2K14: Billy Hamilton

[Judge Jude]

no CABLE, either
and the only porn in the 1970s was that scrambled channel on UHF, where mostly you couldn't see or hear anything except for a few glorious moments when the picture righted itself just long enough.....

or so I have been told, anyway

[ThatRogue]

I think there is a difference between how teams react to good basestealers and how teams react to players with elite speed. I'd point to the success of the 80's Cardinals as an example.

[Fresno Bob]

I think there is a difference between how teams react to good basestealers and how teams react to players with elite speed. I'd point to the success of the 80's Cardinals as an example.

Rickey prefers to point to Rickey

[Sour Masher]

Rickey prefers to point to Rickey

LOL...I never get tired of Rickey references. One of the all time memorable sports characters.

[Judge Jude]

I think there is a difference between how teams react to good basestealers and how teams react to players with elite speed. I'd point to the success of the 80's Cardinals as an example.

iirc, the Cardinals may have been the exact team that James couldn't find evidence for any increased success from the steals, beyond them having tons of good hitting and pitching.

[ThatRogue]

Rickey prefers to point to Rickey

Except that the early A's teams that Rickey was on were not very good.

iirc, the Cardinals may have been the exact team that James couldn't find evidence for any increased success from the steals, beyond them having tons of good hitting and pitching.

I'm not specifically referring to the steals alone. What I'm interested in understanding is how much that speed impacted pitch selection, defensive positioning, etc., which may have contributed to the Cards success. Vince Coleman, for example, wasn't a good hitter nor did he have any power. Why in the world would any pitcher ever walk Vince? Just throw the thing down the middle and let him get himself out. The same is true for Willie McGee. I think this team outperformed the sum of its parts, considering just how bad those two were as hitters...yet they typically led off in the top two batting slots (and accumulated the most PAs).

[heyelander]

I remember a mid-1980s Baseball Abstract where Bill James could find virtually zero correlation between a team's frequency of steals and their W-L record. The "distractions" idea sounds good on paper, but then it should show up in studies, too, by helping teams win games. As far as I know, the evidence simply isn't there.

team frequency of steals seems like it would have little correlation with an individual player's value added to winning.

[heyelander]

Just thought I'd post this because... well, I like it.

14.1 around the bases here.

[james33]

Except that the early A's teams that Rickey was on were not very good.

I'm not specifically referring to the steals alone. What I'm interested in understanding is how much that speed impacted pitch selection, defensive positioning, etc., which may have contributed to the Cards success. Vince Coleman, for example, wasn't a good hitter nor did he have any power. Why in the world would any pitcher ever walk Vince? Just throw the thing down the middle and let him get himself out. The same is true for Willie McGee. I think this team outperformed the sum of its parts, considering just how bad those two were as hitters...yet they typically led off in the top two batting slots (and accumulated the most PAs).

As a Cardinals fan, I'm interested in this too. Conventional wisdom back then was that the Cardinals' speed and aggressive nature on the basepaths was the key to the Cardinals success in the 80s. I suspect that conventional wisdom was wrong and that the reason the Cardinals had success was some combination of good starting pitching, good defense, and Jack Clark's bat.

[Judge Jude]

As a Cardinals fan, I'm interested in this too. Conventional wisdom back then was that the Cardinals' speed and aggressive nature on the basepaths was the key to the Cardinals success in the 80s. I suspect that conventional wisdom was wrong and that the reason the Cardinals had success was some combination of good starting pitching, good defense, and Jack Clark's bat.

yes, apparently the Pythagorean expectation of wins based on everything BUT speed worked out almost perfectly with their actual win totals. if this "pticher gets distracted" theory is true, then it should show up at least a little bit in outperforming expectations.

instead, the quality of the pitching and the offense explained their W-L results just fine. maybe it made the opposition pitcher work harder, but I'm not aware of any evidence that it helped those Cardinals win ANY more games.

[RSF]

Pythagorean runs don't seem like they prove or disprove the theory on speed impacting pitching---the pitcher still gave up the runs, whatever the source, and whatever influence speed may have had. In other words, there's no apparent reason that speed-influenced runs would skew a pythag record, is there?

I think a comparison of runs created formulas to actual runs might be more on-point.

Unless I'm missing something.

[Big Tymer]

Billy's had a rough go of it so far (has had slow starts before) but seems to be heating up a bit. Checked outside and didn't see any pigs flying yet somehow Billy sent 2 out of the park yesterday all the same (1st 2 HRs in AAA).

LINK

[heyelander]

this note in a writeup on prospects cracked me up a bit...
spot and held on reference some prospect list that is being talked about in the article.

http://www.thegoodphight.com/2013/6/25/4462816/franco-phile-maikel-franco-makes-mid-season-top-50-prospects-list-at

Also of note, severely overhyped Reds prospect Billy Hamilton was caught stealing the 14th spot this preseason and is being held on closely at 37th. Hamilton is still stealing a batshit insane number of bases, but he's not getting on base at a particularly good clip. He's looking a lot like the next Vince Coleman (though Coleman walked more).

[Moonlight J]

He was dropped from 14th to 37th in the BP midseason prospect update.

[Kevin Seitzer]

I remember a mid-1980s Baseball Abstract where Bill James could find virtually zero correlation between a team's frequency of steals and their W-L record. The "distractions" idea sounds good on paper, but then it should show up in studies, too, by helping teams win games. As far as I know, the evidence simply isn't there.

There's a much better study of this issue in The Book by Tango, Lichtman, Dolphin.