Phillies Acquire 1B Justin Bour from Marlins

andyb 2018-08-12 22:16:51 UTC #102

I really have a hard time finding your point other than that the Phillies have not given up a lot of runs. You know the main reason for this is better pitching especially starting pitching. We (both you and I) have no clue whether the anti-defense strategy is good or not. Your "it's working" is pretty crude and has no causal relationship to any defensive strategy.

It is easy to see like with Hoskins and Cabrera the tradeoffs between offense and defense. But that is completely independent of the fact that they could have acquired better defenders instead of Santana and Cabrera and gotten the same results.

If you read my comments carefully I have not passed judgement on this. All I note is that they don't appear to value defense as much as other clubs. The real reason the club is better is that the players are better and that is probably about 2/3 what Amaro did (drafting and trading) and 1/3 because of what Klentak did.

We'll need better data to really evaluate the anti-defense strategy and whether it added more net runs compared to alternatives (like signing a Cain or playing a better defensive SS).

BostonRoss 2018-08-12 22:34:50 UTC #103

My point is not that the Phillies strategy on defense is good (or not). i just feel it is unwarranted to blame it on young, inexperienced data analysts who may not have the negative qualities you attribute to them about insisting on their own correctness. You haven't provided evidence of the existence of such people, let alone management's insistence on using information from them over other information in their decision making.

I don't see how you leaped to the conclusion that the antithesis of your argument is that the Phillie's young analysts are smarter than those in other industries. II am having trouble seeing the valid conclusions in your argument beyond the obvious fact that the Phillies are not good defensively. Your thoughts on the reasons behind these deficiencies seem to me to be straw men.

flyers19rw 2018-08-12 23:01:47 UTC #104

The Phillies are last in MLB in defensive runs saved. Today's game is a prime example of the fact that defense matters. There have been too many extra outs and bases given to the Padres. The old adage is that you build a team up the middle-C/SS/2B/CF it's here where the Phillies are awful on defense. Offense from those positions is great but when the D is so bad that the offense doesn't counter balance the runs/bases it gives up, that's not successful baseball.

andyb 2018-08-12 23:44:15 UTC #105

You are making a bit too much of my point. I have pointed out that the shifts have been unproductive. That is one of the few data points we have about the advanced analytics. And whether the analysts are good or bad is speculation from all of us. There are many posters here who assume the moves they make are always correct. I question that in part because I am familiar with the types of decisions they are making. And the fact that none of the positive things that have happened really have that much to do with these analytic decisions. The Carlos Santana signing is probably the biggest one we did and BR has him as a 0.7 WAR player with Hoskins -2.2 dWAR. I am sure there is other data out there that is not as stark, but it is hard to argue that analytical anti-defense move made us better.

As to the rest of the anti-defense strategy once again I am just noting it. It is interesting. It is real. I have no clue whether it is a good strategy. The data is mixed.

Austinfan 2018-08-13 02:48:12 UTC #106

Got to relax a little:

1) this was a rebuilding season, being competitive is a surprise
2) Kingery at 2B, Crawford at SS, Herrera usually in CF (or Quinn), Alfaro with experience.
3) youth and bad luck screwed up (2), Herrera having an off season defensively, Crawford struggling and getting hurt, Kingery improving at SS but not hitting.

Two years from now this could be a top defensive team:
C Alfaro, Grullon
1B Hoskins, Hall
2B Kingery
SS Crawford
3B Franco
LF Williams
CF Herrera, Quinn
RF Haseley, Pujols

flyers19rw 2018-08-13 12:15:55 UTC #107

I'm in agreement with you that this season was supposedly a rebuilding season and that being in contention is sort of a surprise. However the lack of fundamentals in the field demonstrated by the team is alarming and does contribute to unnecessary losses. Perhaps it's true that amateurs don't walk their way to success in the pro game but still by the time these players get to the show, they should be able to catch the ball, throw it where it should go, etc. It used to be a given that guys could play defense and that hitting would be a challenge. Now it's almost the opposite of that.
There isn't any need to develop statistics to prove the defensive liabilities that a player or team exhibits. The eye will show that. CIP yesterday, the Phillies gave the Padres five outs in an inning contributing to a grand slam. There have been too many innings like that this season. The truism that good pitching and defense will overtake good hitting has been proven time and time again. Surprisingly, the Phillies are demonstrating the former but being undone by the latter.

Lawman 2018-08-13 12:27:14 UTC #108

Yeah, after yesterday's horrible loss and this road trip, I've decided to tone down my realistic expectations for the rest of the season. This is a young, developing, inconsistent team. And, to be honest, they're playing with house money right now. If they make the post-season I'll be pleasantly surprised, but I'm not expecting it at this point.

phillychuck 2018-08-13 12:47:57 UTC #109

It's simply not true that in the "old days" players were able to more consistently catch the ball and throw it where it should go. Even using a simple metric like error rate, error rates are at an all-time low. Reading accounts of World Series games in the 20s and the 50s you constantly see instances of players throwing to the wrong bases, dropping fly balls, etc. It's a fault of perception that we see it this way.

Austinfan 2018-08-13 13:06:37 UTC #110

It's nostalgia, Maddox, Victorino, Bowa/Rollins, Utley, Boone, Ruiz. Schmidt at 3B
We've had some great defensive players, we also had Bull and Burrell in LF.

