THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Has Manny even been the hottest hitter on his own team? Read Dave Cameron’s fangraph’s post (click name)

The hilarious thing about the Manny-as-MVP talk is that he’s getting outhit by Andre Ethier, his outfield teammate, since he arrived.  Ethier’s just killing the ball the last month or so, even moreso than Manny, and is more responsible for the Dodgers offensive surge than Ramirez. 

But, Manny’s the big name, so his hot streak gets covered and Ethier is just the guy who plays instead of Juan Pierre.

Ramirez and Ethier since August 1 through 9/16:

---------AB--H--HR--TB--BB--OBP--SLG----BA
Ethier---138-51---9--98--17-.439--.710--.369
Ramirez-157-63--14-117--25-.481--.745--.401

Ethier has been hitting great but please explain to me exactly how Ethier is outhitting Ramirez since Manny joined the Dodgers.  Just because you wrote doesn’t make it so.

Okay, so Manny has passed him in the four days that have passed since I wrote the fangraphs post.  It was obviously true when I wrote it. 

The point remains, though - There’s very little difference between the two since August 1st, so crediting Manny for the Dodgers surge and ignoring Ethier is ridiculously stupid.

No, it was not true when you wrote the fangraphs piece on September 12.  You only gave the stats for the previous 30 days, leaving out the first 12 days of Manny’s tenure in LA when he hit .543 .850 .475.  You cherry picked your time period to fit your opinion.  You also ignored that Ethier is hitting before Manny and that part of Ethier’s improvement over the last month may be due to the better pitches that he is seeing.  But I am not ignoring Ethier’s contribution to the Dodgers success.  It has been significant.  Just not as significant as Manny’s.  Still not enough to convince me that Manny is the NL MVP though.

I didn’t cherry pick anything - Fangraphs has a sortable database, and one of the options is “last 30 days”. 

As for the rest of your comments, you clearly have some kind of problem with me, for whatever reason, so I’ll leave you to your bitterness.

David - I don’t know you.  I don’t have a problem with you. I don’t ever remember reading a piece you wrote prior to the pitch speed piece I commented on.  I have not attacked you personally.  But you have recently written two pieces that have been poorly researched and badly reasoned and I happened to point that out.  If you wrote a particularly good piece tomorrow I would happily point that out too.  Just don’t expect me to give you a pass when you make mistakes.

Actually, David, I’m pretty convinced that Peter doesn’t have anything against you personally. He’s just basically this way with everybody.

At any rate, given the stats that Peter posted, I’d say that “too close to call” is the only reasonable answer - looking at SLG is going to overrate Manny’s home runs in comparison to Ethier’s lead in doubles and triples. Manny also has struck out more and hit into more double plays as a percentage of PAs. Ethier also has one more stolen base (neither has been caught).

Good to hear, Colin - always nice to know who’s not worth the time. 

And, for what its worth, Manny has 2.33 WPA/LI in August/September, compared to Ethier’s 2.25.  So, yea, they’ve been practically equal offensively.  Unless someone wants to try to claim that they’re defensive equals, the original claim that Ethier’s been better since Manny arrived is pretty obviously true.

The hilarious thing about the Manny-as-MVP talk is that he’s getting outhit by Andre Ethier, his outfield teammate, since he arrived.  Ethier’s just killing the ball the last month or so, even moreso than Manny, and is more responsible for the Dodgers offensive surge than Ramirez.

Your original claim, both here and at fangraphs, was that Ethier had been the better player offensively. 

Neither you nor Colin know anything about me nor have you bothered to read any of my posts other than what I have written about what you and Colin have written.  If you had, you would find that I have written as many positive posts about good research as I have negative posts about bad research.  And I try, and I think I have been mostly successful, to never make negative comments about another person even if that person has made them about me.

If any of that means that I am not “worth the time” for you that is your own decision to make.

Neither you nor Colin know anything about me nor have you bothered to read any of my posts other than what I have written about what you and Colin have written.

That’s not true; I’ve read your writings in the Epic Regression Thread and in the thread on OPA, and in the thread on accuracy of hit locations of data providers. (Thought the last was fantastic stuff, by the way.) And those are just the ones I remember off the top of my head.

All I was saying was that I didn’t think that you were particularly trying to single out David for any reason. If you think that you can divine from that what I have and haven’t read, well, your telepathy must be better than mine.

Sorry Colin.  Obviously, I was mistaken.  I thought you were implying that I was as negatively critical of everyone as I had been about David’s recent writings and some, but not all, that you have written in your run evaluator series.

Yeah, so, hey um guys.... it’s good to know that pretty much everyone who looks at the issue critically (and many people who don’t) realize that Manny as NL MVP would be a joke… so um… let’s bury the hatchet?

Going by WPA, an adjustment for PAs to get to a replacement-level baseline, Tango’s position adjustments and Justin’s combined STATS/BIS fielding numbers, Manny has accumulated the 53rd most value in the NL this year through September 16th at 2.3 WAR.  He’s one spot ahead of Ryan Howard and eight ahead of Carlos Delgado.  Ethier is 21st at 4.1 WAR.  Matt Kemp is 96th at 1.4 WAR.