From: djohnson@cayley.waterloo.edu (David Johnson)
Subject: Re: Value of Stats
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1992 22:30:37 GMT

In article <1992Jul28.135122.13351@cs.umn.edu> thornley@cs.umn.edu (David H. Thornley) writes:

>Certainly nobody is going to make laziness off the field sound like a
>virtue, but how bad is it?  Particularly, how bad is it for the rest of
>the team?  Does it affect, say, Knoblauch?  I suspect that most major
>leaguers are self-driven and one bad example isn't going to be very harmful.
>I've also been wrong before.  How can I tell?

You can't say exactly how bad it is.  You can't put any numbers on it.  We
both agree it is not a good virtue though.  Is it a bad virtue?  It might
not be.  That depends on how it affects the other players.  As for does it
affect Knoblauch that is tough to say from a non Minnesota fan.  Does
Knoblauch have much the same work habits as he had in the minors?  Has he
put on weight?  Is he in poorer shape now than he was before joining
Minnesota?  A Minnesota fan may be able to answer this better than I.  The
fact that he has this virtue has to be a negative on his evaluation.  We
both agree it is there so then why shall we ignore it.

>And should he have been fooling around or not?  By all reports, he does like
>to keep the clubhouse loose.  Is this good or bad?  Is it worth taking a
>risk for?

Keeping the clubhouse loose is good.  If he is constantly putting his
physical ability to play baseball at risk this is not good because if he
can't play he is not much good to the team.  I can't recall the incident you
referred to but if it was a fluke accident then you have to accept that as
an accident but if he put himself in unneccessary danger then this should be
considered when evaluating him.

>The columnist in question likes being anti-.  Other columnists don't write
>as much about Hrbek.  I can't tell whether Reusse (a) irrationally dislikes
>Hrbek, (b) knows something I don't, or (c) thinks bashing people makes good
>copy.  Hrbek's injuries are usually described as those that being thinner and
>in better shape wouldn't affect.  I don't know, and I really don't expect
>truth out of the team when lies might win games in the long run.  If Hrbek
>worked harder, he might well be less injury prone, and this would be reflected
>in his stats.  Does his fragility affect the team in other ways than merely
>forcing them to play Larkin or Bush?

From what you say, I see this Reusse as a writer not to trust.  If all other
media people don't write or say much about Hrbek I come to the assumption that
he neither does anything exceptionally bad or exceptionally good in the
clubhouse.  Of course you can't be sure about this, but since there is only 
one writer who is anti-Hrbek I tend to think that he is an ok guy in the
clubhouse.  

>There are not many seats where you can see the bench, and these seats are
>either unavailable or expensive and bad.  Nor could I tell whether he was
>talking about hitting or fishing.  I should probably watch practice more
>when I arrive early enough, rather than sitting there mindlessly watching
>what's going on.  Again, how do I tell whether Hrbek is helping?

Well, when he is helping a fellow hitter, he will often be at the batting
cage talking to the player at bat, or showing him what he sees wrong or
what has changed in that players swing.  I have seen Winfield do this
with Derek Bell after one of Bell's few plate appearances.  I know that
this is more what the hitting coach does but a hitting coach also has
24 other players to work with and may not have the time to spend with
a batter when he really needs it and an experienced veteren quality hitter 
can do this.  Rance Mulliniks is another example.

>Hrbek's approach to hitting is basically r.s.bb correct.  He isn't presented
>as too bright in the media.  Don't know about extra BP, but remember that
>some slumps are caused by injuries, not all injuries are reported, and not
>all injuries are helped by BP.

True but if you can find out if he takes extra BP it shows he is willing to
put extra work in to get out of slumps.  This is good in evaluating younger
players.  If two players have the same stats and one starts to do extra BP
then I will take that player for my team because it shows he wants to improve.

>>       These can all be seen by the fan watching the game.
>>
>Helping other players is iffy.  Wanting to learn is iffy.  You can see
>extra BP if you arrive early enough, but I don't go to many games early
>enough to watch all the Twins' BP, so it would be a small sample.

Listen to the radio broadcasts and they sometimes say when a player is taking
extra BP or not.  If you see it a couple of times it shows that he is putting
the effort to improving his hitting.  If you never see it then you can't say
he doesn't because you havn't seen all of the practices but you can't give
him a bonus or positive point when evaluating him.

>You trust the media more than I do, then.  I don't actually have many
>reports on Hrbek's clubhouse behavior other than one (probably) biased
>columnist.  The player interviews I usually see are the ones after the
>games in which the player recites the appropriate cliches and technical
>information, and clubhouse behavior is not mentioned.  Nor would I trust it
>if it was.
>
>Besides, what clubhouse behavior is good and what is bad?  And how do I know?

Rating the clubhouse behavior is the hardest to do.  I will admit this.  If 
there is only one bad report against Hrbek from a writer who is anti-everything
then I suspect he is not a problem.  If he only gets rave reviews from players,
manager and media then he must be doing something good.  What is bad clubhouse
behavior is causing problems with other players.  One way to tell how well he
gets along with other players is look at him on the bench during games and
practices.  Does he associate with all players or does he often avoid sitting
beside and talking to certain players?  These types of problems may or may
not affect his play or other players play but if the problems occur we must
give him a negative rating in this category just because it may cause some
players have their play affected.

>Finally, I don't want to sound ungrateful for your post, but you still have
>not answered my main question:  Taking all of Hrbek's intangibles together,
>is he a lot worse than, slightly worse than, as good as, slightly better
>than, or a lot better than, his individual stats?  If you can't answer
>that, can you tell me how I could?  We tend to agree on what's good and
>what isn't, but how good and how bad are these behaviors?

How good and how bad depends on how the team reacts.  Some players will
let problems affect their play.  Look at Sheffield last year and this year.
He didn't likely improve that much over one off season.  He probably had a
problem with another player or two and let it affect his play.  If the
same situation happens in San Diego he will likely play poorly again.  This
has to be a negative to his evaluation as a team trading for him is taking
the risk that the problem won't occur on their team.

>Until I can reliably classify players into the five categories I mentioned,
>and have some faith that my classification is correct, I still don't see
>how I can analyze the intangibles.  I *know* some players have had
>seriously bad intangibles (Hal Chase and Dave Parker come to mind).
>I strongly suspect that Puckett's intangibles are good (see Bill James '92).
>I think Hrbek's on-field performance is intangibly good, his off-season
>performance is intangibly poor, and I have no idea what it all adds up to.

Now for the players you know have good intangibles or bad intangibles don't
you think that these should be included when analyzing players.  If two players
that have the same stats, and one we are almost sure has good intangibles and
one we are not sure has good intangibles or not, I will take the first one and
I am sure you would too.  For this reason I think that intangibles should be
evaluated as well as stats.  As for your classification, why not classify
the players you are almost sure about and not classify the rest.  The fact
that you may not be able to classify everyone shouldn't stop you from
classifying the one you can.

>
>David Thornley
>"The Prince must not be distracted by the baserunner, but must get
>the batter out." - Niccolo Machiavelli

--David Johnson
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