kind of game the Reds needed to snap the losing streak.

Unfortunately, the part of the game the bullpen pitches. It happens. Latos wasn’t perfect other, but certainly, the really crappy part of the Reds pitching night came from Logan Ondrusek and Jonathan Broxton. It’s really crazy how quickly our bullpen went from being rated “really good”, to losing 100,000 games for us. All-in-all the Reds gave up 0 runs in the first six innings, and 10 in the next two. Not great.

And then the really bad news came – that Johnny Cueto was being moved to the DL for a strained lat.

FYI – This is where the Lat is:

Not exactly the tricep, originally blamed for the problem, but definitely in the same general area.

I admit doesn’t seem like there’s a lot to be happy about, if you’re a Reds fan. For my part, it’s definitely getting harder to preach positivity. But hey! This means we probably get to see Tony Cingrani! Hurray Tony!

Ok, so that was a little much, but really, it’s not unreasonable to feel a little concerned about where the Reds are at this precise moment in the season.  No one likes losing streaks. More than that, the Reds have really seemed to struggle on the run-scoring end in this losing streak. Yesterday’s five run mark was pretty good, but since we’ve scored one, one, and zero runs in the other games, not completely fear-assuaging. We’ve also had bullpen issues (and specifically bull pen management issues), one hit all year from Ryan Hanigan, and injury to Sean Marshall, and maybe, kinda, hopefully-not to Johnny Cueto tonight.  There’s plenty there to worry any Reds fan.

On the other hand, it’s fouuuuur games. And we’ve only played 11 games total – which is less than a tenth of the entire season. That’s the thing, lovely internet; we could win 8 games in a row, and it still wouldn’t be all that bad. Last year (which was pretty awesome), the Reds had two losing streaks for four games, and one time, they even lost five games in a row. I would guess that the Reds didn’t look all that great in those games, either.

So, that’s where we are. We’ve got a matinee tomorrow, which I’m guessing will feature a sigh-worthy lineup, but then we get to go home.  Yes, home, which you might remember as the place where we opened the season 4-2 against some pretty great teams. We might have some more rough days ahead of us – Cueto tricep fears, Sean Marshall’s out, and Brandon Phillips will be away for awhile (reportedly for the death of his grandfather. RIP. ). But I’m still like 93% sure that it’ll turn around for us yet.

Photo by Keith Allison/Flickr

Incidentally, I still hate the Cardinals, of course, but at this point it’s pretty much for the fun of it. Tony LaRussa is gone. Chris Carpenter is (sorta?) gone. Other jerks are gone. The dichotomy of terrible fans who call themselves the best fans in baseball and mediocre/good fans who pretend those other fans don’t exist and insist that no Cardinals fans actually refer to the BFIB title while subtly (or not so subtly) implying that they are indeed better than other teams’ fans …. that is still tiring. But in the scheme of shitty fanbase drama, it’s really not remarkable. I’m probably way worse, objectively, just complaining about it as much as I do.

But still. The Cardinals are stupid and dumb, because it’s fun to say so. Losing to the Cardinals? Doubly stupid and trebly dumb. That’s why it was no nice to not lose yesterday. Losing today was not so good, especially when things went off the rails so suddenly, and then slowly slipped beyond saving. But here at C-ing Red, we actually don’t like scapegoats and sadness and talking about how the Reds weren’t good.

• Bronson Arroyo’s 5 inning of perfect baseball – I mean, yeah, it would’ve been better if it were, say, 9 innings of perfect baseball, but you take what you can get. Arroyo’s eventual 6 IP and 4 runs allowed is not ideal by any means, but Bronson’s not as young as you used to be, and you’ve gotta take what you can get. A little excitement in innings 4 and 5? Hey, why not.

• JJ Hoover didn’t pitch today. Get that kid some rest. Dang. Really, we only used Parra out of the bullpen, so that gives as good a chance as any in tomorrow’s rubber match – featuring Jake Westbrook and Homer Bailey.

• Joey Votto got on base. That extends his streak to 8 games – which is, incidentally, all of the games we’ve played. The remarkable thing is that Shin Soo Choo also got on base today, which matches Joey (on-base streaks don’t cross seasons). 8 games is not that remarkable – Joey’s had much longer streaks, obviously, but it’s kinda cool to have two guys to start off the season. The Reds offense has been pretty consistent from that point of view – Brandon Phillips and Todd Frazier each have gotten hits in 6 out of the Reds 8 total games.