This year is exceptionally bad defense, but odds are Cabrera will be gone next year, Santana in two years, the young players will become more polished, and this season will be a bad memory.

allentown 2018-08-13 13:09:30 UTC #111

Error rate is a horrible stat and one I definitely would not try to carry back to a prior era for comparison: it depends so much on how generous to the fielder the official scorer happens to be -- many an obvious error has been ruled a hit and vice versa; the definition of an error really doesn't reflect defensive aptitude because of such rules as if you don't touch it and can't be an error and even a dead simple DP ball can't be an error if you get an out. Then there is changes is the gloves and the baseball over time.

I think what is true is that in the past teams had not come to the conclusion that defense hardly matters, so it was fine to just put a big-bat clunky fielder at SS. I don't think any Phillies team in my memory would have put Cabrera at SS, although Schmidt at SS rivals Kingery at SS. I'm not sure this is valid use of stats or just following the Dodgers-created fad. It

I think the jury is still out on how effective the Phillies' stat crew is. There are hints that some of it are a bit simplistic and derivative, like the PECOTA draft and the shifts which don't quite seem to work. It is nice that we have a new-found interest in OBP and running long ABs.

julio 2018-08-13 13:18:27 UTC #112

Mostly good defenders, for sure. But Victorino was also kind of known for occasionally doing seriously bone-headed things, as I recall?

Philsmania 2018-08-13 13:58:23 UTC #113

Bowa was extremely surehanded but I have heard from some who insist that he was very range-challenged and was significantly helped by having Schmidt to his right and Cash and later Trillo to his left though the people who said it were ardent Bowa-haters.

I do agree though that regardless of how the season ends for the team, in terms of fielding defense, it will be good to put this season in the rearview.

phillychuck 2018-08-13 14:09:21 UTC #114

I would have used a more sophisticated metric, but we don't have DER or UZR for a long enough period to make it meaningful. So we have flawed metrics like error rate (which I would argue isn't awful because the generous scoring, etc. tend to cancel out in large samples) or range factor (which is affected by all sorts of "environmental" factors like K-rate and GB/FB rate for pitching staffs). But I've been watching baseball since the early 60s, and bone-headed plays and players aren't restricted to the Phils in 2018. I haven't noticed any increase in mistakes overall--this year's team is poor defensively not with respect to the 1980 team, but with respect to its contemporary opponents. That's the price we're paying for offense...

BostonRoss 2018-08-14 03:06:41 UTC #115

I remember in one of Bill James' first Baseball Abstracts he criticized Bowa's lack of range. The "new" defensive stat at the time was probably range factor. Bowa was on the downside of his career then, and Ozzie Smith was at his peak; so anybody looked bad by comparison.

It is interesting that Bowa's defensive WAR (not a great stat, but better when you aggregate a lot of seasons) is around 16 for his first 10 seasons. That's pretty close to the value for his mostly closely compared contemporary, Dave Concepcion, the perennial All-Star and Gold Glove winner.

phillychuck 2018-08-14 13:40:54 UTC #117

There is value to defensive consistency in addition to range. Bowa was indeed very limited in terms of range with respect to The Wizard and Davey C. (and Gary Templeton). But he was a decent defensive SS even given his lack of range because of his consistency. He was defensively similar to another great SS, Derek Jeter, who is always controversial with respect to his defense.

BostonRoss 2018-08-14 14:03:31 UTC #118

The Jeter comparison to Bowa is interesting. Bowa made more plays than Jeter (pro-rated), but Jeter played when there were fewer balls put into play. I always thought Jeter was an undeserving Gold Glove winner, which is probably somewhat true since offense seems to matter in those awards.

Interestingly, while Concepcion did have more chances than Bowa, he had fewer assists (pro-rated). So maybe the differences in their perceived ranges is not as great as we might have thought. Concepcion had a higher range factor than Bowa mainly due to putouts being weighted equally to assists. While many shortstop outputs are a result of good range (line drives and popups not hit right at them), a lot of those putouts are easy popups and line drives, or assists on force plays.

EastFallowfield 2018-08-14 14:14:23 UTC #119

There's something to be said for someone who makes every play he can get to, he typed moments after dropping a phone while walking.

Philsmania 2018-08-14 14:47:41 UTC #120

Ah, but Jeter had his signature spin play. Acrobatic plays and ESPN webgems was why Orlando Hudson always won the Gold Glove at second and, in turn, Utley never got the shot to win one that he deserved.

EastFallowfield 2018-08-14 14:54:12 UTC #121

Used to work at a place where we'd compile footage of the Gold Glove winners, and I used to think that Ken Caminiti should have been winning the gold glove early in his career instead of whichever statue used to win it (Tim Wallach? Matt Williams?) then Caminiti steroid'ed up and started hitting, then won a Gold Glove when he was huge and less mobile.

(Really deviating from the Bour to Phillies theme)

Philsmania 2018-08-14 15:03:09 UTC #122

Wallach, Pendleton and Matt Williams were the guys who won it after Schmidt retired. Each pretty much alternated and won it three times until Caminiti had his three year run which almost led to the Rolen Era.