• 5-3 is really pretty good. And more than that, playing the Cardinals definitely feels like just playing another team, this year- I don’t think there’s any (or very much) emotional baggage tied to the Cards series at this point.  I’m glad if we win and sad if we lose (Because, as stated early, the Cardinals are stupid and dumb), but that’s all there is to it.

Baaah.

Well, after five games the Reds are 3-2. That’s a .600 winning record, which comes out to about 97 wins on the season. Even if we lost tomorrow – that’s going .500 in half of our games against two of the toughest teams on our record. One might ask, “Why do we need a scapegoat, anyway?” Well, because we’re on the internet, and we’re Reds fans, and we need someone to blame.  I lined-up a bunch of potential goats last season, but here’s my 2013 edition, inspired by today’s game and its aftermath (and its duringmath, but that’s not a word.)

So partially based on today’s game – here are some prime scapegoat candidates

First we’ve got our old friend Dusty Baker. Dusty Baker was a huge scapegoat for last year’s team, and he will undoubtedly continue to be. To some extent, that’s the territory that comes with being a manager. I doubt anyone, and I definitely doubt that every MLB manager goes out their and makes nothing but optimal decisions 162 days out of the year. Baker makes his fair share of mistakes, in my opinion, but he’s got his strengths, as well. At its core, though, Dusty Baker has essentially no choice but to occasionally play an individual you don’t like, and given that we usually don’t like shitty ballplayers, they are going to screw it up.  Baker’s also set himself up in the Chapman to the pen camp, which means that he ‘can’ be blamed for any bad starts by Mike Leake all season.

Both our losses this season have come in extra innings, which does point to some bullpen management issues – and I don’t think Dusty’s done a great job of that so far. But we’ve also had two extra inning games in six days. Last year we had 14 extra inning games all year. The other issue is the current roster.

That brings me to Walt Jocketty. Jocketty ultimately gets to make all the decisions for who is on the roster, so he can be blamed for aaaaaallll kinds of failures. For example, Sean Marshall is on the active roster. Sean Marshall has not pitched yet. In all fairness to Dusty, it is a bit difficult to get your bullpen through two extra inning games in six days, when you only have six relief pitchers. Now, we have no idea what on earth might be going on with Sean Marshall’s “shoulder fatigue”, but as time goes on, it’s getting less and less like “This is an unfortunate turn of events” and more like “Someone fucked up.” A GM, much like a manager, will inevitably make a bad call. … So let’s yell at him.

Of course, management failures don’t excuse the players who are the ones, who, you know, actually play the games. It wouldn’t be a huge surprise to anyone, I think, if Jay Bruce ended up as a huge scapegoat this year. He strikes out a lot. He’s not quite as good defensively as he used to be. He does appear to struggle a little in high leverage situations, which people remember really really really really well, apparently. He also used to be a top prospect, who has, shockingly fallen a somewhat short of his ultimate ceiling. (“If Joey Votto can be 200% better than we ever imagined, why can’t Bruce?”) Given how certain groups of Reds fans (and announcers) used to treat Adam Dunn, it seems like Jay is doomed to be a lightning rod of criticism. He did strike out tonight when he had the opportunity to win the game at the end, so, obviously he’s the worst player ever.

As a dark horse (dark goat?) I’ll pin up Todd Frazier. Todd’s been awesome so far. But it’s very possible that Frazier will not be as good as he was last year. He might be! He might be better! But, he also struggled in minors for long periods of time (usually when we were moving him around to all kinds of crazy positions, but still). We’ve sort of built Todd Frazier up into a superhero. If he turns out to be an ordinary crime fighter, things could get ugly.

The Chapman Affair was also a shitstorm of internet furor, so I’ll also anticipate Mike Leake as a possible scapegoat. Leake is our fifth starter, generally a pitcher who is not very good, but Leake is pretty good for your number five guy. But more than that, now, Leake may possibly fall short of how good we imagined Chapman would be in the rotation.  The horror. Leake wasn’t great today, and that undoubtedly contributed to the part of the game where we lost, but we really shouldn’t expect too much from a 25-year old soft tosser. Or, you know, let’s.

Poor JJ Hoover wouldn’t ordinarily strike me as someone who would be a scapegoat, but he’s been unfortunate enough to be the bearer of 100% of the Reds current losses. He’s also appeared in four games. See above, re: bullpen management. I think JJ will do ok in the future if he can get some rest, but a lot of times, a bad reputation can be built in a couple days, and take a long time to shed (see: Alfredo Simon, 2012.) Plus, his name really leads to a lot of ‘vacuum’ jokes, which is too much for the Twitterdom to resist.

BTW, I want to start calling him “Jedgar” Sort of like… JJ Hoover + J Edgar Hoover +Jedward. Yeah!

Also, he had such fantastic style.

Why not have one? OBP won’t tell you everything, but I basically use it instead of average, so I’d like to have a really bottom level benchmark. It’s tempting to say the Mendoza line for OBP is 0.300, as it’s nice, round number. Still, though, that’s probably too high. A 0.300 OBP says “Please tell me you play great defense, and have a little power”, while a 0.200 average just says “Yikes.”

So, I did a minor analysis. Over periods of five years (to track historic trends), I looked at players with more than 200 PA, and the percentile of the Mendoza Line within that set of players. Then I looked at what OBP corresponded to that percentile (not to that specific player, obviously) in that group. The results are pretty stable over time.

Overall, I think the data is convincing enough to go ahead and draw the line at .250. After all, Mario Mendoza never exactly hit .200 – his career average was .215, though he did hit .198 one season.

Now who should we name this line after? Well, somewhat unsurprisingly, the .250 OBP line is also sort of the Mendoza line – Mario Mendoza had a .245 career OBP. And using the Mendoza line to refer to a .250 OBP might me convenient as well – someone else might be talking about the Mendoza AVG line, and I’d be talking about the Mendoza OBP line, and we’d both essentially be talking about the same thing. But it could also be confusing.

So I nominate Jeff Mathis. Mathis is a catcher who has had some better days in the past, but has a career .256 OBP, and last year with the Blue Jays, he OBP’d almost exactly on the nose at .249, in 227 PA. So there you have it – the Mathis Line, at 0.250 OBP.

(P.S. I hope Mathis fans won’t take this too amiss. He’s obviously been good enough to catch on several major league teams, many of them very good. He’s a catcher, so it matters a lot less what he does with the bat. But let’s be honest, he doesn’t do a lot. <3)

Ok, so maybe not sustainable, but Leake’s career numbers show him to be a reasonably good hitter. His 2011 .201 wOBA is much more pitcher-like, but his .351 mark is, again, crazy good. 60 PA in a year isn’t a very reliable sample size, but I thought it might be a little bit more reliable in a starting pitcher, just because it has to cover at least a few months of time.  Incidentally, the different between Cueto (one of the worst hitting pitchers) and Leake, via ye olde lineup generator, might be in the realm of 0.5 runs per game (of course, that’s 27 outs, and both pitchers come out long before that). Considering the difference in earned runs allowed between the two pitchers last year was 24, that’s kind of significant.

Leake is young, and came straight from college,  where, presumably he hit more often in than in the minor leagues. I wondered if there were any trends in pitcher hitting, so I looked at the data (from 2003-2012, pitcher seasons with at least 40 PA). It turns out, it’s not that interesting.

You’ve got your standard scatter plot.

And, here’s one with an average by age, with some background data to give you an idea of sample size

Mmm. And here’s one with the individual pitchers sorted out into their own little lines.

Pretty much worthless!

So, that’s the easy statistical breakdown, and I’m not yet prepared to do anything more advanced, so we’ll go with the old standby – anecdotal information. So these are the pitchers in the last ten years who have wOBA’d over .300 and qualify in at least two seasons.

It’s still meaningless, but interestingly meaningless. I mean, there’s a lot of different guys on here. Brooks Kieschnick doesn’t count, for obvious reasons. Micah Owings turned into not a good enough pitcher, though he’s trying his luck as a position player now. Randy Wolf was not terrible, but his .327 wOBA season was clearly a fluke. Zambrano was excellent, but eventually got crazy and bad at pitching. Mike Hampton was awesome. Dan Haren clearly improved as he spent more time in the NL. Yovani Gallardo (who hit 4 home runs in 2010) and Adam Wainwright have both declined as they got older. Stephen Strasburg, we have to wait and see. 

Basically,  I don’t know what will happen to Mike Leake’s bat – but pitchers wOBA’ing that high in two separate seasons is clearly not something that a that frequently an occurrence. Pitchers who do it appear to be legit good hitters (for pitchers), and that’s good news. In any case, Mike Leake’s bat certainly adds a little something to his resume, and makes him more than worthy to be a 5th starter, even on a division-winner.